Read Online Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online Page B

bound to,” I said. I turned the black knee-length trousers around to see which was front and which was back. It wasn’t easy to tell.
    â€œThen let me set your mind at rest, Grant,” Christopher said, puzzling over the breeches, too. “And hang on. I think we need to put the stockings on first. These things buckle over the stripy socks and—I hope—help to keep the wretched things up. I sincerely hope so. I hate wrinkles round my ankles. Anyway, forget Mr. Amos. I shall only be here for a short time.”
    â€œWhy?” I said. “Are you sure?”
    â€œPositive,” Christopher said, wriggling a bare foot dubiously into a striped stocking. “I’m only doing this while I’m on my way to something quite different. When I find what I want, I shall leave at once.”
    I was at that moment standing on one foot while I tried to put a stocking on, too. It was floppy and it twisted and the top kept closing up. I was so astonished to hear that Christopher was in exactly the same position as me, that I overbalanced. After a moment or so of frantic hopping about, I sat on the floor with a crash.
    â€œI see your feelings overwhelm you,” Christopher remarked. “You really needn’t worry, Grant. Regard me as a complete amateur. I shall never be a serious footman, let alone a valet or a butler.”

Six
    After what Christopher had said, I expected him to look all wrong in his new clothes. Not a bit of it. As soon as he had tightened the straps of his striped waistcoat, so that it sat trimly around his waist, and tied the white neckcloth under his chin, he looked a perfect, jaunty young footman. I was the one who looked wrong. I could see myself in the long stripe of mirror on the back of the door looking, ever so slightly, a mess. This was odd and unfair, because my hair was as black as Christopher’s and I was not fat and there was nothing wrong with my face. But I looked as if I had stuffed my head through a hole on the top of a suit of clothes meant for someone else, the way you do for trick photographs.
    â€œSeven minutes up,” Christopher said, folding back the frill at the wrist of his shirt to look at his watch. “No time to admire yourself, Grant.”
    As we left the room, I remembered that I had left the port wine cork in the pocket of my own trousers. Mayor Seuly had said to carry it with me at all times. I had to dive back to get it and stuff it into … Oh. The wretched breeches turned out not to have pockets. I crammed the cork into a narrow waistcoat pocket as I followed Christopher out. I was going to tell him it was a keepsake from home, if he asked, but he never seemed to notice.
    Hugo had his watch out when we found him. “You’ll have to keep better time than this,” he said. “My father insists on it.” He put his watch away in order to tweak at my neckcloth, then at Christopher’s. Everyone at Stallery was always trying to rearrange our neckcloths, but we didn’t know that then, and we both backed away in surprise. “Follow me,” Hugo said.
    We didn’t go down in the lift. Hugo led us down narrow, creaking stairs to the next floor. Here the ceilings were higher and the corridors wider, with matting on them, but everywhere was rather dark. “This is the nursery floor,” he said. “At the moment, we use some of the rooms for the housekeepers and the sort of guests who don’t eat with the Family, valets, the accountant, and so on.”
    On the way to the next flight of stairs, he opened a door to show us a long, dark, polished room with a rocking horse halfway down it, looking rather lonely. “Day nursery,” he said.
    The next flight of stairs was wider and had matting for carpet. At the bottom, the ceilings were a bit higher still, and there was carpet everywhere, new and pungent and dove gray. There were pictures on the walls. “Guest rooms?” Christopher