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.