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Master Simon, who is a pervading spirit, and, through means of the butler and housekeeper, knows every thing that goes forward, tells me that the maid-servants are continually trying their fortunes, and that the servants'-hall has of late been quite a scene of incantation. It is amusing to notice how the oddities of the head of a family flow down through all the branches.
Harry Esmond Warrington was the heir of immense wealth, and a gentleman of very great importance, because his negro valet told lies about him in the servants'-hall. Harry's aunt, Madame de Bernstein, after a week or two, began to tire of Castlewood and the inhabitants of that mansion, and the neighbours who came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people sooner or later.
Jeames's attention had been gradually drawn from the moon in the heavens to this sublunary scene; and he was puzzled and alarmed by the appearance of the man in shiny boots. "A holtercation," he remarked afterwards, in the servants'-hall a "holtercation with a feller in the streets is never no good; and indeed he was not hired for any such purpose."
Knowing nothing of him, as I did, save the solitary fact that he was the white-haired gentleman I saw dead in my Picture, I naturally wanted to learn as much as I could from this old servant of ours as to the family conditions. "Then you thought him harsh, in the servants'-hall?" I said tentatively to Jane. "You thought him hard and unbending?"
Short's establishment, who carried Clavering's message to Grosvenor Place, and brought back his carpet-bag, was instantly aware who was the owner of the bag, and he imparted his information to the footman who was laying the breakfast-table, who carried down the news to the servants'-hall, who took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady's housekeeper and confidential maid, who carried it to my lady.
The Esmonds of his grandfather's nurture, sir, would not go a-courting in the kitchen." "Well, ma'am, every man to his taste, I say again. A fellow might go farther and fare worse than my brother's servants'-hall, and besides Fan, there's only the maids or old Maria to choose from." "Maria! Impossible!"
"I like a convivial evening, whether it's in the housekeeper's room or the servants'-hall." "Then I'll ask leave to-night," answered James Harwood. He sent a little scrawl to Milsom next day, by the hands of a stable- boy, inviting that gentleman to a social rubber and a friendly supper in the servants'-hall that evening at seven o'clock.
He and his comrades in the servants'-hall had been expecting this catastrophe, quite as long as the Colonel himself who thought he had kept his affairs so profoundly secret.
To tell him, too, how the Greek girl would have resented his presumption, had he but dared to indulge it! One of the women-servants, it would seem, was a witness to this boy's declaration. I think it was Mary was in the room, I do not know for how long, but she announced her presence by asking some question about candles. In fact, I shall have become a servants'-hall scandal by this time.
Haw unlocked it, but only to disclose a second one about five feet further on. "This flooring is all disconnected at night," he remarked. "I have no doubt that there is a good deal of gossip in the servants'-hall about this sealed chamber, so I have to guard myself against some inquisitive ostler or too adventurous butler."
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