Sir Frederick's Tradition

Wearing her wedding pearls and the necklace Frederick had given her for Christmas, Henrietta felt sufficiently elegant, even though she had worn the same dress to Hartfestol before.














"Are you coming, my dear? I'm sure you look wonderful..."
"Yes, of course, I only had to put on my earings..."














Henrietta put down her mirror and left her new bedroom. She was really quite fond of her new house. Ever since she had been old enough to know she would get married one day she had dreamed of putting together a house, of having one of her own, but somehow she had not realized how nice it would really be until Frederick had showed her the front hall and asked her what she thought.















Now he was standing in that same hall, and the carriage--their own carriage! was waiting to take them to Hartfestol for a New Year's Eve dinner. Henrietta suddenly felt even older and grander than her 18 years.
But the dinner conversation made her feel remarkably stupid again.














Her husband and the Earl seemed to have arsenal of old stories and jokes to go through, and though they often smiled brightly at her with the punchlines, she felt rather left out. It wasn't very considerate of Frederick to be doing this, she thought.
"My Lord, I think you should tell Henrietta who Mrs. Wilcox is,"Frederick said at last. Finnally he had noticed her imploring looks, if not her foot under the table.














"Oh, Mrs. Wilcox is the woman who used to live in your house. When I told her a new couple was moving in, she--(he gave Frederick a quick glance here)--all she wanted to know was whether you would be spending your wedding night there."
Henrietta was a bit taken aback by this.














Frederick just sent her a look that said "I'm sorry-but isn't it funny?"
Henrietta was suddenly sorry to be the only woman of the party. When Drake came in with the after-dinners, she withdrew to the parlour by herself.

Later, when they were in the coach, Henrietta was rather quiet. She wondered how long it would take Frederick to notice-she dared him to notice.
But Frederick always caught on eventually, and so just as they left the grounds of Hartfestol, Frederick asked her-gently-if anything was wrong.














"Oh, no! I'm quite fine."
"What's bothering you, Henrietta?"
"Nothing! I'm sure you and his lordship had a good time, so that's all that matters."














Frederick sighed gently. "You matter, Henrietta. I'm sorry about the Earl. He isn't used to having women around-he hasn't had anyone visit him since his wife's funeral, and that was 10 months ago."
"No one visit him? Why not?" And he is so outgoing around us! she thought.














"I don't really know. I-I suppose this is obvious, but he's in mourning, and I think moreover that her death was quite a blow, more even than most wive's deaths are."
"Then surely he ought to treat women better, in her honor," said Henrietta.
"Oh Henrietta," her husband said and drew her to him. "I don't think it works that way."














After a few moment of silence, Frederick brought out his pocketwatch. "It's a new year," he said. "Eighteen hundred A.D." After a moment he grinned devilishly and looked at her. "You and I seem to have forgotten a tradition."
"What tradition?" asked Henrietta.

Lord Charles' New Freind

"What a grand house!" Henrietta exclaimed.
"Hartfestol is a lovely place." Sir Fredrick agreed as they were led into the sitting room. "But Henrietta," he said, making sure Drake had already left the room to go get the Earl. "Don't make any of your usual comments about how well the draperies looks, or any such thing."
"Why not?" asked Henrietta.














"Well, I don't think the decorations are the Earl's doing so much as they were his wife's, darling."
"Oh--I wouldn't say such a thing anyway!"
"No, of course not--good morning, Damier!" He exclaimed. It was the closest he could get to not calling Lord Damier "my Lord."














"Henrietta, may I present the Earl of Cennanchester?"














Henritta realized that she ought to get up and courtsey, but somehow the Earl was in front of her even before she could begin to stand.














"And what exactly is a man like you doing with a fine lady like this, Frederick?" asked the Earl.
"I've asked myself the same question several times." her husband murmered.
The Earl laughed and sat down. "Pleased to make your aquaintance, Lady Arnold."
Lady Arnold, who was startled to find herself adressed by that title, could only keep smiling.
She was not quite used to talking to Earls. Her father was a gentleman, but a humble one from the coast. She didn't know it, but that was what had attracted Frederick to her in the first place, for Frederick was himself was a modest person from a relatively humble background.
Suddenly the Earl was talking to her again.
"I think I hear a little vandal coming our way," he was saying. "Lady Arnold, I was thinking that being new to Cennanceaster, you might be in need of a freind, so I brought one for you. Nurse Thale!" He called out into the front hall. "Would you bring in Lord Charles? He has a visitor."
And then a nurse came in carrying what could only be The Earl's son. Henrietta had forgotten he had one by his late wife, but in fact now she remembered Frederick had mentioned it when he had told her about their new home.














"Allow me to introduce my son, Lady Arnold." said the Earl. "And now, if you would excuse your us for a moment. your husband and I must go sign a deed. Perhaps Charles can keep you company?"
"Oh, I'm sure I could find no better!" said Henrietta.















In fact, Henrietta was the youngest in her family, younger than four brothers, and she was not used to conversing with small children.














But Lord Charles, who had already escaped his nurse's arms, was not feeling shy at all. After he was detained from investigating the pianoforte, he toddled back to her and gave her a shy grin before crying, "Heh-lo!"

Sir Fredrick's Question

Sir Fredrick was peering curiouly at some of the oldest books in the library when Lord Damier came in.














"Fredrick!"
"My Lord!"
"Leave the 'my Lord'ing to Drake. And don't even start with the Earl buisness..."
"I'm so sorry about the hour. It rained last night and the roads were muddy, so..."
"Never mind! are you hungry? Let me call Suzanna..."














Sir Fredrick mumbled something about an inn and a dinner, so instead Lord Damier said,"How is London? Still full of mamas hungry to make a Lady Arnold out of their daughters?"
Sir Fredrick laughed. "They have little chance of that now!"














"I'm engaged, my Lord. I'm on my way to my wedding..."
Lord Damien was quite surprised. He had somehow always imagined Fredrick as a bachelor. Of course, he had always imagined himself as a bachelor, until he met Evangeline.














"Congratulations!" he declared after a moment. "No wonder you're so well dressed! Or perhaps the London lifestyle is wearing off on you?"
"Just because the clothes you first saw me in were my tattered uniform doesn't mean I haven't aquired any fashion sense since then, my Lord. "
"Of course..." Good heavens, a married man!
They were old freinds. Lord Damier was likely to call anyone he met three times his freind, but he and Fredrick really were freinds, despite their differences. They had met in London, 17 years ago. Fredrick was newly knighted then, the son of a sea captain who had joined the navy in search of excitement at sixteen. He'd come back at eighteen in the "tattered uniform" and was promptly knighted for being one of the few capable men fighting in that disastrous war. Lord Alexander Damier was young, bored, and in search of the most exciting people as his freinds. Spruced up, Sir Fredrick Arnold the war hero certainly qualified. They saw each other whenever they were both in London for many years, until Alexander went to France and came back with The Countess Evangeline in tow. He hadn't been to London since then.
"My Lord..."
"Alexander."
"Could I beg a great favor of you?"














"Anything."
"I--thing is--her parents have a house in mind for us, and it's no strain on the purse, but I kind of would like--"
"To escape her parents? I can't blame you." So that was what Fredrick wanted. He had half expected it after he said he was engaged. "I have some untilled land and some lazy farmers, yes. Would you like being a gentleman farmer?"
"If it meant my own house with Henrietta and your Lordships' company, I would."
"Kind of you to flatter me. Then it's agreed. Shall we drink to the bargain?"
"It's rather late..."
"I suppose so. We would never have said that all those years ago, would we?"
"Oh no. It was never too late to drink then!"

The Earl's Midnight Visitor

The Earl of Cennanceaster, who was usually refered to as Lord Damien because he still thought of his father as the Earl, paced the corridor above the Great Hall and listened to the slow thunk, thunk of the grandfather clock somewhere below his feet. It was nearly midnight, a familiar time to him.













He had not slept properly for nine months now, not since he had slept in the double bed in the master bedroom. But tonight, for once, he could justify being up late.
"My Lord, if you wish to rest I will wake you as soon as he arrives," Drake called up to him.














"That's quite all right," Lord Damien assured him. But his butler's eyes followed him along the path somewhat anxiously and so he said, "I'll just go finish some letters."
Letters were often what kept him up this late. He found that around this time he was just blurry-headed enough to read the letters, most from tennants, and piece together some kind of response which usually added up to "Figure it out for yourselves." He flipped through through the stash, looking for a thin letter to start with.














None of them were particularly thin, but some of them had been on his desk awhile. After a moment, he resigned himself to a rather grubby-looking one he had got a week or two ago and was cutting it open when Drake opened the door behind him.














"My Lord, there a better lamp in your study for night reading..."
"It's a mess in there."
"I'll clean it out for you, my Lord. But Sir Fredrick is here."
"What?!"
"In the library."
Lord Damien tossed the letter opener onto the tale with a satisfying twang and turned towards the door. "And you bother me about the light!"

Cennanceaster

The year was 1799: England was at peace, at least officially, as across the channel France underwent the last hiccups of a revolution and Napoleon began to pursue power.

Back in England, life in the small of Cennanceaster continued. The town and it's parish had a population of only about two hundred, most of them still tennant farmers under the the current Lord Damien. It was a great source of pride to the villiage people that the ancestral home of the Lords Damier lay just outside their villiage. Out of pride more than anything else, the people did not resent their Lord as much as they might otherwise, and indeed some pitied the man for the recent loss of his wife.

Lord Damier himself wanted little to do with the villiage life, or rather any life, at the present time, though he secretly found great pleasure in watching the people from his carrige when he goes to town each week.

This is the first test post. Welcome to the soon to the expanding worlds I am creating.
-Sydonie