Page 12 of A Housekeeper for the Earl of Drinkwater
Evelyn curtseyed and smiled warmly.
“I do not mind at all, Miss White,” she said.
Serena smiled until the housekeeper was gone. Then, she collapsed into her chair once more, tears streaming down her cheeks. How could she ever tell Evelyn and Whitton that she had to fire them?
Wiping at her tears, she dragged herself out of her chair. There was one thing she could do, while she wrestled with what to do about the two most senior servants.
She could write glowing letters of recommendation for the rest of the staff, and she decided she would spend the rest of the morning doing just that. It was the least she could do, and it gave her a task to focus on, rather than her increasing misery.
As she wrote, she pushed away thoughts of having to leave Evelyn without employment or a pension. Her anger toward her mother returned, especially when she thought about the marriage proposal which she knew she would have to answer, sooner rather than later. It loomed over her like a dark shadow, and it was all she could do to resist another bout of tears. Was there no other way?
“Miss White?” Whitton called from the door.
Serena wiped her face and rose, beckoning him inside. Seeing his cheerful, smiling face broke her heart, but she willed herself to smile at him.
“What do you have there?” she asked, pointing to the envelope he held in his hand.
The butler’s smile brightened as he handed it to her.
“It is a letter,” he said with a jovial smile. “A letter from the employment agency.”
Chapter Six
Edward asked that his meal be brought to him in his bedchambers. But after half an hour of him doing little more than shuffling the poor food around on his plate, he abandoned it, asking Emily to take it away. Then, he made his way to the library, trying not to look at the disrepair all around him. Taking it all in once was more than enough.
The library seemed to be the most untouched room at Chimneys. Everything was coated in dust, just like every other room, and all the furniture looked tired and worn. But the drapes were not tangled or torn, and the books were all still on their shelves; time had preserved them well. Edward figured that his parents had simply had no use for the room, especially not after all the terrible news.
He had no interest in reading, however. He walked over to the window to draw back the drapes, but he was met with a big cloud of dust that sent him into a coughing fit.
He managed to get enough of the setting sun’s light to find a couple of half-burned candles. He lit them, placing one on the desk, and using the other to find the black liquor cabinet his father had always kept well stocked.
He was not surprised to find it now contained nothing more than several broken bottles and liquor stains that reeked to the heavens, and a single half-empty bottle of whiskey. He sighed, the evidence of his father’s destructive drinking now undeniable.
He took the bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet. The glasses were all broken or missing, as well, but that was all right. He expected to finish the bottle, and rather quickly too.
He fell into the chair at the small library desk. It was the most untouched part of the entire room; papers left in neat stacks, just like they had been the day he’d left for the war, two books sitting on the far-right corner, the desk’s rich, dark-red wood undamaged by the abuse that had taken place all over the rest of the house. Edward turned his back to the papers on the desk, taking a long swig of the whiskey.
“Your brothers are dead, milord,”Clarke had said.“They both were killed just as the troops were leaving the battlefield to pack up and return home.”
He stared numbly at the bottle in his hand, the butler’s words replaying in his mind.
“He broke chairs and tried to set fire to the house by pouring paraffin all over his study. . . Your mother ran through the mansion, screaming for days. . . I rushed down the steps, thinking to save your father. But he lay dead, in a pool of vile liquid and whiskey, surrounded by twenty empty bottles . . . he had been dead for several days. . .”
He tried to imagine what his mother must have gone through. It made perfect sense to him that she’d gone mad after learning of the death of her eldest two sons. Though no one had said as much, Edward suspected that she believed he was also dead.
He could almost hear her running through the house, tearing up and breaking things, shouting “My children are gone, and so I must be too!”He was racked with guilt for having not written a letter to let his parents let them know he was on his way home. Perhaps if he had done that, his father would still be alive, and his mother would not be catatonic.
But where had Clarke’s letters gone? The butler had told him, before leaving him to his grief, that he had written to him numerous times to tell him of the state of things back home. Yet Edward had not received a single one. If he had, he would have returned without question, no matter the penalty from the military. His mind was reeling, and he could not cope.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, he had a horrible realization; with his father and brothers dead, and his mother incapable of functioning in any capacity, the estate would continue to go to seed. It was clear to him now why everything was in such disrepair. The estate had been making little income, and the situation would only get worse.
He was also without his father’s bailiff, who, according to Clarke, had left to find paid employment. That meant there had been, nor was there, anyone to manage the farms. And he had already deduced that the only household staff remaining was Clarke and young Emily.
Mrs. Chantry, the housekeeper, was apparently too ill to continue working, confined to her bed, and not faring much better than his own mother. Edward could not imagine she would recover without the money to pay for her medical care.
He did, in fact, finish the whiskey he’d found, and in a very short time. He called for Clarke, who appeared, looking exhausted, afraid, and depressed beyond all hope.
“Did my father leave any more liquor in the house?” he asked.
