Conrad's Fate (12 page)

Even Christopher was quite cowed by then. We crept to the double door, crept out into the hall, and tiptoed apologetically in again. And of course that was not right. Mr. Amos made us do it over and over again, while Gregor kept shooting us mean smiles as he cleared the lunch away. We must have gone in and out fifty times, and Mr. Amos was just promising us that we would go on doing it until we got it right, when one of the other footmen came to say that Mr. Amos was wanted on the telephone.

“
What
a relief!” Christopher muttered.

“Gregor,” said Mr. Amos, “set these two to cleaning the silver until we Serve Tea. If this is the call I was expecting, I shall be busy all afternoon, so you are to make sure they keep at it.” And he hurried away on his small, shiny feet.

“I spoke too soon,” Christopher said as Gregor came toward us.

“This way. Hurry up,” Gregor said. He was positively gloating. Among his other drawbacks, Gregor was big. Hefty. He had the meaty sort of hands you could rather easily imagine giving you a wallop on the ear. We scuttled after him without a word, with our three sets of feet ringing,
clack-clack-clack
, around the hall. He led us through the green cloth door and along the wood-and-stone passage to a room right at the end, where there was a long table covered with newspapers. “Right,” Gregor said. “Aprons behind the door. Roll your sleeves up. Here are the rags, and this is the polish. Get going.” He whipped the newspaper away. “I shall be back to check,” he said, “and I need to see my face in all this when I do.”

He left us staring at two deep boxes of cutlery, silver teapots, silver coffeepots, several jugs, ladles, and two rows of the huge silver plates, all laid out on more newspaper. Rearing behind those were bowls, tureens, urns, and complicated twiddly candlesticks, most of them enormous.

“Straw into gold again, Grant,” Christopher said, “and I think that would be easier.”

“Most of it's quite shiny already,” I said. “Look on the bright side.”

“I
hate
bright sides,” said Christopher.

But we knew Gregor would love to catch us slacking, and we got to work. I let Christopher rub on the pink, strong-smelling polish—because that was the easy part, and I was fairly sure that cleaning silver was another thing Christopher had never done before—while I took a pile of rags and rubbed and rubbed. After a while I got into the swing of it and began to read the newspapers under the silver and to think of other things. The cleaning room must have been next door to Mr. Amos's pantry. I could hear his voice as I worked, droning on in blasts and occasionally giving out a sort of booming bark, but I couldn't hear the words, just his voice. It got me down.

I mentioned this to Christopher. He sighed.

I made several other remarks to Christopher, and he did not answer any of them. I turned and looked at him. He was drooping over the table, panting a bit, and his face was almost the gray and white color of the newspaper on the table. He had turned his neckcloth back to front in order not to get polish on it, and I noticed that there was a gold chain with a ring threaded on it hanging out of his shirt. It kept tinking on the candlestick he was working on because he was all bowed over.

I remembered a boy called Hamish at my school who could never do Art because the paints gave him asthma. It looked as if something the same was wrong with Christopher. “What's the matter? Is the polish making you ill?”

Christopher put the candlestick down and held himself up with both hands on the table. “Not the polish,” he said. “The silver. There's something about Series Seven that makes it worse than usual. I don't think I can go on, Grant.”

Gregor, luckily, was lazy enough not to keep dropping in on us. But he was going to come in at some point. And Christopher was the one he disliked most. “All right,” I said. “You keep a lookout by the door so that you can look busy when Gregor turns up, and I'll do it. There's no point making yourself ill.”

“Really?
” said Christopher.

“Truly,”
I said, and waited. Now he really did owe me one.

Christopher said,
“Thanks!”
gratefully, and backed away from the silver. He went a better color almost at once. I saw him glance down and notice the gold ring dangling out of his shirt. He looked quite horrified for an instant. He tucked the ring and its chain out of sight, double quick, and pulled his neckcloth around to hide it. “I owe you, Grant,” he said as he went to the door. “What can I do for you?”

Success! I thought. I was so curious about Christopher by now that I very nearly blurted out that I wanted him to tell me all about himself. But I didn't. Christopher was the kind of person that you needed to go cautiously with. So I said, “I don't want anything at the
moment
. I'll let you know when I do.”

“Fair enough,” Christopher said. “What's this droning sound coming through the wall?”

“Mr. Amos phoning,” I said, picking up the candlestick and starting to rub.

“What could a butler find to phone about all this time?” Christopher said. “The exact vintage of champagne? Or has he an old mother who insists on a daily report? Amos, dear, are you using those corn plasters I sent you? Or is it his wife? Hugo must have a mother, after all. I wonder where they keep her.”

I grinned. I could tell Christopher was feeling all right again now.

“Talking of mothers,” he said, “I don't care for the Countess at all, do you, Grant?”

“No,” I said. “Mrs. Potts, who cleans the bookshop, says she used to be a chorus girl.”

Christopher was absolutely delighted. “No?
Really?
Tell me every word Mrs. Potts said about her.”

So I told him as I polished. From there I somehow went on to tell him about the bookshop, too, and about Mum and Uncle Alfred, and how Anthea had left. As I talked, it occurred to me that, instead of
me
finding out about Christopher,
he
was finding out about
me
. And I thought that was just typical of Christopher. Anyway, I didn't mind telling him, as long as he didn't get to know about my Evil Fate and what I had to do, and it did help the silver cleaning along wonderfully. By the time Gregor put his head around the door—and Christopher dashed to the table and pretended to buff up a jug—it was almost all done. Gregor was really annoyed.

“Tea is Served in ten minutes,” he said, scowling. “Get washed. You two are pushing the tea trolley in today.”

“Never an idle moment here, is there?” Christopher said.

There was never an idle moment. We were
kept so hard at it that I never managed to read one word of my Peter Jenkins book. Most nights I fell into bed and went straight to sleep. But I did notice, that second night, while we were getting into the nightshirts, that there was no sign of the ring or the chain around Christopher's neck. Hidden by magic, I thought, and then fell fast asleep.

Then—you know how it is—after three more days I began to get into the rhythm of things and to know my way about. Everything started to feel much more leisurely. I had time that day to be maddened with curiosity about what Christopher was really doing at Stallery and about where he had come from. In fact I had time to be maddened by Christopher generally. He would keep calling me Grant in that superior way, and there were times when I wanted to hit him for it, or shout that it was only my alias, or—anyway, he really annoyed me. Then he would say something that doubled me up with laughter, and I discovered I liked him again. It was truly confusing.

There was a full moon that fifth night. Christopher said, “Grant, this darned moon is shining right in my eyes,” and he pinned our curtains together so that the room was almost completely dark.

As I lay down and shut my eyes, I thought, Ah! He wants me to be asleep while he goes off like he did before. I was annoyed enough to do my best to stay awake.

I didn't manage it. I was sound asleep when I somehow realized that the door had just shut softly behind Christopher.

By then I was so maddened with curiosity that I more or less tore myself out of sleep. I stumbled out of bed. It was cold. Stallery didn't provide you with dressing gowns or slippers, so I was forced to climb quickly into my velvet breeches and drag the bedspread off my bed to make a sort of cloak. With the undone buckles of the breeches banging at my knees, I raced out into the corridor just as Christopher flushed the toilet and came out of the bathroom. I dodged back into our room again and waited to see where he would go.

And a right idiot I shall look if he just comes back to bed! I thought.

But Christopher went straight past our room and on in the direction of the lift. I tiptoed quietly after him, trying to tread on the parts of the chilly floorboards that didn't creak. But Christopher himself was making the floor creak so much that I almost need not have bothered. He strode on as if he thought he was the only person awake in the attics.

He marched straight past the lift and toward the clothing room. He stood there in front of the slatted doors for a moment, in moonlight blazing down on him from the big skylights, and I heard him mutter, “No, it
is
farther on, then.” Then he swung half around and marched off down the corridor that led to the line painted on the wall and the women's rooms beyond.

I must admit I nearly didn't follow him. It would be a disaster to be sacked from Stallery before I had met Count Robert and settled my Evil Fate. But then I thought that there was no point in getting up half dressed in order to follow Christopher if I
didn't
follow him. So I went after him.

When I caught up with Christopher, he was in a wide bare space where moonlight shone bright and white through a row of windows. He was shivering in his nightshirt as he turned slowly around on the spot. “It
is
here,” he was saying to himself, quite loudly. “I
know
it is! So why can't I
find
it, then?”

“What are you looking for?” I said.

He made a noise like “Eek!” and jumped around to face me. It was the nearest to undignified that I had ever seen Christopher be. “Oh,” he said. “It's you. For a moment I thought you were the ghost of a hunchback. What are you doing here? I left a really strong sleep spell on you.”

“I made myself wake up,” I said.

“Bother you!” he said. “You must have a bigger talent for magic than I realized.”

“But what are you
doing
here?” I said. “You'll get the sack. This is the women's part.”

“No, it isn't,” Christopher said. “The women's part is along there.” He pointed. “There's a painted line there, too, that I suppose they're forbidden to go past as well. Go and look if you like. This part of the attics is empty, right from the front to the back, and there's something very odd about it. Can't you feel it?”

I was going to say, “Nonsense!” I was quite sure he was just trying to distract me from my curiosity. But when I had my breath all drawn in ready to say it, I let it out again without speaking. There
was
an oddness. It was not unlike the peculiar buzzing I used to feel in Uncle Alfred's workroom after Uncle Alfred had been doing magic, except that this strange vibration felt old and stale. And it did not feel as if it had been made by a person. It felt like a sort of earth tremor, only it was magical instead of natural.

“Yes, and it feels pretty creepy,” I said.

“It goes right down through the building,” Christopher said, “though it's strongest up here. I've been all over this beastly mansion by now, so I know.”

I was distracted, even though I knew he meant me to be. “What, even into the women's part and Mr. Amos's pantry?” I said. “You can't have.”

“I couldn't get into the wine cellar,” Christopher said regretfully, “but I've been everywhere else. Mr. Amos's pantry stinks of cigars and booze, and Mrs. Baldock's room is full of crinoline dolls. Mr. Amos's bedroom is even more spectacular than the Countess's is. He has a circular bed. In mauve silk.”

I was even more distracted. I tried to see Mr. Amos rolling about in a round mauve bed. It was nearly as hard as seeing the Countess in a row of chorus girls. “You're joking,” I said. “I've been with you all the time.”

Christopher gave a chuckle that was half a shiver. He wrapped his arms around his nightshirt and said, “Ah, Grant, what an innocent you are! It's not difficult to make an image of yourself. I simply made an illusion of me standing by the wall while the Countess wolfs down her dinner. It's the one time I
know
Mr. Amos is busy waiting on her. Think about it, Grant. Have I looked at you or talked to you much during these last few dinnertimes?”

I realized that he hadn't. I was amazed. It was hard not to be even more distracted and pester Christopher to tell me how he did it, but I took a stern grip on myself. “Yes, but what have you been looking
for
? Tell me. You owe me.”

“Grant,” Christopher said, “you're a pest. You keep your nose to my trail like a bloodhound. All right. I'll tell you. But let's go back to our room first. I'm getting frostbite.”