Conrad's Fate Read online

  Mr. Amos’s pear-shaped body bent in a bow. “I gather he intended a stay of about a week, my lady.”

  “That’s what I was going to tell you, Mother,” Lady Felice put in.

  At this, something happened to the Countess’s face, a hard sort of movement under the delicate features. She gave a tinkly little laugh. “Well!” she said. “At least the tea has had time to brew. Please pour, Amos.”

  Ouch! I thought. The Count’s going to be in for it when he gets back!

  This was the signal for the church service to go on. Mr. Amos poured tea as if it were the water of life. It was steaming so healthily that Christopher said later that he was sure there was a keep-warm spell in the mat. Andrew offered cream. The Countess waved him away and got given lemon in transparent-thin slices by Mr. Amos instead. Then Andrew moved in with the sugar boat, and the Countess let him give her four lumps.

  While the show moved on to Lady Felice, the Countess said, as if she were covering up an awkward pause, “I see we have two new page boys, Amos.”

  “Improvers, my lady,” Mr. Amos said, “who will function as pages until they learn the work.” His head jerked sharply at Christopher. “Christopher, be good enough to hand the sandwiches.”

  Christopher jumped. I could see his mind had been miles away, but he pulled himself together and heaved the sandwiches up off the trolley. There were scores of them, tiny, thin things with no crusts and thick, savory-smelling fillings, heaped up on a vast oval silver plate. Christopher sniffed at them yearningly as he hoisted the plate up, but he went and held the plate out to the Countess very gallantly, with a flourishing bow that matched the way he looked. The Countess seemed startled, but she took six sandwiches. Mr. Amos frowned as Christopher brought the plate to Lady Felice and went on one knee to hold it out to her.

  Christopher had to go back and forth. It was amazing how much those two slim ladies ate. And all the while Mr. Amos stood back like a stuffed penguin and frowned. I could see he thought Christopher was too fancy.

  “Ludwich!” the Countess complained after about her fifteenth sandwich. “Whatever does Robert mean by it? Without warning, too!”

  She went on about it rather. Eventually Lady Felice dumped her eighteenth sandwich back on her plate in an irritated way and said, “Really, Mother, does it matter?”

  She got a stare. The Countess had ice blue eyes, big ones, and the stare was glacial. “Of course it matters, dear. It’s extreme discourtesy to me.”

  “But he was probably called away on business,” Lady Felice said. “He was telling me that his bonds and shares—”

  I could see this was quite a cunning thing to say, a bit like the way Anthea and I used to ask Uncle Alfred for money to stop him raging when we’d broken something. The Countess held up a small, gentle hand all over rings to stop Lady Felice. “Please, darling! I know nothing about finance. Amos, are there cakes?”

  It was my turn to jump. Mr. Amos said, “Conrad, hand the cakes now, please.”

  They were at the bottom of the trolley on another huge silver plate. I almost staggered as I heaved it up. The plate was truly heavy and made heavier still by being piled so with all the tiniest and most delicious pastries you could imagine. Scents of cream, fruit, rosewater, almond, meringue, and chocolate hit my nose. I felt my stomach whir. It sounded so loud to me that I couldn’t think of any elegant way to hand those cakes. I simply walked over to the Countess and held the plate out to her.

  Mr. Amos frowned again. I could tell he thought I was too plain.

  Luckily I didn’t have to heave the plate about for very long. The Countess had just wanted to change the subject, I think. She only took three cakes. Lady Felice had one. How they could bear not to eat the lot, I shall never know.

  After that we had the church service again, with everything being cleared back onto the trolley in the proper religious order. Mr. Amos and Andrew bowed. Both glared sideways at us until we realized we had to bow, too. Then we were allowed to push the trolley away into the hall.

  “Tea ceremony over,” Christopher muttered, under the clattering.

  But it was not, not quite. In the middle of the hall Mr. Amos stopped and told us off. He made me at least feel quite awful. “In front of Family!” he kept saying. “One of you flounces like a pansy, and the other plods like a yokel!” Then he went on to the way we stood. “You do not gaze like half-wits; you do not stand to attention like common soldiers. You are in a proper household here. You behave right. Watch Andrew next time. He stands against a wall as if it were natural.”

  “Yes, Mr. Amos,” we said miserably.

  He allowed us to go away down the stone stairs in the end. And there the bewildering day went on and on. Miss Semple was waiting to show us the undercroft. Christopher tried to sidle off then, but she turned and shot him a mild but all-seeing look and shook her head. He came glumly to heel. I followed her resignedly anyway. It was clear to me that I was here for a week, until Count Robert came back, so I thought I might as well learn my way about.

  The undercroft was vast. I had to be shown all over it again the next day because it was too big to take in that first time. All I remembered was a confusion of steams and scents from several kitchens and a laundry, and people in brown-and-gold uniform rushing about. There were cold stores and dry stores full of food, and a locked door leading to the cellars. There was at least one room dedicated entirely to crockery, where two girls seemed to be washing up all the time. I was very surprised when Miss Semple told us this was just crockery for Staff. The good china for the Family was upstairs in another pantry with another set of maids to wash it. Family and Staff were like two different worlds that only linked together at certain times and places.

  Christopher became fascinated by this. “It’s my amateur status, Grant,” he told me. “It allows me to take a detached view of the tribal customs here. You must admit it’s a strange setup when all these people chase about in the basement, just to look after two women.”

  He was so fascinated that he asked question after question at supper. Our part of the Staff had supper in the Upper Hall at seven, so that we would be ready to wait on the Family when they dined at eight. Their food was called Dinner and was very formal, but ours was fairly formal, too. A whole lot of Staff gathered round a big table at one end of a large sort of sitting room. There were chairs and magazines in the other end, and a smaller board with lights, in case anyone needed us while we were there, but no television. Andrew told me rather sadly that you couldn’t get a signal up in Stallery, not for any money. Andrew was the nicest of the footmen by far.

  Anyway, there were six footmen, and us, and a dismal old man with a snuffle (he was steward or accountant or something) and a whole lot of women. Miss Semple was there, of course, and she told me that the very smart elderly woman was the Countess’s maid, and the almost as smart younger one was Lady Felice’s. Those two weren’t very nice. They only spoke to each other. But there were the Upper Stillroom Maid, the Head of Housemaids, the Head of Parlormaids, and several other Heads of Somethings. Apparently there should have been Hugo, too, but he had gone to Ludwich with Count Robert. All the other Staff ate in the Lower Hall, except Mr. Amos, who had his meals alone, Miss Semple said.

  There was also Mrs. Baldock. She was Housekeeper, but I kept thinking of her as the Headmistress. She was the largest woman I had ever seen, a vast six-footer with iron gray hair and a huge bosom. The most noticeable thing about her was the purple flush up each side of her large face. Christopher said this didn’t look healthy to him. “Possibly she drinks, Grant,” he said, but this was later. At that supper she swept in after all the rest of us. Everyone stood up for her. Mrs. Baldock said a short grace, then looked down the table until she saw Christopher and me.

  “I’ll expect you two in the Housekeeper’s Room promptly at nine-thirty tomorrow,” she said.

  This sounded so ominous to me that I kept my head down and said nothing for most of the meal. But Christopher was another matter. When
supper came—and it was steak pie and marvelous, with massive amounts of potatoes in butter—it was brought in by four maids. Mrs. Baldock cut the pie, and the maids carried it around to us. Nobody started eating until Mrs. Baldock did.

  “What is this?” Christopher said as the maid brought his slice.

  “Steak pie, sir,” the girl said. She was about Christopher’s age, and you could see she thought he was ever so handsome.

  “No, I mean, the way there are Staff to wait on Staff,” Christopher said. “When do you get to eat?”

  “We have high tea at six-thirty, sir,” the girl said, “but—”

  “What a lot of meals!” Christopher said. “Doesn’t that take another whole kitchen and a whole lot more Staff to wait on you?”

  “Well, only sort of,” the girl said. Her eyes went nervously to Mrs. Baldock. “Please, sir, we’re not supposed to hold conversations while we’re serving.”

  “Then I’ll ask you,” Christopher said to Andrew. “Do you see any reason why this serving business should ever stop? We have supper now, so as to wait on the Family, and these charming young ladies have theirs at six-thirty in order to wait on us. And when they are waited on, those people must have to eat at six, and before that some other people have to eat earlier still in order to wait on them. There must be some Staff who have supper at breakfast time in order to fit all this serving in.”

  Andrew laughed, but some of the other footmen were not amused. The one called Gregor growled, “Cheeky little beggar!” and the one called Philip said, “You think you’re quite a card, don’t you?” Behind them all four maids were trying not to giggle, and from the head of the table, Mrs. Baldock was staring. Well, everyone was staring. Most of the Head Maids were annoyed, and the two Lady’s Maids were scandalized, but Mrs. Baldock stared with no expression at all. There was no way of knowing if she approved of Christopher or was about to sack him on the spot.

  “Someone must be cooking all the time,” Christopher said. “How do you manage with only three kitchens?”

  Mrs. Baldock spoke. She said, “And a bakery. That will do, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Christopher said. “Delicious pie, whichever kitchen it came from.” He and Mrs. Baldock eyed each other down the length of the table. Everyone’s heads turned from one to the other like people’s at a tennis match. Christopher smiled sweetly. “Pure curiosity, ma’am,” he said.

  Mrs. Baldock just said, “Hmm,” and turned her attention to her plate.

  Christopher kept a wary eye on her, but he went on asking questions.

  Seven

  We had to jump up as soon as we had finished supper. We left the maids clearing plates and giggling at Christopher’s back and hurried upstairs with the footmen to the dining room. This was a tall, gloomy room that matched the black-floored hall. Mr. Amos was waiting there to show us how to fold stiff white napkins into a fancy boat shape and then to instruct us in the right way to make two little silver islands of cutlery and wineglasses on the shiny black table. We had to put each knife, fork, and spoon exactly in its right place.

  Christopher went rather pale while we were trying to get it right. “Indigestion, Grant,” he told me in a sorrowful whisper. “Bolting pie and then running upstairs is not what I’m used to.”

  “That won’t be the only thing that disagrees with you if Mr. Amos hears you,” the surly footman—Gregor—said to him. “Hold your tongue. Put this cloth over that arm, both of you, and stand by that wall. Don’t move, or I’ll belt you one.”

  We spent the next hour doing just that. We were supposed to be attending to what Mr. Amos and the footmen did as they circled in and out around the two Ladies sitting each at their little island of glass and silver, but I think I dozed on my feet half the time. The rest of the time I stared at a big picture of a dead bird and some fruit on the opposite wall and wished I could be at home in the bookshop. The two Ladies bored me stiff. They talked the whole time about the clothes they were going to buy as soon as the time of mourning was over and where they would stay in Ludwich while they were shopping. And they seemed to go on eating forever.

  When at last they were finished, we were allowed to go back to the undercroft, but we had to stay in the Upper Hall in case we were needed to bring things to the Ladies in the drawing room. Gregor watched us to make sure we didn’t try to slip away. We sat side by side on a hard sofa as far away from Gregor as we could get, trying not to listen to the two Lady’s Maids, who were doing embroidery quite near to us and whispering gossipy things to each other.

  “She’s got a whole drawerful of keepsakes from him by now,” said one.

  The other one said, “If that gets found out, they’ll both be in trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t be in her shoes for any money,” the first one said.

  I yawned. I couldn’t help it.

  “Come, come, Grant,” Christopher said. “On these occasions you have to keep going by taking an interest in little things, like those two maids do. We’ve been here a good seven hours by now. I know they seem the longest we’ve ever known, but you must have found some little thing to be amazed about somewhere.”

  I had, now he came to remind me. “Yes,” I said. “How do the Countess and Lady Felice eat so much and stay so thin?”

  “Good question,” Christopher replied. “They fair put it away, don’t they? The young one probably rushes about, but the old one is slightly stately. She ought by rights to be the size of Mrs. Baldock. Perhaps the chef charms her food. But my guess is she takes slim spells. I dare you to go over and ask her Lady’s Maid if I’m right.”

  I looked across at the two gossiping women. I laughed. “No. You do it.”

  Christopher didn’t dare either, so we went on to talk about other things we had noticed. This was when Christopher told me his theory that Mrs. Baldock drank. But right at the end, just before Andrew came in and said we could go off to bed, Christopher astounded me by asking, “By the way, what or where is this Ludwich that the Countess is so peeved with the Count for vanishing to?”

  I stared at him. How could he not know? “It’s the capital city, of course! Down in the Sussex Plains, beside the Little Rhine. Everyone knows that!”

  “Oh,” said Christopher. “Ah. So the Count’s gone on a spree, has he? The fact is, Grant, that one gets a little confused about geography, living with the Travelers. They never bother to say where we are or where we’re going. So what part of the country are we in now?”

  “The English Alps,” I said. “Just above Stallchester.” I was still astonished.

  Christopher repeated, “The English Alps. Ah,” looking grave and wise. “What other Alps are there, then—as a matter of interest?”

  “French, Italian, Austrian,” I said. “Those Alps sort of run together. The English Alps are divided off by Frisia.” Christopher looked quite bewildered. He didn’t seem to know any geography at all. “Frisia’s the country on the English border,” I explained. “The whole of Europe is quite flat between Ludwich and Mosskva, and the Alps make a sort of half-moon round the south of that. The English Alps are to the north of the plains.”

  Christopher nodded to himself. I thought I heard him murmur, “Series Seven—no British Isles here, of course.”

  “What?” I said. “What are you on about now?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m half asleep.”

  I don’t think he was, although I certainly was. When Andrew said we could go, I tottered into the lift, then out of it, and fell into the nightshirt and into bed and went to sleep on the spot. I dimly heard Christopher get up later in the night. I assumed he was visiting the toilet up at the end of the corridor, and I waited, mostly asleep, for him to come back. But he was away for so long that I went properly back to sleep and never heard him returning. All I knew was that he was in bed and asleep the next morning.

  They woke us up at dawn.

  We got used to this in the end, but that first morning was awful. We had to put on aprons and go around w
ith a big basket collecting shoes to be cleaned, from the attics downward. Most doors had at least one set of shoes outside them. But Mr. Amos put out four pairs of small black shoes. The Countess put out a dozen pairs, all fancy. Lady Felice put out a stack of riding boots. We had to stagger down to the undercroft with the lot, where we were very relieved to discover that they employed someone else to clean them all. I could hardly clean my face that morning, let alone shoes.

  Then we were allowed to have breakfast with a crowd of red-eyed, grumpy footmen. Andrew was off duty that morning, and Gregor was in charge, and he didn’t like either of us and had it in for Christopher particularly. He sent us upstairs to the Family breakfast room before we’d really finished eating. He said it was important to have someone on duty there in case one of the Family came down early.

  “I bet that was a lie!” Christopher said, and he rather shocked me by helping himself to bread and marmalade from the vast sideboard. We found out that all the footmen did the same, when they finally loitered in.

  And it was just as well they deigned to turn up. Lady Felice came in before seven, looking pale and pensive and wearing riding clothes. No one had expected her. Gregor had to shove the bread he was eating under the sideboard in a hurry, and his mouth was so full that one of the other footmen had to ask Lady Felice what she fancied for breakfast. She said, a bit sadly, that she only wanted rolls and coffee. She was going out riding, she said. And would Gregor go to the stables and ask them to get Iceberg saddled. Gregor couldn’t speak still, or he would have sent Christopher. He had to go himself, scowling.

  By the time the Countess stalked in, obviously seething for some reason, the sideboard had been lined with dishes under dome-shaped silver covers, most of them fetched from the food lift by Christopher or me, and she had a choice of anything from mixed grill to smoked kidneys and fish. She ate her way through most of them while she was interviewing the poor snuffly old accountant man.

  His name was Mr. Smithers, and I think he had only just started his own breakfast when she rang for him. He kept eyeing her plates sorrowfully. But he was a long time arriving, and Gregor sent Christopher to look for him, while the Countess drummed her long pearly nails angrily on the tablecloth.