Technical Writer

The Further Adventures of Mirabella, Part 3: Hearts Aflame

Athene had a passion for dramatic assertions.  This time, however, Mirabella believed that perhaps her feathered friend had espied some part of a larger truth.  Could Braycock be in love with Etoile?  Mirabella considered the evidence. 

There was the young man's inability to speak coherently in Etoile's presence, and while he was least among the quick wits among the Bloomsbury friends, in the past he had been able to hold his own in conversation. 

Mirabella also considered the near accident when Braycock drove his new, sky blue Bugatti up from London just days before.  Nearing Edward Morgan's country house and rounding the final mile of the approach that wound along the lane through the towering rhododendrons, the young man became distracted and nearly drove the beautiful automobile up against the ancient Tower Oak through the bracken on the side of the road. The old oak had marked the spot where once a Jacobite tower stood sentinel, and it had seen its own share of excitement. 

The tower was long gone, but the tree was enough to awe anyone to a full stop, man and horse alike, or in this case, a fine new motor car.  Mirabella considered that  Braycock may have been distracted by Etoile who, having arrived the day before, had been out walking that morning with her friends to listen to the early warblers, although at the time, Etoile blamed the young man's speed and the curve in the road, and loudly told everyone so. 

She doth protest too much, thought Mirabella as she thought about Etoile's striking dislike of the young man.  The girl's threat to pin his ears to the dartboard?  That sounded like love to Mirabella, and so she raised the possibility with her two friends.

"Is it possible," said she, "that Etoile favors Braycock instead of loathing his very presence, as she appears, Athene?" The little owl narrowed her eyes at her, and even Sampson was startled by the question.

The Further Adventures of Mirabella, Part 2

Further Adventures of Mirabella; The story so far—

Mirabella decided that a timely visit to Sampson in the stable would save her from listening to young Braycock read his newest poetry, as he promised the party after supper.  Sampson, the handsome Bactrian, was in his stall being curried and combed by Peter, his valet.  When Mirabella and Sampson were finally alone, they were joined by Athene noctua, who shared similar opinions on bad verse, but who also alluded to rising tensions in a party of convivial literati at Edward Morgan Forster’s country house. 

 

Part 2, An Unusual Manuscript

Mirabella cocked her head toward Athene while her ears reflexively turned in the direction of the great house across the field. She was dismayed that Edward Morgan’s friends should squabble among themselves. He had looked forward to their arrival, which meant long afternoons riding out with them through the countryside and even longer evenings of merriment and discussion of the doings of the close-knit group.

“Tell us more about what happened after I left the library,” asked Mirabella, “Etoile Caruthers is a hot-head as are the family, but she is no fool.” 

Etoile was an artist and a poet of some skill, and she could not abide the careless work of Braycock.  She detested it with all the passion of her mingled Celtic and Gallic blood, and she let him know.

Mirabella liked Etoile, a proud girl who presumed to wear the Bruce tartan when she visited the Forster’s house in the country.  Her mother’s great-grandfathers were bold Border reivers, but the family had since settled down in the village of Mouswald, a name that amused Mirabella, although she knew that the village anciently was named for the forest near the great marsh of Lochar Moss.  Etoile’s ancestors had lived in the village when workmen in 1840 dug up in the local peat a brass bowl with a beautiful bronze torc broken and placed within it for safekeeping against the ages in the marsh.  It had been Etoile’s dream as a young girl to wrest the beautiful torc from the confines of the British Museum and bear it home in triumph to the village that had opened its arms to her as a child.

Etoile had been born in Paris, where her mother had lived for a while as a young woman and had befriended the poets and artists who lived in her neighborhood near La Sorbonne. It is not known why, but after a few years she abruptly returned to Mouswald, with only a leather satchel in one hand and a tiny, dark-eyed daughter by the other.

Playing in her mother’s bedroom alone one afternoon, Etoile found the old satchel under the bed and discovered inside some fine charcoal and sanguine drawings of a young woman lazing on the grass.  When Etoile asked about them, her mother only locked them away out of the girl’s reach in the tall dresser, where they remained unremarked until her mother died.  She carried the name of Etoile’s father to her grave.

Mirabella had heard Etoile’s story from Edward Morgan who, although he would promise every friend in turn that anything whispered to him in the agony of confidence would go with him to the grave,  told his little cat everything, usually over salmon on buttered toast, and cups of piping hot tea the very next morning. Athene noctua would listen, settled comfortably on the porch post, and Mirabella felt that she and Athene could privately discuss any of these matters with Sampson in the stable.  The three friends had now forgathered in Sampson’s stall. 

Sampson snorted and said, “Young Braycock was here earlier, and I saw him carrying a packet in his two hands, close to his chest. He tripped and fell over there in the corner against the hay rack before scuttling out like a thief in the night.  He was up to no good, that one.” 

Braycock had been surprised to see Peter in the camel’s stall, and he uttered an oath and tripped over the alley rake.  He fell to the floor and his packet burst open with strings snapping and papers flying. He was angry at poor Peter, but Sampson stood by the lad and leveled Braycock with a look. The young man fled.

Mirabella noticed a scrap of paper at the corner of the stall. She crossed the floor in an instant and pulled an entire begrimed page free from where it jammed when Braycock fell in his haste to escape the indignant camel. She brought the page back to Sampson and Athene, and the little owl took particular interest in the contents, what she could read between the smears. Let it dry a bit, suggested Mirabella, and Athene delicately grasped the paper in her beak and fluttered with it to the stall rail, where she carefully draped it.

While what she hoped was incriminating evidence dried, Athene related how she had perched at the library window to preen her plumage. She moved close to the open window to hear accurately the alarming discord within. 

“Etoile has taken a dislike to Braycock’s poetry,” observed Athene. “I believe that Braycock possesses an occluded soul, which stops up the well spring that waters the fountain of his intellect,” she said evenly. Sampson looked kindly at the little owl and thought that she must be reading the Russian spiritualists again. 

Athene had a good point, though.  Braycock was a likable young man but his mind lacked vigor and purpose, and it showed in whatever he turned his hand to, whether riding a horse, or conversation and verse. He was simply a dull fellow in a bright and clever crowd.

Athene saw that the paper had dried sufficiently and she plucked it from the rail and laid it out on the hay.  “What is this now,” she said, beginning to read.

 “Against night’s umber cloak the pale moon casts a single mote

The light lost in gloomy shroud bound close to wild Octavio’s throat

Against the wind that cut so sear across the midnight moor so drear …”

“Please,” choked Mirabella, “Enough!”

“Athene, read on,” commanded Sampson. “Mirabella, we must know his mind and discern what he was doing with this manuscript here tonight. Perhaps he was not the author.”

“Yes,” said Athene brightly. “Perhaps he murdered the true author and hid the body in the high field and made off with verse that he assumes will improve his fortunes with Etoile.”

“The verse will win him no friends,” said Mirabella, “but if it is not his, where did he find it?”

A cliffhanger, yes?

While Awaiting the Muse

I do not want to disappoint my one fan by posting nothing during the time I am writing a second chapter to the story of Mirabella, who, if you might recall, is a member of the household of E.M. Forster.  Mirabella herself is deciding whether to track down young Braycock (who will suddenly go missing) or search for the equally errant manuscript of his poetry, which in itself is without value. Mirabella learns, however, that Braycock had stealthily removed an ancient manuscript from the elder Forster's library and was writing his own drivel on top of pages of a palimpsest of a great work. She decides that Braycock can find his own way out of the woods, and she will retrieve the now missing literary piece he purloined. There is the old skull kicked up in the hedgerow to consider, and the letter Mirabella has found on the library floor beneath the shelf with the now empty place marking the lost manuscript.

I offer this instead, in the meantime. I have written before that it is important to live surrounded by beauty, whether the flowers of nature, or art.  This is a small piece of art I admire.  The drawing was probably made in the early-18th century, and is probably a contemporaneous scene of the Upper Rhine valley.  The men seated in the left foreground are eating bread and drinking in the shade of the building while resting from their labor scything the fields outside the village at the end of the road.  The work is communal and many men are working to bring in the grain.  Boys are chasing and playing, and working, too, and the day is fair.  The road leads in the foreground to the destination of the two more finely dressed men in the foreground, and there is a young boy walking with his dog in the same direction as they.  The artist is unknown to me yet I do search for him in gallery halls, books, and catalogs of exhibitions of works by artists of Northern Europe.

Further Adventures of Mirabella, Part 1

There are times when a cat just needs to feel the grass under her paws.  Mirabella thought so, and decided that the evening festivities of Edward Morgan’s literary friends had gone on long enough for common sense, so she slipped out the open library window, and leapt quietly to the cool flagstones of the east porch. 

She paused and breathed deeply the moist night air rich with fragrant scents of rose and geranium and of the grasses mixed with thyme in a springy cushion underfoot, and with the more distant but heady smells of warm animal life in the great barns to the left of the house in the fields.  She heard the close-by night cry of her friend Athene noctua, the little owl who had taken up residence in the bower between the barns and the green lawns surrounding the house. 

Hearing that Athene was wide awake for a bird who had lately taken up perching in the daylight on the porch banister, she felt that perhaps a little heroic endeavor of her own was just what the evening called for and she set off to explore the grounds by the stable and barns. It was not fully dark. 

Nearing the approach of midsummer in these northern latitudes when night was perpetual dusk, long days meant adventure for Mirabella and her friends.  She had easily won over the stable boys and groomsmen.  When she appeared, they liked to stop their chores and roll clumped horse sweepings down the long stable alley at her as she sat as contemplative as the Buddha, then frisked aside at the last moment, to the delighted shrieks of the boys.  She’d return to the spot, again they’d bowl, and she would spring from the ground, enjoying the game, too, as the clumps broke apart at their approach. 

She entered the stable tonight and made her way to Sampson’s stall.  The stall was made for his visits north from London with the family.  A fine big stall fit for a Cleveland Bay was too small for the camel, so Edward Morgan had three stalls joined together.  Sampson’s commodious new apartment was always filled with fresh hay, and his name was carved into the lintel overhead. 

Sampson heard her approach, less the sound of soft paw on stone floor than the feeling that bespeaks the approach of a friend, and he called her to his side.  “Come here, lass.  There have been unusual goings on in the stable this evening, and I think we should investigate.  Let Peter Pierpott finish my eyelashes, then we’ll have privacy to talk.”

Sampson, for one so brave and braw, had one small vanity.  Set beneath his magnificent brow ridge, Sampson had truly beautiful eyelashes, which he kept well combed.  Peter Pierpott, the youngest stable boy, was Sampson’s own valet.  Peter took great pride in keeping Sampson’s coat clean, and he would brush Sampson until the camel’s coat gleamed.  Sampson would drift into a pleasant reverie at those times, but he was in fact deep in meditation.  He was an observant and thoughtful fellow even among camels, who are well known as a far-thinking and prescient race.  Being ministered to by young Peter gave Sampson the time he needed to think. 

Peter Pierpott stood back from Sampson and admired his handiwork.  Peter gave the Bactrian a respectful pat and said goodnight and went to his quarters, which he entered through the tack room.  Sampson and Mirabella waited a moment until silence rested on the stable, when the quiet snuffling of the horses meant that their noses were determinedly in their hay racks and that they would not be disturbed by the conversation of the two friends.

“Tell me first about the house party,” Sampson asked.  “I’ve seen how some of Edward Morgan’s fine friends take care of the horses. It took some time for the grooms to untangle their fetlocks and manes after the outing this afternoon. They rode ‘em through hedge rows,” he could not refrain from snorting.

Sampson knew that these were not Mirabella’s friends especially, but Edward Morgan’s, and that she tolerated them for his sake.  They had come as a group from London for a visit of several days, a self-absorbed array of bright young things.  They drank the port, belittled each others’ manuscripts, and vexed with their mirth the drowsy citizens of barn and house.  

“Athene is yet awake,” Mirabella said.  She cocked her ears in the direction of the little owl’s night call, and just then Athene fluttered into the stall to join them.  Sampson looked approvingly at the owl’s small speckled head, so packed with knowledge and wisdom. 

“What news ,  Athene?”   

“News?” the little owl asked, as she smoothed her ruffled feathers.  “Young Braycock’s poetry remains abysmal, if that’s what you are asking,” she said.  “Etoile Caruthers threatens to pentameter his ears to the dart board with her Waterman if he doesn’t read something worth listening to, she says.”  

Mirabella purred in sympathy.  She had heard Braycock announce that he would read his latest poem to them after supper, and that is when she decided that she needed the night air instead.

________  Part 2 to follow . Let's hope this story gets a little better. We need some action!  A manuscript with a drop of blood, perhaps? ________

Mirabella Visits Mouse of Gorse Hall

It was late morning when Mirabella completed packing the wicker basket of provender for the Mouse she rescued before breakfast when she and Samson were ranging the hills at dawn.  Mouse had been bravely fighting off the hunting dive of a Peregrine falcon, and it had been clear to Mirabella when she and Samson advanced upon the scene that the Peregrine had the upper hand. The Peregrine had wheeled away from them in irritation with a keening kar-kar-kar and disappeared in a flash of swift wing.

 

Mirabella arrived for her visit to Mouse on the back of Samson. She retrieved the heavily laden basket wedged firmly between Samson’s humps and slid down the bactrian’s nose and landed gracefully in the clearing in front of the main gate of Gorse Hall.  She did not need to otherwise announce her arrival; the Hall was well guarded, for Mouse was laird in these parts, and much respected. He had inherited Gorse Hall in direct line from his ancestors, and the manse was a sturdy hall that his father and now Mouse had expanded over time.

 

Mouse stepped out into the clearing beyond his main gate and while his heart may have skipped a beat at the sight of a large camel grazing beyond her, he recognized Mirabella as the one who had rescued him from the Peregrine, and his good manners as host overcame any trepidation within caused by a cat at the front door.

 

Mirabella herself had the good manners to suppress her sudden keen interest in the aroma of the den,which she accomplished by turning to the basket and pushing it forward, as a gift to the laird.  The basket was covered with a homespun napkin in a pleasing plaid in colors of  green, blue, yellow, and orange.  She knew that Mouse's Doe would use the cloth for her family in any number of ways, and that Mouse himself could use the basket’s contents to extend next winter’s larder.  Mirabella had packed barley and oat cakes and some of last night’s clootie dumpling, and there was fresh salmon left from breakfast, and she threw in some stovies and  leeks for good measure. She even found a nice wedge of cheese, and wild rowen-berry jelly and butterscotch drops for the children. 

 

Mouse advanced sniffing the air and he bowed to her gracefully, sweeping the ground with a fore paw, and accepted her tribute.  Mouse instantly recognized that although the Hall was a spacious and commodious abode, he would have to entertain her out of doors. He jumped upon a mossy log that formed a short wall directly outside the door, pulled out his brier pipe and invited Mirabella to join him there for bannocks and barley tea. After their initial pleasantries,  it was Mouse who raised the subject of the Peregrine.

 

"Old Falco the tiercel has lived on yon high cliff since before the time of my grandfathers," said Mouse, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe, "and he has caused me no end of watchfulness for my wee mischief of pinkies."  He wiped a paw along his sleek whiskers to settle himself at the memory of that recent encounter. Tea arrived on a tray carried by one of the many house mice, and Mirabella accepted a cup.  She admired the beauty of the surroundings, and especially the bright yellow canopy of Gorse Hall, which caused Mouse to blush with pleasure.  He said that they often took for granted the grandeur of their surroundings, and that it could take an outsider’s point of view to remind him of his good fortune and the hard work of the family, and his own stewardship, of course.  The rest of the morning passed in conversation, and Mirabella was even introduced to one of the little pinkies who had wobbled out the front door before he was scruffed and dragged back inside by a house mouse.

 

Too soon it was time for her to return to the fishing bothy and Edward Morgan.  She had much to tell him upon her return, to which he listened with evident interest over afternoon tea. 

Mirabella Adventuring Before Breakfast

Mirabella edged her camel into the lee of the ridge as the wind picked up over the blue hills.   She gazed north by the light of the emerging stars; the moon was sinking beneath Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan.  Mirabella was in the lonely mountains north of the Great Glen, many miles from the public roads leading around their distant edge.  She trusted Samson to pick out the track.  After all, the Bactrian had surprised her by finding his own way when he followed her home to London from the wilds of Tibet in 1911.

She had been riding awhile, snug between Samson’s humps, which kept the breezy and chill night air from ruffling her long fur. The camel stopped to crop the verge by the track, and as Mirabella meditated on the quietness of the night a sharp barking cry came from the woods away in the direction of the fishing bothy where Edward Morgan and she had been lodging the fortnight past.  “Don’t panic, wee lass,” Samson whispered to her.  “I have big hairy feet to protect ye with.” 

Samson much preferred to use the rugged Highland dialect on their travels north, rather than the smooth city speech he had adopted in the first months after arriving in London.  Her friend calmed fear’s grip on her, for she knew Samson could stomp any trouble flat. But she was alert with concern; what could they have heard in the woods, and was Edward Morgan in danger?

Samson left the main track and veered down the path to the bothy at a trot.  Mirabella knew that he could run swiftly across the high steppes of Tibet, and many a time she had ridden him with her ears pressed back by the wind. Now with hearts racing and feet pounding on the trail they ran quickly toward the sound and reached the bothy clearing, and there in the center of the clearing was a solitary mouse facing a menacing Peregrine falcon, the source of the commotion. The mouse was brandishing a very sharp stick, thrusting it up toward the falcon now startled by their sudden arrival.  Heedless of the risk to herself, Mirabella leapt from Samson onto the ground between the brave little mouse and his doom, who considered that the odds had turned against him and flew away.

Now the little mouse began brandishing the stick at her for he thought one doom had replaced another.  Mirabella backed away to indicate her gentle nature and invited him for breakfast, but the mouse completely misunderstood and made a dash for the safety of the gorse and as he disappeared from sight, Mirabella could hear the faint shouts of “Papa’s home,” from his joyful family awaiting their protector’s return.  She promised herself that she would return with a basket of provisions for the family, later in the day.  Now close to home and dawn approaching, her thoughts turned to breakfast.

Mirabella Learns About Properly Cooked Fish

“He read my mind,” Mirabella thought as she slide down the back of the camel and ran across the dew covered green into the summer kitchen where her beloved Edward Morgan was poaching the salmon they caught in the Spey the day before.  Casting a cautionary eye toward heaven, she continued, “But let him not have overcooked it again.”

Salmon must be pink in the center; she had learned this as a kitten, when, from her corner basket near the oven, she watched how to make what tastes best as Cook prepared the meal for the family.  Mirabella would test the salmon with a paw pressed gently on the fish, and if it gave slightly to her delicate touch, it was ready for the serving plate. Cook would nod in agreement and move the toothsome fish to the China platter already resting on the cloth laid over the far end of the work table.  The footman removed the platter to the dumbwaiter, and then hoisted it to the pantry on a floor above to be brought to the family’s table.  Cook would reward Mirabella’s attentiveness with a small portion placed in a blue and white porcelain bowl. 

She still ate from the same little bowl, which Edward Morgan filled for her when they dined together daily.  Here is Edward Morgan himself, gazing at his sweet Mirabella just out of the camera’s eye. They had enjoyed each other's company since the day when as a frolicsome youngster Mirabella rode up the dumbwaiter with the salmon, quite by accident. Mr. and Mrs. Forster were not as amused as was their son, and as soon as he saw her, Edward Morgan recognized a companion spirit, and the two were never again parted.  He liked to cook for Mirabella when they went on their fishing trips together to Scotland.

Tammietta's Great-Great Aunt Mirabella

Mirabella was a famous beauty of her day, but her reputation did not rest alone on the loveliness of silken brown fur and light brown paws, a pert nose, and beguiling eyes, for the lovely Mirabella was a member of the Bloomsbury group, and she was devoted to fine literature.  She may have been the only cat established as a member of the group, and she moderated the rather esoteric air of its gatherings that she attended with E.M. Forster and kept him down to earth.  Mirabella became a member of his household as a playful kitten and later assisted as his editor, and she is credited with coaxing a decent novel out of a pile of travel papers on India, which she discovered once in her litter tray.

Yet it was her knack for understanding the interconnectivity of ideas and her convictions about the nature of consciousness and its relation to external nature, about the fundamental separateness of individuals that involves both isolation and love, and about the ideals of truth, love, and beauty that set her apart from others of her species.  She was an original thinker in the discourse of the impossible.

Tammietta and the New Red Shoes

While I was awaiting the morning newspapers, my little cat Tammietta asked me for a pair of shoes.   She has never had shoes, so this is an important request. Further, she has asked for two pairs so all her paws can be properly shod at the same time, something I believe is rare among cats.  She wants red patent leather shoes, with round toes for comfort.

She has mentioned her great-great aunt Mirabella, a famous Bloomsbury cat of London early in the last century.  Mirabella wore shoes, but pennies were dear and she had only the one pair, which she wore on her back feet, giving her a rather bohemian look.  Miss Tammietta thought about having just back shoes, but she is not her Aunt Mirabella, who delighted in her ability to shock.

These are the shoes I have found for her. They are a little youthful for her mature years, but she needs a flat shoe, not high heels, for stability in the garden.  I have ordered two pairs.