“Quite a party,” Christopher remarked as we went past the main grand stairway. We craned, and saw it led down into a huge hall with a streaky black marble floor.
Hugo pointed a thumb down the stairway. “The rooms down there are used by the Family most of the time – drawing rooms, dining rooms, library and so on – but Staff are not allowed to use these stairs. Don’t forget.”
“Makes me want to slide down those banisters at once,” Christopher murmured, as Hugo took us to a much narrower flight of stairs instead, which came out into the hall behind the Family lift. He pointed to the various big black doors and told us which was which, but he said we couldn’t look inside the rooms because Family might be using any one of them. We nodded, and our feet skidded in our new shoes on the black, streaky floor.
Then we thudded through a door covered with green cloth and everywhere was suddenly grey stone and plain wood. Hugo pointed, “My father’s pantry, Family china scullery, silver room, flower room, Staff toilets. We go down here to the undercroft.”
He went galloping down a flight of steep stone steps. As we clattered down after him, I suddenly felt as if I was back at school. It had that smell, rather too warm and mixed with chalk and cooking, and like school there was that feeling of lots of people about, many voices in the distance and large numbers of feet shuffling and hurrying. A girl laughed, making echoes, and – again like school – a bell rang somewhere.
The bell was ringing in the large stone lobby at the bottom of the stairs. There was a huge board there with row upon row of little round lights on it. One was flashing red more or less in the middle of it. A lady in a neat brown and yellow striped dress and a yellow cap on her grey hair was looking up at the light rather anxiously.
“Oh, Hugo,” she said gladly as we clattered off the stairs. “It’s Count Robert.”
Hugo strode across to the board. “Right,” he said, and unhooked a sort of phone from the side, which seemed to stop the light flashing at once. I looked up at it as it went off. White letters under the light said CR Bdm. All the lights had similar incomprehensible labels. Stl Rm, I read. Bkfst Rm, Dng Rm, Hskpr, C Bthrm, Stbls. The only clear one was in the middle at the bottom. It said Mr Amos.
Meanwhile, a voice was distantly snapping out of the phone-thing. It sounded nervous and commanding. “Coming right away, my lord,” Hugo said to it. He hung the phone up and turned to us. “I’ve got to go. I’ll have to leave you here with Miss Semple. She’s our Under-Housekeeper. Do you mind showing these Improvers round the undercroft?” he asked the lady.
“Not at all,” she said. “You’d better go. He’s been ringing for three minutes now.” Hugo grinned at all of us and went racing up the stone steps again. We were left with Miss Semple, who smiled a mild, cheerful smile at us. “And your names are?”
“Conrad T—Grant,” I said. I only remembered my alias just in time.
Christopher was just the same. He said, “Christopher – er – er – Smith,” and backed away from her a little.
“Conrad and Christopher,” she said. “Two Cs.” Then she made us both start backwards by pouncing on us and straightening our neckcloths. “That’s better!” she said. “I’ve just been putting your duty rosters up on our bulletin board. Come and look.”
It was really more like school than ever. There was a long, long board, taking up all the wall beside the stairs. This was divided into sections by thick black lines, with black headings over each section: Housemaids, Footmen, Parlour Staff, Stillroom, Laundry, Kitchen, we read and, right at the end beside the stairs, we found Improvers. There were lists and timetables pinned under each heading, but it was like school again in the way there were other, less official notices scattered about the board. A big pink one said Housemaids’ Knees-up, 8.30 Thurs. All Welcome. Miss Semple tut-tutted and took that one down as we came to it. Another one read, in dark blue letters, Chef wants that hat returned NOW!! Miss Semple left that one up. She also left a yellow paper that said, Mrs Baldock still wants to know who scattered those pins in the Conservatory.
When we came to the Improvers column, we saw two large sheets of paper neatly ruled into seven and labelled with the days of the week. Times of the day, from six in the morning until midnight, were written on the left and lines ruled for each hour. Almost every one of the boxes made like this was filled with neat, grey, spidery writing. 6.00, I read on the left-hand sheet, Collect shoes to take to Blacking Rmfor cleaning. 7.00, Join Footmen in readying Breakfast Rm. 8.00, On duty in Breakfast Rm… My eyes scudded on, with increasing dismay, to things like 2.00, Training session in Laundry. 3.00, Training sessions in Stillroom and Kitchen annexe 3 with 2nd Underchef. It was almost a relief to find a square labelled simply Mr Amos from time to time. On down my eyes went, anxiously, to the last box, 11.00–12.00. That said On call in Upper Hall. Bad, I thought. I couldn’t see one spare minute in which I might manage to summon a Walker, once I knew who was causing my Fate. And there didn’t seem to be any boxes with meals marked in them either.
Christopher seemed to be trying to hide even worse dismay than I felt. “This is a disaster!” I heard him mutter as he scanned the closely filled right-hand sheet. He put a finger out to one of the only empty squares there was. “Er – someone seems to have forgotten to fill this square in.”
“No mistake,” Miss Semple said, in her high cheerful voice. She was one of those nice, kind people who have no sense of humour at all. “You both have two hours off on Wednesday afternoons and two more on a Thursday morning. That’s a legal requirement.”
“Glad to hear it!” Christopher said faintly.
“And another hour to yourselves on a Sunday, so that you can write home,” Miss Semple added. “Your full day off comes every six weeks and you can…” A bell began to ring on the board across the lobby. Miss Semple whirled round to look. “That’s Mr Amos!” She hurried over and unhooked the phone.
While she was busy saying, “Yes, Mr Amos…No, Mr Amos…” I said to Christopher, “Why did you say this was a disaster?”
“Well, er,” he said. “Grant, did you know we were going to be kept this busy when you applied for the job?”
“No,” I said dolefully.
Christopher was going to say more, but Miss Semple hooked the phone back and hastened across the lobby again, saying confusingly, “You can take two free days together every three months if you prefer but I shall have to show you the undercroft later. Hurry upstairs, boys. Mr Amos wants a word with you before Tea is Served.”
We ran up the stone stairs. As Christopher said late that night, if we had grasped one thing about Stallery by then, it was that you did what Mr Amos said, and you did it fast. “Before he’s said it, if possible,” Christopher added.
Mr Amos was waiting for us in the wood and stone passage upstairs. He was smoking a cigar. Billows of strong blue smoke surrounded us as he said, “Don’t pant. Staff should never look hurried unless Family particularly tells them to hurry. That’s your first lesson. Second—Straighten those neckcloths, both of you.” He waited, looking irritated, while we fumbled at the white cloths and tried not to pant and not to cough in the smoke. “Second lesson,” he said. “Remember at all times that what you really are is living pieces of furniture.” He pointed the cigar at us three times, in time to the words. “Living. Pieces. Of furniture. Got that?” We nodded. “No, no!” he said. “You say, ‘Yes, Mr Amos’!”
“Yes, Mr Amos,” we chorused.
“Better,” he said. “Say it smarter next time. And, like furniture, you stand against the walls and seem to be made of wood. When Family asks you for anything, you give it them or you do it, as gracefully and correctly as possible, but you do not speak unless Family makes a personal remark to you. What would you say if the Countess gives you a personal order?”
“Yes, your ladyship?” I suggested.
“No, no!” Mr Amos said, billowing smoke at me. “Third lesson. The Countess and Lady Felice are to be addressed as ‘my lady’ and Count Robert as �
�my lord’. Now bear these lessons firmly in mind. You are about to be shown to the Countess while we Serve Tea. You are there for this moment simply to observe and learn. Watch me, watch the footman on duty, and otherwise behave like two chairs against the wall.”
His stone-coloured eyes stared at us expectantly. After a moment we realised why and chorused again, “Yes, Mr Amos.”
“And chairs would be slightly more use,” he said. “Now, repeat back to me…”
Luckily, at that moment a bell shrilled downstairs in the lobby.
“Ah,” said Mr Amos. “The Countess has Rung for Tea.” He stubbed out his cigar on a piece of wall that was black and grey with having cigars stubbed on it and put the dead cigar into a pocket of his striped waistcoat. Then he stuck out both arms, rather like a penguin, to make his shirt cuffs show and shook his thick shoulders to settle his coat. “Follow me,” he said, and pushed through the green cloth door into the hall.
We followed his solemn, pear-shaped back out into the middle of the huge, black-floored hall. There his voice rang round the space. “Wait here.” So we waited while he went to one of the large doors on the other side of the hall and pushed the two halves of it gently open. “You rang, my lady?” his voice came to us, smooth and rich and full of respect.
Probably someone said something in the room beyond. Mr Amos bowed and backed away into the hall, gently closing the doors. For a moment after that, I could hardly see or hear anything, because I knew I was now actually going to see the person causing my bad karma. I was going to know who they were and I was going to have to summon a Walker. My heart banged and I could hardly breathe. My face must have looked odd, because I saw Christopher give me a surprised, searching look, but he had no time to say anything. At that moment, the footman called Andrew backed out through the distant green door, carefully towing a high tea-trolley.
Later that day, Christopher said this was when he began to feel he might be in church. Mr Amos gestured to us to fall in on either side of Andrew, while he walked in front of the trolley himself and threw the double door wide open so that we could all parade into the room beyond in a solemn procession, with the trolley rattling among us. But it didn’t go quite smoothly. Just as we got to the doorway, Andrew had to stop the trolley to let a young blonde lady go through first.
She was very good-looking. Christopher and I agreed on that. We both stared, although we noticed that Andrew very carefully didn’t look at her. But she did not seem to see me, or Christopher, or Andrew, though she nodded at Mr Amos and said, “Oh good. I’m in time for Tea.” She went on into the room, where she sat bouncily on one of the several silk sofas, opposite the lady who was already there. “Mother, guess what…”
“Hush, Felice dear,” the other lady said.
This was because the church service was still going on and the other lady – the Countess – did not want it interrupted. She was one of those who had to have everything exactly so and done in the right order.
If you looked at her quickly, this Countess, you thought she was the same age as the good-looking one, Lady Felice. She was just as blonde and just as slender, and her dark lilac dress made her face look pure and delicate, almost like a teenager’s. But when she moved, you saw she had studied for years and years how to move gracefully, and when she spoke, her face took on expressions that were terribly sweet, in a way that showed she had been studying expressions for years too. After that, you saw that the delicate look was careful, careful, expert make-up.
By this time, two small jerks of Mr Amos’s chin had sent me and Christopher to stand with our backs against the wall on either side of the doorway. Andrew stopped the trolley and shut the doors – practically soundlessly – and Mr Amos gently produced a set of little tables, which he placed beside the ladies. Then back and forth he and Andrew went, back and forth from trolley to tables, setting a thin, gold-rimmed plate and a fluted cup and saucer on three of the tables, then napkins and little forks and spoons. Then there was the teapot to place on its special mat on another table, a strainer in a bowl, a gold-edged jug of cream and a boat-shaped thing full of sugar cubes. All just so.
Then there was a pause. The ladies sat. The teapot sat too, steaming faintly.
Christopher, who was staring ahead looking so totally blank that he seemed to have no brain at all, said that at this point he was thinking the tea in the pot would soon be cold. Or stewed. So was I, a bit. But mostly I was feeling really let down. I stared and stared at the Countess, hoping I would suddenly know that she was the person causing my Fate. I even looked at Lady Felice and wondered, but I could tell she was just a normal, happy kind of person who was having to behave politely in front of the Countess. The Countess was a sort of hidden dragon. That was why I thought she might be the one. She was very like a teacher we had in my third year. Mrs Polak seemed very sweet but she could really give you grief, and I could see the Countess was the same. But I didn’t get any knowing off her at all.
It has to be Count Robert then, I thought.
“Amos,” the Countess said in a lovely melodious voice, “Amos, perhaps you could tell my son the Count that we are waiting to have tea.”
“Certainly, my lady.” Mr Amos nodded at Andrew and Andrew scudded out of the room.
We waited some more, at least five minutes to judge from the way my feet ached. Then Andrew slithered back between the doors and whispered to Mr Amos.
Mr Amos turned to the Countess. “I regret to tell you, my lady, that Count Robert left for Ludwich some twenty minutes ago.”
“Ludwich!” exclaimed the Countess. I wondered why she didn’t know. “What on earth does he need to go to Ludwich for? And did he give any indication of how long he proposed to be away?”
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 was 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 pageboys, 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, savoury-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 whirr. 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 on to the trolley in the proper, religious order. Mr Amos and Andrew bowed. Both glared sideways at us until we realised we had to bow too. Then we were allowed to push the trolley away into the hall.
The Chrestomanci Series Page 100