Chapter 6 #3
Sheldon paused, two sandwiches on his plate as well as several tarts.
“We’re in the Home Counties, my lord. Throw a stone, and you’ll hit a Tory member of Parliament or his wealthy patron.
If you hit a peer, same result. Tories from here to Town and back.
The vagrant former soldiers flooding the land have made John Bull leery of change and wary of anything that looks like giving the government a say in his business. ”
He took a bite of a sandwich. “I vow I shall wed Cook. If she won’t have me, I’ll wed the first cook who will.”
The sandwiches were some sort of soft cheese with bits of ham and a dash of pepper. Excellent winter fare.
“Who among your Tory neighbors did Dantry rub the wrong way at every turn?” I asked. “With whom did he raise his voice? Who never shared the same guest list as the earl?”
Sheldon paused in his chewing, then resumed. “Off the top of my head, your questions bring to mind three names. Good fellows, but Dantry exhausted their patience. Does my lord intimate that Dantry has come to a bad end at the hands of a political enemy?”
“Not particularly, but kidnapping is a more than theoretical explanation for Dantry’s absence.” Slightly more, assuming Dantry had willingly slipped out to meet his kidnappers. “Who are the three who came to mind?”
Sheldon started on another sandwich. “The Honorable James Fletcher, our immediate neighbor to the east. He was our MP when I was a boy, and now his nephew has that thankless job. The nephew is Mr. Alphonse Fletcher, and while Alph is more deferential toward Dantry than the old man ever will be, Alph is the more devious. Ridicules Dantry behind his back, imitates him, mocks his mannerisms.”
“And Fletcher isn’t held in contempt for those tactics?” I helped myself to a second sandwich. Fresh white bread, soft crusts, a hint of French mustard among the ham and cheese. My belly had abruptly become bottomless.
“The Fletchers own very nearly as much land as we do, my lord. All of their jokes are hilarious, all of their arguments brilliant. What other choice do the local shopkeepers and yeomen have?”
Dantry was giving them a choice, though apparently not a popular one.
“Who is the earl’s third possible detractor?”
“I must say, I don’t care for this line of inquiry. You imply that one of our neighbors, somebody who has known Dantry and me for eons, would carry political differences to a dangerous end.”
Now he turned up full of provincial loyalties? “Are you familiar with English history, Arbuthnot?”
He grinned. “Valid point. We aren’t the most peaceful people, are we?
Very well. The third individual who despises Dantry’s inclinations is Lord Huffnagel.
The baron is old-school, though. He condescends to Dantry, treats him as an amusement, a misguided young lad who will soon learn the error of his simplistic, softhearted ways.
I like Huffnagel. I get along with the Fletchers.
The sad thing is, Dantry would say the same about himself and believe it. ”
I was abruptly as tired as I was hungry. I’d been awake early and gone more rounds with Dantry’s writings. He was consistent in his perspective and utterly unrealistic in his aims. Visionaries often were, until their dreams became the next winning platform on the hustings.
In Spain, two hours of slogging along frozen, snowy lanes would have barely qualified as an outing, and Atlas had certainly acquitted himself well on the journey, but I was no longer nearly as fit for such battles.
“Will you provide me letters of introduction to the Fletchers and Lord Huffnagel?”
Sheldon sighed mightily. “If you insist. You fear the worst—commendable of you—while I fear that Dantry’s high-flown rhetoric has simply gone to his head.
He’s preaching sedition to drunks somewhere, or trying to turn streetwalkers into schoolgirls.
If he loses his wits, I truly do not know what I will do. ”
“You will obtain his power of attorney and cope as best you can.”
Sheldon stared at me as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me aright. “My brother is sane, sir. I spoke in jest. I hope you do not insult him with your suggestion.”
The affable, financially harried younger son had teeth.
“You brought up a fear for his lordship’s mental competence, Arbuthnot.
Many a titled family has had to deal with that situation.
I merely stated the obvious response. I never did thank you for this good food, or the offer of a night’s lodging.
I am grateful for both and for your willingness to discuss a difficult situation openly. ”
He started on his tarts. “Sir Clive doubtless put you up to this little earl hunt. He’s a dear old thing. He went a bit barmy when Jamie died, but that was years ago. Sir Clive was more of an uncle than a cousin to us, and I’ve often wished his example would inspire Dantry to some moderation.”
A third sandwich found its way onto my plate. “Moderation in what sense?”
“Pay the rubbishing trades!” Sheldon expostulated with unusual heat.
“Either deal with the tenants or make the steward deal with the tenants, and if the steward is deaf as a post and older than all the biblical patriarchs combined, then pension him and find somebody who can do the job. Sell off the unentailed parcels to the cits for vanity properties. Marry wealth. Simple, sensible steps that Dantry…”
He fell silent and patted his lips with a monogrammed linen table napkin. “Apologies. Apparently, I, too, can grow impassioned in pursuit of my causes. Who knew?”
As we finished every crumb of the food before us, Sheldon explained how to find my way to the Fletcher household and to Lord Huffnagel’s abode and further regaled me with stories about his university years.
The same stories I’d heard from other younger sons, peers, and commanding officers. They had public school prequels and new-to-Town sequels, and Sheldon knew them all.
He was, in some regards, much like Sir Clive. Unprepossessing, likable, realistic. Like his brother the earl—and unlike Sir Clive—Sheldon also had an ability to prose on enthusiastically at length about nothing of any immediate significance to his audience.