Episode 28: Fettles Surprises His Mistress and Stella Says Goodbye

Part V. The Bells of St. Monica’s

Chapter 54        

We sometimes find that those things we fought most fiercely become the very delight of our days—if our pride does not keep us from changing course. So it was for Fettles and the unwelcome kennel guests. For the first several days of their residence, Empress and Napoleon drew only burning glances from the butler, who saw them as a daily reminder of their felonious owners. He did his best to ignore the animals as Isaiah took them for daily runs or let them lap thirstily from the fountain. Still, this alert man could not help but notice when, by degrees, the dogs stopped running and only padded about listlessly until Isaiah led them, heads down, back to the kennel. Fettles, with his heart as soft as a feather pillow, began to worry despite himself as the dogs grew gloomy and the days turned cooler.

            One morning, just after dressing, he crept to the kennel as the sky was lightening. He found the pair half buried in the straw and tight against each other. Picking up a new scent, they raised their heads and looked at him, but did not venture forth from their nest. Summoning his courage—Fettles had no natural affinity for animals—he stepped slowly toward them and crouched down on his heels. To his surprise, Napoleon stretched his head forward and laid his narrow chin on the butler’s bony knee. From this simple expression of gentlemanly good will, Fettles drew the conclusion that the animals were far smarter than he had thought all along. After stroking their heads and speaking words of encouragement, he left the kennel determined to improve their situation before another night fell.

            The sun was up by now and the sparkling dew lay heavy upon the lawn. As he trudged to the house, he was surprised to see Stella, wrapped in a shawl, walking slowly across the terrace, lost in contemplation of the scene before her.

            “You’re up very early,” chirped Fettles as he stepped up to join her. “Fine morning.”

            “It is incredible, isn’t it? It was getting hard to believe we would ever see the sun again.”

            “That’s very true. So much rain is bad for the joints and bad for the spirits.”

            “Fettles, I’m leaving next week. I’ve already written to William—he wants to come out and accompany me home. But I hate to tell Agnes. Everyone has left, and now me.”

            Fettles’ heart sank within him. “Our house does seem to grow quieter every week. If it weren’t for the baby, of course. And Lord Phillip, I trust, will soon find him a home and take him away as well.”

            Stella turned her pale blue eyes earnestly upon the butler. “I think she should keep him, don’t you? We have all grown so attached to him—I wish I could take him myself. It will be horrid to give him away.”

            “Miss Stella, you have a great heart, much like your aunt. But it wouldn’t do to keep the little fellow. It would be quite impossible, you know.”

            Stella frowned and turned back to the brightening landscape, where here and there a rabbit nibbled its breakfast lit by the long rays of early light. “I shall miss this place so much.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I can’t believe that I may never see it again. How is it possible that some other family will live in these rooms and play games on the lawn? They’ll carry in their furniture and plant things in all the wrong places. It’s too sad, Fettles,” she said, looking at him as her eyes brimmed with tears, as though asking him to say that it need not be so. But he was fighting down a lump in his own throat, and all he could do was take her hand.

            They stood gazing at the luxurious piece of Earth that would surely go on without any of them. But exactly how they would all go on without it confounded them into silence, and it was not until Isaiah noisily threw open the kennel door to let the dogs out that they started from their reverie and went wordlessly in to breakfast.

            Thoughts of how to approach his mistress regarding the dogs kept Fettles’ mind busy the entire morning. He played through a dozen different scenes, discarding one after another. He consulted Mr. Somerset’s collection of books on dog breeds and their characteristics, mentally noting the winning attributes of the greyhound as well as the warnings about their need for warmth, stability, and their master’s company. He sought out Ned and asked how near he was to finding the dogs a home. Fettles was surprised at his own gladdening when Ned replied that so far no one had expressed an interest.

            If it weren’t for Agnes being allergic to animals, the butler’s task would have been easier. But since she was a child, his mistress was reduced to misery in the company of cats and horses and their band of hounds. She had long ago forbid any animal in the house, allowing only small caged birds. Still, Fettles had built his arguments, and something had to be done.

After lunch he found Agnes in the music room, playing the piano softly to little Henri, who sat in his chair in the sunshine of a tall window, chewing on a little rag doll Marie had fashioned for him. As she finished the sonata, he stepped forward and cleared his throat.

            He excused himself for raising the topic, and certainly she might be surprised after his earlier misapprehension, he admitted, but he had noticed a change for the worse in the dogs, and a little research explained why it was so, and an improvement in their situation might be effected with little stress on the household, and after all, he was sure Agnes would agree that bringing them into the house was the humane thing to do.

            Agnes looked at him blankly. “Fettles, you’re serious.”

            Fettles tried to straighten himself, but being already in a posture of the greatest possible rectitude, he settled for raising his chin. “I am, Madam.”

            “What about my allergies?”

            “Madam, the breed is short-haired and sheds little. I have read that many people who cannot tolerate other breeds are perfectly comfortable with the greyhound.”

            “Has no one responded to Ned’s posting?”

            “No one, ma’m.” Fettles locked his fingers and looked at her with deep concern. “They don’t look well at all. Ned says they barely eat. They need human contact, Miss Agnes. Apparently it’s in their nature. I know you have been terribly occupied with the affairs of the estate and with the baby. It’s no wonder and no shame that you have not noticed their condition, especially with their coming to us uninvited as they did—indeed, ever so much more than uninvited. But I feel a short trial in the house would show us whether a change in surroundings would improve their health.”

            Agnes ran her fingers thoughtfully over the intricate gold lettering above the smooth ivory keys. “What about the baby?” she asked, looking at Henri as he leaned out of his chair to study the doll he had dropped. “I don’t trust them around him. We don’t know how they’ll react. They might see him as a large possum.”

            “They are intelligent creatures,” Fettles assured her. “But your caution is wise. We could keep them in the kitchen.”

            “That hardly sounds sanitary.”

            Fettles thought. “The library?”

            “They might chew the books.”

            “My room, perhaps.”

            “So much for company—you’re never in your room. You barely sleep.”

            Fettles had run out of ideas. Agnes took pity on him and offered him the kitchen if he could work it out with Dahlia, and under no circumstances were they to be fed anything intended for the family or staff.

            So began an unlikely friendship between man and beast. Within forty-eight hours of being admitted to the cheery warmth of the great kitchen, with its comforting activity from early morning until well after dark, with its nourishing smells and constant chatter, Empress and Napoleon showed undeniable signs of improvement. They both began eating again (even, despite Agnes’s strict prohibition, tidbits of meat that somehow fell from the table while carving) and once again displayed their original energy on their morning runs. Napoleon, by some means that could not be discerned, understood that Fettles was his savior and rose to greet him whenever he entered the kitchen—which was very often these days. Empress took the new situation as her due, and while she watched everyone and everything attentively, displayed no particular gratitude for her happier lot in life.

            One afternoon Agnes and Stella were coming downstairs with their arms full of old gowns and coats for the poorhouse, when they spied Fettles walking briskly through the foyer with Napoleon at his side.

            “Fettles!” cried Agnes with an inquiring look that was not without reproach.

            “Ah,” replied the butler, “I was just taking him back to the kitchen. He somehow slipped out.”

            Agnes looked at him coolly. Fettles was a poor liar.

            “He seems to have adopted me, madam,” Fettles confessed, patting the dog’s neck. “He stays by the kitchen door for the longest time after I leave and sometimes sets to whining. It strains Dahlia’s nerves.”

            Agnes turned to Stella. “Can you take the pair home with you? Wouldn’t William like some dogs?”

            “Oh, no,” cried Fettles involuntarily. “That is, I’m sure they could not find a better home than yours, Miss Stella. It’s just that, with a baby on the way, this might not be the best time to introduce a pair of animals into your household.”

            Agnes approached man and dog and stood looking down at the hound, who gazed up at her brightly. “Have they made any messes inside?”

            “No, not one,” enthused Fettles. “They are very tidy animals.”

            Agnes considered. “Keep him away from the baby.”

            “I guarantee it,” Fettles replied, clasping his hands like a child. “Thank you, ma’m.”

            From that day forward Fettles was seldom seen without the black-and-white canine hugging his side or trailing just behind, as though eager to assist him in any duties that a creature with four legs and no hands might be capable of.

Chapter 55

While the last three months had seen people leaving Brookside in a steady stream of fastened trunks and wistful encouragements, one person had just arrived. William had come from Chicago to take his wife home. To Stella’s surprise, he had made the offer himself to come and accompany her; indeed, he had insisted upon it despite her telling him that she was quite well and did not want to be the cause of any interruption in his business.

            Great was his surprise when he saw his little Stella grown to such a diameter in his absence. To his wife’s delight, William laughed and threw his arms around her and congratulated her on doing “such a first-rate job” of bringing their little one along. (The two made a darling pair, he a slim, strapping German just over six feet tall, and she barely grazing the five-foot mark.) This conjugal celebration was a joyful relief from the gloom that had settled upon the house, and everyone caught the spirit. It lasted a blessed three days while William remained with them, telling harrowing stories about the meatpacking trade, recounting the wonders of Chicago, and passing along such jokes as were suitable for ladies’ ears.

            Stella, like all the women of the household, had in her heart adopted little Henri and took pains to show off his most lovable features and precocious accomplishments to her husband. Her own growing child within her had lately provoked new pains in her lower back that kept Stella from holding Henri for more than a few minutes these days. But in fact, he wriggled so, struggling to be let down to explore on his own, that it had become difficult for anyone to hold him for long. The ladies usually put him into his little wheeled chair that he pushed around the room with his smooth, bare feet, crying for rescue whenever he worked himself into a corner. Empress, who had tired of the kitchen routine and somehow gained the run of the house along with Napoleon, often was the first to reach him in such times of distress and would lick the tears from his face until someone arrived to set him in motion again. Napoleon took small notice of the strange little human, and, like his master, preferred to keep his distance from the noisy, sticky bundle.

            Wednesday came, and Stella was packed and dressed for the trip home an hour before they needed to head for the train station. She sat with Agnes once more on the terrace, wrapped up against the chilly morning air and taking in the view for the last time.

            “I can’t think about not seeing this again,” she said without turning her head. “I find myself pretending that Mr. Rockwell will still find a way to save the estate. He might, you know.”

            Her aunt smiled at her sadly.

            Stella leaned toward her. “Do you remember when I first arrived and I told you that I would not want to leave? I’ve been here nearly four months now and I was right; I still don’t want to go.”

            “And I, more than I could have known then, am not ready to let you go.” The two women gripped hands. “Oh, Stella, I will miss you so.”

            “I’ll write as soon as I’m home, and you must come once the baby is born and help me.”

            “You won’t need help. You have had Henri to practice on and you are marvelous with him. Plus you’ll have the governess William engaged. But I will come just the same—you won’t be able to keep me away!”

            The time came for leave-taking. Ned and Isaiah loaded all of Stella’s things onto the coach. So prolonged were the hugs between Agnes and Stella, Stella and little Henri, and Stella and the remaining staff, that her husband at last tapped his watch and warned that they would miss all the day’s trains if they did not get started. Everyone stood on the front steps and watched the carriage lumber off, with Stella waving a white handkerchief out the window all the way to the bend where they passed out of sight.

            Agnes spent the rest of the day playing blocks intently with the baby and personally taking care of all the tasks she had shared with Stella. She pushed away the keen awareness that one day soon Henri, too, would ride away.

* * *

            In the lazy light of late morning, Claudia lay stretched across her favorite burgundy divan reading the Duchess Chronicle. As usual, she had turned immediately to the notices. They were invaluable for learning whose fortunes were rising and whose falling, what new households were forming and which others going to pieces—a successful betrothal here, a business closing there, a fire sale, a new butler needed, horses for sale. She knew that behind each terse notice lay a story. So the small paragraph at the bottom of page six announcing that an estate was being offered up, whose brief description matched Brookside’s exactly, caught her attention like a fishhook. She pulled herself up straight on the couch.

            Impossible, she thought. My luck cannot have reached such mountainous proportions. Or could it? The exquisite scandal Claudia had engineered to extinguish her neighbor’s romance had proved eminently satisfying, but a crisis of the heart does not bring about the sale of a family home. The woman must be ruined, thought Claudia, but how? The timing might be coincidental. By degrees, she realized that total victory over Agnes might be within her grasp. She had already disgraced her man Phillip, making him an untouchable of the lowest sort, one who consorts intimately with savages. Any chance for a union between him and the House of Somerset lay in a thousand pieces. And now the family seat of that same noble name could, just possibly, be hers.

            Her own Beaujour was fine but it was not Brookside. Claudia’s home possessed less acreage, little water, no view, a minimal garden, and a house—no matter how she dressed it up—far less imposing than Agnes’s. That visit she had paid Agnes early in the summer to suggest that Brookside might be for sale (using the trusted “I heard from friends that possibly . . . ”) had been a lark, just something to provoke the girl, or at best put a seed in her mind. Could that seed have sprouted?

Money for the purchase should not be a problem. Claudia’s recent sale of her share in the railroad had netted even more than she had hoped, and the fact that it was not entirely hers to sell would never be proven.

            She would need to move quickly. Brookside had a reputation as one of the premier properties in the county. She would pay a visit immediately to her men at Sutterfield Brothers and have them make inquiries for her. And, of course, she would drop by Agnes’s on the way back in an act of perfect solicitude to convey her sympathy at seeing the estate put on the block. Claudia knew that Agnes would not see her today, just as she had refused all of her visits since the night of the ball. But again, she could leave her card.

            That afternoon, as the sun slid behind an unbroken layer of clouds, Claudia called for her carriage and paused to smile at herself in the hall mirror, tucking her beautiful hair under one of her showier hats and buttoning on a pair of rust-colored gloves. “Time to take it all,” she whispered, and stepped gaily into her coach with instructions to head for Chesterton at a quick trot.

            Had Claudia gotten away only a few minutes earlier, her carriage would have crossed Phillip’s, his turning into Brookside as her own passed the great estate on her way to town. Mercifully for him he was already up the long drive and knocking at Agnes’s door.

To be continued . . .