Charles
Flunkeyania
chapter I.
It is understood a useful, and it certainly is a commendable, practice, that in bringing a book before the public, the author should say a few words by way of introduction, and of excuse, I presume, for his writing the book at all. But as I have very little to say about my antecedents and even that not of a very exalted or interesting character, I shall plunge at once in medium res, and beg the reader to follow me into the study of the Earl of Pomeroy, who was in the act of investigating my character previously to engaging me in the somewhat anomalous, not to say duplicate, role as his own confidential secretary-valet and body-footman to the Countess.
This, I am aware, is unusual in high families, but it is not without its special utility as I very soon had occasion to find out.
That I had plenty of opportunity offered me of playing the spy, my reader can easily imagine, when I tell him that almost always during the forenoon and generally late in the evening I was in attendance in plain clothes on His Lordship. And in the middle of the day and afternoon dressed in handsome livery, upon the Countess; sometimes at home, sometimes with Her Ladyship's carriage.
That I should give a preference to the service with the lady perhaps was natural, for not only was Her Ladyship's personal attendant, Justine, very pretty, but she showed her admiration for your humble servant in the most distinguished manner.
But moreover, my vanity led me to suppose that my handsome mistress, the Countess, was not altogether insensible to the gratification of being attentively and devotedly waited upon by a good-looking youth, though he might be twenty years old and she thirty at least.
I think we have heard of such things before in the pages of history, dear reader! And I rather fancy we have heard of such charming characters as Catherine of Russia and one or two Queens of Spain!
At any rate, I was not insensible to the advantage of my position, which I was determined to enjoy as long as I could, unless, indeed, anything occurred of so glaring a nature (such as an elopement for instance) that everybody must as a matter of course become aware of it, in which case it would become my duty to His Lordship (and myself) to be beforehand of everybody else and disclose the plot.
But in the meantime, I was pretty certain that my noble mistress was not quite so virtuous as she was beautiful. But when a woman is so charming as she was, a young man is apt to find excuses for her, and I reflect that if a Spanish or an Italian lady has her Cavalier Servente or a French Marchioness has her very particular friend and nobody finds any fault with it, society need not be so very hard on the Countess, if she deviates slightly from the strict line of duty. But, then, you see, my friends, we are such a very moral people! And Society is hard.
One day I particularly remember, I was on duty to attend Her Ladyship who was going to take a short walk (not a very usual habit of hers).
She was, for her, rather plainly dressed and I noticed that the neighbourhood she selected did not seem to me the most appropriate for a lady of title to take the air on foot. But as long as she was not insulted or otherwise inconvenienced that was no business of mine; but presently I considered it my duty to call the Countess's attention to the fact that it was beginning to rain.
"So it is! How provoking!" was my lady's exclamation. But to my natural suggestion that I should call a cab she replied in the negative, telling me that she was only a few doors from the house of a former servant in the family who lived at number so and so. That she would step in and rest. That I should remain at the public-house at the corner for half an hour or so and then, if the rain had not ceased, I should bring a cab for her, asking for her nurse, Mrs. Wilson.
Now, the reader will do my intellectual powers injustice if he considers that I did not understand all this thoroughly well. But I only touched my hat respectfully and repaired to the public-house, where, as the rain had not ceased and I thought it a pity to disturb my lady in her interview with her nurse, I remained about an hour and I am bound to say the Countess did not find fault with my delay. I suppose that she must have enjoyed her nurse's society so much indeed. Nor is it to be wondered at that my suspicions were correct and that the said nurse took the shape of a handsome young man and that, reversing the order of things, instead of he nursing her, she nursed her nurse!
It is to be hoped the nursing did her good; but she certainly did not seem much the better for it as she was very quiet and pale, and on arrival home, passed two or three hours on the sofa.
And on another occasion, I was ordered to accompany her on a short drive, when of course, as the brougham was put in requisition, I sat beside the coachman.
We had not gone far, and were still in the neighbourhood of the park, when I noticed a young lady standing on the footpath, as if in expectation of our arrival.
No sooner did my Lady Pomeroy behold her than she pulled the check-rein and ordered me to let in her young friend, Miss Courtney, whom she wished to take for a drive.
Of course I did so with all speed, and a most outrageously affectionate reception inside the carriage Miss Courtney met with, such a desperate kissing and hugging compressed into the space of a half-minute while I was putting in her skirts and shutting the door, I had never seen equalled!
During the transient glimpse I had of their embrace I am almost sure I saw Miss Courtney thrust her tongue most amorously between the Countess's lips, and also take several indescribable liberties with the sacred person of my mistress.
And yet Justine knew something of the science of kissing and hugging too, and had initiated me into, I supposed, every branch of the mystery.
But on this occasion there was something more – a something almost indelicate, by which, taken in combination with other little matters almost as trifling, my attention was excited most curiously.
It will be easily understood by my judicious readers that I was naturally an adept where ladies were concerned, and had in my capacity as a young footman considerably brightened and improved any previous ideas I may have possessed. And, in this case, I was sharp enough to see that though Miss Courtney was well dressed, she was not very well dressed. That is to say, though her clothes were of rich fashionable materials, they looked as if they had not been fitted by a first-class modiste, or put on by a lady's-maid who was up to her business.
Then she did not step into the carriage like a young lady. She grasped the side-handle and sprang in without touching my arm in the first place. In the second place I have noticed that young ladies in getting in and out of a carriage, however modest, and even prudish they may be, are by no means averse to display their pretty ankles and even – well, Excelsior, up higher – a little peep of legs besides.
In fact, I have seen the mossy grotto itself when the drawers happened to favour me.
Well, there is nothing improper in that, and decidedly nothing unpleasant.
But Miss Courtney exhibited her lower limbs up to the knee, making not the slightest attempt to conceal them, and very fine legs they were too – only, somehow – somehow they did not appear to me like young ladies' legs.
There is a marked difference in this respect, I perfectly well know. For example, I may say without vanity that I have a very handsome pair of legs, well – and so has Mademoiselle Justine; but then there is a great difference.
"Of course there is!" I fancy I hear my reader suggesting.
"Come, none of that, sir!" I reply. "I meant as to legs, simply as to legs."
And to return to my subject. The decidedly manly look of the young lady's legs, taken in conjunction with her dress, her style altogether and the peculiar nature of the caresses exchanged between her and the Countess, all these little incidents put together, I repeat, produced strong suspicions in my mind as to the sex of our young passenger.