A Literary Adventure

"Poppet, have you seen my polishing rag?" Samuels' question preceded him into the cook's room, though only barely. As he entered, Samuels was startled to see Mrs. Mathews leap up from her desk and hastily stuff a typewriter into her bosom, summarily smearing still-wet ink over the majority of her chest in the process. "What are you doing?" he inquired, his reason for entering quite eclipsed by his curiosity at her strange behavior.

"Nothing!" She jumped on the word like a startled rodent, while leaning against the fireplace in a conspicuously casual manner. "I haven't seen your polishing rag and I definitely didn't accidentally incinerate it while making the salad dressing for last night's dinner." 

"There wasn't a salad with dinner last night" rebutted Samuels, momentarily sidetracked.

"Exactly, Dominic. Quite right. So if that was all you wanted..." She crossed the room to him, and resumed her casual lean against his chest, subtly trying to push him out of the room.  

"Why did you shove your typewriter into your bosom when I came in? I didn't even know you wrote."

"What? What typewriter?" Mrs. Matthews' voice shot up an octave.

Quick as a flash Samuels wrapped one arm around the cook's torso, securing her against him, while the other arm plunged unceremoniously into her cleavage and began rooting around. When he'd first hired her, Samuels had regarded the nearly infinite storage capacity of Mrs. Matthews' bosom with something akin to horrified wonderment, and  he had thus refused to go anywhere near it. In the ensuing months, however, the butler had become thoroughly inured to it.  "You've redecorated in there," he observed casually. "I like the new wallpaper."

"Thank you. I find that purple really brings out the shine in the mahogany furniture," replied Mrs. Matthews cheerfully, though she continued to squirm and thrash against him in a bid for freedom. Unfortunately her violent movements did Samuels more help than harm, as they pushed his arm deeper into the mysterious space and, quite by accident, maneuvered his hand onto the hurriedly stashed typewriter.  With a triumphant exclamation the butler lifted it out and spun away from its owner, quickly scanning the half-smeared words.

It took several minutes for him to turn back to his friend and confront her about what she'd written. At first, Samuels assumed that the smeared ink had blurred the words into meaninglessness. Then he assumed that he must be projecting his own repressed desires onto the cook's innocuous writing. Finally he realized that it was neither of these things, and that she had indeed written the story he had read.

He turned to her. "Jack the Bodice Ripper, London's Premier Playboy Murderer?" He made the very words a question, and had so many more behind them.

Mrs Matthews had the decency to turn bright red, and she stammered out her response. "Well, yes, I suppose you could read it like that. I like to think that there are other interpretations as well..." She trailed off under the look Samuels was giving her.

"What on earth possessed you to write this kind of story?" he demanded, equal parts entertained and scandalized.

"Oh, you know, it's just one of those things Dominic. It started as a joke, but then the Lady found one of the stories while she was going through my things (looking for assassins) and she loved it. She bullied m'lord Blackbourne into setting up the printing press in the basement, and now I'm on the twelfth book of the series.  We have sold almost a million copies on the literary black market in London Town," she concluded with not a little pride.

"I was wondering what the printing press was doing in the basement," murmured Samuels. "Wait, you mean there are eleven more of these stories?"

"Yes. I have the whole collection, leather bound. It's actually quite a classy presentation, though heaven knows the stories aren't!" She cackled wickedly. "Would you like to borrow them, Dominic?"

Samuels considered nursing his offended sensibilities, but chose instead to laugh in the face of his cook's eccentricities and, once started, found he could not stop. He giggled and chuckled for quite a long time before finally calming down long enough to ask, "My dear Mrs Matthews, will you ever cease to surprise me?"

"I certainly hope not!" came the cheeky reply. "I would hate to think I'm losing my touch,"

An Interlude with Isabella

Isabella woke up one fine Autumn morning and smiled widely. At least, she assumed it was a fine morning. The billowing black smoke and noxious fumes filling her apartment made it rather difficult to see out the window and check. Still, she smiled nonetheless, her cheeks pressing into the edges of the self-powered respirator she had invented and had spent the previous night testing.  She climbed out of bed, pulling on her clunky black work boots on her way, and groped her way through the gloom to the other side of the room, where the source of the smoke lay, wheezing industriously away.

It was once a modest but efficient fireplace, set into the wall in a corner of her modest but efficient lodgings. However, like so many things in the apartment, it had fallen victim to Isabella's  "bedding in" of her abode, and had emerged from the process an entirely new entity. It was not entirely clear to anyone, including Isabella herself, what she had hoped to achieve with her embellishments, but the net result of her efforts was that any time it was turned on, it proceeded to flood the room with poisonous, opaque gas in fairly short order. Apparently this was result enough for Isabella, as she refrained from tinkering with it further, and used it for that singular purpose on a semi regular basis. Impatiently she kicked the back left corner of the thing with the heel of her boot until it turned itself off with a painful-sounding THUD. Isabella then proceeded to force open the flat's one window, in the hopes of encouraging the remainder of the black smoke, that which had not already escaped out the door and into the building at large, to vacate the premises to the point at which she could breathe unaided. It did so reluctantly, wafting up to blend homogeneously with the rest of the putrid smog that hung above the rooftops of London.

This experiment, along with innumerable others of a similar vein, were the reason that Isabella, twin sister of Dominic Samuels and for all the world a very well-bred, well-educated, well-to-do lady of English society, found herself living in a "lab" that was hardly more than a broom-cupboard, filled to bursting with inventions and various suspect bits of machinery, the most basic amenities, and a small bed shoved into the farthest corner, as if by an afterthought. When her brother expressed his concern about her living arrangements (and their implications towards their family's financial station), Isabella had laughed, rather unnaturally, and insisted that she did not need much space.

Indeed, she was a tiny woman, slender and delicately featured, though the near-explosion of unruly curls bursting from the top of her head, fighting for space with the customary goggles she kept among them, made her seem larger. She looked much like her twin, though she was pale where he was darker, and he always kept himself impeccably neat while she often appeared more like an whirlwind with legs than a person. Both were small for their respective genders, uncommonly lovely and sharp-featured, and both had the same disconcerting eyes, such a light brown that they seemed to shine gold in certain lights, gleaming with alert intelligence at all times. 

Not assuaged, however, Samuels had made a few private inquiries, and had discovered that, for all of his sister's flippant remarks on the subject, she was indeed living in a hovel out of necessity. After the rather suspect destruction of two or three well-respected rental flats all over London Town, Isabella's reputation now preceded her, and landlords had begun refusing her custom in the nicer parts of the city. Still, he knew better than to try and meddle in his sister's affairs, and reluctantly left the matter alone. If she was safe and content, it was enough.

On this particular morning, Isabella was not only safe and content, she was also nearly buzzing with excitement. Today was the day. The one she had been waiting for. Today, some of the finest scientific minds would be gathered together for the purpose of studying the latest and greatest inventions taking place both domestically and on the continent. Isabella herself had not been invited, which she viewed as an inexcusable slight to her pride; one that she was determined to avenge.

It was clear to her that the only reason she had not been asked to join the conference, and the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (an honour she had coveted for as long as she could remember) was that she had the unfortunate burden of being born a woman in a cruelly male-dominated world. True, in an exchange of vitriolic (on her end) letters with the President of the Royal Society, he had claimed that the Society at large recognized her significant achievements of scientific innovation, and were perfectly willing to induct her into their ranks the moment a spot opened up for her, provided she would modify her inventions to be less of a "constant danger to life and limb." Yet Isabella had not been assuaged, and proceeded to interpret the letter's contents as both condescending pacification from the chauvinistic academics and an attempt to stifle her creative genius. In that moment she decided that the Royal Society would be her arch-nemesis, and that she would make them pay for their crimes against her and all woman-kind. 

Her revenge had taken much planning, and today was the day it would finally come to fruition. It all centered around her masterpiece, entitled "An Open Letter to the Royal Society". A masterpiece it was, oozing scorn and biting rhetoric from every syllable of the one-page (for easy consumption) condemnation of the Society and everything they stood for. Indeed, once read this essay had the power to change even the smallest and most tightly closed mind, and could persuade even the repugnant, patriarchy-spewing louses of the Society to fight the good fight for women in academia.

The letter's method of creation and reproduction, however, was far from a masterpiece. It had started its life as an ordinary typewriter, purchased and gifted to Isabella by her brother, in the hopes that venting her frustrations through the printed word might dissipate them slightly. Isabella soon discovered, however, the typewriter did have its limitations. It was a perfectly serviceable machine for the production of one disavowal of the patriarchy, but when one needed several hundred copies of said disavowal, it fell rather short. So Isabella had, in her free time, taken to tinkering with it, until it reached a point where it very nearly satisfied her ambitions.

After carefully typing out the first beautiful, error-free copy of "An Open Letter etc" into the machine by hand, Isabella stepped back and allowed the machine itself to produce the remaining 499 pages at faster rate than any human could have typed them. The way it worked, she flattered herself to think, was rather ingenious. The device recorded the sequence in which she pressed the keys of the keyboard, and replicated that sequence with 99% accuracy, producing a nearly perfect copy. The only problem with the device was that the process of making the first copy, which obviously necessitated utilizing the keyboard, wiped the original sequence that Isabella had typed in, replacing it with the copy currently being produced, and so forth for every subsequent copy. In small batches the difference from the first page to the last would hardly be noticeable- the tenth copy would still be slightly more then ninety percent accurate when compared to the original. However, the five hundredth copy would be significantly less so. A flawed system, assuredly, but still Isabella had faith that her message would come through clearly enough. So that afternoon, letters somewhat in hand but also largely in the satchel bag slung over her shoulder, Isabella emerged from her flat and started off towards the conference.

When she arrived, however, Isabella encountered a problem which left her thoroughly flummoxed. The scientists were not, as she had imagined they would be, simply milling about a great hall, chatting airily with each other about what a lovely day it was to be elitist. They were instead gathered into many separate conference halls, deep in concentration as several of their peers demonstrated and presented on their various fields of study. And much as she loathed and resented them, Isabella was quite vexed to discover that she was too thoroughly English to be able to storm into their midst, as she had planned to do, and rudely interrupt their focus.

Instead she had to console herself by scattering the copies of the letter about the courtyard and throughout the lavatories of the conference building, where they might be seen and read at a less disruptive time. Reluctantly she acknowledged the Society's victory at this time, for it had become clear to her that these circumstances had been an elaborately planned trap into which she had naively blundered. She vowed never again to allow her voice to be silenced by the cruel, muffling hand of Man, and set off back towards her lab with a renewed spirit and redoubled determination.

When the conference attendees discovered the flyers some time later, as they dispersed for their evening meals, they quickly discarded them as meaningless nonsense, which of course all but the first few copies were.

That first beautiful, magnificent copy, however, the true masterpiece, was happened upon by a bright young scientist who, perplexed, had picked it up off the bench where he sat eating his supper. Upon reading it he felt his mind expand, his outlooks and perspective on life thoroughly and irreparably altered. He knew in that moment that whatever path his life may have been following, its course had now been diverted, wrapped inextricably with that of the mysterious author of this incredible letter.

But Isabella would not know of any of this for a long time.

The Lady and the Egg

When the Lord woke up one fine fall morning, something was different. He frowned and tensed, taking stock of his surroundings and trying to identify the interloper. Different, in the Lord's strident, lordly opinion, was never a good thing. He could deal with things being disorganized, inexplicable, morbid, ridiculous and/or flammable; that was the usual fare in his household and he was well accustomed to it. However, all of his coping mechanisms for things of the aforementioned categories hinged upon his own personal, rigidly kept schedule and organization of various accoutrements, and anything different could be construed as nothing but a blatant threat against his physical and mental well-being. Identifying it was therefore of the utmost importance.

The view outside his window displayed a grey, chilly-looking day, not at all out of the usual for the season and perhaps the setting for a pleasant walk with the Lady, provided she was not about to succumb to any weather-related ailments that day. The Lord's bedroom was neat, every item in its proper place, and his clothes for the day, as well as a selection of shoes, had been carefully laid out by Samuels in the earliest hours of the morning. Everything appeared to be in order, yet still the threatening presence made itself know as an unpleasant shiver at the edge of the Lord's nerves. He turned to ask the Lady if she sensed the danger as well, and quite by accident discovered the source of his uneasiness. For rather than finding his wife curled into a tight ball, pretending to have succumbed to the elements in the night, the Lord found himself facing an egg.

It was a rather large egg- larger than he had ever seen, but otherwise unremarkable in color, shape and texture. Having been thus identified, the egg was moved from 'different' to 'inexplicable' and 'most likely flammable', and the Lord relaxed considerably. Those were categories he had a great deal of experience with handling.  The questions of how the egg came to be his unlikely bedmate, and why, and whether it was dangerous, would be answered in their own time, and so the Lord did not fret himself overmuch about them. That was his way.

As it happened, many of the answers came to him that afternoon, as he was taking tea with the Lady Rose. He had noticed that his wife had been eating with much more enthusiasm than usual, and was moving from her third to fourth tea cake, while normally it was an event if she finished one. The Lord chose to take this as a good sign, and tentatively inquired if the Lady's consumption might be feeling a bit better today. It did plague her so in the winter months. 

"Ghastly as ever," she replied, cramming yet more cake into her mouth at the same time, "only now I must eat more because I'm eating for two."

It took the Lord approximately four seconds to understand the implications behind her statement, after which his face sprinted through an array of colors including but not limited to green, red, purple and turquoise, before finally settling on a ghastly ashen hue. 

"My dear, am I to understand that you are with child?" He inquired tentatively.

"Of course I am, and you know it perfectly well! I left my child in bed with you this morning so you could meet it." She replied testily, as if the Lord was being particularly stupid that afternoon.

It took the Lord a moment to understand, though there was only one possible answer. "... You mean the egg?" He finally asked.

"Yes yes, the egg. MY egg! I laid it last night!" She declared proudly.

The Lord's dignity (and rather prudish nature), coupled with the chauvinistic state of the upper crust of society, left him with a fairly fuzzy understanding of female biology, however he was fairly certain that this was not the usual manner in which these circumstances came about. Still, he decided after careful consideration, perhaps it was not so much a calamity as a blessing. After all, how much more chaos could one child cause than already inflicted itself upon the Manor on a daily basis?  He smiled at his wife before retiring to his study to draw up a budget for the new financial dependent, as a means of celebration.

That was how Dominic Samuels found him several hours later, when he returned to the Manor and his duties after his day off. "Good afternoon, Samuels," the Lord greeted his butler cheerfully.

"Good afternoon, my Lord," Dominic replied with a good deal of trepidation. The last time his master had displayed this much enthusiasm was the day Her Majesty had unbanned him from (the newly repaired) Buckingham Palace, and he seriously doubted there would be a repeat of that after the last... incident.

"As you may or may not know, Samuels, something very exciting has occurred today," the Lord continued with his distressing friendliness

Dominic wracked his brain to think what it might be. He was not in the habit of being uninformed or taken by surprise by goings-on in the Manor, and he made a mental note to take fewer personal days. "We received a package from Lord Caldwell in the post this morning," Dominic ventured, though he could not imagine why his master would be particularly excited about that.

"Oh yes? That's thoughtful of him. What was in it?" Inquired the Lord, clearly enjoying getting to pull one over on his usually infallible servant and wishing to draw out the moment a bit longer.

"A fascinating assortment of spices, some high quality silks, and a rather large egg his Lordship came across." Dominic dutifully reported.

For the second time that day, the Lord's face sprinted through an array of colors including but not limited to crimson, orange, mauve and gold, before finally settling on a ghastly ashen hue as sudden clarity struck his brain. "An egg? It wouldn't happen to be largish, creamish, and currently being cradled lovingly by my lady wife, would it?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Very well, Samuels. That will be all for now."

Dominic began to walk away, thoroughly puzzled, but he paused at the door and turned back. "If I might be so bold as to inquire, sir, what the news was you wished to tell me?"

"It's nothing. Enjoy the remainder of your day off." 

In a melancholy mood, the Lord moved his budget calculations off his desk, placing them in the trash bin for a moment, before changing his mind and carefully filing them away, perhaps for a later day.

The Lord's Nephew Pays a Visit

"Samuels, what day is it today?" Inquired the Lord in a bored tone, barely glancing up from his tea and newspaper.

"Tuesday, sir," replied Dominic from his position on the floor, continuing to polish the Lord's shoes.

"Tuesday?" The Lord sounded suddenly very much alarmed. "But that means..."

"I'M HERE!!!!" Sounded the excruciatingly chipper and wholly unwelcome voice of the Lord's nephew from the manor's front hall.

Sir Andrew, the fop, had arrived.

With a groan, the Lord hauled himself to his feet and strode out of his study onto the second floor landing, with Dominic trailing at a deferential distance. The Lord peered down at his nephew and rather failed to suppress a shudder of horror at the riot of colors and patterns the lad was sporting. Sir Andrew, oblivious to his favorite uncle's disapproval, sang up in a breathy tenor voice "Oh hello Uncle! It's so lovely to see you again! Thank you so much for inviting me here!"

In fact, the Lord had done no such thing. Sir Andrew's bimonthly visits were not prompted by the Lord's hospitality as much as the Lady Rose's grim fascination with him, coupled with the Lord's concern for his sister - Andrew's mother's -  mental health when confined with the lad over extended periods of time.

The Lord grunted, then mustered the manners to respond. "Hello, lad. It's ERHURHUM to see you. Samuels will provide you some refreshments, should you desire them."

He immediately regretted this this offer when his nephew replied "Oh that's awfully kind of you, Uncle. I'm so hungry, I could eat a penis!"  

The Lord's face began to turn increasingly alarming shades of purple, until Dominic began to worry that Mrs Matthews had finally been successful in her lifelong quest to turn a person into jam. He also worried that perhaps he should intervene before Sir Andrew said something that would literally send his uncle into cardiac arrest. He did not worry that Sir Andrew might notice his uncle's silence and take offense at it. He wasn't even sure if Sir Andrew was capable of negative emotions.

Fortunately, the moment was saved when Sir Andrew noticed the Lady Rose poking her head out of a darkened corner and staring unblinkingly at him. His smile widened until every tooth in his mouth was visible, and then cried "Oh hello Auntie Rose! How are you today?"

The Lady hissed and retreated several steps into the shadows, clawing the air as she went. Sir Andrew laughed and clapped his hands in delight.  

Over the next several days, the Manor settled back into its routine, adjusting to the presence of Sir Andrew almost, though not entirely, as easily as it had to the sudden appearance of a crashed steam engine in the dining room several weeks earlier.

Sir Andrew spent his days blissfully floating from room to room, cheerfully getting underfoot and trying the patience of everyone he came across. Lauretta was particularly vexed by his presence after her initial attempts at flirting with the lad were rebuffed, as he blithely informed her that he preferred his girls with a heftier stock of facial hair.

The Lady occupied herself by surreptitiously following her nephew around as he fopped about, muttering darkly and taking notes in a leather-bound book.  When she observed him removing a large, hairy spider from the blood-drenched web it had woven over his pillow, whirling it about and singing an unfamiliar and sickeningly uplifting song, before depositing the creature safely on a tree branch outside his window, the Lady's body was wracked with spasms and she let out a horrific death knell.

When Sir Andrew then sweetly thanked his aunt for the 'lovely harmonization to his song', and she began frothing at the mouth, the Lord decided that it was time to send his nephew home.  He popped the youth into a carriage, was thanked for a splendid visit six or seven hundred times, kissed on the mouth, and bid adieu before he sent the lad on his merry way. When the carriage was out of sight, the Lord breathed a sigh of relief and briefly considered moving far away before his nephew could return, though he quickly dismissed the idea. It would be too much of a hassle, he determined, and though he would never admit it, he was truly quite fond of the boy.

The Dinner Party

It  was a very special occasion at Blackbourne Manor. This evening would mark the triumphant return of the Lord Rhett Caldwell, the Lady Rose Blackbourne's older brother, from his year-long exploration of the West Indies, and Lord Blackbourne had decided to throw a dinner party to celebrate. The Manor would be packed with some of the most influential persons of Britain, and it would, among other things, be an opportunity for the new Lord Blackbourne to take his place among the Society since inheriting his title earlier that year. The Lord was ensconced in his study, carefully mulling over his shoe collection and selecting an appropriate pair to wear that evening. It was an activity that would likely take all day.  Each of the household servants had a job to do in preparation for the evening's events, and all were overseen by the ever-watchful Dominic Samuels, the Lord's manservant.

By nine o'clock in the morning, the ever-watchful Dominic Samuels was on fire. It happened when he stepped into the kitchen see how the Manor's cook, Mrs Penelope Matthews, was progressing with preparing the supper. Hours earlier he had left her with a suggested menu for the evening, including dietary limitations of the various guests, and detailed instructions as to the presentation style of each dish. He was therefore more than a little bit alarmed when he entered the kitchen to see, not the chef earnestly slaving over several succulent and dairy-free meat pies to be served to the guests upon arrival, but rather the chef standing quite still in a corner of the room, gazing ponderously at a fire that was burning in the sink.

"Mrs Matthews, what the hell are you doing?" Dominic demanded

"Oh, hello Samuels. The sink is on fire." She observed casually.

"Then put it out! Throw water on it!" Snapped Samuels, exasperated with the eccentric woman. He did not even wait for the reply, he simply grabbed a dishcloth, soaked it in a conveniently placed bucket of water, and threw it over the flames. He was therefore surprised and not a little distressed when the flames immediately rose to engulf the cloth. "Ow! What the hell?" He cried, dropping the cloth and backing away.

"I've started the next great culinary renaissance, Samuels," Mrs Matthews calmly informed him, "Flammable water. It's going to be huge. Trust me." She then pulled a large, dry blanket out of her bosom and used it to smother the flames.

"Have you even started the dinner for tonight?" Dominic inquired, aggressively pushing down his frustration.

"There's a dinner tonight?" The chef cried, stricken. She held the face for a moment before breaking into an evil cackle and grinning widely. "I'm just foolin' you. I've got the pies in the oven now. Admittedly, they're a little heavier on the jam than you had on the menu... but I'm sure it will be fine!"

"Fine, good enough." Sighed Dominic, checking his watch and realizing that he was rapidly falling behind schedule. 

On his way to the dining room to check on the table settings, Dominic ran into the Lady, setting up decorations with the help of Mrs Matthews' daughter Lauretta and Eleanor Thomas, the maid.

As he was passing, he heard the Lady say, "No, Eleanor, the spatters need to look gruesome, not pretty! Go get more blood from the cellar and try again!" He stopped as the maid wandered off into the depths of the manor.

"My Lady, how is the decorating coming?" He inquired politely.

"Oh, it's loathsome, Samuels! Simply dreadful!" The Lady mournfully intoned

"So it's not going well, then?" It was a rather horrific scene laid out before him. Long, willowy spiderwebs coated every surface, and blood dripped from some of them onto the carpet. Skulls resided on every table, and from their eyes, candles flickered, which served more to emphasize the shadows than cast light. Dominic spent a moment wondering where the creepy, ethereal music was coming from, before he realized that Lauretta was standing directly behind him, humming moodily.

"No, it's going perfectly, Samuels! Do you use your eyes? I just told you that it was loathsome and dreadful!" The Lady shrieked, before doubling over in a dramatic coughing fit, smearing her white handkerchief with fake blood before holding it up to her lips. "I have consumption, and I shall be dead before the winter's out!!" She declared.

"It's spring, my Lady" Dominic felt compelled to point out.

"Be gone, Samuels! Leave me to my art!" The Lady waved her bloody handkerchief in a shooing motion. With a sigh, Dominic turned to leave. With any luck, the Lady's decorating would not spread beyond this wing of the Manor.

Dominic was almost glad that the only thing left to check on was his sister's table settings. Isabella was a mechanist and part-time mad scientist who lived in London Town, using her inventions to fight the good fight against chauvinist academia. She was visiting the Blackbourne Manor on the pretense of visiting her dear brother, but it was a tissue-thin disguise over her true intentions, as the leader of the London Society of Maths and Sciences would be attending the dinner party, and she had a thing or two to say to him.

Isabella was belligerent and embittered against the state of the world, and things around her tended to leak oil and/or explode, but her only job for the day was to place the finest china and silver on the table, and Dominic had confidence in her ability to do it.

The sudden and complete shattering of ones confidence is a very particular feeling, and it engulfed Dominic completely as he entered the dining room. The table was spinning. Violently. And smoking. And leaking oil all over the beautifully polished hardwood floor. In the detached, butler's consciousness that he maintained even and especially in times of crisis, he noted that his sister had indeed neatly set the plates and utensils, and had folded the napkins with an artful  flair that he must remember to have her teach him.

He forced a deep breath. At least the plates seemed to be staying in place and not flying off and breaking. Another. The floors were easily cleaned, and the damage would not be permanent. One more. Nothing had exploded yet, and that was truly remarkable for one of Isabella's creations.

When he was feeling calm enough to speak, he calmly inquired "'Dear sister, what are you doing?"

''Fixing the table,'' she replied cheerfully, attempting to wrangle it to submission and having very little luck, as she was a tiny and delicate creature for all of her aggressive personality.

"It wasn't broken"

"It is now! Don't worry though, I'm on it," she assured her brother, wiping the sweat from her brow and smearing grease across her face in the process.

"I'm sure you will," said Dominic. He had decided to give up on trying to make this evening any more than it was- a Blackbourne Manor affair. The guests would just have to cope with the madness. He just hoped that Lord Caldwell would not be disappointed.

******************************************************************

The party ended up being a great success. Isabella managed to hog-tie the table into submission, though it did still leak, necessitating a bucket being strategically placed beneath it; a minor inconvenience for the luxury of a stationary table. The food was delicious, though there was a heavy concentration of jam, as Mrs Matthews had mentioned. If any of the glasses were filled with flammable water, they politely remained extinguished for the duration of the evening. On the tour of the house, the Lord conveniently left out the East Wing, which was the one the Lady Rose had decorated, and none of the guest were any the wiser to the Manor's eccentricities.

The greatest disappointment of the evening was that The Lord Caldwell did not arrive at the prescribed time. The guests waited politely for him for several hours, but when it was determined that he must have been unavoidably delayed and would most likely not be making an appearance, they proceeded with the supper and entertainment in his absence.

 They were just beginning the dessert course, and Dominic was starting to relax, thinking this might be the night that the Blackbourne Manor was granted its status in the High Society, when there was a rumble. Conversation stopped as everyone tried to pinpoint the source of the sound, when there was an enormous explosion.

When the dust settled, it became clear what had happened. A steam engine stood proudly where one wall of the dining room has been seconds before, and in the conductors booth, a tall, broad-chested man in a finely tailored suit and a frankly ridiculous hat stood, booming laughter.

The Lord Caldwell had made his entrance.

Dominic stared for a moment at the ruins of his carefully constructed evening, and began to laugh along with the rogue Lord. Slowly, all residents of  the Manor joined in, while their guests stared blankly.

Society be damned, it was the perfect ending to a wildly successful Blackbourne dinner party. 

Dramatis Personae

The Lord Blackbourne: A Lord

The Lady Rose Blackbourne: A Lady. Also possibly a Vampire

Dominic Samuels: A Butler

Mrs. Penelope ‘Poppet’ Matthews: A Cook

Lauretta Matthews: A Serving Girl and Man-Chaser

Isabella Samuels: A Mad Scientist and Radical Feminist

Eleanor Thomas: A Lady’s Maid- missing

The Lord Rhett Caldwell: Train Baron and Hunter of Anything that Moves

James the Urchin: An Urchin

A Warm Welcome

Welcome to Blackbourne Manor. Do come inside. Samuels will show you to the sitting room.   Mrs. Matthews will bring out some refreshments presently. The Lord may come down to greet you, but then again he might not. The Lady almost certainly will come to meet you, but you might not be glad that she did. Be forewarned, if she offers to show you her 'sweet little pet' you should politely decline. It is none of those things, and it would be dreadfully inconvenient to have to fish you out of the pond so soon after your arrival.

Pay no heed to the smoke; Isabella may be experimenting in her lab, or perhaps Mrs Matthews is cooking an extravagant and highly flammable supper tonight. It could be a sacrificial flame from which Lauretta is attempting to summon the perfect boyfriend, or a bonfire that the young urchin James has lit in simultaneous protest of the tyrannical monarchy and to stay warm out of doors in these chilly winter months. Anyway, I'm sure it's nothing to concern yourself with. Seriously, do move along, and forget what you may think you've seen. It requires none of your attention.

It is always a great pleasure to receive company,  and now I bid you good day and hope you enjoy your visit to Blackbourne Manor.