Tidings fair and foul

Dear Wilbur,

I greet you with tidings both fair and foul.

My soul soars to tell you that at last our cousin has reopened his eyes to the world. The sisters arrived some two days ago. I know not from whence they came, or how they came to be here. However on rising from a restless repose the morning before last, I was greeted by three of their darkly cloaked and veiled forms gathered about Watford's bed. It was one of my more disconcerting experiences, for though I have heard much of the sisters' rare abilities and ethereal mien, I was ill prepared for the reality.

I woke to a mortiferous silence. The air itself felt dense and as I rose from my bed and made my way towards our cousin's room, it was as if I walked through pockets of glacial cold. The room, the Club, indeed all of the island it seemed, was enveloped in a shroud of silence, with nothing to be heard but the sisters' sibilant whispers, which seemed to reverberate and echo through my very being. Disconcerting to say the least old man, even to one with so wide an experience of aetheric machinations as I.

I may not - and indeed cannot! - say what occurred, but after two days of their careful ministrations, our cousin stirred and blinked, and although weak and in some delirium, there was indeed a spark of undoubted Watfordness behind those small sunken eyes.

The sisters have now departed, saying there is naught to do but wait while he regains his strength, and that patience and generousity of spirit is required. As you can imagine, I am fair chomping at the bit to be shot of this place. It seems a lifetime ago that we arrived here with so clear a purpose, but it is as if this place does not wish us to leave! It is only recently that Sir Terry has told me similar stories of the area's effect on visitors who tarry a while – the way they are drawn in and over and again find themselves unable to depart. It is utter drivel of course, but I find myself so irked and impeded that these days my mind will entertain any manner of claptrap to keep itself occupied.

And now for the tidings foul, dear coz. Since Court-Knotley's departure two weeks ago, I have sat and waited and watched, first for the sisters to arrive, and now as Watford slouches hour upon hour before the window and stares it seems at nothing, speaking only here and there, and then in the most confounding terms... During this time, preparations have been afoot for the departure of your friend Captain Sir Risticus Geppering-Barclay. Stuck with nothing to do but work on my diaries and progress my Aphrodite, (coming along rather nicely out of a superb piece of pink marble thrombatted over by strawberry-sweet Rosie Reedwarbler), I took the time to look into the habits of the Maunchmaunch islanders.

The prospect that your friend will have much of a future beyond his apotheosis is frankly unlikely. The islanders are not known for their hospitality and according to a report from our colleague Bernard 'Peggy' Blanditt, they will sooner eat you for dinner than have you to dinner. Now with regards your friend Geppering-Barclay, this is frankly of little moment. The man has shown himself to be unreceptive to both subtle allusions to the fate of that Cook fellow and more direct quotations from Peggy's hair-raising memoirs. My short acquaintance with the man shows him to be odious in the extreme, and I can only imagine that your friendship has been forged out of some inscrutable culinary concord that I am not privy to, for the man is both humourless and doltish.

What does concern me, however, is the fate of the clod's cousin, the incomparable Lady Felicity Smattering-Barclay, recently arrived in our midst. Oh what a delightful morsel has appeared in the form of Lady Felicity – sweet as an Egyptian lily, soft as a summer pudding, her alabaster skin and gentle-spoken way, her hesitant smile and hands that flutter like small trapped birds when she speaks, she is dear England shown in her most delicate light. And that cretin intends for her to accompany him to his new abode! I cannot allow it, coz – for such a rare jewel to be sacrificed at the altar of Geppering-Barclay's fatuousness. Mark my words, Wilbur, I will not countenance it.

Yours,
Cedric