Listen To Me: My Lady, My Love
Britain's stately homes - we seem to have plenty of them. In every corner of the UK there are stately homes, Scottish Baronial castles, gothic fantasies in stone, to the Palladian mansions of Southern and central England and every other style in between. Imagine the kind of house you see in a TV programme like Downton Abbey, the homes of what we Brits call the, 'great and the good.' That's a bit of a misnomer actually, because so many of them earned their position and money by outright skulduggery in the past. They, to a great extent were bigger bastards than anyone else and took what they had by force in the dim and distant past. Or in the case of eighteenth and nineteenth century self-made entrepreneurs, by exploiting their workers in mines and factories during Britain's industrial revolution. These relative newcomers to the higher echelons of high society are what the British aristocracy snobbishly call, 'New Money,'
However, great houses require great upkeep, and most of them are no longer in the hands of the original families. Changing fortunes, mismanagement, death duties, being taxed by successive governments for the last hundred years or so, has seen many of these great houses left to advancing decay and demolition. Those which have survived are often in the care of the National Trust, an organisation set up to preserve these historical monuments to a bygone age.
Sometimes the family will place the house in the care of the National Trust, but retain a part of the house for their own use, spreading the cost of its upkeep, or some families will open the house to the public themselves. They run guided tours and various other activities during the summer months, just to keep the property alive as a viable business proposition.
It was on a visit to one of these stately homes that I accidentally met the noble lady of the house, Guinevere Hartley-Smythe. Yes, that's right Guinevere, as in the legendary King Arthur's wife in the knights of the round table story. Now for anyone else that may seem a bit pretentious and over the top, as we would say in the UK, but with the aristocracy, they are a law unto themselves and nobody is surprised. Of course, the modern form of Guinevere is Jennifer, often shortened to Jenny, and Lady Guinevere was no exception.
'Just call me Ginny,' she said when I got to know her a bit better. (pronounced Jinny with a soft G)
How did I come to meet her you may ask? Or you may not be interested how we met, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Remember I mentioned that these stately homes often ran other activities and events to bring in much needed revenue, well that's what brought me to the home and estate of Lady Guinevere, where they had an annual music festival.
I love to see live bands and performers; there's nothing quite like it for musical thrills. I had my ticket bought months before, and luckily on the weekend of the festival the weather was lovely. Not always a guarantee in the UK where the weather can change almost instantly, we have a saying, 'four seasons in one day,' which sums it up nicely. However, the weather was exceptionally fine when I arrived onsite around Friday lunchtime. Since the festival was local to me, I wasn't staying overnight in the designated campsite areas. I intended going home and returning every day of the festival, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, rather than face the discomfort and noise of a campsite full of drunken revellers.
Well, I arrived Friday lunchtime, and was checked in by the heavy security presence who went through my back pack and frisked me too. Some things are prohibited at these festivals, glass bottles for instance. Glass can break and cause all sort of problems, especially on a working farm or estate. Drugs too of course, so they are always looking for that, but I'm glad to say I wasn't detained too long, and after being warned that I would be ejected immediately if I pissed on the grass, I was allowed to enter the main festival grounds. There are plenty of toilets I was warned, use them!
Pissing on the grass is a big no, no, especially if the festival is held on what is normally farm land, likewise broken glass as already mentioned. So, don't do it, and stay within the confines of the permitted areas, because some areas are off limits to the general public, and that's how I met Lady Guinevere. I was way off limits when we met, and I stayed off limits for the next two days.
After lunchtime on the first day, I decided to go for a walk. I'd listened to a couple of new up and coming bands, and they showed great promise for the future, and then another band came on and left me cold. I couldn't see why they'd even been booked for such a prestigious festival. They just did nothing for me at all, so I decided to go for a stroll, and return again for the later acts.
It was, as I said earlier, very sunny, and quite hot. I had on my sunscreen, so had no worries about getting sun burned, but I knew there was an artificial lake somewhere on the estate, and thought it would probably be cooler there beside the water.
The lake was artificial in the sense that it had been designed as part of the landscaping almost two hundred years before. They took their gardening and landscaping seriously in those days, often chopping down trees, building picturesque 'follies,' in the shape of eastern temples or Roman buildings, making the view from the main house look almost like a landscape painting.
I'm sure the view would be wonderful but 'plebs,' like me weren't privy to the view unless we paid our admission fee, unfortunately. the big house was closed for the duration of the festival.
Anyway, I set off through the woods that lay to the east of the festival ground. I climbed a dry stone wall, a wall known as a dyke in the UK, no connection to lesbians, but for those who don't know, a dry stone dyke is a wall built without cement, relying on the placing of the stones to keep the whole thing together. It's quite an art, almost lost, but there are still a few people capable of building and maintaining them left. It was about four feet high and no great barrier to me, being designed to keep cows, and other stock in a field, not determined people.
There was no discernible path in the woods, and the undergrowth was pretty thick, so I had to pick my way carefully between the trees. As I crested a little ridge I caught the gleam of sunshine on water through the trees and knew I was heading in the right direction. A couple of minutes later I burst out through a gap in the trees and the lake lay spread out before me.
On the opposite shore I saw carefully cultivated grass, cut short like a very well maintained lawn and a neo classical, 'folly,' a small temple-like building, built merely as a decoration for the landscaped view from the main house. It was cooler here beside the water and I sat down on the grass to rest, and enjoy the scenery.
I lay on my back, looking up at a gorgeous blue sky, hardly a cloud to be seen, and just let my thoughts take me where they went. I thought of Ellen, a recent lover for a while, but I must have fallen asleep, because I was rudely awakened by a woman's voice.
'Hey, you there, waken up, waken up I say... now... right now... waken up,' the insistent voice dragging me back to consciousness. I slowly awoke and opened my eyes, feeling a little groggy as you would expect.
'Do you hear me?' the voice persisted, and now I was fully awake, and sat up, looking for the source of the voice which was slightly behind me. I twisted around to look for whoever was speaking and saw her. She was a vision in a white, floaty dress, spaghetti shoulder straps, and an expensive looking accessory belt, with a longish, full skirt falling below knee level. She wore white sandals on her bare feet to match the dress.
Her fair, light brown hair, almost an ash blonde was long, but beautifully cut, and framed an absolutely stunning face. I estimated she was about thirty, a well-built, but slim figure, everything in perfect proportion and great legs too. I hastily jumped to my feet and turned to her, and she backed off a little, a wary look on her face.
'I'm sorry,' I said very softly. 'I didn't meant to startle you. I didn't mean to fall asleep either, but I suppose it was so quiet and peaceful here, I just dozed off. I apologise profusely if I alarmed you.' My words seemed to do the trick; she didn't look so suspicious of me as she had moments before.
'Are you here for the festival?' she said, and when I confirmed I was she very firmly told me I shouldn't be here. 'You're trespassing, this is private property, how did you get in here?' I turned and gestured towards the trees.
'I knew there was a lake here, and I just made my way through the woods. I'm sorry but I found that band,' and I named them, 'I found them,' I reiterated, 'rather irritating and tuneless. I had to escape, and here I am in this lovely haven of tranquillity,' I smiled, and gestured at our surroundings, whereupon she smiled in return.
