Steps were not contemplated by the next personage that manifested from the ocu-mist. She marked her movements with studied fluidity and her long, understated yet extremely expensive silk dress, that didn’t look out of place even on a prepubescent young lady, whispered with supreme intention.
“Ah,” suspired Glamorgonia with a finality that induced no response, “welcome.”
Countess Arabelle Von Würstenström stepped, with great poise and dignity, from the eye-cloud, moved deliciously to centre stage and assumed a classical pose. Her long mellifluous hair tumbled down her exposed back and the fingers of her left hand languorously grasped an elongated cigarette holder in which an elegantly slim cigarette made from condensed Morovian sugar had been securely positioned. She carried no more years than Ado although, it has to be said, she did so with perhaps a little more panache. She was wearing a pearl coloured silk dress worn off-shoulder and flowing, a curtain of shimmer, to the ground. Her hands and lower arms were covered with gloves of the same material and her whole being spoke of someone on the edge. Of what was not clear, yet, in her violet eyes, there was a wisdom; a calm indifference that spoke of more years than her smooth skin belied.
Taking a long thoughtful suck of sweetness and turning her exquisitely languid gaze from under long silken eyelashes in the general direction of the boys, she pronounced, “Holow, Ado and Fefe. Mine nöme ist Countess Arabelle Von Würstenström unt I am not like ze rost off zeez ninkumpömfen,” she said.
She paused and considered the two boys at length, almond eyes half-closed, eyes that now seemed to be a kind of meditative rouge, and one of her eyebrows slightly raised as if from imaginary smoke that the boys could almost detect looping sensuously around her head. The squirm that this prolonged contemplation produced in two young boys rippled, like the waves of a gentle earth tremor with them as the epicentre, through the ground causing the gelatinous mix of the eye-cloud to wobble, as if in sympathy.
She spoke, “I now dju arr nöt goink to unterstönd me, unt djor brans arr nöt djet dewelopt, unt, in öny cas, dju vill nit remömbr efen if I say itin djor tong. Unt zo,” she took another brooding pause, then continued, “I vil only say zis vons.”
She paused studying them through hooded eyes; the boys, who, mysteriously, understood her words completely, and accompanied completely unconsciously by Glamorgonia, held their collective breath.
“My pedikree ist bery lonk,” she commenced. “if dju zink I am totaly a figmöntof djor imaginöchön, vell, I am nöt. I am ze prodöktof möni generachöns of figmöntsof imaginöchones.”
She let the words sink into their consciousness like milk into a month-old spotted dick, “I am pört off djor ancesteurs unt, peraps mor importöntly, dju arr a pört off me. I av seen mösh unt I am ear to,” she tilted her head as if listening, then continued, “dyes, adivyz dju as dju try to tokle ze lyf.”
The Countess considered her sharp, shining nails and tapped her lengthy cigarette holder as if casually removing some unwanted residue, “Zer ist only vön peez of adivyz I vill gif dju for ze momen, for I now it vill nit stayin djur hed zat as, at lest for zis momen, haf se sam protertyz az a, ow dju say, roosty sieven for ze vegetables.”
She fixed Ado with her piercing gaze, “It ist zis: do nit reli on önivon, dju ar ol zat mateurs; ze oponion off uzers ist as ze dust in ze air making, ow dju say, a scratchin in ze ey. Dju canöt unt vilnöt pleez al ze peuple all ze time, but dju most beleef in dju.
She looked pointedly at Ado and gently stroked Fefe’s head then turned, blew a kiss in Glamorgonia’s direction then moved silkily, her dress rustling in harmony with her liquescent steps, towards the wall.
Her hands raised as if to avoid contamination from the viscous jelly-form, she turned and commented, “Ze röst is a löd off clüdlepumƑ.”
“Oh, well said!” exclaimed Glamorgonia clapping her hands delightedly as Arabelle stepped silently back into the strödle-haze.
Ripples dissipated opulently behind the slight figure of the Countess and Glamorgonia sat mesmerised for long enough for the silence, only broken by the sultry respiration of undisguised awe, to become heavily pregnant.
Fefe, who by now had assumed an unusually confident protagonism, timidly yet assertedly, tugged on the folds of Glamorgonia’s robe until her gaze broke from the swirling boggle-mist.
“Ah, yes,” she said, looking kindly at Fefe, “Pardon my meditation, but this is the first time in my long career as Guiden-Nymphen that I have encountered such a vivid expression of hereditary loquation. The Countess is one of the most interesting personages that I have met. I can see that she will be a defining influence on your psychoswarm Ado and, as she is of such outrageous longevity, you should listen to her carefully.”
Ignoring the puzzled look that suffused the expressions of the two boys, Glamorgonia placed a hand on her chest and took a deep breath that strained the material across her ample breast.
“Now,” she intoned looking directly at Ado, “after that diversion, there is someone I want you to meet who will, whether you like it or not, be a constant companion throughout your life’s trajectory.”
She gingerly touched the gelatinously revolving wall in front of her head and a tiny shape appeared. As it drew closer to exposure, it resolved into two shapes; one smaller than the other and which seemed to be dancing around the feet of an upright figure.