My Lady Miriam Part 11

After many requests to write more...here is part 11 of MLM!


...They returned to Blackmoore Park shortly before noon, on the best of terms and with Lord Charles exclaiming that he was quite famished and more than ready for his luncheon. Miriam returned happily that she too was in need of nourishing refreshment, and would much the happier for it! Charles went in search of his sister and Miriam set out to change her dress from her riding habit before the midday meal.
Charles, after a quite exhaustive search for Philippa, found her standing in the middle of the morning room, with a worried expression on her usually cheerful features.
“Philippa? Are you quite well?” Charles asked anxiously as he shut the door quietly and went to her.
“I am always well Charles! It’s nothing, I am sure, but there—there is a gentlem—no, there is a man who wishes to speak with Miriam.” Philippa paused and added, “I am not all sure that he is a gentleman Charles.”
He frowned and replied,
“Where is he? Did he state his business?” Philippa sat down before answering his questions,
“He is in the Red Saloon. Browning told Mr....Mr. Kendall that Lady Miriam was not in, but he said he would wait. He was so very insistent upon seeing her!”
A shade of annoyance crossed Charles’ face,
“How very poor that Miriam should be bothered in such a way under my very own roof! I shall have this young man shoved off quietly. I won’t have Miriam bothered.” He added emphatically.
“Oh no! He isn’t at all young Charles!” Philippa ejaculated, “Why I believe he has seen the better side of forty my dear! Or so Browning informed me.”
A mixed look of doubt and surprise replaced his annoyance and he answered dubiously,
“Forty? Well then, why the deuce...? I think that I shall speak to this Mr. Kendon—“
“Kendall.” Philippa corrected.
“Yes, Mr. Kendall. I shall speak to him myself. Did you say the Red Saloon Pip?”
Philippa nodded as she stood and watched him go out of the room. She stood there for a moment or two, her brow furrowed, deep in thought. She ought to go and tell Miriam about this—this Mr. Kendall. For yes indeed! Miriam might know of or perhaps (heaven forbid!) even know the man. And if she did not then he might be sent on his way, for there was no use in quizzing and keeping this man where he was not wanted! No indeed. She would go and inform Miriam. Though she did wonder how Charles got on with Mr. Kendall; she laughed within herself, for Charles was dear, but not very up to the mark on such things! He did not often deal with commoners as their father had, once upon a day, when he was housing tenants on his colossal estate. No, she and Charles had been brought up in the best of society and she was only too glad that the responsibility of confronting this man had not come to her!

Charles, however, when presented with the scene which had provoked Philippa’s sympathy for him, found himself rather more dazed than confused.
Mr. Kendall was, as Browning had so aptly put it, never going to see forty again and as Charles saw the man in person he was very much in agreement with him.
He was an imposing gentleman, with a wide berth and a solid stance. He stood, quite unmovable in the Red Saloon, his beady eyes roving around the room and his large, ringed fingers tapping impatiently on the back of an elegant, gold trimmed chair.
He was wearing a murky-yellow satin waistcoat, which did not quite button all the way to the end; his pantaloons were (unlike Lord Blackmoore’s which fitted like a glove) loose-fitting and of a unrecognizable colour; his jewellery was of no distinction, excepting of course the neck-tie pin which was unspeakably large and sparkling. His hair consisted mainly of a mass of brown unruly waves and curls, his nose was pointed, though rather crooked and his mouth large. He looked to be rather weather-beaten, and perhaps of 
rather a very open mind.
As he saw Lord Blackmoore enter, he straightened himself up and looked pointedly at him.
“Good day to you guv’nor! I ‘ave come to speak to ‘er Ladyship,” He paused, as if remembering something, “The young Ladyship, not the old gentry-mort, if you—er—please.” He finished off her sentence with a satisfactory nod, content that he had put forward his request in a most genteel manner.
Charles merely blinked, quite unsure how to answer this mode of speech.
After a moment of his waiting for Lord Blackmoore to answer, Mr. Kendall sighed and said,
“Look ‘ere flash cull, your man said ‘er Ladyship weren’t in, but I know that’s cutting a sham see? I ain’t going to kick o’er the traces! I just want to see ‘er Ladyship don’t I? I ain’t going to be gulled guv’nor! Not when I sees the young gentry-mort coming to this place not ten minutes gone! Me being a peevy cull see? Me wanting a word with the young Ladyship an’ you being a gentry-cove, we do what we’re both meant to do guv.”

.....more to come!


Copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved 
Want to see more of MLM? Go to the Stories Page!