The Lady Astronomer (7 page)

“Yes?”

“Let’s advertise for staff! Honestly,
I really need your help. There’s the telescope and the king and the charting
and mapping once it’s built. I can’t wait to see it in action!”

“Advertise?”

“Of course, my sweet. We could ask
Mrs. V for some pointers about where to look. Oh, maybe scratch that or we’ll
have to suffer her proddings and pokings and bad confectionaries. There must be
a local newspaper. Or you could put signs in The Inn and The Shoppe. It may be
a two-horse town, but there is a lot of traffic from London and Bath amongst
other places. You never know who may be passing through.”

*

Employment Offered

For a Cook, a Housekeeper and a
Man-Of-All-Trades in a Busy Household.

Recompense, reasonable. References,
requested.

Must like animals.

Apply to Ms. H at The Old House, Slough.

*

Lucretia was pulling some monster-like
weeds that held a death grip on a pretty climbing rose when Mr. Trotters came
belching and bellowing steam in her direction.

She sat back on her heels and regarded the
steampig.

The steampig regarded her back.

“Lost your pipe again, Mr. Trotters?”

The steampig burped smoke and she sighed. “Come
along then, we had better find it before you blow up.”

The pipe was not in the house. It was not
in Al’s work room. It was not in Lucretia’s lodgings, by now a clean white,
with a table, chair, and bed. It was not in the garden front or back. In short,
Lucretia was perplexed. As was Mr. Trotters, who was rumbling ominously.

“Honestly, whoever made you didn’t
install an outlet valve, did they? We should get Al to have a look at you,
though you do seem rather attached to your pipe.”

The steampig regarded her once more, then
lifted his shiny snout and trotted away.

“Coo-ee! Coo-ee! I say!”

Lucretia turned her head at the sound of
the feminine voice. And saw a woman a little older than herself, decked out in
the fashion of the day. That is to say, covered in a flurry of lace, under
which her bosom wobbled like a large dish of jelly. Lucretia averted her eyes
from the woman in pink and stared at the ground.

“Oh, my dear!” The woman panted
and wobbled. “Would this happen to be yours? My Miss Porky seems to have
met a new friend and I think he left it behind in my gardens when he came to
woo her. If you get my drift.” She winked saucily at Lucretia, who took
Mr. Trotters’ pipe from the plump, bejewelled hand.

“Thank you, yes. Mr. Trotters seems to
have adopted us.”

“You must be the H family come from
Bath to work for the king? Yes, we are well informed in these parts, especially
when there is little to do but walk, sew and read. Do you sew?” She eyed
Lucretia intently.

“I am in the employ of my brother, but
yes, I have been known to hold a needle. I used to make hats.”

“How delightful! I must get you to
fashion one for me. I have some darling striped pink watered silk, and a
matching hat and parasol would just lift the whole ensemble, don’t you agree?
Especially with some lace trim.”

Lucretia was saved from answering by
Freddie ambling over, question obviously on his lips, which died when he saw
the fine figure of a woman standing chatting to his sister.

“Madam.” Freddie bowed low. “I
don’t believe we have met?”

“Charmed, I am sure.” She held
out her hand for the requisite near-lip-touch which would only have been
polite. “I am Mrs. P, though my own poor husband sadly passed some years
ago. I am your nearest neighbour, and delighted to see that the Old House is
being occupied again.”

“Mr. H at your service.” Freddie
brushed his lips over her hand in true gentlemanly style, most unlike him.
Lucretia scowled. If Freddie was going to act in quite such a moon-struck
manner, she would be off. Quickly.

“And this is my sister, Ms. H, but I
see you have met. Would you like a tour or are you already acquainted with the
house and its environs? I presume one gets to your home over the fields thusly?”

Lucretia backed away slowly as Freddie’s
attention was fully taken by their new neighbour, shaking her head as she went.
She really didn’t need his already flaky concentration further distracted what
with the upcoming interviews they would have to conduct if he really wanted her
help full time.

It was only once she was inside her
lodgings that she realised she still had Mr. Trotters pipe in her hand.
Lucretia sighed as she knew that she would have to reunite pipe and pig before
he exploded.

*

Lucretia awoke with Leibniz pulling at her
bed covers. Orion, who had been asleep on her hair like an overlarge cat,
lifted a large wing that swept the lemur off his feet.

Leibniz jumped back on to the bed,
snarling.

“My, my, didn’t somebody get out on
the wrong side of bed this morning. What’s up with you, Leibniz? And Orion,
mind your manners.”

She shuffled into a sitting position, heaving
Orion’s weight from her tresses with some difficulty. With her head finally against
the board of the bed, she lifted her arms above her head and stretched
mightily, wriggling her toes in bliss. Then she looked at her time-keeper. Her
eyes wide, Lucretia leapt from bed in a single bound.

“Leibniz, why didn’t you waken me
earlier?” She hopped from foot to foot. “The applicants will be here,
oh, just about now, and look at me! I can’t arrive to interview anyone in my
nightdress. Breathe, Lucretia, breathe. You are going to be the boss, you are
going to be the boss.”

She expelled a shaky breath and scrambled
into her clothes, attached the leather straps that held her monoscope, focused
its lens, buckled the buckles, and tidied her hair into a messy bun, curls
escaping as they always did no matter how she tried to hold them down.

Chewing on some mint leaves, she slammed
the door behind her only to return swiftly to
pull her boots on. She left again and returned again as the rain outside forced
her to get her shawl.

The owl and the lemur followed, eager not
to be left out of proceedings, and hopeful for a spot of brunch, breakfast
being long over. Leibniz’s stomach rumbled and Orion looked at him with pity. At
least he had been late-night hunting and had ferreted out a ferret. Which had
been very tasty if a touch furry and bad humoured.

Lucretia muttered to herself as she stomped
through several puddles on the way to the main house. She pulled the vast front
door open, shook herself dry, squared her shoulders and walked into the front
parlour where the most motley collection of interviewees she had ever seen
waited to have their abilities questioned.

No Freddie either. Al had ridden into
Slough to converse with Mr. V on how to improve Mr. Trotters’ valve issues. It
hadn’t seemed like such a task when she had found out late last night she would
be conducting the interviews herself. But now, hungry, wet, and gasping for a
cup of tea, things seemed slightly more difficult.

“Right,” she declared. “If
you would just wait for one more moment, and apologies for my lateness, I hope
my brother Mr. H was able to show you every kindness before he had to leave.”
So saying, she quit the room and went in search of a nice cup of tea.

*

The steam rose from the beverage, curling
into the cold, damp air and hanging in pale vapours as she questioned the
bedraggled woman who sat before her.

“So, you have been in the employ of
the king, I gather. Very good. Why did you leave his Majesty’s service?”

“It were all them animals,” the
unfortunate female responded, unfortunate as Leibniz had delighted in sitting
on her lap, much as a cat will do when it senses that it is in the presence of
a feline-hater. He chuckled impishly.

“Well, did you not read the
advertisement? It did say that prospective employees must like animals.”

“I can’t read, Miss, but my friend did
and there were nothing about animals or I’d not have wasted my time and had my
best interview dress ruined by a monkey.” She burst into noisy tears, and
Lucretia escorted her from the room as kindly as she could.

Not a single person that had gathered this
morning in their parlour was suitable, not a one.

Take, for example, and apart from the
non-animal lover she had just talked to, the cook who was afraid of fire.
Another had an aversion to housework. Not forgetting the man-of-all-trades who
seemed to have no trade whatsoever.

Lucretia went back into the parlour and sat
with her cup of tea, staring off into the distance.

“Lucretia! Lucretia,” called Al,
coming into the hallway. He poked his head around the door and saw her sitting
gloomily, hair, frizzed by the rain, a corona of badly-behaved curls.

“How was it? Any good? Have we found
the answers to our household wishes? The strangest thing, was chatting to Mr. V
about Mr. Trotters, whose problem we are fairly sure we can fix by the way, and
imagine our surprise, when an entire new family rode into hamlet, asking where
they might apply for employment. Well, I brought them here just on the
off-chance. I’m glad I did!”

So saying, he ushered in a man, his wife,
and their son.

“Now Lucretia, here are the Family O.
Mr. O here is adept at all sorts.”

She looked up meekly at Mr. O, who
resembled nothing so much as a strong-man at a fair. His face had been badly
burned and the scars wove an intricate pattern telling no doubt an equally
intricate tale.

He had an iron plate over his cheek and a
patch over his eye. What little hair he had left was grizzled, having never
grown back properly after receiving such a singeing.

“This is Mrs. O,” continued Al.

Lucretia’s jaw dropped at the sight of the
tattooed woman. It was impossible to tell what age she was under all of the ink
that adorned every visible inch of her slender frame, but she smiled warmly and
Lucretia smiled back.

“And finally,” said Al with a
flourish, “Mr. O the Younger, whom I hear is a dab hand at a sponge or a
fancy from France.”

Lucretia stifled a laugh at the young
beribboned, bewigged, berouged dandy, and as he offered her his hand. She took
hers back as soon as it was polite, ashamed of her tattered mitts beside his
perfect cuticles and soft as a new-born’s bottom digits.

“Well.” She stood, and beamed. “Welcome
to our home. Let me show you around.” As she ushered them out of the door,
she turned back to Al and gave him a huge thumbs up.

*

The arrival of the Family O certainly made
their lives easier, and it was as if they had always been part of their
household. Leibniz and Orion barely left the kitchen, filled as it was with the
delicious aromas of O the Younger’s culinary creations. In fact, Leibniz was
getting suspiciously pot-bellied, and Lucretia feared that she would have to
put him on a diet. This was not something to look forward to.

Al declared now that he had been freed up
from the more difficult work that he had never had such a high output.

As for Freddie, well Freddie was hardly at
home, taken as he was with Mrs. P’s charms. Mr. Trotters had his new outlet
valve inserted and working beautifully, so much so that he had more or less
given up pipe smoking, was similarly taken with Miss Porky. Lucretia couldn’t
help but wonder if they would see steamy-hybrid-piglets soon.

The wonderfully painted Mrs. O said very
little, which suited Lucretia down to the ground, and instead went around
cleaning and shining things until the house took on a whole new lustre. There
was always wood, always enough flour, salt, spices, and sugar. The woman was a
housekeeping marvel as she bustled about, keys clanking at her waist.

*

Lucretia sat with her feet on the fender, staring
into the fire.

Mr. O knocked at the door and looked in. “Is
Mr. H here? He is not in the work room.”

“He’s not here,” she replied, and
Mr. O made his way over to her, pulled up another chair, and sat beside her.

He pulled a polishing rag from his pocket. “Do
you mind?” He motioned to the leather strap on her head. “I noticed
your monoscope needs cleaning and it’s often easier to get someone else to do
such tasks.”

“You mean because I can’t see it
properly with it off.” She smiled at him wanly. Usually she would mind. She
would mind very much. But she appreciated his calm presence and his equally
scarred self, so she dipped her head.

He gently unbuckled the straps and removed
the monoscope from her eye, looking at her intently as he did so.

He unscrewed the telescope bit by bit and
laid the brass sections on his lap, and put the lenses in his jacket pocket for
safe keeping, holding each one up in turn to be polished.