caddyman | The mundanity of dealing with the help

Speckled pate like old weathered leather, eyebrows cut from paint brushes. Watery eyes recessed like black marbles in cooled porridge. The denizen of the pantry.

Old Sproat.

Arthritic lurch, deft side-step to avoid the antique elephant's foot umbrella stand. Practised grace in the face of adversity: the breakfast martini and the weekly copy of Trout and Flounder atop the silver tray. Delivered to perfection as of the old school. Not a drop spilt.

"Ahem."

I look up from the fire grate where the last papers brown and curl. The words 'habeas corpus' barely visible now on the as yet unbroken ashes. "I swear, Sproat, these new fangled employment laws will be the end of civilisation."

"Indeed, Sir?" An agreement with but a hint of impertinent enquiry.

I glance at the family retainer who has served the Dimplers faithfully since well before the old King's father passed. A hint of impudence in his stance perhaps, or mere arching of the spine? He is at a difficult age. And that one so bald should have dandruff… Still, at two and three-pence, three farthings a week, where could I replace him? I have not vouchsafed the information to him, but I hear that help these days is able to demand upwards eight shillings a fortnight and two paid days holiday a year (three, if married). Alas, since the Great Videoquake of '98 ruined the East Wing, the Dimpler Estate cannot stretch to such fortunes.

And the experience of as life in service. No, the old creature has earned his little foibles.

I stand and reach for the martini. "Something on your mind, Sproat?"

A kind of strangled sound emanates from deep within the Retainer's morning coat. There is no visible change, but to the ear accustomed, it is the noise of disapproval, of distaste. "Humboldt, Sir. He wishes a word"

Humboldt, by God. The gardener. Rarely seen indoors, his weather-beaten body accustomed only to the extremes, does not properly tolerate the temperate zones that are the great indoors. No, he is a man of the poles, a man of the tropics. A man of the outdoors. The local peasantry still talk in whispered tones of his youthful exploits up in five-acre, though personally I find the one about the badger and the toadstool a little unlikely.

So, for the first time since the millennium, I find I must speak to the gardener. And this is not something to be approached lightly, for Humboldt is wilder than the wind, greener than the lawn, yet greyer than the clouds that float despondently over nearby Crushton. Hair that suggests the dandelion, one eye green, one eye brown and one made of glass, though which is which eludes me for they rove independently in their orbits with equal and unnerving purpose.

No, Humboldt has never quite recovered from the discovery that there had been created crop circles in his window box. From that day forth, he has railed against the invisible assailants that pluck at his beard and drink his beloved green cider.

Were it not for the occasional intervention of Old Hetty Barnstaple, thrice widowed house keeper, who by brandishing a framed portrait of Lord Kitchener, somehow tethers the wild Humboldt to this realm, I fear he should long since have done some strange mischief to this world. As it is, voles dare not approach the potting shed, though they make free with the rest of the garden.

"I shall see him presently, Sproat."

Reaching for the riding crop and the 12 gauge, I check the oiling. One cannot be too careful. That has been the watchword of generations of Dimplers since before the Kaiser made his move.

"Tell Hetty to have His Lordship ready. I'll be in the cabbage patch."

The mundanity of dealing with the help

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