A Picture of Happiness

Lord and Lady Hamlet had a marriage of convenience; it only became an inconvenience when they had to spend time together, and tonight was one of those rare occasions when they had to do just that.
A massive storm had hit Sleepy Hamlet at around six that evening and as a result Lord Hamlet hadn’t been able to go into the Village for his customary drink at the Cock and Bull, the village pub, and Lady Hamlet couldn’t watch her favourite soaps.
So the picture of wedded bliss set before us was of a peer of the realm and his good lady, brooding in silence with a severe case of the grumps, as the fire roared in the grate of the library’s huge stone carved fire place.

As time passed, Lord Hamlet became lost in his own thoughts; he looked into the dancing flames as they cast dreams of far away times, and tapped his fingers to a tune in his head; Lady Hamlet tutted her annoyance which in turned annoyed Lord Hamlet, as he got irritated by her annoyance. The Storm picked up a little outside to match the mood inside and the rain lashed against the tall sash windows that were set deep into the Cotswold stone recesses.

Then Lord Hamlet noticed it.

There, above the fire place was the criminal act for all to see. Where his father, the last Lord of Hamlet Hall had proudly been painted with, Belvedere, his faithful Irish wolfhound and a champion stag at his feet, was now the toad like features and oily hair of Lady Hamlet’s father.
Lord Hamlet exploded, demanding an explanation as to what her father’s picture was doing over the fire place of Hamlet Hall; His family’s home. Lady Hamlet did what she normally did after these out bursts from her husband. She imperiously looked down her long, privately educated nose and stated the obvious in a manner that both informed and infuriated.
‘It was her father’, she stated. Lord Hamlet, not happy with the obvious went in for a bit more.
Having spotted the flaw in the library’s decor, he now wanted to know where his father’s painting was. She informed him it was in his study and if he’d ever stayed sober for more than a few seconds he’d have known that. This was dangerous territory for Lord Hamlet as he knew from past experience that lectures about abstinence were likely to break out without any warning on occasions like this. He had to, therefore, step carefully. So for a while he just glowered at the painting, hoping that his hate filled eyes would burn two holes in it. Eventually he could hold back no more. He was dashed if he was going to put up with this effrontery any longer. He was going to say his piece and hang the consequences.

Lord Hamlet spent the next few moments venting his spleen: He touched on the subject of her father’s fondness for the pound and her brother’s propensity to ‘hang on’---he continued with her mother’s weakness for the horses and the firm young things that trained them. She, feeling the family name was being liberally slaked with mud from the mire, fought back with taunts about his father’s weakness for the flesh of the village girls and the obvious connection between his drinking and his father’s love of a tipple. Having steered the conversation close enough to abstinence she took a deep breath before plunging into her well prepared lecture. But Lord Hamlet had seen it coming and dived under her guard and hit a well timed home run by mentioning that upon studying the picture more closely, he’d noted that moles in her family seemed to sprout more abundantly on the flesh than on the lawns.

Lady Hamlet, her sails momentarily devoid of their promised wind, stared at her husband. This was by no means a victory but Lord Hamlet took the silence as a half time break and tottered off to fill his glass with Scotland’s finest. When he came back, it was to a look of haughtiness that made Lord Hamlet realise that she was back on the field and ready for the kick off.

Outside the storm hammered its way through the beautifully landscaped grounds of Hamlet Hall. Branches were breaking and the windows were rattling in protest against the wailing winds. Inside the atmosphere was no better. Lady Hamlet had called Jennings, the butler as a referee to their heated discussion, but Lord Hamlet felt this unfair as in his mind, butlers were like dogs; faithful to all, but they only had one real master, and he was woefully aware that he was not the stick thrower in this family. Jennings, not happy at the ‘dog’ epithet let his displeasure be known by means of a machine gun of involuntary throat clearings. Lord Hamlet, felt that things weren’t going his way and that he was most definitely on shaky grounds so far as Lady Hamlets chosen subject of his over indulgence of alcohol, so he decided to return once again to the matter of the picture.

She, not wanting to lose her winning streak in the point scoring stakes, tried to vere it back. He, more resolute than was in his woolly minded nature, stuck to his guns. And this is how the situation went on until they both stormed out of the library, taking the argument about his drinking and her revolutionary attitude to certain ‘household artefacts’ into the hall and up the stairs to their private rooms beyond. There, having nothing more to say to each other, they reverted to the ‘Yar-Boo Sucks’ school of communication and punctuated each salvo of insults with the slamming of their respective bedroom doors. Lady Hamlet ended all discussion with a brief but determined quartet of door slammings, and then all went quiet.

The next morning saw Hamlet Hall bathed in the beauty of post storm sunshine. Dew drops glistened and made the scene of carnage a little more bearable. Two Beech trees had been uprooted, smashing a stone wall as they went. Power lines were down as were the phone lines. Farmer Witcombe’s cattle sheds had lost their roofs and in the great library of Hamlet Hall lay the smouldering remains of Lady Hamlet’s father’s portrait. For during Lady Hamlets final infuriated quartet of slammings from a door, which was situated directly above the Library, her father’s picture had been dislodged from its mooring, landed on the ground, teetered, before falling back into the fire where the flames had greedily licked at the oil, linseed and wood before consuming it in a ravenous attack.

Lord Hamlet enjoyed his kippers that morning and before he set off for the Cock and Bull, he gave instructions for his father’s portrait to be taken from his study and placed once again over the fireplace in the Library and they were to fasten it securely as you never knew when a storm may hit again.

As Lord Hamlet left, revelling in the fact that no matter how small life’s little victories were, they must be seized as your last, and in his case they probably would be; Lady Hamlet took her turn to glower at the painting, hoping that her hate filled eyes would now burn two holes in his father’s picture.

Sleepy Hamlet © Karl Dixon 2010