“At first there was nothing - a profound blue darkness running running deep, laced by skeins of starlight and pale phosphorescent flashes. No more than a monarch’s whim, of course, like eating cocoa or drinking jellies but far more spectacular any day than those usual trudging guardsmen.” They would be gathered from all the towns and villages and brought to my palace in wagon-loads. When I finally became King (I used to think) I would command a parade of grandmas, and drill them, and march them up and down - rank upon rank of hobbling boots, nodding bonnets, flying shawls, and furious chewing faces. Those severe and similar old bodies enthralled me when they dressed that way. They looked like starlings, flecked with jet, and they walked in a tinkle of darkness. They wore high laced boots and long muslin dresses, beaded chokers and candlewick shawls, crowned by tall poke bonnets tied with trailing ribbons and smothered with inky sequins. And our two old neighbours, when setting forth on errands, always prepared themselves scrupulously so. The grandmothers of those days dressed for the part in that curious but endearing uniform which is now known to us only through music-hall. “Granny Trill and Granny Wallon were traditional ancients of a kind we won’t see today, the last of that dignity of grandmothers to whom age was its own embellishment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |