Chapter 218: Learning to Have a Life Part 4
Ernest arrived back at Oriel Estate shortly before nine o’clock.
He entered the central drawing room expecting the customary family ambush. Instead, only his father was present, seated in an armchair by the hearth with a snifter of brandy and an open copy of the Belfast Financial Review.
Victor looked up over his spectacles. "Good evening, son."
"Good evening, Father."
Ernest removed his wool coat, waiting for the inevitable barrage of questions, knowing smirks, and domestic teasing.
Silence reigned. Victor simply turned a page in his journal.
Ernest grew instantly, profoundly suspicious. "Where is Mother?"
"Retired upstairs with a headache."
"And Hollen?"
"At his own residence in the city, where an independent bachelor customarily resides."
Ernest nodded slowly, taking a seat opposite the hearth. "Remarkable."
He reached for a leather-bound portfolio on the side table, preparing to review his morning memoranda.
Victor folded his broadsheet neatly across his knee. "Fishing, Ernest."
Ernest paused, looking up. "What did you say?"
"We have not taken the rods out to the lake in nearly eight years."
The proposal struck Ernest entirely without warning.
Victor continued in a measured tone. "I was considering riding out to the western timber reservoir early on Saturday morning."
Ernest’s internal calendar instantly began firing off operational constraints: Saturday morning at nine was the quarterly blast furnace maintenance review. At eleven, an executive meeting with Arthur regarding coal tariffs. At one o’clock—
Then Eleanor’s voice echoed across his memory: What do you do purely for recreation?
Victor watched his son’s face, reading the internal calculation with seasoned ease. "Are your corporate responsibilities too demanding?"
Ernest paused. He looked at his father, then down at his hands.
"No," Ernest said quietly. "I will adjust the executive schedule."
Victor’s eyebrows rose in genuine astonishment. "You will?"
"Arthur can chair the morning maintenance audit."
A broad, authentic smile broke across Victor’s weathered face. "Splendid. Six o’clock sharp."
"In the morning?" Ernest blinked.
"Trout do not observe banking hours, Ernest."
Ernest laughed softly, shaking his head. "Six o’clock."
He rose from the armchair, walking toward the grand staircase. He paused at the doorway, looking back. "Father?"
"Yes?"
"I have not cast a line since my adolescence. What if our technique is entirely deficient?"
Victor picked up his brandy snifter with a relaxed chuckle. "Then we shall sit beside a body of water for three hours and produce absolutely nothing of commercial value."
Ernest frowned slightly. "That sounds remarkably inefficient."
Victor raised his glass in a silent toast. "That, my boy, is the precise operational objective."
Saturday dawn broke cold, crisp, and clear over the provincial hills.
At precisely two minutes to six, Ernest stood on the gravel courtyard of Oriel Estate wearing an old tweed shooting jacket, heavy leather field boots, and a flat wool cap.
The front doors swung open, and Victor emerged carrying two split-cane fishing rods, a canvas creel, and a small wooden tackle box.
Victor halted on the stone steps, checking his pocket watch with exaggerated formality. "Two minutes ahead of schedule."
"An ingrained operational discipline," Ernest shrugged.
Victor handed him a cane rod, inspecting his attire from head to toe. "No private secretary walking five paces behind?"
"Dismissed until Monday."
"No telegraph dispatches stuffed inside your pockets?"
"None."
"No elevation blueprints for the Dunwell corridor?"
Ernest grimaced. "Father, do you desire to fish or conduct an administrative deposition?"
Victor laughed warmly, clapping him on the shoulder. "Mount up, son."
They rode westward through the private estate woodlands as the morning mist rose from the damp grass. The lake sat nestled within a secluded valley, surrounded by ancient pines and limestone ridges that had belonged to the Teucher family for three generations.
When they arrived at the water’s edge, the lake was as smooth as polished glass, reflecting the pale amber light of the rising sun.
Ernest dismounted, tying his mount to a birch rail. He walked out onto the weathered timber jetty, taking in the scene. Nothing had altered since his youth: the same rocky shoreline, the same scent of wet pine needles, the same gentle lapping of clear water against the pilings.
Victor stepped up beside him, threading a line through the agate guides. "Do you recall this jetty, Ernest?"
"I do," Ernest murmured. "I recall plunging into three feet of freezing marsh water from that exact end board."
Victor smiled fondly. "You slipped on the moss."
"You bumped my shoulder with your tackle box, Father."
"An accidental kinematic collision," Victor defended with complete innocence.
"You were laughing before I broke the surface."
"Because you looked like a very indignant, very wet nine-year-old frog."
Ernest shook his head with a quiet smile. "A terrible display of paternal stewardship."
"Yet you developed into a baron nonetheless."
They sat together on the edge of the weathered timber boards, their boots dangling above the water. Victor cast his line with an effortless, practiced flick of his wrist. Ernest followed, his cast slightly stiff, the brass reel clicking smoothly as the lead weight settled beneath the surface.
Then... silence.
No engine exhaust. No clattering rail turnouts. No shouting foremen. No steam whistles.
Just the wind moving through the pine boughs and the distant cry of a waterfowl across the reeds.
Ernest endured the complete absence of stimuli for approximately four minutes.
"So," Ernest began, clearing his throat. "The preliminary returns from the northern rolling mill indicate—"
Victor held up a single gloved hand without looking away from his cork float. "No."
"I was merely stating an interesting metric—"
"Corporate commerce is strictly embargoed on this body of water, Ernest."
"It was an observation regarding fuel efficiency—"
"No."
Ernest let out a long, theatrical sigh, resting his elbows on his knees.
Another five minutes passed in unbroken silence.
Ernest shifted on the timber boards. "This enterprise possesses zero predictable output."
Victor let out a booming laugh that sent a flock of resting ducks fluttering from the far reeds. "That is precisely why sane men fish, Ernest. Nature refuses to conform to an executive timetable."
As the morning sun climbed above the pine canopy, burning away the mist, the initial awkwardness dissolved entirely.
They spoke not of balance sheets or statutory railway charters, but of life. Victor spoke candidly of Ernest’s grandfather—a stubborn, proud cavalry officer who had never fully understood steam engines but had loved his family fiercely. He spoke of his early military campaigns in the south, the terrifying financial risks he had taken during the early years of his marriage, and the profound, paralyzing dread he had felt on the night Ernest was born.
Ernest looked across at his father in genuine surprise. "You were frightened?"
"I was completely terrified," Victor admitted, his gaze fixed on the calm water. "I was twenty-four years old, holding an infant who depended entirely upon my judgment for his survival. I felt thoroughly unqualified."
"I always assumed you possessed an unshakeable master plan."
Victor chuckled softly. "No parent possesses a master plan, Ernest. We simply learn to project confidence while navigating through the fog."
He adjusted his reel, looking across at his son. "You are fond of Lady Eleanor."
It was not an interrogation; it was a simple, quiet observation.
"I am," Ernest said, keeping his eyes on his floating cork. "Extraordinarily fond of her, in truth."
"I observed the change in your countenance."
"It was entirely unscheduled," Ernest admitted, a faint smile touching his lips. "I spent five years constructing an industrial apparatus, convincing myself that human companionship was an inefficient allocation of capital."
Victor nodded slowly. "The most profound investments in life, Ernest, are precisely those that cannot be quantified upon a balance sheet."
A sudden, sharp tug jerked Ernest’s rod tip toward the water.
"Strike!" Victor called out.
Ernest set the hook with a sharp lift, reeling the line in against the light drag. The fish broke the surface with a small splash—a speckled lake trout measuring perhaps six inches in length.
Ernest swung the tiny fish onto the jetty.
Both men stared at the specimen in absolute silence.
Victor leaned forward, examining the catch with solemn gravity. "A truly monstrous leviathan, Baron Teucher. We should undoubtedly contact the royal taxidermist."
"Cease your mockery, Father."
"We could mount it directly above your executive desk at corporate headquarters," Victor proposed, his eyes dancing with mirth. "A monument to your legendary extractive prowess."
Ernest carefully removed the barbless hook from the trout’s mouth, gently lowering the fish back into the clear lake water. With a single flick of its tail, the creature vanished beneath the weeds.
Victor looked at the empty surface, his jaw dropping in mock outrage. "You released our breakfast!"
"It possessed a mass of roughly one hundred and fifty grams, Father. It would have barely constituted an appetizer."
"Food is food, Ernest!"
Ernest laughed aloud, wiping his hands on a linen handkerchief.
They packed their gear and rode back toward Oriel Estate as the clock approached ten in the morning.
Anna stood waiting on the gravel drive as the horses trotted up to the stables. She glanced down at the empty canvas creel slung over Victor’s shoulder. "Not a single catch between the two great minds of the household?"
Victor dismounted, pointing an accusing finger at his son. "Ernest landed a magnificent specimen and promptly returned it to the depths out of misplaced philosophical sympathy."
Anna looked at Ernest, her face lighting up with fond, maternal warmth. "Was it truly magnificent, darling?"
"It was exceptionally modest," Ernest smiled, handing his reins to the groom.
He looked back toward the sunlit pine woods where they had spent the morning. Three hours of absolute, mathematically unproductive leisure.
And as he walked up the stone steps toward the manor house, Ernest realized with quiet, profound clarity that he did not regret a single wasted second.