“Excellent points, Mrs. Right,” Mr. Klonsume said with a tone she imagined was meant to signal some sort of newfound gravitas. “Gad, I’ve got to learn all about good form and bad.Goodbye, Mrs. Right. We will no longer travel in the same circles, I’m afraid. Can’t be helped—when one moves up in the world, one leaves people behind. Nature of the thing.”
Mrs. Right was itching to inquire what happened to his idea that there was no rank in America. Nobody was above anybody else. Now that Mr. Klonsume imagined he was to have a title, he did not seem so opposed to the idea of rank. She kept her own counsel on it, though.
Head held high, Mr. Klonsume went off to pack his things. There was silence in the servants’ hall until he was well out of hearing. Then the hysterics that took over could not be contained for some minutes. Cook came in to join them, as he’d been listening from the kitchens. He said he’d laughed so hard he cried and was planning to blame it on chopping onions if he were caught.
On the morrow, Mr. Klonsume would be taken to The Albany in a carriage that would fly a few ridiculous flags to hammer in the pomp of it all and he’d be given the keys to Lord Charles’ set. There, he would find instructions to pray all night to prepare himself for the royal bestowing of a knighthood of the Order of Owen, which she had entirely invented. Saint Nicholas Owen was known as the saint of ingenuity, which was very apt to bestow upon a fellow very impressed with his own ingenuity.
Mr. Klonsume would also be left with preposterous clothing to wear to the nonexistent ceremony, all dug up from the attics. With any luck, Mr. Klonsume would don a frock coat, colorful waistcoat, breeches, silk stockings, shoes sporting a heel and gaudy buckles, and top the whole thing off with a patch and a powdered wig. He would set off to collect Lady Marchfield to be witness to his knighthood.
And that would conclude the satisfying return to Lady Marchfield of yet another butler.
Though Mr. Klonsume was generally oblivious, Lady Marchfield would see Mrs. Right’s hand in it at once. She only wished she could be there when the fellow arrived in all his splendor and explained he was to be knighted into the Order of Owen because of his American confidence and ingenuity.
