A Typical Social at Lady Cavendish's Manor

A TYPICAL SOCIAL AT LADY CAVENDISH’S MANOR

The Affair of the Blue Ming Vase

Written by Jean Ivey

I was rifling through my bureau drawer the other day, searching for a stamp, when I came across a little photograph. The picture showed a pile of broken china lying on a carpet and after a good deal of head scratching and chin stroking, I remembered why I had such a photograph in my possession. I leant back in my chair and cast my mind back to that fateful evening. That social at Lady Cavendish’s manor, and the affair of Mr. Jones and the Blue Ming Vase.

Lady Cavendish stood frozen in the middle of the parlor, her nose flared like a cantankerous goat. The only noise to be heard was a melancholy hoot from a barn owl sitting in the oak outside the parlor window. We, the guests of Lady Cavendish, all turned our eyes to our hostess and then to the ornament lying by the grate, the light of the fire reflected in every piece. I thought she would shout but she slowly turned her head to the trembling Mr Jones who, with his toe, was subtly trying to push the offending tennis racket under the divan and out of sight. The room turned their heads in unison to follow her gaze. Mr Jones was sweating in his icy spotlight, twisting his fingers into knots.

“Are you responsible for the breakage of this priceless antique, Mr Jones?” Lady Cavendish advanced slowly on Mr Jones who cowered as her shadow engulfed him. He began to stammer.

“W-well, I-I-didn’t…”

“Don’t babble, man, I can’t stand babblers. Speak up!”

Mr Jones stumbled backwards, bowing and wringing his hands.

“I did-didn’t mean, there was no c-control, it just… the ball…”

Lady Cavendish raised her voice, forming each word with substantial definition.

“Did, Mr Jones, you break my antique Blue Ming Vase?”

Mr Jones screwed up his face in angst and whimpered

“Yes.”

She leant in and whispered back. We other guests all leant in closer to hear her accusations.

“And how, may I ask, did you break it?” She was smiling in a rather sickly sweet way, the light from the fire flashing in her glasses. She stared Mr Jones into a chair.

“T-t-t-ten-tennis.” he finally admitted under her pressuring presence. We hurriedly hid our own rackets behind our backs and immediately adopted shocked expressions, shaking our heads and tutting.

Lady Cavendish erupted.

“TENNIS? TENNIS!” she bellowed at him, causing his hair to stand on end and the rest of us to leap approximately five and a quarter inches into the air and drop our rackets in fright, which then cascaded over the floor.

Lady Cavendish had outdone herself. She mouthed silent words at Mr Jones, who drew his knees up to his chin and began to ferociously gnaw his fingers like a corgi at a bone. Lady Cavendish collapsed into the divan next to Mr Jones and began to fan her stark white face with her hand.

We nine guests adapted our expressions to the current situation: our faces became mildly concerned and we peered inquiringly at the Lady who was trying to murder the ceiling with her deadly stare. Mr Jones was curled up in the corner of his armchair with his little finger between his teeth, staring in wide-eyed horror at the divan as though it too might spring into the air and hurl tennis related accusations at him.

It was then that I decided to pass a comment on the upholstery of the divan, intending to bring renewed conversation to the parlor.

“I must say, Lady Cavendish, that I find that burgundy, velvet blend on your divan most striking. Is it the original or has it been re-upholstered?”

I had believed, in straightening my suit, stepping forwards like an aristocratic gentleman should and donating the chance for a fresh topic to converse about, that I would be doing the whole room a favour. What I did not expect was to find Mr Jones airborne and soaring towards me, due to a combination of him leaping from his seat in a manner not unlike a cannonball being fired from a Basilisk cannon during the Spanish Armada to reach his gallant rescuer in the form of myself, and Lady Cavendish bequeathing a vigorous wallop to his behind as he passed, sending him flying onto me.

“OUT!” she screamed at the guests, pointing to the door. Everyone abandoned their rackets and jogged out, crocodile fashion. The Lady then turned on Mr Jones and myself, crumpled beneath him.

“C-Clean!” she managed to say, indicating the rackets and the vase, ex—vase, before she ran out after the others, almost in tears and slammed the door. Mr Jones whimpered.

I heaved him off me and said kindly,

“Mr. Jones, you go and collect the rackets together and put them in a pile, all right?” I stood up, dusting my suit and Mr Jones nodded in a pathetic sort of way.

I scrutinised the jagged pieces of the vase. Almost like a jigsaw puzzle, I thought. If that piece were an eye and that one a sort of feather thing, similar to the one Lady Cavendish had adorning her hair, then the ornament, in its pieces, composed a sort of face, not unlike our hostess’s...

I threw myself to the floor to inspect the pieces at a closer distance, and I saw Lady Cavendish staring back at me. It was remarkable. Lady Cavendish’s image was in the pieces of pot, a miracle formation. How could a vase break into the exact shape of its owner? It was beyond belief but clearly possible.

“Mr Jones,” I called, “does Lady Cavendish have a camera?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he snivelled, as he stooped to collect a tennis racket.

I decided the best course of action was to go and inquire in person. I left Mr Jones, with very clear instructions not to venture onto the Axminster, and went and sought out Lady Cavendish.

I located her rather sooner than I had anticipated, after tripping on the top most step of the staircase and tumbling down, head long, bouncing on each step like a ball, into the Lady herself who was currently ascending. I found both our persons sitting splayed at the foot of the stairs and then got straight to the point.

“Lady Cavendish, do you own the apparatus for capturing the photograph; The camera?”

“What?” she snapped glaring, “Are you going to break that now too”

“So you do have one then?”

“Yes,” she narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

No sense in beating about the bush, I decided.

“Because the Blue Ming Vase, smashed into the exact image of yourself and want to photograph it before Mr Jones cleans it up, so…”

I then became aware that I was talking to the skirting board as Lady Cavendish had sprung up and zoomed to the parlor door. I followed her calling,

“It’s alright, I told Mr Jones not to walk on the carpet, it’s not going anywhere.”

I arrived in the parlor and saw the most joyful looking Lady Cavendish I had ever set eyes on. Her mouth was split into the widest grin, I was afraid her face would disappear, and she was bouncing up and down and clapping her hands like a schoolgirl. I was mildly unnerved.

“Mr Jones!” she exclaimed to his behind as he scrabbled under the divan to retrieve the tennis racket he had hidden earlier, “Mr Jones, you are a genius!”

Mr Jones reappeared, wide eyed and as baffled as I was.

“This is astonishing, amazing, astounding and that’s only the A’s.” She seized Mr Jones around the neck and swung him around crying, “Thank you! Thank you!”

We knelt in front of the pieces and Mr Jones asked: “Do you want it cleared up now?”

“Good heavens, man, no. Leave it! I shall leave it here always! It is here to stay. No-one else in the entire postal district has a Blue Ming Vase in the shape of me, have they?” And she bestowed a kiss upon me and Mr Jones, who subsequently tumbled into the cabinet containing the extremely valuable Fabergé egg.