Lord Harveston appeared very struck by the information. Cordelia was well pleased that she’d been able to inform him of something he did not know.
“I suppose you will step forward as this new, triumphant Desdemona?” he said.
Cordelia blanched. “Actually, I will be playing Cassio.”
Lord Harveston sighed. “I am sorry to say that I believe my aunt has done a little miscasting.”
Cordelia would not for the world agree to such a statement. At least, not out loud. Of course, in her heart, she thoroughly agreed.
It felt very complimentary that Lord Harveston should have perceived it so quickly.
It felt somehow that there had been a warming of temperatures between her and Lord Harveston. It felt as if they were on more equal footing now that she had been able to educate him on something he did not know. And of course, that he rightly thought she ought to be Desdemona.
Perhaps he was not quite as bad as she’d originally thought.
*
Percival had neverspent such a strange afternoon in his life.
For one, he had somehow been bamboozled into helping his aunt with her theatrical—Othello Redux. As far as her usual ideas went, it was absolutely not the worst he’d heard of. However, it was not one he would care to share with any of his more intellectual friends. There was not much danger in their hearing of it, as even if they had been invited to the theatrical they never would have attended.
Though the general idea was not as terrible as it might have been, he became exceedingly alarmed when he understood the scope of the swordfight they were planning on. They wished to use real swords and hide bags of cow blood under their clothes. Lady Agatha had been strangely enthusiastic about “blood spewing everywhere to the shock of the audience.”
He wondered if they would end up inadvertently murdering each other. That certainly would put the period at the end of the sentence for his aunt’s troupe.
Percival would not be sorry to see the end of it, though he’d rather not get there via two dead matrons on the floor.
All of that had been alarming enough, but then there had been Lady Cordelia.
He’d felt he’d made further strides in rehabilitating himself with Lady Cordelia, though he’d also found himself uncomfortably bested by her in some manner. He’d grown used to feeling like the intellectual superior, but today she had spoken of things out of his ken.
She very glibly spoke of that whole mess called human emotions as if it were not the least thing to fear. As if putting oneself in another’s power was not an exceedingly dangerous thing to do.
He knew it was though. He’d seen it with his own eyes.
His father had dallied with a housemaid and the result of it could not have been more different than night and day, depending upon what floor of the house one laid one’s head.
Above stairs, everything went on as it always had. His parents were cordial to one another, but nothing more. It was very like two people who acknowledge each other as acquaintances and always put their best foot forward—painfully polite.
Though he should not have, Percival had reason to know what went on below stairs too. His set of rooms had an old staircase running down to the servants’ hall. It was at the back of a narrow dressing room, behind a set of drawers and Percival was certain nobody remembered it was there.
The door in the servants’ hall had been walled over so he could never have used the staircase to enter that domain. The wall was thin though, and he had taken to sitting on the bottom step and listening of an evening when he was supposed to be abed.
He was certain he should never have been eavesdropping, he knew it even then. He just could not help himself. He lived in a cold and quiet house with cold and quiet tutors and cold and quiet parents. He had no siblings he might have sought company from.
All he had was the company of the servants, even though they did not know he was there.
Life below stairs was anything but cold and quiet. It was at times raucous, other times it was complaining, other times filled with stories from the village. Often, it was a reporting of the family’s doings—the mistress had ripped another hem and her maid wondered if she did it on purpose, or the baron was so out of sorts he drank three glasses of port though it did him little good.
He had even once heard of one of his own misdeeds. He’d broken a China bowl and had been spied by a maid hiding the pieces in the ash of a fireplace.
Percival had been very cheered by how sympathetic they’d all been to his crime. One of the footmen claimed he’d clear it out first thing in the morning and nobody would be the wiser.
He had begun to think of them all as friends, though they did not think of him that way.
But then one night, a pall had settled over the servants’ table. The story came out in bits and pieces, and what a terrible story it was. Dora, one of the housemaids, was with child. She would have to leave service. She would go with nothing—no money and no reference. The child would be unacknowledged.
She was meant to be already gone, but the butler and housekeeper were kind people and had discussed it between them—they would hide her until arrangements could be made for her to travel.
