“Well, I jolly well can’t understand it!” Professor Molly P’ohlig exclaimed to no-one in particular. “If this goes on much longer, I shall be driven to drink.”
“Oh no,” Maude said, staggering a bit with the Poppycock afternoon tea service. “Not another!”
“I’m afraid so,” Professor Emilia DeBusque sighed, gathering up a large amount of crumpled wrapping paper. “Another anonymous prezzie.”
“Look, it’s been a month. Maybe we’re just not analyzing things properly.” Molly flounced down into her chaise lounge. “Perhaps if we make a list of the presents, we can find some sort of common theme. Maudie, do you have a—oh, thank you.”
Maude proffered both the pen, which Molly was getting ready to ask for, and the tea, which she would have asked for several minutes later. She piped up again, “And the—oh, yes, thank you.” Maude popped the inkwell onto the small side table.
“Alright, the first was….well, the Orient Express, I suppose,” Emily slumped wearily into her own chaise, as Maude immediately began to rub her temples with her extra-soothing fingers. She was exhausted, having spent nearly an hour hard at work on the latest effort from Aravind Adiga, who was eager to follow up on his Booker prize success. “And then there was…oh, the Tiffany lamp. I do think it looks lovely on my desk.”
Everyone turned momentarily to admire the muted light emanating from the Irregular Upper Border shade, circa 1899, apparently purchased recently at Sotheby auction house for upwards of ₤4,000,000, if Mr. Periwinkle’s detective skills were to be trusted, and they usually were, provided he hadn’t been at the port. They quickly returned to the mystery at hand.
“Next came the case of 1975 Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine with the Andy Warhol labels,” Molly said with the slightest hint of a grumble in her voice. “Never did like Warhol, they can’t be very good friends of ours.”
“Interesting,” Emily said thoughtfully, having a go at a cream scone. “Note that down – they may be sending us very expensive things, but they don’t seem to know what we really like. I, for one, might have preferred a more reasonably priced crate of wine and a signed Edward Ruscha print.”
“Noted, Emily. I certainly would have known that, as would Maude and Mr. Periwinkle, and indeed any of our close friends. Not that we didn’t like the trip or the lamp, but, well, who doesn’t like the Orient Express and Tiffany lamps?” Molly wrinkled her nose delicately in concentration. “Then was….oh! The tailor!”
Molly referred to what was surely the most enigmatic gift. Mr. Periwinkle had rushed in one day shouting with glee. He’d taken the liberty of opening a small envelope with the return address of “A Friend” (Mr. Periwinkle was unduly concerned with what he perceived to be the constant threat of terrorism via post). He’d been delighted to find that instead of the anthrax he was expecting, he found a letter informing Poppycock Enterprises of their introduction to one of Savile Row’s foremost fashion houses, Hardy Amies. The letter also stated that a large sum had been placed in the company’s accounts at their disposal. This gift was vexing for two reasons – one, Molly, Emily, and Maude all had quite defined tastes in clothing, none of them tending towards the fusty tailoring of Savile Row. They would much have preferred introductions to the houses of Dior, Prada, and Marc Jacobs, as anyone who took a peek into their closets might have surmised. Two, the firm had gone into administration that very month, and the girls weren’t keen on dealing with that sort of thing.
“Well, what’s the newest one?” Maude asked. Molly and Emily looked at each other, and then pointed to the basket by the door. It contained a puppy. “Gordon Bennett!”
The girls looked back at Maude, puzzled, who said sheepishly, “Just a curious sort of exclamation that Mr. Periwinkle told me about. But are you telling me that the latest gift is really a puppy?”
Everyone rose and scurried over. Molly prodded the basket gently with a slipper-clad foot. “It certainly is sleepy. And wherever is its tail?”
Emily clapped a hand over her mouth in astonishment. “I can’t believe we didn’t notice think of it before! It all adds up – the ridiculously expensive, hard to find gifts, the tailor, the Corgi – our mystery benefactor is the Queen!”
The puppy woke up and made a little yipping sound. They all looked down and Molly said, “Queen or no Queen, it’s not staying in my room.”
* * *
“What a positively sweet old lady,” Maude mused, tucking her feet snugly under an eiderdown blanket. “And what a lovely place to send us.”
“Yes, I’d seen the pictures, but it’s much nicer in person, isn’t it?” Emily stretched her arms over her head and gazed up at the walls just dripping with portraits of the royal family.
Molly stretched her hands closer to the roaring fire in the tremendous marble hearth. “I think we’ll be able to polish her memoir nicely here. Isn’t it funny that she wouldn’t just ask us to help with her memoirs?”
“She seems a bit shy, don’t you think? Maybe it’s those dreadful Hardy Amies suits she’s been wearing for so long.” Molly winked and there were giggles all ‘round. For a few drowsy moments they all stared into the fire, and they were only roused from their reveries by the approaching noise of a rather small animal padding towards them. “Ah, Evelyn, old boy, enjoying your first night in Balmoral Castle? We’ve got two lovely weeks to run around, but tonight, you’re sleeping in my room.”
