Listen to the Moon (26 page)

John pantomimed polite surprise, mind racing inwardly. Surely she wouldn’t go so far as to request Mr. Summers to dismiss him from his post. But then what could she possibly want? Perhaps she merely wished to convey his mother’s greetings. That seemed long odds, but he could think of no other innocent reason. “Sir, if I may?”

“Naturally, Toogood. I know better than to stand in her ladyship’s way.” The two gentlefolk laughed as if it were a joke and not the literal truth.

John waited in an agony of impatience for the vicar’s ring, and then waited another count of thirty; promptness was a virtue, but in this case, he wished to avoid any appearance of listening at the door. Mr. Summers’s face was long, but he kissed the air above Lady Tassell’s hand as he stood, old-fashioned and courtly. “I cannot wish you luck, my lady,” he said, “but I will wish you a fair hearing.” He made a good-natured flourish to John in her direction and went out.

John came to stand before her, hands behind his back. “My lady.”

It had been so long since he’d seen her that he had forgotten the full force of her. She was small, but it was not only her petticoats and frills and tall hat that gave her the appearance of height.
Ice-cream faces
, Sukey had said of Dymond boys.
Nothing to stick in the mind
. Lady Tassell was blonde, fair-skinned and even delicate of feature, but the angular jaw that gave Lord Lenfield the air of a capably executed statue of an Olympian was unforgettable on her, and pleasantly so. John had always liked her. She was autocratic, but she was good company and her rules were simple. Until recently, he had followed them and got on well with her.

But he admitted to himself for the first time that Nick Dymond had always been his favorite of the Dymond boys precisely because he did neither.

She smiled, gesturing to the vicar’s vacated chair. “Sit, Mr. Toogood. I don’t plan to give you orders.”

John didn’t like it, but he sat.

“Please allow me to wish you joy on your marriage. Your wife is Susan Grimes, isn’t she? My daughter-in-law’s maid?” She shook her head, laughing at life’s absurdity. “Like master, like man.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

The countess’s face grew grave. Eyes on her hands, she crumbled a piece of cake in her fingers. “You look so much like your father,” she said at last, and then was silent another half a minute. “He was at Tassell Hall before my husband was born, you know.”

John felt a sudden pang of fear. “Is he—is he well?”

She pushed away her plate of crumbs and met his eyes. “He has had no sudden decline, and he isn’t ill. But he is becoming an old man. I’m an old woman, and he has a score of years on me at least.”

John said nothing. It was only what he already knew.

“I know I can’t expect such an active man as your father to sit in an easy chair by the fire, any more than I’d do so myself. But I’ve asked him and your mother to go and manage our house in Rye Bay. It’s lovely there, and there’s only a small staff. Not much larger than the one here.”

“That was very kind of you, my lady.”

As he spoke, he remembered Sukey’s imitation of an upper servant: wooden face and silence. His wife probably imagined that great folk expected the demeanor as a show of respect. That it was a suppression of oneself to please one’s employer.

He’d always thought of it differently. The larger the staff, the smaller the importance of each member in his mistress’s eyes. How much less inconvenient to replace one among dozens! Better to present a smooth surface with nothing to snag or seize upon. The less Lady Tassell knew, the less she had to use against him.

He wondered if that explained the Dymond boys’ ice-cream faces.

“Your father can’t manage Tassell Hall anymore,” she said. “I’ll muddle through one more summer if I must, but after that… I don’t wish to hurt his pride. More than that, I want to repay him for his years of loyal service. He wants you to replace him. Will you?”

John could not have been more astonished if Lady Tassell had thrown herself into his arms and embraced him.

He wanted to refuse at once, unequivocally—but how could he? “It is a position of great trust. Is your ladyship certain you wish to offer it to me?”

She sighed. “Here we come to it,” she said frankly. “You’re angry, I suppose, at my treatment of you.”

“I understood your reasons.”

She laughed unhappily. “Until your child refuses to see or speak to you, until one of the suns of your existence informs you that it will henceforth be dark to you—no, I don’t think you do.”

“I’m sorry matters between you have come to such a pass.”

“I thought he was susceptible, and you failed to protect him. Susceptible, ha! I never would have thought he could hold a grudge so long.”

John thought Nick Dymond had resolutely turned his face away from his mother long before he stopped speaking to her. That she hadn’t recognized it was not to her credit—but hard truths were hard to face, and perhaps she was right that he wasn’t a parent, and could not understand.

She leaned in, distracting him from wondering if he would ever be a father himself. “Your talents are wasted here. You were an exceptional footman, and then an exceptional valet, and you are quite clearly an exceptional butler. But as good-hearted as these people are, one day you will want more scope for your genius than a quiet vicarage. I know you, John. You read the papers, you follow the debates in Parliament. You and I, we want to put our stamp on the world. Elections are won and bills introduced at Tassell house parties.
That
is what you were born for, and you know it.”

As simply as that, doubts crept in. He knew all the reasons why he wanted to refuse her, and yet he hesitated, tempted. He tried to form his next sentence.
My wife is not accustomed…

No. He would not tactfully warn the countess of Sukey’s failings. He refused to imply in any way that he was not entirely proud of her. “And my wife?”

She shrugged. “I won’t make her housekeeper, but if you want a place for her at the Hall, we’ll find one.” Then she told him the wages she offered. He wondered if she knew he knew they were ten pounds more per annum than his father’s. “You might even set her up in lodgings nearby and start a family.”

His heart failed him at the thought. Sukey in a snug cottage, singing and entertaining her friends. Cheerfully living her own life—one in which he naturally had some small place, but not a particularly essential one.

Greedily, he wanted more than that. He wanted what they had now. They had fought hard for it, sniped and confided and quarreled and kissed their way to it. Things were going so well between them, and here Lady Tassell was, to set everything on its ear again.

If the countess hadn’t, out of spite, told her friends not to let their sons hire him, he’d be valeting for some rising MP. It would be a more peaceful existence, even, in some respects, one with more gaiety in it. But he’d made the best of things, and the best had turned out to be better than he’d dared hope. Why should he accept her offer?

His conscience readily supplied the answer. His father was ill and old, and had persuaded Lady Tassell to humble herself before John.

It didn’t surprise him that she’d agreed in the end—though he noticed she’d put it off until the very last week of her stay. Repaying loyalty with loyalty was both principle and policy with her, and no one could have been more loyal than Mr. Toogood senior.

No, he was surprised his father had argued with her. Plumtree had told him, and John hadn’t believed him. Privately, he’d been sure his father would never side with him against the Tassells. That he could never again be proud of someone who had betrayed Lady Tassell—and who, perhaps worse, had embarrassed him before her.

To say no was to throw his father’s olive branch in his face. It was to refuse his mother her retirement. And it was to deprive his hardworking wife of a chance at leisure.

The chance was unlikely to come again.

“I don’t know, my lady,” he said at last. “I would need to discuss it with my wife.”

“Good man. This concerns her as well.” She settled her skirts more comfortably about her legs. “Mr. Summers informs me that he will be in London for most of February.”

The vicar planned to see his children and to present a paper to the Society of Antiquaries. Things were complicated by the defection of his curate, but the rector of a nearby parish had agreed to make a loan of his. John had been looking forward to a restful month of catching up on everything.

“He has agreed that while he is away, you and your wife may journey to Tassell Hall to visit your parents. I will be glad to cover your traveling expenses, if it means I may have your answer by Lady Day. But then I would need you to come at once to Tassell to help your father with the summer house parties.”

It was an overpoweringly handsome offer. “If I might have a moment to speak privately with Mrs. Toogood, my lady?”

She flapped a hand at him like an indulgent mother. “Don’t be silly. Ring for her. I would be delighted to meet the young woman.”

John lacked the courage to flatly contradict a countess, though he knew she had only asked to make it harder for them to plot escape. “She will be grateful for the honor, my lady.”

Larry answered the bell and went to fetch Sukey. The boy was still visibly nervous. John would have to discuss the importance of unblushing aplomb with his staff—if they remained his staff. Sukey’s brow, too, was tight with nerves when she came in. John went to her and took her hand. “My lady, may I present my wife, Susan Toogood?”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Toogood.”

Sukey bobbed a shaky curtsey—deep, but not deep enough. “Thank you, my lady. I’m that sensible of the honor.”

Lady Tassell blinked at the thickness of her accent, and John—he hated it, but his first instinct was to wish she talked properly, so Lady Tassell would have no excuse to sneer, and be obliged to recognize her worth. What did Lady Tassell’s opinion matter?

“Mrs. Toogood, I want your husband to come and work for me again,” the countess said without preamble. Sukey’s eyes flew to John in shock before she fixed them respectfully on the hem of Lady Tassell’s gown. “His father is ill, and I have asked John to come and help him and then, after a little while, if we find it suits us, to take his place.”

“I see, my lady.”

John was unsettled to see his irrepressible wife so awed. Lady Tassell laid out the whole proposition, and Sukey grew stiller and stiller as she went.

“You seem a good girl,” Lady Tassell said finally. “If you wish to better yourself, there is a place for you at the Hall. But as I told John, you would be able to leave off working altogether and start a family, should the two of you so desire.”

Sukey’s eyes were like wary saucers. “I see, my lady,” she said, trying for less of a burr this time. “I suppose I’d need to learn to speak better, to work at a place like Tassell Hall.”

Lady Tassell smiled. “Not by much. Don’t get an inflated idea of our grandeur, I beg you.”

“Do you wish us to go, Mr. Toogood?”

“It is a great opportunity,” he said, “and one which I am grateful to be offered. And my father…” He couldn’t finish the sentence with Lady Tassell listening. “I thought we ought to consider very carefully. But if you feel differently, I am quite willing to be guided by you.”
Say no,
he thought, knowing himself for an unfilial son.

“Now that is a bettermost sort of husband.” Lady Tassell used the provincialism with a grin and a wink in Sukey’s direction.

Sukey’s sly, crooked smile flashed out a little uncertainly. “Only a fool would say no to a free journey,” she said, meeting his eyes. “My mother didn’t raise any fools.”

As grateful as John was for this feeble attempt to pretend enthusiasm, he was afraid it would strike Lady Tassell as a very frivolous sentiment. But she seemed entirely satisfied. Soon everything was arranged, the money was in John’s pocket, Sukey curtseyed herself out of the room, and John was left with the countess, itching to escort her out and speak with his wife further.

“Mr. Toogood,” she said instead, sounding hesitant. “My son wrote you a letter of reference, I believe?”

He didn’t want to bring her wrath down on Lord Lenfield if she didn’t already know he’d helped John. “Mr. Nicholas did, yes, my lady.”

“Might I see it?”

I wasn’t aware you would require references
, John almost said blandly. But he didn’t have the nerve—or the heart. She looked so afraid of his refusal. “Certainly, my lady.” He brought it to her, and waited while she read it—and then while she read it a second time.

John had read it many times himself during the anxious fortnight when he feared never finding another position. The letter had gratified John’s vanity very highly, but he couldn’t imagine there was much in it to satisfy a mother’s craving for news of her son, being filled with
He is handy with a razor
and statements of that ilk. The most personal thing—indeed, the
only
personal thing—Mr. Dymond had written was
He is undemanding company, and managed a sad change in my circumstances (on the occasion of resigning my commission due to injury) with matter-of-fact delicacy.

“That’s more words than he wrote to me all the time he was in Spain.” She folded it up and handed it briskly back. “Thank you, Mr. Toogood. I do hope you’ll come and work for me.”

John collected her dry things from the laundry room and went to fetch Hal, trying to decide what to tell the rest of the staff. He shrank from informing Mrs. Khaleel and Thea and Molly and Larry that he was thinking of abandoning them.

The next moment he scolded himself for exaggerating his own importance. But if their faces
didn’t
fall at the news, he didn’t want to see that either.

On entering the kitchen, it was obvious that Sukey had already told them. Four faces of forced good cheer were turned to him—no, five, for Sukey had rather the same expression.

“It’s only a visit,” he said.

“For now,” Molly muttered.

He didn’t even want to go. He wanted to stay and help Molly with her father, make sure Mr. Bearparke didn’t harass Mrs. Khaleel, hear Thea sing disgusting ballads. At least he’d still be able to help Larry refurbish his livery before the footman accompanied Mr. Summers to London.