Good Housekeeping

Chapter 2: Household Staff

Chapter 2: Household StaffMy first week was easy. I barely even saw him except for a few glimpses when I would show someone to his office. I started noticing a pattern—lots and lots of very pretty women, and a few very attractive men, all around his age, would appear at the front door during all hours of the day, and sometimes at night. I was starting to think it was some kind of escort service—or, at least, perhaps he was hiring these people to be his escorts. Though, I considered that if this was the case, I’d probably be instructed to bring them to his bedroom—but what did I know?

So, other than him being a possible s*x addict, things were fine. He didn’t complain about the food or tea, nor did he demand unreasonable things from any of his staff. For a young rich guy, he was doing pretty well in terms of keeping my respect, even if he didn’t know how to dress properly. You’d be surprised at how people treat their household staff—typically we’re thought to be lesser than the dirt on our client’s shoes, but I found him talking to the chef one evening when I came to collect his supper.

Of course, I shooed him from the kitchen and into the dining room where he belongs so that I could serve him, but the chef said that it wasn’t irregular for him to come have a chat. I planned to change this, clearly, because relationships between staff and their employer are inappropriate and I couldn’t believe that my father had allowed this—if he had ever known. Though, I found it difficult to imagine that something would have gone on in this house that my father didn’t know about.

I’ve continued to wear my hair slicked back, even though I hate it, but I figure that I should be consistent at least and not draw attention to myself by changing my hairstyle. It itches, though, and I’m actively trying not to scratch my head as I wait for Montgomery to finish his supper. Hand behind my back—clad with white gloves—I was the image of a perfect butler. Nobody could’ve asked for someone better; quiet, still, patient, and invisible—the key traits that make a great household worker. Except, my head itches. I swallow and glance towards Montgomery, who is halfway through his steak, and as if he had been waiting for it, he looks back at me.

I look away immediately, toward the window out which I had been peering and from my peripheral, I see him take a drink of water and clear his throat.

“You don’t have to stand there,” he says suddenly, and I lift my chin. When I don’t answer, he continues. “Your father told me that we’re the same age, did you know?”

I look at him again, trying to read his expression, but it’s enigmatic. Perhaps there’s a hint of a smile underneath, and I can’t figure out why. Is he mocking me? I don’t answer.

“You haven’t said a word to me since you started working here. Usually, people are…keen to speak to me,” I swallow again and look back toward the window. “It’s fine if you’re not talkative, but…you can if you want.”

I ignore him and straighten my shoulders, waiting as he goes back to his food. I can’t tell if I’m being rude, or if I’m merely following the rules of good buttling service, but we’re not supposed to speak unless asked a specific question that requires a response. Perhaps this is a trick to test my skills? That seems elaborate, even for this mysterious man. Maybe he likes mind games?

After he finishes his food, I collect his dishes and take them from the room on my silver platter, relieved to finally be rid of him. Something about him makes my clothes feel tight, and as soon as I’m in the kitchen, I take off my gloves and dig my fingers into my scalp because my head feels like it’s burning. Maybe I will have to get rid of this gel look. All the best—it makes me look like an i***t anyways. I can still be a good butler with my regular hair—perhaps even better if I’m not spending time flatting my hair to my scalp or doing everything I can to avoid scratching my head.

When I return to the dining room with his coffee and take my place by the door, I stand there for a long moment before I realize that he’s smiling at me over his mug. My eyes flit to and from his face a few times before I give up with a sigh and stare back at him, waiting. I want to ask what is so funny, but—like a good butler does—I hold my tongue.

“You’ve got a piece of hair sticking up from your scalp like antennae,” he murmurs, gesturing toward me with his cup.

I feel my face burn and quickly reach up a gloved hand, patting my head. His eyes are still on me and it made me feel self-conscious so I leave, glaring at myself in the washroom mirror as I comb water through my hair. When I return, his green eyes observe me closely and I hold my breath as I wait for another critique.

“So…did you make contact with the aliens?” he asks and I don’t even glance at him.

Maybe I’m supposed to play along with his jokes. Perhaps I should even encourage him to make comments at my expense, but I still have dignity, if nothing else, so I decide that I won’t roll over and expose my belly like a dog wanting to be petted. I don’t care if this guy likes me or hates me, I just need to be a good butler, and that doesn’t require me to play along.

“Tough crowd,” he murmurs and I sigh fractionally, feeling impatient as he finishes his coffee, “I don’t know what I was expecting, it’s not like your father was ever a comedian.”

This is the most he’s ever spoken to me, and I wish he didn’t. It felt like forever before he was done and I was able to clear his cup, leaving him as soon as possible because I’m not required to be there at night unless he rings for me. I sit in the kitchen with the chef and the maid as we eat our own supper, finding my hand raising to touch my hair every few minutes as if I’m afraid one of my hairs has risen up to call into outer space again.

* * * *

When I bring him lunch the next day, I’ve just set everything out on the tea table when he walks over and meets my eye.

“I like it,” he says with a smile, gesturing to my hair, which is now soft and loose on my head. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you yesterday, I…sometimes I say things that I mean to be friendly and—well…” He clears his throat and looks at his food, taking his seat. “Sorry,” he adds with a glance, and I nod expressionlessly at him, taking my place near the door.

I ignore him as best I can for the next few days, and he doesn’t try to talk to me, except to request things, which he very rarely does. If I had a butler and a household staff, I’d make them do everything. I wouldn’t lift a finger—but sometimes I’ll walk in on him wiping the surface of his desk or cutting some fruit in the kitchen, even when I know the chef is on duty. I clear him out as quickly as I can and find the staff member whose responsibility it is to keep the cleaning maintained and make his food, but Montgomery always seems exponentially embarrassed when I do this and I can’t imagine why.

Once, I heard a clattering in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and when I went to investigate and figure out why the chef was cooking at two in the morning in the barely lit kitchen, I found Montgomery there in his boxers, eating ice cream from the carton while he stood in front of the freezer. When I switched on the overhead lights, he jumped so hard that he dropped his spoon, and when I told him to leave so that I could clean it up, he muttered something about it being his fault and that I didn’t have to do everything for him.

But that’s my job, isn’t it? I work for him. I am paid—quite a lot of money—to literally do everything for him. I bring his food, I take away his rubbish, I wake him in the morning, and make sure his suits are pressed, even when he doesn’t know how to put them on the right way. So I don’t know what he means by this, but it irritates me. He irritates me, in fact. I don’t know how my father did it for so long—five years, I think.

But I continue to show Montgomery’s clients in and out—I bring his food and newspaper and keep his favorite cologne stocked in the washroom. I draw his curtains to let in the sunlight and shut them once it’s dark. I make his bed and shine his shoes, and know that he takes his tea with only milk. I know he has a tattoo on his back and that he sleeps in his boxers even when it’s cold because he has nightmares and starts to sweat. I know that his favorite color is red and his birthday is in July and his only two friends live in Australia.

I know too much. Butlers always do, don’t they? That’s because we know the truth behind it all, and I suppose some of us get tired of being pushed around and used. I’ve been there—at my breaking point when the family I’d serviced verbally abused me too often or would be a nuisance to me in general. I suppose that even though Montgomery is insufferable, he could be worse.

He’s bad at dressing himself and asking for things when he needs them. He’s even worse at remembering to lock the doors when he goes out and sometimes leaves the windows in his room open all night even if it’s below zero. He leaves balled-up pieces of paper all over the place and I’ll find socks randomly placed on the floor or on miscellaneous pieces of furniture, and just when I think I’ve collected them all, more pairs will spawn. He leaves half-empty glasses of water across the house and I don’t know what he does with all of the spoons, but I’ve had to order more at the chef’s request.

But as I said, he could be worse. At the very least, he seems nice, even if he’s not great at showing it all the time. He’s grumpy in the mornings and never seems to quite understand what’s going on when I awaken him, even if it’s the same thing every day. I bring him his robe and his tea and make sure his suit is laid out, but he always looks at me like he’s never seen me a day in his life and can’t imagine how I got into his house.

Even though I find him irritating and annoying—confusing and messy and chaotic—there’s something about him that softens me. I’m a rough person. Abrasive—that’s how my father describes me. I always have been—but this guy…he smooths out my bristles and makes my glare seem like feathers instead of daggers. Sometimes in the morning, after I’ve pulled open the curtains, and before I awaken him, I’ll stand by his bed and stare at him. I’ve never done something like that in my life. The first time I did it was because he looked so at peace that, for a moment, it made me hesitate to wake him, but I’ve found that it’s become a bit of a habit now.

I’ll stand there with my hand hovering over his warm skin, my eyes sweeping across his sleep-tousled hair and limbs. He breathes heavily, but it’s not a snore—just a small symptom of being fast asleep. There’s something so peaceful about him—especially in the morning, and the contrast between that and how he looks so bewildered mere moments after waking makes my lips pull into an unwelcome smile. I hate him for it. I don’t want to be one of those stupid house-workers that fall in love with the person they’re servicing. I never thought I would find myself in such a stupid and clichéd trap.

Sometimes when I go in, he’ll be tossing a bit, as if he’s having some type of nightmare. He almost always settles down when I approach, and a wicked satisfaction twists in my stomach because I convince myself that he’s subconsciously soothed by my presence.

I watch him constantly. I can’t tell if he notices, or if he thinks I’m just doing my job, but it’s slowly turning into my own morally unsound hobby. I delegate tasks to other workers so that I can stand in whatever room he’s in and leap to fulfill his every need. The only time I don’t watch him is when he’s with his clients—whoever they are, whatever they do—and the amount of times I see him adjust his crooked tie or re-tuck his shirt makes my hands itch because I want to straighten him out.

He watches me, too, though. I know he does. Every time I find his green eyes on me, a jolt goes through my spine that feels like a shot of caffeine. Sometimes, he’ll look away. Other times, he’ll lift his chin and stare me down, and I stare back because I don’t know what else to do. I like it, though—how my heart races and my face heats, and how neither of us says anything afterward. We don’t say anything at all, really. He’s stopped trying to engage me in conversation and I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. I think that the most I’ve said to him is yes, sir and no, sir, and I wonder how he feels about that. Perhaps he wants me to speak more? Perhaps he wants me to do more than speak? Touch, maybe?

I’ve never touched him. Ever. Not the glimpse of his hand on mine, or the brush of a shoulder. Not even in the mornings when I know that I could get away with it without him even noticing. Never. Because, in spite of everything, I am a good butler. I follow the rules, even if I bend them a little in the process.

That being said, even I have my limits. I can overlook rudeness or bad jokes, and even a little bit of verbal abuse, but one thing that I won’t stand by and watch—no matter how well paid we all are—is if one of my staff finds themselves in a compromising position because of the family we service. Sometimes this has been because one of the family’s kids will form a crush on one of the staff—whether it’s the chef or the maid, it’s always awkward and nobody ends up happy. Occasionally, I’ve seen them be asked by the family to consort in illegal activities for better pay and have to moderate everything without getting the police involved. Sometimes, I’ve had to leave the family I was servicing because they didn’t like that I wouldn’t play along. Other times, I’ve been fired. I’m not afraid either way, because out of all the terrible things I am, I at least stand up for people who won’t stand up for themselves.

That’s why, one afternoon when I go to bring Montgomery his lunch, I realize that I’m about to get fired. I know this because as soon as I walked in and approached the tea table, I see one of our maids-in-training on her knees in front of Mr. Montgomery, her hands at his belt. Before I could think about it, I had dropped the lunch tray and gotten between them, right up in his face as I motioned her away and set my jaw, thinking about how pissed off my father will be when he finds out what I’d done.

“She is seventeen!” I yell in his face, gloved finger jabbing his chest.

He looks alarmed—probably not having expected me to interfere. It worries me that perhaps my father had walked in on this, and let it happen without a word.

“I—I know,” he says hesitantly, and I want to hit him because his tone makes me think that he wants me to excuse him.

“Don’t ever let me catch you doing that again!” I shout, and his eyes go even wider. “It’s my job to manage and protect the staff, and I’ll not have you trapping them—”

“Hold on, hold on—” he begins, holding up his hands.

“Don’t bother with your excuses! I know plenty of men like you, and I’ll not stand here and watch as you spin your little web and lure in these unsuspecting—”

“I’m not trying to seduce a child!” he shouts, and I squint at him, my finger hanging motionless in the air. “I—she was helping me with a stain—her mum’s a seamstress, so…” He looks down, lifting the tail of his shirt, which had a brownish blob on it.

My mouth goes dry and I swallow, realizing that I’m still jabbing his chest with my finger and I jerk it away. I look back up at him with as much dignity as I can, ignoring the redness that I’m sure has settled in my cheeks.

“I’m sorry—maybe I should’ve taken it off…” he mumbles, frowning at his shirt ,then back at me.

I clear my throat and take a step back, straightening my tie and smoothing my waistcoat. I look around and don’t see the girl—Lane—so I leave the room without a word in order to corroborate his story with hers. Lane explains the situation, showing me the stain remover that she had brought him, and when I go back to his office to apologize, I see him using it to try and remove the stain with a tissue.

I aggressively snatch the tissue from his hand and toss it in the bin, using the flannel that she had given me to dab at it gently.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say eventually, sighing in reservation. “I…should have asked for clarification before jumping to conclusions. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

I figure that I can’t mess this up any more than I already have, so I at least explain myself before he fires me. The stain is lifting ever so faintly, and I wonder what it is. Perhaps tomato sauce from his breakfast?

“I’ll ask my father to find a replacement—he’ll get someone suitable for your needs and I’ll be gone within the week—”

Suddenly, his hand is on my wrist and I look at him in question.

“Don’t—it’s okay,” he says, his expression soft. “I’m glad, you know…that you defended her. I—I didn’t think about the position that I’d put her in. I didn’t make her uncomfortable, did I?” His thick eyebrows pull together over his glasses in concern and I shake my head.

“No, sir. She was…fine. Maybe even more confused than you were…” I add, sighing as I pull away the flannel. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Give me this so I can bring it to the cleaners. You should have come to me with this to begin with,” I say exasperatedly, holding out my hand as he tugs at his tie.

“I’m sorry…you weren’t here. She noticed it and said it would come out easier if I did it right away—” he explains, his fingers working the buttons on the front of his shirt. “I—I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t’ve done that…I…” He’s frowning as he hands me his shirt, his blue tie hanging loosely on his bare neck. He pushes up his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Sometimes I can be really thick, you know?” He huffs a laugh and I drape his shirt over my arm.

“I understand, sir. Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding, and I’ll start searching for a replacement—”

“No, don’t—” he says quickly, looking affronted. “I—I mean, please, don’t. You—you’re the only butler I’ve had that doesn’t irritate the life out of me.” He sighs exasperatedly, then gasps a little. “Don’t—don’t tell your dad I said that.”

I press my mouth into a line because I want to smile, but I’ve already done so many unprofessional things today, I don’t want to tip the scales.

“Yes, sir,” I answer calmly, and his shoulders relax a little.

His fingers find the knot of his tie and he realizes he’s shirtless, laughing at himself. “I—er—better get a new shirt,” he murmurs.

“I’ll get you one, sir,” I answer, straightening the food on his tray that had become dislodged. “Let me have the chef remake your lunch—”

“No, no, it’s fine—” he interrupts, walking toward me as I pick up his tray.

“I insist,” I say firmly, but he blocks my path when I try to leave.

“Please, don’t. I’m—I’m already so embarrassed, let me just have this one thing?” he asks, half laughing.

“Embarrassed, sir?” I question, and he swallows audibly.

“Ah, well…I’m not…I don’t…” He sighs and shakes his head. “Please, just let me eat my soggy sandwich?”

I look at him, then at the tray of food, and duck my head, replacing the tray on the tea table.

“Thank you,” he sighs, pulling the tie from around his neck as he takes his seat.

“I’ll be back shortly, sir,” I say quietly, collecting his shirt and tie.

He nods at me and avoids my eye, shaking out his napkin.