Several years ago I managed to get employment with lord B. I do not know how I managed to do it. Sheer luck, I suppose. Or he liked me due to bad judgement. His – not mine. I turned up for an employment interview in my best clothes of course, but I had arrived by train to the village B-upon-C in dirty sloppy clothes the day before. The people at the inn must all have noticed me when I came in, still coughing from the dusty train voyage.
When I got to the manor, I recognised lord B from the inn, where he had sat all alone in a corner with a fish and chips and a vintage bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It was clear during the interview that he remembered me from the inn, even though he did not mention it. I guess that kind of things are not mentioned in his kind of family.
Anyhow, I did get the job and butled away.
At first I was disappointed. I had imagined that there would be plenty of opportunities to pinch small valuables and blame it on the other servants or visitors. However, there were a few flaws with that plan. One was that there were very few other servants, and they rarely left the kitchen or the garden. Another was that there were no visitors. The lord was a devoted lone wolf, who seemed to have no family left and no friends to invite. The next flaw was that there were no valuables at all. Apart from a few hideous huge paintings there was nothing that would get more than a few pounds at a flea market. There was no shortage of things. Cutlery, tablecloths, clothes, tools, souvenirs from distant countries, books and other bits and pieces filled rooms, cupboards and drawers. However, they were all of abysmal quality. It was as if his lordship wanted to prove to the world that one could live cheaper than with IKEA products.
The real treasure at the manor seemed to be the building itself and a perfect garden with flawless lawns and magnificent flowers under old trees. None of this I could steal, of course. The best I could do was to enjoy it in my spare time.
My salary was decent. There was nothing I could complain about there. The only thing that nagged me was this desire I always had had, to get a little more than I had, through lawful means or others.
One night I thought my luck had turned. For different reasons, I was unable to sleep and walked out to enjoy the garden at around two o'clock in the morning. It was a beautiful full moon, and with the reflections in the French windows, the garden was almost as bright as just after sunset, when the sunrays still bounce against the clouds.
I heard a crack from the main building, and I quickly turned around. An old reflex from my time in the SAS. I managed to see a shadow of a woman running over the open lawn and into the nearby forest. There was still a light in his lordship's window, and I decided that this was worth investigating.
(To be continued. Some day. Probably.)
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