Undermajordomo Minor

ENTER ADOLPHUS

The exceptionally handsome man spoke. “I am Adolphus, Lucy from Bury. I apologize for not introducing myself when last we met. But possibly it is that you’ve heard my name since then.”

“Yes,” Lucy said.

Adolphus held up the cape. “It has come to my attention that you’ve brought my Klara a gift. Is that so?”

“It’s so.”

“And why, may I ask, have you done this?”

“Because she was cold.”

“I see.” Adolphus turned to the soldier on his right. “Are you cold?”

“Yes, I’m cold,” the soldier answered.

Adolphus turned to the soldier on his left. “And you?”

“It’s cold. I’m cold.”

“And so am I cold,” Adolphus said. He turned to Lucy. “We’re all cold. But you’ll not furnish us with capes, will you?”

Lucy remained silent. A look of violence came over Adolphus, and he said, “Here’s how it’s going to go, boy. I’m going to give you back this cape. And you may give it to another village lass, or you may wear it yourself, or you may set it afire. You may do with it what you wish, for it is yours. But there is one thing which, I’m here to tell you, you may not do with it, and that is return it to Klara. As a matter of fact, I should think you and she have no further business together, is that understood?”

Lucy didn’t answer. The soldiers were standing unnecessarily close to him, he noticed. “May I ask what you men are fighting about?” he said.

“We fight so that others need not,” Adolphus said.

“And who are you fighting, that I need not?”

“They are bastards and will die bastards.” Adolphus gestured at the men standing about him. “Now, we’ve a significant campaign beginning soon, which will see us through to the spring. I’ve quite enough to do in preparation for this without having to worry about some non-regional cast-off wagging his tiny pink pecker at my bride-to-be. Will you heed me, yes or no?”

He stood and crossed over to Lucy. If only he weren’t so much larger, Lucy thought. If only he weren’t so bold. Lucy couldn’t look him in the eye, and when Adolphus thrust the cape into his arms and pushed him out the door, there was no option other than to accept its happening, and so he did.

Walking numbly through the village, he caught sight of Klara in the marketplace, shivering in her old, ragged coat. He approached her, and was aware of an anger gathering within him. Standing before her now, he wondered if he didn’t hate her.

“Adolphus says you’re to be married,” he said.

When she faced him, he could see she had been crying. “Anyway, according to him we are.”

“I suppose I should offer you my congratulations, then.” He bowed. “A long and happy life to you both.”

She was wounded by this, and retreated a pace. Staring at the cape in his hands, she said, “Is that all you have to say to me, Lucy?”

He had hoped to communicate an appearance of cold control and indifference, but in looking at Klara’s face, and in knowing he had been bettered in love, then did his heart turn against him, and an expansive sorrow welled up in his chest. “Long life!” he said, and spun around, retreating for the castle, his face gone hot with tears. By the time he’d climbed the stairs to his room he had exhausted himself, and felt as though there were nothing inside him at all. Acting automatically, he pulled his valise from under his bed and packed his belongings, including Klara’s cape, and Mr Broom’s telescope. He pocketed Agnes’s coin before taking up pen and paper to compose a short farewell letter to her and Mr Olderglough. Leaving this atop his pillow, he scooped up Rose, gripped his valise, and descended the steps. Crossing the entryway, he saw the Baron had left a letter on the side table. Setting down his valise, he stared at it. He opened it up and read it.

Last night I took up a razor, that I might open my own throat with it. How simple this would be: a flick of the wrist and the life would pour from my body, the room would dim, and I would have my rest. I am not afraid to die, and have not been for some time now. And yet I found I couldn’t perform the gesture, knowing you are still drawing breath. If you yourself were passed, it would be nothing, but the knowledge that you remain lulled my hand. I will live until you come back to me, then. If you do not come back, then I will die waiting. This is my pledge to you.

Lucy recognized his taking solace in giving up; he was familiar with the comfort which existed in the acceptance of failure. In turning back from his own pain and fear, he had experienced some stripe of validation; for these feelings were justified, after all, and his leaving was necessary, and wise. Despite this, the Baron’s letter conjured in him a shame which eclipsed these other emotions, and so he did not strike out for the station, as planned, but removed the cape from his valise and walked back down the hill, and to the village. As he knocked on Klara’s door, he could feel his heartbeat in his hands. She answered; she was alone. He passed her the cape and told her, “You can’t marry Adolphus.”

Her face was so pale, and she looked at the cape with such superlative sadness.

“Why,” she asked.

“Because of the fact that I love you.”

Lucy said these words and he watched as Klara’s sadness drifted away, her eyes brightening in pulses, and now she was beguiling again. Stepping closer, she reached up and kissed Lucy on the mouth, lightly, and again, on the neck. She retreated into the shanty and Lucy followed after. He watched as she cast off her coat and put the cape on, standing before the mirror, as before, and admiring herself. “Yes, hello,” she said, “and who is this young lady? She looks so happy, doesn’t she? I wonder what’s got into her. Perhaps she’s heard some good news. Perhaps she’s heard just what she wanted to hear.” She was swivelling back and forth, smiling at herself. “Oh, but she does look happy, doesn’t she? Well, let’s see how long it lasts, shall we?”

The recent turn of events instilled in Lucy an unheralded emotion which he couldn’t at the start identify but which he eventually decided was euphoria. And it was in this state that he begot a plan or a strategy, one which he recognized as inspired but also humanely necessary, so that upon returning to his room the next white-lighted morning he threw himself into the task of realizing it, toiling with pen and paper for long hours until his hand was cramped and stiff, that he might get his words to sit just so.

Lucy wrote a letter to the Baroness Von Aux. He introduced himself, describing his position at the castle, and then imparted his opinion in respects to the mental state of the Baron. For, in spite of the dire and unmistakably darkened tone of the Baron’s letters, Lucy thought the Baroness was likely unaware of her husband’s true condition, and that, if she became conscious of it, and if she possessed any remnant of affection for the man, then she would surely respond in one manner or the other. Well, Lucy was no scholar, and had never before undertaken such a task as this, attempting to transform the fates of others using naked language alone. It was a tedious business, he decided, and he felt no envy of the learned men and women of the world for whom composition was their stock in trade. The following morning, upon rereading his work for the hundredth time, he declared the missive sound, and slipped it into the envelope alongside the Baron’s daily offering.

All the time he had been writing this letter, and as he set out to deliver it, Lucy was filled with a righteous feverishness; for he knew the deed was correct, and essential. But then something peculiar occurred, which was that the moment the letter was snatched from his hand, the moment his plan was enacted, and had ceased existing in thought alone, now he was visited by a premonition, presented as divine truth, which was that he had just made a significant and imminently consequential mistake. He stood on the platform awhile, wondering about this, becoming fearful of it. Once the train rolled out of sight, then did he push the feeling away, banishing it, for he had other and more pressing, pleasing considerations. Turning his back on the station, he struck out for the village. Smoke was pouring from Klara’s chimney. Lucy began to run.