Lord Pugsley has endured much in the name of English country-house life. But even an aristocratic pug has his limits.
Lord Pugsley had seen things.
Namely: the Earl’s amateur violin recital, Lady Margot’s powdered wig aflame at luncheon, and the ghastly moment young Barty mistook the aperitif for cologne.
But none of these indignities — none — compared to this: being draped, mid-morning, in the Dowager’s tartan shawl and paraded through the woodland “for art”.
He sat, stilled by the absurdity of it all.
Somewhere between an ecclesiastical vision and a boiled sweet, Lord Pugsley contemplated escape. But the ground was damp, the squirrel unworthy, and his blanket oddly comforting.
A beetle passed. He did not blink.
Worse still, he’d been promised scones. There had been talk — jam, clotted cream — and now here he was, in exile among the nettles, commandeered as the centrepiece of the Dowager’s photography spree.
“My dear,” the Dowager called to her maid who was struggling with the gin-fizz tray, “Pugsley looks so picturesque — like a monk!”
Indeed. A monk whose vows included silence, suffering, and enduring fools with dignity.
Two more photos. One with a bonnet.
The trees murmured pity. The clouds considered revolt.
But Pugsley, eternal and blanket-bound, remained statuesque — like a damp Napoleon, post-Waterloo.
Such was his fate. Such was England.
