Undermajordomo Minor (8 page)

I
n the morning there stood at the foot of Lucy's bed a small round human woman wearing an exceedingly white smock and a look of displeasure. She had short gray hair and her face was also gray. Actually her hair and face were similar in color to the point of being confusing, even jarring to Lucy. Her hands, resting atop her stomach, were so deeply red as to appear scalded. This was Agnes, the cook.

“Were you not told to lock the door?” she said.

“Hello. Yes. Good morning, ma'am. I was.” Lucy's head was throbbing, and his throat was so dry that it was difficult to speak. His boots were peering out from beneath the blankets and Agnes, pointing, asked,

“Is this the custom, where you come from?”

“I fell asleep,” Lucy explained, sitting up.

“That's to be expected, when one is in bed. But why did you not take the boots off before sleep came, is my question.” Agnes drew back the blanket; the sheets were stained with earth and snow. When the puppy clambered out, Agnes gasped. “Goodness! I thought it was a rat.”

“It's not a rat, ma'am.”

“That's clear
now
.” She reached down and scratched the puppy's chin. “Does Mr. Olderglough know you keep an animal?”

“No.”

“And how long were you planning on hiding it from him?”

“It's nothing I've been hiding, ma'am. That is, it's only just come to pass.”

“It's something he will want to hear about.”

“I will be sure to tell him.”

“Very good. And when will you be rising, I wonder? Mr. Olderglough has had to fetch his own breakfast, and yours is getting colder all the while.”

“I'm sorry about that, ma'am; it won't happen again. I'm getting up now.”

Agnes nodded, and crossed the room to go. Pausing at the door, she said, “You will remember to lock up?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“It's not something to be forgotten.” She looked over her shoulder at Lucy. “Or possibly you don't understand how important this is.”

Lucy swung his boots from the bed, and to the floor. “I suppose I do.” He scooped the puppy up and deposited her in his pocket. “Actually, I don't,” he said. “Why exactly must I lock my door, please?”

“We all must lock our doors.”

“But what is the reason?”

She measured her words. “It's not for nothing, and that's all you need to know.”

Agnes took her leave, and Lucy sat awhile, pondering. “I should like to know quite a lot more than that,” he said at last. Later, he would wish to know less.

He moved to the window, telescope in hand.

M
r. Olderglough was sitting in the servants' dining quarters, a cramped and cheerless room annexed to the scullery. His hand was free from its sling, apparently on the mend, and he was poring over a large leather ledger, to the side of which sat his breakfast, consisting of a bowl of porridge, a thin slice of dry bread, and a cup of tea. An identical setting had been laid out for Lucy; he sat, sampled the porridge, and was not in any way impressed by its flavor, texture, or temperature. His tea was likewise cold, in addition to being bitter, but it washed away the taste of wood shavings the porridge imparted, and so he drank it down in a gulp.

“Good morning, sir,” he said, gasping.

Mr. Olderglough nodded but did not respond verbally, distracted now by the sawing of his bread, three cuts lengthwise and three on the height, making for nine squares in total. Once this was accomplished, he stuck out his tongue and laid a square on the fleshy pink appendage. Withdrawing his tongue, he chewed, proffering a look which dared Lucy to comment. Lucy did not comment. He said,

“I find myself wondering, sir, if I might keep an animal.”

Mr. Olderglough swallowed. He was moderately alarmed. “An animal?” he said.

“A dog, sir, yes. A puppy.”

“Where in the world did you get a puppy?”

“From Memel, sir. His dog gave birth to a litter.”

“I see. Sloughed the burden off on you, then, did he?”

“I wouldn't say sloughed.”

“Every man for himself?”

“Not exactly, sir. In point of fact I'm happy to have the puppy. If you'll allow me to keep it, that is.”

A look of confusion had affixed itself to Mr. Olderglough. “When did all this
happen,
may I ask?”

“Only recently, sir.”

“Clearly.” Staring into space, now, Mr. Olderglough said, “Do you ever get the feeling the world is passing you by?”

“I don't know about that, sir.”

“An occasional rapidity of time? Things occurring in an instant?”

“I'm not sure, sir.”

“A speediness of events? And then, once the speedy event has happened, it cannot unhappen?”

“I suppose that's true, sir.”

“Yes. Well, at any rate, if you desire a companion, then who am I to stand in the way of your happiness?”

“So I may keep the puppy, sir?”

“And why not? It's none of my affair what you get up to of a Sunday. I'm a proponent of individual freedom.”

“Yes, sir.”

“One should search out his heart's desire, wouldn't you agree with me?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“We've only got one go-round, eh, Lucy?”

“One go, sir.”

“Once around the park?”

“That's right.”

“Let's make it count, why don't we?”

“Let's do that, sir.”

Mr. Olderglough pointed. “Why aren't you eating your porridge?”

“Because of the taste of it, sir.”

Mr. Olderglough looked about the room, then leaned in and whispered, “Dump it in the fireplace, why don't you. And mine as well. Agnes stomps and clomps if the plates aren't licked clean.”

Lucy did as he was told, then returned to his chair.

“Is it a he or a she?” Mr. Olderglough asked.

“A she, sir. I hope that's all right.”

“I have no preference. I'm just making conversation at this point. Would you like another cup of tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“I believe I'll go again.” Mr. Olderglough poured himself a second cup and took a dainty sip. He said, “Did you know that I myself keep a bird?” This last was spoken as though he'd forgotten it to be so, and only just remembered, and was surprised by the fact of it.

“I didn't know, sir, no,” said Lucy.

“A mynah bird,” said Mr. Olderglough, “named Peter. I had thought he might brighten my room with his chirping song. Alas, not a peep.”

“I'd thought the mynah was the chatty one.”

“That's what I'd been led to believe as well. Consider my displeasure, then.”

“Yes.”

“Study on it.”

“I surely will. I wonder if there's something the matter with him.”

“Or else the showman's desire is absent. Anyway, Peter is mute as a stone.” Mr. Olderglough sighed. “I could do with a bit of music, to tell you the truth, Lucy. I could do with a bit of cheer.” He propped his head against the back of the chair. “I've always liked the name: Peter. That's what I'd have named my son, if I'd had one. Well, it wasn't for the lack of trying. If I had a penny for every barn dance I attended in my youth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Some of us are fated to roam the earth alone, it would seem.”

“Sadly true, sir.”

Mr. Olderglough pushed his plate away. “Would you like to meet him? Peter?”

Lucy did not particularly care to, but it seemed to be expected of him, and so he said that he would. Mr. Olderglough clapped and stood and began expediently buttoning his coat.

P
eter was a deeply antisocial bird. A passerine of middling size with drab brown plumage and a sharp orange-yellow beak, he squatted sullenly on his perch, looking not at but through his visitors. Actually, Lucy thought his expression, if a bird can have an expression, denoted legitimate hatred.

“This is Peter,” Mr. Olderglough said.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Say hello, Peter.”

Peter did not say hello, but burrowed his face in his breast and pulled up a leg, standing motionless, and it seemed he would be thus forever.

“Closed up shop,” said Mr. Olderglough. “You see how it is, then?”

“Yes, sir, I think I do. And you say he's never made any sound whatsoever?”

“None.”

“Something which will make him sing, sir.”

“Nothing will.”

Mr. Olderglough moved to rest upon a faded fainting couch in the corner of his parlor. Muttering to himself, the man was lost for a time to his reveries, and Lucy took advantage of this to survey his superior's quarters: at once tasteful and dire, formerly grand, utterly dated, and coated uniformly in dust. It was a room in which
time hung more heavily than was the norm, and Lucy had the feeling he was the first to pay a social call in a long while.

A wall clock chimed, and Mr. Olderglough said, “You'll be wanting to meet the train, now, Lucy. In the entryway you'll find the Baron's letter on the side table, as well as a list of what's needed from the village.”

“And with what shall I pay for the goods?”

Mr. Olderglough stood, patting his pockets but turning up nothing. “Do me a favor, boy, and pay for them yourself. I'll get it back to you soon enough.”

“I'm afraid I can't do that, sir.”

A twinge of panic struck Mr. Olderglough. “Haven't you any money handy at all?”

“None.” Lucy paused. “Perhaps, sir, if you were to give me an advance on my wage?”

“Hmm,” said Mr. Olderglough. “No, I don't believe I'll do that.”

“I was wondering when I might be paid,” Lucy admitted.

“You will be paid on payday, naturally. For now, you will wait in the entryway, please.”

As Lucy traveled from Mr. Olderglough's room to the castle's entrance, he was struck by the fact of his enjoying the position, enjoying being told what to do, the marvelous simplicity of it. He had always sensed in his mother and father a desire for him to do something, to do anything, but they were remiss in sharing particular instructions and so, being unambitious himself, he accomplished nothing, and only continued to disappoint them. But now, all at once, he was useful, was being used, and this filled him with a sense of dignity. Arriving at the entryway, he stood by the side table awaiting Mr. Olderglough and basking in this feeling. Alas, as the minutes passed by, Lucy's buoyant attitude turned to restlessness, which then evolved to candid boredom. He scanned the shopping list but this offered nothing in the way of entertainment, and so he found himself wishing to steal a glance at the mysterious Baron's letter. He knew he must not do this, that it was in direct opposition
to what Mr. Olderglough had told him, but the desire grew and grew further, and soon he gave in to it. Edging a fingernail under the wax seal, he opened the envelope and unfolded the paper.

My Darling,

What news have you? Will you tell me you no longer love me? Whether or not I would prefer this to the damning silence, I won't say. The truth is that I am no longer steering this devastated ship. I took my hand off the wheel long ago, and have no concerns or thoughts for a destination. May we be dashed over merciful rocks!

Why do the happy times dim in my memory, while the evil ones grow ever more vivid? And furthermore: why do I bother asking you anything anymore? A marvel: how can the days be so full of someone wholly absent? The scope of your void humbles me. It is vast to the point that part of me hopes you have died. This at least would explain your nonappearance, and so would afford me some slight comfort. Also it would make it simpler for me to die. And yet I love you still and more, with every day that floats past.

I am yours alone,

Baron Von Aux

Lucy read this in a rush, and then again, more slowly. It seemed there was a dim rumble or vibration emanating from the words, and it caused him to bend his ear nearer the page so as to drink it in. He recognized something of himself in the letter; but also he found himself feeling envious of the Baron's heartsickness, which was surely superior to any he had experienced. This jealousy struck him as childish, and yet he wasn't in any way ashamed of it. He returned the letter to the envelope and had just set it back on the side table when Mr. Olderglough arrived. “You'll have to make this stretch, boy,” he said, pressing some coins into Lucy's hand. Calculating their worth, Lucy thought it impossible, and said as much to
Mr. Olderglough, who in turn espoused the merits of a credit-based society. It was at this point that Agnes came around the corner. Her red fists stabbed and jabbed at the air as she walked, punctuating her evident rage.

“Which of you dumped his porridge in the fireplace!”

“It was Lucy,” said Mr. Olderglough, quickly quitting the room. Agnes did not notice his leaving; she moved toward Lucy as if on oiled wheels.

L
ucy received his reprimand with what he hoped was something approaching grace. He wiped away the traces of spittle adorning his face and stepped outside, lamenting having lost his cap, as the cold set upon him at once, clinging to his neck, ears, and scalp. He turned up his collar and pushed on; he could hear the train but could not yet see it. Walking toward the tracks, he peered sideward at the village. There was a trickle of smoke seeping from Memel and Klara's chimney, and Lucy wondered if it was she who had made the fire. He decided she had; and he thought of her crouched before the stove, the flame drawing across the wood. He imagined the smoke spinning in cresting coils before the draft from the flue pulled it taut, encouraging it upward, and to the open spaces. Lucy felt an aching in his chest. He wanted to know just what Klara's days looked like.

Arriving at the station, he found Memel and Mewe on the platform, standing toe to toe, engaged in another argument. Memel held a dead hare in his hand, which Mewe lunged for once, twice, three times. Memel yanked it just out of reach; Mewe was fuming. “Hand it over,” he said.

“I will not,” Memel answered.

“But you know that it was in my snare.”

“If it was in your snare you'd be holding the hare, for I would never claim an animal that was not my own.”

“But that's precisely what you are doing!” Mewe lunged again,
and again Memel held the hare at arm's length. “The most disturbing part of all this,” Mewe said, “is that you're actually starting to believe your own lies.”

“God Himself only knows what the most disturbing part of it is.”

Mewe wagged a finger. “You always bring God into arguments you know you're losing, for the liar is lonely, and welcomes all manner of company. Now, I'll ask you one last time: will you hand over the hare or won't you?”

“You know that I won't.”

“Very well.” Mewe brought his boot heel down on Memel's toe. The old man bellowed, and the hare was flung into the air, with Mewe dashing after. At the same moment he caught the somersaulting thing, Memel tackled him, and now the pair wrestled about in the snow, pulling at the hare and gritting their teeth and damning each other in the most base and common manner. Lucy found this spectacle more than a little intriguing and was curious to see who would emerge hare in hand; but now the train was approaching the station, and so he was forced to turn away.

Stepping to the edge of the platform, he held the letter high in the air. As the train bore down upon him he studied the darkened cockpit for a sign of the engineer; seeing no movement there he grew fearful something had gone amiss, when at the last moment there emerged a meaty hand, fingers splayed, poised to pounce. Lucy held his breath, and as the train hurtled past he was engulfed in a frigid wind, this of such force that he couldn't tell if the letter had remained in his grip or not. Peering up, he saw that it hadn't; he spun about to witness the blue envelope flapping in the engineer's fist. Now the fist was withdrawn. The letter had been posted.

Lucy felt a sense of dizzy satisfaction, an amusement at the strangeness of the event. Being lost to the novelty of this occurrence, he stepped too near the train, so that he felt his body shudder, as though he would be jerked from the platform and into the grinding metal wheels and shrill mechanisms. All at once he understood the train's unknowable weight and power, and he stepped
cautiously backward as it passed. He didn't like to think of anyone's death, least of all his own.

When he turned he saw that Memel and Mewe had ceased their fighting and were standing before him, panting and snow-coated, each of them clinging to opposite ends of the hare. They were smiling. Behind them, at the apex of the looming mountain, Lucy could make out the pops and puffs of the area war, the soldiers scrabbling about, insects swarming cream.

To Memel, he said, “You have taken my pipe again.”

“Yes, that's true,” said Memel. “Did you want it back?”

Lucy said that he did, and so the pipe was returned to him. He found the mouthpiece was scored with teeth marks, and that the basin smelled of Memel's rank, inferior tobacco. In a stern tone, he said, “I want you to stop taking it from me, do you understand?”

Memel raised his eyebrows, his head bobbing side to side, as though the notion were a fascination to him.

“Will you stop it or won't you?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, all right.”

Lucy struck out for the village. That he had no use for company was clear, but Memel and Mewe were blind to this, and they hurried after, that they might walk alongside him. “We're happy to see you, do you know?” said Memel. “You left in such a rush last night, we weren't sure what to think.”

“Just that it was time for me to go, I suppose.”

“Clearly it was that. But will you come by this evening, I wonder? I've bagged a fine hare this morning, and Klara will prepare us a stew.”

“Actually,” said Mewe, “it was I who bagged the hare.”

“A hare was bagged, is all he needs to know.”

“I should think he would want to know the truth.”

“Yes, and how will he hit upon it with you spouting untruths?”

Lucy interrupted them. “I don't think I will visit you tonight,” he said.

Memel and Mewe were taken aback by this. “And why not?” asked the former.

Recalling their leering, mocking faces in the candlelit shanty, Lucy told them, “I would rather not come, is all.”

Now the pair shared a solemn look, and Memel said, “Do you know something, Mewe? I don't believe Lucy likes us.”

“I think you may be right,” said Mewe.

Memel meditated on it. “But
why
doesn't he?”

“I don't know why.”

“Well,” said Memel. “It doesn't feel very good, does it? Being disliked?”

“No, it certainly doesn't.”

Memel meditated further. “Do you think that perhaps he likes us a little bit, though?”

“Perhaps. But not enough to dine with us, it would seem.”

“It's a pale flame, is that what you're saying?”

“He likes us, but barely,” Mewe said, nodding.

“A pale flame indeed. Well, what can we do about it, eh?”

“Yes.”

“If he thinks we'll beg after his friendship, he might think again.”

“Yes.”

“And, who's to say? Perhaps he'll acquire a taste for our company in time.”

“That's quite possible.”

“I suppose there's nothing but to wait and see, then.”

“That's all, yes.”

“Wait and see and hope for the best.”

“That's all.”

Chatting in this breezy manner, Memel and Mewe stepped away from Lucy. Memel was twirling the hare in a carefree fashion; he tossed it to Mewe, who caught it, and tossed it back. Lucy had fallen back to watch them go but now resumed walking, following them at a distance. He had his shopping to do.