by K. Velk
The view was of the flower gardens and the fountain and the Park beyond. From this vantage point, the grounds looked so perfect that they hardly seemed real. The flowers looked painted, the lawns as though every blade of grass had been combed. The Park wall – his wall – was clearly visible. In the setting sunlight, it looked to be made of gold rather than pale stone. As he gaped, a pair of red-breasted birds swooped and wheeled in front of it.
“Wow,” he said, forgetting himself completely. “That’s beautiful.”
Mr. Scott, cleared his throat in discreet reproach, but an appreciative laugh came from two women seated at the end of the room. Miles felt heat rush to his face. One of the ladies stood and advanced on him with an extended hand.
“I am Margaret Fisher, Miles, and I am so pleased to meet you. That other lady is my friend, Mrs. Fields, from Boald Hall. She’s one of your countrymen, and she particularly wanted to meet you.” Lady Fisher was wearing a light blue dress and low-heeled silver-buckled shoes in the same shade. Her hair was something between blond and gray and was arranged carefully in a kind of swirl on top of her head. She had wrinkles on the sides of her eyes that reminded Miles of Mrs. Davies, who had spent a lifetime squinting against the Texas sun. Miles liked her instantly.
Mrs. Fields remained seated in front of the huge fireplace but she held a cup of coffee up in Miles’ direction by way of a toast. She looked to be about the same age as Lady Fisher, but she was very thin and wearing riding clothes which gave her a sporty, boyish appearance.
“This is a beautiful room, isn’t it Miles? I think so too,” she said. “It pains me to say so, but I am not sure anything at home quite comes up to it. How’s Mother England treating you?”
“Uh. Fine. I guess.”
“When Maggie told me she had an American boy working for her, I said I would have to ride over and make sure that no offense to our national pride was being committed. I am not quite sure it’s decent for an American boy to work for a British family.”
“Oh Kate stop it. She’s only teasing, Miles,” Lady Fisher said. “I am sure we’ll be good friends. Do sit down. Would you like something to drink? I understand you’ve been assisting Mr. Pauling on the Park wall. It’s looking splendid, but it must be exhausting work.”
She placed a hand on his wooly shoulder and guided him to a chair near the fireplace.
“I’m fine, Ma’am, uh, Lady Fisher. It’s not so bad,” he said trying to keep Mr. Scott’s rules in mind.
“Really, I can’t tell you how pleased I was to hear that you had arrived with a good report of Morgan! Mr. Scott tells me he’s a Professor of English? It was wonderful, wonderful to have such news of him.”
Mrs. Fields lit a cigarette. “I wasn’t sure they even spoke English in Texas.”
“Oh, behave yourself Katie. You’ll frighten poor Miles.”
“Oh our Texas boys are made of sterner stuff than that. Just look at him, Mags. He looks like he could vanquish a pirate ship.”
Miles couldn’t help smiling at that. “Uhm. Lady Fisher. I have a book here, from your library. Professor Davies asked me to bring back to you.” He handed over the Shakespeare.
“You know, I can’t claim that I have missed this in the years it’s been gone,” she said, turning it over in her hands. “I shouldn’t have minded if he kept it.”
“He said he didn’t really mean to take it. When he left here, he wasn’t sure where he was going or how long he would be away. There’s a letter from him inside it.”
Her eyebrows shot up and the letter was quickly extracted. She read it aloud.
My Dear Lady Fisher,
I hope that my young friend, Miles McTavish, is now standing before you and that your copy of Shakespeare is safe, at last, in your hands. I did not intend to carry it away when I left Quarter Sessions, and it has been on my conscience. It was a poor way to repay you for all the kindness you showed me. It is not too much to say that, along with the love and care of my parents, your generosity has made all the difference in my life.”
She stopped reading and swallowed. Miles saw the letter begin to shake.
Concerning Miles: He has been forced by circumstances to go to England to seek some distant relations. I assured him that if his search was not successful, he could apply for aid at Quarter Sessions. Miles is young, but he is bright, good- hearted and of good family. I have worked alongside him, and I found him to be steady and reliable. I would be grateful, as would his poor parents, for any help you can provide to him in the way of employment or other assistance.
I would have liked to accompany him to England myself, but I am at a turning in my career that makes it impossible for me to undertake a journey at this time. You will be pleased, I think, to know that I have many bright professional prospects dangling before me just now. I am not sure which I shall take. I am a poor correspondent, but if you do not hear from me again please know that I think of you fondly and with gratitude every day.
Your servant,
Morgan Davies
“It’s splendid, really, that he’s come to such a good end,” she said as she folded the letter back in her lap. Her eyes filled with tears then and she pulled a lacy little handkerchief from the pocket of her dress.
“Whatever is the matter Maggie?” Mrs. Fields moved swiftly to her friend’s side. The gesture was, apparently, the last straw. Lady Fisher crumpled, overcome by choking sobs. She tried, pathetically, to muffle them with the dainty handkerchief.
Miles felt his blood freeze. Was this his fault? What were the rules of conduct when the Lady of the Manor broke down in front of the lowliest servant on the estate? Should he stay? Should he go? He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket wishing he could sink into the armchair and through the floor. As he writhed, he found a tear in the satiny lining of his jacket pocket. He poked a finger through and felt it brush something strange – a thin cord. He nearly pulled it out to see what it was before the shock of recognition hit.
It could only be one thing – and it shouldn’t be where it apparently was. It was his earbuds, which meant his iPod was also somewhere inside his jacket lining…
25. A Stowaway
Of course! When he had tried on this jacket for Mrs. Davies back in Austin, he’d been holding the iPod in his hand. He had been listening to it that day, before his hospital talk with Professor Davies, and he had been so rattled afterward that he had just carried it with him for hours. He must have shoved it in the pocket at the Army Navy store. This iPod (he had two other earlier versions back home, along with his iPhone) was a nano, small and easy to miss.
Miles panicked for a moment. He had inadvertently broken some cosmic rule – nothing obviously modern was to be brought through the Gate! But, he realized in the next instant, he had apparently gotten away with it. He was so thrilled that he felt like jumping up and down. It was like finding his own lost world in his pocket.
This iPod had been a gift from Dane Hill, the music producer, family friend, and client of Miles’ father. Every track on it had been selected by Dane with the purpose of introducing Miles to the greats of American popular music. It was filled mostly with tracks by the soul and country singers that were Dane’s favorites: Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Patsy Cline, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cook, Hank Williams, Etta James – music Miles wouldn’t hear on Spotify or the iTunes top twenty that he and his friends mostly listened to.
Miles had loved it all. He had gone to Austin last summer thinking that he might someday like to work at the Britannic Wheelman, but he had left with a secret notion of someday working for Dane at his production company.
Now, with Lady Fisher sobbing by his knee, he surreptitiously pulled the little iPod into his hand and cradled the beautiful brushed metal. Maybe this had been allowed through the Gate to remind him where he really belonged. With this, and the discovery of Rhonda and Violet, Miles felt that the wheel of fortune had finally turned his way.
“Should I go?” he mouthed at Mrs. Fields, hoping desperately to be
excused. She nodded, but Lady Fisher waved at him to stay put. She managed a few deep breaths and with a couple of wipes of the handkerchief she was sufficiently restored to talk again.
“Oh, Miles. I am so sorry! It’s just that it’s such a relief. You see, I was in America when Morgan’s mother died. In those days, just after the war, I’m afraid I was well and truly lost in my own slough of despond. My friends thought a long visit in America might help, and it did. It helped me very much, but when I returned to learn that Mrs. Davies had died and Morgan simply vanished, I felt that in my preoccupation I had failed him.”
“Oh Maggie, you are ridiculous! He was hardly your responsibility, and after all that you had been through!” Mrs. Fields gave her friend’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
“I don’t see it that way, Katie. One of the first resolves I made after my head cleared was to give that boy a proper start in life. He showed such promise. I was sick that I had missed the chance. I am so glad to know he didn’t need my help so much as I imagined.” Her smile gained a firmer hold on her features. “Have no fear, Miles. I am unlikely to go to pieces again anytime soon.” She held a silver tray of cookies in his direction.
“Have a biscuit, won’t you? I daresay you could use some fortification after a scene like that.”
Miles took one and ate it to be polite. He would have eaten a sand dollar under the circumstances if it would speed the meeting to a close.
“I must have a word with Mr. Scott,” Lady Fisher said as she decorously munched a cookie herself. “Now that the work on the wall is nearly done, I think Mr. Pauling might spare you. I am sure we ought to find something for you to do in the house.”
26. An Inside Job
Miles’ new room was simply furnished, two beds and a dresser, but here he would have no roommate. Mrs. Grimwald explained that there was no boy sufficiently low in the servants’ hierarchy to be placed with him. In fact, he would have this wing of the third floor to himself.
Miles was going to miss Jack, but he had to admit that his new situation offered some big advantages. First and foremost was the bathroom. It was just steps from his bedroom and it was equipped with a flush toilet – an odd one, with a tank of water set high above the bowl and flushed with a pull chain, but an indoor toilet was an indoor toilet.
The bathroom also had a bathtub, a sink with hot and cold running water (from separate taps, but he wasn’t about to complain). Above the mirror was an electric light that went on with a funny push-button switch by the door. Miles could hardly wait to fill the big claw-footed tub with steaming hot water and immerse himself from head to heels. After more than a month of chamber pots, outhouses, washbasins and his Saturday evening dousing in the Peppermore kitchen, this bathroom was a paradise.
His new title was “under-footman.” Mr. Scott informed him that his duties would be “as assigned” and would include helping the maids with any heavy lifting and attending the fireplaces, which were shortly to be put back into use.
“Inside staff are expected to maintain a high standard of personal hygiene,” Mr. Scott said as he provided Miles with his uniform, a collection of white shirts with starched detachable collars, a pair of blue vests with gold buttons marked with an ornate letter “F”, and dark trousers. “In fact,” Mr. Scott added, “some of the staff find it burdensome to come up to the mark, which they feel Lady Fisher set inordinately high after her return from America, but the requirement remains.”
So a daily bath was mandatory! Consuela would be amazed to learn that Miles’ heart leapt at the news.
Overall, Miles felt he had endured the privations of 1928 remarkably well, but hygiene standards, or the general lack of them, had been one of the hardest things to bear. Underarm deodorants and proper toothpaste lay somewhere in the future. And there was no place safe from cigarettes, or worse, much worse, cigars. Even with a daily bath, Miles was going to be as smelly as the rest of them by dinnertime.
And thinking of dinner, there were days when he thought he would kill for a cheeseburger, or a Diet Coke, or a bowl of macaroni and cheese. He longed powerfully for his computer, and to fall into a soft chair with a TV remote in his hand. More than anything, though, he missed his music. He had not adjusted to the silence of the world in 1928. The only interruptions to the stillness inside Quarter Sessions were the ticking of the many clocks, the gonging of the hours, the quiet conversations of the servants, and an occasional barking dog.
Miles realized that he had been accompanied by music or the sound of television or radio during nearly every leisure moment of his life. Truth be told, he missed those sounds as much (or more, sometimes) than he missed his parents. So another great feature of his new isolated, third-floor room was that it would provide him with privacy to listen to his iPod – at least for as long as the battery held out.
On the night of its rediscovery, Miles had managed to wait until Jack was snoring before investigating it. He was amazed and overjoyed to see that it was still more than half charged! This must have been something to do with the time shift, he supposed. However it had been managed, it meant that if he could discipline himself he could listen to a few songs every few days and it would last, he hoped, for at least a week.
That first night, he had set it to shuffle and allowed himself five songs. He got Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll, Shirley Bassey singing the theme from Goldfinger, Johnny Cash singing Ring of Fire, and the Beach Boys doing I Get Around. Every note felt like medicine. He ached to let the music play all night, but the precious battery must be preserved. He turned it off and put it back through the hole in the jacket pocket. He hadn’t listened to it since then, but he would allow himself a few more songs on his first night as an under-footman as a celebration.
Miles’ new job coincided with an unusual event at Quarter Sessions: the Fishers were expecting visitors. They were the headmistress of a London girl’s school – the one from which Violet and Rhonda had issued – an architect and his assistant. They would all be staying for most of the rest of August.
It had been, Mr. Scott explained, a long time since Quarter Sessions had played host to any guests and the planning and preparing animated the staff.
“Miss Everett is to have the Italian Room. The architect will go in the Blue Room and his assistant in the Gold Room,” Mrs. Grimwald announced at Miles’ first indoor-staff dinner in the Servants’ Hall.
“I daresay I wasn’t sure what to do about the assistant,” she added, “but Lady Fisher asserts that he is himself a qualified professional and not a tradesman, though it seems to me a near thing. In any case, they will all dine with Sir James and Lady Fisher each night.
“The three bedrooms will need a complete going-over before the guests arrive,” Mrs. Grimwald continued. “Nell, would you please assist Rhonda, Violet, and Miles in cleaning the rooms tomorrow? The rugs in the Blue and Gold Rooms must go out for a thorough beating. The carpet in the Italian Room is too large to be carried out and can only be Hoovered…”
Violet broke in from her place near the end of the table, “It beats as it sweeps as it cleans!” This caused a snicker from most of the diners for some reason that was lost on Miles. The laughter was smothered in its cradle however, by Mrs. Grimwald’s stern frown.
Miles nevertheless smiled into his dessert, a strange sweet mass called “junket.” His heart was light. Tomorrow he would have a whole day to talk with Violet and Rhonda. Maybe the end was in sight, at last! He took a mouthful of junket. It wasn’t bad. “What’s in this?” he asked Mr. Faraday, the upholsterer, who was seated across the table.
“Haven’t they got it in America? It’s sweetened curds and rennet.”
Curds? Miles put his spoon down. He had to ask. “What’s rennet?”
Mr. Faraday gaped. “It’s the lining of a cow’s stomach, of course.”
It was time to get home…
27. The Dusting Detective
“I’ve always enjoyed beating rugs,” Violet said after they had finally managed to wrestle
the carpet from the Blue Room outdoors and to unroll it onto a frame specially designed for the purpose. “If you’re cross about something it’s a fine way to work off some steam.” Rhonda fetched carpet beaters and handed them around. The beaters were shaped like tennis rackets with a big wicker pretzel in the place of strings at the top. “In fact, the madder you are, the cleaner the rug’ll be. Let me think. Oh yes,” she said, and whacked the rug a mighty blow. A cloud of dust billowed out and Rhonda and Miles coughed and laughed and began their own assault on the rug.
“What were you thinking of?” Miles asked. He knew he had to play it cool. He couldn’t afford to spook these girls by being too inquisitive and he couldn’t tell his own story until he was sure he had the right girl.
Violet looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure I should say – I’ve only just met you.”
“Oh come on Vi, he’s all right,” Rhonda said whacking away at the rug. “He’s an orphan too you know.”
“I’m not an orphan!” Violet shouted. “My mother’s still living as you well know. Anyway, since you’ve asked – that’s what I was thinking of – the time I went to visit her at the ‘ospital and found her tied to a ‘orrible, filthy bed.”
“Vi’s mum is touched in the head,” Rhonda said. This sounded like an insult but Violet didn’t seem offended.
“She’s the kindest, gentlest creature,” she said, “but she gets confused about things – sometimes imagines things that aren’t there.”
