Shhh! Scribbler at Work

Dutifully Yours

(prompt: 'moral' 9/3/2018)

"Oh Ma-m-m-a-a! Really? I have to ask his mama... WHAT?" Rosemarie blushed most becomingly.

Matilda tut-tutted some as she controlled her instinct to stretch her hand out and stroke the winsome golden curls. How well I know them - from my darling's first moments of life. But Edward wouldn't approve her loving touch. She didn't need to actually see his forbidding face - it loomed inexorably in her mind's-eye.

"Please tell me it isn't true," Rosemarie's great green eyes threatened to brim over her long lashes. "Ask his mama if there's any insanity in the family? Ask her if there's any moral reason we shouldn't marry?" Rosemarie's distressed face tore her mother's heart to near confetti consistency.

After several deep breaths Matilda could answer. It helped somehow, permitting herself to pat Rosemarie's hand. Just a small gesture of comfort, to show here I DO understand. Despite this, her next words were brusque. "It has to be done my dear—" and she raised her hand to stop the protest clearly about to burst from Rosemarie's lips.

"I know what you're going to say - 'why not ask Algernon himself?'" Rosemarie bobbed her head enthusiastically. "No. No, my dear one. That would NEVER do. He's bound to embroider the truth at the very least." Matilda paused for a loud, expressive sniff, dabbed at her nose with the lace handkerchief she always kept close at hand, and continued, "... more likely to shroud the truth in a cloak of deepest mystery and stir your sweetest instincts until you are convinced to marry him in a missionary sort of spirit. You wouldn't be the first to think your gentle charms could effect a complete reform and rejection of such reprehensible habits as the use of liquor, constant craving for the weed - uhrr, that's tobacco, my dear - and other stimulants and narcotics."

Matilda paused for the longest sigh yet, causing Rosemarie to fidget even more nervously, plucking then smoothing the antimacassar on the arm of her chair, over and over.

"I deeply dislike having to mention this dearest Rosemarie, but there's one thing his mama won't know for sure though it's importance is paramount - because, if he doesn't reform before marriage, he will almost certainly NEVER mend his ways. It's... the... dangerous business of him having been 'just a little fast'."

Matilda clucked her tongue again several times. Her distress about this painful subject was causing her great discomfort. How shall I tell my cherub that habits of dissipation are not easily shaken off, and though reform can happen for a time, recidivism is frightfully common. Out loud she said, "I think this question is best asked of your father, my child. Edward would know how to find out details of such uhrr... injurious habits."

At the look of horror on Rosemarie's face, Matilda hastily patted her daughter's hand again. "I'll ask him. Never you trouble your pretty little head about that." And she stifled a chuckle. "Straight from the horse's mouth," she said, and this time chortled out loud as she added, "... via the Old Grey Mare!"