The Earl of Somethingquite

Shplenderghast chronicles

Once, in the course of his journeys, Blinge stumbled upon a manor house, quite overgrown. Ivy covered most of its walls, and those unconquered by it, were obviously lost in a bet with wild grapevine.

He marvelled at the grand facade, the turrets and towers, the magnificent columns of golden sandstone. He ventured inside and almost climbed the staircase drenched in shadows and drowned in long lost memories, when a voice, that could easily be that of a whispering smoke or waves shattering the ancient, tattered cookbook, said from the nothingness to his right:

‘Welcome, traveller, to the Breathlessthwaite manor. I am the Earl of Somethingquite. You may call me My Lord’.

Blinge swallowed the questions crowding his brain and said:

‘Right. Hello. I'm N.A.A.Blinge, collector of traditions and admirer of curio….’

‘Wha'ever’ the Earl said with that unforgettable accent of the North Flowndon Blinge always found charming. ‘What do you want? Are you selling buttons- perchance?’

He stepped out of the shadows and Blinge saw that the Earl was thin as a rake, his face long and gaunt, his hair spiky . His eyes were hawkish, golden-orange and absolutely mad. He was dressed in a long, flowery bathrobe with no buttons at all. Underneath it was an apron, so pink and frilly it almost seemed normal.

That was quite a sight.

Blinge said he was sorry. He had no buttons to spare.

The Earl sighed and disappeared into shadows, faintly smelling of Apple blossom conditioner, floor Polish and pretzels.

Blinge thought , sadly, that the dinner was to be looked for elsewhere. He left the foyer and was almost out of the garden, when something shwoopled him on the head. Blinge looked at the thing. It was a package with a note pinned to it.

The note read:

Tis the cake.

Don't thank.

It's almost bad, anyway.

He never dared unwrapping the package.