Every year I listen on in bewilderment to the debate over this seemingly innocuous holiday. This really never came up when I was a kid. I merrily trick-or-treated as a cat, a ghost, a witch, Huckleberry Finn, and finally (in college), Pierette, and I don't remember anybody connecting the holiday with actal occult practice.
I can see the point of parents who don't want their kids messing with supernatural trappings, but by putting the emphasis on how scary and dangerous the occult is, we implicitly grant the dark powers enough power over us to make us scared and keep us on the run from them. In addition, this probably often has the effect of making the occult seem more alluring to young people. My belief about the occult is that though it is possible for satan to give powers to his followers, I don't really think he is that generous, he's probably glad to accept the worship and let these people think they have some kind of special powers--the joke is on them.
I think that rather than giving the impression that we are so afraid that these evil forces might hurt us that we won't even let our five-year-olds put on sheets and reap their harvest of sugary treats, we as Christians can view the day in a different way. To quote Bono quoting C.S. Lewis, "Mock the devil and he will flee from you." The "real" occult is quite ridiculous--all crazy trappings and pathetic people running around in circles in their basements chanting, in the belief that all this frenetic activity will actually affect something--and I don't see how anyone viewing the occult as it really is would find it attractive, especially in comparison to something as fundamentally real, powerful, and joy-filled as the experience of knowing the Savior, Jesus Christ. ( I should note that I myself was somewhat interested in New Age type stuff before I became a Christian, though I have a hard time believing my childhood Halloween experiences had much to do with it). Though as human beings on our own the occult can indeed hurt hearts, minds, and lives; with Jesus we are more than conquerors. We don't need to fear the evil powers any more. By dressing up in costumes and celebrating Halloween (aka Reformation Day and the eve of All Saint's Day), we are not joining in with the evil forces. Instead, we are acknowledging the real fears of life, not only of supernatural evil forces but of human evil; and by making the day into one of fun and frivolity we are celebrating that we need no longer fear anything. We are not worshiping the devil, we are mocking him--just as All Saint's Day replaced a pagan holiday, fun with family and the universally enjoyable practice of dressing up and gorging on chocolate replaces fear of spirits and the supernatural.
I'm feeling quite happy with my new blog title, by the way. The reference to "Hyde Park" in the old one made me feel as though my entries should contain some intellectual content, since HP is a pretty intellectual place. The new one is much more comfortable, not to say descriptive.
No, same old me. But a new title anyway.
The End
IV. The End Game (and I don’t mean cricket)
The Detective-Inspector had passed on interviewing Major Crag and young St. George-Fotheringale simply because he felt that he couldn’t take much more of this. I’m not sure what he was doing during the fifteen minutes which elapsed between his conversation with Smythe and his appearance in the library; but a detective can’t just blurt out his accusation, or make an immediate arrest; suspense has to be built up somehow. That is also the purpose of this paragraph. Perhaps he was waiting to see if someone would sneak into the library while he was there alone, and make an attempt on his life, thus sealing that person’s guilt; however, the few minutes passed without incident.
When the Detective-Inspector arrived in the library (which took him rather longer than fifteen minutes, because he did not know where it was, and it took him a while to find it), the house party was assembled there, apprehensively fidgeting their teacups about. For a moment, the Detective-Inspector stood and surveyed the group.
Finally, he spoke. “I have heard your statements,” he began. Major Crag and St. George-Fotheringale looked slightly petulant at this, but the Detective-Inspector ignored them. “It was clear to me from the first that there is more to this case than meets the eye. The very forthrightness with which you offered me the details of your associations with Sir Stout, and your possible motives for his murder, told me that the obvious had nothing to do with this case. No, the circumstances surrounding Sir Stout’s death were much more subtle than they first appeared. And I soon became convinced that each one of you had something to hide.”
Mrs. Vanderhoeven gasped. Lady Stout’s attempt to comfort her by refilling her teacup was stymied by the fact that she had dropped it, with a loud crash, onto the floor.
All eyes turned to her. “Yes,” said the Detective-Inspector. “The Vanderhoevens. Mrs. Vanderhoeven had had a romance with Sir Stout long ago, before she met her current husband…”
“Well, there’s no need to let the whole world know,” muttered Mrs. Vanderhoeven.
“But perhaps it wasn’t so long ago as one might think. Perhaps, that romance never really ended. Or, perhaps it ended not so long ago, upon Sir Stout’s marriage to Lady Stout. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderhoeven was jealous. Perhaps jealous enough to kill. Or, perhaps Mr. Vanderhoeven sensed her jealousy, and was enraged to think his wife had been nurturing these feelings all these years. But maybe…just maybe…none of this…has anything to do with what the Vanderhoevens are hiding…”
Smythe whispered to Artemis, “Oh, yes, I’ve seen this done. At seances. He’s just talking away until something strikes a chord with the audience; then whoever he is talking to tells the whole story and the medium pretends she knew the whole thing all along…he’s really quite good…”
But Mrs. Vanderhoeven had suddenly begun crying, her face in her hands. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry, Julius, I meant to keep your secret. But after Lady Stout let on that she knew everything, I felt that I just couldn’t hold it all inside any more.”
Lady Stout looked rather astonished at being accused of knowing anything, but Mr. Vanderhoeven was soothing his wife. “There, there, dear, it’s all right. It was bound to come out sooner or later.” His speech patterns sounded slightly different, and he continued, “You’re right, Inspector Noble. It’s true. I’m not really an American at all.” Everyone gasped, and Mrs. Vanderhoeven’s tears began anew. “I was born in England, as a matter of fact. But I was never very good at the whole British thing. I couldn’t get the accent quite right, I could never for the life of me understand the rules of cricket, and I don’t even really like tea…or sherry,” he added, noticing Major Crag about to say something. “When I went to America, I found that I fit right in. My wife promised to keep my secret, and Sir Stout was the only one left in England who knew. But I certainly didn’t kill him…you have to believe that, Inspector!”
The Detective-Inspector gazed at him for a moment, evaluating him. “No, you didn’t,” he said. “Nor did Mrs. Vanderhoeven. Each of you, as I said, has a secret. The Vanderhoevens’ secret has turned out to be rather silly. But some of them…are more sinister…” And he turned his gaze to the butler, John Porter.
Porter was unruffled and impassive, as always. “Yes, sir?” he murmured.
“Porter, from the moment I first saw you, you were the perfect butler. Silent and nondescript, practically invisible, just as a butler should be. But perhaps, I thought to myself, you seemed a little too perfect.”
Porter continued with the impassivity. The Detective-Inspector continued, “No one ever notices the butler. None of these people ever noticed you. Which made this a perfect disguise because…you are not really the butler at all, are you, Porter?”
Porter inclined his head. “No, sir,” he said. Then he grinned, and everyone was shocked to see a human being appear where seconds before the butler had stood. “It’s a fair cop. No, I’m not the butler, never have been a butler. I’ve been here for well-nigh a year now, and no one in the house has ever noticed that I’m not their butler! In fact, I’m a burglar…well, I was. Don’t have to do much burgling when you’re already in the house.
“About a year ago, I broke into this house, and for the first time in my career, I was caught. Sir Stout came down the stairs and caught me in the act, you might say. Fortunately for me, though, he was a bit near-sighted, and said to me, ‘Porter, is that you? Thought I heard someone down here.’ I thought fast, and in a cultivated tone, I said, “Yes, sir, it is I.” ‘That’s all right then,’ he answered. ‘Go on back to bed, Porter.’ Well, what was I to do? I was afraid I might wake him up again if I tried to leave the house. I never did know what happened to the real butler, but I slept in his room that night and the next day dressed in his clothes, thinking I could slip out without anyone seeing me. To my surprise, though, Sir Stout found me in the hallway and started discussing household matters with me, never noticing the difference! Well, I carried on as butler that day and the next, and the Stouts never noticed. The other servants did, of course, but it is as much as a servants’ place is worth to contradict the butler, of course; so if I said I was the butler, then the butler I was! Gradually, I let the servants go—with hefty severance pay so they wouldn’t talk—and replaced them with my gang, and the Stouts never noticed a single substitution. We’ve been skimming plenty off the top of the household budget ever since, in addition to drawing our pay. Getting caught was the best thing that ever happened to me—until now, I suppose.”
The Detective-Inspector looked at Lady Stout. “Shall I arrest him, madam?”
Lady Stout stirred her tea consideringly. “Well, I suppose I should say yes, Detective-Inspector. But the staff seems to be doing a fine job—and I simply can’t face finding replacements for all of those people. I don’t see why anything need change.”
The Detective-Inspector shrugged. “Shall we move on then?” he asked.
St. George-Fotheringale raised his hand playfully. “How about me next, Detective-Inspector?” he said. “Why don’t you tell me my life story?”
The Detective-Inspector nodded. “At first I wondered how you could possibly have anything to hide. You are well-known in society, after all, and your whole demeanor is reminiscent of the proverbial open book. But then I realized how little is really known of your origins. Though seemingly your whole career is well-known to all; no student named St. George-Fotheringale was known at Oxford in your year; and furthermore there is no record of you anywhere up to about a year ago. So why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, Frothy, beginning with your real name and just what you are doing here?”
St. George-Fotheringale smiled. “The last part is very simple. I’m here for revenge.”
He gazed sadly at his empty teacup, then continued: “St. George-Fotheringale is my middle name…it was my mother’s maiden name, you see. As a matter of fact, Artemis here is my half-sister. Our father left my mother to marry Lady Stout…though she was the widow Grimsby then, of course…”
Artemis gazed thunderstruck at St. George-Fotheringale. “You mean your real name is…”
“Winfield St. George-Fotheringale Penhallow-Pengallon. The man with five last names, that’s me,” smiled the young man formerly known as Frothy. “As I was saying, I came for revenge against the cad who left my mother and me high and dry in the wilds of Kenya; but after a little investigation I discovered nature had done my work for me, and the widow Penhallow-Pengallon was the new Lady Stout. Well, I had nothing in particular to do, and the company was good, so I decided to stay for a while.” He grinned foolishly and fumbled with his cigarette case. “But I certainly didn’t murder Stout, had nothing against the man.”
Suddenly, the room was plunged into darkness. A shot rang out; a woman screamed. Someone pushed past the Detective-Inspector and made for the door. Then, as suddenly as they had been extinguished, the lights came back on, and the Detective-Inspector saw…
V. Epilogue
St. George Fotheringale was stooping to pick up his cigarette case. “Sorry about the bang…butterfingers…” he murmured.
Smythe had swooned, and her cousin was attempting to bring her around by patting lashings of tea around her temples and wrists. “It was too much for her, she screamed and was down for the count,” said Artemis.
“What happened to the lights?” grunted Crag.
“Oh, they flicker on and off every once in a while, on a dark and stormy night like this,” said Artemis, as Smythe begin to blink and murmur dreamily.
Porter paused in his progression towards the door. “I’ll just check on the fuses, sirs and madams,” he said.
The Detective-Inspector put his teacup back in his saucer with an air of finality, and grasped his hat. “All right, then,” he said. “That wraps that up. I’ll be going back to the station, you may be called upon for further information at a future time.”
“But, you said we all had something to hide,” said Smythe, disappointed. “You never got to me.”
“And what about the murderer?” demanded Mrs. Vanderhoeven.
“That was for dramatic effect, ma’am,” said the Detective-Inspector, bowing to Smythe. “And as for the murderer, I’d say years of smoking, eating fatty foods, and perpetually acting hearty finally caught up with the old gentleman. I doubt he needed any help from any of you.”
The Detective-Inspector bowed to the room at large, planted his hat firmly onto his head, and strode manfully out of the room.
Artemis caught him up in the entryway. “So you’re going? Just like that?”
The Detective-Inspector caught her in his arms. “Ah, Artemis. Ever since the day I first saw you…”
“You mean today, dearest?”
“Yes, Artemis. I mean…today.”
Still more.
III. The Boring Middle Part
A significant period of time passed, during which Artemis was dispatched to find her cousin. Despite her grief Lady Stout had assembled her guests in the solarium, where she had called for tea, feeling that everyone’s nerves were in need of a stimulant. Major Crag and the young St. George-Fotheringale took the general idea a bit further, feeling that the tea too was in need of something extra, and as a result the spirits of both were a slightly more elevated than the situation warranted.
Mrs. Vanderhoeven went to condole with Lady Stout, who blinked back tears as she bravely handed her a cup of tea. “There, there, dear,” said Mrs. Vanderhoeven. “I’m so proud of you, bearing up as you have. I can’t tell you how sorry Julius and I are. I just hope you’ll let us know if we can do anything for you, anything at all.”
“Oh, thank you so much. It means so much to me to have friends like you at a time like this. Especially…considering Julius.”
Mrs. Vanderhoeven nearly spilled her tea into her lap. “Why, what do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t worry, dear. I didn’t tell the Detective-Inspector anything, anything at all.”
“Well, I just don’t know what you mean.”
Lady Stout gently took the teacup from Mrs. Vanderhoeven’s shaking hands, and set it in its saucer on the table. “Don’t you, dear?” she asked.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Julius had joined the other men, and the three discreetly passed Major Crag’s flask, from which they supplemented their tea.
“Thanks, Crag. I needed this. I’m not exactly used to being interrogated by the police. And that fellow acted as if he already had me pegged as the killer.”
“Killer?” said St. George-Fotheringale. “How do we know anybody killed him? It couldn’t be one of us, anyway. We all drank from the same teapot.”
The Major grunted. “Not Julius,” he said.
Julius said, “Well, no one can suspect me of poisoning that tea anyhow. Lady Stout treats making tea like a sacred rite, she wouldn’t let anybody else near it. Thinks it belongs to the sphere of English womanhood or some such.”
The Major seemed to bristle. “She wouldn’t kill him. Why should she? She loved him.”
“Now, I never said she did anything. I’m with St. George here—I don’t think anyone killed him. I don’t know why the police were called in at all. Pass that flask again, will you—it’s going to be a long day.”
Artemis finally located her cousin in a far corner of the garden and inducted her into the study, where the Detective-Inspector waited, staring stonily at his now-cold tea. Smythe Peltingham-Smythe had apparently gone all-out for a gauzey, ethereal look, with some success. Her clothes were drapey, floaty, and lavendar-ish, and as she walked across the room the sound of bells seemed to exude from her. The Detective-Inspector had a mental image of Smythe busily sewing tiny little bells onto her clothes, and tried not to laugh.
“Good afternoon. I am Detective-Inspector Noble. I believe you are Miss Peltingham-Smythe?”
“Yes. Yes. I’m…I’m pleased to meet you, Detective-Inspector.” Smythe gazed abstractedly past the Detective-Inspector’s head.
“Are you all right, Miss Peltingham-Smythe?”
“Yes…of course…it’s just that it…the energy…is so strong…when there’s been a death…I mean when someone has passed over…”
“May I offer my condolences, Miss Peltingham-Smythe? I’m afraid I must ask you some questions. How were you related to Sir Stout?”
“Oh! He was my uncle. My mother’s brother. I’m afraid they didn’t get on well..”
The Detective-Inspector sighed. “Let me guess. Your mother died of sorrow because of her brother’s disapproval, or of poverty because her brother cut her off from the family fortune or something; and furthermore, no one knew where you were all afternoon, thus you have no alibi…is that right?”
“Well…yes….I suppose…I was alone…just thinking…”
“That’s what I thought.” The Detective-Inspector sighed. “Well, I think it’s fairly obvious to everyone that you had nothing to do with Sir Stout’s death.” He drained his teacup at a gulp and said. “Let’s cut to the chase. Please go and ask everyone to gather in the library. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
More of the same.
II. Some More Characters
The grief of Lady Stout and Artemis was profound; but after all, Sir Stout had not been around long enough to matter much, and the plot must be moved along. In fact, Lady Stout’s tears were as much for her daughter as for her husband. Artemis’s transformation from the proverbial gangly, awkward schoolgirl of eighteen to a mature, eligible young woman of eighteen and a half was now just a distant memory. With her twenty-second birthday a mere eleven months off, young girls were already beginning to brand Artemis as “past it” and an “old maid.” Sir Stout’s death meant no more parties of any significant size for some time, and Lady Stout felt that in their place and time, the matrimonial game was a game of numbers: the more tea cups a young woman filled, the sooner she would be married.
Artemis was as sorry as her self-absorbed worldview could allow her to be, but after all, Sir Stout was only her stepfather; and she really barely knew him, having spent nearly every livelong day since she got out of school at the houses of friends with unmarried brothers. Her own father had died long ago; her mother had told her that and little else, since Lady Stout was one who preferred to leave the past in the past. Troubled but scarcely grief-stricken, Artemis wandered through the house, finally landing up in the entry hall, where she gazed at portraits of bygone Stouts.
The doorbell rang. Though the details of etiquette bored her, Artemis knew that the daughter of the house could hardly be permitted to answer her own front door; so she dodged behind a piece of statuary and awaited the advent of the butler.
That correct personage arrived, eventually, and opened the door. From the time it took for the visitor to appear in the hall, Artemis guessed that he had already given up and gone a good way back down the front walk towards his car.
The butler uttered something unintelligible but very refined.
“Detective-Inspector Alec Noble,” said the visitor, his voice and gestures permeated with an intangible air of command. The butler mumbled something else and then strolled off like a man thoroughly pleased with his lot in life. Artemis allowed an interval to pass; and while the detective’s back was turned she slipped out from behind the statuary and delicately cleared her throat.
The detective wheeled around and gazed at her. “I am Detective-Inspector Noble,” he said, the aforementioned air of command now tinged with respect and admiration. The vision of English womanhood which had so suddenly risen upon his horizon greeted him with the appropriate combination of handshakes, curtseys, nods, and airs of one kind and another that was sanctioned by the etiquette of the day. Lady Stout then arrived and followed suit; and the three proceeded to some manner of library or study or drawing room or suchlike, where Lady Stout bade the Detective-Inspector sit.
“Lady Stout—and Miss Penhallow-Pengallon,” began the Detective-Inspector (for that was Artemis’s last name), “may I begin my investigation by inquiring of you regarding the composition of your household?”
“Oh, it is mostly Victorian, I am afraid; but one wing is Elizabethan. And it is mostly of stone, I should say,” responded Lady Stout.
“Besides my mother and I,” said Artemis with forbearance, “my stepfather had invited several friends for the weekend. There is the Major, an old friend of my stepfather’s from their days at public school. Then there is Winfield St. George-Fotheringale, a young man who was invited for…ah…other reasons.” Her mother smiled and patted her on the hand. “My cousin Smythe Peltingham-Smythe has been staying with us for some time, but we don’t see much of her. She’s, um, artistic. And there is Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven, they are Americans, but they are distantly related to my stepfather’s family.”
“What about the servants?” asked the Detective-Inspector.
“The servants? I’m afraid I barely notice them. But we have quite a modest household. I do all my own pouring,” said Lady Stout modestly.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to know how long they have been with the family, that sort of thing.”
Artemis shrugged. “I really don’t know. Perhaps you should ask the butler. I’ll ring for him.”
Setting his teacup down in a masterful manner, the Detective-Inspector responded, “Thank you, miss. I’ll speak to the butler about the servants, meanwhile would you and Lady Stout inform your guests that I’d like to speak with each of them in turn?”
Artemis nodded, and catching the Detective-Inspector’s eye, blushed inconsequentially. She and her mother bustled out, and in a few minutes the immaculate butler arrived. The Detective-Inspector had never in his life given a single thought to the personal appearance of a butler; but in fact this butler was utterly conventional: scrupulously correct black and white clothing, impassive face, and hair so utterly nondescript that no member of the household could even have told the Detective-Inspector what color it was. He entered the room, and stood upright and motionless next to the door.
“Oh, hello. I need to ask you some questions about the composition of the late Sir Stout’s household. May I have your name?”
The butler said something that sounded like, “Mawtaw, saw.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Looking as though it gave him pain to enunciate in a less refined manner, the butler said, “Porter, sir.”
“Thank you, Porter. May I have your first name? I must have it for the record.”
“Very good, sir.” There was a pause.
“Would you tell me what it is?”
“Of course, sir. It is John, sir.”
“Thank you. Now, would you tell me about the servants? Their names and how long they have been with the family?”
“Certainly, sir. They have all been with the family for, ah, some time. There is Joan, the kitchen maid; Jane, the cook, and Molly, the scullery maid. Then of course there is Susan, the parlourmaid, Mary, the upstairs maid, Jean, the downstairs maid, and Ellen, the in-between maid. Hannah and Lucy are Lady Stout and Miss Penhallow-Pengallon’s ladies-maids. Then there are the women from the village who come in to wait on table at parties; and outside there is the gardener and his boys, the footmen, the valet, and the…”
“Porter, could you sum all this up for me?”
The butler coughed in an unbelievably genteel fashion. “For the sake of brevity, sir, I should focus upon Joan and Mary.”
“And why is that, Porter?”
“I once had to reprimand Joan for smiling while waiting on table; and Mary’s real name is…ah…” Porter lowered his voice so that it was once again nearly inaudible, “Violet.”
The Detective-Inspector nodded. “I see. Very well, send them in please. Joan first, I think.”
Joan and Mary were unhelpful, however. It seemed to the Detective-Inspector that though they may well have known all there was to know about the Stout family and their guests, they would tell him nothing. Though they consistently dropped their h’s and made every appearance of being apprehensive about being involved with the police, neither of them paused and said anything like, “But there was the business of the vicar’s son’s parsnip collection. I didn’t like that, sir, I wouldn’t stand for it and I told them so,” even upon leaving the room. After interviewing them, the Detective-Inspector requested that Mr. Vanderhoeven be sent in.
A few minutes later both Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven appeared. “I’m sorry, I’d prefer to talk to Mr. Vanderhoeven alone first, if you don’t mind,” said the Detective-Inspector.
“That’s just what that butler fellow said,” said Mrs. Vanderhoeven, “but I just says to him, I says, I’m not letting poor Julius go in there alone. Why, I guess he’d just say something that would make us both look bad. I made up my mind I’d come in with him, Mr. Detective-Inspector, so you can just go right ahead with your questions.”
“I always tell Sadie she gets too het up about things,” said Julius Vanderhoeven, smiling indulgently at his wife, “but I guess she looks out for me. Behind every great man, you know, and I guess I’d of never of made my pile if it wasn’t for her.”
The Detective-Inspector blinked a few times, then said, “Very well, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoeven. Please have a seat.”
The two sat. “Now, Mr. Vanderhoeven, how did you know Sir Stout?”
“Why, it was Sadie here that was friends with Jim. They had quite a romance, that was before she and I ever met, of course.”
Sadie blushed. “Now, Julius. Yes, Sir Stout…that was before he was Sir Stout, I mean, had come to America to seek his fortune. That was after his days at public school, of course. It was so romantic, a young British man like that, right out of my social circle of course but so refined. I was just swept off my feet. But then when I met Julius I just knew I couldn’t marry Jim. He was broken up about it but was he was always so gentlemanlike. He never married for years until he met Lady Stout…a widow as was then, Mrs. Penhallow-Pengallon. But we’ve been good friends ever since then, all three of us, no hard feelings.”
“I see. And what was the reason for your visit this weekend?”
Julius answered, “Well, Sadie and I were just about ready for a vacation, and then Sir Stout invited us. We’ve visited back and forth for years, of course, but it seemed Sir Stout especially wanted us this weekend. Said he had some news for us and wanted to let us know in person.”
“Did he tell you what the news was?”
“No, he didn’t, and since I see you were going to ask, I don’t have any idea what it might have been. As far as I know Stout didn’t have anything unusual going, he was reaching a kind of settled stage of life just like us. I guess we’ll never know now.”
The Detective-Inspector nodded. Things were beginning to fall into place. Where there once had been only amorphous Unknowing, now dim outlines were to be seen, a pattern was emerging, the pieces were beginning to fall into place, like the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, which when you first opened the box didn’t even appear to belong to the same puzzle, but which when you got the border done and a few of the smaller elements of the overall picture you began to think that you might be able to get the thing done eventually after all. But the question remained; were some of the pieces irretrievably lost, accidentally thrown out or eaten by a household pet? The Detective-Inspector didn’t know, but he intended to find out.
“Well, I think that is all I need to ask right now. Would you let Miss Peltingham-Smythe know that I would like to talk to her next?”
In place of the usual, here is part one of a story I wrote.
I. A Garden Party at Two-dozen-odd Oaks
“Hullo-ullo-ullo-ul…ahem…I say…” The young St. George-Fotheringale’s effusive greeting was broken off by several minutes of painful coughing. The coughs finally subsided to a painful wheeze, and with a foolish grin St. George-Fotheringale, known as Frothy to his friends, lit another cigarette.
Major Crag, turning his weather-beaten face towards the west, breathed deeply as if testing the air. “Blow a gale. Best postpone party,” he said, in a voice that might best be described as a sort of refined bark. Stony-faced, he accepted a cup of tea from his hostess.
Frothy looked at the western sky, which was clear and blue, and attempted to sniff the air but instead dissolved into another coughing fit. “Looks like the proverbial clear blue sky to me, old chap,” he finally managed to croak as he drained his cup and took another drag.
Lady Stout looked concerned. “Oh dear, I do hope the party won’t be ruined. Artemis has so been looking forward to it.” The always rosy Lady Stout flushed a shade pinker as she expertly refilled the teacups of various passers-by.
His verbal resources seemingly taxed to the utmost, the Major merely made a sort of snorting sound, but the rough nature of the sound was belied by the tender, if slightly drunken, gaze that he turned upon Lady Stout. The Major’s gruff exterior was belied by this tender regard for Lady Stout; which was in turn belied by his military career, which had been both bloodthirsty and wrong-headed to the point of incomprehensibility.
“I’d be lying if I admitted to any enthusiasm at all about this silly garden party, Mother.” Artemis turned up her pert nose, and the disagreeable expression she habitually wore upon her flower-like face momentarily intensified.
“Why, Artemis, of course you have been looking forward to this day for ages, for all of your life for that matter. This is the day you shall become a woman—for this is the day you shall pour out.” By way of demonstration, Lady Artemis refilled the Major’s teacup once again, and they all watched as tea overflowed onto the formerly spotless white tablecloth.
“Pour out? Mother, we were all presented with tea this morning while we were still in our beds. We had tea at breakfast. We had tea at elevenses. We had tea at lunch. We are having tea now. Now we are to eagerly anticipate a party which will feature, once again, TEA? Why, Mother, why tea?”
Lady Stout gazed at her daughter as though she were some species of carnivorous plant, to which, though it had just devoured her nearest and dearest, she refused to give the satisfaction of appearing to be annoyed. “Some nice tea, just the thing,” she murmured soothingly as she refilled Artemis’s cup.
Sir Stout now strolled up and sat down next to his wife, who immediately made as if to refill his teacup, but fortunately noticed in time that he had none. “Tea? Super,” said the ruddy-faced Sir Stout. “Glorious day, Crag. Reminds me of our boyhood days at our public school, Wainscoting.” Crag grunted again, even more drunkenly than before. Lady Stout flushed, lowered her eyelashes, and smiled with a deep womanly sympathy for Crag’s unspoken but ardent affection for herself; then produced a fresh cup of tea for her husband.
Taking a refreshing draught of tea, Sir Stout beamed around at his family and friends. “I’m so pleased that you are all here this weekend,” he began.
“Well, we do live here, dear,” Lady Stout murmured. “Artemis and I.”
“And I have news that will be important to all of you,” Sir Stout continued. “I—“ Stout coughed, gagged, turned really remarkably ruddy indeed, and dropped dead.
“I say,” breathed the onlookers, as Sir Stout’s erstwhile teacup clattered onto the flagstone garden walkway, rolled around on its rim, and finally settled into a deathly stillness.