Conrad's Fate (11 page)

But I didn't have much time to think. Mrs. Baldock rang for us the moment the Countess had polished off Mr. Smithers and her breakfast. Christopher and I had to pelt off to the Housekeeper's Room. By the time we got there, Mrs. Baldock was pacing about among her pretty floral chairs and little twiddly tables. The purple bits down the sides of her face were almost violet with impatience.

“I can only spare you five minutes,” she said. “I have to be at my daily conference with the Countess after this. There's just time to outline the nature of your training to you now. We aim, you see, to ensure that whichever of you attains the post of valet to the Count is completely versed in all aspects of domestic science. You'll be learning, first and foremost, the correct care of clothing and the correct fashion for everything a gentleman does. Proper clothes for fishing are just as important as evening dress, you know, and there are six types of formal evening wear....”

She went on about clothes for a good minute. I couldn't help thinking that the Count would have had to hire a lorry when he went to Ludwich if he really did take all the clothes Mrs. Baldock said he needed. I watched her feet tramping about on the floral carpet. She had huge ankles that draped over the sides of her buckled shoes.

“But just as important are laundering, housecleaning, and bed making,” she said. “And in order to learn to care for your gentleman in every way, you'll be having courses on flower arranging, haircutting, and cookery, too. Do either of you cook?”

While I was saying, “Yes, ma'am,” I had the briefest glimpse of absolute horror on Christopher's face. Then he somehow managed a beguiling smile. “No,” he said. “And I couldn't arrange flowers if my life depended on it. It's beginning to look as if Conrad's going to be the next valet, isn't it?”

“The Count will shortly marry,” Mrs. Baldock pointed out. “The Countess is insisting on it. By the time
his
son is of an age to require a valet, even
you
should have learned what is necessary.” She gave Christopher one of her long, expressionless looks.

“But why
cooking
?” he said despairingly.

“It is the custom,” Mrs. Baldock said, “for the Count's son to be sent to university accompanied by both his tutor and his valet. They will take lodgings together, and the valet will create their meals.”

“I'd far rather
create
a meal than
cook
one,” Christopher told her frankly.

Mrs. Baldock actually grinned. She seemed to have taken to Christopher. “Get along with you!” she said. “I can see well enough that you can do anything you set your mind to, young man. Now go and report to the Upper Laundrymaid and tell her I sent you both.”

We blundered our way through the stone warren of the undercroft and finally found the laundry. There the woman in charge looked at us doubtfully, then straightened our neckcloths, and then stood back to see if this had changed her opinion of us. She sighed. “I'll start you on ironing,” she said pessimistically. “Things that don't matter too much. Paula! Take these two to the pressing room, and show them what to do.”

Paula materialized out of the steam and took us in tow, but unfortunately, she turned out to be no good at explaining things. She showed us to a bare stone room with various sizes of ironing tables in it. She gave Christopher a damp linen sheet and me a pile of wettish neckcloths. She told us how to turn the irons on. Then she left.

We looked at each other. Christopher said, “Penny for them, Grant.”

“It's a bit like,” I said, “that story where they had to turn straw into gold.”

“It is!” Christopher agreed. “And no Rumpelstiltskin to help.” He pushed his iron experimentally across the sheet. “This makes no difference—or possibly more wrinkles than before.”

“You have to wait for the iron to get hot,” I said. “I
think
.”

Christopher lifted the iron and turned it this way and that in front of his face. “A touch of warmth now,” he said. “How do these things work anyway? They don't plug in. Is there a salamander inside, or something?”

I laughed. Christopher's ignorance was truly amazing. Fancy thinking a fire lizard could heat an iron! “They have a power unit inside—just like lights and cookers and tellies do.”

“
Do
they? Oh!” said Christopher. “A little light came on at the end of this iron!”

“That
may
mean it's hot enough,” I said. “Mine's got a light now. Let's try.”

We got going. My first idea—that you could save time and effort by doing ten neckcloths at once—didn't seem to work. I cut the pile down to five, to two, and then to just one, which promptly turned yellowish and smelled. Christopher kept muttering, “I don't seem to be living up to Mrs. Baldock's high opinion of me—not at
all
!” until he startled me by crying out, “Great heavens! A
church window
! Look!”

I looked. He had a dark brown iron shape burned into the middle of his sheet.

“I wonder if it will do that again,” he said.

He tried, and it did. I watched, fascinated, while Christopher printed a whole row of church windows right across the sheet. Then he went on to make a daisy shape in the lower half of it.

But at this point I was recalled to my own work by a cloud of black smoke and a very strong smell. I looked down to find that my iron had burned a neckcloth right in two and then gone on to burn its way into the ironing table beneath. I had a very deep black church window there. I found red cinders in it when I snatched the iron up.

“Oh, help!” I said.

“Panic ye not, Grant,” Christopher said.

“I can't
help
it!” I said, trying to fan away rolls of brown smoke. “We're going to get into awful trouble.”

“Only if things stay like this,” Christopher said. He came across and looked at my disaster. “Grant,” he said, “this is too deep for a church window. What you have here is probably a dugout canoe.” He switched his own iron off and wagged it in my face. “I congratulate you,” he said.

I nearly screamed at him. “It's not
funny
!”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Look.”

I looked, and I gaped. The smoke had gone. The black boat shape was not there anymore. The ironing table was flat and complete, with its brown-blotched surface quite smooth, and on top of it lay a plain, white, badly ironed neckcloth. “How …?” I said.

“No questions,” Christopher said. “I shall just get rid of my own artwork.” He picked up a corner of his ruined sheet and shook it. And all the church windows simply disappeared. He turned to me, looking very serious. “Grant,” he said, “you didn't see me do this. Promise me you didn't, or your dugout canoe comes back deeper and blacker and smokier than ever.”

I looked from him to the restored ironing table. “If I promise,” I said, “can I ask you how you did it?”

“No,” he said. “Just promise.”

“All right. I promise,” I said. “It's obvious anyway. You're a magician.”

“A magician,” Christopher said, “is someone who sets out ritual candles round a pentangle and then mutters words of power. Did you see me do that?”

“No,” I said. “You must be a very advanced kind.”

Then I was half frightened, half pleased, because I thought I had made Christopher annoyed enough to tell me about himself. “
Piffle!
Pigheaded
piffle
!” he began. “Grant—”

To my great disappointment, Miss Semple hurried in and interrupted him. “You have to stop this now, boys,” she said. “Make sure the irons are switched off. Mr. Avenloch has just brought in the produce for today, and Mr. Maxim wants you to start your cookery course by learning to pick out the best.”

So off we hurried once more, to a chilly stone storeroom that opened off the yard, where Mr. Avenloch was standing watching a gang of lower gardeners carry in baskets of fruit and boxes of vegetables. One of the gang was the boy with the handmade boots. He grinned at us, and we grinned back, but I didn't envy him. Mr. Avenloch was one of those tall, thin, eagle-faced types. He looked a total tyrant.

“Wipe that smile off your face, Smedley,” he said, “and get you gone back to that hoeing.”

When the whole gang had gone scurrying out again, Mr. Maxim pranced forward. He was almost as full of himself as Christopher was. He was Second Underchef and he had been given the extra responsibility of teaching us, and this had made him really cocky. He rubbed his hands eagerly together and said to Christopher, “You are choosing for the table of the Countess herself. Pick me out—by sight only—all the best vegetables for her.”

From the look on Christopher's face, I was fairly sure he had never seen a raw vegetable in his life before this. But he made a confident pounce toward a basket of gooseberries. “Here,” he said, “are some splendid peas, really big ones. Oh no, they're hairy. It can't be good for peas to have bristles, can it?”

“Those,” Mr. Maxim said, “are gooseberries for the Stillroom. Try again.”

A little more cautiously, Christopher approached a small box of bright red chilies. “Now here are some fine, glossy carrots,” he suggested. “They probably fade a bit when you cook them.” He looked at Mr. Maxim. Mr. Maxim nearly dislodged his tall white hat by clutching at his head. “No?” Christopher asked. “What are they then? Pipless strawberries? Long, thin cherries?”

By this time I was leaning against the wall bent over with laughter. Mr. Maxim rounded on me. “This is no joke!” he shouted. “He's winding me up, isn't he?”

I could see he was furious. Cocky people hate being made fun of. I shook my head and managed to pull myself together. “No, he's not,” I said. “He really doesn't know. He—you see—he's lived all his life as heir to a great estate—a bit like Stallery, really—but the family fell on hard times, and he had to get a job.” I looked sideways at Christopher. He put on a modest look and did not try to deny what I said. Interesting.

Mr. Maxim was instantly sorry for Christopher. “My dear boy,” he said, “I quite understand. Please go round with Conrad and let him identify the produce for you.” He was wonderfully kind to Christopher after that and even
quite
kind to me when I mistook a pawpaw for a vegetable marrow.

“Thanks,” Christopher murmured to me while we were arranging the fruit I had chosen in a great cut glass bowl. “I owe you one, Grant.”

“No, you don't,” I whispered back. “Dugout canoe.”

But he did end up owing me one later that day. This was after we had stood against the wall in yet another eating room, each of us with a useless white cloth draped over one arm, watching the Countess and Lady Felice eat lunch. Part of the meal was actually the bowl of fruit we had arranged that morning. This gave me a good feeling, as if I had really
done
something at last. The Countess attacked the fruit heartily, but Lady Felice took one grape, and that was all.

“Darling,” said the Countess, “you've hardly eaten anything.
Why?
”

It was the bad “
Why?
” with the stare. Lady Felice looked at her plate in order not to meet the stare and muttered that she wasn't hungry. This did not satisfy the Countess at all. She went on and on about it. Was Felice ill? Should she call a doctor? What were the symptoms? Or had breakfast disagreed with her? All in the sweet, high voice.

In the end Lady Felice said, “I just don't feel like food, Mother. All right?” Her face went pink, and she almost glared at the Countess.

And the Countess said, “There's no need to be coy, dear. If you're trying to lose weight, you're welcome to borrow my pills.”

Christopher's eyes went sideways and met mine. She
does
take spell pills! his look said. Both of us nearly burst, trying not to laugh. Mr. Amos shot us a dirty look. So did Gregor. And by the time we had a grip on ourselves, Lady Felice had flung down her napkin and rushed out of the room, leaving the Countess looking annoyed and mystified.

“Amos,” she said, “I shall
never
understand the young.”

“Naturally not, my lady,” Mr. Amos replied.

She smiled graciously, folded her napkin neatly, and walked elegantly to the door. “Tell Smithers to come to my boudoir with his revised accounts,” she said as she left.

For some reason—I think it was watching her walk—I remembered Mrs. Potts saying that the Countess used to kick up her legs in a chorus line. I was staring after her, trying so hard to imagine her doing it—and I couldn't—that I jumped a mile when Mr. Amos shouted at me. He was really angry. He planted himself on the carpet face-to-face with us, and he told us off thoroughly for daring to laugh in front of the Ladies. He made me at least feel awful. It didn't seem to matter that he was the same height as I was and inches shorter than Christopher. He was like a prophet or a saint or something, hating us for being ungodly and thundering out of heaven at us.

“Now you will learn to be mannerly,” he said in the end. “Both of you are to go out of this door and come in again as softly and politely as you can. Go on.”