Quincunx

  There I found Joey waiting and hugging himself with cold.

  “What took you so long?” he demanded.

  “How could I help it?” I protested. “I couldn’t get away any sooner.”

  I told him that although I had made little progress, I was reasonably optimistic about my chances of acquiring the will; and I asked him for the spider. Before parting we agreed that I would try to meet him at about the same time on Sunday a fortnight hence.

  “My dad’s about the same,” he said just as I was leaving him, for in my haste I had not thought to ask. I turned back but he hurried away.

  In the week that followed I made no further progress, except that I came to understand more clearly how the household functioned. The following Sunday Bob had been more devoted than usual to the family’s reputation. When I went into the servants’-hall to remind him (on the instructions of Bessie) that it was time for him to take up the cold trays to Miss Liddy, Miss Henrietta, and her governess, Miss Fillery, he stood up and staggered a few steps. The other footmen and maids who were in the room laughed.

  “Dammit, give me a moment or two and I’ll be right as five-pence,” he protested, but at that moment he stumbled backwards and sat down heavily on the form. “One of you will have to do it,” he said, looking at his confrères.

  “Well, I shan’t,” declared Will.

  The others murmured agreement with this sentiment.

  “It’s the boy’s place to take ’em up if you can’t,” Ned pointed out.

  “Hear that?” Bob said to me. “Put on your pantry-apring and take them trays up. But don’t let no-one see you.”

  “You’ll ketch it if she noses on you to Assinder,” Will said warningly to Bob.

  “Who?” enquired Bob.

  “Why, that b----,” he answered somewhat enigmatically, and the others muttered in agreement.

  “Assinder!” Bob exclaimed. “Why, I ain’t a-feared o’ him. It’s he should be a-feared o’ me.”

  The others laughed but not very affably for I don’t think that Bob was much liked.

  However, the upshot was that a few minutes later, laden with the three trays, some rather incoherent instructions from Bob and much advice from the footmen — most of it facetiously designed to set me disastrously astray — I ascended the back-stairs and passed through the baize-door onto the landing of the second floor. I felt a thrill of excitement at being for the first time alone on that side.

  However, as I made my way along the passage I was alarmed to see the housekeeper coming towards me. She stopped and stared at me in amazement.

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Please, Mrs Peppercorn,” I said; “it’s Mr Bob … I mean, Edward. He’s not well, so I am carrying the trays up for him.”

  “Very well,” she said, “but I will speak to Mr Thackaberry about this, you may be sure. And do not forget to tell Edward so.”

  She strode on, and a moment later I knocked on the door of the governess’s apartments.

  “Come in,” said a commanding female voice.

  I entered and found myself in the presence of a lady of middle years who was seated on a chair before the fire in a somewhat austere parlour. Sitting opposite her and therefore with her back to me was a young lady whom I dared not even glance at.

  “Who are you?” Miss Fillery said sharply.

  “Please, miss,” I said, “I’m the new hall-boy, Dick.”

  I noticed that the young lady turned her head to look at me when I spoke but I resolutely kept my eyes on the countenance before me.

  “And why are you here?”

  “Bob is not well, miss.”

  “Bob? Whom do you mean?” she said with a shudder.

  “Edward, miss.”

  “How dare you come up here out of livery!”

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m not a livery servant.”

  “Indeed? Then tell Mr Thackaberry that a servant out of livery must never be sent to attend upon me again.”

  This revealed so mistaken a notion of the kind of relations I had with the butler that I felt I had to point this out: “Please, miss, I think you’d better tell him yourself.”

  Her face whitened and her eyes seemed to become little points of darkness: “How dare you be impertinent!”

  “I didn’t mean to be, miss. I just meant that Mr Thackaberry wouldn’t pay much heed to …”

  “I have no interest in hearing what you meant to say,” she interrupted. “And neither do I intend to bandy words with you any longer. Finish your work and go. I shall report this to Mr Assinder himself.”

  Now I knew whom the footmen had been referring to in such unflattering terms! I placed the two trays on the sideboard and took the covered dishes and the cutlery from the topmost one. As I began to place the articles on the table in accordance with Bob’s directions, the young lady rose and came across as if to seat herself at the table.

  As she did so we exchanged glances and I recognised my solemn-faced little companion whom I had thrice encountered at Hougham and had glimpsed a few times entering and leaving the house when I had been watching in the street. She was almost my height and very slender. Her countenance — all the paler for the contrast with her black hair — had grown longer and thinner, though it still wore the same melancholy expression, and was a little too pinched to be called conventionally beautiful. She appeared to have looked at me with no more than idle curiosity and I felt a sharp sense of disappointment, but as she seated herself she put her left hand on the table and then looked directly at me and then down at her hand. To my amazement I saw that she had slightly raised one finger and was drawing to my attention the ring I had given her in the park at Hougham all those years ago. I glanced at her, keeping my face as impassive as I could and the look I received in return impressed itself deeply upon me. It was curious and speculative as if I offered some possibility of something. I wished I could acknowledge it but with the governess’s sharp eyes upon me, I dared not. I glanced at Miss Fillery now and even though Henrietta had her back to her, she seemed to have noticed that her charge and I had exchanged looks.

  “Miss Henrietta,” she said, “leave the servant to do his work.”

  It was almost in a daze that I finished setting out the table, picked up the remaining tray from the sideboard and, not forgetting the bow at the door whose importance Bob had impressed upon me, left the room.

  Outside in the passage I paused to try to recover my composure before going on, for seeing Henrietta again under these circumstances had brought back the past and in particular that last summer down in the country.

  However, I dared not be caught idling here so I went down the passage until I reached Miss Lydia’s room. When I knocked and opened the door I found myself faced by a tiny old lady with a deeply wrinkled face, but the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. The chamber was small but cozy and she was seated in an old elbow-chair on the other side of the hearth, wearing an old-fashioned muslin gown, horn-spectacles, and black finger-mittens. In a reverie though I was, I became aware that her glittering eyes were scrutinizing me closely:

  “Where is Bob?” she said suddenly. “Oh I know Edward’s real name,” she said, seeing my surprise.

  “He is unwell, ma’am,” I said.

  She smiled: “He is always unwell on Sunday afternoons, but he comes anyway.”

  “He is more unwell than usual, ma’am,” I said, as I laid the tray on the little table she indicated and began to remove the dishes.

  Though she was still smiling, her gaze did not falter: “Your manner of speech surprises me. Where are you from, young man?”

  Though I had narrated my account of my origins several times to fellow-servants, I now found myself strangely reluctant.

  I stammered and said: “Far from here, ma’am. The Border Country.”

  “I see,” she said thoughtfully. Then suddenly she asked: “What is your name?”

  “Dick, ma’am.”

&nb
sp; “That is what Bob’s boy is always called. What is your given name?”

  “John, ma’am.”

  “John,” she repeated softly, and I believed I heard her murmur: “Yes, of course.” Then she said aloud: “But you have another, I assume?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Will you tell me what it is?” she asked.

  I hesitated for a moment: “John Winterflood, ma’am.”

  She looked at me as if she were disappointed, yet whether it was the name I had told her or the fact that she had guessed that I was lying, I did not know. I felt myself reddening.

  “Very well, John Winterflood,” she said gravely; “I hope I shall have occasion to see you again.”

  I bowed and left the room. I had much to think about as I made my way below stairs. How had Henrietta felt at seeing me in the guise in which I had appeared to her? She had not appeared upset or even surprised. Was there any chance of being able to speak to her? If so, how much should I tell her? And why had Miss Lydia taken so much interest in me? I had heard the other servants say that she was “queer”, and part of her queerness presumably lay in her way of talking to the servants.

  Throughout the week that followed my thoughts turned, whenever I had leisure, to what had happened during those few minutes in the governess’s sitting-room. I longed for the following Sunday to come, bringing the possibility of another encounter with Henrietta. And yet I could not imagine how this could be, since Miss Fillery had so expressly prohibited my coming to wait upon her.

  When Sunday came I watched Bob anxiously all afternoon whenever I had the chance, and he did not fail me. I was polishing the coppers in the scullery with Bessie when at about four o’clock the governess’s bell rang.

  When I went to tell him he exclaimed furiously: “What the divil do she want! Let her ring for all I care. Git back to your work.”

  I did so and a few minutes later the bell rang again, this time continuing angrily for so long that when I reached the servants’-hall the noise was still coming from the scullery and I did not have to announce my message. The other footmen and the maids laughed but Bob staggered to his feet with a terrible curse and made off.

  He returned a minute or two later.

  “The young lady wants to go a walk in the Park,” he announced indignantly. “But Miss Fillery don’t, so she wants a footman to go with Miss Henny.”

  I held my breath at this. Surely Henrietta was trying to arrange to meet me!

  “What did you say?” asked Will.

  “I told her I was keeping the door and couldn’t on no account be spared.”

  The others laughed.

  “I ain’t putting myself out on a Sunday for no governess,” Bob declared.

  “Could I not go in your place?” I asked.

  They all turned to me in amazement.

  “What?” Bob said, “a sarvint out of livery accompany one of the fambly (for all it’s on’y Miss Henny)?”

  “I nivver heard on sich a thing!” Ned exclaimed.

  “So I may not?” I asked.

  “Sartinly not, for the honour of the house,” Bob said.

  At that moment the bell began again to ring insistently.

  “That’s that b---- agin,” said Will. “She don’t care what Miss Henny wants to do, but now she thinks you’re defying her, she won’t let it go.”

  “Be damned to her,” Bob said.

  “You’ll ketch it from Thackaberry,” Ned warned.

  “You’d best go,” said Will.

  Uttering a fearful oath, Bob rose unsteadily to his feet and began to button his heavy coat and smooth his powdered head. The others helped to sober him a little and he went out unsteadily still muttering imprecations.

  “Git on with your work,” said Will suddenly and I realized that he had been watching me.

  Hoping that he had not noticed how eager I had been to take Bob’s place, I quickly hurried back into the scullery where I found Bessie still hard at work over the pans.

  CHAPTER 95

  For several weeks Henrietta insisted — to the indignation of the servants — on going for a walk on Sunday afternoon and though I guessed her intention, I could find no way to play the part required of me.

  By now Christmas was approaching and since it was spoken of by my fellows as a kind of heightened Sunday when the everyday pattern of events was even more disrupted, I looked forward to it in the hope that I might find some way of taking advantage of the general relaxation of rules.

  It was an understood thing that the family celebrated the festival on Christmas-eve and so made only the most modest demands on the servants’ time on the day itself. So when the 25th. came, my fellow livery-servants rose late and, when they had donned dress-livery, began keeping the day in the hall which was now hung with branches of holly and where the Christmas candle, wreathed in greens, burned on the sideboard. A bunch of mistletoe was hung above the table and there was much flirting and kissing beneath it, and at each kiss one of the white berries was plucked until all were gone and there were supposed to be no more kisses — though this rule was quickly set aside.

  Hall-dinner was to be a long and elaborate meal with a great deal of toasting. It began at two when the upper servants entered in greater state than usual, and at first conversation was somewhat stilted because of their attempt to maintain their dignity amidst the informality of the occasion. I noticed that Mr Thackaberry kept a seat empty on his right and this was explained when, after the first course, the door opened and a strange gentleman entered and took the place of honour beside him.

  The newcomer was small, in his early forties with a handsome, high-coloured face which wore a somewhat petulant expression. This, I understood, was Mr Assinder who was graciously partaking of a single course, and his arrival was the signal for Mrs Gustard to enter the room followed by two of her staff carrying on a vast charger between them a boar’s head decorated with rosemary, stuffed with sausage-meat, and with a lemon in its mouth, and preceded by the rest of the kitchen-servants bearing mountains of good food.

  Conversation was still restricted to the upper servants though there was some giggling and whispering at the inferior end of the table, until, as usual, the moment came when Mr Thackaberry addressed the head-coachman:

  “You have less work this Christmas than usual, I fancy, Mr Phumphred, with the family staying in Town?”

  “That’s true, sir. Though it’s a shame not to get down to Hougham. But I suppose Sir Parsivvle needs to spare hisself the expense now.”

  “How dare you,” Mr Assinder exclaimed, his features suddenly flushed, “speak of your employer in that manner. It’s not for you, Phumphred, to speculate on Sir Perceval’s financial circumstances.”

  Everyone was astonished at this breach of good manners which was also a rebuff to the hospitality of the servants’-hall. There were some suppressed laughs and many were divided between their annoyance at the steward and their pleasure in seeing one of their superiors so publicly put down. Mr Phumphred looked taken aback and Mr Thackaberry hastily poured his guest a glass of wine. When Mr Assinder withdrew shortly afterwards the mood was immediately lightened, and conversation became general and increasingly unrestrained.

  When the upper servants had themselves withdrawn, the footmen — Bob, Dan, Will, and Jem — and Nellie and three or four of the other maids took over the whole table. The Wassail Bowl was filled with lambs’-wool and circulated rapidly. The outburst over dinner was the first topic to come sur le tapis.

  “Why did he drop down on old Phumphred so sharp?” asked Nellie, whose waist was encircled by Bob’s arm.

  “Why, do you not know that?” he exclaimed. “It goes back a few years now. He once lent the carriage to someone. And Phumphred made trouble — I reckon Assinder didn’t square him — and so the old flatt went to Sir Parsivvle hisself.”

  So that was how Mr Steplight (in fact, Mr Sancious) had obtained it that day he came to my mother at Mrs Fortisquince’s! Then the Mompess
ons had had no knowledge of the deception practised upon her.

  “What did Assinder get?” Nellie asked.

  “No more than a good telling off for Sir Parsivvle is wery partial to him on account of his uncle, the steward that was. But he wouldn’t be if he knew that Assinder does more than jobbing with what don’t belong to him. I could tell you things about him,” Bob said, winking one eye knowingly.

  “Why, if it comes to that,” Will said to Bob with a scowl, “you was gived a bit to bubble that last governess.”

  Bob merely laughed: “Aye, we done her brown, me and Mr David. I let on as I was bringing her a letter from Sir Parsivvle and my lady but it was a flatt-trap, for Mr David got a friend of his to write it.”

  “That was the night she come in through the mews?” asked one of the house-maids, giggling.

  “That’s right, for she went out on the town with Mr David on account of the letter, and that’s why she was sent out of the house.”

  There was laughter at this.

  At that moment the bell rang to summon me to wait on the uppers in the pantry. As I entered I heard Mr Thackaberry say to Sir Perceval’s gentleman:

  “Phumphred touched him on a sore point. The truth is that our people are in deep, very deep. Mr Assinder has told me some grave news. The rent-roll down at Hougham has been falling for years and has recently dropped further because of the bad weather. He is being told to squeeze more and more money out of the land and my lady doesn’t take enough account, he says, of the stupidity and dishonesty of country-people. He has been trying to demolish and evict to keep down the poor-rates, but he’s had no end of trouble with the vestry-men and the tenants. He’s trying to make the best of the place, but it’s a poor country. The house is in no condition to receive the family in the winter.”

  I went back to the hall just as one of the chamber-maids came in: