Downtrodden Abbey: The Interminable Saga of an Insufferable Family (13 page)

Demure woman and lecherous creep, c. 1914.

XI

Stupid Pettrick

A request comes in to Downtrodden from a young man, Pettrick Thunderbird, asking for a haircut and style. Enid takes a particular fancy to him, and after they spend some time together, she suspects him to be Lady Marry’s intended, who was thought to have perished on the
Gigantic
.

No one seems to recognize the fellow. As there were no photographs of Pettrick, and—as seems to happen with most men who stray too far from the Abbey—he was disfigured, the Crawfish family decides to ask him a series of questions over dinner.

“Say, what can you tell us about the
Gigantic,
if you were really on it?” the suspicious Lord Crawfish begins.

“Well, the ship was eight hundred and eighty-two feet, nine inches long, with a maximum width of ninety-two feet, six inches. Her height from keel to bridge was one hundred and four feet. She weighed forty-six thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight tons. There were ten decks, eight of which were for passenger use. They were called The Bridge, The Promenade, the Saloon Deck, the Upper Deck, the Middle Deck, the Lower Deck, and the Shelter Deck—”

“I’m beginning to think he wasn’t just a passenger on the boat,” snorts Vile, the dowager countess. “He may have built the blasted thing.”

Enid starts to ask Pettrick how he knew the ship’s gender, and is immediately silenced by the others.

“All right, all right. So you know a lot about the ship. What’s with the surname—‘Thunderbird’?” the earl asks. “Your given name was ‘Crawfish.’”

“I must have gotten this other name off of a wine bottle or something. I banged my head on the hull of the
Gigantic
and my memory has been unreliable ever since. Who are you people, anyway? And what am I doing here? And would you like to hear the dimensions of the
Gigantic
some time? I banged my head on its hull, and my memory has been unreliable ever since.”

“Please God, no,” groans Vile.

Lady Marry sits in silent prayer, hoping against hope that this idiot does not remember that she was to be his bride.

Later, in a private moment with her father, Marry insists that the man claiming to be Pettrick is a fraud, and encourages him to consult Miss Marple to investigate. When Lord Crawfish informs his daughter that Marple is a fictional character, she is stumped and takes to bed. When she awakens, Atchew is gone, certain that between Pettrick whoever-he-is and Calamine, Marry’s dance card is full.

Meanwhile, Calamine starts making plans to share Hoare House not just with one roommate, but two. He asks Tyresom to consider moving over to work as his and Lady Marry’s butler.

“I would never and could never be in the employ of anyone but Lord and Lady Crawfish,” Tyresom responds. “He is the kindest, most loyal master I have ever served, and I’ve become quite attached to him over the years. She is equally lovely and feels like a sister to me. It is simply out of the question.”

“That’s a shame,” says Calamine. “I was planning to pay you another ten shillings a week.”

“You know what?” counters Tyresom. “Let me think about it. Sometimes change is a good thing.”

Roderick can barely stand the machinations that seem to have taken over Downtrodden Abbey. Calamine summons Slovenia to seduce Atchew in the likely event of his return, to lure him away from Lady Marry. Flora supports this devious plan, fearful that the product of an Atchew-Marry union would be a child who also cannot choose the right fork with which to eat an entrée.

Lord Crawfish’s only solace is the appearance of a new maid at the great house.

She arrives on a crisp autumn breeze and virtually melts Roderick’s heart on sight, sweeping him off his feet like a mixed metaphor that wants to be a simile but ends up one big confusing cliché.

Her name is Jen Nehsayqua, and she definitely has a certain something. But it is not the woman who catches Lord Crawfish’s fancy—it is her eight-year-old son, Fergie. In Fergie, he seems to see possibility. Is he the son Roderick never had? The very heir to Downtrodden Abbey, in short knickers and a beanie? Does the Earl of Grandsun look at this pre-pubscent lad and, quite possibly … see himself?

“Roderick, you bloody ninny,” Flora says in their bedroom, on the evening of the mother and son’s appearance. “You’re looking in the mirror.”

Realizing he must keep his growing obsession covert, Lord Crawfish attempts—with varying degrees of success—to hide his interest in the boy.

Mr. Brace receives news that Viral—refusing to grant him a divorce—has presented the judge with a roll of tape with which she claims he bound her one evening after a fierce argument over fornication. He is particularly dismayed to see how the tabloid papers are handling the matter:

SEX TAPE SCANDAL

The crippled valet of one of England’s most prosperous men, Roderick Crawfish, the Earl of Grandsun, is apparently the focus of an inquiry brought on by his disgruntled wife. Court papers reveal that in November, John Brace reportedly used tape to fasten his wife Viral to a banister and read her the complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer. His attorney has a sore throat and is unable to comment. The London Library claims that the Chaucer books have been overdue for several weeks, and Brace faces stiff penalties.

“This is an outrage,” Brace complains to Lord Crawfish. “I don’t even like Chaucer.”

“Seriously? You can’t mean that. He’s the father of English literature, dear boy. He put Middle English on the map, at a time when French and Latin were the dominant languages in England.”

“You’re missing the point, Milord. These papers are constantly getting the facts wrong. This is a major embarrassment. I fear that Nana will leave me when she hears of the mere mention of these alleged misdeeds.”

Lord Crawfish is not so sure, suspecting that Nana may simply be impressed with Brace’s newfound celebrity.

“Wasn’t it Gainsborough,” he notes, “Who said that in the future everyone will be well-known for a quarter of an hour?”

Indeed, Nana is elated, even aroused, when she hears that her paramour has made headlines in the local press.

“I had no idea you liked Chaucer,” she tells him. “And tape—how ingenious! Perhaps you can try that on me. With less nefarious intent, of course.”

“Nana,” Brace says. “Calm down. You cannot believe everything you read. This is merely a sign of the age we in which we are living. Someday the news media will be a reliable bastion of factual information, not a hotbed of gossip and falsification. Mark my words.”

Brace impulsively heads to London to confront Viral, who is now not only famous, but is frequently compared to the Paris Hilton, due to a radical weight gain and certain boxy appearance during her last few stressful months.

At the increasingly dreary abbey, Lord Crawfish is forced to put his trousers on one leg at a time and all by himself in Brace’s absence. He misses the sound of his old friend clomping up and down the stairs for hours at a time.

Brace, meanwhile, scours the London Library for a proper guide as to how to murder his wife in a gentlemanly manner. He stumbles upon
Award-Winning Rat Poison Recipes,
which contains the following:

Strawberry-Rhubarb Rat Poison Compote

INGREDIENTS:

One pound fresh Strawberries

One pound Rhubarb

Two cups sugar

Three teaspoons industrial strength rat poison

DIRECTIONS:

Stew rhubarb in one cup of water. Add strawberries and continue heating mixture. Stir in sugar to taste. Add rat poison. Serves one unwanted spouse.

When Brace returns, he is close-mouthed to everyone but Nana. The others can only imagine what may have happened between Brace and Viral during their unscheduled reunion.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” he begins, during a late-night rendezvous with his beloved scullery maid.

“Seriously?” she asks. “You call yourself a novelist, and you’re starting the story with ‘It was a dark and stormy night’?”

Brace shakes her by the shoulders, hoping to knock some sense into her.

“Look. For your information, the writing thing was just a lark, something to do between valet appointments. I would have thought you would want to know the truth about what everyone else is conjecturing upon. I know, I know—I ended that sentence with a preposition. But would you please just
listen
?

“I rode the midnight train to Paddington Station. In the bar car, I had a Pimm’s with extra cucumber and some crisps. I sat next to an elderly woman who told me she was a fortune-teller, with clairvoyant abilities. She also did light housekeeping, and showed me how to remove a stain on my vest. Oh, and it turns out she was from Bristol, where my uncle had a fishing boat, and—”

*   *   *

Nana has fallen asleep. For the time being, Brace will have to keep his secret to himself.

The next evening at dinner, Lord Crawfish announces that the night’s activity would be another game of charades.

Drawing the first card, Roderick reads it, then points to his arm.

“
Venus de Milo,
” Nana guesses.

Lord Crawfish shakes his head no.

“The arm-y! You’re joining the army?” Flora suggests.

“Armistice!” Vile blurts out. “Could it be that the war is over?”

Lord Crawfish smiles. It’s true, he tells them. Finito. Kaput. No mas. Fin de la Guerre.

A celebration breaks out, and an eighth meal is served.

*   *   *

Downtrodden Abbey makes preparations for post-war life. The salon is gutted, as soldiers return to their homes and find local hairdressers to accommodate their needs. Flora gently suggests to Marry that she give Atchew the boot and see if she can make it work with Calamine.

Edwardian tonsil hockey.

But just as he is about to leave, a miracle occurs. Atchew fully recovers the ability to speak (though his sexual function had suddenly diminished).

“It’s incredible, Marry,” he says. “I feel like I’ve never spoken before in my life. One takes for granted the simple, vocalised form of human communication—phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sound units, which have formed the basis of thousand of languages over the centuries, and—”

“Blah, blah, blah! Atchew, I know you’re excited about being able to speak again,” Lady Marry says. “But do you think you could maybe, um … shut up for a bit?”

Lord Crawfish suffers some post-traumatic effects as he realizes the toll that the war took, not just on Downtrodden Abbey but on all of England, and the world. So much senseless violence and killing. The coiffure-related needs of thousands of soldiers.

The despondent earl spends his evenings pacing the pantry, which is an uncomfortable area in which to pace, but holds the greatest likelihood of him encountering Jen, the object of his growing interest.

“Why, Lord Crawfish—what are you doing here?” Jen asks.

“More to the point,” he answers, “What are
you
doing here?”

“I was just getting some flour,” she explains, scratching her head. “You do realize that I am here often, right? I mean, fetching supplies is a big part of my job.”

“Of course, of course. I suppose I am just a bit—nervous around you.”

The earl makes a move towards the lowly housekeeper, then pretends he was reaching for a can of peaches. Jen backpedals, then acts as though she sees a mouse scurrying along the floorboards. This causes Lord Crawfish to step to the side, where he examines a bag of rice. Jen then dusts a jam jar.

“Well, this is all a bit awkward,” she says. “What do you suppose would happen if we just got it over with already and kissed?”

“How dare you suggest such a thing! I can have you dismissed immediately for merely uttering such distasteful words!”

“But Lord Crawfish—why would you loiter in the pantry and stare at me when I entered, if you had no secret agenda to encounter me?”

“All right, maybe just one little smooch,” Lord Crawfish whispers. “Pucker up, Tootsie.”

*   *   *