Love by the Morning Star

by Laura L. Sullivan

  Lady Liripip’s gifts were Boxing Day in the extreme—gifts for inferiors. She made charity an ugly word.

  She directed her stepdaughters and Teddy to deliver the packages. Without thanks for a year of service, she said, “Here you will find goods sufficient to make yourselves a new uniform for the coming year . . . if you are conservative with your patterns. Full skirts, as you know, are an impediment to domestic efficiency. Those of you who are thin and find yourselves with extra material may feel free to keep the scraps for your own use,” she added in a paroxysm of benevolence. “Though you may wish to donate them to the plumper members of the staff.” She gave Glenda a significant look that made Hannah want to slap her. She thought about having Lady Liripip for an in-law. Was Teddy worth the price of his mother? Yes, but only just.

  Teddy carried Hannah’s package to her, and again her eyes silently begged him for just one look of acknowledgment. He grinned at her. He winked at her! His mother said, “Those of you who joined Starkers after the summer are not really entitled to a new uniform yet, but I believe in seeing my staff well turned out. Please remember, though, that if your employment here should cease for any reason before Boxing Day next, any new uniforms acquired during the year must be promptly returned or their cost shall be deducted from your salary and your letter of reference withheld.”

  Teddy flinched and gave a little sigh. Hannah felt her lip twitch in an almost smile.

  The housekeeper got a pair of gloves that did not fit her meaty hands; the butler received a box of handkerchiefs with the letter L embroidered on the corner, allowing him to maintain the illusion that the L was for his first name, Laurence, and not that they were an old box of Liripip-monogrammed hankies that no one had ever bothered to open.

  “For you, Cook,” Lady Liripip continued, directing one of the stepdaughters to hand her a little box. “Though I trust that if Trapp should return from the sanatorium before the end of the year, you will submit this gift to her, as it properly belongs to the head cook, whoever she might be.”

  Lady Liripip gave a little jerk of her head that might have passed for a bow of thanks, and on that cue all of the staff descended once more into their assorted obeisances.

  Teddy left last of all, and Hannah’s eyes tugged at him with all their might. Just look back, she pleaded, feeling foolish but longing for it all the same, that final cast crumb.

  He didn’t look back, and she slumped, telling herself that it didn’t matter, that she would see him at the Servants’ Ball and touch him and look at his wonderful face as they glided and spun under every eye, even his mother’s. But it still mattered.

  Then she heard feet on the stair. He was back! He would take her in his arms and say he couldn’t stay away from her. He would kiss her for all to see, unashamed.

  He sought her out, looked at her with those eyes so earnest and frank. She might name them that, the left eye Ernest, the right one Frank, she thought giddily as he stood even closer than when she had mistakenly thought he was going to blackmail his way into her favors. What a silly notion that had been. She tilted her head to him, parted her lips.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said affably, “I won’t need you to help me with my German after all. I’ve found another tutor.” He gave a little smile of conspiracy. “I couldn’t find a trace of your parents, though. Everyone has someone missing in Germany. I’m very sorry. I’ll be going back soon, though, so buck up.” He chucked her under the chin and ran up the stairs, back to his own world.

  She did not know whether to be pleased or disappointed. What was that?

  “An excuse to touch you,” Waltraud whispered.

  The servants took a moment to unwrap their presents, though there was neither anticipation nor enthusiasm. Black or blue material for the house staff, dim florals straight from the remainder racks for the kitchen staff. Hannah received a bundle of calico with a field of sickly yellow asters.

  Sally opened her present (or Trapp’s present, depending) with a resigned sigh.

  “What is it?” Hannah asked, peering over her shoulder.

  “A fish slice,” Sally answered wearily. “A used fish slice.”

  “I now know why it is called Boxing Day,” Waltraud said, her arched, penciled eyebrows descending in a fierce frown. “Because at this moment I should like to box every one of their aristocratic ears.”

  Lord Liripip Knows Exactly What Hannah Is

  HANNAH GOT THROUGH HER MORNING as best she could with an interminable series of jaw-cracking yawns and long, heavy blinks, during which she seemed to actually fall asleep for a matter of seconds before jerking awake. It might have been the day of the Servants’ Ball, but, if anything, their work was increased. The house staff had to have everything impeccably clean and lay out all of the decorations that were supposed to be for their enjoyment but were, of course, to impress the titled guests who would be attending the fete. Servants’ balls, with their Saturnalian reputations (for what else but a period of utter riot could induce the classes to mingle?), often attracted the faster kind of aristocrat—younger sons and new money with purchased titles.

  The kitchen staff too were kept on their toes. True, they would get to eat with the others before the dancing began, but they also had to prepare the food for their own consumption. It was laid out buffet style, so in theory, once it was prepared, the cook and her minions could relax and partake, but in reality there would be last-minute things to peel and arrange, and if anything ran out, they were the ones who would have to replenish it, recruiting some disgruntled footman in his Sunday best to carry it out. (Things might be topsy-turvy at a servants’ ball, but they were not so topsy-turvy as that.)

  So on her special day, the day honoring servants and all their hard work, Hannah had no time to rest. In between chores, at the hours when she usually attended Anna, she would creep up to Anna’s room and see if she’d woken up. Each time she found the girl with her head buried in her soft down pillow, the blankets pulled up over her ear like a quilted carapace, gently snoring. Hannah would have liked to resent her this comfort—and she did, a little—but mostly she was glad that Anna evidently had had as good a night as she herself. Love is such a surprising thing, she thought. It really is, as Anna said, like a disease, springing unseen, infecting with the most minuscule microbe and proliferating in the unsuspecting body. She was glad that Anna wasn’t as immune as she’d thought. Hardy was certainly a fine fellow.

  The one concession to the special day was that the servants (assuming Starkers was spotless and the food prepared) could have an hour of free time to make themselves presentable. Lady Liripip had put forth the idea that it would somehow be more picturesque for the servants to appear at the dance in uniform, but her son and stepdaughters convinced her this might arouse a certain ire in the people who could so easily poison their food or stick pins in them while dressing them, and she reluctantly capitulated. No amount of persuasion, however, could keep her from deducting the hour from the servants’ next afternoon off.

  Hannah wondered if she could sleep for fifty minutes and manage to dress in ten. It was tempting . . . but no, she still had to snip the strands of pearls out of their hem-and-seam hiding places, and if she didn’t want to ruin her one remaining nonservice outfit, she’d have to work slowly and carefully.

  Ah, well, she thought, not bothering to stifle the next yawn. I can sleep when I’m married. Mmm . . .

  She was alone in the kitchen as she indulged in this pleasant thought. Just then one of the bells rang.

  In the hall beyond the kitchen was a miniature carillon. Bells of every size, tone, and timbre were mounted on the wall, each with a name or location written in precise copperplate script. Whenever a bell rang, it was the job of whoever was closest (or if several servants were present, whoever was lowest on the social totem pole) to make a mad dash to see who had been summoned, and where. They were supposed to recognize the caller or room by its pitch, but only Coombe and Mrs. Wilcox could do that. For the others, it was a
matter of reaching the bell before it stopped pealing, or, failing that, before it stopped trembling. The smaller, lighter bells might quiver for several seconds after they fell dumb, but the largest—which were for the most important people—gave two rings at most and were then utterly still. A terrible system, Hannah thought, because a lesser guest, with his faint, tinny ring and long, silent shuddering, would forgive the necessity of a second ring. Lord or Lady Liripip, never, and don’t bother explaining that the only servant in the vicinity had been making a béchamel that simply would not tolerate abandonment. White sauce lumps be damned—she’d better drop everything if she liked (or at least wanted to keep) her job.

  The bell that rang now was the largest, the deepest, a veritable church bell. Hannah had only been smashing almonds with a satisfying ferocity, so she could drop her mallet and see who had called. It was Lord Liripip.

  The problem was, who could attend him?

  Usually when he rang, it was for his valet, his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Brigand. Hannah had heard the name of this elusive man for days before she finally saw him, and had been expecting something considerably more piratical than the lean, long-shanked cadaver who attended to Lord Liripip’s intimate wants. He looked as if he should be even more of an invalid than his master, but in his slow, spiderlike way he seemed to get His Lordship dressed and groomed and Macassared. (Hannah clearly remembered the frisson of terror she felt when she intercepted a note stating that Brigand was ready for the massacre. She’d never dreamed of an infusion of Treasure Island in her Wodehousean idyll. But it turned out that the servants weren’t very good spellers, and the valet was only ready for the Macassar oil he used on Lord Liripip’s hair.)

  Very likely, Lord Liripip was calling Brigand to double as nursemaid and bathe and swaddle his gouty foot. Unluckily, Brigand had been sent into town to fetch the only sort of shoe polish His Lordship could tolerate, and he wouldn’t be back for another hour.

  But someone had to attend him, and as Hannah had learned, there was an accepted order to everything, to violate which could spell disaster. Perhaps not to quite the same extent as a female serving in the dining hall (which practically heralded an apocalypse), but it could still make the masters gape in disbelief and very likely talk of termination.

  The butler would be the next best choice to send up to Liripip’s library—he was quite gravid and male enough to suit. But he had been dispatched to London to get the various kinds of cigars and cigarettes their assorted Royal Highnesses preferred, in case any of them should show. (They were notoriously lax in their RSVPs, and at best their social secretaries might manage to call when they were en route.)

  Everyone else was occupied too. The housekeeper, the parlor maids, the ladies’ maids, all so far above her on the social hierarchy and far more suited to attend His Lordship in his hour of need.

  But there was only she, and heaven forbid he ring the bell a second time.

  There was nothing for it but to go and chance the consequences. Giggling at her own temerity, and more at the thought that there was anything to fear—imagine, her, Hannah Morgenstern, being afraid of a gouty old man—she picked the last bits of almonds out of her ragged, short nails and dashed upstairs.

  She gave a soft rap at his door.

  She didn’t see Lord Liripip’s head shoot up in alarm, didn’t have a clue that her gentle tapping reminded him of the deathwatch beetles he’d heard in his youth. His grandmother had told him the story, and ever after he’d lie awake listening to the minuscule animal noises found in even the best houses. The skitter of mice in the walls. The insidious chewing of woodworm. And sometimes, rarely enough to make it seem more like an omen, the tip-tip-tap of a deathwatch warning of someone’s imminent demise.

  And so when Hannah poked her small dark head through the door, Lord Liripip was feeling particularly . . . mortal.

  “You rang?”

  How, he wondered, are all the ages of man contained in one moment? How am I a timorous child in my bed and a lusty young man and a love-struck middle-aged man and at the same time this rusted-out old hulk that can do none of the things those other selves could do? Seeing Hannah, that peculiar servant girl who had spoken to him so flippantly of droît du seigneur, who had bearded them all in their lairs, he wanted his flesh to be firm and strong once again, filled to the brim with vital juices like a ripe peach toasting in the sun.

  Foolish old man, to be rutting after the skivvies, he chided himself. Just what they would expect of you, though. As if you had the heart or lungs for it . . . or any other body part, for that matter.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice querulous with the sense of his own inadequacies.

  “Everyone else is busy preparing for the ball tonight.”

  “And you were lounging around eating bonbons, what? What do I pay you for if all you do is sit on your bum taking your ease?”

  “I have never had a bonbon, I think, though I have danced to Strauss’s Wiener Bonbons waltz. Do you know it? With the terse little pizzicado opening and then those long, grand sweeps? But no, I do not take my ease, and neither have I taken my ease in all the days I have been here. I sleep, you will say, but not so often, or for so long, and the bed is simply abominable. True, it doesn’t have bedbugs like the beds at the refugee center, but that was not their fault. The poor people who stayed there had come from the most horrid conditions. But bedbugs are not the only things that can disrupt a good night’s sleep. Lumps are nearly as bad, and thin blankets. Worries and cares, also, but for those I cannot entirely blame you. Do you think they will play Wiener Bonbons tonight?”

  Lord Liripip got that slightly dizzy sensation people tended to have when Hannah got a good head of conversational steam going.

  “Where is Brigand?”

  “In the village. Do you need someone to tend to your buttons? I can fetch Waltraud, one of the parlor maids, who happens to be my particular friend. She has great skill in the removal of male attire.”

  Liripip grunted. “Women valets? Continental effete buffoonery.”

  “Oh, no, her experience is strictly of the amateur kind. I assume she can reverse the process and help you dress, though.”

  “Harrumph. I don’t want to dress yet,” he said. “I’ve finished another chapter of my memoirs and I need to try them out on someone. What I need is Brigand to give me his ear.”

  “Ah, like friends, Romans, and countrymen? Well, I am none of those things, but perhaps you could read them to me?”

  What a peculiar specimen, he thought, chatting with me in her magpie way, with her faint and pleasing accent, just as if she were a favorite daughter. He thought of his own two daughters, plain and lumpen things who took after their mother. Since infancy they seemed to be delicately offended by everything about him except his title and money. When their mother—his first, unlamented wife—died, he left them largely to the care of governesses and later shipped them away to finishing school. Age and motherhood had not improved them. If only he’d had a bright, lively little thing like this servant to entertain him.

  “Wouldn’t be suitable,” Liripip said. “What I do is read them to Brigand, and if I can make his cheeks turn pink I know they’re salacious enough. If he refuses to blush, I go back and add some more dirty bits.”

  “I never blush,” Hannah said. “But I should like to hear the dirty bits all the same. Are your memoirs true?”

  “Ahem. They are as I remember them. True enough. No, you must have work to do. I can’t trouble you. Fetch Anna Morgan for me.”

  Still harboring thoughts of anchoring his only son by a marriage, he’d been making an effort to cultivate Anna. And what an effort it was! She was chatty enough, but the things she said! Like conversing with a peacock, all squawk and feathers. Still, he could not escape the glamour of the idea. She was the child of his lost love. He did not know how Caroline Curzon had produced this big, brash, blond thing, but he supposed after Teddy married her, he’d get used to her. The important
thing was to keep Teddy out of spy work. No newly married man volunteered for a dangerous assignment.

  “I will not do that,” Hannah said, folding her arms decidedly.

  “What!” No one, noble or humble, had ever said no to him. Well, some of those girls in the carriages, but they had said yes with their eyes and that was what counted. This servant’s eyes held a world of refusal.

  “She is deeply asleep. I do not believe in waking people who are asleep. It is bad for the constitution, and for the soul. Plus, they often throw things at one’s head.”

  “Do you mean to say that you will not wake her?”

  Hannah nodded, the immovable object.

  Liripip blinked heavily, owlishly. “You really want to hear my memoirs? Very likely your ears will fall off. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Have a seat right here.” He patted a chair close to his own.

  “Perhaps I will sit over here instead.” She took up a position on a chaise. “Out of arm’s reach, in case your youth springs upon you again.”

  The look they exchanged made his heart do roebuck leaps. He was beyond desire (or at least the capacity to fulfill it), but no one is ever beyond memory, and the servant girl’s conspiratorial smile, like a wicked little seraph, made him flush in unaccustomed places, near what might be the cockles of his heart. He wanted to take her out on the town. He wanted to buy her dresses and jewels, as he used to do for women of every stamp. Only, he wanted nothing from her in return except that mischievous grin, that effervescent spark of life she shared with him so freely.

  “Hrrum.” He cleared his throat with one of his eloquent grunts that was part articulation, part protest against the aches and creaks of age. “Would you like to hear what I wrote yesterday, which is bad, or what I scribbled today, which is far worse?”

  “The worse, please,” she said. “Then afterward, when I’m flushed, the merely bad will be soothing.”