The Fall of Augusta

Fiction ~ short story
Published 24th May 1922
Approx. 2,400 words
(First read 26/12/1994)

Augusta Plaice ('for such was her incredible name') and Alethea Frisque ('for such was her incredible name') are a pair of rival social climbers.  Mrs P believes that her 'stupefyingly select' dance will be the crowning glory of her glitteringly successful season "for there was somebody coming before whom she would make her lowest curtsey" and, perhaps even more pleasurable than that, she's to have the joy of turning La Frisque away when that personage inevitably gate-crashes.  Alas! owing to her own myopia, and to a plot contrivance whereby EFB stretches the laws of coincidence far beyond snapping-point, she accidentally ends up violently snubbing one of the Prince's most intimate friends.  Highly contrived fluff, available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).