17. ST MARY’S INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH INCIDENT REPORT
Competition entry by K.G. McAbee
Lady Burton’s Bonfire
Report Filed by: Dr. Simon Phipps, Historian 2nd Class, 18th-19th Century Division
Jump: Trieste, October 1890. Near the British Consulate in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Objective: Surreptitiously exchange as many of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s papers with replicas before his wife Lady Isabel Burton burns them after his death, with emphasis on preserving his “The Scented Garden” translation. Ship said papers to location in England for storage until able to be retrieved in present time.
Status: Eminently successful on my end, if one considers the end results. I was disappointed—though not greatly surprised, given the incompetence of the rest of my team—that events did not proceed according to my flawless plan.
Team:
Charlotte Robson—Probationary Historian.
Arthur Green—Junior Technical Support.
Three security persons—I can’t be bothered to remember their names, so I refer to them in my notes by hair color: Yellow, Ginger and None.
As this was my first jump as lead—in my considered opinion, a position long overdue for one of my evident abilities—I intended it to run smoothly and efficiently. I was disappointed, to say the least, when it did not go as I had planned.
We arrived in Trieste on 3 October 1890 and immediately settled into our lodgings. Ms. Robson and I were quite comfortable in our late Victorian attire, but I can hardly say the same about Green, who complained incessantly and vociferously about his collar. The loud and often profane opinions of our security detail I shall not lower myself to repeat.
Our cover was as brother and sister touring the continent with their manservants. We called on Lady Burton on the morning of 5 October, claiming to be distant relatives of her family, descendants of a Gerard cousin who married into an Arundell cadet line living in Ireland after the Gordon Riots. Lady Isobel welcomed us warmly, sat us down to tea and immediately wanted to discuss our lineage.
Things were going swimmingly until Sir Richard Burton arrived back from his usual two-hour morning perambulation and was summoned to meet us. At this time, my young colleague Rabson went into what can be called no other than a massive breach of professionalism in which she abandoned all scholarly decorum and entered such a paroxysm of girlish enthusiasm that I feared she might spontaneously combust. I had scarcely begun to introduce myself when Ms. Robson launched into a breathless litany of Sir Richard’s exploits with the fervor of a schoolgirl. She literally clasped her hands in front of her heaving bosom. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and I naturally feared our mission was over before it had well begun, but to my astonishment Sir Richard merely smiled indulgently at Rabson as though she were charming. I can only assume the final fever that took him had already begun.
Lady Burton invited us to dine with them two days hence. And luckily, Mr. Green, in his guise as our manservant, had made friends with two of the serving girls and had gained a great deal of knowledge about the running of the household.
Well before the time of Sir Richard’s sad passing, we were intimates in the household. Lady Burton relied heavily on Ms Robson and me, while Green was courting one of the Burton servants. Or perhaps two; Green’s romantic entanglements appeared to multiply at an alarming rate.
Our security detail were busily—I use the word advisedly—engaged in whatever preparations security details engage in. Not my department and certainly of no scholarly interest.
The beginning of my our troubles began on a day early in the last week of Sir Richard’s life. Rabson and I were walking with him on his usual promenade at Lady Burton’s request, her ladyship not being up to the task. Burton’s steps were slower than they had been and, after settling Rabson on a convenient bench, took a seat beside her. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and began scrabbling for a pen in the same pocket. Then in several other pockets. With a sigh that sounded equal parts exasperation and exhaustion, Sir Richard went to replace the notebook. At this moment, Rabson dug into one of her skirt pockets and produced a modern felt-tip pen, one of those plastic disposable monstrosities. She handed it to Burton with what one can only describe as a giggle. He examined it with some interest, turning it over and about in his large, battered hands.
It took all my strength not to snatch it back, but one does not behave in such a manner towards a national treasure. “Ah, er, uh…a trifle from some mad inventor in the American Colonies,” I said, glaring at Rabson over Burton’s head.
A glare she either did not see or totally disregarded. I silently added this blatant breach of protocol to her myriad other sins on my first mission and took the pen gently from Burton’s hands. He gave me an odd look as he struggled to his feet.
Not much more than forty-eight hours later, Sir Richard was dead, and I confess to a sigh of relief that this mistake of Rabson’s would not now rebound onto my entirely innocent head.
And in the woman’s defence, a few days before Rabson had managed to exchange the original “The Scented Garden” manuscript for a forgery, sneaking it out of the Burton home in the same skirt pockets as she’d sneaked the fake in.
So, the primary goal of our mission was completed. Now onto the secondary part: the recovery of as many other of Sir Richard’s papers as possible from wholesale destruction. For this part, I called upon the expertise of our security detail. I feel compelled to admit that Yellow, Ginger and None stepped up and devised a cunning plan. They would station themselves in the shrubbery around the garden when Lady Burton created her bonfire and run out to snatch papers from the flames each time she returned to the house for another armful.
Quite a number of papers were saved, as the process continued a great while, as Lady Burton agonised over her act of blatant obliteration. And the resulting minor conflagrations in the hedges were easily put out. None’s hands will be usable in the near future, it is hoped. Ginger’s moustache was only in the preliminary stages, and he had enough freckles on his face to distract from the lack of eyebrows. Yellow, I’m happy to state, escaped almost unscathed.
Still, I must protest that their trip back to our lodgings at dawn, pushing two barrows heaped with singed-about-the-edges papers and notebooks, could have been more clandestine. I understand that the copious amounts of beer they had consumed were useful to quell the painful burns of Ginger and None, but Yellow’s excuse that his favourite boots had died a martyr’s death did not hold water. And I must categorically state that the addition of the goat to their party was excessive and caused questioning looks from the local constabulary.
The notebooks and manuscripts were shipped back to London the next day, and, after bidding Lady Burton adieu with our deepest commiserations, we returned from my first but no doubt not last successful mission.
Mistakes were made, I freely admit. But as is abundantly clear in my report, it was not my fault.
CLICK HERE for information on how to enter the competition.
 | A guest post by
|