Episode 68
A Guest of the Manor
Huntoun Manor saw few visitors as its sire and his daughter were the only remaining relics of the Paget-Thorpe family. So, there were no kin to come for holidays or to spend a summer season on the estate. And the bucolic remoteness of the holding kept casual visits from associates and friends to a minimum.
And so, a telegram from Dr. Peter Stokes OBE, requesting to be a guest of the manor caused quite a sensation with Arabella’s father. Stokes was a Harley Street surgeon famous in London and a confidant of the royal family. But, more importantly to Lord Huntoun, the doctor was a member of the bone-hunting elite. A keen paleontologist with several works on the subject published in the Geographical Journal, his impending arrival filled her father with a schoolboy giddiness that Arabella found dismaying.
“And why is Sir Peter interrupting his trip to stop here?” she asked her father.
“Doctor Sir Peter, dear,” he said, flustered as he strode through the house ordering the staff about as if they were the crew of a sailing vessel in the grip of a gale. “Or is it Sir Doctor Peter?”
“I didn’t see you this flustered when you’d received word of a Ghilzai uprising,” she said as she followed him from room to room where servants were dusting, straightening, mopping and polishing. Stable boys on ladders were washing the windows, the cloths squeaking on the panes.
“I am not flustered, Pansy. You father does not indulge flustering,” he insisted as he marched through the library for the conservancy. “Stokes is a man of some standing as well as a fellow enthusiast. And, to answer your question, he’s traveling to Blackpool where a rather significant find of Pre-Cambrian mollusks has been discovered.”
“He’s coming all this way from London to inspect some ancient seashells?”
“You try my patience, daughter.”
“How long will he be here, father?”
“He’s arriving tomorrow on the Monday train. He’ll be our guest until Wednesday and departing on the Blackpool train in the afternoon of that day.”
“And why is he stopping by? Is it just so the pair of you can speak of creatures wisely left behind by Noah?”
“He is here to see my huntounosaurus,” Lord Huntoun said as they arrived at the creature in question. It stood, or crouched, fully assembled now after months of intense labor over countless hours. Geoffrey Pike was here wearing a workman’s apron over shirtsleeves to apply a coat of smelly varnish to the artifact.
“Your what?” Arabella said with suppressed snicker. “You named this bloody thing after yourself?”
“Language, girl! Really!” her father said as he bent to inspect Geoffrey’s handiwork. “I named it after where it was discovered, as is the custom.”
“But you discovered it in Cornwall,” she said, smiling fondly at her father’s discomfort.
“Well, it’s as good a name as any!” he huffed. “Bless me, the varnish certainly brings the creature to life, does it not, Geoff?”
“It should be dry by Dr. Stokes’ arrival, m’lord,” Geoffrey said as he stepped around the tail of the beast looking for spots he might have missed.
“Excellent! Excellent, my boy,” Lord Huntoun said with the pride of the father of a newborn. “I’m going to confer with the chef. He should have tomorrow night’s dinner menu in order by now.”
Her father marched off back into the main house leaving Arabella to watch Geoffrey dab away at the ribs of the monster.
“Ugly thing, isn’t it?” she said. “Yet my father admires it as he would a thoroughbred racing horse or a work of art.”
“The discovery of a new species is a cause for pride, ’bella. Allow your father his one moment of immodesty.” Pike had become a more frequent guest of the household in the recent months and taken to calling her Bella. She allowed it though she rebuked him the one time he called her ‘Pansy,’ as only her father was allowed that liberty.
“And his excitement over this Stokes character?”
“Well, Sir Peter holds sway over the paleontology committee of the Society. It’s only with his imprimatur that your father’s discovery will be officially recognized. His recognition of this ‘ugly thing’ is your father’s fondest wish.”
“Then make certain you pretty it up as best you can, Geoffrey,” she said as she departed to do her part in seeing the that the house was prepared.
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