Chapter Three #3
The latest unexpected development began with two carriages barreling toward the Hall like lunatics and a cowbell crashing to earth to top the whole thing off. That bell did not have the courtesy to meet with the earth until after making a violent stop on Lord Burkhart’s head.
A lord of the realm, just arrived to Chemsworth Hall, is to be assaulted with a cowbell. No house in England had ever welcomed a lord with so little courtesy.
It had gone downhill from there.
He’d had hopes that whatever enmity had been between Lancastrians and Yorkists had been long forgotten. Perhaps it had lingered in his father’s time, but in the modern day, surely it had been left behind.
It had been clear from the outset that Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander did not care for one another. Initially, he’d hoped that the cause was some temporary nonsense between young men.
Until Mr. Lelander complimented the viscountess on her red roses. It was a direct slap at the Yorkist white rose.
He sipped his tea in his butler’s closet as Lady Mulholland’s Pomeranian, Dandy, lazed on his bed by the hearth. Mrs. Featherstone, Chemsworth’s intrepid housekeeper, had been murmuring various sentiments like “I knew it” and “Did I not say” and “As I feared” for the past quarter hour.
Mrs. Featherstone always claimed to know it. She would vow that she’d said it and feared it when anything was happening in the house. He had long thought that the housekeeper liked to predict disaster because if it arrived, she could say she’d known it, said it, and feared it.
“Well, Mr. Smuckers, what are we to do about that mess above stairs?”
Smuckers set his tea down. “We will do nothing at all, Mrs. Featherstone. The disagreement between those two gentlemen goes back hundreds of years. We have a Lancastrian and a Yorkist in the house. We cannot expect to smooth it over if they are so obtuse as to still be arguing about it.”
“Oh aye,” Mrs. Featherstone said. “It reminds me of Mr. Groggins and Mr. Jelldon. Last I heard, Groggins attempted to kick Jelldon’s dog, missed, and fell in the mud. That sort of thing will just make the argument drag on and on.”
Smuckers did not have the first idea why the Roses War would recall to Mrs. Featherstone‘s mind the idea of two recalcitrant local farmers.
Those two fellows had been arguing over a fence line for years.
Not precisely the same gravity as an argument over who ought to be king that had resulted in endless lives lost and estates destroyed.
“I hope they don’t come to blows,” Mrs. Featherstone said. “Them two gentlemen above stairs, I mean. Groggins and Jelldon have already come to blows several times.”
“All we can do, Mrs. Featherstone, is stand with the house.”
“For all the good it will do,” Mrs. Featherstone murmured. “We’re on a sinking ship, to my mind. Just as I feared.”
Just then, Teddy popped round the doorframe.
“Am I allowed in?” he whispered.
Smuckers nodded.
Teddy threw himself on the floor and scratched Dandy’s head. “I am hiding from my grandmama, in case she wants to ask me about the cowbell.”
“I think you mean she may wish to ask you about the cowbell that fell on Lord Burkhart’s head.”
“Yes, that is the one I’m talking about. Bertie and I argued over it because I was supposed to get a turn and he wouldn’t give it to me.”
“Yes, you did shout that at us after the fact.”
Dandy rolled over on his back so that Teddy might rub his belly for him.
The boy complied, but he also let out a long and protracted sigh.
“Grandmama will be disappointed in me. Then Miss Millthorpe will hear and be disappointed in me. I really do not like to disappoint people. Mama will say I am perfect, but she always does so I think it cannot always be true. She’s very partial to me. ”
Mrs. Granger certainly was partial. Teddy could burn down the house and she would claim it was for the best as the house had always been too cold anyway.
Whether he was too much indulged or not, Smuckers had a soft spot for Teddy.
He did not like to see the boy so down about the situation.
“Well now, it was just a youthful mistake, I imagine. As well, Bertie is older than you are, so perhaps he ought to have known better.”
Teddy perked up. “That’s true. Bertie should have known better. I’m only seven, what do I know?”
“That’s the spirit. Now I suggest you go and see the viscountess and face it down. Avoiding it will not serve you. What will you do at dinner? Hide under the table? Go and get it over with.”
Teddy took a moment to think about it, scratching Dandy’s ears in contemplation.
Then he said, “That’s good advice, Mr. Smuckers.
I’ll go and see Grandmama and tell her everything Bertie did wrong and remind her that he’s older and should have known better.
I never do anything like it when he’s not here.
I never in my life dropped a bell on anybody’s head before today. ”
“I should hope not,” Smuckers said drily.
“It’s true, I never did,” Teddy said. With that, the young man jumped to his feet. He set off to find his grandmother to prosecute and convict young Bertie on the matter of the crime of the falling cowbell.
Mrs. Featherstone snorted. “Bertie is moments away from going down the drain. Serves him right, the little blighter.”