PRIDE & POOP by Jane Airedale, cont'd.....
Later that same evening, once Sir Bernard had allowed sleep to claim his troubled soul, Lady Britney had ridden forth in a fit of temper, and the Duchess of Avalon finally managed to drink herself under the dinner table, Her Grace's master of the hounds, John Smalls, held court in his rummy host's own library, passing 'round the best French brandy in the house, while discussing fine hounds with Spaven and Reddle, the footmen.
"I like a healthy foxhound," declared the hearty Mr. Smalls, far less taciturn than he had been upon his arrival, "and riding to the hounds is a sport fit for kings, gentlemen. To be sure -- it is. But going a-haring with a small, well-muscled beagle -- or with a merry pack of same -- Oh, that has become a much disparaged sport of late; for the ladies, it's said. But I say beagling keeps a man in touch with nature, and thus," and here he paused to pour a bit more of Sir Bernard's brandy into his tumbler, "and thus, gentlemen, I drink to that fine and noble hound -- the English beagle."
The three men raised their glasses. "To the beagle," they toasted.
"And to the duchess," added Mr. Smalls with a wink and a chuckle, "for helping to keep the sport and the breed alive."
The footmen hesitated, but finally shrugged and guzzled with all the gusto of two farm lads in an alehouse. "When I get a chance to drink me master's best brew, wot do I care to whom I raise a glass?" asked Reddle of nobody in particular.
Spavens nodded and stretched his lips in a gap-toothed grin. The two men then aided Mr. Smalls in polishing off another bottle.
(Story continued under comments. Please look for the first part of our tale in our recent archives.)
posted by LuLu @ 11:35 PM
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Story continued...
They glanced around with faint interest as the poet Manfred Twittle entered the room, closely followed by Filene, the lady's maid, who was wailing loudly in French. "Great gobs of spittle from the tongue of a distempered timber wolf, but that woman is a trial, John," said he, and when he did not at once explain which woman he meant, the sulky maid's complaints increased.
"I meant the duchess, my love," Twittle assured her meekly, then sat down, searched for a glass, and finally poured himself a tall one. "If I have to write one more ode to dogs and hunting, I think I will go mad."
"I rather liked 'To a Singing Beagle,'" Mr. Smalls confessed. "Terrestrial celestial; minstrel of the woods.'" He smiled. "You'll make poet laureate yet, Fred. See if you don't."
Filene rolled her large dark eyes, and removing the glass from Mr. Twittle's hand, took a healthy swallow. "The duchess, she is a peeg!" announced that most loyal of servants. "To theenk that I must wait on 'er; I, 'oose own grandmother was 'erself a countess before zee mob murdered King Louie of France...."
Mr. Smalls interrupted her with a short bark of a laugh. "Filene, your French grandmother was nothing more than a hideous old box-opener at a theater on the Boulevards, and your mother was a ballet dancer before she ran off with an Irish soldier. As for you, my sweet, you were born in Yorkshire."
"Better a French accent than a Yorkshire one," pointed out Mr. Twittle, "but by God -- what I have had to put up with as the Duchess of Avalon's 'official lover' you will never know, John." He took a long swallow of brandy. "Then again, perhaps you will. You're the one the lusty gargoyle hankers after."
"Try to be brave for a short time longer, Fred," Mr. Smalls encouraged his friend. "Her position in society is such that she can hardly claim me as her bit o' crumpet right now, although I believe she will have me for her own sooner or later. Of course, I'll want it done all proper and legal like."
"Hence I must keep her dangling with my odious odes forever and a day?"
"And how long am I to put up with her abuses?" demanded Filene, emptying her reclaimed glass of brandy, and wiping her lips with the back of her dainty hand, just like a genuine aristocrat.
"We must entrench ourselves even more deeply into her life and her affections," replied Mr. Smalls. "We have come this far. Let's not lose heart and in the process lose the hare."
Story to be continued...
Story continued...
"The footmen were telling me as how they haven't been given their wages for months, and I have been going through Sir Bernard's papers, which mostly amount to dunning notices," Mr. Smalls went on. "It didn't take him long to run through his pretty wife's ample fortune, and from what I can tell, he owes money to half the king's subjects and then some."
"What will happen to this place?" asked Mr. Twittle, glancing about the well-proportioned room with mild interest. "Will it really go to one of the duchess' unspeakable brats?"
"Perhaps not," Mr. Smalls replied, looking thoughtful. "There was a younger brother, I have learned. He has been missing for years -- possibly kidnapped by gypsies when he was a lad, or maybe he ran off to sea. The estate is entailed, which means it cannot be sold or mortgaged. If the brother could somehow be resurrected, he might stand to inherit a fine little estate here, I should guess."
When nobody said another word, Mr. Smalls found an unopened bottle of fine French brandy and uncorked it. "A toast to the future?" he proposed.
With the exception of the two unconscious footmen, nobody refused.
While the servants were thus engaged in their decidedly below-the-salt frivolities, out near the edge of the woods, Mr. Gardiner rose from his highly uncomfortable bed of pine needles, stepped across his cousin's prone form, and padded through the early evening shadows to be alone with his thoughts -- which centered almost entirely upon pretty Miss Jane Beagle. She was, he concluded, everything he had long been looking for, and he hoped to ask for her paw the very next day, no matter what his cynical cousin Darcy had to say.
He heard a nose, turned about, and stared in some surprise at the somber-faced dog who stood before him. "I'm Bingley," announced the hound, "and I would have a serious woof with you."
It was early morning on the second day of the Duchess of Avalon's untimely visit to Hound Hall, and Lizzie was out in the fields searching for her sister.
"I know you are out here somewhere, Jane," she barked as she sniffed the dew-soaked grass. "I can smell your scent and it's growing stronger, and you know I'm a good tracker. Please show yourself. I won't tell anyone where you are, I promise. I only want a woof with you."
But there was nothing, only murmurs in the grass made by emerging insects, and the rustlings of small rodents. Overhead there was the irenic twitter of awakening birds.
Lizzie padded into a small glen which she at once recognized as the very spot where she had last enjoyed a conversation with her former dear friend Charlotte the corgi, now the mate of her own erstwhile (and certainly unwanted!) suitor, the basset Mr. Collins. Lizzie crossed the trickling stream which meandered through the rocks therein. Halfway across she heard the sound of a loud inverse sneeze, followed by a volley of others.
"Jane?" she barked. "Jane, if it is you, please answer me."
Instead her sister crept out from behind a set of rocks in the high grass, her head bowed, her eyes watering. "Lizzie, why are you hounding me?" she asked.
"Oh, Jane!" cried her sister. "Have you been here all night? The entire family have been worried sick about you." Lizzie regained solid ground, rushed to her sister's side and licked her nose.
"I cannot go back, Lizzie," said Jane, sinking onto the velvety grass beside the brook and spitting up a clump of violets. "It's not that I dislike Mr. Gardiner; indeed, I find him a well-socialized and amiable dog, but I cannot mate with him. You know I am forsworn to another."
Lizzie sat down beside her sister. "That full-chopped Irish adventurer is not of our breed."
"Neither was Mr. Collins," Jane was quick to point out, "but my mother would have let him lead you to the mating pen fast enough."
"But I refused," barked Lizzie, "and so should you. A beagle is a beagle is a beagle."
"That is a moot point," argued her sister, "considering that the beagle breed has been highly compromised for more than a century. To my way of thinking, Mr. Bingley is as fine a representative of our breed as any other hound."
"I have heard Kerry beagles referred to as 'indifferent blood hounds,'" said Lizzie, intending the barb to wound.
But Jane rebounded quickly. "I love Mr. Bingley, Lizzie, and I will not be dragged to the mating pen against my will. Nor will I allow myself to be turned into the duchess' new broody." She cocked an eyebrow. "If you are so eager to champion the dubious standard of our breed, why don't you volunteer for the position?"
"I was planning to run off to London with Charlotte," Lizzie blurted suddenly. "I thought we might enjoy a rich and pleasurable life there with Lady Lucas, but Charlotte had other plans. She was my dearest friend, Jane. Why, I've yet to meet a male dog I like even half so much. Most of them strike me as callow pups or arrogant studs, like Mr. Darcy."
Jane belched softly while her stomach rumbled from lack of food. "I have long felt your discontent, Lizzie," said she. "You have ill concealed it behind witty observations which tend to border on vicious sarcasm, and I am heartily sorry that your plans with Charlotte went awry."
Story to be continued...
Story continued...
Lizzie reacted as if she had been bitten. "Vicious sarcasm? Why, Jane, am I to believe my own floppy ears? I've always thought of myself as the merriest of beagles. Oh, granted, I've had my off moments, and I suppose I must agree with Charlotte, who has not infrequently suggested that I like the sound of my own bark a bit too much perhaps -- but vicious? Honestly, Jane, don't you think you're being overly scrupulous in your evaluation of a bitch who is not only a sister but, hopefully, a dear friend?"
Jane cut her a weary glance. "Do you think these red berries might be edible?" she asked.
"Not," Lizzie went on, "that I haven't my share of minor character flaws. I tend to overthink matters; but I am more intelligent than the average female beagle; you must allow me that much. And can my flaws, if flaws they actually be, blend together in a manner so poor and tawdry as to make you refer to me as 'vicious'? Really, Jane, I feel..."
"Lizzie," her sister interrupted, "please be quiet for a moment. The birds have ceased their incessant twittering. I believe someone is coming."
And a hound's breath later two well-formed male dogs stepped into the little glen and easily made their way across the stream.
"My dear Miss Beagle," said Mr. Gardiner, briefly acknowledging Lizzie before focusing his entire gaze upon Jane, "I am happy to see you safe and well, for I have been deeply concerned for your welfare."
"More to the point," barked Mr. Bingley, casting a look of deep affection (paw-in-paw with barely concealed passion) at the little beagle, "we have between us come up with a plan."
"I am truly glad to hear it," said Jane. "Are these red berries edible, do you think?"
Meanwhile, not far away at Pembroke Manor, Lady Lucas was stroking the charming present she had just received from Groton the footman. "What a luv of a pussycat!" she cried. "And look at the color. He's just what I wanted. Such a yum-yum. I'm going to call him Chutney."
"Bullocks if she will!" meowed Wickham loud enough to earn a growl from Lydia the beagle, who was lying at Lady Britney's splendidly shod feet.
"Sheathe those claws and shut your yap!" she told him. "So far we haven't placed a paw wrong. Don't blow it now, or it's back to catching stable rats for you, vermin-breath."
The large tabby sucked in the hiss which had been on the tip of his tongue, forced himself to flirtatiously roll his large cat's eyes at Lady Lucas, and then, to pour honey into already sweetened cream, he added a contented purr. The lady, as expected, went into raptures.
"What a widdle wuv!" she enthused, tickling his ear, "and won't my kissy-kitty just adore the city?"
Wickham longed to shred something, and the lady's plump white arm struck him as an attractive target, but he managed to restrain himself. The orange cat knew that his talents were wasted in this backwater of a place. In truth, he had longed to be transported to London, the glorious center of the universe, almost since birth. He rested his head against Lady Lucas' ample bosom and purred loudly enough to make her stays vibrate.
Lydia, now wholly approving of his conduct, wagged her tail, and relished the tummy tickle she received from Groton as he lifted her into a nearby carriage.
Not long thereafter this same carriage could be seen rolling down the road toward the highway, trailed by a smaller vehicle, and a large farm dog who went by the name of Loutie. The dog chased the small caravan as far as he was able, at which point he was finally given a ride next to the driver of the second carriage. So grateful was he that he proved himself to be an observant and redoubtable guardian all the way into London Town.
Story to be continued...
Her Grace, the Duchess of Avalon, rudely shoved aside her maid and reached for a tumbler of 'eau de cheveux du chien.' "You certainly took your time getting this concoction made up," grumbled that great lady, after loudly eructating.
"I suppose you were out flirting with some worthless farm boy while I sat up here in my room suffering the agonies of a headache? No wonder your lot was tossed out of France during the recent revolution!"
Feline from Yorkshire merely bobbed a curtsy, while gleefully imagining the duchess' head skewered on a long, sharp pike.
"Weel zat be all, yur grazz?" asked she, laying on her spurious French accent with a trowel.
"It will not be all!" shrieked the duchess. "Help me to screw on my leg, you worthless bitch! Or do you expect me to hobble down the stairs on one foot?"
"My dear, dear lady," murmured the poet Manfred Twittle, bolting into Her Grace's chamber the moment he caught sight of the murderous glint in the eye of his beloved part-French Filene. "You arise from your bed like Aurora, the rosy-hued goddess of dawn..."
"Oh, shut up and get out!" raged the duchess. "I arise from my bed with a bloody hangover, and I don't mean to put up with you, you useless pinch-assed runt of the litter."
"My dear duchess..."
Her Grace glanced up, and instantly abandoned her hostile posture like a stained chemise. A faint touch of pink could be seen on her cheeks, and her lips curved upward in a vaguely lecherous smile.
Her master of the hounds, John Smalls, had entered the room, and was walking toward her with a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye.
"I think it's time to start breeding the hounds," said he without preamble. "Gardiner seems fond of Sir Bernard's Jane, who is currently in season, and she seems eager to reciprocate."
The duchess shoved her empty tumbler at Filene. "You don't want to wait a little longer?" she asked. "I want to be certain this match takes."
"It will, I'm sure," he replied with a promising wink, as he bowed over the perfumed hand she extended to him. "Would you care to accompany me to the breeding pen to witness the happy event?"
"More likely she'd prefer to get our John into the breeding pen and enjoy a happier one," whispered Filene to Mr. Twittle, who responded by pinching her bottom.
"Screw my leg on first, will you?" purred the duchess, raising her skirts for Mr. Smalls, as Filene and Manfred Twittle seized the opportunity to bow and scrape their way toward an antechamber.
They were almost through the door when Sir Bernard came bursting in, his eyes wild, his hair as mussed as a discarded dove's nest, and the veins on either side of his face standng out like a pointer's stance. "She's missing!" he cried. "My wife Britney is missing!"
Story to be continued...
Story continued...
Demurely dropping the hem of her morning dress to a level below one bony knee, the duchess rose to her foot. "You don't mean to say that Britney is missing? Is it possible you simply misplaced her?"
Her cousin furiously shook his head. "No, no. She is gone, her clothes are gone, and worst of it all -- Sally is gone."
"Sally is gone?" The duchess looked bewildered.
"Sallee?" repeated Filene
"Sally, Sally, Sally," murmured Manfred Twittle. "Sally forth, Sally. O, Sally, Sally of the Valley. Sal..."
"You mean that zaftig wench with the frontal development of Blenheim Palace?" inquired Mr. Smalls, interrupting Mr. Twittle's hopelessly inane soliloquy.
"The very one," admitted Sir Bernard. "Both of them. Gone. Vanished. Missing. I am out of my mind with worry."
"Why?" asked the duchess. "You never much liked Britney and married her only for her money."
Sir Bernard blinked. "But she's my wife, old girl, and when I think about it, she was something of a looker. As for Sally -- well." He smiled broadly, and then broke wind to underscore his point.
"You could do much better, Bernie," his cousin offered comfortingly, while Mr. Smalls arched a questioning eyebrow, and Filene and Manfred Twittle looked rather displeased.
At the very moment this unwholesome little family drama was taking place, Jane Beagle and Mr. Gardiner stood before the mating pen, awaiting the inevitable. Happily, neither appeared to be particularly disconcerted.
"Are you reasonably composed, my dear?" asked Mr. Gardiner politely, and his intended answered with a brief, assenting nod.
"Ain't love grand?" said she, wagging her tail with sheer delight -- for not only had she finally devoured a solid meal after a lengthy overnight fast, but only a short time before, she and her Irish pocadan had at long last consummated their loving relationship -- and now she and her friend Gardiner planned to fake a mating.
"Interrupted 'coitus interruptus' may prove a somewhat difficult feat, but it's far from an impossible one," the amiable beagle had been quick to assure her, and with her fears put to rest, Jane was fully convinced that one specious roll in the hay was a small price to pay for everlasting happiness.
Story to be continued...
"What the bloody hell is HE doing here?" cried Sir Bernard Dogorrel when he espied Andrew Dinmont, the local vicar, alighting from his runabout directly in front of Hound Hall.
"Set the dogs on the man, Bernie" suggested his cousin, the duchess.
"Can't," responded Sir Bernard. "The fellow's the bloody vicar. We've still got to observe the proprieties, eh. Don't we?"
The duchess yawned. "We'll breed the beagles tomorrow, Smalls," she told her master of the hounds, who sat beside her in the library -- she on a sofa, he on a straight-backed chair, neatly flanked by Manfred Twittle, squirming on a stool, and Filene, standing against a wall, arms akimbo, tapping an aristocratic little foot.
Standing at attention in the middle of the room were the household servants, minus the butler, who was still suffering the horrors after downing almost an entire keg of Sir Bernard's French brandy the night before.
John Smalls nodded. "It won't be a problem, ma'am," he assured her, before cutting his eyes to Sir Bernard, who stood with his nose pressed up against a dingy pane of glass, carefully watching the vicar's progress.
"The revered Dinmont," announced Reddle the footman, a man with a plump stomach of solid lead, who had downed almost as much brandy as the butler without suffering the other's agonies -- like seeing pink hedgehogs climbing the walls, or cows dancing on tiptoe.
"That's REVEREND," Sir Bernard corrected him. "He's not revered for anything that I know of, and what in God's name are you doing out and about this early in the day, Andrew?"
"Why, it's mid-afternoon," protested the unrevered vicar, who at that moment caught sight of the Duchess of Avalon, whipped off his hat, and all but fell to his knees in mute adoration.
"Oh, stop groveling, man!" that gracious lady insisted. "State your business and be gone. If you're not a complete half-wit, it must be obvious to you that we are in the midst of a slight family crisis."
"What has happened?" asked the vicar, a youngish man who looked even less mature than his actual years because of an extremely boyish countenance highlighted by large, bovine eyes -- eyes which gave the impression of innocence bordering on stupidity, which was not, if fact, the case.
"If you must know," said Sir Bernard, "Lady Britney has gone missing along with her maid, Sally."
Story to be continued...
Story continued...
The vicar glanced about at the assembled staff. "And you suspect foul play?" he asked.
"Well, by God, man! What else? cried Sir Bernard. "I mean to say, my wife and Sally wouldn't just run off, would they?"
The vicar hiked his eyebrows, which were as thick and dark as the clothes he wore; eyebrows which were not in the least a good match for his otherwise cherubic features. "I suppose not," said he. "You are assuming...a kidnapping plot, perhaps?"
Sir Bernard sat down and slapped his thigh. "By God! That's it! A kidnapping plot! Why, thank you, Andrew."
"Always happy to oblige," responded the vicar.
"Why are you here?" the duchess wanted to know. "Shouldn't you be off somewhere...sermonizing?"
The vicar fiddled with the brim of his hat. "I came to ask for a small donation for the poor..." he began, but Sir Bernard cut him off.
"This is a bloody rotten time to ask me for money!"
"Well, then," said the vicar, "I won't overstay my welcome. Oh! Did you know that Lady Lucas has left her husband and gone off to London?" he added, almost as an afterthought.
"What does that have to do with us?" asked Sir Bernard, looking genuinely perplexed. "I despise the Lucas family. Sir William is a self-made man. A merchant! And Lady Lucas was once an actress, I believe. Totally disreputable people, my dear sir. People I would not have in this house."
"I beg your pardon," apologized the vicar, who immediately bowed to the duchess and hastily took his leave.
Halfway back to Pembroke Manor, he broke into almost hysterical chuckles. He couldn't wait to tell his dear friend Willums, also known as Sir William Lucas, exactly what had transpired at Hound Hall. Willums would love the idea of a kidnapping plot. That had been sheer genius on his part, concluded the vicar, and once again laughed so hard, he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
Meanwhile, down by the mating pen, Jane and her intended groom were showing signs of boredom and frustration, as were several other members of the mating party.
"It's far less stressful the way we horses do it," commented Steve, Mr. Horock's personal favorite coach horse to his somewhat less tractable brother Larry.
"Right you are," agreed his brother. "With us it's simply a matter of kick and mount. No preliminaries to worry about. Just like taking a fence. Up and over."
"Easy for you to say," called out a pretty mare from inside her stall. "You don't have scars on your hips. As for me, I wouldn't mind a bit of gentle foreplay."
Mrs. Squiggle, who liked being part of the audience at a good mating, nodded over her slops. "I'm with ye, Rosebud, and I'm a sow wot's been around. A little foreplay beats a kick in th' arse any old day."
"Where is Lydia?" Mrs. Beagle asked her. "Have you seen my daughter? I can't imagine she would be so inconsiderate as to miss her own sister's mating."
Mrs. Squiggle shook her head. "Ain't seen 'er all day, and thass the truth of it. Not 'er nor that fop of a pussycat."
Steve and Larry also shook their heads, and Rosebud the mare neighed in the negative.
Mr. Darcy raised a eyebrow, Lizzie shrugged, Mr. Gardiner did the same, and Jane looked concerned.
"I can't find her anywhere, my dear," admitted Mr. Beagle, arriving on the scene at that moment.
"Oh, my Dog!" howled his scandalized spouse. "Lydia is missing!"
Story to be continued.
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