In the early morning, hardly a sound could be heard in the immediate vicinity of Ole Doc Potter's small house, and it was ultimately the heavy, damp silence that roused the souls who inhabited the area. In the midsummer morning, every nuance of the day was saturated in heat, discomfort and humidity, and the day began unfurling its misery as soon as the first spot of light appeared at the base of the sky.
Ole Doc had always been an early riser, and on this particular morning he was awake even before Radar; truly no small feat. Of course, today was yet another day for him, another day of potential patients and, more likely, sitting on the porch watching the dusty road and listening to the maddening sounds of a day too hot to produce any sort of medical emergency worth even coming into the doctor's for. Sure, there would be sprained ankles and sickness that came from bad water, but sometimes even the weakest of spirits decided against leaving their cool, shady houses for want of medical care, just because of the concrete truth that it was too damned hot to go outside, no matter how great the pain.
Yes, it was spirits like that that made Ole Doc so wary of people nowadays. He hadn't always been such a hard person to get along with; in fact, during the war, he made many friends in this awful area with the fighting and the yankees so near, with the burning of Atlanta so often on everyone's tongues. Hardship brought people together, but now that the hardship was over and the land had had almost a year of good rain and a mild winter, people were beginning to slowly forget. Suddenly, before his very eyes, the town of Stellian had regressed from good, solid, honorable human stock to a bunch of whiny, drunk and incompetent sissies.
And it wasn't just the simple townspeople, no indeed. Ole Doc's very own boy, Radar, had knowingly and willingly allowed a yankee to sleep under the roof of one of the fine army doctors' tents! The same tent that housed exhausted and half-dead doctors Pierce and Hunnicutt during the most grizzly of the assaults, when blood seemed to rain from the very sky on top of sluggishly speaking, disoriented young boys who had no greater desire than to keep the yankees away from the town where they grew up!
Just the thought of that stuffy, priveleged puffball who reeked of perfume and starch sleeping on his property made Ole Doc want to scream. A week, an entire week of having to deal with the knowledge that no matter what he did, that man was contractually obligated to work for him... it was enough to drive him utterly mad. What business did he even have being there? There was nothing that yankee doctor knew that he didn't, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to listening to the yankee putting on airs about hoity-toity Boston medicine.
Radar stumbled into the kitchen a moment or two later, mumbling sleepily. Ole Doc frowned and turned to him, taking a seat at the table and pouring a cup of coffee from the pot that had been sitting out since yesterday morning.
"Gonna be a scorcher today." He said simply.
Radar didn't sit down for a couple of seconds after Ole Doc spoke, and then when he did sit down he didn't answer right away. Of course he knew that Ole Doc was suitably upset about something; most likely the yankee doctor. It always took Ole Doc awhile to really and completely wrap his mind around an uncomfortable situation and find his position on it. Radar had long since taken it off his mental queue of problems that needed pondering, but he wasn't surprised that Ole Doc was still chewing on it.
Of course, Ole Doc had been present for the treatment of Winchester's driver where Radar hadn't been, and he'd heard all the fancy terms for simple things like a black eye, a busted tooth and a faintin' spell due to the sun; watched impatiently as the yankee stood and stared for what seemed like hours at the patient, just standing there and staring for no reason; and had even been so cordial as to keep his mouth shut when the yankee threw a fit at the state of the medical instruments.
And even after his admirable discretion, the yankee still acted upon Ole Doc as if he were his jailer and not a contemporary (or possibly superior) doctor. He spoke clearly but with a great degree of deigning in his sophistocated style to the older man. Insulting other peoples' intelligence seemed truly to be his forte, and it was all Ole Doc could do not to throw the "unsuitable" instruments in his face and the contract in the fireplace.
Radar finally responded to his former quip about the heat, a simple reply of "Yes, I think it is, sir."
A few more minutes of silence followed, as both Ole Doc and Radar contemplated an appropriate way to bring up the situation of Winchester. Ole Doc made the first attempt.
"I wonder how Pierce and Hunnicutt slept last night."
"Oh, gosh sir. I don't know. Do you think there's maybe a problem with the uh... the accomo.. er... the set up?"
"I'm not comfortable with that yankee in my backyard." Just like that, he'd said it all. "I think if he's got to work here at all, he can go to an inn."
Radar frowned at the sudden and highly unexpected honesty. Of course, he shouldn't have been, because despite his thorough Southern upbringing, Ole Doc was always much more frank about matters than most gentlemen would be under the same circumstances.
A moment later, Ole Doc sighed. "I should choose my words more carefully, but I'm just not sure how to say it with grace. It rattles me to know he's in the same city, let alone tent as any of us. What in the hell were they thinkin', sendin' that idiot down here?!"
"Well, he's a very good doctor, sir.."
"I'm through with that 'very good doctor' crap! I've seen how he works and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen!"
"Sir, it's only a week. Besides, sir.. you won't have to deal with him today. Today's the.. er.. the social at the Klinger's."
Ole Doc quickly put down his cup of coffee. "Gall-durned if you ain't right! I'd gone and completely forgotten about that. It makes a man proud when a town can put on a lawn social this soon after Reconstruction's begun. I'll be right glad to see a proper Southern soiree again!"
Radar's boyish face seemed to light up at the very thought. "Oh yes sir..."
"Say what they will about 'Miss Magnolia', that boy makes one hell of a hostess." Ole Doc jumped to his feet, exhilarated at the thought of a lingering, luxurious party like the kind that he often attended with great passion in his younger days. "A man'd be a brute not to attend dressed in his best."
"Oh, yes sir. I know sir. I'm pretty sure the whole town will be there, sir.. well, at least everyone in the family's favor."
"Be a right pity not to be in their favor today!"
With that cheerful thought eclipsing any lingering annoyance at the plight of the M*A*S*H 4077th and its' Yankee affiliation, Ole Doc and Radar quickly ate a couple of cornmeal cakes apiece and chugged down the remainder of the bitter liquid that had been coffee just a few short days before and now was distinguishable from swamp water only by the fact that it was dark, a good deal thinner and tasted infinitely worse.
Outside the ramshackle dwelling of Ole Doc Potter, daylight slowly broke and activity increased minutely among the traditionally early risers of the community. Despite the myriad of things that needed doing in the early morning, very little was actually done before 8 or 9 and what with the party beginning at noon and the utter necessity of showing up in immaculate condition in effect, it seemed rather unlikely that anything would get accomplished that day. Fittingly, the whole of Stellian seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief.
It was perhaps this resounding and thunderous sigh that whipped open Charles' eyelids a few hours later. The rank and untidy tent with its' mosquito-netted "windows" seemed unnaturally luminous with the 9:00 sun streaming in rectangular patterns across the beds and the floor, and Charles momentarily wondered if the almighty had looked down upon his humble servant in duress and set the whole of Stellian, Georgia ablaze in a tumultuous ball of hellfire. Oh, the uplifting thought of the entire miserable town engulfed in flames! It brought a smile to his weary disposition; a smile he immediately regretted when the tensing of his facial muscles brought on a horrendous headache.
Or, perhaps the headache had already been there. It was impossible to tell, and he pushed himself into a seated position, clutching at his forehead in vain and being rewarded for his efforts with an overwhelming aroma; the combination of heavy liquor and musty rain.
In a flash, his mind's eye widened and unwillingly took in the memory of the night before. That saloon. Ebenizer. The gunshots and that foolish old man with his harmonica. A cowardly woman in a red and white summer dress. The rain.
He blinked. It all seemed so surreal in the clear light of day. Impossible, in fact, and more likely an alcohol-induced dream than any real events that he had been a part of. Surely.. surely he hadn't found himself fighting off the advances of a squealing lady outside a barroom. That alone was ludicrous enough that he felt his mind easing itself out of an onsetting panic at the thought of recalling the other events.
It had to have been a result of the whisky.. or whatever that drink that he'd ordered had been. It had to have been some combination of the thick, southern spirits, his fatigue and.. and the shock his delicate constitution had endured after being stranded in this backwoods hellhole with its women of ill-repute and men with no class who so laughably called themselves physicians. Of course it was all a dream! He'd obviously made it back to the tent with no injury except that which his pride had sustained, and now that he knew it was all an illusion, there was truly nothing that existed in reality to give credibility to the nightmare of last night!
A deep sigh of relief escaped his lungs and he laughed a little. No harm done, so it turned out. If he'd had perhaps a bit too much to drink, that made him no less a man, for everyone knew that even the best of men sometimes overindulged. It was a credit to his breeding that he was able to survive such an ordeal at all, and surely no one would fail to understand his desperation and loneliness and the fact that he'd turned to the bottle and the bottle had disagreed with his ideas. All was well, so it turned out.
He did regret, however, the fact that there was truly no arrangement with any influential public figure. He had truly looked forward with much anticipation to the idea of speaking man-to-man with someone who would understand his plight and mercifully release him from the cruel binds of contractual obligation purgatory. He would simply have to attempt to make do under unthinkable conditions... as difficult as it seemed at the moment with his pounding head and the smell of rain and booze wafting around him.
First of all, a bath was in order. He couldn't possibly be expected to retain the dust of his journey, and even the most pre-industrial of towns had resources that promoted cleanliness. Getting to his feet, he pulled a silk robe from one of his many articles of luggage and revelled in its aristocratic existance. Just feeling superior to his bungling roommates, who were already gone but surely didn't possess anything of comparable worth, made his entire morning brighter.
Oh, yes. For it was the one constant in his life at this point, after all. Infinite superiority to everyone he came across. With that happy thought coloring his perceptions of the world a faint rosy hue, he pushed on the door several times to unstick the heat-warped wood from its frame and cheerfully stepped into the sweltering backyard of one Ole Doc Potter.
After walking a short distance and surveying the ramshackle camp through the eyes of a horrified bystander who's so above it all, his eyes were greeted unexpectedly by the sight of two gentlemen wearing well-tailored clothing. A glaring contradiction, to say the least, and he idly wondered who these immaculately-attired men could possibly be.
It was then that they turned to him and he drew back with a start. Pierce and Hunnicutt?! Dressed as gentlemen?! A profane farce and an insult to real gentlemen everywhere!
A true gift it was that allowed him to see this with such clarity, and he took a deep breath before approaching them. Coming closer, he saw that despite their initially disarming exterior, they actually wore the clothing the way an infant wears fancy lace frocks; their posture failed them, and their eyes held a degree of contempt for not only the stereotype of well-to-do, well-bred folks who wore such clothes with regularity and pride, but for themselves for somehow finding themselves in a situation where they had to dress that way.
However, their annoyance seemed secondary when they caught sight of their bedraggled but still patronizing roommate swaggering their way in a floaty silk robe and wrinkled pajamas. They could smell the mixture of rain and booze a mile away, and their eyes were full of curiosity and amusement.
"Could it be the prodigal roommate finally come back to face the cold, cruel world?" BJ asked, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Got in rather late last night, eh, Charles? Sorry about abandoning you at the Officer's Club, but we were out way past our bedtime." Hawkeye said coyly.
Charles scrutinized their faces as he was so akin to doing, and then he lifted his nose and peered at them from under his eyebrows.
"Has the.. erm.. washerwoman failed to get around to doing your laundry?" He asked innocently.
The duo looked at each other and seemed fascinated by the fact that they were dressed so fancily. "Seems that we are dressed to kill, doesn't it? Well, Charles, you know, even the most backwater of towns can produce one or two snazzy dressers if it really puts its mind to doing it."
BJ straightened his posture and adapted a pristine pose with one hand behind his back and his nose pointed straight up. "Say, Charles. How high am I supposed to point my nose, anyway?"
"I'm sure he bends over all the way backwards." Hawkeye answered, imitating BJ's pose and then shading his eyes with his hand. "No wonder rich people can't let things go! Their heads are turned at such an incline that they can't even see in front of them!"
"All right, gentlemen, do indulge me. What could possibly persuade two people of your ilk to don this thoroughly unconvincing guise?"
"Why Charles, do you mean to tell me you don't know about the party at the Klingers'? I'm sure someone must have invited you, Southern hospitality dictates that everyone's expected to be invited to large functions, no matter how much we hate them!" Hawkeye exclaimed.
Charles stopped dead.
"Have you yet had the good fortune of meeting our town's fair Miss Magnolia?" BJ asked with bittersweet affection in his voice.
Party?! MISS MAGNOLIA?!, he thought with horror. Then... that entire ordeal from last night had actually happened?! Oh no... no!
"Believe me, if you'd met Miss Magnolia, you'd know it." Hawkeye added dryly.
The humiliation! If he admitted to these bumpkins that not only had he met the flighty woman, he had also been publically shamed by her and her forward and highly unwelcome advances, he would truly never live it down. He couldn't believe that he'd actually agreed to meeting her at a party... and if these two were in any way implying that they too were invited to the party, then he would simply have to decline to show up, regardless of what she had promised in exchange for his appearance. It would be a cold day in hell before any Winchester would agree to such a degrading endeavor.
"Of course not. I have no idea who Miss Magnolia is, and I believe that may be in my favor."
"You're damn right it's in your favor! How perfect, seeing as how I still need a beau to the party! Chaahles, would you care to escort a lady to the soiree?" Hawkeye asked brightly, clutching his arm.
"I most certainly would not!"
Hawkeye tightened his grip and gawked at BJ. "Did he just turn me down?!"
"It sounded that way to me."
"You turned me down?!"
"I shall not appear in any capacity at the party you speak of, there's no need to feel bad about it."
"That means I'm gonna have to go with HIM again!" Hawkeye moaned. "You don't know how good you could have had it, Charles."
"And for that, I thank God."
BJ looked speculatively at Charles and Hawkeye, and then he grinned deviously. "Charles, you really should come to the party. It's nothing like the rest of Stellian, after all. People are well-behaved, well-dressed, well-meaning..."
"Well-fed." Hawkeye added.
"Well-liquored."
"Well well well.."
Charles put his hand in the air and shook his head. "Forgive me, gentlemen, but my already nonexistant intention to attend this function of which you speak is waning with every passing moment."
"I wonder what Colonel Potter would think of that." BJ asked casually.
"Think of what?" Charles asked sharply.
"Oh, let's be serious, Charles! You're a yankee! He doesn't favor you any more than French bread at communion. He's already got a sour opinion of you, and if you don't take up the offer to attend a real Southern party, that's just going to cinch it."
"Cinch.. what?"
"Oh, Charles, we can't disclose information like that."
Charles frowned uneasily. As infuriating as these plebians were, they did have a point. As begrudging as it was, the angry man HAD been hospitable enough to give him some sort of housing in a rather dangerous town.. and if something as inconsequential as attending a party could give him a more positive repoir with his employer... not, of course, that he worried about what the man thought about him! Certainly not.
And then... it suddenly occurred to him that if the events of last night had, in fact, been reality, that meant that the prospect of meeting with Miss Magnolia's influential father was still a possibility! Oh, how foolish he'd nearly been!
"Dear me, gentlemen.. please, do forgive my impoliteness. It would be an honor to attend."
BJ and Hawkeye exchanged a glance and then smiled. Charles easily smiled back, thoughts of home and a gallant escape from this festering swamp filling his mind.
"Well, the festivities begin immediately at noon, but we're planning on arriving a little early. Accompany us?" BJ asked.
"I.... well, all right."
"I dunno, Beej. Seemed like he agreed awfully easily. He must have something up his sleeve."
BJ frowned. "I don't think this pretty silk frock would conceal anything very well."
"Yankees, Beej. Can't trust 'em. Always got some devious plan... maybe he's going to single-handedly uproot all of Miss Magnolia's sweet potatoes and declare the vegetable garden for the empire of Boston."
"Gentlemen, the hour grows late and I grow increasingly weary of your infantile banter. Would you be so kind as to direct me to a bathing facility?"
Hawkeye raised one eyebrow. "Good idea.. what with how late you got back last night.. and not to mention you smell like--"
"Hawk, what the man wants to do with liquor is his own business. There's a washtub behind the shed." BJ said helpfully.
"A... washtub behind the shed." Charles repeated incredulously, the words streaming out with disgust.
"That's exactly what I said!" BJ exclaimed.
"P...Perhaps... I can make do.. by some other means.." Charles said absently, turning out the thought of bathing in a wooden tub behind the cracked and brittle structure that they so callously referred to as a "shed". He quickly turned back toward the tent and thanked the stars that he'd brought with cologne enough to scent his entire wardrobe and possibly all his bedclothes as well. He would undoubtedly put the fragrent liquid to good use today.
"Charles, you're best off letting go of modesty if you ever want to survive around here!" Hawkeye called after him, folding his arms across his chest.
As it turned out, Charles soon realized that truer words were never spoken.
***
Ole Doc had always been an early riser, and on this particular morning he was awake even before Radar; truly no small feat. Of course, today was yet another day for him, another day of potential patients and, more likely, sitting on the porch watching the dusty road and listening to the maddening sounds of a day too hot to produce any sort of medical emergency worth even coming into the doctor's for. Sure, there would be sprained ankles and sickness that came from bad water, but sometimes even the weakest of spirits decided against leaving their cool, shady houses for want of medical care, just because of the concrete truth that it was too damned hot to go outside, no matter how great the pain.
Yes, it was spirits like that that made Ole Doc so wary of people nowadays. He hadn't always been such a hard person to get along with; in fact, during the war, he made many friends in this awful area with the fighting and the yankees so near, with the burning of Atlanta so often on everyone's tongues. Hardship brought people together, but now that the hardship was over and the land had had almost a year of good rain and a mild winter, people were beginning to slowly forget. Suddenly, before his very eyes, the town of Stellian had regressed from good, solid, honorable human stock to a bunch of whiny, drunk and incompetent sissies.
And it wasn't just the simple townspeople, no indeed. Ole Doc's very own boy, Radar, had knowingly and willingly allowed a yankee to sleep under the roof of one of the fine army doctors' tents! The same tent that housed exhausted and half-dead doctors Pierce and Hunnicutt during the most grizzly of the assaults, when blood seemed to rain from the very sky on top of sluggishly speaking, disoriented young boys who had no greater desire than to keep the yankees away from the town where they grew up!
Just the thought of that stuffy, priveleged puffball who reeked of perfume and starch sleeping on his property made Ole Doc want to scream. A week, an entire week of having to deal with the knowledge that no matter what he did, that man was contractually obligated to work for him... it was enough to drive him utterly mad. What business did he even have being there? There was nothing that yankee doctor knew that he didn't, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to listening to the yankee putting on airs about hoity-toity Boston medicine.
Radar stumbled into the kitchen a moment or two later, mumbling sleepily. Ole Doc frowned and turned to him, taking a seat at the table and pouring a cup of coffee from the pot that had been sitting out since yesterday morning.
"Gonna be a scorcher today." He said simply.
Radar didn't sit down for a couple of seconds after Ole Doc spoke, and then when he did sit down he didn't answer right away. Of course he knew that Ole Doc was suitably upset about something; most likely the yankee doctor. It always took Ole Doc awhile to really and completely wrap his mind around an uncomfortable situation and find his position on it. Radar had long since taken it off his mental queue of problems that needed pondering, but he wasn't surprised that Ole Doc was still chewing on it.
Of course, Ole Doc had been present for the treatment of Winchester's driver where Radar hadn't been, and he'd heard all the fancy terms for simple things like a black eye, a busted tooth and a faintin' spell due to the sun; watched impatiently as the yankee stood and stared for what seemed like hours at the patient, just standing there and staring for no reason; and had even been so cordial as to keep his mouth shut when the yankee threw a fit at the state of the medical instruments.
And even after his admirable discretion, the yankee still acted upon Ole Doc as if he were his jailer and not a contemporary (or possibly superior) doctor. He spoke clearly but with a great degree of deigning in his sophistocated style to the older man. Insulting other peoples' intelligence seemed truly to be his forte, and it was all Ole Doc could do not to throw the "unsuitable" instruments in his face and the contract in the fireplace.
Radar finally responded to his former quip about the heat, a simple reply of "Yes, I think it is, sir."
A few more minutes of silence followed, as both Ole Doc and Radar contemplated an appropriate way to bring up the situation of Winchester. Ole Doc made the first attempt.
"I wonder how Pierce and Hunnicutt slept last night."
"Oh, gosh sir. I don't know. Do you think there's maybe a problem with the uh... the accomo.. er... the set up?"
"I'm not comfortable with that yankee in my backyard." Just like that, he'd said it all. "I think if he's got to work here at all, he can go to an inn."
Radar frowned at the sudden and highly unexpected honesty. Of course, he shouldn't have been, because despite his thorough Southern upbringing, Ole Doc was always much more frank about matters than most gentlemen would be under the same circumstances.
A moment later, Ole Doc sighed. "I should choose my words more carefully, but I'm just not sure how to say it with grace. It rattles me to know he's in the same city, let alone tent as any of us. What in the hell were they thinkin', sendin' that idiot down here?!"
"Well, he's a very good doctor, sir.."
"I'm through with that 'very good doctor' crap! I've seen how he works and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen!"
"Sir, it's only a week. Besides, sir.. you won't have to deal with him today. Today's the.. er.. the social at the Klinger's."
Ole Doc quickly put down his cup of coffee. "Gall-durned if you ain't right! I'd gone and completely forgotten about that. It makes a man proud when a town can put on a lawn social this soon after Reconstruction's begun. I'll be right glad to see a proper Southern soiree again!"
Radar's boyish face seemed to light up at the very thought. "Oh yes sir..."
"Say what they will about 'Miss Magnolia', that boy makes one hell of a hostess." Ole Doc jumped to his feet, exhilarated at the thought of a lingering, luxurious party like the kind that he often attended with great passion in his younger days. "A man'd be a brute not to attend dressed in his best."
"Oh, yes sir. I know sir. I'm pretty sure the whole town will be there, sir.. well, at least everyone in the family's favor."
"Be a right pity not to be in their favor today!"
With that cheerful thought eclipsing any lingering annoyance at the plight of the M*A*S*H 4077th and its' Yankee affiliation, Ole Doc and Radar quickly ate a couple of cornmeal cakes apiece and chugged down the remainder of the bitter liquid that had been coffee just a few short days before and now was distinguishable from swamp water only by the fact that it was dark, a good deal thinner and tasted infinitely worse.
Outside the ramshackle dwelling of Ole Doc Potter, daylight slowly broke and activity increased minutely among the traditionally early risers of the community. Despite the myriad of things that needed doing in the early morning, very little was actually done before 8 or 9 and what with the party beginning at noon and the utter necessity of showing up in immaculate condition in effect, it seemed rather unlikely that anything would get accomplished that day. Fittingly, the whole of Stellian seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief.
It was perhaps this resounding and thunderous sigh that whipped open Charles' eyelids a few hours later. The rank and untidy tent with its' mosquito-netted "windows" seemed unnaturally luminous with the 9:00 sun streaming in rectangular patterns across the beds and the floor, and Charles momentarily wondered if the almighty had looked down upon his humble servant in duress and set the whole of Stellian, Georgia ablaze in a tumultuous ball of hellfire. Oh, the uplifting thought of the entire miserable town engulfed in flames! It brought a smile to his weary disposition; a smile he immediately regretted when the tensing of his facial muscles brought on a horrendous headache.
Or, perhaps the headache had already been there. It was impossible to tell, and he pushed himself into a seated position, clutching at his forehead in vain and being rewarded for his efforts with an overwhelming aroma; the combination of heavy liquor and musty rain.
In a flash, his mind's eye widened and unwillingly took in the memory of the night before. That saloon. Ebenizer. The gunshots and that foolish old man with his harmonica. A cowardly woman in a red and white summer dress. The rain.
He blinked. It all seemed so surreal in the clear light of day. Impossible, in fact, and more likely an alcohol-induced dream than any real events that he had been a part of. Surely.. surely he hadn't found himself fighting off the advances of a squealing lady outside a barroom. That alone was ludicrous enough that he felt his mind easing itself out of an onsetting panic at the thought of recalling the other events.
It had to have been a result of the whisky.. or whatever that drink that he'd ordered had been. It had to have been some combination of the thick, southern spirits, his fatigue and.. and the shock his delicate constitution had endured after being stranded in this backwoods hellhole with its women of ill-repute and men with no class who so laughably called themselves physicians. Of course it was all a dream! He'd obviously made it back to the tent with no injury except that which his pride had sustained, and now that he knew it was all an illusion, there was truly nothing that existed in reality to give credibility to the nightmare of last night!
A deep sigh of relief escaped his lungs and he laughed a little. No harm done, so it turned out. If he'd had perhaps a bit too much to drink, that made him no less a man, for everyone knew that even the best of men sometimes overindulged. It was a credit to his breeding that he was able to survive such an ordeal at all, and surely no one would fail to understand his desperation and loneliness and the fact that he'd turned to the bottle and the bottle had disagreed with his ideas. All was well, so it turned out.
He did regret, however, the fact that there was truly no arrangement with any influential public figure. He had truly looked forward with much anticipation to the idea of speaking man-to-man with someone who would understand his plight and mercifully release him from the cruel binds of contractual obligation purgatory. He would simply have to attempt to make do under unthinkable conditions... as difficult as it seemed at the moment with his pounding head and the smell of rain and booze wafting around him.
First of all, a bath was in order. He couldn't possibly be expected to retain the dust of his journey, and even the most pre-industrial of towns had resources that promoted cleanliness. Getting to his feet, he pulled a silk robe from one of his many articles of luggage and revelled in its aristocratic existance. Just feeling superior to his bungling roommates, who were already gone but surely didn't possess anything of comparable worth, made his entire morning brighter.
Oh, yes. For it was the one constant in his life at this point, after all. Infinite superiority to everyone he came across. With that happy thought coloring his perceptions of the world a faint rosy hue, he pushed on the door several times to unstick the heat-warped wood from its frame and cheerfully stepped into the sweltering backyard of one Ole Doc Potter.
After walking a short distance and surveying the ramshackle camp through the eyes of a horrified bystander who's so above it all, his eyes were greeted unexpectedly by the sight of two gentlemen wearing well-tailored clothing. A glaring contradiction, to say the least, and he idly wondered who these immaculately-attired men could possibly be.
It was then that they turned to him and he drew back with a start. Pierce and Hunnicutt?! Dressed as gentlemen?! A profane farce and an insult to real gentlemen everywhere!
A true gift it was that allowed him to see this with such clarity, and he took a deep breath before approaching them. Coming closer, he saw that despite their initially disarming exterior, they actually wore the clothing the way an infant wears fancy lace frocks; their posture failed them, and their eyes held a degree of contempt for not only the stereotype of well-to-do, well-bred folks who wore such clothes with regularity and pride, but for themselves for somehow finding themselves in a situation where they had to dress that way.
However, their annoyance seemed secondary when they caught sight of their bedraggled but still patronizing roommate swaggering their way in a floaty silk robe and wrinkled pajamas. They could smell the mixture of rain and booze a mile away, and their eyes were full of curiosity and amusement.
"Could it be the prodigal roommate finally come back to face the cold, cruel world?" BJ asked, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Got in rather late last night, eh, Charles? Sorry about abandoning you at the Officer's Club, but we were out way past our bedtime." Hawkeye said coyly.
Charles scrutinized their faces as he was so akin to doing, and then he lifted his nose and peered at them from under his eyebrows.
"Has the.. erm.. washerwoman failed to get around to doing your laundry?" He asked innocently.
The duo looked at each other and seemed fascinated by the fact that they were dressed so fancily. "Seems that we are dressed to kill, doesn't it? Well, Charles, you know, even the most backwater of towns can produce one or two snazzy dressers if it really puts its mind to doing it."
BJ straightened his posture and adapted a pristine pose with one hand behind his back and his nose pointed straight up. "Say, Charles. How high am I supposed to point my nose, anyway?"
"I'm sure he bends over all the way backwards." Hawkeye answered, imitating BJ's pose and then shading his eyes with his hand. "No wonder rich people can't let things go! Their heads are turned at such an incline that they can't even see in front of them!"
"All right, gentlemen, do indulge me. What could possibly persuade two people of your ilk to don this thoroughly unconvincing guise?"
"Why Charles, do you mean to tell me you don't know about the party at the Klingers'? I'm sure someone must have invited you, Southern hospitality dictates that everyone's expected to be invited to large functions, no matter how much we hate them!" Hawkeye exclaimed.
Charles stopped dead.
"Have you yet had the good fortune of meeting our town's fair Miss Magnolia?" BJ asked with bittersweet affection in his voice.
Party?! MISS MAGNOLIA?!, he thought with horror. Then... that entire ordeal from last night had actually happened?! Oh no... no!
"Believe me, if you'd met Miss Magnolia, you'd know it." Hawkeye added dryly.
The humiliation! If he admitted to these bumpkins that not only had he met the flighty woman, he had also been publically shamed by her and her forward and highly unwelcome advances, he would truly never live it down. He couldn't believe that he'd actually agreed to meeting her at a party... and if these two were in any way implying that they too were invited to the party, then he would simply have to decline to show up, regardless of what she had promised in exchange for his appearance. It would be a cold day in hell before any Winchester would agree to such a degrading endeavor.
"Of course not. I have no idea who Miss Magnolia is, and I believe that may be in my favor."
"You're damn right it's in your favor! How perfect, seeing as how I still need a beau to the party! Chaahles, would you care to escort a lady to the soiree?" Hawkeye asked brightly, clutching his arm.
"I most certainly would not!"
Hawkeye tightened his grip and gawked at BJ. "Did he just turn me down?!"
"It sounded that way to me."
"You turned me down?!"
"I shall not appear in any capacity at the party you speak of, there's no need to feel bad about it."
"That means I'm gonna have to go with HIM again!" Hawkeye moaned. "You don't know how good you could have had it, Charles."
"And for that, I thank God."
BJ looked speculatively at Charles and Hawkeye, and then he grinned deviously. "Charles, you really should come to the party. It's nothing like the rest of Stellian, after all. People are well-behaved, well-dressed, well-meaning..."
"Well-fed." Hawkeye added.
"Well-liquored."
"Well well well.."
Charles put his hand in the air and shook his head. "Forgive me, gentlemen, but my already nonexistant intention to attend this function of which you speak is waning with every passing moment."
"I wonder what Colonel Potter would think of that." BJ asked casually.
"Think of what?" Charles asked sharply.
"Oh, let's be serious, Charles! You're a yankee! He doesn't favor you any more than French bread at communion. He's already got a sour opinion of you, and if you don't take up the offer to attend a real Southern party, that's just going to cinch it."
"Cinch.. what?"
"Oh, Charles, we can't disclose information like that."
Charles frowned uneasily. As infuriating as these plebians were, they did have a point. As begrudging as it was, the angry man HAD been hospitable enough to give him some sort of housing in a rather dangerous town.. and if something as inconsequential as attending a party could give him a more positive repoir with his employer... not, of course, that he worried about what the man thought about him! Certainly not.
And then... it suddenly occurred to him that if the events of last night had, in fact, been reality, that meant that the prospect of meeting with Miss Magnolia's influential father was still a possibility! Oh, how foolish he'd nearly been!
"Dear me, gentlemen.. please, do forgive my impoliteness. It would be an honor to attend."
BJ and Hawkeye exchanged a glance and then smiled. Charles easily smiled back, thoughts of home and a gallant escape from this festering swamp filling his mind.
"Well, the festivities begin immediately at noon, but we're planning on arriving a little early. Accompany us?" BJ asked.
"I.... well, all right."
"I dunno, Beej. Seemed like he agreed awfully easily. He must have something up his sleeve."
BJ frowned. "I don't think this pretty silk frock would conceal anything very well."
"Yankees, Beej. Can't trust 'em. Always got some devious plan... maybe he's going to single-handedly uproot all of Miss Magnolia's sweet potatoes and declare the vegetable garden for the empire of Boston."
"Gentlemen, the hour grows late and I grow increasingly weary of your infantile banter. Would you be so kind as to direct me to a bathing facility?"
Hawkeye raised one eyebrow. "Good idea.. what with how late you got back last night.. and not to mention you smell like--"
"Hawk, what the man wants to do with liquor is his own business. There's a washtub behind the shed." BJ said helpfully.
"A... washtub behind the shed." Charles repeated incredulously, the words streaming out with disgust.
"That's exactly what I said!" BJ exclaimed.
"P...Perhaps... I can make do.. by some other means.." Charles said absently, turning out the thought of bathing in a wooden tub behind the cracked and brittle structure that they so callously referred to as a "shed". He quickly turned back toward the tent and thanked the stars that he'd brought with cologne enough to scent his entire wardrobe and possibly all his bedclothes as well. He would undoubtedly put the fragrent liquid to good use today.
"Charles, you're best off letting go of modesty if you ever want to survive around here!" Hawkeye called after him, folding his arms across his chest.
As it turned out, Charles soon realized that truer words were never spoken.
***