Being the Chapter in which the Main Character is Introduced as a Man Without Compunction
Baron Granger, such as he was, left his dwelling with naught but his Norfolk jacket, fancy Welsh bowler, and Lapidus sword walking cane. The latter being a gift from his maternal grandmother, he prized it below all but his least treasured gifts. The former he considered at once unnecessary and a substantial hinderance. He wore it as an accommodation to the local gendarme, who had made the formal request a fortnight prior.
His neighbors, such as they were, avoided his approach. In those times people still expected a gentleman to wear more than a coat and a hat when venturing into town. Of course, the Baron had a comparatively large frame (as was well documented in that local rag the <em>Sheffield Ratter</em>). As a consequence, while the locals were perhaps grateful that local officials had convinced the Baron to wear the coat, the reader must concede that the short coat did little to conceal from view the most offensive of the good Baron’s lumps, bumps, and appendages. As I mentioned earlier, in those days, the sight of such things set many people to foot.
On this particular day the streets emptied as Baron Granger made for town on feet as bare as the day on which he was born. Obviously they were far more dirty, but that detail is a trifle, and unnecessary to this history. What is not unnecessary is the fact that, as with most things, the Baron remained oblivious to the commotion he had caused. Those that knew him well (and they were few) conceded that the Baron had always been not a little aloof. Even his mother had to admit that her only living child lacked a certain compassion for God’s creatures. The truth was far less complex: he genuinely did not notice anyone that did not impede his path. His acknowledgement of an impediment, and chiefly it’s creator, would wane as soon as the Baron was able to return to his business.
A youngish woman (whose name I shall omit more for my own sake than for hers) who happened to be deaf, and was therefore unaware of the din that accompanied the Baron’s approach, was, on that morning, rushing out of her apartment. She had a delivery to make, and was not willing to be late. For her part, her body was fully covered with a combination of brownish woolen draperies. Not fashionable, but not immodest either.
Beneath her arms were two large bags of freshly laundered ladies undergarments that she was to deliver in utmost secrecy to a member of the town’s powerful captains of industry. The ‘gentleman’ in question, such as he was, was notable primarily for his ownership of the local cotton mill and three slave ships named after Catholic Saints. The gentleman would later testify under oath that the collection of undergarments were not his own, but rather were being held for an unnamed female companion. This was a lie, of course, and though it did not sit well with the gentleman’s spouse, he rightly concluded that this yarn was less likely to result in his death than the truth of the matter. The reader will note that his death proved unavoidable, in any event. Such it is with these matters.
The discovery proved great fodder for the editors of the Ratter, and also served as a useful distraction from the unsettling rumours of the disappearance of several young women, and tales of brigandage wrought by a cabal of female highwaymen. The editors of the Ratter were under strict orders to ignore such baseless rumours and tales.
If the reader will permit a brief digression, it should be made clear that the two most interesting attributes of the <em>Sheffield Ratter</em> were 1. it was hundreds of miles removed from any town named Sheffield, and 2. it was only nominally owned by a man named Ratter; being instead controlled by a cabal of female highwaymen who preferred that their activities remained little more than evening wheezes.
If the reader feels cheated by the diression, I apologize, and will return to our tale. The deaf woman, laboring under the weight of her illicit cargo (for the less sophisticated reader, I intend that both literally and figuratively), clearly wanted to divest herself of the goods and collect the much needed fee. According to those witnesses who had not been bribed, and were permitted to testify at the trial, she had locked her apartment door and taken several steps onto Wilshire Commons when contact occurred between her and the good Baron. The force of the collision was sufficient to cause both pedestrians to fall to the Earth.
No one was willing to say who caused the accident. Yet, by all reasonable accounts, other than the one provided by the Baron, the collision was the result of happenstance. However, all witnesses, including Baron Granger, were consistent in describing what happened next.
Both serf and lord raised themselves form the Earth. Each took inventory of their particulars, and were pleased to be standing unbroken. It was then that each became aware of the other for the first time. While one party attempted to proffer apologies in broken and stunted English, the half naked one of the two exploded into an imperial rage. This wroth grew in intensity when its progenitor came to believe that his commands were being ignored, and indeed mocked, by the young woman’s foreign sounding protests. Having reached his breaking point, he reduced his anger to the only course of action available to a man of reputation and breeding who was unjustly being impeded. He removed his cane. He struck the woman. She collapsed to the ground.
The Right Honorable Baron Granger, such as he was, easily removed the monogrammed kerchief from his breast pocket, silently acknowledged the utility of the coat, dabbed at the scarlet splatters that bathed his bare legs, and carelessly continued his perambulation into the center of town. This was a man who lacked compunction.