“I beg your pardon,” Clement said, stepping close and beginning to unbutton Hildebert’s coat for him.
“Have I told you about the de Rivaz engine, Clement?”
Taking the coat from Hildebert’s shoulders, Clement went to the wardrobe to put it away. “The de Rivaz engine?”
There was a note of interest, perhaps excitement, in Hildebert’s voice. “It is a French invention, you see.”
“Is it?” Clement replied, laying out Hildebert’s night clothes. He himself had relatively little interest in French inventions, but he was very glad for the possibility of Hildebert taking an interest in some new hobby.
“Well, it is of Valais, and I cannot keep track of where the borders are with French wars and politics.”
Clement also had little interest in international politics. He made a noncommittal sound.
“It is a mechanism,” Hildebert explained, as Clement went on undressing him and getting him ready for bed, “by which one might propel a carriage. An engine, you see, which is driven by very small explosions in the hydrogen fuel.”
Clement stopped. “Very small explosions?”
“Yes,” Hildebert said, cheerful. “Controlled explosions within an internal chamber…”
“Which is attached to a carriage?” Clement asked, horrified.
“Isn’t it ingenious?”
Clement was tempted to declare an ultimatum that under no circumstances would anyone in this household be strapping small explosions to any carriages, but he remembered just in time that he was a mere valet, and thus ought to limit himself to respectful dissuasions. “That sounds dangerously reckless. Do we really need to resort to propelling carriages with small explosions? You have a stable full of excellent horses.”
“Oh, horses,” Hildebert said, waving his hand dismissively. “Only very dull people care about horses.”
Clenching his jaw, Clement restrained himself from expressing the opinion that sensible people with healthy levels of self-preservation did not strap small explosions to carriages. He wasn’t at all sure that Hildebert had obtained the right idea of this peculiar French mechanism, and thought that his employer might have mentally embroidered upon a newspaper report which had foregone accuracy for sensationalism.
By the next morning, Clement had forgotten entirely about the exploding French engine, and thought nothing of it when Hildebert shut himself up in his study to work.
Making certain that Hildebert had adequate supplies of paper and ink for his correspondence and tea and bread to sustain himself, Clement retired to the upstairs parlour. Letty was there, engaged in reading a novel.
“Any good?” Clement asked.
“Oh, yes,” Letty said. “Jane just finished it. Already there’s been a kidnapping, a murder, and the heroine is in love with a smuggler. The whole thing is terribly bloody.”
Clement wrinkled his nose. “I wish you enjoyment of it.”
He took a seat on the overstuffed ottoman near her. “Letty.”
“Mm,” Letty said, then looked up and blinked. “Oh, Clement. What the devil is the matter? You look like a beaten puppy.”
“I’m not… I don’t. Nothing is the matter.”
Letty shut her book and set it in her lap.
Clement grimaced. “Letty, how does… how does one go about making conversation?”
The befuddled look Letty gave him made Clement deeply regret the question.
“I rather believe we’re at it right now,” Letty said.
“I don’t mean that.”
“One opens one’s mouth…”
“Letty.”
She folded her hands in her lap and waited.
“What ought one to do if there is a lull in conversation? Or if conversation has never properly started to begin with?”
“Discuss the weather.”
“No, I dare not. It is always dreary and everyone is perpetually blaming the weather on the Welsh, and you do know how I hate that.”
Letty’s lips pursed and pulled to one side.
“We are not in Wales and I rather like the Welsh,” Clement snapped.
Letty’s lips shifted to the other side, still pursed. She coughed.
“I am entirely sincere, Letty. What else do people converse about?”
Sighing, Letty set her book to the side and sat forward. “Show interest in people, Clement. Inquire about their families. Their pastimes. Their duties. Even the dullest and most dedicated persons have topics about which they are passionate. Like you and suit fabrics.”
Clement bristled. “All respectable valets should have a thorough understanding of fashionable fabrics and their proper care.”
“There, you see? If there was a lull in conversation and I didn’t wish to talk, I could simply get you started on the topic of suit fabrics.”
“It is an important topic,” Clement said. “You yourself ought to be constantly expanding your knowledge of fabrics for gowns and—”
“So it is simply a matter of finding out,” Letty said, speaking over him, “for any particular person, what topics they are most passionate about.”
Clement thought that over. He had already determined that Hugo was passionate about the care of dogs and horses, and could speak about them at length. Letty’s advice might be of some use in furthering an alliance with Mrs. Ledford, but he thought he needed something more impressive to secure Hugo’s attention and admiration.
“But if I just let them talk, even if I have found such topics,” Clement said, furrowing his brow in consternation, “eventually they will stop talking.”
“Oh dear,” Letty said, and sighed.
“Who will stop talking about what?” Jane asked, shutting the parlour door behind herself as she entered.
Clement rose swiftly to an attentive posture. Jane gave him a fondly bemused glance, and took a seat near Letty.
“Clement wishes to improve his skill at conversation,” Letty explained.
“Ah,” Jane said.
They both seemed irritatingly determined not to stand upon any sort of social convention regarding the proper distance between employers and employees. Clement returned to his seat and scowled.
“You cannot simply let them talk,” Letty explained. “You have to continue to ask questions. Even if it is feigned, one ought to show interest in another’s conversation.”
“Letty is very good at feigning interest,” Jane teased.
Letty glanced over at her, brow furrowed, and the two of them shared some unspoken private joke. Then Letty sighed primly and resumed what she’d been saying.
“You must ask questions about their topic in order to encourage them to continue talking. That way, they shall be pleased at your interest and perhaps, if they are not very boring, you may learn something new.”
“Who is it,” Jane asked, “that you seek as a conversation partner?”
“Perhaps not a conversation partner,” Clement said. “Simply that… well, I found that when I had retired to the servants’ kitchen yesterday, that I was in fact not very good at carrying on a conversation with the other servants. And my lack at the skill made me feel out of place and very foolish.”
“Ask questions,” Letty said.
“What if I cannot think of any questions?”
“There are some questions that one ought always to keep in reserve,” Jane interjected. “For they are nearly always of use. You may ask a person from whence they come. You may, carefully, ask if their parents are living, and inquire politely of their health. You may inquire if they have any siblings, and as to the health and prosperity of those siblings. If they are married or possessed of children you ought almost certainly ask after the health of their spouse and their children. Nearly every married person will be glad to speak about their spouse, even if they do strain courtesy by complaining about their spouse, and most every parent will be glad to exhaust the patience of everyone around them by going on about their children at great length.”
“I don’t believe th
at he’s married,” Clement said.
Both Jane and Letty regarded him with great interest. “Who isn’t?”
Clement tensed as he realised his mistake and sought about for a way to deflect their interest. “The, ah, stable groom. Mr. Ogden. I was seated beside him yesterday, and I fear I made a very poor showing at supper-table conversation.”
“Oh,” said Letty.
Clement grimaced, feeling he had been a little too successful at being boring.
“I’ve decided,” said Hildebert over lunch, “to build an engine.”
Clement dropped a fork.
Jane paused with a spoonful of soup halfway to her lips. “An engine?”
“The de Rivaz engine,” Hildebert said, proudly.
Letty, who was quietly attending her mistress from the far side of the dining room, gave Clement a quizzical look.
Clement rescued the fork and set it neatly upon the tray, fetching a clean one from the nearby drawer and setting it by Hildebert’s plate.
“What is a de Rivaz engine?” Jane asked.
Clement focused himself on taking steadying breaths while Hildebert explained about the very small explosions in the hydrogen fuel. He prayed that Jane would have the sense to dissuade her husband from this dangerous and possibly suicidal new project.
“How exciting!” said Jane.
Clement began to reconsider whether he might follow up with his contacts in London about alternate, less explosive, employment.
“I’ve sent to London to acquire a copy of the blueprints,” Hildebert explained. “And I’ve ordered Midgley to begin acquiring some of the supplies that I’ll need.”
“How fascinating! What supplies?”
“Oh, well. Metal. Bronze, I suppose? Pipes and gears and such, I’m sure it will all be quite clear once I have the blueprints.”
“Perhaps,” Clement said, “it would be safer to start with smaller mechanisms, and to work up to the de Rivaz engine.”
“Oh, to be sure!” Hildebert said. “Smaller explosions, with a much more contained amount of hydrogen.”
“Where are you going to get hydrogen?” Jane asked. The sparkle in her eye made Clement suspect she was enjoying Hildebert’s madcap project rather too much. “It’s a gas, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” said Hildebert. “Couldn’t I simply send to London for it?”
“I suppose so,” Jane said. “But where shall London get hydrogen? Is it mined from the earth or extracted from the air?”
Gaping briefly, Hildebert looked to Clement for assistance, as though his personal valet had some expertise in chemical acquisitions.
This, Clement decided, was an opportunity to dissuade Hildebert from the entire situation. “Hydrogen,” he said, with his best air of expertise, “is very dangerous. And explosive.”
He was not sure whether or not hydrogen was, after all, very explosive, he only knew that it was an important component of the de Rivaz engine, according to what Hildebert had said. He thought that it was possible that the hydrogen, once acquired, would require some treatment to be rendered explosive fuel for the dangerous little engine, and amended his previous statement just in case he was later proven wrong.
“Moderately explosive,” he said, regarding them sternly.
Jane was chewing at her lip at a way which hinted at suppressed laughter. Clement allowed his stern gaze to linger a moment longer upon her.
“It would be very hazardous to bring such explosive material into the house.”
“Oh,” said Hildebert. “That is true.”
He frowned, disappointed, and returned to his soup.
Clement directed a look toward Letty which he hoped expressed that this is what happens when they don’t have proper socialisation with their own class.
Letty smiled, and said, “You ought to have a workshop.”
Hildebert brightened like a sunrise, while Clement felt all the blood drain from his face.
“A workshop!” said Hildebert. “Indeed, I ought! Imagine it, Jane, I should be a gentleman inventor.”
“How very gallant,” Jane praised him, beaming.
“There are grounds,” Hildebert said, “and buildings, any of which might be put to use as a workshop.” He nodded decisively. “I shall have a workshop. And then, at once, I shall begin upon the construction of the de Rivaz engine. I’m certain that once I have learned the basic design, it will not be much trouble at all to improve upon it.”
By the end of the luncheon, Clement’s list of things to do had trebled. First, he needed to modify Midgley’s order to London, including some basic primers on mechanical and alchemical engineering and the supplies thereto, in hopes that Hildebert would become bored by the introductory lessons long before he ever approached the possibility of handling explosive materials. Then, he needed to secure a workshop for his employer, somewhere safely away from the main building so that the noise and any incidents would not alarm the household, yet close enough for Hildebert’s comfort and Clement’s supervision. Once the books and supplies arrived, Clement would need to improve his own knowledge of the topics in question well enough that he could impose basic safety restrictions upon Hildebert’s experiments.
Fortunately, Midgley had been thoroughly confused by the requests and was still attempting to consult various registers in order to determine whom he might contact for such supplies. When Clement volunteered to take over the task, Midgley didn’t hesitate before handing it over. He bustled off to see to his duties about the household, and Clement bent over the registers.
It took him most of the afternoon to compose adequate orders and correspondence such as would satisfy Hildebert’s imagination and his own worries.
He realised upon finishing that he had not taken the opportunity to write additional correspondence and seek safer, less explosive, employment for himself. He hesitated over the writing-paper, but could not bring himself to write the correspondence.
Hildebert was his responsibility, at least for the time being. Sooner or later, probably after burning his fingers once, he would settle down to safer hobbies. Until then, it was Clement’s duty to keep him from killing himself in an explosion.
Tidying away his papers, Clement went to make certain that Hildebert’s supper had been prepared, and then he went out in search of a workshop.
It was just past sunset, and the spring evening was warm and clear. The pond and the trees beyond were dark, but the sky was still light, and the lamps were only beginning to be lit in the main house.
Clement found that his feet were carrying him upon a set course even before he had made a conscious decision.
This time, he went around and in through the smaller side door of the stables.
It was warm inside, slightly musty from straw and sawdust. Clement could make out the shapes of shelves and doors down a hallway in the dim light. Storage, he supposed, for tack and feed and whatever else one needed for horses and dogs.
A light was burning at the top of a flight of stairs.
“Hugo?” Clement called, starting up the stairway. The second tread creaked loudly under his footstep.
He shouldn’t have come. It was too late in the evening for visiting, and Hugo had made clear that he valued his privacy. The trouble with the workshop could wait until morning, and was probably best delayed as long as possible.
Awash with guilt, Clement hesitated, and then retreated back down to the first step.
Hugo appeared at the top of the stairs.
He was backlit, from the lamp or candle burning somewhere in an upstairs room, and Clement could only see the outline of him framed against the hallway beyond.
“Clement?”
“Yes,” Clement admitted, feeling foolish and hoping that Hugo had not noticed the attempted retreat. “It’s late. I ought not have bothered you.”
Hugo descended several steps. “It isn’t so late.”
“I meant to ask you some matter for Hilde—for Mr. Devereux. It isn’t urgent. That is, it isn’t terribly
urgent. It would be better handled by daylight, to be sure.”
“If you are certain,” Hugo said. “But I would be glad for your company nonetheless.”
Clement’s heart quickened. “Would you?”
“If you aren’t expected back at the house.”
“I suppose that I…” said Clement. “I am, after all, here on Mr. Devereux’s behalf. I could stay. To discuss the workshop.”
“To discuss the workshop,” Hugo confirmed, even though he could not yet have any idea what manner of workshop was up for discussion.
“But you do value your privacy,” said Clement. “And I am intruding.”
“I’ve made tea,” said Hugo. “I pray you, join me.”
Clement stepped onto the second tread, which groaned once again beneath his foot, and made his way up the stairs.
At the top, there was a cozy little set of rooms. Hugo led him into the one at the end, which was a large garret room with sloping walls. A small fire was burning in the grate, and a kettle hung nearby, having been recently heated above the flames.
“These are your rooms?” Clement asked.
“They are,” Hugo said. “I suppose I ought to give you a tour? There isn’t much to see. This is my parlour. Through there, my bedroom. The first door on the left, in the hallway, leads to my study, such as it is, and the door on the end, by the stairs, is my pantry. Of sorts.”
“It is very grand.”
Hugo looked simultaneously proud and bemused. “It… I suppose, for an unmarried stable groom, that it is rather grand. It was intended, I think, for a former head groomsman who had a family in this space. You ought to see the gardening cottage. Esther—Miss Grant, that is—is swimming in the space that was once intended for a sizeable family.”
“I see,” said Clement, whose attention had been drawn by the brief over-familiarity regarding the gardener. “Are you and Miss Grant… quite close?”
“Oh!” said Hugo, reddening. “No.”
“Oh.” Clement now found that he had no reason to give for his query, and no subsequent question along that line. “Well,” he said. “It is a very nice… that is to say, these are very nice rooms.”
The Valet and the Stable Groom Page 7