Chapter Two

The trip down from London was fairly uneventful except that two ruffians at a petrol station started to make fun of Fairchild in her valet togs, wolf-whistling and demanding where the costume party might be.

I was compelled to menace them with the tire iron. Fairchild is pretty sensitive about these sorts of things, and it put a dent in her sunny disposition.

"Buck up, old thing," I reasoned with her. "These country louts would make fun of their own mothers if they wore anything but the standard potato sack."

"But I do look ridiculous in men's clothing."

"Nonsense. When I see other fellows' valets, I am struck by how awkward they look."

"As you wish, sir."

"There's the jolly old chap. I say, did you see the look on that fellow's face when I threatened to bite his ear?"

This last line of thought cheered her up considerably, and we were both radiating dental sunshine as I swerved the old two-seater up the hedge-lined drive to Bogwallop Hall. If, in my perky mood, I had given myself over entirely to automotive abandon, I might have run over the furtive figure that skulked out of the hedgerow into our path.

In which case it would have proved difficult to achieve our quest of rescuing Biddulph Mudyard, for the furtive figure was he.

"Look where you're going, you maniac!" I screamed and then, recognizing my childhood pal, went on in a gentler vein. "You blithering excuse for a dentist's spit-bowl, you almost got yourself killed!"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"Sorry? I jolly well suppose you'd have been sorry to have me scraping your innards out of my tire tread with a screwdriver."

"Yes, well," he mumbled. His manner was that of a bashful stoat. "I wanted to talk with you."

"Of course you wanted to talk with me. What do you think I came all the way down here for, to bask in the radiance of your mute presence?"

"I mean, I wanted to talk with you before you arrived at the hall." Suddenly he brightened up considerably. "Hello, Fairchild," he goggled, "you look lovely as always."

"Thank you, sir. Very kind of you to say, sir."

"Where was I?" He looked absolutely stunned, as if I'd given into the budding urge to smite him. "Oh, right, it was vital that I talk to you first because, you see, I'm afraid I had to make up a small story about you."

"Don't tell me you've palmed me off on Lady Kibbleston as an eminent brain sturgeon or something like that?"

"I told her you're a ... um ..."

"What? An American tycoon? A maharajah? A concert cellist?"

"No. A woman."

"Oh, no problem then, old man," I said graciously. Then the graciousness wore off. "You clot! Let me see if I've got this straight. I'm supposed to disembark at the front door and go larking around giving a convincing impression of being a member of the ruling sex?"

He went back to the sheepish toe-digging in the gravel. "I rather thought Fairchild could be you."

"And who am I to be then? No!" It hit me. "You can't seriously expect me to act as my own valet."

"You'd be Fairchild's valet, actually."

"Yes, but she would be me."

"Please, Timmy, it's my only hope. You see, I told Lady Kibbleston's daughter Constance that ..."

"Halt! I don't want to hear anything about it until I've had a stiffish cocktail or twelve."

What was a fellow to do? Here was the bosom playmate of my formative years, chin-deep in the stew, the only thing between himself and a thorough parboiling being the stouthearted help of Timothy O'Doul. One simply had to rally 'round.

With no further protest other than a discreet shudder at the indignity of it all, I nipped into the bushes and began to doff my vestments.

"Um, er," interrupted Biddulph, "that's a bit strange, eh, um, what?"

"What's a bit strange?" I inquired from the shrubbery.

"Well, I mean to say," said Biddulph. "Here's Fairchild, out here with me."

"And?"

"Well, I mean ... One's valet and everything."

I knew what he was getting at of course. What's a valet for if not to officiate at the robing and dis- of the young master? But Fairchild and I had come to an understanding at the outset of her employment by me, and I wasn't about to have Biddulph thinking he'd penetrated the veil.

"Biddulph," I addressed him sweetly, "do you happen to have a valet of your very own?"

"Well, no," he replied. "You know I don't."

"Do you happen to have a hat?"

"Well, yes, but --"

"So it's clear, then, isn't it," I snapped, "that you're talking through it."

That shut him up nicely, and I doffed in peace.

Fairchild, meanwhile, having no grounds for questioning my dictate, had located a companion shrub and shucked her own garments.

It was probably a good thing that I'd achieved a brilliant economy by making her wear the castoffs of my previous manservant. The circumstance had been a bone of some contention, as she was not particularly fond of the outsized look, but it came in handy now.

With Biddulph acting as intermediary, her togs were conveyed from her bush to mine, while mine made the return journey. In a trice (more or less), we were in a position to emerge.

And thus it was that I went into service at the ripe old age of thirty-five, with no references and no resources other than a couple of million quid in the bank.

next