“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Frumpley said. “Imagine someone happy with their station in life, who isn’t constantly angling for a promotion, inciting riots, staff-splitting, saying and doing anything to come between the master and mistress of the house and anyone else on the payroll.”
Thornton’s ears pricked up.
“If I were Lady Harding,” Frumpley mused, “I’d replace everyone with the likes of Rake here.”
“Could get away with paying them all slave wages, too,” Minerva said, in her usual fashion of speaking her mind before she could get it fully under control. The realization settled over the room. Everyone eyed Rake with less condescension, the sentiment replaced with a hefty dose of resentment.
“I’m all for hiring more of them,” Thornton said. “You can really only teach them to do one very specific monotonous thing over and over again. Any more, and they get overwhelmed.” He made the mistake of reaching for the platter in the center of the table as Rake was pouring drinks.
Rake froze, fixing his face with a flustered look.
“I rest my case,” Thornton said. “Just think, we can all become bosses, get promoted by virtue of creating more rungs below us, since all the ones above us are already taken.”
“I wonder if we can get a government grant, pass it off as a social service,” Dyspepsia said.
Rake had done his research on all of them, eavesdropping as he made his way through the house, pretending to be lost and fumbling and in need of help, seeing who he could count on, who he could turn with empathy and pity by playing up how helpless he was, and who would be just put out by the extra labors that implied for them.
“That’s crazy,” Minerva said.
“Crazy like a fox,” Thornton advised.
Dyspepsia nodded. “I’ve been taking a grant writing course at night. I’ll see what I can do to get dump trucks of these hopeless dunderheads dropped off at the back door.”
“You have my undying support,” Thornton said, digging into his food.
“I like this new you,” Irene said, eying Thornton. “Learning how to advance yourself by advancing others.” She was being sarcastic, Rake realized, but she was trying to make a point, too. Her comment hit Thornton. He paused with his chewing as he thought about it.
“Advancing myself by advancing others,” Thornton mumbled to himself. “Suppose there might be something to it.” Raising his voice to Irene, he said, “I can still maintain my overall contempt for humanity, right? I mean, I’m just pretending to be selfless while actually being self-serving.”
“You got it,” Irene said.
“Thanks, Irene,” Thornton said. “I’m sorry I called you a fat fuck, and said you weren’t just on a slippery slope to senility, you were downhill skiing your way to the finish line like an Olympic athlete. And—”
The others were laughing.
“All right, all right. That’s enough of that,” Irene said playfully. Rake could tell she didn’t mind a little ribbing.
“And I’m sorry, Thornton, I said if you learned to suck ass any better, we could use you to dredge the toilets on the second story,” Irene said, once she was finished chewing her latest mouthful of food.
Laughter exploded around the table. His eyes watered to the point that it was getting really hard for Rake to keep a straight face and pretend the jokes were flying over his head.
Thornton, not to be outdone said, “I’m sorry I said it isn’t over until the fat lady lies sprawled on the floor in a diabetic coma.”
Even Irene was laughing so hard, she choked on her food.
Dyspepsia said, “I wonder if we can get them to throw in extra money for support staff for all these mentally challenged types, the government grant people, I mean.”
“The conversation has moved on, Dyspepsia. Do try and keep up,” Frumpley said. “I swear, you’re worse than a time machine setting down in the middle of the room.”
“No, hear her out,” Thornton said. “If she’s right, and our salaries are covered, that means we’re insured against staff cutbacks, as well. We have to think of these things if we’re successful at pushing ourselves into upper management. They’re always the first to go with any belt tightening.”
“You have your methods of advancement, I have mine,” Wilder said. He’d been quiet the whole time because he was busy wolfing down his food.
Thornton snorted. “My God, man, you’re as subtle as a heart-attack. Bloody defames the whole ass-kissing profession.”
Light chuckles mushroomed around the table. Even Frumpley joined in.
Rake, aware of Wilder’s methods, orally gratifying out of town guests, thought of offering a set of knee pads, but he couldn’t without breaking his cover.
***
Rake made the most of his break, eating the food Irene had set out for him, as the others dragged out their meal with chitchat. Soon, he’d have to jump up and pretend to be practicing at clearing the table.
“Where’s Rumfeld?” Frumpley asked. “He has to do his share of the work minding Rake.”
“Fixed it!” Rumfeld exclaimed, entering. He sported the meat slicer in his hands.
“Get that monstrosity out of my kitchen,” Irene said. “Thanks to that thing, the love of my life is gone.”
“Huh?” Thornton said, his ears pricking up.
Aggie explained, aiming at being circumspect, but that voice of hers was already steering ships out at sea clear of the cliffs better than a fog horn, “Harry, the meat slicer. He just couldn’t compete with the machine’s precision.”
“Rumfeld mentioned the contraption to the master when he didn’t have enough work fixing car engines to keep him busy, afraid of being let go,” Irene said bitterly. “The self-serving swine.”
Rumfeld lowered his eyes.
Thornton chuckled, and said, “Rumfeld, you contemptuous scheming bastard. Come sit by me, I have so few friends.”
“Honestly,” Aggie said. “I think he has a big crush on Irene, and it was a convenient way to get rid of a rival suitor.”
Rumfeld, his face reddening, set the machine down on the counter and fled out of the kitchen.
“Getting to where even I can’t keep up with the political intrigue going on in this house,” Thornton grumbled. “A poli-sci degree couldn’t hurt to up my game.”
Frumpley remarked, “I remember the days when you didn’t need a PhD to aspire to be just another peon.”
“That’s peon, first class, to you, asshole,” Thornton corrected him to light chuckles around the table.
Once Irene had cued him enough with plenty of throat-clearing sounds—he made sure not to catch the hint too fast—Rake rushed to clear the plates from the right side of his diners.
Irene begrudgingly fired up the meat slicer. She took up a stool beside it and stuck in the ham. She was so tired and, Rake suspected, so blind from elevated blood sugar, that she got her hair caught up in the machine. She screamed helplessly while Frumpley rushed to turn off the machine. He hugged her sobbing against his chest, and Rake thought he might have detected yet another of Irene’s suitors in the way Frumpley cared for her.
“Let’s have a look at you,” Frumpley said, pulling her away from him by the shoulders.
“Well, that’s one Halloween ghoul she just put out of work for the holidays,” Wilder said with his usual tact.
Callous laughs all around the table.
Thornton said, “I’ll be sure to tell Rumfeld how serendipity played its hand in recasting him from house scapegoat to house pariah.”
“I think you do rather well in that role,” Frumpley snapped.
Thornton reined himself in, suggesting he was more afraid of Frumpley than he let on, Rake thought. He exited the room. Wilder had departed just ahead of him. Rake supposed the two ass-kissers in the group had the most work to do, having to mind their duties, and everyone else’s, in order to collect the kind of intel needed to maintain their most-favored-citizen status. They’d be off to whisper in the ears of royal
ty who, as a rule, preferred to know everything going on in their dominion.
***
From the rooftop, Rake let another pigeon fly. This one carried the latest nuggets on the Harding household, starting with Irene’s love of chocolates.
TWENTY-NINE
“Serve from the left, clear from the right. Serve from the left, clear from the right,” Rake repeated like the fool he was supposed to be. Lady Grimley gave him a plastic smile as Rake put the dish before her.
“It’s refreshing to have staff straining to please you instead of slipping off to spit in your drink,” Lady Grimley said. She sliced into her steak. “But really, Beatrice? What will you think of next?”
As Rake poured the wine for Lady Grimley, he let go the longest, loudest fart in the history of the world. Lady Grimley gagged and coughed before he could get it all out, and covered her nose with her napkin. Rake was beside himself with horror. He had finally landed the sweetest gig of his career, an acting job that would never throw him to the curb at the end of the theater season. And now this. A total calamity.
Winsome patted him on the shoulder reassuringly as he teared up for real this time. “It’s all right, lad, think nothing of it.”
Lord Grimley cackled softly to himself. “Someone finally made my wife turn up her nose at something that deserved it.”
Rake made it around to Lord Grimley with the last of the wine, and let go a whining fart that sounded like a balloon losing air through its pinched lip—a balloon big enough to airlift a party of three over Canada’s Yukon territory. Rake’s face clamped down on his mouth as if the offending gas were erupting from there. The strain invited the latest round of rain from his eyes. Lord Grimley wavered, threatening to pass out and collapse headlong into the soup. Rake had to prop him up.
Grandma Grimley, sitting to his right, scooted her oxygen tank closer to him. “Help yourself,” she said. As the wave hit her, she cried out as if a thief had jumped her in the shadows of her bedroom. “Oh, dear God.” She throttled up the valve on her tank to maximum.
“He’s got a terrible case of gastritis,” Lady Harding confessed. “Genetic condition, I’m afraid. There’s no cure for it.”
Rake was relieved Lady Harding had stepped into cover for him. The woman was a saint.
“Really, Beatrice,” Lady Grimley complained. “This bleeding-heart nonsense has got to stop.” She threw her fork down on the plate.
Slamming his knife and fork down on his plate, Lord Grimley said, “Not while the man is standing right in front of you, Margaret! I won’t have it.” He ripped the cannula off Grandma’s face to keep from passing out, the latest wave of lightheadedness coming on strong. “Could you open a window, dear man?” he asked Rake.
“He’s deaf,” Lady Harding said proudly, taking liberty with the facts to heighten the drama of the moment. “But you can sign to him in Russian if you like.”
It was all Rake could do to keep from laughing beneath all the tears. God bless her. And the fact he had to convincingly act deaf on a dime just made the performance all the sweeter.
Winsome struggled at the window on Lord Grimley’s behalf, coming to the rescue, but he was too feeble and arthritic to turn the latch. Lord Grimley stood, released the caged lion of his temper, and threw a chair through the window. “Make sure to send me the bill, Beatrice.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Harding said. “The poor carpenter has been living in fear of his job. He can sleep easy tonight.”
***
Drew entered the bedroom in the Harding estate Robin and he had made their own. He took one look at Robin before the mirror, and sauntered straight toward the decanter and poured himself a drink.
“You know, Robin, you should immerse yourself more in the madness surrounding the Harding estate; it can be very mind-expanding.”
“How?”
“You’ve said it yourself many times: overpower the rational mind with enough surreal happenings, and the brain has no choice but to find a higher integral order to make sense of things; grappling with the innocuous forces your conscious unfolding to the next level.”
She returned to brushing her hair in long, slow, self-hypnotizing strokes. “I said that? It’s complete nonsense. You should know better than to listen to everything that comes out of my mouth.”
“I don’t know. Sounded like pretty sage advice.”
She looked like she was actually throwing the idea around inside her head this time, as her rhythm with the brush faltered. “Complete nonsense, I tell you.”
When Drew grimaced to convey his disagreement, she reiterated, “Nonsense.”
“Beats sitting around staring at a mirror hoping to forge psychic connections with people half a world away.”
“Says you.” She returned to brushing her hair with an absent expression.
Drew returned to his drinking.
***
Later that night, Rake fumbled through the medicine cabinet in his room in the servant’s wing. He swallowed anything that looked vaguely qualified to quash the rebellion in his G.I. tract. He did power squats over the toilet, roared like a lion each time he bent his knees into position in an effort to expectorate the last of the gas. By the third squat, enough came out that it knocked him on his ass.
He woke up minutes later, once the air had cleared, and enough oxygen was rushing to his brain again. He reached for the lip of the free standing Victorian sink. He rose too quickly, bumped his head against the unforgiving porcelain. He cursed vehemently in Scandanavian, Dutch, Russian, and Vietnamese, recalling past performances when he had to get into character as one or another countryman.
***
“We rushed right over after we heard about your fate with the Grimley’s,” Lady Oswald said. “Poor, girl, you must be traumatized.” She smiled obligingly as she saw Rake draw near her with the food cart. She clenched defensively, fearing the worst, and tried not to show it.
“You fall off the horse, darling, you have to get right back on,” Lady Oswald’s sister, Lavender, chimed in, casting an anxious glance at Rake.
The third of the triplets, Regina Oswald—three seconds older than the two twenty-three year old sisters—said, “We were terrified you’d shorten your social calendar. We couldn’t have that. Besides, I don’t think the Grimley’s count, darling. They’re Tasmanian royalty.”
“Everyone thinks Brits are open to being entirely cosmopolitan out here in the country,” Lady Oswald said, “just because everyone can afford to buy us in this down economy.”
“We’ll show them,” Lavender said, and clutched Lady Oswald’s hand. Rake was enjoying how well they finished one another’s thoughts. He fantasized converting to Mormonism so he could take them all as wives. They were all quite beautiful. He wasn’t sure he could keep up with all three, but he was determined to try.
Rake served Lady Oswald, releasing a silent fart of epic proportion. To his utter dismay, he watched her face blanch white as her mouth went wide, as if attempting to give a horse a very satisfying blow job. Rake hurried to get to the next sister, in hopes of dissipating the gas. Rake swore he saw Lady Oswald rush to cover a smile with the napkin. He didn’t know what to make of that.
He meant to arrest the cart by Lady Lavender, but an unwitting second blast of gas from his rectum was so violent it pushed him forward, sent the cart flying, and him nose-diving into the throw rug over the mahogany floor.
“Oh, my God,” Lady Lavender said, covering her wry smile with a slice of bread. Rake just barely caught the gesture in his peripheral vision en route to the floor. He wasn’t sure if the sisters were making fun of him, or rebounding from the shock with nervous laughter.
Rake clambered off the floor, grabbed hold of the chair nearest him for assistance, and found Winsome at his side, offering help, only too glad the chair was there to support the bulk of Rake’s weight. To be fair, he did have a thick, jocular frame that could be intimidating even to younger men who frequented an athletic field.
“We�
�re thinking of hosting our next party using nothing but lepers,” Lavender remarked coyly. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin as if making love to herself, and greedily eyed the imprints left from her lipstick on the white-linen cloth.
“That would be a tough act to follow,” Lady Harding said, ashamed she hadn’t thought of it.
“Don’t listen to her,” Regina said. “We’ve been throwing that joke around for years in deference to your charity work.”
Frumpley, Winsome, Thornton, Dyspepsia, and Muriel, hugging the walls in their supporting roles, traded looks with one another, getting ideas themselves.
“We could use some relief staff around here,” Frumpley said, raising his hand over his face so his words wouldn’t carry too far.
Winsome faked a cough, and covered his mouth as he said, “They’d be great for special events. And summer vacations.”
Thornton covered his mouth at the end of a pretend-yawn. “Lepers are sickly, so they couldn’t handle anything but respite work. No real threat to job security.”
Bending over, to allegedly pick up something off the floor, Dyspepsia said, “I’ll start a second grant request.”
Frumpley wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and said, “We’ll put an end to England’s unemployment problem at this rate.”
Thornton put his hand up as if signaling staff on the far wall to be more attentive to Lady Oswald, finding a fresh way to cover his mouth without drawing attention to their chitchat. “It’s high-time you came up with an idea like that instead of poo-pooing everything. You have the most to gain as house manager. Between the retard regiment and the leper contingent, I don’t think MacArthur had as many troops answering to him. Think of the salary boost, man.”
“I suppose it’s not too late to plan more preemptively for retirement,” Frumpley conceded.
***
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 145
