Charles Palliser (135 page)

I glanced at Miss fillery now and even though Henrietta had her back to her, she seemed to have noticed that her charge and I had exchanged looks.

“Miss Henrietta,” she said, “leave the servant to do his work.”

It was almost in a daze that I finished setting out the table, picked up the remaining tray from the sideboard and, not forgetting the bow at the door whose importance Bob had impressed upon me, left the room.

Outside in the passage I paused to try to recover my composure before going on, for seeing Henrietta again under these circumstances had brought back the past and in particular that last summer down in the country.

However, I dared not be caught idling here so I went down the passage until I reached Miss Lydia’s room. When I knocked and opened the door I found myself faced by a tiny old lady with a deeply wrinkled face, but the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. The chamber was small but cozy and she was seated in an old elbow-chair on the other side of the hearth, wearing an old-fashioned muslin gown, horn-spectacles, and black finger-mittens. In a reverie though I was, I became aware that her glittering eyes were scrutinizing me closely:

“Where is Bob?” she said suddenly. “Oh I know Edward’s real name,” she said, seeing my surprise.

“He is unwell, ma’am,” I said.

She smiled: “He is always unwell on Sunday afternoons, but he comes anyway.”

“He is more unwell than usual, ma’am,” I said, as I laid the tray on the little table she indicated and began to remove the dishes.

Though she was still smiling, her gaze did not falter: “Your manner of speech surprises me. Where are you from, young man?”

Though I had narrated my account of my origins several times to fellow-servants, I now found myself strangely reluctant.

I stammered and said: “Far from here, ma’am. The Border Country.”

“I see,” she said thoughtfully. Then suddenly she asked: “What is your name?”

“Dick, ma’am.”

“That is what Bob’s boy is always called. What is your given name?”

“John, ma’am.”

“John,” she repeated softly, and I believed I heard her murmur: “Yes, of course.”

Then she said aloud: “But you have another, I assume?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Will you tell me what it is?” she asked.

I hesitated for a moment: “John Winterflood, ma’am.”

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She looked at me as if she were disappointed, yet whether it was the name I had told her or the fact that she had guessed that I was lying, I did not know. I felt myself reddening.

“Very well, John Winterflood,” she said gravely; “I hope I shall have occasion to see you again.”

I bowed and left the room. I had much to think about as I made my way below stairs.

How had Henrietta felt at seeing me in the guise in which I had appeared to her? She had not appeared upset or even surprised. Was there any chance of being able to speak to her? If so, how much should I tell her? And why had Miss Lydia taken so much interest in me? I had heard the other servants say that she was “queer”, and part of her queerness presumably lay in her way of talking to the servants.

Throughout the week that followed my thoughts turned, whenever I had leisure, to what had happened during those few minutes in the governess’s sitting-room. I longed for the following Sunday to come, bringing the possibility of another encounter with Henrietta. And yet I could not imagine how this could be, since Miss fillery had so expressly prohibited my coming to wait upon her.

When Sunday came I watched Bob anxiously all afternoon whenever I had the chance, and he did not fail me. I was polishing the coppers in the scullery with Bessie when at about four o’clock the governess’s bell rang.

When I went to tell him he exclaimed furiously : “What the divil do she want ! Let her ring for all I care. Git back to your work.”

I did so and a few minutes later the bell rang again, this time continuing angrily for so long that when I reached the servants’-hall the noise was still coming from the scullery and I did not have to announce my message. The other footmen and the maids laughed but Bob staggered to his feet with a terrible curse and made off.

He returned a minute or two later.

“The young lady wants to go a walk in the Park,” he announced indignantly. “But Miss fillery don’t, so she wants a footman to go with Miss Henny.”

I held my breath at this. Surely Henrietta was trying to arrange to meet me!

“What did you say?” asked Will.

“I told her I was keeping the door and couldn’t on no account be spared.”

The others laughed.

“I ain’t putting myself out on a Sunday for no governess,” Bob declared.

“Could I not go in your place?” I asked.

They all turned to me in amazement.

“What?” Bob said, “a sarvint out of livery accompany one of the fambly (for all it’s on’y Miss Henny)?”

“I nivver heard on sich a thing!” Ned exclaimed.

“So I may not?” I asked.

“Sartinly not, for the honour of the house,” Bob said.

At that moment the bell began again to ring insistently.

“That’s that b---- agin,” said Will. “She don’t care what Miss Henny wants to do, but now she thinks you’re defying her, she won’t let it go.”

“Be damned to her,” Bob said.

“You’ll ketch it from Thackaberry,” Ned warned.

“You’d best go,” said Will.

Uttering a fearful oath, Bob rose unsteadily to his feet and began to button A FRIEND ON THE INSIDE

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his heavy coat and smooth his powdered head. The others helped to sober him a little and he went out unsteadily still muttering imprecations.

“Git on with your work,” said Will suddenly and I realized that he had been watching me.

Hoping that he had not noticed how eager I had been to take Bob’s place, I quickly hurried back into the scullery where I found Bessie still hard at work over the pans.

For several weeks Henrietta insisted — to the indignation of the servants — on going for a walk on Sunday afternoon and though I guessed her intention, I could find no way to play the part required of me.

By now Christmas was approaching and since it was spoken of by my fellows as a kind of heightened Sunday when the everyday pattern of events was even more disrupted, I looked forward to it in the hope that I might find some way of taking advantage of the general relaxation of rules.

It was an understood thing that the family celebrated the festival on Christmas-eve and so made only the most modest demands on the servants’ time on the day itself. So when the 25th. came, my fellow livery-servants rose late and, when they had donned dress-livery, began keeping the day in the hall which was now hung with branches of holly and where the Christmas candle, wreathed in greens, burned on the sideboard. A bunch of mistletoe was hung above the table and there was much flirting and kissing beneath it, and at each kiss one of the white berries was plucked until all were gone and there were supposed to be no more kisses — though this rule was quickly set aside.

Hall-dinner was to be a long and elaborate meal with a great deal of toasting. It began at two when the upper servants entered in greater state than usual, and at first conversation was somewhat stilted because of their attempt to maintain their dignity amidst the informality of the occasion. I noticed that Mr Thackaberry kept a seat empty on his right and this was explained when, after the first course, the door opened and a strange gentleman entered and took the place of honour beside him.

The newcomer was small, in his early forties with a handsome, high-coloured face which wore a somewhat petulant expression. This, I understood, was Mr Assinder who was graciously partaking of a single course, and his arrival was the signal for Mrs Gustard to enter the room followed by two of her staff carrying on a vast charger between them a boar’s head decorated with rosemary, stuffed with sausage-meat, and with a lemon in its mouth, and preceded by the rest of the kitchen-servants bearing mountains of good food.

Conversation was still restricted to the upper servants though there was some giggling and whispering at the inferior end of the table, until, as usual, the moment came when Mr Thackaberry addressed the head-coachman :

“You have less work this Christmas than usual, I fancy, Mr Phumphred, with the family staying in Town?”

“That’s true, sir. Though it’s a shame not to get down to Hougham. But I suppose Sir Parsivvle needs to spare hisself the expense now.”

“How dare you,” Mr Assinder exclaimed, his features suddenly flushed, “speak 622 THE

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of your employer in that manner. It’s not for you, Phumphred, to speculate on Sir Perceval’s financial circumstances.”

Everyone was astonished at this breach of good manners which was also a rebuff to the hospitality of the servants’-hall. There were some suppressed laughs and many were divided between their annoyance at the steward and their pleasure in seeing one of their superiors so publicly put down. Mr Phumphred looked taken aback and Mr Thackaberry hastily poured his guest a glass of wine. When Mr Assinder withdrew shortly afterwards the mood was immediately lightened, and conversation became general and increasingly unrestrained.

When the upper servants had themselves withdrawn, the footmen — Bob, Dan, Will, and Jem — and Nellie and three or four of the other maids took over the whole table.

The Wassail Bowl was filled with lambs’-wool and circulated rapidly. The outburst over dinner was the first topic to come
sur le tapis.

“Why did he drop down on old Phumphred so sharp?” asked Nellie, whose waist was encircled by Bob’s arm.

“Why, do you not know that?” he exclaimed. “It goes back a few years now. He once lent the carriage to someone. And Phumphred made trouble— I reckon Assinder didn’t square him — and so the old flatt went to Sir Parsivvle hisself.”

So that was how Mr Steplight (in fact, Mr Sancious) had obtained it that day he came to my mother at Mrs Fortisquince’s! Then the Mompessons had had no knowledge of the deception practised upon her.

“What did Assinder get?” Nellie asked.

“No more than a good telling off for Sir Parsivvle is wery partial to him on account of his uncle, the steward that was. But he wouldn’t be if he knew that Assinder does more than jobbing with what don’t belong to him. I could tell you things about him,” Bob said, winking one eye knowingly.

“Why, if it comes to that,” Will said to Bob with a scowl, “you was gived a bit to bubble that last governess.”

Bob merely laughed: “Aye, we done her brown, me and Mr David. I let on as I was bringing her a letter from Sir Parsivvle and my lady but it was a flatt-trap, for Mr David got a friend of his to write it.”

“That was the night she come in through the mews?” asked one of the house-maids, giggling.

“That’s right, for she went out on the town with Mr David on account of the letter, and that’s why she was sent out of the house.”

There was laughter at this.

At that moment the bell rang to summon me to wait on the uppers in the pantry. As I entered I heard Mr Thackaberry say to Sir Perceval’s gentleman :

“Phumphred touched him on a sore point. The truth is that our people are in deep, very deep. Mr Assinder has told me some grave news. The rent-roll down at Hougham has been falling for years and has recently dropped further because of the bad weather.

He is being told to squeeze more and more money out of the land and my lady doesn’t take enough account, he says, of the stupidity and dishonesty of country-people. He has been trying to demolish and evict to keep down the poor-rates, but he’s had no end of trouble with the vestry-men and the tenants. He’s trying to make the best of the place, but it’s a poor country. The house is in no condition to receive the family in the winter.”

I went back to the hall just as one of the chamber-maids came in: A FRIEND ON THE INSIDE

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“Bob,” she said, “it’s that governess. She sent me to say that Miss Henny wants to go a walk in the Park.”

“On Christmas-day!” Bob cried. “Well, she shan’t, that’s all.”

“Then there’ll be trouble, for Miss fillery’s mighty high today,” the maid warned.

“What do I care?” Bob cried drunkenly, and the other footmen cheered him on, perhaps with no very benign intentions towards him.

A few minutes later Ned, who was keeping the door, hurried in to say: “Bob, Miss Henny’s waiting now in the front hall, for the governess told her to come down. So git yourself ready and come on out to her.”

“I ain’t a-goin’ to,” Bob announced.

“Why then,” Ned returned, “there’ll be the divil to pay if nobody don’t go out to her, that’s all.”

“Well it shan’t be me and that’s flat.”

“Be careful, Bob,” Ned warned him. “That governess is out to make trouble for you.

Didn’t she complain to Assinder about you the other week?”

“Assinder be damned! He daren’t touch me!”

“What do you mean?” Will asked, while Ned hurried away.

Bob grinned at him with drunken triumph and, laying his finger along one side of his nose, shook his head.

“Let me go, Mr Bob,” I said.

There was an outburst of disapproval from the other footmen at this, but Bob eyed me with an unsteady gaze and said: “Why, that’s jist the ticket. Let her high and mighty la’ship see how she likes that.”

“Come on, Bob,” Dan protested. “He can’t go in them togs.”

“Yes he can,” Bob insisted. “That’s jist the beauty of it. If anyone makes trouble, why I’m in the clear aren’t I? I’ve sent the boy. Ain’t that good enough for a governess on Christmas-day?”

“All right,” said Dan, “be it upon your own stupid head.” Then he turned to me: “But don’t let none of the fambly or the upper sarvints see you.”

“He’ll need a coat,” Jem said. I was grateful for this for it was a very cold day and, of course, I had no top-coat. Then Jem added: “For that will sarve to hide that he ain’t in livery.”

So, with much drunken joviality, they found me an old carriage-coat kept in a cupboard in the footmen’s room in case of emergencies which, since it was several sizes too large for me, served to conceal the outrage represented by my costume, though it made me look rather absurd. They found me a nosegay but none of them would entrust to me his gold stick.