Written 3 December 2020
Archibald Knight-Yaxley. Archie to his pals.
The last surviving member of the Knight-Yaxley dynasty. Over 200 years of being landed gentry, occupying Hyacinth Manor. Originally making their money from the slave trade, then wise investments, then living off those investments for three generations until the family silver was all gone.. Archie was the last of them, and he was handing the manor over to the National Trust.
He tried to sell it, of course, but the repairs on top of his asking price were just too much, even for the new money types. Archie reluctantly took the offer from the National Trust. His Grandad would be turning in his grave. He'd always insisted that the National Trust was full of “lesbians and terrorists.” They had seemed very nice to Archie, though.
Archie had tried to organise one last party. A chance for him and his pals to drink toilet duck, play Frisby with some Ming dynasty plates, skinny dip in the lake. But Archie was pushing 50 now, and all his friends had moved on. In desperation, he ended up inviting the team from the National Trust, but they didn't deem it appropriate, and begged him not to ruin too much.
His Father sat him down shortly before his death to give Archie the bad news. Archie would never have said out loud that he wished his Father dead, but the trust fund was gone, and it had stopped being possible to pawn the family heirlooms after a servant caught him sneaking out a Fabergé egg in his satchel. He needed that sweet inheritance money.
“I'm sorry, Archie, but there's no more money. You may have to think about working for a living.”
That hypocrite. That oaf. Living a life of luxury, and leaving his only son with nothing. Asking Archie to work when he had not so much as made eye contact with a worker for his entire life. The scandal of it. In the end the only thing Archie had inherited was a rare skin condition, a crumbling mansion, and £200,000 in credit card debts.
So here he was, watching enthusiastic volunteers remove his personal effects from his ancestral home, his birth right, and loading up a van to take his possessions, and Archie himself, to a little one bed flat in town. He wondered whether any of them could help him with his CV.