Lady Hyacinth Abroad

If I'm ever to show my face in society again,
I've got to find a new cause of my own and quickly. Come, come, any ideas?
Daisy Greville has the old. Lady Sitwell has the blind

And the fund for sailor's widows?
That's the two of them combined

Nightschool for the nervous?
Lady Beach and Margaret Guest

Crutches for the crippled?
That was Elsie Ponds' bequest

Wayward women
Daisy Greville

Who's behind disfigured men?
Daisy Greville

And the deaf... don't tell me it's Greville yet again.
Everyone's got something can't you see why I'm bereft.

I want to do some good but what the devil's left?
What the devil's left?

If I may your Ladyship, one hears about such terrible poverty in Egypt these days...
Egypt. Land of the pharaohs and of Moses the Israelite.

Home to the great pyramids and the sphinx.
That's it! We'll populate an orphanage in Cairo,

with foundlings from the reeds along the Nile.
To watch a creature grow, to swaddle it and know the joy of its pathetic little smile

It's little smile
The news will travel soon enough to London

To London
Our selflessness will meet with great acclaim
Huzzah
The sniping will be stilled, and the empire will be filled,

with homes for bastard children in my name.
All aboard the Luxor express to Cairo.

And off she went,
what I failed to tell her was that a violent uprising against the empire was imminent

and no british citizen was considered safe, so you can imagine my surprise when
Lady Hyacinth returned to London quite unharmed.
Oh where will my largesse be truly appreciated,

I need a place so low that hope itself has been abandoned
You've heard of course of the untouchables in India.
India. Land of Hindus and Muslims, of camel run and saffron. Exotic and unknowable.

That's it! We'll find ourselves some lepers in the Punjab.
The hopeless and the wretched and the cursed. Forgotten and Unblessed

Unblessed
I'll take them to my breast

Your Breast
If Daisy Greville doesn't get there first. When we arrive, they'll hobble out to greet us

Hello there
Their toothless grins would melt a heart of stone

Awww
And every dilettante, will envy me and want a colony of lepers of her own,

now not a word to even your mothers til we leave although,
come to think of it what is the point of helping others unless you let the whole world know,
call the Times of London.
And off she went,

I neglected to mention the malaria pandemic in the Punjab
a bit of insurance in case leprosy itself failed to prove contagious,
so you can imagine my shock when Lady Hyacinth returned
to London in record time quite the picture of health.
I don't suppose you'd be willing to penetrate the jungle of deepest darkest Africa...
Africa. From Zululand to Yoruba,
home of proud warriors that naked torsos rippling in the firelight.
We'll civilize a village in the jungle
The Jungle
It can't take long to learn their mother tongue
Not long then
The words they have are six and five of them are clicks
Click
And all of them are different words for dong.
And can't you see their frightful painted faces
Their faces
They'll teach us how to swing from vine to vine
From vine to vine to vine
It's Daisy Greville's loss, she'll never come across, a tribe of backward natives worse than mine.
Their may appall us.But even they are part of God's design
Awww
We bid you all goodbye
Goodbye
Let all of London try, to find a tribe of natives worse than mine.
Charity towards others is divine.
Divine, Divine, Divine, Divine, Charity is Divine.