The Fall Of The House Of Grid-Iron

How goes the night dear reader? It is quiet, oh so quiet in the home of Lord Grid-Iron, nothing stirs, no, not even a mouse. But outside, on the streets, some distance from the graveled driveway leading up to Lord Grid-Iron’s mansion, it appears as though all of Bedlam has broken loose, indeed the primitive screams, howls, and sobs of murderous rage would be enough to chill one’s blood were such a one as Lord Grid-Iron aware of them, but he, alas, for the moment, is blissfully unaware. Indeed, riven with torment over his most recent excursion to Mrs Hayes ‘Nunnery’ it is a wonder that he can fix his mind on anything, save the rapid speed with which his soul is descending into the well-heated realms of perdition.

“I’m lost Emily, quite lost”

“Lost my Lord?” Emily glanced at him uneasily as she laid out the cold meats and the freshly baked bread, the pastries, accompanying silver, and linen napkin, folded neatly into its silver napkin holder. The very fact of standing in front of his Lordship laying the tea things out would have unsettled her nerves on any other occasion. But on this night of all nights with the house over run by bobbies, whistles and truncheons poised; and all the men-servants positioned at every entrance into the house, fireplace pokers and copper- pans at the ready. Everyone else in the kitchens might well pretend that they couldn’t hear the mayhem taking place in the streets but her hearing was fine, thank you very much! On this particular night, Emily couldn’t help wondering why they hadn’t locked up house and headed for the country. A blazing log fire crackled in the fireplace and Lord Grid-Iron stood with his back towards it, a crazed look in his eye, “Indeed” he said, his right eye twitching spasmodically, ” One cannot help but marvel at the sheer indomitable will of the Egyptians, bending the Hebrews to their service, enslaving them to the greater glory of their nation, only to be robbed by their ungrateful vassals! Pray? Do you know of Mrs Hayes? A most wonderful woman!”

On hearing that infamous name uttered by his most esteemed Lordship, Emily clutched her petticoats instinctively, for into them she had sewn a miniaturised copy of the testaments of St. Gove. She muttered a quick prayer for aid and succour turning a shocked glance upon his Lordship, and noting with muted horror that he appeared to be dancing upon the very precipice of hell, his face a-flame with she knew not what secret horrors, she turned hastily towards the vast bay window, where, alas, another kind of shock awaited her, no! Not here! Not here! Had she travelled so far from her beginnings to receive no mercy even now? Placing one tiny pastry covered hand against her pulsing breast Maggie swooned. “Maggie? Maggie? What ho! Maggie?” Bending over her, his Lordship sought to quickly loosen her stays (he had ample experience of stay-loosening). And so we leave him dear reader, in the midst of a rapidly shrinking calm before an even more rapidly approaching storm.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Beaumont-Adams revolver, invented and improved by Her Majesty’s Royal Engineers. I can cock back this little beauty and fire in one smooth stroke” Lady Grid-Iron cocked the gun in the crook of her arm and imitated firing her revolver, the scullery maids gasped, the household chef looked on with horror, the Butler with patent disgust, “Doesn’t hit the target nearly as well as my Colt, but as a second gun it will do nicely!” she tucked it into the beaded waistband of her skirt. Frances smothered a grin, all the kitchen staff looked simultaneously horrified and fascinated. And since they had gathered closely around her as she showed off the mechanics of this finely wrought instrument of death, they were nowhere near the windows when the first brick sallied forth followed by the cry “Down with Lord Grid-Iron!” Frances eyes twinkled, the game was a foot!

“Ladies to the store rooms! Quickly mind!” with the help of Frances, Lord Grid-Iron’s Butler shooed all the kitchen staff into the vast pantry where food provisions where stored the year round. “Your Ladyship!” his moustachioes bristled with disdain, for it was clear that Lord Grid-Iron had married into scandal, “Your Ladyship!” James unfurled one gloved hand extending it towards Kitty, who smiled most graciously as Frances crept up behind him and sharply rapped him on the head with a little leathern bludger he’d been given quite recently by Boodoo. “Did you need to hit him quite so hard?”

“It will let some air into his head and perhaps teach him the benefit of not getting in the way when his betters are in the process of reaping what they’ve sown Il hamdulillah, your orders m’aam?”

“At this point?” she threw him the Winchester rifle, “Guard the ladies and lay low, I’ll be upstairs in his Lordships library…if it’s still standing” Gathering her skirts up in her gloved hands, and tucking them firmly into the waist band, she fastened on a leather holster slipping a  revolver into each pouch. She made her way quickly into the vast hallway just in time to see the front door splinter inwards and a horde of armed workers begin to fight their way through. Quickly she slid into the library, hurrying towards the desk where Tobias kept all his correspondence, she found what she was looking for almost at once, a cream coloured, scarlet edged list and on that list three names from the bottom, the name of the most infamous American abroad, “Jedidiah Kane Thickett” Kitty Grid-Iron smiled, and it was the smile of a cat about to pounce upon a squirrel, that had, had the great misfortune of meandering her way, but t’was then that she heard a blood-curdling scream…to be continued….

Of Wild Roses & Narrow Vestibules

Lady Grid-Iron was tired, she was tired of reading the bible day in, and day out (and of trying to look demure whilst doing it).Tobias had developed an abiding fascination with the book of Exodus, particularly where it pertained to the sacking of Egypt, indeed he had memorised the entire chapter and never tired of reciting it to both her and the servants. She was tired of crocheting purses and sewing ribbons on bonnets, the common pass time of women born high and low throughout the realm, supposedly,(when in tarnation would she get the time to clean her Winchester rifle?), most of all she was tired of London (give me the prairies any goddamn day of the week!). But she dared not let the irritation show, for one thing, she was married to the honourable Lord Grid-Iron, and that required a degree of ladylike finesse, a degree of turning out, she had hitherto not much required.

And then, of course, there was Francis, her negro page boy, why his eyes became liquid, unfathomable pools, if he stood in Lord Grid-Iron’s presence for longer than thirty minutes, and what was worst she knew what he was thinking. He loved a good hunt, in fact he had a gift for it having been born, raised and enslaved in the Sudan (by Arab Militia men). He had been sold to a plantation owner in the Americas and subsequently freed by the underground railway. The potential consequences of his patent and potent distaste for Lord Grid-Iron might have terrified her, had he not been recruited by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and then assigned to her by Allan Pinkerton himself. “Mah-dear” she cooed, smiling sweetly at the big, old, galoot she had married, “Ah-m tired”

“Tired m’dear? Damn it! I’ve invited Lord Montaperti to brunch! Who’ll entertain him?”

“Montaperti? Why? Such a strange little man. If I but once turn my back on him I catch him rubbing the silk of my gown between his fingers, like a common dressmaker!”

Lord Grid-Iron chortled, ” He is a common dressmaker my dear! He’s in textiles, yes! Quite common and very rich, and since we both have an uncommon fascination with the great unwashed he will lunch with us this morning!”

“And what of the mill worker’s strikes my love? Countess De Lacey tells me all sorts of terrible things about them. Is it true they’ve threatened to burn down the mills unless their working conditions improve and their wages are raised?”

“Not entirely my dear, they’ve threatened to dynamite them. You know, I sometimes wonder why we ever bothered improving the cost of living. Since Lord Aberdeen became Prime Minister we’ve cut the beer duty tax, introduced ‘the right to buy your own berth in the workhouse’ policy and introduced two further alms-giving days. We had much rather they kept their little ones in the industrial schools we’ve reformed, is it our fault they choose to put them to work? The proles are their own worst enemies”

“Ah-shall have cook send up a pot of Earl Grey and some of those pastries Mademoiselle Lefevre bakes, she really is the most delightful find”

“Most delightful” the great galoot replied with a lascivious twinkle in his eye, Kitty Grid-Iron feigned a yawn and fluttered her lashes watching his face grow flush beneath their influence, delicately discarding her embroidery, she lifted her satin skirts and minced over to him, pecking him most delicately on the cheek she sighed,

“Toby mah-dear I do so tire of these interminable brunches with interminably boring elevated tradesmen, promise me my love that this will be the last one…for a while” her large, brown, doe’s eyes met his watery blue ones and as ever he blushed and became a little flustered, “My dear” another delicate peck on his hirsute cheek and she was gone.

He gave no thought to regularly attending Parliament, though he had fought tooth and nail for his seat in the lower chamber, and certainly none as to how he should persuade the mill workers not to make good on their promise to blow up every Silk Mill in London. Kitty supposed the British government would have the infantry open fire as per usual (all the really big guns were stranded some place in the Crimea). And then of course there were the little boat trips to New South Wales, the judiciary had that down to a fine art; caught stealing a loaf of bread? New South Wales. Arrested for rioting against poor pay and conditions? New South Wales. Kitty supposed that sooner or later they’d run out of penal colonies and then where would they send them? The America’s were now independent.

“You sent for me m’aam” Maggie made a small curtsy, little Maggie, so neat and pristine in her prim little mob cap and prissy blue gown complete with frilly white apron, it made Lady Grid-Iron want to scream,”Did you sleep well Maggie? You look awful peaky this morning”

“Yes M’aam” said she, her eyes downcast, “I slept as well as might be expected, thank you m’aam”

“Lay out the primrose coloured water-silk and the satin slippers will you? And then you may run my bath”

Maggie curtsied,” Will you need me to fix your hair m’aam?” Kitty shook her head, “My hair’s fine, would that my contemplations were so”

“Contemplations m’aam?” Kitty smiled wryly, four years had been the most time she had ever spent on any operation in the United States of America. She’d been married seven years, widowed three, out on the hunt for secessonists in Alabama for four, and all of that had been a walk in the park next to being married to Lord Grid-Iron (two years and three and a half days,forty minutes and thirty seconds).”M’aam I couldn’t help but to notice the brooch you always wear, excuse me for asking but m’aam that lettering, what does it mean?”

Kitty’s eyes narrowed, she smiled brilliantly and in that moment she seemed most unlike her feminine, demure self, “Numquam Somni? It’s Latin child, it means, ‘I never sleep’, I’m a lot like you in that respect mah-dear” she said, hugging the child who was her maid very gently.