Lucky to be Alive, The Earl Inquires After Miss Snark
I’m afraid yesterday’s contretemps in Torquay has rendered my ueber agent search a failure. Even after my release from police custody there was the unfortunate business of my clinging to Johnny’s pant leg as he strode with a purpose toward British Rail’s capacious fisrt class lounge; we were separated by an assortment of minions of the state, a publicist, an obscure Royal, and the chairwoman of Exeter University’s Literature Department. At the most inappropriate of times, I attempted to deliver my mansuscript, disheveled in the struggle, crying from the depths of desperation that if Johnny returned my work unread, I would know because Page 456 is missing! That’s the crucial scene where Rugglesby emerges as an agent of MI5 and is revealed to be a woman.
Fortunately, though, hopes springs eternal. My ‘critique group’ includes the Web savvy Dutchess of Wey and her cousin, Ursula Unsinn-Von Hapsburg. They emailed me a link to Miss Snark. Snarklings themselves, they assured me that several of her posts spoke to them directly. The Dutchess, for example, released her household staff on an uncustomary Tuesday, to finish what she calls ‘a letter of inquiry.’
My Dear and Beloved Miss Snark, Warm greetings from the Lake District, where, ensconsed in a Windermere cottage with a view compromised somewhat by prized Rhododendrons and assorted garden thingies, I pen this missive. My novel, She Works Alone, features Abigail Snodgrass-Colt, heiress, bon vivant, botanist, historian, aviatrix, MP, OBE, KBE, GC. After the Emperor Hadrian appears to her a dream, Abigail journeys to Tibet. Having just won The British Open, Abigail is seized by cultists and taken to the Seychelles, where the mad Frenchman, Henri, demands the sort of satisfaction one can only hint at in polite company. Abigail destroys the French fleet, seizes Madagascar in the name of the Crown, discovers a lost treasure, and finally comes to realize that her boyfriend, Sea Lord Greenaway, is insufferably dull.
She confronts Lord Greenaway in Harrods ( during the January sale!) as he tussles with a dimunitive yet determined hussy from The Continent. At two hundred and ninety thousand carefully chosen words, my task is compleat.
Your Servant,
The Forty Third Earl of Watership Down