“Well, last year, we were talking of Mr. Cremble’s departure. I said I supposed she would give up the whole idea of trying to make us have a butler in Town. And she said if I knew what she was thinking, it would send a chill down my spine.”
“A spine chill—shedidsay that! Are you frightened, Mrs. Right?” Valor asked.
“Not a bit of it,” Mrs. Right said. “Your aunt will not find a butler to defeat me anywhere in this wide world, you can be assured of that.”
“He does sound scary, though,” Valor said.
“That’s because he does not sound like anything at all, Val,” the duke said. “She means to frighten us with the mysteriousness of it.”
“It’s working,” Valor said, pulling Sir Galahad onto her lap. The little pug was happy to be of service and licked her face.Verity got the idea that her youngest sister had traded in her raggedy stuffed rabbit, Mrs. Wendover, for the comfort of the little dog.
Verity did not mind too much that there was to be another butler adventure in the house. It would take some eyes off her, and that was just what she wished for.
“What about you, Verity?” the duke asked. “Are you all aflutter about what’s coming our direction by way of another butler?”
Verity shook her head. “No, Papa. I am certain our Mrs. Right will see him out the door quick enough. At least, that is the usual case of things.”
Everyone nodded in approval. While Verity often did not know if her pronouncing something the usual case of things was correct, this definitelywasthe usual case of things.
*
Henry Foster, BaronWembly, regarded his fellow intellectuals at a meeting of The Royal Society. There had been a time not so long ago that he had thrilled to attend such meetings. To be admitted into the society and surrounded by men who shared his interest in advancing scientific understanding had seemed the pinnacle of everything he could wish for.
The thrill had begun to wane just a little bit, though. At the end of each season, all these learned men, including himself, would retreat to their estates to spend the months in study. He was happy to do it. He was content enough to write letters requesting notes from various volumes he did not possess, answer requests of the same, pore through the volumes he owned, and spend a lot of time…thinking.
However, recently his thinking had begun to take a turn. All those months of study were done very solitary. The days werenot too terrible, he occupied his time in his library and riding round the estate on various matters. In the house, there was the constant bustle of staff going here and there and doing this or that. The nights were rather too quiet, though.
Dining alone, surrounded by a butler and two footmen, was awkward. Did they watch him chew? Were they hoping he’d hurry up? He supposed a baron was not to care if his staff wished he’d hurry up, but he did care. There was something inherently uncomfortable about the whole thing. There were those lords of England who went along happily, never imagining that anybody beneath them had a stray thought they would not say aloud. Henry was all too uncomfortably aware of the fallacy of that, though. If he were his butler or one of his footmen, he would be hard-pressed not to toe-tap through those dreary dinners.
Afterward, he would be left in the drawing room, with one of them standing round in case he needed anything. He invariably sent them off early, as it was uncomfortable to sit alone with another person waiting to see if you would want anything. Sometimes, he heard the household staff’s laughter drifting up from below stairs. They certainly had a better time during these nights at home.
He usuallywasat home at night, too. His neighborhood was rather thin of amusements as it only consisted of an elderly countess who lived in the glorious past of the 1750s and a viscount whose sole interest seemed to be shooting things.
His opinion on his predicament settled. He wanted a family. He wanted to hear talking and footsteps and laughter and doors slamming overhead. He wanted company in the evenings. It was time to wed. He was tired of being alone with his thoughts, however intellectual those thoughts might be.
He supposed his aunt would be delighted. She was his last living relative, but for a handful of more distant cousins. He stayed in her house in Town, as being preferable to renting hisown house or a set at The Albany. Why not? She was a sharp old girl and they both appreciated the company.
Just now, various members wandered round The Royal Society’s rooms for the annual reception that would kick off the season. Sir Richard had cornered a few gentlemen, including himself, to outline his observations of the behavior of the frogs in his pond, which he had gone to great lengths to study to the detriment of his clothes. In the interest of scientific progress and at great inconvenience to himself, Sir Richard had expanded his observations by traveling halfway across the country to study the frogs in Lord Hellburn’s pond. As far as Henry could understand it, both gentlemen’s frogs had acted as very usual frogs.
“My conclusion based on my observations,” Sir Richard droned on, “is that, as a species, the common frog of England, or Rana temporaria as we would more properly name them, all share similar habits regardless of any environmental differences they might experience. Now what does this say about the more rare Northern Clade Pool Frog, or Pelophylax lessonae? That is not at all conclusive, but I assure you, my esteemed colleagues, I will be investigating exactly that in Norfolk over the next summer. The great question that hangs in the balance—do these two species of frogs maintain similar habits? The study of herpetofauna rather depends on our finding it out!”
Henry stared at the fellow. Did all frogs act like frogs? That’s what they needed to find out? There were times when he really questioned some inquiries conducted by the society as being perhaps not critical to scientific advancement. This was the sort of thing that might be mocked by those who were not members of the society.
“I plan to present my findings next year,” Sir Richard said. “Though, I did want my colleagues to have an early peek into my work. I will send all of you a copy of the paper I am developing.”
Henry smiled. He was soon to be in receipt of a riveting paper on how frogs acted like frogs, regardless of which pond they resided in.
Please, God, let me find a wife.
*
Verity watched thescenery go by, the farmland becoming less and the villages and small towns more frequent. The trip to London had been full of interest, though of a far different sort of interest than the Nicolet entourage had been used to. It seemed that they’d been so often to the various inns where they stopped over the years that the duke’s habits had become a bit too well understood.
One of his favorite jests, asking for brocabbage pie or Grassington hambac, neither of which existed, did not cause the usual amusement. The duke liked to insist on the dishes as Yorkshire staples, the kitchens would go mad attempting to discover what they were, and then the duke would jocularly inform them that he’d made the whole thing up.
The duke had been foiled at that gambit several times. One innkeeper just answered flatly that they did not have those two items. When reminded that they were allegedly Yorkshire staples, he’d simply replied, “Then the Yorkshire lunatics can keep them to themselves. Your Grace.”
At another inn, the woman who ran the kitchen operation had already proved herself immune to the duke’s humor the year before by threatening to add some poisonous mushrooms to his brocabbage pie and pointing out she knew where to find those mushrooms. This time, she shouted loud enough for all to hear that she would “Grassington Hambac that duke all the way back to the Dales.”
