Undermajordomo Minor (15 page)

S
ome days and nights passed. Lucy and Mr. Olderglough sat with the Baron, together and separately, feeding him and speaking with him and leading him away from his manias the way a child might be led away from a carnival. One morning Lucy entered the Baron's chambers and found the man was no longer manacled, but sitting upright in his bathtub, and his hair had been cut, his scraggly beard shaven, revealing a handsomely angular face. He was reading the letter the Baroness had written with a look of horror.

“Are you not pleased that she's returning, sir?” Lucy asked.

The Baron folded the letter and set it upon the side table. “All I know, boy, is that life is, on occasion, entirely too vast for my tastes.” Here he submerged himself, and afterward did a great many bubbles rise up from the depths of the bathtub, this due to the fact of the Baron screaming underwater.

T
here was a period of frantic activity at the castle. While Lucy and Mr. Olderglough had been tending to the Baron, Agnes had traveled to Listen and back; and in the coming days there followed in her wake deliveries of grain, flour, spices, candles, fowl, fish, kegs of ale, crates of wine and brandy, and all manner of culinary rarities Lucy had not heard of, much less tasted. The tailor arrived, three assistants in tow, and these four worked in earnest to prepare a new suit of clothes for the Baron, and another for Mr. Olderglough, whose outfit had devolved to something beyond shabby. The offending garment was burned, and now Mr. Olderglough moved sleekly through the halls in an ink-black morning coat, the portrait of surefooted elegance. He went about his work with a surplus of energy Lucy had not witnessed in the man; and Agnes, too, was all the more vital in her exercises. It was as though, with the re-awakening of the Baron's senses, so did the health of his longtime subordinates likewise resume focus. Only now did Lucy understand what fond memories Mr. Olderglough and Agnes had been clinging to; only now did he appreciate the satisfaction they received in doing their work. And it was no small surprise that he found himself feeling similarly, but so it came to pass: the castle was sunlit, and all about there was the sense of hopefulness for the future.

Which is not to say Lucy had an easy time of it. Three days before the Baroness was to arrive, Mr. Olderglough ushered him
into the ballroom and said, “I would like you to please tidy up the area, now.”

“Which area, sir?”

“The location as a whole.”

“Meaning this room, sir?”

“All right, yes.”

Lucy considered the size of the space. “When you say ‘tidy,' sir.”

“Wash the windows. Wash the floors. Wash the walls. Wash the ceilings.”

“Wash the ceilings,” said Lucy.

“Air the room. Clean out the grates. Uncover the furniture. Polish the trim and accoutrements. Once you're through here, then move on to the next room, and the next, and so on.”

Lucy said, “It sounds, sir, that you're asking me to clean the castle from bottom to top before the Baroness returns home. Is that correct?”

“Is there a problem with that, boy?”

“In that it's not possible to achieve I would say that there is, yes.”

Mr. Olderglough thought this an unfortunate attitude, and furthermore voiced a concern that Lucy was becoming too familiar for one in his position. But in the end he gave way, and Lucy was allotted a small allowance with which to hire help from the village. He enjoined a half-dozen of the meanest-looking women about, the same group who had teased him in regard to Klara's cape, the idea being that they possessed the necessary fortitude to attack such an outsize endeavor. The scheme bore fruit in that the group cleaned with palpable anger, as though the accrual of dirt were an affront to their honor. This hostility was a boon for the task, but proved less advantageous in other ways. Lucy was afraid of the women, and they knew this, and exploited it by pinching and prodding and harassing him; they made crude jokes at his expense for the pleasure of seeing him blush; the stoutest of the bunch at one point pinned Lucy's head to the wall with her behemoth breast, so that he flailed his arms and was panicked to catch a breath.

Indignities aside, Lucy's plan was a success: the work was completed without flaw, and the castle was returned to a state befitting a Baroness. The feeling among the staff was an invigorating concoction of jubilation and acute agitation, both of these held in check, at least so much as was possible.

In the center of this bustle was the Baron, and it was days before Lucy could take his eyes off the man, this due not only to the fact of his remarkable return to civility, but because the person who had emerged from those ghastly shadows was the most alluring sort of gentleman imaginable. To watch him simply enter a room was in itself an entertainment; he was a
danseur noble
crossing a stage, his every movement so unhesitatingly graceful as he reached in one fluid motion for a book, an ashtray, a pitcher of water—effortless performances which led Lucy to wonder at the standards or qualities of noble blood, and whether or not one in his own modest position might will his blood to clarify, to improve itself. He thought not, ruefully.

Beyond the physical, there was ever more to admire in terms of the Baron's temperament and personality. In the days preceding the Baroness's arrival, he oversaw each aspect of the castle's rehabilitation with a firm hand and meticulous eye; and yet he was never anything other than gracious to his underlings, instilling in the same sequence both sympathy and command—here were the attributes, Lucy realized, of the true leader. He was particularly admiring of how the Baron addressed Agnes's scullery shortcomings. Sampling her stew, for example, he might act as though he were partaking of a delicacy, his abhorrence completely hidden away, afterward lavishing her in praise, which she drank up greedily. Agnes thus mollified, the Baron would then say something like, “I do wonder if the pepper isn't dominating the dish, my dear, when your beautiful roux is clearly the leading light of the show?”

Here Agnes's mind would set to turning, and she would ask, “Do you think we might do with less pepper, sir?”

“Excellent idea, Agnes—and just as you say, why not try it?”

So, Agnes would re-create the stew, halve the pepper, the dish would become suddenly edible, the Baron would proclaim her a genius, and she would float about in a cloud of pride and adoration all the rest of the day.

The man was charm personified, in other words, and Lucy was unabashedly in awe of him.

O
n the evening prior to the Baroness's arrival, Lucy watched from his window as the Baron roamed about in the field separating the castle and village. He walked for long moments with a still face, his hands behind his back, but then began murmuring to himself, then speaking, and with increased animation, gesturing this way and that, a sly smile on his face. Lucy recognized that the Baron was imagining he was with the Baroness, and practicing the things he would say to her. At one point he drew his hand to his mouth, searching for some suitably clever phrase, perhaps; upon locating it, then giving voice to it, his eyes grew bright with pleasure. Lucy found a commiserative affinity for the man growing in his heart, and was made apprehensive by this fact. For if love had so degraded a personage of the Baron's powers, what might it do to him? Folding up his telescope, he pushed the thought from his mind. It was too unsettling to regard directly.

O
n the appointed day and at the appointed hour, the Baron stood on the platform awaiting the return of the Baroness Von Aux. His hair was combed severely and his expression was severe, and the flowers he held in his hand were gripped with severity, fixed as he was in fevered expectation. Mr. Olderglough was somber; he stood beside the Baron, and Lucy beside Mr. Olderglough. They were each of them looking straight ahead, beyond the tracks and into the unpeopled, forested lands. It felt as though the train were late, this because it was.

“She herself has held it up,” muttered the Baron.

“Oh, sir, come now,” said Mr. Olderglough. “Why would she do that? And how would she, even.”

“She has found a way—just to niggle the wound. And I'll wager that when she does arrive, she'll have some handsome young valet at her side.”

“She would never, sir.”

“Wouldn't she? You forget the fiasco with Broom.”

“I have forgotten nothing. But I don't see the purpose in making such assumptions before we've set eyes on her. It is a new day, sir.”

“It is a day like any other.”

“It is a fine and clean and just-born day. There has never been a day quite like today.”

“Bah,” said the Baron, and he stepped away to privately putter.

Lucy asked Mr. Olderglough, “What were the circumstances of Mr. Broom's departure, did you say, sir?”

“I didn't say.”

“Would you say now?”

Mr. Olderglough made a pained face. “A wickedness took hold of him, so that his position became untenable. He tried to shed the wickedness, and I also tried to help him in this. Alas, at day's end there was nothing to be done about it.”

“But how did he die, sir?”

“He fell down the Very Large Hole,” said Mr. Olderglough, this stated as though it were elementary.

“A very large hole,” Lucy said.

“
The
Very Large Hole, yes.” Mr. Olderglough turned and pointed to the loping hills beyond the castle. “There's only the one. Though one is enough, I should think. Just ask Mr. Broom, eh?” He shook his head. “It was a poor ending for the boy. I was sorry about it. I had hopes for him. Ah, but his greeds and desires got away from him, as greeds and desires are wont to do.” Mr. Olderglough chuckled. “I've just had a recollection, boy. Would you like me to share it?”

“All right.”

“I don't want to force it on you.”

“No, I'd like to hear, sir.”

“Very well. I was but a lad, sitting at the breakfast table with my father. Unbeknownst to him, I'd taken and eaten the last sausage, knowing it was his by rights, for I'd already had my fill. When he saw the empty plate, he looked at me and said, ‘Some wear greed as a fine suit of clothes. But you, my son, bear its stamp ever more poorly.' Now, what do you think about that?”

“I don't know what to think, sir.”

“Do the words not resonate with you?”

“Not so very much, I don't think.”

“They did with me. And after he said it, I remember, he stuck me with a fork.”

“With a fork, sir?”

“Jabbed me, really. I don't mean to imply the fork was horizontal to my flesh. It was more a punctuation of the thought than actual physical torture. Father was a performer in that way.”

At the far end of the platform, the Baron was speaking plaintively into the air. Lucy watched him awhile, then turned back to Mr. Olderglough. “I can't imagine your having a mother or father either, actually, sir.”

“No? Perhaps you think I was hatched from an egg, eh? And perhaps I was—I'll never tell, boy.” He bent his ear. “Did you hear a choot?”

“A what, sir?”

“A choot.”

“Is that a type of bird?”

“It is the sound the train makes.
Choot, choot
.”

The train was indeed approaching, and the Baron returned to stand beside Lucy and Mr. Olderglough. The flowers were trembling in his hand and he said, “I've gone all shivery, Myron.”

“Think of the glad times you've passed with her, sir. She is still that same fresh young woman you courted those many years ago.”

“If only that were so, I shouldn't have a care in the world.”

As the train pulled into the station, the Baron cast the flowers into its wheels and screeching machinery; the three men watched as the petals were consumed. When the train came to rest, they were drowned in surging clouds of steam, and they each of them closed their eyes.

T
he Baroness's disembodied voice was deeper and richer than Lucy would have thought it might be. There was nothing masculine about it, but it possessed a weight at its center—it cut the air and carried itself.

“Will no one help me down, I wonder?”

A smart wind reared and drew past, yanking the steam clouds away, and there she was, in the crisp blue air at the top of the stair, in black and shining fur, her hand outstretched, gloved and likewise black. Her face was sublimely beautiful, and yet there was a darkness residing in her eyes, a cold remove, and Lucy knew that the woman in the painting was not she who stood before them. Whereas the woman in the painting was filled with a humble grace, this person had been corrupted clean through. Lucy was afraid of her, and made no move in her direction; and so was the Baron stuck fast. Finally Mr. Olderglough stepped across to receive her, leading her down the steps to stand before the Baron on the platform.

At the start these two stared at each other, saying nothing, and without so much as shaking hands. The Baroness was a portrait of restraint: her thoughts and feelings were mysterious, and she watched her mate with her chin held at a tilt. The Baron managed to mimic her composure for a brief time, but soon his facade began to twitch, and at last he came apart, consumed by naked emotion. Weeping grotesquely, he dropped to his knees, gripping the Baroness about her legs, heaving and sobbing and acting as one oblivious
to opinion and utterly without shame. The Baroness did not have an immediate reaction; she merely observed, and with a half-interest. As the scene played out, however, then did her features take on a softer light, and now she removed a glove to stroke the Baron's head. Bending down, she whispered some encouragement into his ear, and he nodded, standing stiffly and re-establishing or attempting to re-establish his dignity.

They stood face-to-face. Returning her glove to her hand, the Baroness drew her thumb across his cheek to dry it. She kissed him. It was a kiss both lengthy and delicate, and at its halfway point, Lucy felt a hand clamp his arm. Mr. Olderglough's eyes were damp; he was transported by this performance. The Baron and Baroness walked side-by-each toward the castle, speaking softly to one another, and behaving as lovers reunited.

Behind them, an overworked porter was stacking the Baroness's numerous steamer trunks on the platform. He was peripherally aware of the spectacle taking place nearby, but he paid the Baron and Baroness no mind, as he had quite enough to worry about without concerning himself with the dramatic affairs of others, thank you very much.