Jane laughed.
“Are you decided if you’ll go with us, Clement?” Letty asked.
“Letty!” Clement yelped, wringing his hands with uncertainty and embarrassment. “To be sure. I feel responsible for seeing to it that all of us arrive in Herefordshire in one piece.”
“If you are resolved to such, Clement,” Jane said, with an encouraging smile, “then I have every faith that our exile shall proceed as comfortably as may be humanly possible.”
Chapter 3
“And then the dog performed some sort of clever trick,” Hildebert explained. “Which is why, you see, it is such a witty anecdote, particularly when combined with the jest at the end. Was it that it jumped through a hoop? Oh! Yes, a hoop, to be sure! And then the jest goes that… that… oh, what the devil was it?”
It was, despite the close quarters, the pleasantest carriage ride that Clement had ever undertaken. He had tried to propose that they might have two carriages, one wherein Mr. and Mrs. Devereux could ride in comfort and one for their servants, but Jane and Letty would not be separated, and all three insisted that they would not do without Clement, not even for the distance of a single carriage.
Jane and Letty led most of the conversation, entertaining their counterparts with jokes and stories to help pass the time. When the women grew tired, Hildebert would regale the group with amusing anecdotes from his excursions to the theatre or the private clubs, but he was eternally misremembering the endings to the jokes. As he stumbled through relating the Story of the Clever Dog, which might, he thought, have been a pig—or was it an ermine?—Jane dissolved into delighted giggles, while Letty chewed at her lip and coughed intermittently, making a valiant effort not to join her mistress in unrestrained mirth, and Clement made an effort to provide plausible suggestions to help Hildebert’s memory along, which often only served to confuse the matter farther.
The carriage moved slowly, piled as it was with the large trunks containing Hildebert and Jane’s absolute essentials and the much smaller trunks for Clement and Letty. In addition to that, there was a coachman up front and a footman behind, and the entire morass towered on top of the carriage to such a precarious degree that Clement wondered how the slim spokes of the wheels could hold it all up.
When they stopped for the evening in whatever reasonably civilised inn could be found along the way, or hotels when they were fortunate to stop in a small city of adequate size. The wedded couple shared a room, and Letty and Clement were both delighted to be afforded a room of their own. The inn rooms were, on average, larger than the tiny cupboard room he had occupied in Lord Devereux’s London home, and Clement was delighted by the privacy and luxury. Twice, when they stopped at particularly busy inns, Clement was obliged to share a chamber with another gentleman traveling alone. One of them stank and the other snored, and Clement slept little on either occasion. He passed the time instead upon fanciful notions of the inevitable luxury of his bedchamber in the countryside. Surely, with fewer staff and more space, he would not be consigned to a mere cupboard. As the head—and only—valet to the master of the house, he would answer only to the butler and the housekeeper, in addition to the lord and lady of the house.
It took them a span of nearly two weeks to cross from London to Herefordshire, by which time even Letty’s tireless nature and unflagging spirits had begun to sour. Conversation had droned out, everyone had grown weary of reading, and Clement thought that his head would never cease rattling from the constant jostling of the carriage along the muddy roads.
“What shall I do,” Hildebert bemoaned, “in Herefordshire?”
Clement lifted his head, uncertain as to whether Mr. Devereux had intended to direct this comment unto the counsel of his wife, his valet, or the general sympathy of the air inside the carriage.
Jane glanced toward Clement, eyes slightly wide, to indicate that she was at a loss.
“You, ah,” said Clement, clearing his throat as he sought for words or adequate employment for a semi-exiled nobleman no longer in his youth.
“There will be no theatre!” Hildebert continued, clutching his handkerchief in his hand as he despaired over the utter debasement of a life without London theatre. “No card-parties!”
“Here, now,” said Jane, “certainly we can host card-parties of our own with the local residents.”
“No exhibitions!” Hildebert hiccoughed with such tragic vehemence that everyone in the carriage startled. “No galleries!”
“Perhaps,” Clement said, seeking to curtail this distraught outpouring before it gained any further momentum, “you might take up a hobby.”
The attention of the carriage swivelled toward Clement.
He squirmed. “A, ah, perhaps a course of study on some topic of science or learning?” he proposed. “Hunting, to be sure. You might try your hand at distilling fine brandy or whisky, if the estate has some orchards or granaries.”
Hildebert considered this. His audience hung upon the silence in anticipation.
“No,” Hildebert decided at last. “That all sounds very dull.”
Clement tensed his jaw and flared his nostrils, taking great care not to allow his eyes their natural inclination to roll toward heaven. Hildebert would certainly need to set upon some occupation once they reached their new residence, even if that occupation was nothing more than laying about and bemoaning his fate for hours at a stretch.
On the last day of their journey, as they left their very pleasant little hotel in Hereford and piled once again into their crowded and increasingly-despised carriage, Letty and Jane’s spirits returned to heights even greater than they had been on the first day of travel. The English weather was inclined to indulge them, and the lace curtains upon the windows stayed open for the entire day as Jane and Letty gazed out upon their new neighbourhood.
The women found that the sights and sheep of Herefordshire were far more enthralling than the equivalent sights of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, or Worcestershire, and Clement and Hildebert were obliged every few minutes to cast their eyes upon some country cottage or rural vista. Hildebert, who would not be cheered even by the sight of black-faced sheep with curling horns, declared it all muddy and drab, while Clement made appreciative noises to avow that yes, he did see how very different and far more charming this was than the cottages and vistas of their last ten days of travel.
He did mount some resistance when Letty sighted the ruins of an ancient castle, and it was proposed that they stop the carriage, hike up the hill to the castle, and there enjoy a picnic repast, but Jane took up Letty’s suggestion at once, and had all power in the world to sway Hildebert, so Clement’s objections about muddied boots and clothes were quickly overruled. They remained overruled even when, halfway up the moderate English hill, Hildebert began decrying the cruelties of “muddy Welsh mountains.”
Their little household came to a halt at the top of the hill, sitting in a crescent upon the ruined stones of the castle and gazing out across the countryside of Herefordshire. They had left the coachman and footman to guard the carriage, an arrangement which needed no discussion, since both Hildebert and Jane assumed that their body servants would accompany them and the under-servants would not.
Clement allowed himself some introspection upon this arrangement, concerned that in the isolation of the countryside his eccentric employers might be inclined to relax the natural distance between master and servant and establish some degree of friendship. This possibility posed considerable threat to the Devereux’s respectability, and Clement resolved himself to take care that they received adequate socialisation from members of their own social class.
“I suppose we must return to the carriage,” Jane said at last, and sighed. Her pale face was upturned toward the warm sun, risking freckles or tanning. Letty offered no gentle reprimands to remind her mistress of these risks. “For we cannot live here, though it would at least preserve us from further jostling. I dread that my nerves have been reduced to porridge by the state of th
ese country roads.”
“Take heart, ma’am,” Letty said, helping her to her feet with a sweet smile. “We are within reach of our journey’s end. And then, I do hope, there will be hot baths and rich puddings for all of us.”
“A bath and a pudding might indeed be worth the tribulations of the carriage,” Hildebert agreed.
Clement gathered up their picnicking basket as the other three began making their way down the hillside. He could hear them discussing the varieties of puddings which they individually preferred, and caught up with the group just in time to prevent Letty from engaging in a bet with Hildebert as to the puddings which were most likely to be served that evening at supper.
It was nearing evening when the carriage at last arrived at their new house. Letty, Jane and Hildebert all glued themselves to the windows for the best view of the estate, while Clement remained in his seat and tried to catch a glimpse of it without employing any tactic more desperate than a decorous lean to one side.
Gennerly House was not large, as country estates went. It was a respectable Restoration-era mansion with two storeys and a row of garret windows along the attic level. Neatly trimmed hedges lined either side of the house and provided a corridor along the broad stone path that led from the drive. Impeccable grounds unfolded on either side, leading to gardens and fountains visible amidst a labyrinth of tidy stone paths.
As they advanced up the approach to the estate, they found that the household had emerged in its tiny entirety to greet the new master. Mr. Midgley stood at the head of a gathering of respectably-dressed servants, alongside a tall woman with gray hair piled upon her head in a bun. Four male servants stood in a line to one side, ranging in age from a lad barely out of schoolboy years to an elderly man with white hair leaning heavily upon a cane. Opposite from them were six female servants of more moderate ages dressed in navy blue with crisp white aprons.
Clement followed the rest of the party in a daze, taking careful note of the names of the staff but not comprehending more than that.
He saw to Hildebert’s needs first, ensuring that the household was engaged in the provision of hot water for the baths of the master and mistress of the house, and then laying out a suit for dinner alongside Hildebert’s dressing gown. Though he felt unsteady on his feet from the exhaustion of the long journey, it would not do for Hildebert’s trunks to go unpacked, and there was simply no one else who could be trusted with the task.
At last, once Hildebert’s possessions had all been established in new places within his suite and Hildebert himself was contentedly ensconced with supper and tea by the fireside, Clement went to see to his own toilette.
His chambers were in the servants’ wing, down a hall from a comfortable servants’ parlour. The youngest footman led him to his room, and then scuttled off swiftly to obey Clement’s request for a basin of hot water.
His accommodations, selected by either Mr. Midgley or the existing housekeeper, Mrs. Ledford, were fully adequate. Pretty chintz drapes framed a window that looked out across the long, green lawns to the north of the estate, toward the stables and a duck pond. The feather bed was piled with a cozy profusion of quilts, and the vanity table was of respectable construction with decorative carven ivy leaves along the legs. A small desk sat by the window, already stocked with paper and ink.
It was tiny in comparison to the grand suite of the master of the house, but it was the finest room Clement had ever enjoyed. He beamed with pride as he inspected his accommodations, and then set about unpacking his trunk.
Clement’s morning began with the sort of flawless efficiency that made him feel as though he had simply been set into place in a well-oiled mechanism. He had included instructions with Mr. Midgley that Hildebert’s breakfast should be ready at 8:15, and that he preferred a poached egg, kippers, and toast. Clement entered the kitchen at 8:06, according to his beloved pocket watch, and found one of the maids arranging milk and sugar on a tray while their master’s breakfast sizzled on the stove.
Hildebert was in a lazy humour, complaining about the dreary weather evident outside the window, and would not rise. Laying out his China blue morning suit nonetheless, Clement served him breakfast in bed and plied him with a book to improve his humour, trusting that Hildebert would ring for him whenever he did wish to rise.
As Clement descended the broad main staircase, listening to the heavy and methodical thunk of the grandfather clock in the front hall, he had a moment of appreciation for the competence and authority of either Mr. Midgley or Mrs. Ledford and the efficient function of their new residence.
This reflection was shattered by a loud crash from the rear of the house, followed by giddy laughter.
A respectable valet of honourable position did not run, but Clement did walk with brisk urgency toward the rear of the house.
The laughter and sharp, squeaking yips were easy to follow to the sunroom, which opened out onto sloping lawns, the duck pond, and the conservatory. Clement found that the source of the trouble was Letty with a basket of puppies.
Or, rather, half a basket of puppies, as she laughingly tried to retrieve the more enterprising of the puppies who had escaped. One of them was engaged in trying to climb her skirts, and Clement guessed that she had set the basket down for a moment to dislodge him safely from her skirts, which had caused an immediate exodus from the basket for all but three laziest puppies still napping at the bottom.
“Lord have mercy,” Clement groaned, taking in the scene. The breakfast table had been overturned. One of the tiny, furred culprits had seized upon a long lace curtain with his teeth and was now playing a determined one-sided game of tug of war.
The stout-legged, bat-eared mother of these puppies had trailed in after Letty, and was regarding the entire proceedings with the most distinct look of apologetic worry that Clement had ever seen upon the face of a dog.
“Clement, look! Puppies!” Letty exclaimed, laughing and returning the skirt-climbing puppy to its basket before trying to retrieve another of the puppies. The climber was not to be discouraged by this setback, and struck out at once for the nearest piece of furniture while Letty was otherwise engaged. Its mother retrieved it and set it back in the basket, giving it a scolding nudge to try and keep it there.
“I assure you, I could not have failed to notice,” Clement said, trying to suppress his own laughter as he picked up a puppy in either hand and deposited them back in the basket. “Letty, what the devil…”
“What is going on here?” Mr. Midgley cried, stumbling into the room in haste.
Letty, Clement, and the mother dog all paused in their puppy-retrieval efforts and stared at Mr. Midgley. The puppies that Clement had just returned to the basket squirmed free of the wicker constraints and resumed their search for trouble.
“We,” said Clement, as he searched his wits for an appropriate excuse for the situation. He was unaccustomed to deferring to Mr. Midgley in any matters whatsoever, and particularly unaccustomed to considering Mr. Midgley a subject of respect or authority, and found himself uncertain as to how to respond.
Letty, for better or worse, simply announced: “Puppies!”
“How did they get in the house?” Mr. Midgley asked, going over to rescue the curtains from the attentions of the puppy, whose appreciation for fine lacework pertained mostly to its enthusiastic destruction. In the process of seizing upon the puppy to tug it away from the curtain, he provided the puppy with the leverage which it had previously lacked, and the delicate curtain tore with a dramatic ripping noise.
“Who,” asked Mrs. Ledford, voice thundering with all the intimidating authority that Mr. Midgley lacked, “is responsible for this?”
Clement winced like a child caught stealing mincemeat pies from the pantry. The mother of the puppies hid herself behind Letty’s skirts.
Letty likewise froze, but she swiftly drew herself up to face the housekeeper with her full complement of stubborn determination. “I am.”
Mrs. Ledford’s rage rippled and ros
e like a tide. Clement fought down the urge to flee.
“Dogs,” Mrs. Ledford said, “are not allowed in the house.”
Clement felt sure that he would expire on the spot under the force of Mrs. Ledford’s disapproval, and he wasn’t even the direct target of it. Letty, who was, had been graced with such a generous quantity of irreverent courage that she didn’t falter.
“Mrs. Devereux,” said Letty, “is exceedingly fond of puppies and I am taking these to her.”
“Absolutely out of the question.”
The housekeeper’s fury could have frozen a duck pond. Letty glared at her. “Am I to tell the mistress of the house that you defied her will? My mistress will have these puppies, and I hope you might be reminded that she decides what is and isn’t acceptable in this house, not you.”
Clement had never in his life heard such open disrespect directed at a superior, and braced himself to witness Letty’s immediate dismissal from her position.
Instead, Mrs. Ledford collected her temper and smoothed down her skirts, realising at once what took Clement several moments longer to understand. Letty was the obvious favourite, and had been with Jane for years, while Mrs. Ledford possessed only a one-day acquaintance with their mistress. If either of them reported disapproval upon the other, it would be Mrs. Ledford who would pack her bags.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Ledford, voice only one degree above glacial. “It will be as Mrs. Devereux wishes. I trust you’ll take full responsibility for the dogs and any damage they might cause?”
“Of course,” Letty said, continuing to glare at her superior.
Without another word, Mrs. Ledford turned and strode from the room.
Mr. Midgley, Clement, and Letty all stood in stunned silence in her wake, which was broken only when one of the puppies yipped, then urinated upon the floor.
“Letty,” Clement hissed, quickly resuming the business of retrieving puppies.
“Don’t you dare scold, Clement. You know perfectly well that Jane…” Letty glanced toward Mr. Midgley and corrected herself. “Mrs. Devereux loves puppies, and the Viscount Devereux always let his dogs have the run of the place. Of course there’s no way Mrs. Ledford might have known that…”
The Valet and the Stable Groom Page 3