And On That Note
A Spontoon Island story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
(Various characters are copyright their respective owners.)

Thumbnail art by  turnbolt

Three.


The whitetail doe’s ears flicked as the front door of the house opened and closed, and she heard the sound of hooves trudging through the front hall. A trace of familiar buck-scent reached her nose.

Reggie was home.

“I don’t like it,” Grace Stagg said. There was a note of worry in her broad, flat New Haven accent.

“I agree,” Willow Buckhorn said, her own mid-Atlantic voice carrying a concerned tinge. “I haven’t seen him this preoccupied since Lord Josslyn died.”

“Well, we need to do something about it.”

“Yeah. Want to let me handle it, Twin?” Willow asked the presence in the back of her mind. Grace considered the question briefly before nodding, and the whitetail doe set her issue of Country Life aside, stood, and smoothed the pleats in her skirt before setting out to find her husband.

One room at their house in Mayfair had been set aside as a sitting room, and Willow found Reggie slumped in a plush wingback chair. The buck looked tired.

He gave a little start as he suddenly noticed his wife standing in front of him. “Oh! Hullo, Willow. Is there anything wrong?”

Willow smiled down at him. “Yes, Reggie, there is.”

“Oh? Um, well – “

“Shall I tell you about it?”

“Of course!”

“Good.” She gestured, and his ears swiveled until the penny dropped and he sat back in the chair. Willow took a seat on the lap thus provided and began to gently stroke his headfur between his antlers and the backs of his ears. After a few moments she said, “There’s this guy I know.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhmm.” She loosened his necktie, pulled it clear of his shirt collar, and tossed it aside before unbuttoning his shirt. “He’s really a wonderful fellow. Devoted family man.”

Reggie smiled, a little vaguely after her stroking of his ears. “Do I know this fellow?”

“You should,” and she kissed him gently on the lips. “He’s you.” Before he could acknowledge this, she kissed him again and resumed petting his ears. “But something’s bothering you, my love.”

“Bothering me?”

“Uh-huh. It’s almost as bad as it was back in January,” and she snuggled closer as his ears went down. “Tell me, Reggie, please.”

Josslyn, Viscount Buckhorn and the formidable head of the firm of F.R. Buckhorn and Sons, had suffered an unexpected heart attack and died while listening to a speech in the House of Lords nearly seven months earlier, and some wagging tongues had hinted that Lord Josslyn’s only son and heir to both his title and the leadership of the family firm was secretly pleased that his father had passed away. This attitude was fostered by the common knowledge that the father had regularly verbally abused the fawn for his high spirits and penchant for drunken escapades. The fact that Reggie had almost completely sworn off liquor following his marriage and the birth of his fawn did little to disabuse certain furs.

The incident that finally dispelled this attitude was when Reggie gave the eulogy at his father’s funeral in the church near the family home, Monongahela House. In front of the family and the population of the town of Saint Peter Churchford, he had broken down sobbing in mid-sentence. Reggie had been disconsolate for nearly a week afterward, later explaining that he had always loved his father despite everything, and he “wasn’t prepared” to take over as Chairman of F.R. Buckhorn or as a viscount.

His native high spirits and optimism had rebounded after a proper period of mourning, however, borne upon the backs of four major factors. The first was Willow, who assured him of her love and support; the former Minkerton’s operative had a keen and inventive mind, and it was completely at his disposal.

The second factor was his son Tommy, who was not quite a year old when his grandfather had passed away, and his daughter Mary, who attended Josslyn’s funeral still within her mother’s womb.

The third was his mother. Lady Gwladys was supportive of him as much as Willow was, with the added fact that she, too, had been a Minkerton’s operative.

The final factor was the employees of F.R. Buckhorn & Sons, who expressed their loyalty to the company and to him in a flood of telegrams. Since becoming the Vice-Chairman under his father when he married Willow, Reggie had steadfastly maintained the philosophy that happy workers were both productive and loyal workers. Nearly all of the company’s board of directors and administration were also supportive.

Reggie sighed. “It’s Tom.”

“Tommy?” Willow asked.

“No,” Reggie replied. “It’ll be a long time before Tommy becomes a problem, Lord willing. No, it’s Mosley.”

“Ah. What’s his problem?”

Sir Oswald Mosley, ‘Tom’ to his family and friends, was the Unionist Prime Minister of Great Britain. The beagle might have felt some relief at the news that Lord Josslyn had passed away, as the old whitetail buck had been a frequent critic of the Government’s attitude toward Germany, particularly during the current unpleasantness.

However, Mosley’s feelings would likely have been very mixed, as Viscount Buckhorn was a solid Tory, and the Prime Minister needed all the support he could get.

It was likely that he wasn’t wholly reassured by Reggie after the buck gave his maiden speech in the Lords after he was invested as the new Viscount Buckhorn. The speech had been a calm and reasoned call for Britain to regain its position as the ‘balance wheel’ of Europe, and work to restore order and peace between the warring parties. The new viscount reminded the older peers of the cost of the Great War.

Willow hadn’t written the speech; she had only edited it, and had made very few corrections.

The speech had been met by applause, although Willow, seated in the gallery, noted two Unionist toughs in threadbare and ill-fitting suits (but wearing their circled lightning bolt Party badges on their lapels) booing.

Much later, one of the other nobles paraphrased Shakespeare, saying that Reggie’s family and his ascension to his business and title had “whipped the offending Adam out of him.”

Willow gave her husband a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Tell me, please.”

“Well, about a month or so ago, I was having lunch at Blades,” Reggie replied, referring to his club, “when I’m told that Tom wanted to see me at Number Ten. So Apollo drove me over – I’d finished my lunch, of course – and they let me right in.”

“Go on.” She smiled as she felt his paw go around her waist.

“Well, he offers me a drink, and I wave it off. I’m not Churchill, you know, and Tom gets to the point. He wanted me to join the Government.”

There was a pause.

Willow shook her head. “Whatever for?”

“He wanted to make me Minister of Food. You know, like during the Great War,” Reggie said. “I said to him, ‘Tom, what will the country think of having someone from the Lords in the Government?’ We may be a monarchy, but David’s on the throne, not Queen Victoria.”

His wife nodded. “How’d he take it?”

“He started telling me that it wouldn’t be a problem, but I also pointed out that I’d be suspect.”

“Suspect?”

He hugged her. “I’m part American, you recall, and so was the Sire. Gran was from Pittsburgh, Mummy’s from Fillydelphia, and you’re – well.” Willow was presumably an American, but had actually been born in the Republic of New Haven before the Red Fist Revolt. “And remember what the tabloids were calling Wallis?”

Willow’s voice hardened, but only briefly. “I remember.” Queen Wallis, Edward VIII’s wife, had been American and was woundingly referred to as ‘the Old Grey Mare’ by the British press until their colt had been born.

“Well, dash it all, Tom’s not letting it drop, even though I offered him an alternative.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Lady Pamela Fenwick,” Reggie said, and they both grinned. The owner of Fenwick Foods was solidly British, did not have a seat in the House of Lords, and would jump at the chance to take a seat in the Cabinet. However, the vixen was very outspoken about British and Imperial defense, and minced no words about her opinion that the members of Mosley’s Unionist Party were nowhere near her social equals.

“Well, maybe you need to take yourself out of Tom’s sight for a while,” Willow said. She’d unbuttoned his shirt all the way down to the top of his vest, and she slipped a paw inside to smooth out his fur.

“How? He knows the number for Monongahela House,” Reggie said, referring to the family’s country seat in Bucks.

“I was thinking a little farther than that.”

“Fillydelphia? Mummy’s at the Bellevue-Stagford, as ever, and she’d be chuffed down to her hooves to put us up for a while.”

Willow kissed him again. “I thought farther than that.”

“Where?”

“Spontoon,” Willow said.

Reggie’s ears perked. “Spontoon?”

“Sure, why not? After all, Da hasn’t seen his granddaughter yet.” Little Mary Rose had been born only three months earlier. “And Tommy’s walking now.”

“Hmm. I say, isn’t Speed Week coming up?”

“I think so.”

“Then you know what, Willow?”

“What’s that, Reggie?”

“I think a little vacation in the sunny Spontoons is on order.” He shifted, and Willow got to her hooves as Reggie stood up. “Lodge!”

“Yes, Sir?” the beaver said from the open doorway.

“Ah! There you are, Lodge. Willow and I have decided that to shift ho for sunnier climes is the stuff to give the troops, metaphorically of course.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“So it’s off to the Spontoons we’ll go.”

The beaver gave his usual quiet smile. “I have already brought the trunks down from the attic, Sir.”

“Top-hole, Lodge! I think some dinner first, don’t you think, Willow?”

His wife smiled. “Yes. I’m hungry.”




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