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111 pages

English

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Introducing Ranulf, “the unready”, fictional descendant of Ethelred “the unready” a medieval Saxon Kinglet. Ranny, Seventh Viscount Lindley is tour guide for some troubled friends through the Balkans in 1914.

There is Dimitrov and his bomb, the nicest Nihilist anyone could hope to meet but troubled at his girl friend Revolta’s late nights out “at the library”. Svetislof a fish truck driver/poet is troubled as his wife understands him but his mistress does not. And Princess Ireana of Illyria, disguised as a lady’s maid but troubled to find the frequent bows of a maid before royalty causes leg cramps and gives unlimited opportunity to any butler with a penchant for pinching. And others.

A parody of novels of the 1920s, intended to amuse.

Sujets

Humor

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Publié par	AuthorHouse
Date de parution	14 avril 2005
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781463475147
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Unlikely Adventures of Ranulf the Unready

Book One
A Mostly Ungrand Grand Tour

By Adam Dumphy

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

© 2005 Adam Dumphy. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 04/12/05

ISBN: 1-4208-1782-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4634-7514-7 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004099707

Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana

Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author

For
Irene
And Mair and Joe
The greatest joys in my life

Prologue
What follows is a parody of the light, romantic adventure novels of the first decades of the last century. You might say from John Buchan to Dornford Yates. It is intended to sound dated, old fashioned, feathery; mimicking the plot, wordage, jokes, manner, mores and morals of the times as best can be determined. A totally clean, happy, easy-flowing genre they are now impossible to find even in the lower most cellars of our modern Pubic (sic) Libraries.
It seems a shame that they should be lost forever as they are worthwhile reading being set as they are in what sounds a better world even if that world existed only in the mind of the writer. A setting where the world was a pretty good place after all, people were simpler and well worth knowing, life was slower, cars were faster and values old and solid. The weather was always sunny; the background lovely and there was never a problem of finances. And even crime was rather genteel. A time when castles were inhabited, concealing buried treasure and well stocked with virtuous maidens pining to be rescued.
As each of these are a rarity now, castles, treasures and pining, virtuous maidens, they are worth repeating. I hope the original authors, if they should hear of it, will excuse me for manufacturing a bogus one.

A Mostly Ungrand Grand Tour
Broad Moor Lands Manor, Northumberland, England, June 1914.
Chapter One
Spring in England can be unsettling. Those first wispy, ephemeral sunbeams to break through the gloom-laden slosh may well turn the most mundane Englishman’s mind to attempt elegiac poetry: the most Spartan Briton’s mind to Schillerlocken or Buttercremetorte with fresh, warm cream; and the most prosaic Brit to thoughts of eloping to the Grecian Isles with the Vicar’s wife.
And I was no exception as I had entertained all of these recently myself.
Nor was I alone. In Suffolk a man invented a bicycle which his dog could peddle. (Rover needed the exercise). A man in Downs divorced his wife for casting a hex on the favorite at Epson. (The Favorite, Royal Victoria at 2½ to 1 lost by three lengths and the judge awarded the divorce decree without demur.) In Yorkshire a man bit his dentist to prove that his new dental plate slipped. (The finger was hardly bruised.)
And subsequently this nefarious miasma spread throughout the Island even involving the prodigiously stuffy London Times as the morning headlines proclaimed:
“New York Stock Exchange and Milady’s hemlines rise to alarming heights.”
“Marshal Foch gains eight pounds on reducing diet.”
“The Prince of Wales falls off an Elephant. Ghandi laughs…”
Whether these two later items were related I never discovered as at that moment I realized I was being addressed and a reply expected.
Being quite unaware of the subject discussed I fell back on a gamut which had proven unfailingly successful with the sweeter sex.
“Quite right, Dear. Charming thought. Can’t think why I never thought of it myself.” I said.
“You agree then, Ranulf?”
My mother’s silky tone and the amused glance from across the huge steaming platter of kippers and scrambled, bangers and mash, set off my alarm.
I objected to what I suspected the subject was. “Except I quite fail to see, actually I feel it now my right, to go wherever I please on this my second grand tour. Did I not go everywhere and do everything you and Father expected of me the first time? Exposing my boyish charm and flawless husk to every scraggly-toothed, royal spinster in all MittelEurope as required.”
And it was a tremendous bore, I added to myself.
I continued with what I thought flawless reasoning. “Now I am no longer a child in short pants…”
“Exactly the point Ranulf…” My mother interrupted as she always did. Not unpleasantly nor abruptly but with great firmness. And as always I don’t believe she actually heard what I said, only knew and answered in advance what I intended to say.
“You are half past your 20th year and the only male heir.” She hesitated. “Heavens knows I tried. “ She paused thinking of my five sisters all much older and now safely ensconced in various parts of England and reproducing biennially as expected of them.
“And you have somehow persisted at Oxford…”
“Christchurch, Mother.”
“Even if it is in Archeology or some outlandish thing. I am still surprised after all the time you spent rowing those silly sea shells and chasing after crickets and balls with those brickbats or whatever.”
“My record, Mother is a very respectable upper one third of my academic class. My team participation is better than that and, as for the Anthropology, I quote, ‘The study of ancient civilizations is a peep hole to the future.’”
I stopped, realizing that I had explained that six thousand times before without result.
Mother continued. “Your father is no longer young. He needs help in running the estates and it is never too soon to be preparing you for your seat in Parliament.”
This was only partly true. My father was a robust sixty and although the estates were large he was perfectly capable of running them if three times the present size. The truth was that he hated town in general and Parliament in particular and would be happy only when he shuffled off these responsibilities on me.
Continuing Mother firmly added. “In particular you are not going to the American North West or Canada or any such outlandish place. Why an Apache might scalp you or a grizzly bear tear off an arm.” She paused and considered. “You could never be in the Guards with half an arm.” She considered. “Half a brain perhaps… And you know how proud your father is of his time in the Guards.”
Now how in the world had she known that was exactly what I had intended?
“Mother these are modern times, 1914, and I doubt there has been anyone scalped in all of North America for….”
“I think I may profess to know more about the States than you, my Child.” she added primly. She was right again of course and I looked at her in renewed amazement.
American herself of course, no one could be with her five minutes with out being aware of it in her speech, her voice and manner. And the sterling silver patina of English country life only made it more charming.
A motherless child from her second year she had been raised in the rough mining camps of the American west while her father, a mining engineer, struggled. When his several gold mines produced prodigiously and he found refined gold in railroad lines, steamships lines, steel mills and oil refineries she was not only one of the great beauties of her day but enormously rich.
She had come to England on a jaunt, been introduced to all the right people and of course presented at court. It was at court that she met a tall, slim, sandy haired, diffident young man who stammered slightly when embarrassed and she had fallen madly in love with him at the first, “Rrraaaather…”
She hadn’t caught his name on first introduction and only later found him to be Randolph David Ethelred etc. etc. Warburton-Jomnes, Earl of Northumberland.
True her money had refurbished and expanded his several estates to more than their former elegance and her charm and manner reestablished the family as preeminent in the North, but it had been first and always a love match. Each a little uncomfortable if at any distance from the other and never failing to say their evening prayers together with which ever of the family was at home, before retiring.
“You are going to your great Aunt Honoria’s little place in Soxe Coberg.”
Aunt H.’s ‘little place’ took two days to drive around in a race car.
“She is your godmother, after all, and has seen so little of you since you are grown. She will take you up to Berlin and see are you introduced to all the right families. German girls make such fine wives,” she added. “Quiet and tractable.”
Interpreting for her I added sotto voce “Dumpy and with fat ankles.”
“And she has promised to open her hunting lodge in the Carpathians for you. You can ramble over the hills and fire off at anything that moves, to your hearts content. Bag all the chamois skins or what ever you want.”
“Chamois skins are what Stebbings uses to dry off the Rolls, Dear.”
“Well what ever they are called at least they don’t bite.”
“But Mother just once before I put my shoulder to the wheel I’d like some excitement, adventure, romance.”
My life to that time had been so encircled wi