Tales From The Pantry: A Butler's Diary

From the pantry of an historic country house comes the ongoing diary of its butler, Mr Dean Fielding. I shall be giving you a glimpse of the family I serve and of the lives both 'Below Stairs' and 'Above'. I hope you follow my jottings daily.

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Have been butler here for over 15 years. Having previously, and unusually for these days, worked my way up from footman to under-butler to my current post. You can now follow me on Twitter via: http://www.twitter.com/butlerfielding

Thursday, September 28, 2006

No Ring For Wendy

Those who believed that I had been exterminated by an irate young farm hand with a pitchfork can rest easy (or can put the champagne away for another day, depending on your opinion of me); I am safe, well, and my body contains no puncture marks. I returned unharmed from Home Farm. A dog did not attack me. I didn't even receive a nasty look from a chicken. My life was not in danger. In short, I am in the pink.

I do confess, however, that fears of impending doom did enter my mind the evening before I was due to stride manfully to Home Farm to have a talk with the breaker of House Maid's hearts.

Fortunately I found a very shamefaced young man full of apology. He invited me into the kitchen, offered me a cup of tea, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked for about an hour. I explained the situation and the drastic measures Wendy was considering taking. He seemed quite alarmed at this. He explained that the relationship was just getting far too 'intense' for him. He did not quite claim that Wendy was picking out curtains for their marital abode, but she did seem to be taking an inordinate amount of interest in jeweller's shop windows. Knowing that Wendy had no thieving tendencies and did not carry a brick around with her in her handbag, he put two and two together and panicked. He promised he would not pester her in any way, but that it was probably better that they remained apart. That seemed fair enough, but I left feeling very sorry for Wendy.

Over a week has now passed and life seems to be returning to normal here at Carstone. Wendy has started to look a little more cheerful and all thoughts of leaving have been banished from her mind, it would seem. Relief is the prevailing feeling in the Servant's Hall.

2 Comments:

Blogger Tea said...

Glad to hear all went well for you and that Wendy is looking like she is moving on.

tea
xo

1:48 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, I now have sympathy with the farmhand. What was it that Groucho Marx (or was it one of the Costellos? I think it might have been) said:

First comes the engagement ring. Then the wedding ring. Then the suffer-ring.

9:05 am  

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