Undermajordomo Minor (14 page)

T
he process of locating the Baron was an unusual experience for Lucy; for whereas before he had thought of this person as one to avoid no matter the cost, now he was actively seeking the man out, albeit fruitlessly, at least at the start.

It was held that the Baron slept in the daytime, and so during the sunlit hours they were hopeful of catching him dozing in this or that nook. But they found no evidence to support any nocturnal habits, however—indeed, they found no evidence he existed at all, save for the occasional discreet puddle or pile. But his chambers remained untouched, and there was not so much as a pinch of salt unaccounted for in the larder. In the night-time, galvanized by Agnes's bitter coffee and an often not-unpleasant sleepless befuddlement, they roamed the halls by candlelight and in stockinged feet, this last at Mr. Olderglough's insistence, for he believed it stealthy. Lucy was disinclined to praise the tactic, as the stone floor was cold, and so his feet were also cold; when he became sullen, Mr. Olderglough loaned him an extra pair of stockings, which Lucy pulled over his own, and which allayed his discomfort so that peace was restored between them. Mr. Olderglough, it should be said, was enjoying this outing to the utmost, and he wondered at his unrealized potential as an adventurer.

Alas, three full days and nights passed them by, and they were no closer to accomplishing their goal than when they'd begun. With only the minimum of sleep shared between them, then did
a weariness set in, followed by the chilling shade of doubt, which soon gave way to a sense of outright futility. At last Mr. Olderglough deemed the Baron unlocatable, and was for abandoning the project altogether. Lucy disliked seeing his superior in this state of dejection; pondering the angles, he suggested they were only going about things incorrectly.

“How do you mean?” said Mr. Olderglough.

“Bumbling about in the darkness, sir. In
his
darkness. Would it not make more sense to lure him into the light?”

Mr. Olderglough squinted. “You're suggesting we entrap him?”

“Why not?” said Lucy.

Mr. Olderglough was intrigued, and retired to his chambers to blueprint the stratagem. Lucy was well pleased to have hit upon a possible solution but soon wished he'd never shared his notion, as it steered Mr. Olderglough toward the thought of using Lucy as bait. It was described thus: “You will take to your bed at your usual hour, and all will be as is normal except that your door will be not just unlocked, but fully open.”

“Will it, sir?” Lucy asked.

“Indeed it will.”

“And where will you be situated?”

“I shall be standing behind the door,” said Mr. Olderglough, rather proudly.

“And what will you be doing there?”

“I will be waiting for the Baron to walk into the room.”

“And what will commence when this occurs, sir?”

“I will step away from my hiding place and tap my employer atop the skull with a stubby switch of birch wood.”

“Is that so?”

“You may count on it, boy.”

“And what next, I wonder?”

“After he's been knocked unconscious, then shall we bring him to his chambers and manacle him to his bed. We will force-feed him, and bathe him, and shave him, and cut his hair and strive
to resurrect his interest in sophisticated society.” Mr. Olderglough rubbed his hands together. “Now, what do you think of it?”

Lucy said, “I think it is somewhat far-fetched, sir.”

“Are you not up for it?”

“I'm not, actually, no. And to be frank, sir, I don't believe you are, either.”

“What sort of attitude is that? Let us rally, boy.”

“Let us come up with another plan.”

“Let us look within ourselves and search out the dormant warrior.”

“Mine is dormant to the point of non-existence, sir. There is no part of me that wishes to lie nakedly abed and await that man's arrival.”

“I tell you you will not be alone.”

“And yet I shall surely feel alone, sir.”

Mr. Olderglough looked down the length of his nose. “May I admit to being disappointed in you, boy.”

“You may write a lengthy treatise on the subject, sir, and I will read it with interest. But I highly doubt there will be anything written within those pages which will alter my dissatisfaction with the scheme.”

“Well I'm sorry to have to tell you this, boy, but it must come to pass, and it will.”

“I believe it will not, sir.”

“Do you want to maintain your position here?”

“You know full well that I do.”

“Then what is there to speak of, after all?” With this, Mr. Olderglough stepped to the window to survey the world. “Now, where has that sly old sun gone to, eh?” In searching it out, he leaned too close to the window, and knocked his forehead lightly upon the pane of glass.

A
ll this to say, Lucy did take to bed that night, and the door was left open, and Mr. Olderglough did hide away with a birch club gripped in his hand and a look of dogged resolve stamped upon his face. He had told Lucy they were not to speak, and so they did not. At one point Rose crept across the room to sniff and nip at Mr. Olderglough's foot; Lucy collected her and fetched her back to his bed, rubbing her bare belly, which made her restful, and soon she slept, ignorant to the woes of her master.

Lucy's dread was consistently urgent. Time and again he thought he heard the shuffling approach of the Baron, and yet the doorway remained vacant, and Lucy could only gaze into the bottomless darkness and wonder at what it held. An agonizing hour crept by, and then a half-hour, and now he became aware of an unfortunate fact, which was that Mr. Olderglough was sleeping standing up, this made apparent by the man's gentle, wheezing snore. Lucy had thrown off his blanket that he might cross the room to awaken him when he saw the Baron hunched at the top of the stairwell, completely naked, bathed in grime, panting, and staring at Lucy with a puzzled derangement.

Lucy said, “Mr. Olderglough, sir.”

The Baron stepped sideways into the room.

“Mr. Olderglough.”

The Baron moved ever closer to Lucy.

“Mr. Olderglough!”

Mr. Olderglough snuffled, and the Baron, hearing this, peered over his shoulder at the door. Stepping nearer, he drew the door back, and there stood Mr. Olderglough, leaning against the wall, arms slack at his sides, mouth agape, dozing babe-like. The Baron studied him for a time, as though in distant recognition; reaching up, he laid a hand on Mr. Olderglough's cheek. At this, Mr. Olderglough awoke, and upon seeing the Baron before him he let out a brief yet sincere shriek, raised the club high, and brought it down over the Baron's skull. The Baron dropped where he stood and lay motionless on the floor.

Mr. Olderglough was studying the birch wood admiringly. “Do you know, I enjoyed that,” he conceded, and his face bespoke an exhilaration, for how curious life was, how unfathomably novel, and occasionally, wonderful. Mr. Olderglough moved to lay the Baron prone on his back. Taking up the man's filthy wrists in his hands, he said to Lucy, “Get his feet, boy, will you?”

S
hortly after he was tied to his bed the Baron came to, and upon registering the fact of his apprehension, then did he begin to flail and wail, to curse and spit, to roar from his depths, taken up with such manner of rage that he lost control of his functions; or perhaps it was that he intentionally encouraged this action as a non-verbal means of expressing his ire—either way, Lucy found it a grisly spectacle. Mr. Olderglough, conversely, took it in stride, and with something beyond patience; one would have thought he was looking after a temperamental infant rather than a raving, matter-smeared psychotic. Shy of the dawn, however, his years began to show, and he excused himself to rest and regroup. Lucy was ordered to stay and watch over the Baron, and he did this, sitting at a distance and monitoring the Baron's ongoing tantrum, until such a time as the man exhausted himself, dropping into spent sleep; and so too did Lucy succumb to fatigue, sitting upright in his chair. They were the both of them awakened some hours later by the fact of the too-bright afternoon daylight. When the Baron spied Lucy from the corner of his eye he swiveled his head, and a calm came over his face. Perhaps it was his having rested, or possibly his mania had temporarily receded of its own accord, but he was, all at once, human again.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Lucy, sir. Hello.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here, sir. I've taken over for Mr. Broom.”

“Broom.” The Baron said this gloweringly, as if the man were antagonistic to his well-being. Suddenly there was a seriousness about his person, as if some pressing thought had come to him. “You will untie me, now,” he said.

“I mustn't do that, sir.”

“You will untie me or you will be dismissed.”

“I'm very sorry to disagree with you, sir, but I have my orders from Mr. Olderglough, and I shall defer to him.”

“Mr. Olderglough,” said the Baron; and it was clear by his tone that he felt a fondness for the man. “And where is he now?”

“Here I am, I always am,” said Mr. Olderglough, entering the room looking greatly refreshed and carrying a steam-trailing soup bowl. “Wherever I find myself, and there I be.” He sat at the Baron's bedside and, recognizing his present-ness, rejoiced. “Oh, welcome back, sir. It does me good to lay eyes upon you, and that's the purest truth.”

The Baron smiled. “How have you been, Myron?”

“Up and down, sir.”

“More of the same?”

“The trials of a life.”

“What of the melancholy, may I ask?”

“Stubbornly persistent, I'm sorry to say.”

“If only modest joy were so dogged, eh?”

“You said something there, sir.”

The Baron gestured with his chin to the bowl in Mr. Olderglough's hands. “What have you got, there? Agnes hasn't been knocking about in the scullery again, I hope.”

“I'm afraid that she has, sir.”

“And I suppose you'll want me to partake, is that the idea?”

“It is indeed.”

“May I ask what's in it?”

“Better you go in blind, is my thought, sir. Just know that it'll revitalize the spirit.” Mr. Olderglough brought a spoonful of broth
to the Baron's mouth. The Baron reluctantly received this, his face screwing up to a squint.

“Her admiration for pepper has not waned.”

“She is devout, sir.”

The Baron was peering into the bowl. “What is that floating, there?”

“One way to find out, sir. Let's get on with it, and see what else the day has in store for us, what do you say to that?”

The Baron acquiesced, and the meal resumed. In watching this pair, Lucy wondered at the years that had passed between them. They were so perfectly comfortable with one another as to appear of a piece; it seemed the most natural thing in the world that one should be spoon-feeding the other. After the bowl had been emptied, Mr. Olderglough asked,

“Now, was that so bad?”

“You know perfectly well that it was,” the Baron answered, though he did look ever more hale. “Now,” he said, “I believe the time has come to address the fact of my being tied to my own bed, in a state of undress, and in need of several concurrent baths.”

“Yes, about that, sir,” Mr. Olderglough said. “It goes without saying I'm sorry you find yourself in such a condition as this. But at the same time, I can't claim it wasn't a necessity, because it was.”

“I have been—misbehaving again?” said the Baron.

“For some months now, sir, yes. Do you not recall it?”

“Somewhat I do.” Here he peered through time, and shuddered at what he found there. “It is unpleasant to consider,” he said.

“You'll get no argument from me there, sir. Possibly it's best not to dwell.”

“Yes.”

“Let us look to the future rather than mull over the past.”

“It's a nourishing thought, Myron, and thank you for it.” The Baron sniffed. “And will you untie me, now?”

“I will not, sir, no.”

“Do you have a time in mind when you might?”

“Quite soon, I hope.”

“You were always a fair man.”

“I like to believe it, sir.”

The Baron grimaced. “Why does my head hurt?”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Olderglough, “you were in such a state that I was forced to club you.”

“
Club
me, did you say?”

“Indeed.”

“I didn't know you had it in you.”

“Nor did I. Actually, and if I may be so bold, it was somewhat thrilling.”

“Surely it must have been. You'll have to tell me about it one day.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has anyone else been injured?”

“You clipped my wing some time back, but I'm one hundred percent at present. And you gave young Lucy here a fright that resulted in a knock on the skull, isn't that right, boy?”

The Baron looked across at Lucy, and a sorrowful mien came over him, as though contemplating Lucy's porcelain countenance in the honest light of day brought his sins back to him, so that a shame took hold of him, and he turned away to bury his face in his pillows and bedding. He was for a time consumed by his sadness, his tone a high, whining wheeze; and Lucy studied the Baron as a pitiable but highly sympathetic individual. But Lucy's empathy was short-lived, as a brief while later the Baron's voice took on a gruff edge, and now did his rage come creeping back, and he began once more to rant and spit and curse, his alter ego having reclaimed stewardship of his spirit. Lucy found this disheartening, not to say frightening; but Mr. Olderglough was not the least surprised. He led Lucy from the Baron's chambers. In the hall he regarded him kindly. It was to be, he assured his protégé, an undertaking.