The Piano

Chapter 4

Moving out is finished very quickly, but moving into the housekeeper’s quarters is shaping up to take a very long time. Granted, it may go much quicker if Rory could find a moment to focus on it, but she’s swarmed by household staff as soon as she crosses the threshold.

“Welcome to the Manor, Mrs. Beauchene!” from a teenage girl with floppy dark hair.

“Goodness, but you’re young. Just let me know if you need anything,” from an elderly woman who scurries away not long after greeting Rory.

“Where should we start?” from another maid, older than the teen and bearing a striking resemblance to the elderly one.

And so, hours after moving in, Rory finds herself touring the manor instead of unpacking her things in the housekeeper’s quarters. It’s still very dusty, she notices. Dusty and dark and in desperate need of some color. Every window is hung with dark, dark curtains, and the piano still sits in exile in the sitting room when she peeks in.

She can’t decide if she wants to dust or pull back all the curtains more.

She gathers up the household staff in the servants’ hall, as per Mr. Penney’s instructions, to address them. What she had hoped would be around thirty people (what does she know about how manors run? Nothing, she’s discovering) turns out to be more like forty or fifty when they’re all gathered, and more continue to trickle in after that. They crowd around the long dining table provided by Master Fennsworth, carefully setting aside chairs to make more space, and fill the room in a matter of minutes.

She shoots what she hopes is a suitably accusatory glare at Mr. Penney from where she stands on a chair at the front of the room, but he just smiles and waves for her to go on. Easy for him, she thinks grouchily, he hasn’t got forty or fifty people staring at him.

“Erm, hello,” she begins, glancing around for some sort of reassurance. “I am the new housekeeper, as you all probably know already. I, um, I would like to hope that we can work well together to upkeep the Manor and bring some light into the place; God knows it needs it.”

She looks around again, catching the eyes of more than a few people that she suspects are laughing at her. The elderly woman from earlier mouths ‘your name, dear’ at her, and heat rushes to her face. Who just forgets to introduce themselves, she wonders. This is not a good start to her tenure.

“I’m Rory, and you’re dismissed. To your tasks, everyone! Maids, I want to see every curtain in this house opened and every surface dusted! If anyone else finds themselves with an idle moment, I’m sure I could find something for you to help with! Be quick, be quick!” she commands, mostly to salvage her own blunder in forgetting to introduce herself.

The staff scatters relatively quickly, as quickly as forty or fifty people crammed into a dining hall can, all except for the elderly woman and Mr. Penney, who both advance on her with brisk, purposeful steps. She files away the way that the pair walk as something that she should learn, just a few seconds before they’re on top of her, and the old woman is shaking her hand vigorously. So vigorously, in fact, that she’s a little afraid that her arm is going to be wrenched off.

“Welcome to the Manor, dear! You’ll do just wonderful, provided you remember to introduce yourself. Goodness, but you’re young. How old are you, dear?”

“Your name, dear,” Mr. Penney reminds her gently.

“Oh! Oh, my, look at me, forgetting to introduce myself. It’s the age, dear, forgive me. Lydie Penney, if it pleases you, most everyone just calls me Nanny.”

“Does the master have children?” Rory asks, thinking mostly of Hazel’s lack of playmates.

“Just young Master Lionel,” Mr. Penney interjects. “And he is nearly an adult.”

No playmate for Zel, then, at least not right now; hopefully there will be other children in the house, or perhaps children of neighboring staff. It’ll be something for Rory to look into when she’s a little less busy.

“And what about the lady of the house? What is she like?” is Rory’s next question, an afterthought brought about by processing the information she’s gotten about the family.

Nanny purses her lips, and Mr. Penney shakes his head, and it all takes Rory badly aback. She can’t think of a single great house that doesn’t have a lady to oversee it all; it has been her understanding until now that it was actually a requirement.

“If I may, Miss, I would suggest leaving the subject of Lady Fennsworth alone,” Mr. Penney tells her. “Now. We have staff to oversee, and Mrs. Penney has her own work to attend to.”

Nanny seems relieved to just get out of the room as she hurries away, and, as they go through the house and oversee the staff and help with dusting and opening windows where they need to, Mr. Penney carefully avoids the subject of the Fennsworth family for the rest of the day.