Rather A Pity

The buying and selling of houses is a lengthy process. Our solicitor, when we speak to him on the phone, sounds whippet-keen. So why then are the sellers' solicitors complaining that he hasn't been answering emails?

I picture him at his desk- playing Wordle, or cogitating deeply on our business while knocking a golf ball round the links.

Is this how I would parcel out the time if I were a solicitor? Yes, indubitably. Because doing the things solicitors are paid to do must be frightfully dull. Ailz says it's mostly about reading the small print so the client doesn't have to.

Only I wouldn't play golf. I'm with whoever it was who called golf "a good walk spoiled."

Also it's something US presidents play- and that really puts me off....

Talking about US presidents and golf, there's a rumour that President Eisenhower, under cover of attending a golf tournament, was spirited off to Edwards Air Force Base in the spring of 1954 to view some grounded ET craft and speak to some actual ETs. ( Not the more common Greys but Nordics allegedly- the ones that look like Swedish pop stars only even more spectacular). I was listening to the indefatigable Preston Dennett review the evidence for this last night and there's more of it than you might think- and much of it comes from people with ribbons on their chests and/or letters after their names. If it didn't happen a lot of highly respected types have been telling porkies.

And not the kind of porkies that serve a person's interests but the kind of porkies that get one mocked in the media...

Anyway, the story goes that the ETs offered information and technology in return for the world giving up its nuclear arsenals- and Eisenhower turned them down. If so, this was rather a pity...

He said we weren't ready, that people would panic, that Wall Street would crash, that the Pope would be displeased....

(He'd recently fought a World War. I suppose it's not surprising if he didn't have an elevated view of human nature.)

But just imagine if he'd agreed to their terms...

For one thing we wouldn't- the best part of a lifetime later- still be fretting and biting our finger nails whenever one nuclear power did stuff with its military that another nuclear power says it shouldn't...

The Bordeaux Diligence

Our solicitor says he's doing his due diligence. Legal jargon- and not a phrase that occurs very often in mundane conversation. It pinged a bell. "Diligence, diligence- what are my associations with that word? Ah, I know, The Bordeaux Diligence...."

"The Bordeaux Diligence" is a short story that appears in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book- the first collection of stories about the paranormal I ever owned. How old was I? Seven or eight- something like that. It's presented there as a true story- which it clearly isn't- but I took it as such and it scared the Bejasus out of me. With the wisdom that comes of years I'd now be inclined to describe it as Kafkaesque. A Kafaesque fable- which speaks to the feeling we all have from time to time- or even continuously- that the world is a Very Big Secret and everybody is in on it but ourselves.

Charles Lindley Wood, the 2nd Viscount Halifax (1839-1934) collected ghost stories from anybody who was willing to tell him one- with the majority of those that ended up in his book being first person accounts of hauntings and ghostly encounters. The Bordeaux Diligence stands out as anomaly- and how it found its way into the collection is unclear. It has no ascribed author. It could be something Lindley picked up in France or it could be something he wrote himself. Whatever its origins, it is, in its humble way, a perfect little thing- and it has haunted me all my life....

I thought of retelling it in my own words, but why bother when the original is in no need of either editing or embellishment.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a diligence as a "large, four-wheeled, closed French stagecoach."

The Bordeaux Diligence

by Charles Lindley Wood

A gentleman from Paris, who had lost his wife and was in much sadness and misery, was walking down the Rue de Bac one day when he saw three men, who looked at him very pleasantly, and pointing to a woman at the end of the street, said, ‘Pardon us, sir, but would you do us a favor?’ ‘Certainly,’ he replied.

‘Would you mind asking that lady at the end of the street at what time the Bordeaux diligence starts?’

He thought the request odd but went to the end of the street and said to the lady, ‘I beg your pardon, but could you tell me at what hour the Bordeaux diligence starts?’

She answered hurriedly, ‘Don’t ask me; go and ask the gendarme: So he went up to the agent de police and put the same question to him.

‘What?’ said the man.

‘At what time does the Bordeaux diligence start?’

At this, the agent de police turned round, arrested him, and took him to the police station, where the man was put in a cell and presently brought up before the magistrate, who asked what his crime was.

The agent de police replied, ‘He asked at what time the Bordeaux diligence starts.’

‘He asked that did he?’ said the magistrate. ‘Put him in the dark cell.’

‘But,’ protested the gentleman, ‘I only asked what time the Bordeaux diligence starts, to oblige some men, who asked me to ask a woman, who told me to ask the agent de police.’ ‘Put him in the dark cell,’ was the only reply.

Later on, the gentleman was brought up before a judge and jury, and the judge said, ‘What is this man accused of?’

The agent de police answered, ‘He came and asked me when the Bordeaux diligence starts.’

‘He said that!’ exclaimed the judge. ‘Gentlemen of the jury, is this prisoner guilty or not guilty?

‘Guilty!’ they all cried.

‘Take him away,’ said the judge. ‘Seven years at Cayenne.’

So the wretched man was taken out in a convict ship and kept a close prisoner at Cayenne. After a time, he struck up a friendship with the other prisoners there, and one day they decided that each should tell the reason he came to be sent to the Island. One said one thing, another until it came to the turn of the latest arrival to explain why he had been sent there.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was walking down the Rue de Bac one day when I saw three men, who asked me if I would ask a lady at the end of the street at what time the Bordeaux diligence started Just to oblige them. I went and asked her, and she told me to ask the agent de police, but when I asked him, he turned around and arrested me, and I was taken to the police station, and before the magistrate and then before a judge and jury, who sent mc here.’

When he had finished speaking, there was silence, and from that time forward, everyone shunned him.

After a while, the Governor of the prison came to investigate the various prisoners’ crimes so that some of them might be let off with more accessible work. At last, the gentleman was brought before the Governor, who asked him what had been the nature of his He repeated his story.

‘That!’ said the Governor. ‘Give him solitary confinement.’

The poor man applied for the chaplain’s ministrations, who asked him what his crime had been, but when he repeated his story, the chaplain went away and left him.

So he continued in misery and agony for seven years, until at last he was allowed to return home, without money, without relations, and without friends. One day, shortly after his return, he thought he would walk down the Rue de Bac once again, and as he did so, he saw the same woman at the end of the street but looking very old and horrible. He accosted her and said, ‘You are the author of all my misfortunes.’

She replied, ‘Don’t touch me, but if you like, I will tell you why I asked you to do what I did. Go to the Champs-Elysées tonight at twelve o’clock, and you will find a hut. Knock at the door and go in, and I will explain why you have suffered all this misery.

He went to the Champs-Elysées at the time mentioned, identified the hut, knocked, entered, and found the woman inside. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘tell me why I have suffered all this.’ ‘Give me a glass of cognac,’ was the answer.

He took a bottle from the shelf above her head and poured out a glass of brandy, which she drank.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘tell me.’

‘Give me some more cognac,’ she said.

He gave her some more, and she began to speak. ‘Put your ear down here,’ she said. ‘I am fragile and cannot speak loudly.’

He put his ear down to her, and she immediately sank her teeth into it and fell back with a heavy sigh—dead.