by Porphyro
such cases. However, after the accident she always walked with either a cane, when she was feeling well, or a walker when she was not. Sometimes when she was tired she even used a wheelchair. These implements would not have prevented her from continuing her world wandering, but they made it inconvenient and uncomfortable so she decided to end it. After all, as she would often philosophically say, she had seen everything. She had even thrice traveled to Antarctica and once flown over the north pole. So further travel wasn't worth the pain and trouble. She made her stoic peace with staying at the estate for the rest of her life.
V
The idea of developing Loverly Downs was born not long after Lady Loverly returned to live permanently at the estate. It was, in fact, her idea, born, perhaps, out of the boredom of living alone, except for servants, at the estate. After mulling the idea over for a while, she called in the family legal retainers and ordered them to contact prominent, successful developers, inquiring if they would be interested in submitting a proposal to work with her on the project. As you might imagine, there was no dearth of firms anxious to be involved in an undertaking able, eventually, to generate sales of well over a hundred million dollars. The Loverly lawyers sorted through the dozens of interested firms and selected five of the most substantial. These were invited to submit detailed proposals. Lady Loverly granted the selected firms almost complete freedom in their plans. Her only absolute requirement was that the articles of incorporation for the new town contain a covenant requiring the Loverly name to be attached in legal perpetuity to the eventual community.
Lady never explained to anyone her reasons for creating the suburb, and no one was or would ever have been bold enough to question her about them. Had her father initiated the project, it would have aroused no wonder. Everyone would have considered him to simply and obviously be embarking on another potentially profitable business venture. But Lady Loverly had never shown any entrepreneurial interest. Any curiosity which she might have stirred, however, was settled by her requirement for the Loverly name to be perpetually attached to the development. Aware she was the last of the Loverlys, and that the whole of the Loverly lands and fortune would of necessity be dispersed after her death, she obviously had decided to perpetuate the Loverly family name by creating an institution, an indelible place on the map, a legally incorporated Loverly town.
After the five prospective developers submitted their proposals, Lady Loverly hired a committee of real estate experts to submit evaluations of the developers' plans. Then, with her legal team and her real estate experts on 24/7 consultation standby, she spent several months studying the proposals and their evaluations before choosing the developer who had suggested Loverly Downs as the project's name.
Of course, this firm was delighted to have the winning proposal. But its executives were apprehensive. The enormous care and attention to every little detail which had characterized Lady Loverly's selection of a developer seemed to portend a supposedly silent partner who would be anything but silent, someone who would incessantly intrude herself into day-to-day operations. To their delight, however, they found the opposite. Though she continually monitored the community's creation, as long as the developer stayed with its plan or fully consulted with her when the necessity or desirability of modifications came up, Lady Loverly was an ideal silent partner. She had exercised her judgment in selecting what she had decided was an excellent developer. Thereafter and therefore she did not interfere with the firm in its work.
But this didn't mean her deep interest in her eponymous new bedroom community had in any way diminished. This became unmistakably apparent shortly after the first families moved into Loverly Downs when the wives of these families began to receive invitations to the Loverly castle for "Coffee, Cake and Chat".
Once a week at first, but sometimes more often as the community filled, four wives would receive an invitation to join Lady Loverly for a late afternoon small, intimate but fully formal, get-acquainted reception. Each invitation was individually printed on parchment with a small letterpress situate in one of the castle's working basements. This tool had long been used to print elaborate invitations to elaborate social affairs at the estate, separately printed personal invitations. Each Loverly Downs wife treasured her invitation itself as an almost sacred souvenir.
As every contemporary American who has ever tried to organize a social affair knows: Be it a child's birthday party or an adult bash, finding a time when all invited persons can be present is impossible. Inevitably, some guests, no matter how much they may want to attend, will not be able to fit the event into their crowded schedule. But this problem never occurred with any of Lady Loverly's receptions. No Loverly Downs wife, no matter how much difficult rearranging and rescheduling it may have required, ever responded with regrets to the invitation hand delivered by the Loverly chauffeur. As one wife told her husband: She would have found some way to reschedule the birth of a child if it had been necessary to do so in order to attend Lady Loverly's Coffee, Cake and Chat. And indeed, since the receptions were always in the late afternoon at the time when their children would be returning from school and these young wives would normally be preparing the evening meal in anticipation of their husbands' return from work, every attendee had to make special arrangements in order to attend. Every one willingly and eagerly so did.
VI
On each big day each of the four Loverly Downs wives invited to that day's reception was separately and individually picked up by a Loverly servant in a Loverly car or limo and chauffeured to the castle. With what may have seemed to be chance, but which in fact was skillfully choreographed, the wives arrived sequentially and individually at the west one of the castle's four formal portico entrances. Here each wife's designated chauffeur courteously delivered her to the Loverly butler who, pleasantly but with deferential formality, escorted her through an enormous, lobby-like entrance room. He took her to a small-by-comparison library where he announced her name to a seated Lady Loverly. As he unobtrusively departed, closing the door, the young woman was greeted by her hostess.
Lady Loverly was always seated at a round table approximately five feet in diameter. The table was directly across from the library's main door, in front of a massive fireplace. As King Arthur's knights knew, and plane geometry proves, there can be no head of a round table. Knights and geometry notwithstanding, Lady Loverly was at the head of the table. She sat with the table between her and the library door, her back to and a half dozen feet from the fireplace. Five chairs were arranged around the table, Lady Loverly's and one for each of her four guests.
Loverly never rose to greet her guests, and she always began by explaining, without any trace of self pity, this departure from formal etiquette as due to the residual infirmity of her accident. After a brief introductory conversation the next wife would be escorted into the room. With her guests' arrivals sequentially spaced Lady Loverly was able to accomplish introductions in an orderly and gracious fashion, giving each guest her undivided attention while meeting, and avoiding the everyone-speaking-at-once, cacophonous confusion that simultaneous arrival might have engendered. When all four guests had arrived they were invited to join their hostess at the round table.
The center of the table held a low silver basin covered with an overflowing arrangement of fresh blossoms, Vanda orchids. Eight small silver platters, each sitting on a short silver stand were arrayed around this basin; sufficiently many to indicate abundance, but sufficiently few to prevent the table's appearing like the sidebar at an all-you-can-eat buffet. These platters were piled high with delicious looking goodies. The spaces between the platters were covered, like the table's centerpiece, with sprigs of Vanda orchids deliberately and meticulously placed so they would appear not to have been deliberately and meticulously placed.
A formal, though simple place setting was on the table before each guest chair. Beside each setting was a large linen napkin embroidered with the escutcheon which the first Rudolp
h Loverly had presumptuously had designed as the family emblem, an elaborate RL surrounded by symbols intended to represent the enterprises upon which the Loverly fortune had been founded. On each napkin lay a small silver broach engraved with the letters LD, for Loverly Downs. Despite the identity of this engraving, each broach was custom designed and conspicuously different from any other. Each broach was attached to a parchment card on which, in elaborate calligraphy, a different guest's name was written. The cards, of course, were place cards. The broaches, as Lady Loverly explained, were party favors.
The place settings were appropriate for a light tea party. They contained only a plate from which to eat the goodies being served, and a larger plate upon which the eating plate was placed. The dishware was conspicuously elegant, and every single guest wanted to turn her plate over to inspect the manufacturer's inscription. Had any dared to act on her inquisitive impulse she would have discovered she was eating from genuine Meissen china. What she would not have discovered was the age and origin of the china. Her plate was part of a custom
