The hearing judge, a dainty and over delicate sort still reeling in horror from my public truths spewn for all to contemplate, fanned himself with lace and fine linen hanky, whose price would have afforded me meat for sup twenty days lined together. If a humming bird had hovered at the sleeve of his greatcoat it could not have kept pace with his nervous fluttering. Whey faced and breaking into nervous sweat, he dabbed repeatedly at his pointed nose. His long, lank, coal colored hair drooped in apparent sympathy with his plight.
Not witless by any stretch, he quickly calculated his risks and foresaw the good judgement of handling my case with speed and aplomb least he disrupt the life of luxury he had carved for himself. For we might have been the same, this delicate man and I. The difference being, he reveled in the positions the alderman laid out for him whilst I would sooner hear the snap of mine own neck and dwell in Eternal Damnation as the trap door opened beneath me boots than to submit, even a singular time, to a filthy prig-the alderman or any other.
"Aye, and there's the rub." to speak the speech of a merry, ale-soaked fellow who fancied himself a man of words and plays, that I often served a tankard or three to in the public house in better days.
To find me guilty of the accused crime would be to also find me sane. To find me sans lunacy would also admit, by matter of course, that I spake true. To release me would admit the same and more. Aye, such a tangled web. My literary tavern patron may have been in his cups and out of coin on many the occasion but it can ne'er be said he did not know the truth of human folly.
"Violet Moorfields!"
Hearing mine own name returned me to the forefront of my situation.
Violet Moorfields. A name bestowed upon me at birth by me Da, who was a grand and handsome Admiral with the Queen's Armada-or so me Mum would say time and time again whilst thithering about the business of raising nine nippers, eight of them my brothers, with what appeared to be the ability to put one foot in front of the other and the possession of a solitary loaf of bread. The same loaf, near as I could tell, all those years. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes had naught on me Mum.
"Twould explain his absence." she would often say.
"What with serving our most gracious Majesty and sailing into many a battle and such. Though any day now we should expect his return to live with us happily e'er after."
And for I time I, too, believed.
"And bring us more bread as well?"
Wee Fergus, the youngest and most able to believe in fairy stories would always ask in anticipation.
""I should think." me Mum always finished afore turning abruptly to an important chore so as to make ready for the day.
Violet Moorfields. The jest was on meself though as Moorfields were naught but a swamp on the far side of Bishopsgate Without, just north of the city of London and violets as common as horse flops in the street. And me Da? Well, he ne'er did come. Though I needs must give me Mum her due; she could still dream. In sooth, those dreams kept us alive. They did not in the end, howe'er, do like for me Mum.
(to be cont'd)
