Ward of the White Worm

It was well known that the well-heeled and well-bred did not loudly gossip about the latest scandal or curiosity. They did not have gatherings on the streets yelling to the heavens about the newest rumor. Gentlemen of good refinement did not spend their times in pubs whispering about such things. Ladies of good bearing did not go to parks to walk and chat where others could.

Gentlemen of good refinement instead spent their excited words in the gentlemen’s clubs and coffeehouses, while ladies of good bearing had their talk at home in the safety of the drawing room playing whist or in the cases of the ultra-fashionable and youthful at the polite tea rooms with doors facing the Ceald Lake or the Brynesea.

The Celebration of Saint Clara had come and gone, leaving the unfortunate to pick up the pieces in an often literal sense while the Who’s Who and the Want to Be Whos were fortunate enough to be blessed with a new topic of discussion. The scandal of Baron Pait’s daughter running away with an unlanded man with not more than a thousand pounds to his name had been running the circuit of polite society for three weeks and everyone knew a good scandal only lasted two, as a group of whist players at the house of a respectable tailor in St.Grey-on-Ceald agreed on the prior subject being stale.

“I heard there’s a woman at the earl’s now,” spoke Mrs Flatte, the wife of a local solicitor, above her cards to the other women at the table.

“Oh no, not a woman, a little girl. I saw the measurements,” said Mrs Lowhill with a shake of her head. “My husband got a commission letter directly from the earl himself yesterday. Arrived by black horse post it did.”

“I thought your husband told you to stop looking through his business?” Mrs Flatte replied curtly.

“Don’t be silly, if it sits on my desk then it is clearly my business too,” Mrs Lowhill answered with a sniff.

“It’s possible he was just commissioning something for his friend’s children. Baron de Mausargille’s daughter is turning nine in two months isn’t she?” The speaker was Mrs Watson, a thin thing that had more good wishes than sense.

The formidable shape at the whist table roused itself into the conversation with a shrill giggle, “well, I have seen the waif!” Mrs Greene declared. “I happened to be one of the invited guests to House Graef for Saint Clara’s. We all came into the room and it was stupendously done up. I must say that the earl does have some rather well thought out taste, the wainscoting had been redone and they tell me the wallpaper was a new design come straight from the Astrae Artist’s House. The table set up! The epergne had this beautiful wax creation of fruit and flowers set on it that I believe was commissioned for that night alone. There was even a waxen raven-or was it a crow?- nestled within with the symbol of Saint Clara sculpted on its beak. Why I estimate that wax display alone must have cost twelve pounds. The cold ham was exquisite, they apparently had left it in honey for six months before serving it, and the bread was some of the whitest and softest I’ve had the pleasure of having. There were even fruits there, taken straight from the ice house that morn. I have never had the pleasure of having strawberries this far north and at this time of year, it is really quite amazing what his lordship can do. My husband, oh my husband was there too of course I would never leave him by himself, my husband said the stuffed quail was fantastic but you know I never could stand all those little bones. Leave that for the unlanded, I say. I sent a few quails to Mrs Berry in Graeffeld recently and she, bless her soul, but she had left them in a boiling pot for three days as some sort of perpetual stew, quite revolting. Regardless my husband also said the red wine was delicious too but Mister Fredrick had recommended to me I take white wine for my bones, I do not think it complimented the ham much but it did go very well with the apples and pears-”

“This is all very nice, Beth,” Mrs Flatte finally interjected, “but what about the waif?”

“I was getting to that,” Mrs Greene said briskly, “did I mention the wainscoting and wax?”

“Yes,” all three of the other ladies said.

“Ah, excellent. Well, unusually the earl was not in there to greet us, but that was understandable, apparently the river had flooded out two days before and washed away one of the main bridges, so he likely had to use a different one. How awful! To go on an unfamiliar bridge! When he arrived he brought this curious little child with him. Very thin. In strange trousers and a disgusting looking smock. I heard the thing had been in a workhouse, poor thing! All it did was sit in front of one of the fires and rest. It must have been quite exhausted. I did not hear the thing speak one word. I feel I ought to send a letter to Henrietta-that ungrateful pretentious niece of my husband’s-about the quality of such silence! You know, I always tell my husband that his sister was wrong to put such ideas into her head. It made her think above her station.”

“How old was the child?” Mrs Flatte asked, her brow furrowing with thought.

“Oh, I’d estimate… perhaps eight? Twelve?”

Mrs Flatte made a noise of disappointment.

“Well, I am happy Lord Graef no longer has to stay in that rotten old house all alone,” Mrs Watson nodded sagely. “The Countess Graef did him quite wrong I think, leaving him alone on his majority to go retire in the south.”

“Dear, it was for her health,” Mrs Lowhill spoke, “we should not judge what she did for her health.”

“Did her much good, didn’t it?” Mrs Flatte said. “She died soon after, and since she died so far away by the time her coffin arrived she had already completely rotted. Not a bone left!”

“How do you know this?” Mrs Greene asked doubtfully.

“My Teddy married the Marshall’s daughter and inherited their business, why would I not know this?”

“It would be expected she would rot fast, they all rot fast,” Mrs Lowhill pointed out. “Even in winter, I heard Countess Lilia decayed fast enough that by the time dawn arose they had to carry out her remains in a ewer.”

Mrs Watson had apparently heard enough, because she patted her edge of the table and held up her cards emphatically with a green tinged face, “come now. This is no sort of discussion for whist.”

Also in St. Grey-on-the-Ceald was the coffeehouse called The Red Hart, where men of self-ascribed ‘distinction’ took their cups, read the newspaper, and quarreled or debated (gentlemen of course do not gossip) politics, philosophy, and local news and mutterings.

It was on a nice red chair beside the eastwards window an older man with a broom for a mustache took a mighty sigh as he leaned over to his equally mustachioed fellow in the next chair, “I heard you had made it to the Earl of Brynebourne’s dinner, and that there’s a new mistress in it!”

“Where did you hear such a thing?” The other man asked, folding over his newspaper to set it aside and pick up his cup of coffee. He flinched slightly at the sound of a loud slap, like a wet canvas being beaten, coming from outside.

“From my wife.”

“Mister Flatte,” the man sat up a little more in his chair, “I can assure you that whatever Mrs Flatte has heard is only half true, no, more like one third true, and that coming to me for further clarification suggests a certain trait that is most unbecoming of a man of your station.”

A third voice came, this one from a wide man with a bit of coffee clinging to the bottom of his bushy beard, one he clearly took pains to make look as rugged as possible. “Are you two arguing again?” There was another slapping from outside.

“Not at all,” said Mister Flatte. “I was simply asking Arthur about some curiosity I had heard about, and I wanted to know his opinion.”

“Mister Watson, I was simply trying to enjoy my paper and Mister Flatte had accosted me with questions about a dinner party I went to. I believe he is doing this because the Flattes were not invited.”

“Not invited?” Mister Flatte harrumphed, “we were in fact invited, but the timing had proved inconvenient. We were in Takesea at the time we saw the raven rays, and you know as well as I that it is a three day ride from House Graef. We simply would not have made it at time, even with changes of fresh horses in Watshire.”

“Could you ask someone else about the dinner?” Arthur muttered, returning to his newspaper with an irritated flick of the paper.

“Greene,” Mister Watson called out softly to a stocky man who was excitedly sipping a cup and complimenting the new table within the coffeehouse to an exhausted looking servant. “You were at the dinner party at Lord Graef’s, yes? Flatte has a question about it.”

“Ah!” The man moved away from the grateful servant, “yes? Yes! My wife and I had both the pleasure of being invited to House Graef.” He strolled over quickly to the group with a jaunt to his step. “It was a stupendous gathering, so many gentry! My wife, oh always lovely, had been complimented by the earl himself! He said she had things well in hand! There was stuffed quail there too, lightly spiced to take account of the weak intestines of some guests I reckon but still absolutely delicious. I can’t wait to tell dear Henrietta!”

“I heard there’s a mistress of the house now,” Mister Flatte said.

“A mistress…?” Mister Greene’s mouth opened, then closed, before he shook his head. “No, a small child. A distant relation that fell to destitution apparently. He was taking her in, and I did not ask more because it seemed rude, and my dear lady needed my help. I simply cannot refuse her, you know. She’s a very delicate woman.”

Mister Flatte had a look of slight disappointment, “a distant relation you say? One not of… any landed interests?”

“Not at all, the word was she came from a poorhouse.”

“What a terrible fate,” Arthur said from his newspaper, “to be beyond the desires of matchmaking of the Flattes!”

“Oh no, you know I think the Perrys would have a boy around her age,” Mister Greene said.

“Well, whomever she is, she must be quite distantly related,” Mister Watson’s statement was almost idly spoken, and he jumped as a shadow passed by the window that vanished with a wet slap, “oh good heavens, are they still working on the roof?”

“It was rather messy, this Saint Clara’s,” Arthur answered. “The proprietor said it took a few days to find enough men to come work on moving them off the roof, since so many others are still busy.”

“Oh yes, I had my Beth go to the Lowhills because of the damage to our roof!” Mister Greene nodded. "They were still picking remains off of it this morning when I left, unfortunately."

“Mister Watson,” Mister Flatte leaned closer to the man, “I was thinking, perhaps this is not a ‘distant relation’, but in fact… a natural child?”

Arthur nearly dropped his newspaper in shock, and Greene’s mouth opened in shock. Mister Watson found his tongue more quickly, “a natural child? By the Gods, you cannot just say something like that. Not even among gentlemen here! Besides, we know Lord Graef to be a chaste individual.”

“Well, when he goes to the House of Lords for near half the year, do you believe he remains so?”

“No, no, it cannot be his natural child,” Mister Greene said quickly, “I saw her and she looks nothing like him. So she must be a cousin of some sort.”

Before the men could continue their discussion however, the doors of the coffeehouse opened up and a man in baggy ill-fitting clothes pushed a wide wagon in. Behind him were several other men, dressed similarly. Despite the cool weather outside, all were sweating, and before them was a strange stench of sweet and salt. Greene pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to cover his mouth.

The proprietor, a small thin older man, appeared like a ghost to run over to the wagon-bearing men. “No! No! I said take it to the back. Not come through my establishment! Are you all thick?” He bellowed.

“How? There’s no way in besides straight through here! You want us to tear down the bakery next door?” The man behind the wagon yelled back. All eyes in the coffeehouse were on them. “We’re still waiting for our money, you tight-fisted…”

“The pay will come when you finish the job!” The proprietor said. “Now go find another way to take that into the back.”

“Give us the two days of pay you already owe us and I’ll make magic happen, ey?” The wagon man offered.

“Absolutely not, the job needs to be finished first.”

“Fine then, you can finish the job yourself!”

Then the workers, all with a mighty heave, tipped over the wagon spilling broken chunks of wood, tiling, and torn apart corpses which leaked foul rotting fluid onto the ground. Limbs were mixed with gutless torsos and cracked skulls, as though some great bird had been feeding upon them. The fetid smell had many gentlemen covering their noses and scattering from the coffeehouse, including the men who had been speaking by the window. As Flatte, Greene, Arthur, and Watson left with their noses and mouths covered, Greene decided to start speaking eagerly about the quail from the dinner party again.