Read Online God Save the Queen! by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online

one feared the least breeze might turn him into a set of wind chimes.
    “It’s not to be wondered at.” He folded the piece of paper into a postage-size square, and managed to sound as if he were listening to the housekeeper’s lamentations for the first time.
    “Let me put it this way, Mr. Tipp.” She set a chocolate biscuit in his saucer and settled her comfortably large person into the chair across from him. “There’s some people that have ambitions to be doctors or bank managers or the like, but when I was a little girl, all I dreamed about was growing up into a woman who cleaned other people’s houses. There’s nothing thrills me like scrubbing and polishing, unless it’s taking down an armload of curtains and putting them in the wash.”
    For a moment Mrs. Much’s face took on a glow reminiscent of a full moon in an unclouded sky. “Think on it,” she clasped her serviceable hands, “the boundless joy of scrubbing out a bath until it’s white as driven snow! No one, and that’s the gospel truth, Mr. Tipp, will ever know the happiness I get from bringing back the shine on a piece of lino so’s it looks better than new.”
    “I take your meaning, Mrs. Much.”
    “But the working conditions has to be right, if you understand me, Mr. Tipp. It’s not sufficient that I get to live at Gossinger Hall and make decent wages. I can’t find professional fulfillment when I’m told off for taking down the tapestries for a wash.”
    “I doubt no one could make themselves any clearer.” Mr. Tipp took a sip of tea, which tasted of bleach, but told himself manfully that it was an acquired taste and he would get to like it. He would have liked to ask for another chocolate biscuit but did not wish to appear greedy.
    “Mr. Hutchins carried on about those tapestries like I was a cold-blooded murderer.” Mrs. Much’s face darkened. “It quite ruined my afternoon, until I told myself, who needs this job, when all is said and done. I’ve no idea where he’s disappeared to all this time, but good riddance is what I say. Let him report me to Sir Henry and her Ladyship. And let them give me the push. It’s no skin off my nose. I’ve a cousin as thinks I could get on where she works, but I won’t say any more about that,” Mrs. Much crossed her fingers, “in case I jinx myself. What I don’t understand is why you stay on here, year after year, Mr. Tipp. It’s not like they’ve ever made a proper position for you now that there’s no horses in the stables.”
    “Haven’t been for thirty years, not since old Major had to be put down, but it doesn’t bother me none being the odd-job man. When I see something that needs doing I write it down, and sometimes I come up with quite a list.” Mr. Tipp picked up the folded piece of paper he’d been fiddling with before he started drinking his tea. He looked at it with an expression of pleased pride before tucking it in his jacket pocket. “I’m the last of a long line of Tipps that have worked at Gossinger Hall since no one quite remembers when. Which is more than can be said for Mr. Hutchins. Not that I mean any disrespect, I’m just saying that’s one difference between us, along with him being Sir Henry’s right-hand man.”
    Mr. Tipp looked decidedly anxious, and Mrs. Much hastened to put his mind at ease.
    “Trust me not to breathe a word. My late husband would tell you I’m loyal to a fault. Such a lovely man, snuffed out like a light in his prime when he fell asleep in the bath and drowned.” She dabbed at her eyes in respectful memory of the deceased. “It’s a shame, that’s what I call it, Mr. Tipp, you being the junior here, at your time of life. My pride wouldn’t stand for it—" Realizing this was hardly tactful, she added quickly, “but I suppose it would be hard for you to find another job so close to retirement. Where will you go when that time comes? Do you have any family,” Mrs. Much got up to pour him another cup of tea, “any