Conrad's Fate (6 page)

“Aren't you coming, too, then?” the girl asked.

“No,” said the man. “I stay with the gate. Off you go.”

We set off, trudging in a dubious little huddle along the drive, like a lost herd of sheep. We walked until the wall and the gate were out of sight behind two of the green hills, but there was still no sign of the mansion. A certain amount of sighing and shuffling began, particularly among the girls. They were all wearing the kind of shoes that hurt your feet just to look at them, and most of them had the latest fashion in dresses on, too, which held their knees together and forced them to take little tripping steps. Some of the boys had come in good suits made of thick cloth. They were far too hot, and one boy who was wearing hand-stitched boots was hobbling worse than the girls.

“I've got a blister already,” one of the girls announced. “How much farther
is
it?”

“Do you think it's some kind of a test?” wondered the boy with the boots.

“Oh, it's bound to be,” said the tall boy from the gypsy camp. “This drive is designed to lead us round in circles until only the fittest survive. That was a joke,” he added as almost everyone let out a moan. “Why don't we all take a rest?” His bright dark eyes traveled over our various plastic bags. “Why don't we sit on this nice smooth grass and have a picnic?”

This suggestion caused instant dismay. “We
can't
!” half of them cried out. “They're expecting us!” And most of the rest said, “I can't mess up my good clothes!”

The tall boy stood with his hands in his pockets, surveying everyone's hot, anxious faces. “If they want us that badly,” he said, in a testing kind of way, “they might have had the decency to send a car.”

“Ooh, they wouldn't do that, not for
domestic
,” one of the girls said.

The tall boy nodded. “I suppose not.” I had the feeling that up until then, this boy had not the least notion why we were all here. I could see him digesting the idea. “Still,” he said, “domestic or not, there's nothing to stop people taking their shoes off and walking on this nice smooth grass, is there? There's no one who could see.” Faces turned to him with longing. “Go on,” he said. “You can always put them on again when we sight the house.”

More than half of them took his advice. Girls plucked off shoes; boys unlaced tight boots. The tall boy sauntered behind with a pleased but slightly superior smile, watching them scamper barefoot along the smooth verge. Some of the girls hauled their tight skirts up. Boys took off hot jackets.

“That's better,” he said. He turned to me. “Aren't you going to?”

“Old shoes,” I said, pointing down at them. “They don't hurt.” His shoes looked to be handmade. I could see they fitted him like gloves. I felt very suspicious of him. “If you really thought it was a test,” I said, “you've made them all fail it.”

He shrugged. “It depends if Stallery wants barefoot parlormaids and footmen with big hairy toes,” he said, and I could have sworn he looked at me closely then, to see if I thought this was what we all intended to be. His piercing dark eyes traveled on down to my carrier bag. “You couldn't spare a sandwich, could you? I'm starving. The Travelers only eat when they happen to have some food, and that didn't seem to happen most of the time I was with them.”

I fished him out one of my sandwiches and another for myself. “You couldn't have been with the gypsies
that
long,” I said, “or your clothes would have got creased.”

“You'd be surprised,” he said. “It was nearly a month, actually. Thanks.”

We marched along munching egg and cress, while the driveway unreeled ahead of us and more hills with trees and lacy white buildings came into view, and the other kids ran along ahead of us in a bunch. Most of them were trying to eat sandwiches, too, and hang on to coats and shoes and bags while they ate.

“What's your name?” I said at length.

“Call me Christopher,” he said. “And you?”

“Conrad Te—Grant,” I said, remembering my alias just in time.

“Conrad T. Grant?” he said.

“No,” I said. “Just Grant.”

“Very well,” he said. “Grant you shall be. And you aim to be a footman and strut in Stallery in velvet hose, do you, Grant?”

Hose? I thought. I had visions of myself in a reel of rubber pipe. “I don't know what they dress you in,” I said. “But I do know they can't be going to take more than one or two.”

“That seems obvious,” Christopher replied. “I regard you as my chief rival, Grant.”

This was so exactly what I thought about him that I was rather shaken. I didn't answer, and we swung up another loop of drive to find there were now banks of flowers under some of the trees, as if we might be getting near the gardens around the house. Here a dog of some kind came lolloping from the nearest trees and put on speed toward us. It was quite a big dog. The kids on the verge instantly began milling about, yelling out that it was one of the ferocious guard dogs on the loose. A girl screamed. The boy with the hand-stitched boots swung them, ready to throw at the dog.

“Don't do that, you fool!”
Christopher bellowed at him. “Do you
want
it to go for you?” He set off in great strides up the grass toward the dog. It put on speed and came sort of snaking at him, long and low.

I'm sure the kids were right about that dog. It was snarling as if it wanted to tear Christopher's throat out, and when it got near, it bunched itself, ready to spring. A girl screamed again.

“Stop that, you fool of a dog,” Christopher said. “Stop it at once.”

And the dog did stop. Not only did it stop, but it wagged its tail and wagged its bunched-up hind parts and came crawling and groveling toward Christopher, where it tried to lick his beautiful shoes.

“No slobber,” Christopher commanded, and the dog stopped and just groveled instead. “You've made a mistake,” he told it. “No one here's a trespasser. Go away. Go back where you came from.” He pointed sternly up at the trees. The dog got up and walked slowly back the way it had come, turning around hopefully every so often as it went, in case Christopher was going to let it come and grovel again. Christopher came down the hill saying, “I think it's trained to go for anyone who isn't on the path. Shoes on again, everyone, I'm afraid.”

Everyone now regarded him as a sort of hero, savior, and commander. Several girls gave him passionate looks while they put their shoes back on, and we all limped and straggled on around another curve of drive. Here there were hedges, with glimpses of flowers blazing beyond and, beyond that, a twinkle of many windows from behind the trees. A path branched off to the right. Christopher said, “This way, troops,” and led everyone along it.

We went through more parkland, but it was just as well everyone had put their shoes on again, because this path was quite short and soon branched into another, among tall, shiny shrubs, where it ended in a flight of stone steps.

The boys hastily put their jackets back on. A youngish man was waiting for us at the top of these steps. He was quite skinny and only an inch or so taller than Christopher. He had a nice, snubby face. But all of us, even Christopher, stared up at him with awe because he was dressed in black velvet knee breeches, with yellow-and-brown-striped stockings below those and black buckled shoes below the stockings. He wore a matching brown-and-yellow-striped waistcoat over a white shirt above the breeches, and his fairish hair was long, tied at the back of his neck by a smooth black bow. It was enough to make anyone stare.

Christopher dropped back beside me. “Ah,” he said. “I see a footman or a lackey. But it's the breeches that seem to be velvet. The hose are striped silk.”

“My name's Hugo,” the young man said. He smiled at us, very pleasantly. “If you'll just follow me, I'll show you where to go. Mr. Amos is waiting to interview you in the undercroft.”

Everyone went quiet and nervous. Even
Christopher said nothing more. We all trooped up the steps, and with the young man's buckled shoes and striped stockings flashing ahead, we followed him through confusing shrubbery paths. By now we were quite near the mansion. We kept getting glimpses of high walls and windows above the bushes, but we only got a real sight of the house when Hugo led us cornerwise to a door in a yard. Just for a moment there was a space where you could look along the front of the mansion. We all craned sideways.

The place was enormous. There were windows in rows. It seemed to have its main front door halfway up the front wall, with two big stone stairways curving up to it, and all sorts of curlicues and golden things above that, on a heavy piece of roof that hung over the door. There was a fountain jetting, down between the two stairways, and a massive circle of drive beyond that.

This was all I had time to see. Hugo led us at a brisk pace, into the yard, across it, and in through a large square doorway in the lower part of the house. In no time at all we were crowding into a big wood-lined room, where Mr. Amos was standing, waiting for us.

No one had any doubt who he was. You could tell he was a Stallery servant because he wore a striped waistcoat like Hugo's, but the rest of his clothes were black, like someone going to a funeral. He had surprisingly small feet in very shiny black shoes. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, like something blocky that might be going to take root in the floor, his small, shiny shoes astride, his blunt, pear-shaped face forward, and he made you feel almost religious awe. The Bishop down in Stallchester was much less awe-inspiring than Mr. Amos was, although it was hard to see why. He was the most pear-shaped man I had ever seen. His striped waistcoat rounded in front, his black coat spread at the sides, and his hands had to reach a long way back in order to clasp behind him. His face was rather purple as well as pear-shaped. His lips were quite thick below his wide, flat nose. He was not much taller than me. But you felt that if Mr. Amos were to get angry and uproot his small, shiny shoes from the floor, the floor would shake and the world with it.

“Thank you, Mr. Hugo,” he said. He had a deep, resounding voice. “Now I want you all standing in a line, hands by your sides, and let me look at you.”

We all hastily shuffled into a row. Those of us with plastic bags tried to lean them up against the backs of our legs, out of sight. Mr. Amos uprooted himself then, and the floor did shake slightly as he paced along in front of us, looking each of us intently in the face. His eyes were quite as awesome as the rest of him, like stones in his purple face. When he came to me, I tried to stare woodenly above his smooth gray head. This seemed the right way to behave. He smelled a little like Mayor Seuly, only more strongly, of good cloth, fine wine, and cigar. When he came to Christopher at the end of the line, he seemed to stare harder at him than at anyone, which worried me quite a lot. Then he turned massively sideways and snapped his fingers.

Instantly two more youngish men dressed like Hugo came into the room and stood looking polite and willing.

“Gregor,” Mr. Amos said to one, “take these two boys and this girl to be interviewed by Chef. Andrew, these boys are to see Mr. Avenloch. Take them to the conservatory, please. Mr. Hugo, all the rest of the girls will see Mrs. Baldock in the Housekeeper's Room.”

All three young men nodded, murmured, “Yes, Mr. Amos,” and led their batch of people away. I think most of them had to catch the next tram down into Stallchester. I never saw more than two of them again. In a matter of seconds the room was empty except for Mr. Amos, Christopher, and me. My heart began to bang again, horribly.

Mr. Amos planted himself in front of us. “You two look the most likely ones,” he said. His voice boomed in the empty room. “Can I have your names, please?”

“Er,” I said. “Conrad Grant.”

Christopher said, with great smartness, “I'm Christopher Smith, Mr. Amos.” I bet that's a lie, I thought. He's got an alias, just like me.

Mr. Amos's stonelike eyes turned to me. “And where are you from?”

“The bookshop,” I said, “down in Stallchester.”

The stone eyes rolled up and down to examine me. “Then,” Mr. Amos said, “I take it you'll have had no experience of domestic work.”

“I clean the shop quite often,” I said.

“
Not
what I had in mind,” Mr. Amos said coldly. “No experience of waiting on your betters, I meant. Being polite. Guessing what they need before they ask. Being invisible until they need you. Have you?”

“No,” I said.

“And you?” Mr. Amos asked, moving his stony eyes to Christopher. “You're older. You must have earned your keep, or you wouldn't have had the money for those fancy clothes.”

Christopher bowed his neatly clipped dark head. “Yes, Mr. Amos. I confess I have been three years in a household of some size, though not as big as this one, of course. But, in case you get the wrong impression, I was there more as a hanger-on than precisely as part of the work force.”

Mr. Amos stared intently at Christopher. “You mean, as a poor relation?” he said.