Rokeby looked disconsolately from the Carriage window, the rain spluttered against the thin glass, as the contraption creaked and groaned over the rutted track slowing the four matching chestnut thoroughbreds to a bare crawl.
"Barely four hours for a hundred miles by the railway then straight back into the dark ages, by God I hate the Country."
"Cheer up old chap, things could be worse, think of your inheritance." Flemming reassured him.
"Look rather good missing the old duffers funeral hey what?" Rokeby jested.
"Look you promised me shooting, fishing and all the wenches I could prong, if I were to accompany you to this ghastly place so you should be dammed well jollying me along."
"Sorry Flemming, it's just I have such misgivings, it is one thing to be heir apparent to my uncles estate but inheriting it, well tis a big thing and no mistake."
"Yes ten thousand a year, how will you ever find time to spend it." Flemming quipped his eyes twinkling.
Rokeby checked his watch, "by jove we will be bloody late. Coachman," he bellowed. "Detatch a Pair we must ride"
"Bad bits over sir, it will barely take half a quarter of an hour sir"
"Very well but don't spare the whip." he replied reassuringly.
The crowd waited, the Village, all the farm hands and tenants and all the womenfolk, clustered around the old Village Church where the funeral was to be held, the soft rain ruining their carefully laundered Sunday best, black streaks betraying the lamp black the old timers used to hide their white hair lest the new squire decide their days of hard work to be beyond them.
The elegant ladies too, their hats for show, soaking up the rain like sponges to release the moisture down their elegant necks in an inelegant trickle.
And what elegant ladies, Hermione, now the Dowager Lady Ashfordly, Widow of the recently deceased Lord, in her finery, and her step daughters Katherine and Rebekah, all waiting to throw themselves on the mercy of the new lord, Rokeby, the estate passing through the male line only, and the other ladies, each believing themselves to be irresistible to the new Lord., and seeing themselves in white walking down the aisle to the waiting Lord for marriage. Even the married ones considering in which way their spouses may be despatched to facilitate this.
Perhaps most nervous of all Reverend Peasbody, not only was there the pressing matter of the funeral, the grave barely half the required six feet due to rock and the lazy incompetent grave digger, but the hole in the church finances, in truth he had used the Church money as his own relying on the Lord's disinterest but now perchance the new Lord might look into matters and discover his deceipt.
The Carriage hove into view, the team of four sweating and frothing at the mouth from their exertions.
"My Lord, please accept my sincere condolences," the Vicar addressed Flemming as the Carriage door opened.
"Accepted, except that dour fellow behind me is the Lord, I am just the Honourable James Flemming."
"Begging your pardon sir." cringed the Vicar,
"Shall I commence sir?"
"For gods sake yes get this bunch of drowned rats under cover before they all get pneumonium."
Rokeby made his way to the front pew as was his right sitting alongside the Dowager and his cousins.
The Vicar commenced the service, "He that is born of man hath but a short time"
Rokeby chuckled what a stupid line he thought.
He looked at the throng assembled, rain dripped through the Chancel ceiling down between the choir stalls, where some of the Village children had been scrubbed up and forced into long robes with as some sort of pantomime choir, red for girls black for boys, with white surplices over the top part, except one boy in a red dress.
Its hair long and unkempt it took a turn at the organ bellows just by his seat for the final Hymn. "We shall sing Hymn 3476 Death is coming" announced the vicar.
"Bloody come already" muttered a deep Yokel voice.
Rokeby swung around, a comedian, he thought, thing s were looking up.
The Organ sounded the first notes of the dirge.
Rokeby could repress his feelings no longer.
"For Gods sake play the bloody thing so we can sing it. it will be Thursday before you have finished."
The keyboard lid crashed down and they heard footsteps and the door slamming.
"Put your foot in it again old chap" bellowed Flemming "Have we an Organist in the house." "I can play, sir" It was the red robed Choirboy."If someone will pump."
"Go to it lad,I'll pump"
And he sprang from his seat.
"And keep it up to time, and you lot sing, you are supposed to be praising god not crying into your mead" he ordered.
The Organ started, suddenly transformed from an instrument of torture to something faintly musical. "Use your bloody feet" he stage whispered, and the lad soon had the largely unused lower pipes of the organ thumping out the bass part, odd bits of plaster and thick lumps of dirt fell from the ceiling the very building seemed to shake.
"Pull all the stops out for the last verse" he ordered and the old organ sent fort such a caucophany of sound that many feared the building would collapse, elegant ladies covered their ears, Yokels sang as never before and all knew they would never forget this day.
The last whinges faded from the Organ, and shaken the Vicar led the procession to the graveyard, the coffin lowered an embarrassingly short distance, and mud flung on top while the Vicar droned Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes.
"There is a small repast at the Inn," announced Lady Hermione, and suddenly the yokel horde had disappeared towards the Inn.
Hermione stood close to Him, Rokeby aware of her, very aware, she wore the same perfume as his favourite whore in Mayfair, how could she know he wondered? or did all whores smell the same, she barely thirty marrying an old fool of sixty, and by all accounts giving him a heart attack in the process of copulation.
He wondered to himself if he should offer her one shilling and sixpence for the full experience, or if provincial whores were cheaper.
He saw the doe eyed Cousins, from the earlier marriage, the first wife had been modestly beautiful but by all accounts less intelligent than his Uncle which was no mean feat, most people that stupid were after all in Lunatic asylums, and the girls sadly clearly took after their parents.
Rokeby looked around, it would be a tiresome, tedious, frustrating time ahead until he could sort the affairs out and return to civilisation.
"You must come to the House" instructed Hermione, "And we must talk."
"I fear you intend to talk whilst I listen, but I shall have plenty to say have no fear," Rokeby quipped as if in jest.
The Staff lined up at the front steps, Rokeby noted Hermione's genius in employing only the ugliest serving maids, clearly she wished the late Lord to bestow his favours on her and not on some pretty buxom serving wench for whose resulting bastard he would be required to pay and pay well.
"I say Rokeby, its like Mrs Crufts show" Flemming chuckled at the subtlety of his wisecrack.
"Mongrel class hey what" Rokeby agreed.
The table was laid with some of what passed for fine meats and fine wines but would have barely sufficed for a servants repast in Mayfair.
"This is Bradbury our Agent, he runs the estate, and does the accounts and Mr Bryant of Benson and Hedges, Solicitors he shall advise us of the will.
"Yes Mr Bryant pray tell what trifle did the old duffer leave to me except the dammed title which will lie like a millstone around my neck."
"My lord it is with great sorrow that I hear you speak of the late Lord so, he was a great man in his way sir, he overcame a fearsome lack of intellect to out babble the finest ranters in the whole of their Lordships House in Westminster Palace, talk out a bill said they, why fetch Ashfordly, he shall bamboozle and twist and turn till no one shall know what is afoot, a great man indeed sir." Bryant declared.
"I had not but met the Gentleman twenty summers since, so I cannot confirm or deny your opinion but it is good that he had friends such as thee to spring to his defence, but sir pray do not delay, am I to receive a trifle yea or nay."
"A trifle, sir all is entailed on thyself, lest that which Lady Hermone brought to the union and that be almost naught, his Lordship hath dressed and clothed her Ladyship expensively from their first dalliance, even the very clothe on her back art thine Sir to treat as is thy will."
"And I am to maintain her in luxury, clothe feed provide shelter and a season for each Cousin at court to supply, so that myself I am unable to secure a wife for want of funds." he enquired.
"No sir, nothing was so written, His lordship expected to settle the daughters and from Lady Hermione a male heir to secure, but she seemingly barren were."
"It cannot be, I am Widow all should be mine." Lady Hermione shouted thumping he table.
"It is so for lower orders but the Family trust says to the Male heir goeth the estate and in default to the Crown, had not Mr Rokeby come forward the Queens Bailiff wouldst have possession taken and have castest on to the very street all within."
"Then we must issue a challenge," she demanded.
"I serve his Lordship Madam, I shall protect his interests against thine, it is my duty."
"It is unfathomable, unreasonable, how that I hath laid abed with the stink of that evil brute and suffered his slime within me and hath made show of passion and love, to his every satisfaction and yet am left devoid of anything, not even the payment such as a common whore should receive for acts so distasteful. How can it be that I am to be left destitute."
"Did you have no affection for My Uncle?" asked Rokeby.
"How could affection for one so vulgar grow, he farteth louder than the very Ocheclopede in the Orchestra, and more tunefully, his breath stinketh likewise, My Lord the sacrifices I hath made to raise my station, it is fitting surely that I receive this house and some farms to keep me as I am accustomed." Her speech was with passion delivered."
"Did nothing but the elevation of Rank and Station and fortune, lead thee to the alter, was there no love," Rokeby asked.
"One could as well love an Ox" She replied. "And the daughters, how tedious are they, how I wished them to find husbands, but how is it to be, unless one enchanteth you into her bedchamber my Lord."
"Oh no, no I see I have a duty so I shall seek lodgings for you that the girls may do a season, with a suitable dowry." Rokeby spoke with generosity.
"Begging your Pardon sir but pray do not make promises without that the state of they fortune be set out, the coffers are bled sir" Bradbury cringed his very palms sweating.
"But there is Ten Thousand a year."
"But sir the expense of the house and the coaches and the race horses, and the investments it draineth the funds, I hath warned his Lordship but he taketh notice of Her Ladyship and ignoreth me." Bradbury was slowly turning a purple colour."
"One of such rank should have racing horses, and fine carriages, all were old, and a branch railway, so we should hath no need to crawl like mudlarks to the far station."
"She spendeth the capital sir, I say spend but the income but no, and now the vaults are bare."
