"Goodbye, Elizabeth Whiff in." "Good morning, Mistress Helene." "Oh." "Good morrow, sir." "Forgive me if I do not doff my hat, my fingers are thick with placenta." "I was bound for the gypsy encampment out yonder to tend to an outbreak of cradle cap amongst the babes, when I found this bitch struggling to birth her young..." "Oh." "Poor creature." "Yes." "But I managed to... pierce her birth sac with a twig and she has thus far passed eight healthy newborns... and a rather dry runt." "Goodness, you are a veterinary surgeon as well as a doctor?" "Nay, nay." "But any man would I'm sure help a... suffering bitch." "But alas, though I'm sure I can house the pups," "I fear the mother may be deemed useless, battered over the skull and drowned, if no one shall take her..." "No." "My humble cottage is a veritable menagerie of animal waifs." "Folk always want the pretties but who would want this tired old..." "Please, I do..." "I do." "Her name shall be..." "Susan?" "Susan." "You stink." "How desolate our home without the merry chirrups of late Bird" "Raymond..." "Yes Dorothy, I must confess his murder leaves me bleak as soup" "Tis no surprise Mistress Helene has made herself scarce to distract us from his 'accidental' strangulation..." "Dorothy." "If Helene swears she did not slaughter Bird Raymond, though we found him stiff and crooked in her pocket, then I must take her word for it and I ask we never speak of it again..." "Ah, here she is, the avian executioner." "Perhaps the fresh air might..." "Every breath of wind is like a knife slashing my skin." "If you only knew what stripes of pain that gallop across my trunk... but all you want is to send me to my grave without an heir." "I'm sure we... will have a child..." "Gads woman." "Surely you would not scramble for intercourse here?" "It seems I have wed a rabbit." "How can you bring me a grandchild if you keep separate chambers?" "The Lord will find a way... walls are no barrier to Christ." "Christ never gave his mother a grandson..." "Edmund, husband..." "I..." "I know I have displeased you much of late but I found something this day that I... think might please you." "A tinker's carpet bag." "You really are quite the curio Helene..." "No." "No." "Inside..." "Is this a jest?" "Eugh." "But I thought since you miss Raymond, Edmund, that Susan..." "You seek to replace Bird Raymond with God's lowest creature?" "A beast whose member pops forth from his belly like a pole of sticky ham?" "But Edmund." "Tis a girl and... had I not saved her she would have been battered over the skull and drowned." "What imagination..." "Enough, woman, cease your hysteria." "We shall of course keep her." "Oh." "If it will calm you to sit around all day fondling some hairy old runt." "Her name is Susan." "Dorothy... do you mind looking after Mathilde?" "Just for a while, whilst I play with Susan?" "Just remember tis a beast that eats its own spew." "I hope you agree I have been a most devoted servant these last 30 years, ma'am." "Yes, yes, I'm sure you'll be rewarded." "I live to serve you, I live for Hunderby and the... secret of the tower..." "Such sacrifice deserves reward indeed, though I might like to know in what way?" "Off with his egg." "My egg is dry as a drum, Helene." "I cannot dip my soldiers" "I'm sorry..." "Shall I call Dorothy?" "Too late." "I suppose I shall be obliged to rupture my sausage plait." "Dorothy, my egg is dry." "I'm sorry to hear that Sir, but I have had to call for Dr Foggerty." "Mistress Mathilde is most unwell." "Please wrap my plait forthwith." "Hmm..." "Her condition is grave..." "I am surprised at such a sudden deterioration in a woman whose only ailment was a lazy anus." "She was left in the damp, Doctor." "The damp?" "Outside?" "Mistress Helene took her for a walk and..." "left her there." "All night." "But I did ask you to look after her, Dorothy." "Remember?" "Edmund?" "Edmund?" "When I gave you Susan?" "Edmund, please." "Prithee, do not smelly me with the stench of your wrongs." "Mistress Mother." "She will not last through the night." "Her lungs have ballooned by twice." "Nay, only by once, but her belly hath barrelled by twainfold." "You blind my staff, you kill my bird, and now this." "This is how you repay me for saving your life?" "By inflating my mother!" "?" "Hush-ho." "Please, do not distress yourselves around Mistress Mathilde." "Oh." "Mother, I'm here..." "Dorry's here..." "She may pass some black and mossy stools." "Be sure to sweep them from her." "Sir, I would gladly take them in my teeth." "This draught should ease any suffering." "Tis a delicate measure, no more than a thimblerfull." "Too much can bring about most curious behaviours." "Might she not take it now?" "She is in such pain." "Arabelle..." "She, she..." "Dorothy..." "How she misses Edmund's wife." "I know what you did..." "You leaving me outside." "She means you..." "You." "You left me out" "Shhh, shh, shh." "Save your thank yous." "Save your last few breaths." "I think them not her last few, ma'am." "I shall leave the baby bellows should she need them." "Not now." "Oh." "Please, do not blame yourself." "Her health before was steady." "But Doctor, I did not leave her out there" "Hush, ho." "I am sure you speak the truth..." "Oh..." "No, I do but note..." "My hateful growth." "Doctor that you might slice it from me." "Nay, nay." "Tis part of you..." "and therefore perfect." "Indeed its height brings you, even closer to God..." "Be not ashamed mistress, I too have a small imperfection." "Annie?" "Annie." "Tom was just..." "I was just looking for a pan, ma'am." "Well, I'd like to introduce my new friend, Susan." "Susan." "Susan what have you got?" "It's a mole" "Geoff." "Annie, he knows who I am." "Can't we keep him?" "He's got a lovely smile." "Susan?" "Susan." "Shhhh" "Mistress Mathilde?" "Tis me, Helene." "Helene?" "You have lost weight... draught, draught." "Take care." "Do not go the way of Arabelle." "Oh, Susan." "One moment, Mother Mathilde." "Geoff?" "Stay here while I fetch you some clothes." "If you need anything, draw on this." "Good girl." "Stay there." "Peace, peace, mother." "Peace." "Hold me, Edmund." "Of course, mother." "No, no, mother, please." "Oh god, no, mother..." "NO!" "NO!" "Eat your supper." "No, mother!" "That's right, that's my boy." "That's my baby." "That's right, there you are." "Dorothy!" "Dorothy!" "Please." "Mother, please." "Dorothy get her off me!" "Help." "What are you doing?" "On the bed." "Get her on the bed." "She's gone..." "Your secret is safe." "But... twas not I." "This is just the shock." "No, Dorothy." "I am most shocked at such a turn." "You say you did find her, Edmund?" "Yes." "I did enter the room to administer her draught and she lay there... quite, quite gone." "Oh." "There is an odour." "The death stink." "Tis a foul and buttery pong," "yet I see no stools around her exit?" "No... nor I." "Ah." "Oh." "She must have clambered from her bed to pass her toilet thus." "How could she have made such a journey in her condition?" "Perhaps a fit of some sort?" "Here is another." "Mathilde." "She finally went." "There is grass in this stool" "She must have got hungry..." "out in that rain all night..." "Her neck seems..." "It does look floppy." "Edmund you said the same?" "Well I suppose it does look a little..." "Perhaps the fit, Dr Foggerty, perhaps in her frenzied search to unleash her pregnant bowel, her neck snapped." "I neither said her neck was floppy nor snapped." "Unless her lungs burst it off?" "This is most peculiar... that she should be found here, in bed, with a broken neck." "Could it be suicide?" "No..." "This is most suspicious." "I should like to make a report to a Justice of the Peace." "I am a Justice of the Peace." "Oh." "Well." "Consider it reported then, but still..." "Well done." "Edmund..." "I must confess, I hope I am not to blame, but I'm afraid Susan was briefly in there." "And she did unload herself." "I told you I did not want that wretched beast inside my home!" "Edmund." "You give a dog more courtesy than your husband?" "She is wounded." "I am wounded!" "My mother is dead!" "Go, Geoff, go, go, go." "Please." "Get off me." "Dorothy." "Dorothy!" "Was it a stroke, Doctor?" "Wouldn't be surprised, that black beast atop him." "I caught him out there trying to eat the dog, Dr Foggerty." "Sooner he's clapped in irons and shipped back to Africa the better." "He says he's from Bristol." "Tis not a stroke, Sir, tis little more than a plumped patella." "This salve will shrink the plumping." "I'll see to it that he's flogged, Sir." "Thank you, Dorothy, I will deal with his punishment." "Dr Foggerty." "Good day, Sir." "Now the little lass has her very own calliper." "But, Madam, still your eyes drizzle?" "For joy, Doctor." "And thanks." "To please is pleasure itself." "Here, let me dab your tears."