The Dog That Inherited A Palace Chapter 7

©GeraldineBanksJanuary2025

Life became very busy at the House, Letitia made visits regularly. There were now many articles in many publications with Tedi’s image plastered all over ,and there was a lot of interest in what the House and indeed the “Head of House” was going to do. As Arthur saw it, it had been very hard work and also very undignified and not at all something he would like to repeat. Arthur had had enough of Tedi.

” That little mutt , little Lord Mutley, well I’ve had enough!” he said to his friends in the pub when he got home from a particularly hard photo shoot.

It had all came to a head on a particularly hot sunny day, when the plan was to take a lot of outdoor photographs in the grounds as the light conditions were just right. Cross had suggested that they involve the other dogs too. He asked James, the newly appointed Livestock Manager to help, and the plan was to meet Arthur with all the other dogs in tow.

Tizzie, Duke, Trinnie, Blaze and Marmie were all to be taken to the front of the house when Arthur arrived in his car with all his equipment at the agreed time of 11.00am. Cross would bring Tedi.

Tedi , earlier that morning had been in a “Gardening meeting” with Cross in the Mosaic Room but had lost interest while listening to the plans for the Hydrangeas and the Rose Garden planting . He saw the opportunity to pop out when they were all having a coffee break. They were paying no attention to him which he didn’t like. So he slipped out.

He headed out of the House, and ran through the quadrangle and down the grassy knoll to the lake. It was warm and sunny and he walked along the edge of the lake sniffing and marking as he went along. There was so much going on, the Palace Grounds had a lot of wildlife, he could smell foxes, voles and deer. He continued around the bottom of the lake, he disturbed a few ducks in the reeds and they flew away. Before he knew it , he was at the end near the large ornate gate and the  entrance to the village.

Tedi thought it would be nice to see some of his old village friends, so he wandered out of the gate, there was no one around so he continued along the street until he came to Freddie’s house. Freddie was in his back garden and when he saw Tedi he started barking with excitement. Freddie’s owners were at work , but Freddie knew how to get out through some bushes at the back. He signalled to Tedi to meet him in the alleyway at the side of the house.

Tedi and Freddie were glad to see each other and they both caught up with their news as they walked along the alleyway heading to another friend’s house. By the time they had finished , there were ten dog friends wandering around together up and down the village. No one paid much attention to them, but Tedi decided it would be safer for them all to go back to the Palace Grounds and play and there was going to be a photoshoot.

Tedi had the idea that his friends were very much part of the story and should be part of the photoshoot. They could see inside the Palace too if they wanted too. All the dogs thought that was a good idea  as they’d never been allowed in the Palace before.

The Gardening meeting had just finished and Cross was gathering his papers when he realised Tedi had disappeared.

” The Photographer is due any moment now, where has he gone?” Cross said in desperation .

Cross ran out the front door of the Palace and was frantically looking for Tedi. Just then Arthur pulled up in his car and was speaking with James who had Tedi’s brother and sisters on long leads as it would be chaos if he let them off. They all turned to see Tedi running up the driveway followed by a load of dogs they didn’t recognise. All the dogs were very excited and started barking.

“For heavens sake, what are you doing? ” Cross said.

Tedi stopped in front of him and looked up with his big brown eyes.

“You are doing a photo shoot, who are all these dogs?” but Cross recognised some of the Village Dogs.

It was too late , Tedi had already told his friends that if they went into the quadrangle that the Cook would sort out some food, so his friends didn’t stop and ran straight by the photographer, Cross, Tedi and his siblings and straight for the kitchen.

” When can I start, the light’s perfect.” The photographer said, pretending not to notice what was going on and not wanting to get involved in the chaos.

” Oh I suppose you better get on. ” Cross knew he had to stop the other dogs ” James you can look after this shoot can’t you? I better go and rescue the cook!” Cross turned and hurriedly ran off.

As Cross reached the Kitchen he could hear Mrs Granger the Cook screaming and shouting and throwing pans.

James meanwhile put Tedi ,Tizzie ,Duke, Trinnie, Blaze and Marmie into the Land Rover. Tedi got in the front with James and the others sat contentedly in the back. Tedi thought this is fun. They drove down to the lake followed by Arthur in his car. James knew an ideal place where there were two benches with a beautiful view of the lake with the house in the background.

It was truly beautiful and all the dogs hopped down from the Land Rover and ran around with each other. Arthur wanted some action shots which he took quickly and he also wanted a large group photo. It was going really well, when in the distance they heard barking and could see all the other dogs heading towards them.

“Oops” said James as he saw the very mixed bunch of dogs , heading at speed up towards the grassy knoll where the benches were located.

It was just then that Tedi decided to have some fun. He tugged at Arthur’s trousers and signaled to him to follow . He ran down towards the lake and Arthur followed him out of interest. They arrived at a little boating house. Tedi knew that inside there was a rowing boat.

At that moment Arthur was very pleased with himself as he knew he had got some very good pictures, so he didn’t mind following ” Little Lord Mutley” as he called him. Arthur had used the name ” Little Lord Mutley” on a number of occasions when doing the photoshoots with Tedi and it had annoyed Tedi very much as he thought it disrespectful.

When Arthur saw the boat and the boathouse he liked the idea of getting some more pictures .

If Arthur had just have said “Good Dog” or something similar, then Tedi might have forgiven him and not proceeded with his plan, but Arthur said ” What a Good Mutt you are!”

So Tedi followed through with his plan.

Tedi hopped into one of the boats and Arthur jumped across and got in the boat . Suddenly, Tedi leaped pass Arthur , Arthur’s weight caused the boat to move away from it’s mooring and it drifted off . Tedi, with one jump, leaped out of the boat and made it back onto land, without as much getting a paw wet.

Tedi watched as the boat began to drift and the current pulled it away from dry land . The boat was very old and rarely used and it leaked very badly .The boat moved towards the two bridges and out of sight of the people and dogs on the land. Tedi turned away and ran up to where all the other dogs were.

Arthur stood up and waved for help , his feet were soaked, and he shouted as he couldn’t swim , but James could not hear him. By then all the dogs were playing together on the grass near the benches and were running around chasing each other . The dogs from the House were having a great time, they’d never met the Village dogs and they were having so much fun playing tag and in some cases shouting insults and generally being very raucous with each other. James tried to get them under control , but it was impossible.

Meanwhile Arthur disappeared and was heading to the other end of the lake in a very leaky boat. By now the water was up to his knees and he knew the boat was getting unstable. He frantically looked around for some oars, but couldn’t find anything, his very expensive camera was around his neck and he screamed when he realised the water was now up to his waist. His trousers were soaked.

Fortunately for Arthur the lake was not very deep and really if he had thought of it he could have stepped out and waded to the land. However, once passed the bridges, there were a lot of areas that were overgrown with reeds and wild grasses, the boat lodged itself in one of these areas and stopped.

This meant that Arthur could jump out of the boat and wade through the silt and mud to land. It was very squelchy and he slipped and fell quite a few times. By the time he reached firm ground he was covered in mud from head to foot. He was also on the wrong side of the lake. So he had to walk all the way around and back to the House. As it was a warm day the mud dried on his skin, hair and clothes and was very uncomfortable. This made him very angry.

When he got back to the House, he was not at all happy and was very grumpy and would not accept any help from anyone except when James offered to drive him to collect his car. Arthur had point blank refused to have any clean clothes and said he wasn’t sure that all his pictures had been ruined. He was so angry that he didn’t want to speak to anyone and really no one wanted to speak to him and he drove off without so much as a goodbye.

Later that evening in front of the fire in Cross’s living room , Cross rubbed Tedi’s ears and told him in the nicest possible way that he couldn’t just invite his friends to the house and that it had been a nasty trick to play on Arthur, even though he had called you names. Yes it was quite funny, but don’t do it again.

Tedi snuggled into Cross’s tummy and enjoyed the warmth of the fire and fell fast asleep.