“I love that we get to share this too,” I agreed genuinely. “So I’m going to eat up so we can get started.”
Prudence watched me cut off another bite of sausage and said, “I’m just going to get one more sausage.”
I didn’t blame her.
In fact, I thought that was the perfect plan.
We started below stairs, an area of an estate like this I always found just as fascinating as what sat on top of it.
And at The Downs, it was no different.
There was the vast kitchen (modernized, but it still had the bones of antiquity to it). The buttery, pantries, a comfortable staff lounge, and Prudence unlocked the storage rooms to show me where they kept their crystal, china, silver and booze safe. There was also a laundry area, and a massive linen cupboard we spent some time in because, call me a freak, I found all the tablecloths, runners, sheets, coverlets, quilts and throws fascinating.
Fitzgibbons had an office down there, as did Patsy, the housekeeper, who was also Fitzgibbons’s wife.
Those two were the only live-ins, and Prudence shared that Battle had completely renovated what used to be the servants’ quarters so they had a rather large apartment (an area, obviously, Prudence didn’t show me) that not only had its own entrance off the north side of the house, but also a private terrace and garden.
This space was needed, apparently because, Prudence told me, they had three kids, two of whom lived in the village, all of whom were married, had children and came calling frequently.
The staff included Cook, a woman Prudence’s and my age whose name was actually Emily, who I met during the tour.
I also met Amelia and reacquainted with Mary, both maids, and Scotty and Harry, who lugged, served, ran errands and did handyman work, but I got the impression they were also there to provide security.
Don’t ask me why I had this impression, maybe it was because they were both tall, fit, alert, and just gave off that vibe.
And last, the lawns and parkland were overseen by a gardener, but Prudence informed me that Chastity did all the gardening, not only in the gardens, but also the greenhouse.
For that big of a house, it didn’t seem like that big of a staff.
But the book I was writing was about modernization and how that shifted the world on its axis.
Including having the effect of blurring the lines of the haves and have-nots as many more people had many more opportunities to make a lot more money. But on the other hand, with telephones and vacuums and cars and gas stoves and washing machines and lawn mowers, it made having a vast staff who needed to offer copious manual labor obsolete.
We moved to the ground floor, and Prudence started in the south wing, introducing me to sitting rooms (the most formal of them an exquisite study of greens and cream), a couple of salons, a morning room, the library, Battle’s study with its door closed (we skipped that, and not only because I’d already seen it), and at the very end, a fantastic armory.
We went upstairs next, which was mostly bedrooms, though, at the end of my wing, there was a nursery, music and school room.
All the Talyn family’s bedrooms were in the south wing, obviously including Battle’s, which Prudence waved a vague hand toward the door at the end of the hall, stating that was the duke’s chamber, and where it was situated meant he had the whole cap of the end of the wing.
And for that reason and that reason alone (I told myself), I was dying to see it.
I didn’t share that desire with Prudence, however.
As we were heading back downstairs, Prudence said, “I want you to be able to get some work done, so we’ll save the attics for the weekend. Though I’ll head up there after I show you the studio. I’ll have a dink around to see if I can find anything of Harmony’s, or anything else you might be interested in.”
I was chomping at the bit to see what she’d pulled for me, so I was grateful for this offer, and to share that, I hooked my arm in hers as we kept walking.
“That would be awesome.”
She smiled at me as we turned towards the stairs.
I took that opportunity to probe.
“Battle tells me you have six cats.”
She stiffened, which I thought was strange.
“I do,” she confessed. “I don’t know where they all are. They’re masters at hiding.”
