Undermajordomo Minor (10 page)

T
he tailor was a sallow man with a monocle, a wisp of a mustache, and blackly shining, harshly parted hair. He read Mr. Olderglough's letter of introduction and instruction with a serene detachment, elbow akimbo, one eye—the non-monocled—gently shut. After folding the letter away, he looked Lucy up and down and said the word: “Fine.” Lucy was made to disrobe to the essentials and stand upon a dais surrounded by tall, gleaming mirrors. Regarding his reflection, and being unused to such events and attentions, he felt self-conscious, this made all the more pronounced by the sorry state of his undergarments. His shirt was pitiable; his shorts, grievous. The tailor must have had an opinion regarding these unsavory articles but kept it hidden, throwing himself headlong into his work. Tape in hand, he fairly crawled all over Lucy, calling out measurements to an assistant who remained out of sight and who in fact never made any sound whatsoever.

Afterward, Lucy dressed and rejoined the tailor in the front of the shop, where he was told the suit would be ready in two weeks' time, and that it would be sent by train to the castle. Lucy thanked the man and was on his way out the door when he caught sight of a richly blue three-quarter-length cape hanging from the wall. He pointed.

“And how much is the cape, there?”

“That is a ladies' cape.”

“Yes. How much does it cost?”

The tailor named a figure amounting to nearly twice the price of the suit.

“So much as that?” said Lucy. But in inspecting the cape he could see that it was of the highest quality: double-stitched and lined in silk, with fox fur ringing its hood. In a breezy tone of voice, as though it were half an afterthought, he told the tailor, “We will put that on the bill as well.”

The tailor hesitated. “Mr. Olderglough makes no mention of this in the letter.”

Lucy waved his hand. “It's nothing to him, I wouldn't think.”

“I'm certain that's so. But I should like to ask him first, if you don't mind.”

“As a matter of fact I do mind,” said Lucy.

“I'd be glad to hold it for you until I receive his reply,” the tailor told him.

Lucy shook his head. “You will either hand over the cape now, and make a nice profit in the bargain, or forget it altogether, and content yourself with the few modest coins earned on the suit.”

Long moments passed with the tailor staring up at the cape. Lucy knew the only way his attitude would prevail was if the man was a merchant at heart, rather than someone idling in a temporary position. As it happened, the tailor had been raised in the shop. It was his father's before him, and before that, his grandfather's. The world of commerce was all he knew, and all he wanted to know; and while his not confirming the purchase with Mr. Olderglough was a clear breach of protocol, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to unload the cape, and so he took his chance, acknowledging the coup with a curious, twirling twist of his forefinger, followed by a birdlike, trilling whistle. Lucy did not believe these gestures were meant to pinpoint any one specific emotion, but rather were meant to celebrate, in the round, another fruitful day on earth. And so it was.

While the cape was being wrapped by the same invisible assistant, the tailor and Lucy were toasting brandies in the upstairs
office, chatting about any little thing, as though they were old friends with shared histories and attitudes. Lucy felt very worldly and pleased with himself. He managed to drink his brandy without gagging, and what a relief this was, for it would have ruined the entire adventure had it happened otherwise.

K
lara opened the door to find Lucy standing in the darkness, a package tucked under his arm. After welcoming him in, she moved to the stove to pour out water for tea. Lucy sat at the table, the package on the bench beside him. The state of his nerves was such that he found himself growing overwarm. He removed his coat, and then his cap, laying this on the table to study it. Klara spoke with her back to Lucy.

“I see you got your hat.”

“Yes,” said Lucy. “Was it very hard to find?”

“It was, actually.”

“Well, thank you for it.” He laid the package on the table before him. “And for the note, as well.”

Klara said nothing to this, but brought the tea to the table. When she saw the package she asked, “What's that, there?”

“What, this?” Lucy said.

“Yes,” said Klara. “What is it?”

“This here?”

“Will you tell me what it is or not?” She poked the package with her finger.

Lucy pushed it nearer to her and she said, “What now? Am I to open it?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Because it's for you.”

This seemed to startle, even upset Klara. When at last she undid the ribbon, she used only one hand, leaving the other to rest upon her lap. The package bloomed, a crinkling, staggered blossom, and when she spied its contents, her spine went stiff.

“What is that?”

“It's a cape. Don't you like it?”

“Why did you bring me this?”

“It's just that I noticed your shivering the other day, in the marketplace,” he explained. When he said this, a look of shame came over Klara, and here Lucy recognized his mistake.

“You must think me very shabby,” she said quietly.

“No, Klara.”

“A shabby girl in need of charity, is that it?”

“That's not what it is at all.”

But now she was rewrapping the package, and Lucy saw the moment was getting away from him. “Stop,” he said. “Wait.” When she did not stop, he said it again: “Stop.”

She paused to look across at him.

“Why did you bring me my cap?” he asked.

Her eyes hooded when he asked this, as though she thought he wasn't playing fair by bringing it up.

“Why did you?” he persisted.

“You seemed to think we didn't like you,” she said. “I wanted to show you we did.”

“But that's all this is,” he told her, folding back the wrapping.

She drew a hand across the cape's collar. “It's too dear.”

“Who's to say, though?” Lucy took up the cape and stood, holding it out before him. “Won't you try it on, at least?”

“I shouldn't,” she said.

“Please,” said Lucy.

“I can't.”

Memel's voice called out from next door: “Cease torturing the boy, already.”

“And us,” Mewe added.

“Try on the cape,” said Memel.

“It's obvious you want to.”

At this, Lucy and Klara both went red in the face; but their self-consciousness soon gave way to stifled laughter. Lucy relocated his courage and approached Klara with the cape; when she stood, he rested the garment on her shoulders, and now she wrapped herself up in it, moving to the mirror in the corner of the shanty that she might admire herself. Lucy followed and stood behind her, watching her face, her pleased expression, and then his own. Closing his eyes, he was run through with a streak of pure happiness, for now he knew he truly was in the midst of an intrigue, just as Mr. Olderglough had said. When he opened his eyes, Klara was watching him in the mirror with a look of fondness or perhaps, for all he knew, something more than that.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You're welcome,” he answered.

“How does it fit?” Memel asked.

L
ucy awoke to the sound of the area war. Sitting up in his bed, he trained his telescope over the mountain's face and to the pivot of the battleground. He took an idle pleasure in witnessing the birth of the cloud-puffs, these “rudely bloomed” (the phrase had ambled into Lucy's mind) then thinned by the wind, only to be replaced by yet more puffs when the following volley occurred. He could make out the soldiers' movements but not their faces, and this was preferable to him. From this distance it all seemed something more like an elaborate stage play than actual combat—some ambitious re-creation of a factual happening.

He worked all that morning assisting Agnes in the cleaning of the larder and ovens, then chopping and stacking wood through to lunchtime, but with his afternoon free, he wandered into the village. He had his pipe with him, the pipe he'd yet to master; it smoldered and had to be relit time and again, but no sooner had he done this than the wind would shift and hurry the smoke up his nose or into his eyes. Coughing, and with tears skating down his face, he put the pipe away. The puppy sat in his coat pocket, as before, taking in the sights with interest.

Lucy saw Klara standing in the marketplace, showing off her cape to a half-dozen village women, a meaty group of red-faced peasants turning her about as they studied the garment. Klara was
smiling with pride as they handled and rotated her. Lucy stepped nearer, and now he could make out their conversation.

“And what does master Adolphus think of it?”

“Do I know any Adolphus?” Klara asked innocently, looking this way and that. “I see no Adolphus around here.”

“And how long has he been gone this time?”

Klara threw her hands up in the air. “Bah!” she said. Lucy entered into the group and Klara, beaming, told the others, “Here, now. This is the gentleman who brought the cape.”

The women swarmed Lucy, grinning devilishly, prodding him with stubby digits and speaking of him as though he weren't there at all:

“What are his intentions, do you think?”

“Will he give her a ring next?”

“Adolphus will rip this one in two.”

“Clean in two, I should think.”

“Will he buy me a cape? You can plainly see the state I'm in.”

They slapped at Lucy's back, laughing and congratulating him for his boldness. He smiled weakly but said nothing; he didn't suppose there was one among them he could better in a fair fight. Once they dispersed, Lucy was left alone with Klara, and these two stood awhile, looking at each other. Winter sunlight spilled across her face; Lucy's vision smudged and blurred.

“Would you walk with me, Klara?” he asked.

“Yes, I'd like that,” she answered, and they fell into line, stepping through the marketplace, neither of them knowing just what to say. When Klara spied the puppy in Lucy's pocket, she took her up to hold her, asking Lucy what she was called. He explained the name hadn't arrived yet, and now Klara grew thoughtful, peering at Lucy from the corner of her eye. “Perhaps you might name her after your sweetheart, wouldn't you think?”

“I suppose I could,” he said. “Only, I don't have a sweetheart.”

“Oh no?”

“I did have one, once. Marina, she was called.”

“That's a pretty name. And whatever became of her?”

Lucy watched his breath horseshoe in the wind. An unpardonable lie came to him, and he clapped his hands to welcome it into the world. “If I'm to tell you the truth of it,” he said, “she died.”

“Oh, no,” said Klara. “I'm so sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“But how did she die?” Klara asked. “That is, if you don't mind talking about it.”

Lucy held up his hand. “I don't mind at all.”

“You're certain?”

“I don't mind in the least. Which isn't to say I enjoy talking about it.”

“Of course not.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. We were happy enough, Marina and I—in our modest fashion. But then she got it in her mind to marry, and when I wouldn't go along with this, she became so distraught about it that she killed herself.”

Klara gasped. “Oh, but that's dreadful!”

“It was a sorry occasion,” Lucy agreed.

“And why wouldn't you marry her?”

“She was not my own true love,” he stated simply.

“But you were hers?” Klara ventured.

“I suppose I was. As a matter of fact, I can state that I surely was, for she told me this many times over. So, when she came to understand I would never be hers alone, then did she hang herself—and from a tree before my own house.”

Klara covered her mouth; Lucy nodded sympathetically.

“Perhaps worst of all,” he continued, “she had pinned a note to her dress, a note addressed to me, but which all the citizens of the town read before I had a chance to. In this way, all were made to know the finest details of her ruination.” Here Lucy paused, as if the memory were too much a burden to recall.

Klara laid a tender hand on his forearm. “Is this why you've come here?” she asked. “To get away from the memory of it?”

“That's partly the reason, yes.”

“Only partly? I would think that would be reason enough, all on its own.”

“Yes, surely it would be. But then the matter was compounded by another unpleasant element, this in the shape of a local man, named Tor. He had always been after Marina, but he was such a stupid and ugly and sickening individual that she rebuffed him at every pass. This ate at Tor like a rot; then, once she had hung herself, for another man no less, Tor swore an oath to all who would listen that he would avenge her honor.”

“By coming after you, do you mean?”

“Just that.”

“And did he do this?”

“Yes, he was a man of his word, I won't deny it. In fact, hardly any time passed at all before he broke into my house and came upon me like a storm while I slept.”

“While you slept!”

“Yes, yes.”

“A madman,” Klara said, shaking her head in wonder.

“Not mad,” said Lucy. “Just simple. A barn animal, really. I might put his mental age at that of a five-year-old, and not a particularly bright five-year-old, either.”

“But whatever did you do?”

“I defended myself, naturally, and forced Tor from my home. Not without a knock or two to remember me by, I might add.”

“You? Oh, but you are so slight.”

“I am agile, is what.”

“Is that so?”

“Very agile and quick and fit.”

“I wouldn't have guessed it.”

“I could cross a room in the time it takes you to blink your eyes.”

“Well.”

“Yes. So it was that I sent him packing that first night, thinking
that would be the end of it. But he was relentless, and it seemed that each time I left my home, then Tor would come barreling around a corner and make for me.”

“Who in the world could live under such circumstances?” asked Klara.

“Not I.”

“No one could.” Klara became thoughtful, and again she regarded Lucy from a sidelong angle. “Perhaps it is that this misfortune will lead you to something better,” she said.

“Perhaps you're right,” said Lucy. “As a matter of fact, I'm sure you are.”

This made Klara happy, and she hooked her arm in Lucy's. “But, what shall we name the puppy?” she asked.

“I don't know.” Lucy was staring at her snaking hand.

Wistfully, she said, “I like the name, Rose.”

“Rose?” said Lucy.

“Rose,” she repeated.

Her hand came to rest atop Lucy's, and he said, “We'll call her Rose, then.”

And they did do this.