The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes Page B

quadrangle was now called the Ballroom. Few mansions in the county had ballrooms half its size: tradition said that on one Victorian occasion two thousand couples had danced there, watched by the Prince and Princess of Wales. But this vast “room” was still lit by the glazed sky above. Its walls of weathered stone were still unplastered. Windows and even balconies still looked down into it. Yet alternating with these windows and balconies steel armored fore-arms now projected from the walls gripping outsize electric light bulbs in their gauntletted fists; for this had been one of the very first houses in Britain to adopt the new lighting, with current generated by its own watermill.
    Polly and Wantage may have been looking for the North Pole, but what they found at the far side of all this was Minta the under-nurse. She carried Polly off at once, and Polly went with her readily enough because Polly was always docile when she was happy and at the moment she was full of happiness—full as an egg.
    As soon as Polly was gone with Minta and Augustine was washing his hands, Wantage vanished rather nervously into the dining-room. He wanted to assure himself that the cold sideboard carried everything it should for Mr. Augustine’s solitary luncheon. Wantage knew of old that Mr. Augustine preferred not to be waited on yet objected strongly to having to ring for something which had been forgotten. If he was like this by twenty-three, Wantage often wondered, what would he be like at fifty-three? “A holy terror and no mistake!” was Mrs. Winter’s forecast—unless he got married, of course.
    Wantage straightened a fork that was slightly out of plumb: nothing else seemed amiss.
    By rights Wantage was “off” now, and ought to be able to put up his feet in peace. But there was still Mr. Augustine’s bag! Passing out through the serving-pantry he ordered a rather bucolic boot-and-knife boy, in tones of concentrated venom, to fetch the luggage out of the car and carry it up the back way.
    That venomous tone of voice meant nothing: it was merely the correct way for Upper Servants to speak to Boys (indeed Wantage had rather a soft spot for Jimmy—hoped one day to make quite a proper Indoor of him). It meant no more than the tones of deferential benevolence he always used to all Gentry—who were stupid sods, most of them, in his experience. True, their word was their bond; but they acted spoilt, like babbies ...
    Not that all babbies were spoilt—not his little Miss Polly-olly she wasn’t! It was her Nanny was the spoilt one—that Mrs. Halloran the blooming nuisance ... and Minta the Under aiming to take after her: a little bitch hardly turned eighteen, I ask you! A slipper to her backside would do her a power.
    Mrs. Winter agreed with him about those two, but constitutionally Nursery was a self-governing province where even a Housekeeper’s writ did not run.
    Wantage’s back was giving him gyp; but he’d got that bag to unpack before he could look to a proper sit-down. “Off-duty” didn’t mean a thing nowadays, not since the War with everywhere understaffed. Time was, he had known four footmen here at the Chase: but now—just fancy Mellton and the butler having to valet visiting gentlemen himself! How was he to keep his end up with Mrs. Winter—her with all those girls under, and him with no one under his sole command but Jimmy?
    All those girls ... Mrs. Winter, with her black silk and her keys, was hard put to it to count them all. But that’s what the Gentry (the old ones: war profiteers weren’t Gentry) were come down to nowadays indoors: girls . Why, some houses and quite good ones too nowadays they even let women clean the silver! “Parlourmaids”... Mellton hadn’t fallen as low as that yet, thank God.
    But where was the satisfaction, rising to the top in Service and still no men under you? That was the sting. Outdoors,