The Problem of the Surly Servant Read online

  His guest sprawled on a well-sprung armchair and added to the smoky atmosphere that wafted through the open windows into the May air outside. Lord Herman Chatsworth, the youngest son of the Marquis of Digby (dubbed Minimum, or Minnie), was short, dark, and wiry, with a deceptively dim expression that was belied by the acute intelligence behind his eyes. He made an expansive gesture with his cigar, as if summing up their long friendship that had begun as schoolboys at Eton and carried on through three years at Christ Church.

  “What’s the good of all this Latin and Greek when it don’t get you anywhere?” Chatsworth declaimed, with a wave of his cheroot. “I say, Nev, what are we supposed to do when we get our degrees and go forth into the world? I don’t suppose you’d want to follow in your pater’s footsteps and find a place at Court?”

  Farlow emitted something between a snort and a laugh. “I’d only be in the way at Marlborough House. I’m a big enough embarrassment to the Mater as it is, a great lad like me, and she still playing the soubrette.” He gloomily contemplated the photograph of his mother, dressed to the nines for a party or ball, propped up on the mantelpiece and sniffed his indignation. “As for Her Majesty, she wants no part of anyone or anything connected with HRH. I’d do better if I were a great hairy Highlander with a braw, braw kiltie. Or perhaps one of those Indians she’s taken to carting about with her. What about you, Minnie? Thinking of standing for Parliament? That’s where most younger sons wind up these days.”

  “I leave that to my brothers,” Chatsworth said with a shrug. “Michael’s got his seat in the Lords, and Minor’s working with the Home Secretary. Can’t have two of us in the House. Makes for confusion.” He took another pull at his cheroot and blew a smoke ring. “Of course there’s that ranch in America. I rather liked that last summer. You should have come with me, Nev.”

  “All the way to some godforsaken prairie to look at a lot of cows?” Farlow drew on his cigar and with an air of desperation let out a stream of smoke. “I was just thinking …”

  “Don’t do that, Nev. Bad for the brain.” Young Mr. Chatsworth blew another perfect smoke ring. It was his greatest, and some thought his only, talent. “Of course, we could get a flat in London, find a man, and see some life. It’s the least they’d expect of us after three years of slaving away here.”

  “That takes money,” Farlow said pettishly. “At least you’ve got the cows.”

  “Only the income, Nev, and it’s not all that much.” Chatsworth tried to mollify his leader. “I can’t help it if the Mater’s brother emigrated. Not a bad chap, Uncle Badcock. Chip off the old block, I’m told. Went out with no more than a pocketful of dollars and wound up with the ranch and the cows. He told me I could come back anytime I liked.” Chatsworth grinned and waved his cheroot gleefully. “You don’t need Latin or Greek in Wyoming.”

  Farlow grimaced. “There you are, Minnie. He’s made you the offer. All I’ve got is a pater who’s thrown every penny we have over the card table, a mater who’s no better than she should be, and a great pile of a house with leaks in every room. Last time I was home the Mater had drawn up a list of likely candidates for title of the future Lady Berwick, each one more ghastly than the next. There’s a new crop of Americans coming over this summer, each with a doting papa and an ambitious mama, and a bucketful of dollars.”

  “Americans aren’t all that bad,” Chatsworth said. “They’re rather nice, when you get to know them.”

  “Of course, you’re a younger son,” Farlow retorted. “You’re not on the marriage market. I’m an heir, which makes me fair game for the matchmaking mamas. My revered parents have let Berwick Place for the summer to a party consisting of Mrs. Wilfred Whyte and her three daughters, her cousin, and some woman they hired to be their chaperon. Meanwhile, the Mater and Pater traipse off to Deauville in attendance to HRH. No thought for me, of course. I’m under orders to play host to this bevy of American beauties and pick one of them to refurbish the family fortunes.” He swallowed the rest of his wine as if he had just taken the cup offered to Socrates.

  “Steady on, Nev!” Chatsworth exclaimed.

  “It’s enough to make one take to crime!” Farlow exploded.

  His follower was truly alarmed. “Nev, you can’t! A gentleman can’t be a criminal.”

  “Why not?” Farlow turned to his companion. “From what I can tell, the founder of my noble family tree got his fortune by piracy back in Good Queen Bess’s time, which is simply robbery on the high seas.”

  “Well, you can’t do it now,” Chatsworth objected. “The navy’s dead set against piracy, and highway robbery is not very profitable, not even in Wyoming. They hanged a chap while I was there. Very nasty, I assure you. Burglary? Ha! I can just see you creeping about in a jersey and mask. Besides, even if you did steal things, what would you do with the, um, loot? It’s not as if you could pop things into pawn every day. Someone would rumble you, and there you are.”

  “Where are you?” Farlow asked, his attention turned once more to the activities in St. Aldgates, where a fellow in a plaid Balbriggan coat had just got off a cab and was handing a woman down, presumably to enter the White Hart.

  “In prison,” Chatsworth snapped back. “I don’t think it’s very pleasant.”

  “There are other crimes,” Farlow said. “Blackmail, for instance.”

  Before Chatsworth could counter this, another student burst into the room.

  “Has anyone seen my studs?” Gregory Martin demanded, his eyes blinking behind wire-rimmed spectacles, his sandy hair on end, and his round face red with the effort to keep his temper.

  “What makes you think they’re here, Greg?” Farlow asked.

  “It would be just like you, Nev. You’d take them for a rag and think it was fun to watch me fuss.” Young Mr. Martin gestured at his open collar, visible under his short student’s gown. “I’ve got a tutorial in fifteen minutes, and old Duckworth is that particular about dress. I’m nearly finished, and I do want to come out ahead with the Duck.”

  “Don’t see why you even bother,” Chatsworth said, blowing another smoke ring. “You’re being ordained at the end of summer, with a nice living set up for you, whether you get a First or not.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Martin told his friend, as he fussed with his collar. “If one is going to do something, one should do it as well as one can.”

  Chatsworth made a rude noise. “You’re not a parson yet, so don’t preach at us. What did you do with your own studs?”

  “I thought I left them in my shirt, but they’re gone. They were rather nice, too, pearls from my mother’s wedding necklace. Are you chaps sure you haven’t seen them?” Martin peered through his spectacles at the assortment of oddities on Farlow’s desk. His thick fingers poked through a wooden box that contained several stickpins, a gold watch fob, and various mismatched shirt studs.

  “You could ask Ingram. He knows everything,” Chatsworth put in.

  “Ingram’s not about, and I need those studs,” Martin objected.

  “Oh, take mine, and be off to your tutorial.” Farlow rummaged in the box and found several round objects to be inserted into the shirtfront.

  “And what’s this about blackmail?” Mr. Martin struggled with the studs, until Chatsworth took pity on him and fastened the recalcitrant shirtfront into place.

  “Oh, Nev here thought he might give it a go, although who he’d blackmail I don’t know,” Chatsworth said carelessly.

  Martin’s face grew stern. “Now see here, Nev, that’s too much,” he protested. “Blackmail’s a rotter’s game. Even if I weren’t going into Orders, I’d have to cut you dead if I found out that you’d been doing that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, Nev didn’t really mean it, did you?” Chatsworth finished his task and brushed Martin’s shoulders off with a final pat.

  Farlow smiled. It changed his whole face. Instead of looking like a sulky child, he looked like something Raphael might have painted. “Of course I didn’t,” he said. “Besid
es, as Minnie said, who would I blackmail? You have to know something that someone else doesn’t want known, and everyone I know who might be blackmailed is unimpeachable.”

  “True,” Chatsworth agreed. “You can’t demand money for telling something that isn’t really a secret, can you? I mean, everyone knows that your lovely mama was on the stage, so that’s out. And as for your father’s friends, well the Marlborough House set is—”

  Martin cut him off. “That is neither here nor there. If I hear of any more such nonsense from you lot, I’ll do worse than cut you. I … I won’t row with you. Then where will you be, eh?” With that Parthian shot, the future clergyman clattered down the stairs, leaving his friends to their cigars once more.

  “He’s right, you know,” Chatsworth said. “Blackmail’s no game for a gentleman. What’s more, you won’t get anything by it. No one here’s got enough of the ready to make blackmail pay. Although …”

  “Yes?” Farlow glanced at him. “What do you know, Minnie?”

  Chatsworth suddenly regretted having started something he might not be able to stop. “There’s old Dodgson. He must have made something from those books of his.”

  “If you’re going to trot out that old stuff about him making sheep’s eyes at the Liddell girls, that’s ancient history.” Farlow sniffed. “He used to escort them about, take them on the river, that sort of thing; but that was when they were children.”

  “My brother Michael said that when he was a Fresher there was some sort of to-do about a squib someone wrote about Mrs. Liddell and poor old Dodgson,” Chatsworth said. “The Dean didn’t like it and everyone who wrote it was rusticated. But there’s something better than that.” His dark eyes gleamed with mischief.

  Farlow’s eyebrows rose. “What’s the old boy been up to?”

  “He’s a jailbird,” Chatsworth said, with a gleeful grin.

  “What!” Farlow exclaimed.

  “My brother Minor had to bail him out of Bow Street back in February when he went to London and didn’t come back for three days.” Chatsworth chortled happily. “According to my brother, he’d been caught up in all that fuss in Trafalgar Square, got picked up as a rioter, and had to be got out. Minor couldn’t stop going on about it.”

  “And he wouldn’t like Dean Liddell to know about that, would he?” Farlow said meditatively.

  “But it would be a nasty thing to do to the poor old chap,” Chatsworth said after a moment’s thought. “And he was my brother Michael’s tutor … no, we can’t,” he finished, stubbing out the remains of his cheroot. “I’m sorry, Nevil, but Greg’s right. Blackmail’s not the thing, and we can’t do it. I tell you what, let’s get the boat out and get a practice in before the river gets too crowded.”

  “You go on,” Farlow said. “I’ve still got this Latin to finish. I say, as soon as Greg’s finished with the Duck, get him and the others over to the boathouse, and we’ll get in some time before dinner. And if you see Ingram, get him in here to take this stuff away.”

  He waved at the table, still strewn with the remains of luncheon. Chatsworth strolled out, leaving Farlow to his Latin dictionary.

  Farlow’s beautiful brow furrowed in thought as he considered his financial difficulties again. He sighed mightily.

  His labors were interrupted by a tap at his door. “Come!”

  A tall man in the black coat, white shirt, and bowler hat worn by the scouts and stewards of Christ Church hovered in the doorway. “I’ve done those errands of yours,” he said gruffly. “I suppose you want me to clear away now.”

  “If you would be so kind,” Farlow said, with biting sarcasm.

  “And you may be interested in knowing that I have spoken to certain gentlemen regarding certain other matters.” Ingram’s long face grew longer. “I greatly fear, sir, that they are becoming insistent. The debt is owed and it must be paid.”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about it,” Farlow fairly shrieked. “Tell them … tell them I shall see to it as soon as I can.”

  Ingram bowed, turned to leave, then turned back. “You know, there is a way to get around it, sir.”

  Farlow looked more cheerful. “They wouldn’t take a Post obit, would they?”

  “Not bloody likely,” Ingram said coarsely, losing some of his polished facade. “Your pa is well known to be in perfect health. He was seen at Deauville Races, in company with a ‘certain royal person,’ and no one’s going to take anything on his leaving this earth in the near future. No, what the persons have suggested is something else. There is a certain boat race to be held here in a month’s time—”

  “Eights Week,” Farlow interrupted him. “What about it?”

  “It would be to a certain person’s advantage if they could have advance information as to the fitness and, ah, willingness of the, ah, participants …” Ingram’s voice trailed off, leaving the rest of the thought to Farlow’s imagination.

  It took a few minutes for the implications of the suggestion to sink in. Then Farlow exploded in wrath.

  “Do you mean that I’m to go out and spy for you?” he exclaimed. “And all so that the chaps in London can get better odds?”

  “If the information was correct, some adjustment could be made on your debt,” Ingram said smoothly. “The persons to whom you owe a debt of honor—”

  “No honor with those thieves,” Farlow muttered fiercely.

  “—they might put off payment of the debt completely.” Ingram ignored the interruption.

  Farlow closed his eyes in despair and ran his fingers over his head, while Ingram’s eye was caught by the box on the desk. His quick fingers went through the various objects, lighted on one, and nipped it up while the younger man’s back was turned to him.

  Farlow stared out the window. There was no answer to his difficulties there. The street was full of passersby: students scurrying to tutorials or the library, dons strolling along contemplating the universe (or perhaps just the possibility of jam cakes for tea), cabs, drays, and private carriages, even two bath chairs trundling along with ladies on their way to or from paying the all-important calls that regulated the social world.

  Ingram permitted himself a smug smile, which vanished as the younger man turned away from the window. “Don’t blame me, Mr. Farlow. I’m only a messenger.”

  Farlow’s mouth twitched in annoyance as he reached for his cigar case. Ingram was there before him, offering the cigar and ready with a light.

  “And did you deliver my message?” Farlow asked.

  “I did, sir.”

  “Then all we have to do is wait, and as soon as I have the dibs, I can pay off everyone, including your bloodsuckers.”

  “Don’t be too long about it, sir,” Ingram warned him. “These people are not going to wait for someone to die.”

  “Oh, no one has to die,” Farlow said, with a careless wave of his hand. “Just go about your business, Ingram, and tell your people that they’ll get their damned money, one way or another.”

  Ingram bowed himself out, and Farlow turned back to his contemplation of St. Aldgates. This had to work! he told himself. The Old Boy would have to stump up, and then he could pay off these cursed leeches.

  Ingram closed the door to the rooms behind him and opened his hand. The young fool hadn’t even noticed that his diamond stickpin was missing. So much the better! This post had not been one that Ingram would have taken, given the choice, but it had opened previously untapped opportunities for a clever and resourceful man. Ingram considered himself both clever and resourceful, far worthier than the aristocratic youths whose soiled linen he picked up and whose dishes he cleared away. None of them would miss a trinket here and there.

  He dodged into one of the open doorways to avoid Telling, who was on the prowl on the staircase leading to young Farlow’s rooms. The chief scout was becoming suspicious. Perhaps he should be more careful, he thought, but there was a sure thing coming at Newmarket, and all he needed was a few pounds to put up for a truly spectacular win.

&nbs
p; Ingram looked at the untidy sitting room. “Undergraduates!” he said to himself. “Always expecting someone else to clean up after them.” Well, that was what scouts were for, weren’t they? He had best get on with the job he was supposed to be doing before Telling came around to ask why he wasn’t doing it.

  Two miles north of Christ Church, three young women also asked the question: “What shall we do now?”

  Miss Dianna Cahill and her two dearest friends, Mary Talbot and Gertrude Bell, sat at the long refectory table, which was the primary furnishing of the library at Lady Margaret Hall, a room lined with bookshelves but seriously devoid of books. They bent over a packet of papers at one end of the table, while Miss Daphne Laurel, the oldest student at Lady Margaret Hall, tried to concentrate on her own book a few chairs away from them.

  “I don’t understand what the great fuss is about,” Gertrude said, with a toss of her auburn tresses. “It’s just a photograph.” She was a strongly built young woman, whose athletic prowess was evident in her slim figure and general air of determination.

  “It’s not just the picture,” Dianna said. “It’s what goes with it.” Her plump cheeks reddened under her mop of fair curls, which were caught up in a blue ribbon in a knot at the top of her head, while her blue eyes filled with tears as she stared at the photograph before her.

  Mary Talbot, a petite brunette whose gentle voice disguised a nature every bit as determined as Gertrude’s, looked over the page and the photograph on the table before them. “I cannot believe that anyone could be so vile, so cruel, as to demand that you leave Oxford because of this!” She tapped the printed page before them.

  “But why?” Dianna asked plaintively. “I don’t know what these words mean, exactly, but it sounds horrid. And why does it have my picture with it?”