Manor of Convenience

The Party

For many years I was the master of the most beautiful manor. It hadn't always been mine, there were many who owned it before me, and there would be many after, but whilst it was mine, it was an honour and I was duty-bound to stay there and take care of it, keeping the wish to my late father and brother and be the best man I could be. My name is Toby, short for Tobias, and I wish it were as simple as the shortening of a name to describe my role within that household and the manor which I presided over. For many years upon this Earth I had rarely a day that was straightforward, or a time when everything ran smoothly. In some cases, you could say, mayhem followed me everywhere.

For I, Toby of Elmwood Manor loved a man named George and he most certainly loved me. And although we were married to two wonderful ladies- Meg and Sophia- we still loved each other firstly. My cousin Meg was in love with Sophia, and Sophia equally in love with her, and under our roof we lived the life of two married couples, seemingly the same as everyone else, two husbands and wives- two in love pairs. Except in our case we were in love with the wrong people. Well, to the world we were. In our hearts however we were very much in love with the right people and over the years there was never a doubt in my mind that all the mayhem that ensued, all the caution, all the lies, deception and madness was all worth it; for our lives at Elmwood Manor were the most memorable and wonderful of my existence.

The spring of 1925 was the season of our weddings. The Great War was a fading memory which could never entirely be forgotten, and our vows, though very much for convenience, were none-the-less still true as I so wished to honour Sophia and take care of her as much as a husband should of a wife. But it was Georgie I made those specific vows to in my mind, thinking of him as I uttered the words in the church whereupon I vowed to be there through richer and poorer, in sickness and in health until death parted us all in the end.

And so we began our married lives as a falsehood, a pretence to those around us, and by the May of that year we were still newly-weds who had yet to show society what we were made of. We decided it'd be correct to host a party to honour our nuptials and also our living arrangements. Society already thought it strange that Meg and George were to live with Sophia and myself but over the years that followed, it was going to appear stranger and stranger in our attempts to be as 'normal' as possible. So, we decided as odd as we were, as alien as we felt- to live our chosen lives as best we could.

...

The day of the party started off as any ordinary day with a scrambled egg breakfast and a leisurely walk in the grounds mid-morning followed by some tedious estate paperwork after a small luncheon had been consumed. As the afternoon drew to a close, I sensed the atmosphere in the manor change as the servants scurried about to-and-fro, decorating the hall and the dining room as the four of us sat upstairs, attempting to dress for the occasion but not quite managing to be ready on time. It was only half and hour before we were due to have guests that we were all still dreadfully unready and dreadfully anxious. It was dreadful all round.

I hurried into the girls' bedroom without thinking, flinging open the door to find my cousin Meg about to undress from her tatty day clothes. She still had a smear of mud on her cheek from where she'd been planting flowers to help our gardener Duckett.

"Out!" she yelled in her usual booming voice as I covered my eyes, trying not to see her as she slipped out of her clothes and was left, I supposed, standing in her undergarments. Meg was never one for being shy but even she had her limits.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Meg," I said from behind my hand and trying to find the door handle without looking. "I forget which room I'm in these days."

As I turned to the door, or where I thought it was, my wife Sophia rushed past me and laughed. "What are you doing here, Toby dear?"

"I have no idea. Trying to find Georgie."