Dinner at Vickery's

Padstowe set his glass down on the table and carefully refilled it, mindful to keep his arm as steady as possible.

"Although I do believe there is something of the 'inner boy', as my sister calls it, that we are never truly rid of. Not obvious, but which re-emerges from time to time; sometimes as a wicked mischevousness, a vile temper, the willingness to play with dogs and animals, to play with children or do the silliest things... She swears that the boys merely pretend to be adults until it suits them."

[OOC: And that's me done for tonight. See you tomorrow! ]

"Your sister may well be right," Vickery said as he refilled his own glass. "Why else do we do the things we do, if not to remind ourselves that we are young and that we can do them?"

(OOC - Night! See you tomorrow!)

"Indeed - and my sister has an unnerving habit of being right."

Padstowe was thinking, slightly guiltily, at the bet he had taken from Jemmet this time last year to see which of them could hang upside down from a tree for the longest. His nose had been bleeding and he had nearly passed out by the end of it, but he had made sure he had won his bet.

Looking back at it now it seemed a ridiculously silly thing to do; although at the time it had appeared to be a good idea.

Vickery smiled at Padstowe's mention of his sister. "I don't have a sister, so I can't say whether the trait of being always right is common, or not. Although it seems to me that men do silly things to put off for as long as possible acknowledging that they are no longer as young as they once were."

"So it would seem, and sometimes lapsing back into silliness again when middle age strikes. Too often you see older colonels or gentlemen wandering around in far too dashing clothes for their figures, dyed hair and young things on their arms - all in the cause of trying to regain something that is lost to them."

He paused to take another drink. Maturin had warned him off the stuff, but he did not feel like following such advice tonight.

"Do you have any other siblings? You mentioned you had no sister."

Vickery had seen the Colonels and Generals trying to make everyone around them believe that they were no older than the seventeen-year-old Ensigns and Lieutenants in their commands, and the thought made him smile.

"Any other siblings? Just my older brother Robert, who is quite as staid and dull as they come, besides being in line to inherit."

"There is only Sarah and I. She is younger, and married with a family of her own."

He did not mention the bit about him being heir. It was not important and if he really wanted to know Vickery could figure it out for himself.

Ah. So Padstowe, the eldest and the son, was in the army, and, presumably, unmarried.

"You are not married, then?" he said, not wishing to presume anything for longer than he had to. Down that path lay all sorts of trouble.

"No. No, I am not," Padstowe said, somewhat uncomfortable. "Though my mother is anxious that I should be I cannot persuade myself to."

Not to mention the girls that were foisted on him were scatter-brained and undesirable, even if they were wealthy or well connected.

"Mothers. One wonders if they ever stop trying to run other people's lives for them." His own wrote frequently, always talking about this ball or that, and suggesting it was time to think about marrying. Usually she included yet another name at this juncture, with something along this lines of can write such a pretty hand or can play the pianoforte so exceedingly prettily. As if there were no other adjective than 'pretty' in English, or that he cared a jot about listening to someone try to murder a pianoforte.

"I think sometimes mothers were set on this earth to try us," he said, before taking another mouthful of wine.

"I can think of no other reason, save to actually bring us into the world," Padstowe said, nodding regretfully. "Quite often I have wished that they would see us through childhood and then only look to the daughters."

He gave a rueful smile.

"Yours too? But I somehow think they never stop viewing us as their children, were they to live to see us into our fifties."

"I'm surprised sometimes that they actually allow their sons out of petticoats. Sometimes I think that my mother would still have me in the nursery, being cared for by Nurse."

At that Padstowe laughed out loud, picturing the Vickery before him sitting impatiently in petticoats before an ancient nurse reading patiently from a book in a sing-song voice.

"My nurse could never keep hold of me. Petticoats or no I kept on running off to explore the shrubbery and get myself and my clothes dirty."

"And finding all the best and biggest worms. Mother used to scream, and Nurse wasn't much better." He grinned, not caring if it made him look young.

"And frogs or toads - toads were always the best for that." Padstowe grinned as well, remembering with fondness the horrified and despairing looks of the females about the house. "Although I do believe the best reaction I ever got was when mother found my stag beetle in her linen drawer."

Vickery laughed at that. "Her face must have been worth seeing. Women hate that sort of thing, Lord knows why. Mother used to scream if she saw a grass snake on the lawn. Even if she was in the morning room at the time."

"It is God's grant of the opportunity of a small revenge, perhaps, of little boys on their matronly persecutors?"

"Perhaps. But it was fun. Like the toad that found its way onto the breakfast table when Father was in Town, once. Mother nearly screamed the house down."

(OOC - And I'm about to head out for a bit, I hope to be back on tomorrow for a bit. And at this rate, it'll take a month to get to 'tomorrow' game time! )

"Poor toad!" Padstowe said sympathetically, shaking his head and reaching for the bottle again. "I suppose the poor thing was confused. But they always scream, don't they? Somehow they must think screaming will make things better, but more often than not it panics the creature and makes things worse."

[OOC: I hope not. I suppose we could do a time cut of the 'several bottles were cosumed in this manner, etc' to the goodbyes and thanks for all the fish dinner.]

"It did have some help, of course. And I managed to rescue it afterwards and put it in the shrubbery. Mother was not amused, of course, but even the servants had a hard time looking serious."

(OOC - if we're not careful, they're going to show up on parade as hungover as all hell! )

Padstowe chuckled to himself, dribbling the last of the contents of the bottle into his glass.

"Well, mothers would certainly be worse if we could not get the better of them from time to time - and I suspect it gives the servants heart, as you suggested."

[OOC: Not too drunk, as Jonathan is on doctor's orders and can't really afford to get anything more than a little tipsy - and he's got to get back home to see Maturin at some point, so would probably leave at 9:30-10:00 at the latest.]

"Exasperating they may be at times, but I would not change my parents for all the tea in China."

He realised the wine-bottle was empty. "Would you like some more wine?" he asked, getting up to fetch another bottle.

Padstowe personally thought the bribe of that much tea very tempting, but only for the exchange of his mother; never his father.

"If you please. I suspect this shall be the last decent vintage I shall see in a while."

That was a good enough opening. He filled Padstowe's cup; there had only been half a glass left in the first bottle. "I hope you do not mind if I inquire into your plans, Jonathan, but do you intend to march with us, or will you return to exploring the countryside? For I cannot imagine that someone such as yourself will remain here in Lisbon with the Army gone."

Not many people knew of his plans for tomorrow, but it was only a matter of hours before they found out anyway.

"You are right. For the timebeing I shall be marching with the staff officers; explaining the territory, that sort of thing. What I do once we rejoin the rest of the army, I'm afraid only God knows."