Conrad's Fate (10 page)

Anyway, there were six footmen, and us, and a dismal old man with a snuffle (he was steward or accountant or something) and a whole lot of women. Miss Semple was there, of course, and she told me that the very smart elderly woman was the Countess's maid, and the almost as smart younger one was Lady Felice's. Those two weren't very nice. They only spoke to each other. But there were the Upper Stillroom Maid, the Head of Housemaids, the Head of Parlormaids, and several other Heads of Somethings. Apparently there should have been Hugo, too, but he had gone to Ludwich with Count Robert. All the other Staff ate in the Lower Hall, except Mr. Amos, who had his meals alone, Miss Semple said.

There was also Mrs. Baldock. She was Housekeeper, but I kept thinking of her as the Headmistress. She was the largest woman I had ever seen, a vast six-footer with iron gray hair and a huge bosom. The most noticeable thing about her was the purple flush up each side of her large face. Christopher said this didn't look healthy to him. “Possibly she drinks, Grant,” he said, but this was later. At that supper she swept in after all the rest of us. Everyone stood up for her. Mrs. Baldock said a short grace, then looked down the table until she saw Christopher and me.

“I'll expect you two in the Housekeeper's Room promptly at nine-thirty tomorrow,” she said.

This sounded so ominous to me that I kept my head down and said nothing for most of the meal. But Christopher was another matter. When supper came—and it was steak pie and marvelous, with massive amounts of potatoes in butter—it was brought in by four maids. Mrs. Baldock cut the pie, and the maids carried it around to us. Nobody started eating until Mrs. Baldock did.

“What is this?” Christopher said as the maid brought his slice.

“Steak pie, sir,” the girl said. She was about Christopher's age, and you could see she thought he was ever so handsome.

“No, I mean, the way there are Staff to wait on Staff,” Christopher said. “When do
you
get to eat?”

“We have high tea at six-thirty, sir,” the girl said, “but—”

“What a lot of meals!” Christopher said. “Doesn't that take another whole kitchen and a whole lot more Staff to wait on
you
?”

“Well, only sort of,” the girl said. Her eyes went nervously to Mrs. Baldock. “Please, sir, we're not supposed to hold conversations while we're serving.”

“Then I'll ask
you
,” Christopher said to Andrew. “Do you see any reason why this serving business should ever stop?
We
have supper now, so as to wait on the Family, and these charming young ladies have theirs at six-thirty in order to wait on
us
. And when
they
are waited on, those people must have to eat at six, and before that some
other
people have to eat earlier still in order to wait on
them
. There must be some Staff who have supper at breakfast time in order to fit all this serving
in
.”

Andrew laughed, but some of the other footmen were not amused. The one called Gregor growled, “Cheeky little beggar!” and the one called Philip said, “You think you're quite a card, don't you?” Behind them all four maids were trying not to giggle, and from the head of the table, Mrs. Baldock was staring. Well, everyone was staring. Most of the Head Maids were annoyed, and the two Lady's Maids were scandalized, but Mrs. Baldock stared with no expression at all. There was no way of knowing if she approved of Christopher or was about to sack him on the spot.

“Someone must be cooking all the time,” Christopher said. “How do you manage with only three kitchens?”

Mrs. Baldock spoke. She said, “
And
a bakery. That will do, young man.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Christopher said. “Delicious pie, whichever kitchen it came from.” He and Mrs. Baldock eyed each other down the length of the table. Everyone's heads turned from one to the other like people's at a tennis match. Christopher smiled sweetly. “Pure curiosity, ma'am,” he said.

Mrs. Baldock just said, “Hmm,” and turned her attention to her plate.

Christopher kept a wary eye on her, but he went on asking questions.

We had to jump up as soon as we had finished
supper. We left the maids clearing plates and giggling at Christopher's back and hurried upstairs with the footmen to the dining room. This was a tall, gloomy room that matched the black-floored hall. Mr. Amos was waiting there to show us how to fold stiff white napkins into a fancy boat shape and then to instruct us in the right way to make two little silver islands of cutlery and wineglasses on the shiny black table. We had to put each knife, fork, and spoon exactly in its right place.

Christopher went rather pale while we were trying to get it right. “Indigestion, Grant,” he told me in a sorrowful whisper. “Bolting pie and then running upstairs is not what I'm used to.”

“That won't be the only thing that disagrees with you if Mr. Amos hears you,” the surly footman—Gregor—said to him. “Hold your tongue. Put this cloth over that arm, both of you, and stand by that wall. Don't move, or I'll belt you one.”

We spent the next hour doing just that. We were supposed to be attending to what Mr. Amos and the footmen did as they circled in and out around the two Ladies sitting each at their little island of glass and silver, but I think I dozed on my feet half the time. The rest of the time I stared at a big picture of a dead bird and some fruit on the opposite wall and wished I could be at home in the bookshop. The two Ladies bored me stiff. They talked the whole time about the clothes they were going to buy as soon as the time of mourning was over and where they would stay in Ludwich while they were shopping. And they seemed to go on eating forever.

When at last they were finished, we were allowed to go back to the undercroft, but we had to stay in the Upper Hall in case we were needed to bring things to the Ladies in the drawing room. Gregor watched us to make sure we didn't try to slip away. We sat side by side on a hard sofa as far away from Gregor as we could get, trying not to listen to the two Lady's Maids, who were doing embroidery quite near to us and whispering gossipy things to each other.

“She's got a whole drawerful of keepsakes from him by now,” said one.

The other one said, “If that gets found out, they'll
both
be in trouble.”

“I wouldn't be in her shoes for any money,” the first one said.

I yawned. I couldn't help it.

“Come, come, Grant,” Christopher said. “On these occasions you have to keep going by taking an interest in
little
things, like those two maids do. We've been here a good seven hours by now. I know they seem the longest we've ever known, but you must have found
some
little thing to be amazed about
somewhere
.”

I had, now he came to remind me. “Yes,” I said. “How do the Countess and Lady Felice eat so much and stay so
thin
?”

“Good question,” Christopher replied. “They fair put it away, don't they? The young one probably rushes about, but the old one is slightly stately. She ought by rights to be the size of Mrs. Baldock. Perhaps the chef charms her food. But my guess is she takes slim spells. I dare you to go over and ask her Lady's Maid if I'm right.”

I looked across at the two gossiping women. I laughed. “No. You do it.”

Christopher didn't dare either, so we went on to talk about other things we had noticed. This was when Christopher told me his theory that Mrs. Baldock drank. But right at the end, just before Andrew came in and said we could go off to bed, Christopher astounded me by asking, “By the way, what or where is this Ludwich that the Countess is so peeved with the Count for vanishing to?”

I stared at him. How could he not know? “It's the capital city, of course! Down in the Sussex Plains, beside the Little Rhine. Everyone knows that!”

“Oh,” said Christopher. “Ah. So the Count's gone on a spree, has he? The fact is, Grant, that one gets a little confused about geography, living with the Travelers. They never bother to say where we are or where we're going. So what part of the country are we in now?”

“The English Alps,” I said. “Just above Stallchester.” I was still astonished.

Christopher repeated, “The English Alps. Ah,” looking grave and wise. “What other Alps are there, then—as a matter of interest?”

“French, Italian, Austrian,” I said. “Those Alps sort of run together. The English Alps are divided off by Frisia.” Christopher looked quite bewildered. He didn't seem to know any geography at all. “Frisia's the country on the English border,” I explained. “The whole of Europe is quite flat between Ludwich and Mosskva, and the Alps make a sort of half-moon round the south of that. The English Alps are to the north of the plains.”

Christopher nodded to himself. I thought I heard him murmur, “Series Seven—no British Isles here, of course.”

“What?” I said. “What are you on about now?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I'm half asleep.”

I don't think he was, although I certainly was. When Andrew said we could go, I tottered into the lift, then out of it, and fell into the nightshirt and into bed and went to sleep on the spot. I dimly heard Christopher get up later in the night. I assumed he was visiting the toilet up at the end of the corridor, and I waited, mostly asleep, for him to come back. But he was away for so long that I went properly back to sleep and never heard him returning. All I knew was that he was in bed and asleep the next morning.

They woke us up at dawn.

We got used to this in the end, but that first morning was awful. We had to put on aprons and go around with a big basket collecting shoes to be cleaned, from the attics downward. Most doors had at least one set of shoes outside them. But Mr. Amos put out four pairs of small black shoes. The Countess put out a dozen pairs, all fancy. Lady Felice put out a stack of riding boots. We had to stagger down to the undercroft with the lot, where we were very relieved to discover that they employed someone else to clean them all. I could hardly clean my face that morning, let alone shoes.

Then we were allowed to have breakfast with a crowd of red-eyed, grumpy footmen. Andrew was off duty that morning, and Gregor was in charge, and he didn't like either of us and had it in for Christopher particularly. He sent us upstairs to the Family breakfast room before we'd really finished eating. He said it was important to have someone on duty there in case one of the Family came down early.

“I bet that was a lie!” Christopher said, and he rather shocked me by helping himself to bread and marmalade from the vast sideboard. We found out that all the footmen did the same, when they finally loitered in.

And it was just as well they deigned to turn up. Lady Felice came in before seven, looking pale and pensive and wearing riding clothes. No one had expected her. Gregor had to shove the bread he was eating under the sideboard in a hurry, and his mouth was so full that one of the other footmen had to ask Lady Felice what she fancied for breakfast. She said, a bit sadly, that she only wanted rolls and coffee. She was going out riding, she said. And would Gregor go to the stables and ask them to get Iceberg saddled. Gregor couldn't speak still, or he would have sent Christopher. He had to go himself, scowling.

By the time the Countess stalked in, obviously seething for some reason, the sideboard had been lined with dishes under dome-shaped silver covers, most of them fetched from the food lift by Christopher or me, and she had a choice of anything from mixed grill to smoked kidneys and fish. She ate her way through most of them while she was interviewing the poor snuffly old accountant man.

His name was Mr. Smithers, and I think he had only just started his own breakfast when she rang for him. He kept eyeing her plates sorrowfully. But he was a long time arriving, and Gregor sent Christopher to look for him, while the Countess drummed her long pearly nails angrily on the tablecloth.

Christopher marched smartly out of the room and marched smartly in again almost at once with Mr. Smithers, who behaved as if Christopher had dragged him there by his coat collar. Gregor looked daggers at Christopher. And honestly, that was one of a good many times that I didn't blame Gregor. Christopher was so pleased with himself. When he looked like that, I usually wanted to hit him as much as Gregor did.

Mr. Smithers was in trouble with the Countess. She had an awful way of opening her ice blue eyes wide, wide, and saying in a sweet, cold, cooing voice, “
Explain
yourself, Smithers.
Why
is this so?” Or sometimes she just said,
“Why?”
which was worse.

Poor Mr. Smithers snuffled and shifted and tried to explain. It was about some part of her money that was late coming in. We had to stand there and listen while he tried.

And it was odd. It was all quite ordinary stuff, like the income from the home farms and the inn she owned in Stallstead and her property in Ludwich. I kept thinking of Uncle Alfred telling me about Stallery's worldwide dealings and the huge markets that needed the possibilities pulled to work them, and I began to wonder if Uncle Alfred had got this right. He had told me about
millions
on the stock exchange, and here was the Countess asking about sixties and eighties and hundreds. I was really confused. But then I thought it had to be the Count who dealt in the big money.
Someone
had to. You only had to look at Stallery to see it cost a bomb to run the place.