pickup on mean street - 7. refresh your memory

by bofa xesjum

part seven of 16

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dear cleo - cleo began reading - i am your aunt amelia, and i am asking you - but perhaps i should first refresh your memory as to exactly who and what i am and what my relationship with yourself is. my name is amelia flyte, and i was born many years ago in the little village of b—————. in the great empire of z—————. the village of b———————, small as it was, was one of the country retreats of the emperor, babar xvii, who was at that time at the height of his belovedness throughout his great empire, which was itself at the apex of its power, although the signs of its inevitable decay and crumbling would soon appear. babar xvii was in the advanced stages of his long dotage. as a small child, frolicking with my favorite governess in the green fields beside the bubbling brooks of the placid and secluded (and heavily guarded) village, naturally i knew nothing of this. what did I know? I knew that life was good, that my papa was brave and my mama was beautiful, that all the men in my family were brave and that most of them were handsome, that most of the women in my family were beautiful, and that even those, like the old, that were not, were kind. i knew that our servants were all kind and good and faithful. and that all the dogs and horses on the estate were faithful, although some of the horses were a bit high spirited and had to be kept in line by our faithful grooms. i knew that all the men in the family might be called to battle at any time, but that none of them would be killed and all would return victorious and covered with glory. i knew that good pastor k——————, who preached in the family chapel on sunday morning, was the kindest man in the world, though sometimes the subject of good natured fun because of his forgetfulness. i knew that someday i would grow up and get married, but that that would not happen for a million years. and that someday i would die, but not for a million times a million years. i especially loved my english governess, miss mansfield, who was young for a governess - looking back, i realize she was barely out of her teens - and quite pretty, and who told me or read to me endless stories, many of them quite violent and probably considered “unsuitable” for children today. the stories amused me greatly, and seemed to have no connection with my own real life. i never suffered from nightmares. miss mansfield was telling me a story when news arrived from the village that the old emperor had died. next