The Master (29 page)

The Smiths were grateful. Once her sister had recovered and returned to her employer Mrs Smith even made a brief, formal speech to tell him so. Perhaps more significant, however, was the fact
that his involvement in the sister’s welfare seemed to tie him into the fate of the Smiths. Clearly, should either of them need medical care, or any other sort of care, it would be their
employer’s responsibility. He paid them reasonably well, and they had no expenses, Mr Smith wearing his master’s cast-offs and Mrs Smith having no interest in finery, and this led him
to presume that they were, as good provident people, saving most of their income towards a happy and easy retirement.

His agreeing to help them in time of need did not result in better service; nor, on the other hand, did the Smiths’ work worsen in any radical way. Mrs Smith still took her instructions
every morning and obeyed them as best she could. Mr Smith still appeared to be drinking, but no dreadful loss of decorum was immediately apparent, and it was only when he was scrutinized that his
speech and his gait in the latter half of the day seemed laboured. Nonetheless, a certain change took place. Mrs Smith was now capable of discussing with Mr Smith a matter which had nothing to do
with the household in the presence of their employer. She knew that Henry treasured silence, and she must have known, too, that he expected her and her husband to discuss private matters only in
their own quarters. Yet Henry could not correct her; she had, in the days when he had offered her sister charity, won some invisible battle with him which allowed her to make herself at home in
such subtle ways in the household. Looking after her sister, exercising mercy and pity, had shortened the distance between him and Mrs Smith.

Because he was excited and preoccupied in the months before his move to Rye, he had no memory of the Smiths’ response to the news. As they were growing older, he thought they might enjoy
the peace of a small town and the larger facilities of Lamb House. In any case, they made no overt protest, and he made sure that they would not be overburdened by the move, that their main task in
these months should be the moving of themselves and their possessions to their new quarters at Rye. One or two of his friends, he knew, had noticed Smith’s efforts to disguise the fact that
he was drunk as he served dinner, but he believed that once away from the noisy pressures of London, Smith could be spoken to and guided to sobriety.

He discovered, as soon as they were installed in the house, that there was a problem. The Smiths were sleeping in the servants’ quarters in the attic. Because there was only one staircase,
they had to pass through the first floor of the house, where his study and sleeping quarters were, to get to their room. The floorboards in their room squeaked; one of them especially, which lay
directly over his bed, seemed to move in and out of place every time one of the Smiths stepped on it. At night, during those first weeks at Rye, the Smiths ascended to their room at a normal hour,
but they did not settle; they moved up and down irregularly, pacing the floorboards, becoming briefly quiet, then agitated once more, indifferent to the repose of their employer who lay below them.
Sometimes he could hear their voices, and a few times he heard the sound of a heavy solid object falling to the floor.

Warren the architect was consulted. The floor, he said, was in good condition; a new set of floorboards would make no difference. The Smiths should be told, he said, to move more quietly, or
their sleeping quarters should be relocated to the ground floor. There was, he pointed out, a small room off the pantry which would have space for their bed and could be made suitable for them by
creating a larger window and putting up some sensible wallpaper. Thus the Smiths took up residence in a room off the pantry.

The shopkeepers of Rye did not warm to the Smiths; the butcher did not understand her notes, and took no pleasure in her remonstrances when the cuts he sent were not the cuts she ordered. The
baker did not bake the bread she required, and did not find it amusing when she had to return to him on discovering that his rival baker did not produce such bread either, nor any other bread which
was to her taste. The grocer did not like her London manners, and soon the list of orders had to be delivered to the grocer by Mr Smith, his wife’s presence being unwelcome.

The Smiths discovered that Lamb House stood alone in Rye. Around it were smaller and more modest houses which had a parlourmaid and perhaps a part-time cook, but not a couple who had the
standing of the Smiths. The houses with like-minded servants were the manor houses and great houses in the countryside, but these servants did not wander in the town as their peers had wandered in
Kensington. The Smiths quickly ascertained that there was no one else like them in Rye, that there were to be no casual daily greetings and exchanges of news. Soon, in the shops, they were met with
coldness or mild hostility, unlike Burgess Noakes, who was received with warmth and affection everywhere he went.

Mr and Mrs Smith retreated into Lamb House, Mrs Smith priding herself on never leaving its precincts and never having visited most of Rye’s best-known monuments. In the kitchen, the pantry
and the pantry garden she reigned supreme. When she took her orders, she managed a new tone which emphasized her steely competence and willingness to carry out her duties, but did not spare her
employer signs of resentment.

In Kensington Henry had often had guests, but, though he cared about the quality of his own hospitality, the evenings when he entertained were mild distractions. Now, in Rye, he cared a great
deal more about his guests, wrote many letters inviting friends to see his new abode, and awaited their arrival and their response to the house with some excitement. Thus the decor and daily
cleaning of the guest rooms were essential, as were the quality of the food and the service, which would now include breakfast and luncheon. Mrs Smith was unaccustomed to many guests. At first when
it was a novelty he explained to her who was coming and what their needs would be, but soon it became clear to Mrs Smith that there would be a constant stream of guests at Lamb House, and it would
be her job to cook for them and ensure their comfort.

The morning meetings during which he gave her instructions became tense. Nothing she actually said made the difference; merely the set of her face, the silences and the slow, soft sighs. He paid
no attention to her new attitude, he told her who was coming and what should be done and did not wait for any response. But after a while she began to detain him with sour comments, alluding to the
increased cost of caring for guests, or the dreadful butcher, or the nuisance that was Burgess Noakes. A note of belligerence crept into her voice when more visitors were due. He could not contain
his own longing to see old friends and members of his family and found it shocking and irritating that Mrs Smith should express her ill feeling against his guests in such clear terms.

Her husband, in the meantime, had developed a controlled gait and wooden movements, which many guests mistook for an old-fashioned formality, but which Henry knew to be ordinary drunkenness. He
wished he could mention the matter to the Smiths, that he could approach them as Mrs Smith had once approached him, asking for their help, insisting that Smith should cease his drinking. But he did
not have the courage to make such demands. He knew, in any case, that in her denials of her husband’s intoxication, Mrs Smith’s vehemence would come to the fore and he did not wish to
face that.

Burgess Noakes, on the other hand, grew more obliging and willing as time went on. He missed nothing and forgot nothing. He did not learn to smile, but he soon knew the names and habits and
needs of every guest, and seemed also to know if a telegram warranted an interruption of his master when he had company or whether it should be deposited on the hall stand. He trod the floorboards
of his attic room with the utmost discretion.

Burgess greeted Mrs Smith’s regular banishing of him from the kitchen with indifference. When he was not attending to his duties, he wandered into the depths of Rye where he began to
perfect the art of bantam-weight boxing, at which he soon became a champion. He returned home happily, however, and always at the appointed hour, exuding a pride at his position in Lamb House and
seeming to know everything which occurred within its confines. As Henry began to suspect Mrs Smith of joining her husband in drink, he knew that if he should ever require an account of the
Smiths’ personal habits, he would merely have to consult Burgess Noakes.

That his guests should be content with their stay and wish to return to Lamb House meant much to him. He enjoyed letters that mentioned past and future visits. He had no close companions in the
town or locality; there could be no easy outings for a few hours in the evenings. Thus his visitors were important. He found the waiting for them, the sense of expectation before a visit, the most
blissful time of all. He alerted everyone that he spent the morning hours in his study. Having left his guest at breakfast, he loved going there, knowing that they would come together again in the
afternoon. In the meantime he would have several hours of solitude or dictation with the Scot. He also relished the days after a guest had departed, he enjoyed the peace of the house, as though the
visit had been nothing except a battle for solitude which he had finally won.

Soon, however, his contented solitude could turn to loneliness. On grey, blustery days in the first long winter, his study in Lamb House, and indeed the house itself, could seem like a cage.
Both he and the Smiths had been removed from their natural hinterland. He had his work, but he knew that they became, by the end of each day, quietly and effectively intoxicated.

He was not sure of the extent of Mrs Smith’s drinking. She ran her kitchen smoothly; her cooking, as it were, did not falter. Her appearance in the morning, however, grew more slovenly and
her response to the news of more visitors increasingly bellicose. Her hair hung dangerously close to where the pots and pans might be. Nor did the state of her fingernails invite confidence. He
wondered if she knew why he had suspended soup when there were visitors, and gravy too, as well as any of the more runny sauces. Mr Smith could not be counted on to serve them safely.

As he served dinner, Smith managed not to stagger on the way into the room with each dish, but once he turned to leave the room he could not exercise the same control. Henry formed the habit of
placing his principal guest facing away from the door. He noticed that once guests at the table saw Smith stagger or falter then they could not stop watching him. His aim was to prevent the matter
from becoming a subject for discussion at the dinner table, or among the guests later. He did not want it known in London nor among his small circle of American friends that he employed drunken
servants.

Burgess Noakes began to assist Smith, opening doors for him, urging him silently towards stability. Henry hoped that the problem would right itself, or even remain as it was. He did not want to
take action because he knew what the action would have to be. He tried not to think about the Smiths.

O
NE AFTERNOON
, from an upstairs window, he saw Mrs Smith’s sister approach the house. He heard her being let in and supposed that she was in the
kitchen with her sister. He had not met her since the time she had spent in his apartment and though he had seen little of her then he had formed an impression of a solid and sensible person. He
decided he would speak to her, and, on descending the stairs, and finding Burgess Noakes in the hallway, he asked Burgess to inform Mrs Smith’s sister that he wished to see her when she had a
moment. He would wait in the front sitting room.

Mrs Smith’s sister soon arrived accompanied by Mrs Smith. While the former was a picture of respectability and good grooming, the latter was even more slovenly than usual and wore the
brazen expression to which he had become accustomed.

‘I am glad to see you well, madam,’ he said to Mrs Smith’s sister.

‘I am very well, sir, much recovered, and many thanks to you for all your kindness.’

Mrs Smith watched him and studied the back of her sister’s head with the attitude of someone who had been much put out.

‘Are you visiting the area?’ he asked.

‘No, sir, I am married to the gardener at the Poet Laureate’s. We live in the gardener’s cottage there.’

‘The Poet Laureate?’

‘Mr Austen, sir, at Ashford.’

‘Of course, of course, Alfred Austen.’ He had thought for a moment that she was working for Lord Tennyson.

He was about to ask if he could see her alone when he realized that he had clearly interrupted a difficult conversation between Mrs Smith and her sister, from which Mrs Smith was still smarting.
While the sister was doing what she could to disguise this, Mrs Smith continued to glower at both of them.

‘I expect we shall see more of you then?’ he asked.

‘Oh I don’t wish to disturb you, sir.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘You find your sister well?’

He looked at her plainly and made no effort to assist her when she lowered her gaze and said nothing. She had taken in the meaning of his question; he now left time for the implications of her
failure to respond to become clear to the three of them. When he felt that this had been achieved, he decided that he did not wish to see her alone, that enough had been said. He smiled warmly and
bowed to her as she left the room, paying no attention to Mrs Smith. He now knew where to find Mrs Smith’s sister should he need her.

A
LICE
, his sister, would have laughed uproariously at his predicament; she would have made him describe the Smiths in detail. But she would also, he
thought, have become imperious and demand that he take action forthwith. Alice, his sister-in-law, was the most practical of the family. She would calmly and cleverly work out a way of getting rid
of the Smiths. He could not tell her, however, because he could not bear a letter from William on the subject. Nor was there anyone in London to whom he could turn. All of his English friends
would, he thought, have dismissed the Smiths at the first sign of inebriation and sullenness.