The inner working of the Woodytrudy Society have long been off-limits to the common folk by the strictest social barriers of decorum and profound legal violence, left only to faint rumour and wildest hearsay. But now, on the thirtieth anniversary of the society’s disbandment, its histories have finally been decoded for the edification of the masses. No longer are the doings of our betters hidden from us, much as we may feel otherwise.
Origination
The Woodytrudy Society began as a simple wartime bet between two young men of humble goals and ample means: one bright evening in August 1917, John Barton-Clarke declared to Duncan Smith that if they both survived the morrow’s assault through c that they should purchase a little plot of land somewhere with some nice water and plenty of sun and a big blue sky. Alas, both would perish before noon come morning, but among the effects transported home to their families was the idly scribbled-and-signed affidavit they had hashed out before their departure from this mortal coil, and Montgomery Barton-Clarke (John’s elder brother, who was exempt from service due to a complex and debilitating case of dicky knee) thought it was ‘simply smashing.’ The next week he bought land around the isolated, pristine uplands of Homely Bay, deep in the Canadian Shield, which he frequently boasted was chosen by throwing darts at a map and pulling them out again until he found somewhere that ‘tickled his fancy.’
Of course, a Society cannot be founded with a membership of one, but Montgomery was an easily-bored human being and possessed good acquaintance with many of his fellows that suffered from a similar condition. In the name of his dead brother and his equally dead comrade some thirty thousand acres were purchased before the coming of September, and construction plans for the first ‘estates’ (latter to be called ‘cottages’) were scrawled on napkins at a cocktail party at Montgomery’s birthday, September 16th.
It was called the Woodytrudy Society after Montgomery Burton-Clarke’s favourite teddy bear.
Foundation
Early plans for the Woodytrudy Society envisioned it as a little slice of Britain-away-from-Britain, a place of palatial estates and impeccable gardens groomed by a full staff of year-round servants. Unfortunately, the reality of there being no ground soil other than pine needles and moss atop miles-thick Shield granite dashed those initial dreams, but Montgomery was an easily-buoyed-up soul and soon espoused a new vision: a secluded hunting lodge of the finest caliber; charmingly rustic, expensively furnished, and outfitted with as much alcohol as any ten distilleries the planet could boast. These became the three guiding pillars of the Society’s elaborate and byzantine set of building codes, and the first six cottages were completed before the summer of 1918. The isolated islands and bays soon fairly rang with as much gunfire as No-Man’s-Land itself, and the local populations of beaver, deer, moose, and bear took a somewhat precipitous plunge. The Society’s documents never included any talk of game conservation, as Montgomery aptly observed that the less time spent shooting while on hunt, the more time spent tippling, and therefore so much the better if there was as little to shoot at as possible.
Codification
By the time of death of Montgomery Barton-Clarke at the age of seventy-six from a severely untreated case of Bungy Bottom, the Society was in grievous danger of becoming dull. Its initial membership – and their livers – had become old and faulty, and their offspring sneered at their idle and antiquated notions of amusement (blowing apart wild animals while inebriated). The next step in the society’s history came entirely by chance: young Terence Twatherly–Fordring (the Twatherlys and the Fordrings being distinguished owners two of the original six founding cottages) had a fine bull moose in his sights when an errant cough from his batman spoiled his shot. Enraged, Terence beat his poor servant about the head with a juniper branch until the man fled in terror and became entangled in the bog, where he sank over a heartrending twenty-six minutes and forty-nine second. Terence declared it the best sport of his life and eagerly told all his peers and chums about this fabulous plot of backwoods where you could flog your servants even better than the good old days, for there was nowhere for them to run but empty bush, forest, and lake – an unappealing and mosquito-cursed sanctuary, to be sure. Soon the average age of the Society’s membership had risen from a sunken and cadaverous seventy-three to a spry and vigorous thirty-six, and once again the hills and isles of Homely Lake rang with laughter, gunshots, and screams of agony. The modern entertainment of the Society had arrived.
Domestication
Of course, servants will talk, and soon it became somewhat difficult to find good help to accompany Society members on their summers. This was alleviated by a cunning practice pioneered by Joshua Barton-Clarke-Foxworth II, which was secretively paying for free rounds in the village pub and pressganging anyone who became insensate. The quality of manservants thus procured was very low, but this was seen as all the better, seeing as this produced an ample sum of reasons to punish them as extensively and creatively as anyone could wish. Nonetheless, it had its downsides, as was exhaustively proven by the tragic demise of Joshua in his sleep at the age of twenty-three from one-hundred-and-forty-nine separate stab wounds. Investigation of the murderer by pleading and threat seemed fruitless until Joshua’s best mate, Graham Axway-Sneedlebury, hit upon the notion of letting his prize hound Worble IV Chesterton smell Joshua’s body and then the servants. The trusty hound barked at every single one of them, and a s reward for his service in the name of justice, was given free reign upon them along with every single one of his kin – a sizable pack, given the popularity of kennel breeding among the Society’s members. It took no great mind at all to see the potential in the loyalty of animals as warden against the duplicity of man, and thus was the second of the two essential components of the modern entertainments of the Woodytrudy Society realized: the guard animal.
Elaboration
Of course, even the most amusing pastime must contain innovation, lest it become tedium. Fashion at first lent itself to the largest, most threatening and aggressive dogs being brought to Homely Lake, but such creatures proved at least as dangerous to their masters as their servants, and soon the painstaking care inherent in producing a beast that would react with utter love to its owner and rabid death to any member of the lower classes was applauded. When that balancing act was mastered to the point of boredom, exoticisms became the point of the day – keeping exclusively water-dogs that would drown their prey, or game dogs that would fetch the mortally wounded but never mutilate them, or a herd of feral lapdogs that would swarm the fallen all had their day as amusements, each mastered, then discarded. But even novelty must pall, and so it was that on May 14th, 1978, Charles Jalopy-Cordwith announced in the Woodytrudy Society’s quarterly newsletter that he would be bringing no dogs with him at all that summer. Astonishment bloomed – surely if Charles had become so bored of the Society’s sport, why come at all? – then in its wake a subtle and omnipresent anticipation, and when Charles stepped off the docks to his family cottage fashionably late there was a veritable horde of his peers watching, and therefore ample witnesses to his accompaniment by a chimpanzee named Piers.
Piers, it became rapidly-apparent, was a revelation. He understood more of what was said to him than even the best-trained dogs, could wear a tie and smoke a cigarette with aplomb, and in addition to still possessing a relatively fearsome bite could – with his bare hands – tear a recalcitrant butler limb-from-limb and face-from-skull. Furthermore, upon his initial demonstration of such a feat (at the wedding anniversary of Mary-Anne and Thomas York-Feedle), he could then pick up the tray of drinks said butler had carelessly dropped, refill the glasses, and act as a perfect gentleman’s gentleman for the remainder of the evening. Such feats could not go unnoticed, and in fact, did not.
Imitation
By the mid-eighties, it was difficult to find a single human member of staff on the properties of the Woodytrudy Society. With the growing difficulty of acquiring sufficiently discreet servants in sufficiently discreet manner for sufficiently proper wages (and making proper compensation to an increasingly INDISCREET constabulary), a switch to employing a handful of animal trainers and handlers was a relief for both the mind and the pocketbook. Besides, a capuchin or colobus carrying a drinks tray or lighting a cigar was at least twice as charming as a human, at least twice as liable to fail, and therefore at least twice as likely to be entertainingly punished afterwards. Apes and monkeys of every size and species populated the grounds for the summer, trimming back the encroaching foliage, operating the oar, sails, and engine-workings of boats, carrying putters at miniature-golf-courses, waiting on hand and foot, and ruthlessly dispatching their fellows who failed in their duties. In this they were boundlessly creative in the manner of children, and while watching a fellow anthropoid be eaten alive by dogs was a sight that could grow stale, witnessing the multitude of ways a chimpanzee or baboon could find to execute their simian comrades never grew tiresome. Never had so much tedious time been so excitingly passed.
Culmination
The exact circumstances that led to the closure of the Woodytrudy Society are unknown, although their date can be pinpointed with absolute precision: on June 4th, 1993 – the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Society – a grand soiree was to be held at the original Barton-Clarke cottage, with all members attending in full pomp and gaiety. Letters were being posted at the nearest postal office until the very evening of that event, and afterwards? Nothing. Several phone calls were made using exceedingly expensive satellite calls, but alas, poor reception was available due to the vagaries of the local weather (an overcast evening quite spoilt the view of the full moon in neighbouring counties), and few messages were passed on. What garbled audio remained was often deleted by appalled family members, and what wasn’t erased was most certainly hidden. The few samples preserved that have fallen into public hands are scarcely educational – screaming, indistinct begging, and howling of ambiguous origin.
Since every standing member of the Society was present at the celebration, none returned from it, and personal investigations were both belated and unfruitful, the events remain a source of speculation, but the available evidence – the disturbing phone calls, the abandoned cottages, the ransacked grounds, and the paltry few remains retrieved (principally those that had been cast into the lake, which had suffered some decay and aquatic scavenging but were otherwise intact) suggests a peculiar sort of servant’s revolt against those who possessed no servants.
As to the staff themselves, no trace has been located – or at least, located and reported. Several search parties have vanished after venturing too deep into the woods, the most recent in 2014. The winters of Homely Lake are cold and brutal, but there are rustic and sturdy lodgings available, of course – well-furnished for a winter’s comfort, and with ample alcohol to keep out the chill from the most tropical of bones.
And in the summer, there’s plenty of sun in a big blue sky.