Ormiston Tea Company

CHAPTER I: THE PUTRESCENCE AT THE PARTY
The Ormiston Tea Company was a fantastically successful business in Britannia, based in Tintern, Wales. It produced the finest tea in the world, with a recipe that could be challenged by no other. The Ormiston Tea Company was owned by the Ormiston family, a family that can be traced back seventeen hundred years. The Ormistons had lived in one large mansion for as long as the oldest members of the family could remember. The mansion sat on a hill overlooking the beautiful welsh forests with a spectacular view of Tintern Abbey. Oakenchello, the Ormiston's manor, was famous for its beauty. The beautiful architecture of the building and the surrounding forest complimented each other, each looking just as splendiferous. During the summer, the green oak leaves reflected the sun, giving the whole area a wonderful splash of color. However, as autumn nears the leaves become orange and red and yellow, giving the manor and its surrounding woods a relaxed, morning coffee like feeling. Connected to the third floor of the building, there is a special room, a greenhouse, positioned perfectly so for the sun's magnificent beams to hit the plants in order to ensure flawless growth. In this greenhouse, many tea leaves grow. As Ormiston Tea Co. is such a large operation, there are many greenhouses that are home to their tea scattered about the commonwealth, but this green house is special. Oakenchello's greenhouse produces incredibly smooth, whole, and sturdy leaves that create the most delicious of teas. On the opposite side of the mansion, overlooking Trinten Abbey, is a balcony. On this balcony, on the evening of September thirty-first, in the year eighteen-forty seven, Alexandre Ormiston stared outwards. He was hosting a party. Alexandre was not humble by any means. Alexandre died a materialistic, fashionable, arrogant, and snobbish aristocrat. On this particular occasion, Alexandre sported a red peacoat, as it was winter. This complemented his black pants and white button up shirt. The red peacoat had golden buttons on it, with the Ormiston family crest engraved in it. Alexandre leaned forward on the balcony's black rails, looking down on Trinten Abbey. To his left was Hugo Scott, proudly wearing a blue great coat over a white shirt with a green scarf and black pants. Hugo was very similar to Alexandre in their aristocracy, though much less eccentric. Hugo held a glass of champagne, from the city of Champagne.
"So, Alexandre, what's the occasion?" asked Hugo.
"What do you mean?" Alexandre asked in return.
"This is a spectacularly formal party, even for you." said Hugo, "Why have you hosted it?"
"My glory days are nearing their end, my friend. One day, my entire family and acquaintances will die. It will just be me, my mansion, an incredibly successful tea company, and the largest fortune in Wales." Alexandre rested his arms on the rails and put his hands on his head. "Woe is me. Life's a struggle for the poor like you and I." Alexandre answered.
"Would you like some tea to calm you down?" questioned Hugo.
"Yes please."
"I'll pick the leaves straight from the greenhouse" Hugo said, entering the house's inside.
"Done!" said a voice, coming from behind a plant on the balcony.
"Jacques! You've finished the portrait?" asked Alexandre, walking towards the plant.
Alexandre moved the bush, revealing a canvas with an old man behind it. The old man presented Alexandre with the most depressing portrait of the aristocrat.
"Why, it's perfect!" Alexandre said, admiring the image of him. "Put it up on the wall, then go home." Alexandre said, clapping twice. With that, Jacques left and Hugo had abandoned him and Alexandre was left to depart into the house alone. Alexandre walked up the spiral staircase, leading up to the first hall of the second floor. There was much noise and conversation from all throughout the home.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce to you Archduchess Dilys of Strawberrington." said Aeroin Lloyd, Duke of Snoryenshire. Aeroin Lloyd was quite possibly the ugliest man in the commonwealth, as stated by every newspaper that ever mentioned him. His eyes were bugged, his skin was paler than an Irishman who's been separated from the sun his entire life, and his gargantuan nose overshadowed all of his face. He gestured to Dilys, who blushed as she took a sip of her tea. The bundle of aristocratic oligarchists were sprawled about the living room area, chatting amongst themselves. They were surrounded by their closest and wealthiest friends and acquaintances, all wearing pretentious, incredibly expensive, fashionable, formal clothes.
Outside the door leading into the living room, Alexandre composed himself. His existential anxiety had overwhelmed him. Naturally he was dreading having to socialize and control the party. So the patrician turned to the most trusted anxiety medication he had at his disposal: tobacco.
He pulled out his pipe, made from the ancient trees that were used to construct the basilica Notre Dame de Paris. He lit the pipe, and smoked. For ten minutes. For those ten minutes, his mind wandered from the Ormiston family's stress worthy lack of public relations, to how much the Pope's Mitre would cost. After pondering many topics, he took one last, long drag of the pipe before putting it out and entering the living room.
"So Beinon, how's your mother?" asked Lady Bucklsby, a short and plump woman wearing a green Victorian style dress.
A sandy blonde, curly haired man in a blue vest and dark green blazer responded, "We are no longer on speaking terms, my mother and I. She accused me of being a homosexual."
The group gasped in shock. At that moment, Alexandre walked into the room.
"Alexandre! I've been wondering where you were! You know, it's poor manners to disappear at a party you hosted!" Lady Bucklesby joked.
"May I propose we retire to the ballroom, engage in some witty conversation and gay frivolity?" Alexandre said, opening the door leading into the ballroom for the group to go in.
The company entered the ballroom. The ballroom was an illness. That illness was grandiose. The ballroom had such extravagant grandeur that it rivaled Saint Peter's Basilica, in both architecture and sacredness.
Not all wealthy people flaunt their riches like a peacock does its feathers. Some are dead.
Unfortunately for everyone, none of the party's attendees were dead. Due to this factor, the quartet (who had been waiting to play for Alexandre for the first five hours of the party before he had entered the ballroom) was getting exceedingly annoyed with the rich flamboyance of the party-goers. However, the promise of pay trumps any type of annoyance. The oligarchists soon took each other's hands and began to dance. The dance, which began as a sloppy waltz, morphed into a drunk gavotte. This went on for hours, and the quartet had only brought four songs. Across the six hours they danced, Danse Macabre seemed to control the floors. As the song grew more chaotic, the dancers' behavior grew messier. Lady Bucklesby was on the floor. Alexandre marched towards the Duke of Snoryenshire. Aeroin was struggling to contain lucidity, and when he spoke his voice was fat.
Alexandre approached him, "Aeroin, would you, perhaps, know where Mr. Hugo is?"
Quoth the Duke, "He went to the tearoom. Does this damn quartet not know any other music? If I hear this Danse Macabre once more I will-"
To which the bassist replied, "Oh, shut up, you ostentatious troglodyte!"
Alexandre readjusted his peacoat, which he could not recall why he was wearing inside, "I am to check the tea room, if you'd like to accompany me. I am sure it would help to scare off Meryl."
"Meryl?" asked the Duke.
"It's the ghost. The strumpet caught syphilis and died in the tea garden. We lost so much tea that month."
"Nasty trollop. You ought to get the place exorcized. It worked wonders for me! I have yet to have a sexual thought of another man since last year."
"Aeroin, are you a homosexual?" asked Alexandre.
Aeroin stared at Alexandre for a few minutes. Then they trudged on to the tea gardens. It happened to be a long walk from the ballroom, so they were able to revel in the awkward silence of Aeroin's internalized homophobia. Eventually, they reached the garden. It was a beautiful greenhouse, but it carried an awful smell. The smell of human waste. The monetarily copious companions followed the miserable scent to the very back of the garden. The exotic section. The scent was stronger with every step, until Aeroin had difficulty breathing. The putrescent smell flooded the room. It was as if rotten flesh had been wasting in the room for decades. The scent was thick as molasses, and it caked the room like marmalade on toast. It was putrid beyond one's imagination. Eventually, they had reached the far end of the greenhouse and were met with a dead end. The scent had to come from here. As Alexandre studied the area, he gasped and fell to his knees. For below the crystal clear glass on which many vines grew, was a dead Hugo Scott lying on the ground, in his own waste.
Aeroin looked at the body, and Alexandre's collapsed, weeping figure. "I am not a homosexual."
END OF CHAPTER ONE