Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

THE PETIT-PARLIAMENT, the chief lawmaking body of Dingley Dell. Composed of nineteen non-salaried M.P.P.’s (members of the Petit-Parliament), the body resembles only in a most general sense that system of government suggested by its name. Its members are elected by district, except in those districts in which tax revenues do not meet the qualifying threshold (as determined by the Petit-Parliament in its previous session). Here delegates to the Petit-Parliament are appointed by the Cabinet.

Eight M.P.P.’s are elected by their peers to serve in the government cabinet, which functions to execute all of the laws passed by the Petit-Parliament-in-plenary. Each minister oversees and administers one or more discrete departments of the government. The position of Prime Minister is largely ceremonial and is held for only one year by each of the ministers in rotation.

The Petit-Parliament is unicameral, although it bears passing resemblance in certain aspects to both the British Upper House of Lords and the British Lower House of Commons. Membership seldom passes outside a small and select group of Dingley haute-familias , comprised of those families who, according to 1999–2000 Prime Minister William Boldwig, have “throughout history made the greatest and most lasting contributions to the Dell in both word and deed and through generous family patronage.”

FOR a more detailed examination of the workings of the Dingley Dell Petit-Parliament, please consult A House Undivided: A Century of Legislative Progress in the Dell of Dingley by Julius Gulpidge (Milltown Crier Press, 1990). FOR the arrested efforts to bring pure democratic representation to the “low district” citizens of Dingley Dell, please read One Man, One Vote: A Dream Elusive by Daniel Cuttle (Dingley Delver Publications, 1994).

THE MILLTOWN CRIER and THE DINGLEY DELVER, the former a daily publication, established in 1921, distributed to a large valley-wide readership and containing a record of Parliamentary proceedings. Though the Crier exists as more than a simple house organ for that institution, it is nonetheless published under its auspices and is generally conservative in its editorial voice.

Its weekly competitor, The Dingley Delver, published intermittently since 1977, is financed through subscription, advertisements, and contributions alone, and maintains a much smaller, though far more impassioned, readership. The Delver has defended its publication, without success, against a number of repressive and censorial actions taken by the Petit-Parliament, freedom of the press being in no way guaranteed in the Dell of Dingley.

here were a great many things that Miss Antonia Bocker was eager to tell me on that walk to Milltown Respectable Hospital — things that she had perhaps been keeping under her bonnet (had she, in fact, worn a bonnet) for quite some time. Each parcel of intelligence was something that I should have liked to have known as one of the chief contributors to the investigative Dingley Delver , although there wasn’t a syllable that didn’t fly in the face of prevailing opinion and general consensus — such consensus deemed by my friend Antonia “hogwash” and “reeking rubbish.” I had never known a woman so willing to take the majority view of things and turn it so thoroughly upon its head. Did she do this for that simple frisson of mischief that would delight, or did she believe all that she said to its very marrow, and it was simply a foregone matter of principle and integrity for her to uphold and defend her minority views?

It was upon this walk that Miss Antonio Bocker took a popgun to the Suppositive Postulations—of all things! — and waxed upon the possibility of a revisionist view of the early history of Dingley Dell, this after I had finally laid to rest the pen that had indited for two long Irish tea-abetted nights my well-researched if somewhat prosaic essay upon the early years of the Dell for the Dinglian Dayedition of the Delver .

I had not known before this morning this revelatory bit of Antonia’s own early life story: that she had in her youth befriended an old man, a fellow inmate of Dingley Dell Workhouse #3, who had made the study of the history of our fair valley quite the obsessive avocation. “He bequeathed to me all of his notes,” she said, “or rather all of those notes and writings that I could quickly gather together as the workhouse superintendent proceeded to dispose of every personal effect in the wake of his death, to ready the paperstrewn warren for its next occupant.” With a casual air, Antonia added, “Perhaps I’ll shew them you, Trimmers. Unless, of course, it’s too late to use any of it for your article. If such be the case, then perhaps I’ll never let you see any of it, for you will have shewn me how little you value your mother’s wise friend Antonia as a trusted resource for your commemorative project.”

I smiled. I would not be bested: “In the first place, Miss Bocker—”

“Dispense with the ‘Miss Bocker,’ for the love of Christ, Trimmers. I was Antonia to your mother and let me be Antonia to you as well.”

“As you wish it— Antonia. The first point which I wished to make before interruption was that I had no idea that you should be a resource for my article on the early history of the Dell. You are a woman of commerce— one who by nature must look forward in her thinking and not backward as would, let us say, a retrospective historian.”

“Conceded. And you would never have known of my friendship with Mr. Traddles, unless I had told you. Those are days seldom visited in my memories. Terrible times, Trimmers. Wouldn’t wish my early circumstances upon a vicious dog.”

“And how is it you’re sure of the credibility of what Traddles wrote? Given the grievous austerity of his circumstances, how could you even be certain of his sanity?”

Antonia laughed. “I should think that he probably wasn’t sane. But there was something about his methods — the way he had of talking to the old ones, taking one hoary account and putting it next to another. There was machinery of some sort working in that strange head of his, even if the brain be somewhat out of kilter. I’ll shew you the notes he left me someday. But I suspect that you’ll use none of it. His history is quite at odds with the standard, established version. Radically so.”

Antonia Bocker became for that ensuing moment altogether lost in her thoughts — thoughts, I had no doubt, pertaining to her friendship with perhaps the only person who had uplifted her during her early-life travails. She smiled to herself. “He saved my life, the old obsessitordid, there’s no doubt about that .”

Alas, we had hardly reached the hospital when I was collared by a ticket porter, dispatched by my brother, who had first knocked upon the door of Mrs. Potterson’s cottage and then received word that I was to be found upon the High Road to Milltown Respectable Hospital (easily distinguishable from Milltown Indigent Hospital, to which a woman of Mrs. Pyegrave’s station would never have been relegated). The gentleman was breathless in his report, having run nearly the entire way from Mrs. Potterson’s, but told me enough about my nephew’s disappearance that I was given ready leave by Antonia to go immediately to my brother’s home in Fingerpost and offer whatever succour I was able.

“I’ll stay here and make enquiries about Janet Pyegrave,” said Antonia with a look of determination and resolve (marked by pursed lips) overlaid by lineaments of concern for my nephew Newman (largely evinced by the furrowed brow).