THE HOUSE OF LANGCASTER - Chapter 1

A New CONTINUED STORY begins Today

 

Happy Family of Royalty

The house of Langcaster sounds very English doesn’t it? Perhaps you will see why that is if you continue reading.

Langcaster house is a very large house and affluence virtually oozes from all of the inhabitants. Should I introduce you to members of this household both the elite and the near peonies? Yes I think that would be apropos to our discussion.

Barbra

Let me start with the Dowager lady Barbra. I start with her for she insists she is the most important member of the family. I should point out that I allow each member to be what they see themselves as being.

Behind that principle I have established that I see them for what they really are but I am paid by the former not the latter. If I should allow myself (which I don’t) I would say that Lady Barbra is quite a piece of work. You must understand she is from one of England’s most notable families and she gets her identity from her generational past.

Due to her marriage to Charlie Lancaster she has a vast fortune but her own net worth had diminished over the years due to over spending and faulty management.

When she was eighteen her family insisted that she marry an Earl thereby giving her the title of Lady Barbra.  Due to some irregular actions a couple generations ago the family had lost their peerage and no longer could sit in the House of Lords so this was an important step for her.

Under pressure she agreed to marry an Earl who was serving in the army. He was to report for duty the next day after the wedding and on their wedding night she refused to have relations with her husband until he returned from duty and they could have a proper honeymoon.

Unfortunately he was wounded and died shortly afterward. For the next three years she was known as; “the Virgin Lady Barbra.” 

The family sold their estate in England due to some financial reversals and came to America where the pressure to spend large sums of money maintaining the estate and keeping up appearances socially wasn’t nearly as expensive.

Charlie

She met Charlie after her family moved to America and he had purchased a large estate. He liked the idea of her being The Virgin Lady Barbra and pursued her relentlessly until she agreed to marry him.

Again it was pressure from the family and because her own fortune was diminishing that caused her to make up her mind.  Love was not an issue at first in the marriage. Her needs were met and as far as Charlie, he got what he wanted from her which was regular physical contact and the prestige of the family’s name.

Upon her marriage the Lady Barbra’s family moved into Charlie’s large home and sold the one they had purchased. Charlie had made his fortune in the market. To some it was obvious he knew things that were unlawful to know but no one could prove anything. He was simply rich and getting richer.

Due to some suspicions he hired some detectives to check on all of the family so he would know what everyone was doing all the time.  He wouldn’t allow any of them to do anything that would reflect on his name or the families’ name.

The detectives caught some of them both the men and women in compromising situations and let them know in the strongest terms it better not happen again. They convinced them that if they did there would be an emergency operation to remove the source of the temptation. One warning was all it took to convince the offender to walk uprightly and be faithful to their vows.

Once they were called the house of Wynn but now here in America it is Mister and Mrs. Wynn and the rest of the family.  It was either Mister or Master for the young ones and Mrs. or Miss for no one had adopted the Ms. Characterization.

Lenore

Miss Lenore was the older sister of Barbra and she was still single. She was much, much wiser than Barbra for she had amassed her own fortune while Barbra and most of the other children had wasted theirs.  Some of them were on the verge of having to find a job.

She had several Bo’s but when they began to get serious she broke it off with them. She knew much of her attraction was her money for there were a lot of penniless Romeo’s floating around. She was still a couple of years under thirty so she was in no hurry. She knew she could buy a husband anytime she wished to for money speaks volumes to these guys who are broke. I will be talking more about Miss Lenore later.

Let’s take the rest of the family one by one. There are two younger sisters and three boys in the mix.

 

 Ryan

The next in line is a brother Ryan Wynn who was named after an Irish grandfather. The grandfather was a semi-drunk meaning he was drunk most of the time. He managed to stay sober enough to manage the family fortune successfully and didn’t let his drinking and womanizing interfere with business.

It was rumored that he had several kids out of wedlock but his motto was; “Bastards don’t count.” Being truthful there was a couple of the extracurricular boys he liked and saw to it they made their fortune.

Ryan dated several of the debutantes but one night he got too friendly with one of them and her father who was an expert shot strongly suggested a wedding before the baby was born.

After her father took him to his gun room and clicked a couple of the empty guns at Ryan’s heart the wedding took place shortly thereafter. The girl’s father took Ryan into the family business and he is doing very well with a couple more additions to his new family.  Charlie suggested that Ryan and his family move in with his new in-laws so there was one less family living at Langcaster house.

George

The next we should consider is George Wynn.  He loves cars. This began when he was around four when he got a pedal car for his birthday. He scarred most of the furniture at Wynn house from running into it at full speed.

As he grew his father bought him an Austin to drive around the estate.  Since he was only nine he was restricted to the estate but one day he went out on the road in front of the place and the police pulled him over.

After that event where the father got a strong lecture from a judge little Georgie lost his driving right for six months.  During this time George tore the Austin apart and put it together again. He saved the left over parts and still has them as well as his Austin.

He now races cars as a hobby but also has a dealership for foreign cars. He was so caught up with cars and speed he didn’t have much time for the ladies but one finally managed to keep his attention long enough to accept her proposal of marriage.

His mother said if she hadn’t proposed to him he might not ever have gotten married. So far they don’t have children and still live at Langcaster house.  Doris his wife is caught up with the all of the society things so she doesn’t require much servicing and doesn’t care if he spends so much time racing and at his dealership.

Mason

Now we come to the last son, Mason. Mason was a child who loved to hide in the house and the servants had to spend a lot of their time trying to find him. He discovered places in their large England home that no one knew about which only increased the time the servants had to spend looking for him. This resulted in several servants quitting their job for it was demeaning playing hide and seek when they had other duties they were expected to do.

When Mason was five he saw a copy of the National Graphic magazine and the scantily dressed natives. He demanded his father subscribe for the magazine for him. He now would hide with his favorite copy of the magazine for hours and they stopped looking for him. They knew he would appear when he wanted to.

The servants speculated as to what his puberty years were going to be like as he looked at the pictures in the magazine. They found several copies thrown into the garbage that had no pictures in them of interest. He was sixteen when he was finally allowed to go to the Dark Continent.

He secured a guide and the necessary bearers to carry his goods. He discovered in order to satisfy his romantic curiosity he would have to marry the object of his affection. This required him to come up with some cows and other goods. With the help of his guide he managed to secure everything required and the wedding took place.

He was quite active until her first monthly occurred which he wasn’t prepared for; he packed up and left promising to return shortly. He travelled on and found another tribe and repeated the same thing as with the first tribe. He only stayed a week there and headed back home and to school.

Upon his arrival at home his siblings wanted to know how he fared and he said it was interesting if not educational.  He made other trips using the same format until he couldn’t remember how many wives he had some of which he spent an extended period of time. When it became obvious they were with child he quickly departed.

Along with all the wives he contacted several diseases and when he managed to get the last one under control he decided his curiosity had been satisfied and has never returned to the continent so far.

He didn’t consider his marriages on the Dark Continent to be valid so he pursued a girl of his ilk named Elsa and wed her. The doctors believe his escapades may have rendered him unable to sire a child and so far that seems to be the case.

Elsa the wife of Mason

Elsa was from Sweden and migrated to America with her aunt at a young age. She is very comely with a caring personality. Due to the fact she was young when she arrived here she is an all American girl with just a trace of a Swedish accent which adds to her charm. She is very patient with the Wynn family for some are a bit snobbish around her.

Lonnie

Lonnie, a sister is eighteen and was still playing with dolls. She had a huge collection, and would buy a new one every day. It has been quite a chore for mother Wynn to get her to embrace the societal scene. She has just came out as a Deb and she shocked everyone by being dressed as a doll. She tries to emulate a dolls vocabulary which is considered to be gross by the other young ladies her age.

Her mother out of desperation took all her dolls and burned them in a funeral pyre. She wouldn’t let her buy any more of them and sent her to a girl’s finishing school. She was behind most of the girls and had to catch-up. The other girls put a lot of pressure on her to shape up for they were judged as a group instead of as individuals.

After the first year she was talking normal and had blended in with the others. She had become close friends with a young grounds keeper and some thought that might have had something to do with her changes. By the time she returned home she was ready for the dating scene and her mother now had to subdue some of her wildness.

Linda

Now we come to the youngest, Linda who is quite studious. As soon as she obtained her driving license she became even more independent and drove herself to everywhere she wanted to go.

I as the butler had hopes that at least one of the kids would show signs of intelligence and it appeared the she was the one with the most potential. Outside of her independence she was normal in every way except one.

She was overly fond of me.  Although I was only six years older than she, the social order placed us miles apart.  I constantly reminded her of that but to no avail.

She acted as if we were a couple and in private she was a hand full. Her actions weren’t unseemly just too familiar.

My most difficult moment was when she kissed me by surprise and I found myself kissing her back. I told her that was not acceptable behavior and I apologized for my part in it.

I told her I would have to quit my job if it happened again and she said alright she wouldn’t press the issue, but it doesn’t change anything it was just a matter of time.

I felt I needed to tell Charlie about what was going on for he had been good to me.  He took me on while I was still in school and gave me the top job in the household. I couldn’t do something behind his back so I caught him with a spare moment and told him what the circumstances were and I would leave should he want me to.

He said if I hadn’t been intimate with her he saw no reason for me to leave. I assured him I hadn’t and had no plans to.

He said it was a testy issue because of the family’s social position. For one of the family to marry a butler would be a black mark against all of them. He went on to say, “You have taken some business schooling haven’t you?”

I said, ‘Yes two years but I ran out of money and that was when I came to work for you. I had hoped to finish when I saved enough money but I like my job working for you.”

He said I want you to finish your courses and you can work in my office part time.

I’ll see that you have enough money to get by on and if you promise to behave yourself you can see Linda ever so often.

Hopefully that will settle her down enough to keep her out of trouble. He said I could continue to live over the garage in my small apartment and use one of the older cars.

He said that he would explain to Linda the rules and extract a promise from her to obey them. I couldn’t believe what just happened. The reason he gave for doing this was he said finding honest people to have around him was the hardest thing he had encountered.

The fact I came to him and didn’t try to hide what could have turned into a bad situation showed what kind of a person I was.  He went on and said I was the kind of a person he wanted around him.

That in brief introduces you to the main family but now we come to the peonies better known as the household staff for they are indeed part of the household.

To be Continued