The Butler’s tale_(1)

It was another dreary disagreeable day. I stood quietly by the sitting room door in my smart butler’s uniform black coat, and grey waistcoat and black trousers with a single stripe awaiting instruction.

My employer, or at least, my employer’s mother the dowager Lady H, was her usual disagreeable self.

The Dowager or Lady Margaret. She must have been in her forties though she would have passed for sixty with ease in her dowdy black widows attire. She was still in mourning for her late husband who had departed this mortal coil some two years since. A happy release the staff surmised. Not that he was ill, merely hen pecked.

She read the last of her letters. She sighed in resignation and she turned on me once more.

“Hanson, tell me,” she said in her superior voice, “What do you do for amusement on your day off.”

“I see my mother and sister, Madam.” I replied.

“You don’t have some little woman hidden away then?” she probed.

I was thoroughly fed up with being a butler. Ten years I served in the Devon and Somerset Yeomanry rising to colour sergeant. Yet when the peace came a butler was the only post I could secure.

“No Madam.” I replied.

“A boy then,” she taunted mischievously, “I knew it, a sodomite!”

“No Madam.” I insisted.

She liked humiliating me. I looked at her though carefully so not as to make eye contact.

“Oh you are!” she clapped her hands delightedly.

I had had enough of her. I resolved to resign forthwith.

“No Madam, after my home visit I go to the brothel in Horton which his lordship frequented,” I lied. “Therein I engage his lordship’s favourite whore. I have her dress all in black as his lordship did. Then I beat her with a horse whip like his lordship did shouting, ‘Take that Margaret you bitch! before throwing her upon the bed and fucking her up her backside.”

“Ah ha, I knew you were a sodomite, it is in the eyes!” she said delightedly. “You’re lying of course. He fornicated with every buxom wench he could lay hands on, but pay. You must be joking.”

“Exaggerating slightly, perhaps Madam.” I admitted.

“So Hanson, are you saying you would like to thrash me with a horse whip and sodomise me?” she asked.

“That would be illegal Madam.” I explained.

“Would you like to whip me with a horse whip?” she asked.

“Indeed, I think I should enjoy that very much,” I confessed.

“Oh!” she squealed delightedly, “What fun! ah that will be all Hanson. Thank you.”

I expected to be dismissed on the spot but she was actually laughing.

His Lordship and his young wife Lady Jane returned in time for dinner so I had to be on duty in the dining room.

They ate the sumptuous repast with all the decorum of pigs at a trough, and drank the fine wine as if it were lemon cordial.

“I say,” Lady Margaret, the Dowager, suddenly announced after rather too much french wine, “It would appear that Hanson here has a passion for whipping poor unsuspecting wenches with a horse whip.”

“Has he been abusing the servants?” Lord H enquired.

“No,” she replied, “But a reliable source tells me he likes to have some common trollop dress in mourning black and then he whips and sodomises them.”

“Good God mother, in black?” Lord H laughed, “Perhaps you have an admirer! What say you Hanson?”

“I should thrash her within an ounce of her life given a half chance my lord,” I explained.

“Capital, capital!” Lord H laughed, “Oh you are a comedian Hanson and no mistake. Thrash Mama. She would eat you for breakfast!”

“Indeed My Lord,” I agreed and I blushed crimson.

“Time for the Port I think,” Lord H laughed, “Well, well, well, what a thought Mama horse whipped by the servants!”

“Geoffrey, please!” Lady Jane chided. Poor Lady Jane. Barely twenty two. Married two years and still childless. Cook said it was because Lord H was impotent though how she knew was unclear.

The meal finished and the family retired. I took my supper with cook and the maids downstairs.

I went to bed confused. I had expected to be dismissed instantly for insubordination.I could not comprehend the Dowager’s reaction.

Normality returned for a few days until both Lord H and Lady Jane went hunting.

I was in the kitchen when the Dowager’s bedroom bell rang. Bessie the maid went at once but returned quickly. “The Dowager wants Mr Hanson,” she announced.

I went at once, “Yes Madam?” I ventured as I entered her room after knocking politely.

“Come in close the door, there is a draught,” she ordered. “I have something for you.”

She handed me a smart leather bound case, unusually long and thin.