Page 50 of Lord of Mischief
When Freddie woke, it was late afternoon.How many hours he had lain unconscious under the tree, he couldn’t tell.A light rain was falling.A throbbing headache sat in the front of his brain and his mouth was as parched as a desert.
“Ooh.What was in that bloody wine?”He struggled to his feet, using the tree to help him balance.Eventually, he was able to walk out into the main street.
He was about to hail a hack to take him home when he remembered why he was at Barton Street in the first place.The handful of coins in his pocket would not cover the cost of the short trip home.“This is officially the worst day of my life,” he growled.
He ambled home, stopping several times in St James’s Park to throw up.When a group of well-dressed people passed him by, he heard them slyly remark about his inability to hold his alcohol.He ignored them, his sole interest being in putting one foot in front of the other and making it safely back to Grosvenor Place.
When it began to rain more heavily, he looked up.The dark grey skies overhead matched his miserable mood.He had gone from thinking he was king of the world to discovering just how insignificant he truly was.
The best-laid schemes of mice and men, go often askew.
By the time he finally staggered home, he was wet through.He banged on the front door several times before remembering his father had ordered the household servants away.Rummaging around in his pocket, he found his front door key, and slipped it into the lock.
As the door closed behind him, the echo of the thud rang out in the empty foyer.His clothes were soaked through, and his hair was stuck flat to his head.He looked and felt like something the cat had dragged in.
“Can this day get any worse?”
He went upstairs to his cold bedroom and stripped off his wet clothes before putting on dry ones.He needed to light a fire somewhere in the house to get his clothes dry, but heating his bedroom was a luxury he would not be able to afford for the foreseeable future.The kitchen had a large fireplace and stove, it would be much easier to keep himself warm if he kept to the downstairs kitchen.
Fortunately, the household cook had stored new firewood inside the kitchen earlier that morning, and there was a basket of kindling ready to set a fire.
“Right.This should be simple enough,” he said.Taking the tinderbox down from a nearby shelf, he emptied its contents and set them out on the table.Tinder, flint, and steel.Placing the tinder into the box, he held the steel in his right hand and the flint in his left.He struck it against the steel.
Sparks flew, but the tinder failed to ignite.He tried a second time.And a third.He was well into a litany of foul language when a stray spark finally ignited.
He blew gently on it, relieved when a flame appeared.Hurrying to the fireplace, he grabbed a handful of kindling and stood it on end.He finally got a small pile in place, just as the tinder flame went out.“Bloody hell.”
He searched the cupboards, looking for more tinder, but found none.With a grim mood taking hold, he marched back upstairs and spent the next hour going from room to room in search of another tinderbox.Saintspreserveus shadowed his every step.
It was dark by the time he finally managed to get a fire lit.It had taken him nearly two miserable hours.As the flames took hold of the small logs, he slumped onto the cold hard floor.
“All this to get a cup of tea,” he muttered.
The dog wandered over from where he had been sitting observing Freddie’s efforts, and nuzzled up against his master.Freddie gave him a good rub behind the ears.“Well at least someone is not angry with me, are you, boy?”
The dog nudged him and gave a small whimper.Freddie was clearly not getting the message.
“You want food, don’t you?That makes two of us.”
He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.A quick check of the kitchen pantry shelves yielded the small wheel of cheese, the remainder of the loaf of bread from the morning, and some apples which he had missed earlier.As he regularly dined out there was little need for the house cook to keep a stock of supplies in the kitchen.
He cut the cheese and some of the apples up into dog-sized pieces and placed them on the floor.Saintspreserveus sniffed at the odd food combination but chewed it down in quick time.He came back for more, leaving Freddie with no option but to feed him the food he had intended to eat himself.
As he sat and watched the dog finish off the rest of his supper, Freddie cut a large chunk off the loaf of bread and chewed it.
From king to pauper in one day was a long, hard fall.
