Listen to the Moon (16 page)

He watched and listened for mistakes without conscious thought, and when he saw them, everything in him leapt to correct them with the same instinctive urgency that sent one darting forward to catch a falling vase.

He told himself, over and over, that a small lump of wax would cause no disaster. That Mr. Summers had never once in the weeks John had presided over the staff complained to him about the quality of service. He made himself bear it at least a few times in ten and smother his criticisms. And he tried, awkwardly, to pay his underlings compliments. He prowled the house, forcing his eye to linger on what was correct instead of sliding over it in search of what stood out. “The bed was perfectly made today, Mrs. Toogood, thank you,” he said, his face flaming hot.

He’d known it embarrassed him to receive compliments—he never knew what to say or do—but he’d been surprised to discover giving them was nearly as bad. Sukey ducked her head, brows drawing together.

He’d annoyed her. His heart misgave him. Of course he had. In her place he’d be thinking,
Not the bed again! Trying to get into my good graces now, are you? I know I did it right, and I don’t need any pat on the head from
you
.

A compliment, he realized, required mutual esteem in a way a correction did not. It required him to believe that Sukey cared for his opinion. And why should she care for it? Why should any of them? There had certainly been no signs that they
did
. But then a smile spread across her face and she said shyly, “I think I’ve got the knack of it.”

Hoarding praise is false economy as well.
Why had he denied them both this small pleasure, this moment of charity? Because he was embarrassed? Because he’d never had it growing up, perhaps; it felt as awkward and unnatural as the first time he’d held a razor.

At least, unlike with the razor, his father wasn’t here to tell him he was doing it wrong and snort when he cut himself. Learning new skills was always embarrassing, but one had to soldier on, just as he expected his staff to soldier on with their lists.

He could not stop himself from hating to see things done incorrectly. But he could stop himself from withholding praise when it was due.

Mrs. Khaleel, straightforward woman, responded to his careful compliments (
The larder is wonderfully neat
and
You always trim the roast so carefully
and
The soup smelled so good Mr. Summers caught my stomach rumbling—
oh, that one was hard to admit! In future he’d eat a sandwich before serving dinner, to prevent a recurrence) with a nod of acknowledgment and a “Thank you, Mr. Toogood.” But she began setting aside morsels of his favorite foods for him, and he was careful to always eat them with a show of gladness.

Larry was easy; he soaked up praise like a sponge, face glowing. To John’s secret surprise, it seemed even to inspire not laxity, but more care in him. The wax on the mahogany furniture grew smoother and the lampwicks more neatly trimmed—evidently in hopes of further praise, which John bemusedly gave—and Larry took to bringing John his mother’s letters the moment they arrived.

Molly was a harder nut to crack. She responded to every compliment with a sharp nod of her head and a muttered, “Thank you, sir.” John would have liked to give up, as it was entirely evident that she
was
thinking,
I don’t give a damn for your opinion.
But he made himself continue, contriving to find some private amusement in pretending not to notice her snub, and in her annoyance at that.

It was difficult to find things to praise in Thea’s work, as she continued not to do most of it. But at least he could find her when he looked for her now; he thanked her for that. He reminded himself that he could not expect a sea change overnight and went on as best he could. But sometimes he remembered vividly why he had never wanted to be a butler. He had wanted to be a valet, and answer to no one, and have no one answer to him, and do his own work and be done with it.

* * *

Sukey looked at herself in the mirror after three hours of hard labor. Earlier, twisting her wet, clean hair up in curl-papers with the other girls, she’d almost been sorry not to stay at the vicarage and get ready together. Mrs. Khaleel had promised to dress everyone’s hair.

(The servants generally bathed Saturday night after their half-holiday, to be fresh for church, but today, as it was Christmastime and the New Year and they’d all petitioned for it, bath and half-holiday alike had been moved to Friday to allow for the New Year’s Day ball.)

Staying at home would have been more fun. Sukey was cold, and stuck with pins, and her head hurt from Mrs. Gilchrist pulling at her hair. But she didn’t understand why Mrs. Dymond always kicked up such a shindy about that because it was
worth
it. “You were right. No one will recognize me.”

Mrs. Gilchrist drew herself up. “I never said any such thing. Naturally everyone will recognize you. You always look like this. The gown merely calls attention to it.” She said it with the confidence of one quoting revealed religion.

Sukey smiled at her. “I never argue with a compliment.”

“Nor should you.”

“Then I’ll give
you
one: you’re a sorceress.”

Mrs. Gilchrist blushed, but she didn’t argue. “Thank you.”
She’d pulled Sukey’s hair into a high, tight twist, pinning her curls smooth along her temples to dangle in a row over her ears and neck, no ringlet allowed to overlap its neighbor. Now she deftly pinned Sukey’s cap flat and dainty and settled it on her head. Stepping back, she eyed her critically. “Something’s missing.” She raised her voice. “Reggie?”

Mr. Gilchrist popped his head through the door like a jack-in-the-box. “You called, soul of my soul?” His eyes lighted on Sukey, who squirmed for fear he’d think she looked ridiculous.

Mr. Gilchrist pressed both hands to his heart. “And who is this vision of loveliness? Alas, I married too young!”

His wife laughed. “I just told her she looks exactly like herself, you bufflehead.”

“Only more so,” Mr. Gilchrist concurred at once. “Good evening, Sukey. Marriage suits you, and if I may say so, so does that dress.”

It was impossible to feel self-conscious in the face of such silliness. “Thank you, sir.” She swept him a curtsey, the blue wool swishing like a dream.

“There’s something missing,” Mrs. Gilchrist told her husband, waving an urgent hand in her direction.

He looked Sukey over with a more critical eye, kindly not remarking on her boots. She supposed she could change them for slippers at the ball, but if she did her toes would be black and blue tomorrow.

“Blue ribbons on the cap, I think, to tie it together.”

Mrs. Gilchrist’s eyes widened. “Reggie, you’re a genius.” She beamed at him.

“I’m glad I could help,” he said with unabashed sincerity, dropping a delicate kiss on his wife’s cheek as if it still amazed him that he was allowed. Sukey felt jealous of such open adoration; even if John wanted to, which she didn’t think he did, he couldn’t behave like that at the vicarage. “Unless you need anything else, I’ve got to deliver oranges to the workhouse for the Cahills.”

Mrs. Gilchrist shooed him out, already fastening two bands of blue velvet to Sukey’s cap and tying them behind her ears.

“
Thank
you,” Sukey said. “I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”

Mrs. Gilchrist smiled. “Have a good time at the dance, and tell me your husband swooned at your feet. And bring back my pins. You’re currently wearing thirty-seven of them.”

Sukey’s heart swooped inside her. Did she mean…? “I’ll return the pins with the dress next Saturday,” she said, testing. “That’s my soonest half-holiday.”

Mrs. Gilchrist’s smile widened. “Return the pins, the necklace, and the ribbons. Keep the gown.”

Sukey fingered the blue wool. “Are you sure?”

“You love it, don’t you?”

Sukey nodded, smoothing over her hips. They didn’t feel like hers. They were too graceful and sleek.

“A dress should be with someone who loves it. And—thanks for keeping my secret.” She put a hand to her belly, her smile nearly as exuberantly joyful as her husband’s.

“Now I know how you repay favors, come to me if you ever need a murder covered up, do you hear? Mr. Toogood’s wonderful with stains.” But Sukey’s eyes stung. The baby hadn’t been a
happy
secret a few months ago, and now it was. It was nice to know things did sort themselves out in life sometimes.

* * *

John was early to the servants’ ball. He generally was early when he went places on his own. At the servants’ dances he’d been accustomed to in London, that was the best part of the evening. He could help mix the punch and talk with friends before it became too loud and crowded for conversation. But tonight he didn’t know a soul. Not wanting to ruin the line of his gold-buttoned coat, John hadn’t even brought a book.

In previous years he’d worn his beloved set of evening clothes, but that was too fine for his new station. He saw that even his Sunday suit overshot the mark. Slipping off his kid gloves, he eased them flat into his pockets.

When he’d traveled here at Christmas with the Tassells, he’d attended this ball, but talked mostly to the Lenfield party, who didn’t seem to have arrived. John shifted uneasily, remembering his extremely pleasant liaison with the undercook, spanning two or three Christmases. He’d broken it off when she’d started to hint at marriage. He prayed seeing her wouldn’t be awkward.

He hoped Gil Plumtree, Lord Tassell’s valet, would be here tonight. One of John’s favorite people since earliest childhood, Plumtree was expansive, cheerful and cosmopolitan, always with five minutes and a lively anecdote to spare for a little boy. Whenever the elder Mr. Toogood had taken the valet to task for idling, he’d shrugged and said,
So take it out of my pay.

He heard Sukey laugh behind him. She must have come in at the far door. Turning, he saw her embrace a group of friends, chattering and laughing. She shook her head at something one of them said. “Don’t mind him,” he caught. “Men are beasts.”

She was dressed to the nines in an ice-blue gown she must have borrowed. Men
were
beasts, or at least John was, because he wanted to rip her out of that knot of happy young people and drag her somewhere they would be alone—to talk to her, to kiss her, or just to sit quietly, he didn’t care which. The crowd already had him on edge. A fiddle tuned up, screeching, and he wanted his wife all to himself with a ferocity that disturbed him.

Instead he pasted on a smile and went to her, holding out his arm. He’d been to balls before. He could drag himself through one more. “Mrs. Toogood.”

“Johnny!” Empty punch cup in her hand, she drew to the side and posed, tilting her chin up and pointing her toe in her worn boot. “Do you like my dress?”

It’s two years out of style,
he thought, and hated that his first instinct was always to be unkind. “Wait.” He pulled her to him by her hand, pressing his palm into her wedding ring. She smelled strangely of lavender and starch, but when he kissed her, her mouth was friendly and quizzical. After a moment she sucked in a breath and went up on tiptoe, tasting of lemons and nutmeg and rum.

John drew in a deep breath and let it out. Yes, one could tell the gown was copied from a fashion plate. While the seamstress had got the darts right, the real trick to a seamless waist was how it fastened in the back, which wouldn’t show in a magazine. But that didn’t matter, any more than the boots did. Sukey looked trim and fantastical, slightly out of step with the world as he knew it. The pale wool turned her eyes a pure, clear blue, as if they reflected northern skies.

Beginning
just
above her nipples, the dress skimmed over her breasts and flowed to her ankles like water. The bodice gaped in the center, held taut with a bit of silk lacing that John guessed to be stronger than it looked.

The illusion of indecency was preserved from the reality by a linen chemisette rising snowily over Sukey’s bosom and curling into a wide collar of pointed lace, one of those fashionable antique touches.

“You look as if you’d wandered out of a faerie ring.”

She touched the starched collar self-consciously. A loop of tiny blue beads nestled in her collarbone, a second falling to the
V
of her collar. “It’s a bit much, I expect.”

“I love it.” God, he wanted to cup one of her breasts. He’d feel three layers of linen and her stays, but the soft gown tricked him into believing it would be only her under the wool, soft against his palm.

She drew closer. “It’s held together with thirty-seven pins,” she murmured in his ear. “They belong to Mrs. Gilchrist. I’ll need your help getting them out later.”

He put a hand to her shoulder and felt for the head of the first pin. “I’ll start with this one.” He trailed his finger down. The fitted arms of the gown were slashed and puffed, the full sleeves of Sukey’s shift coaxed through three rings of slits in the wool and pinned into place. The shift was yellower than the collar; he’d offer to bleach it for her later. “Then this one.”

She shivered, biting her lip, and John felt all at once that he could face the party with equanimity, because after it she’d go home with him.

“Come on,” she said. “I want to introduce you to all my friends.”

Her friends struck him as young and rattlepate, but they were nice enough, even if they did try to winkle gossip about the Dymonds out of him. And soon enough the fiddle struck up, and he could lead her out onto the floor.

* * *

Sukey had always mostly danced with girls she knew. There just weren’t enough footmen and grooms to partner all the maids—and if she was honest, she’d avoided dancing much with men. Especially ones she liked, so as not to give them any ideas.

It felt wonderful to take her place on the floor with her hand in John’s, in her beautiful new dress, and see women up and down the set making sheep’s eyes at him.

He knew the steps and performed them competently. A little stiffly, but that was John. She snickered to herself. Later, he’d be competent and stiff as a poker in their bed.