Forrest Roy Johnson is a Minnesotan exiled to Iowa. He lives there with his wife. His fiction has appeared in The Whole Mitten, Miracle Ezine, Fiction 365, and HelloHorror.
(Back to Table of Contents)
What the Butler Didn't See
by Teel James Glenn; published July 23, 2013
My first contact with the child was innocent enough.
It was as I drove up to the gate of the Hobbson Estate near Croton-on-Harmon, New York. At the gatehouse a surly looking fellow greeted me gruffly. “What’s your business?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“I’m Preston Cork,” I said, “I’ve been hired by the Hobbsons as a butler for this residence.”
“You wait,” my personal Charon said with more a grunt than a command. He disappeared back into his guardhouse while I waited. I looked ahead through the wrought iron of the gate.
I saw movement in the bushes inside the gate, a furtive movement of the foliage as if a small animal was hiding. Idly I stared at it and then, to my surprise, I saw eyes staring back at me! Then the gateman called my attention away from the bush.
“The master says drive on up, sir,” he said. “But be careful with your speed. There is, uh, wildlife that may cross the driveway.”
“As you say,” I said. “I’ll be careful.” He pressed a button in his gatehouse. I eased my vehicle through the gate that slid closed behind me almost before I had passed. The trees that screened the winding driveway gave no indication how long the drive was and I was forced to drive slowly even if I had not been warned by the gate troll.
It was because of the slow pace that I was able to see the movement in the bushes as I drove. It was just a series of quick flashes, bits of red and a hint of white as if something, or someone was running parallel to my car as I drove.
After about five minutes of driving I rounded a turn to suddenly come in sight of the house. It rested on a rise of land overlooking the Hudson and the breeze off the water set the pennants that topped it snapping wildly. The three-story building, built in early Victorian style, sprawled over a full acre of land.
Just as I came in sight of the house a tiny figure darted out of the brush to dash across the road. I hit the brakes and my car lurched to a stop.
“Hey!” I yelled. The tiny figure froze, staring at me from beneath a mop of black hair with ice blue eyes. It was a little girl!
The child could not have been more than ten years old and was dressed in bibbed blue jean overalls and a red polka-dot shirt. She had a smear of dirt on her left cheek that she rubbed at with her sleeve while she stared directly at me.
“You should be careful, Miss–,” I said.
“Penelope,” she said. “Penelope Hobbson. My mama and papa own all this.” She waved her arms in a royal gesture to take in all the estate. “They were lords and stuff back in England.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Penelope,” I said. “But you should be careful crossing the road; it is not easy for a driver to see around the turns.”
She stuck out her lower lip and put her hands on her bony hips in an almost defiant posture. “You couldn’t ‘a hit me, Mister–”
“Mister Cork.”
“Well ya couldn’t ‘a hit me, Mister Cork,” the tyke said.
“But I could have,” I said.
“Naw,” the girl said. She giggled and pointed off into the heavy brush. “One of my friends would ‘a saved me.”
“Friends?” I asked. I looked over where she had indicated but saw only a tangle of bushes agitated by the wind. Or was it just the wind? I turned back to little Miss Hobbson but she had raced off opposite the way she had pointed and was gone into the woods like a sprite.
I laughed and drove the rest of the way toward the house. There were a couple of rough types toiling in the garden and when they saw me one pushed back his cap and squinted.
“I’m Cork,” I said. “To see the Hobbsons.”
The laborer jerked thumb toward the back of the house. “Back patio, having brunch.”
I walked around the building. On the veranda, at the far end from where I stood were several tables set out where a couple was eating brunch. They were obviously the master and mistress of the house and very at ease. The man turned his head to look at me.
“Can I help you?” He was a handsome man I judged to be in his mid forties with blonde hair touched with grey at the temples. His eyes, even across the distance were a watery blue and sharply focused on me.
“I am Preston Cork, sir,” I said. “The Everett Agency sent me along to join your service.” I continued to walk toward them with an easy gait. I wanted to present a confident and easy demeanor but when Mrs. Hobbson turned her head to look at me I admit I almost stumbled.
The lady of the house was the most stunning woman I have ever seen. Her hair was as black as a midnight sky and her eyes ice blue. Her skin was the alabaster of the poets, her lips a perfect pink heart shape and when she parted them with a warm smile the whiteness of her teeth was dazzling.
I had to force myself not to stare and to keep moving forward until I was standing at arm’s length from Mister Hobbson. I also had to force myself to take my eyes off his wife and look him in the face. As I did I had a fleeting impression, an almost déjà vu moment, the little urchin I had seen on the driveway was clearly her daughter.
“Mister Cork,” Hobbson’s handshake was solid. “We had not expected you until tomorrow.”
“I like to anticipate things, M’lord,” I said.
“Please,” he smiled and disarming smile. “We are both American citizens now. No titles.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“But good impulse to be early. We will be having guests this weekend and I suspect it will take you the rest of the week to prepare.”
“Very good, sir,” I said. “I suspect I will fit into the household with no difficulty.”
“I certainly hope so,” Mrs. Hobbson’s voice was like the bells of a distant cathedral and muted horns all at once. “The last butler was — well, he did not fit in.”
“Oh,” I found it difficult not to stare at the stunning woman. “Is there something special I should know to help me fit in?”
Before the woman could answer a red and black sprite came darting from around the corner of the house and launched herself onto one of the chairs at the table.
“Penelope!” Mrs. Hobbson exclaimed. “Manners!” Even in condemnation the woman’s voice was musical and soothing.
The young girl ignored her mother and set about attacking some bread, slathering it with jam. She shoved most of a slice in her mouth then spoke. “I said hello to Mister Cork already.”
“How?” The elder Hobbson asked.
“I almost ran your little one over,” I said. “Coming up the drive.”
“I told you, young lady,” the mother said, “to be careful around the road.”
“He didn’t hit me.” She smiled up at her parents with jam decorating her face like a goatee. “Besides my friends would have stopped the car.”
“Now, Penny,” the elder Hobbson said. “No tales. And clean your face.” The little girl smeared the back of her hand across her mouth to get a fair potion of the jam, but not all.
“I’m done, papa,” she said. “Can I go?”
“Yes you can go.” He said. She scurried off the chair like a howler monkey and was off around the corner of the house.
“You must forgive Penelope,” Mrs. Hobbson said. “She has not adjusted well to her new life here in America.”
“Say it truthfully, Charlotta,” Mister Hobbson said. “Our daughter seems to have gone feral here in the new world.” The dark-haired woman colored at her husband’s words.
“We do our best,” the woman said. “But she is and always has been a wild child.”
There was an uncomfortable silence that I felt best to be done with. “Children will be children the world over,” I said. “Even imaginary friends are in every culture. I even had a few myself.”
“Imagina
ry friends?” Mister Hobbson asked with a curious expression on his face. “Oh — uh — yes. Imaginary.”
“Rose will show you to your room,” she said indicating the maid. “I hope you will be happy here, Mister Cork.”
The maid, Rose, led me back toward the house.
“How long have you worked for the Hobbsons?” I asked the fast-walking girl as we moved up the wide staircase in the mansion.
“Several months, sir,” she said. She kept her eyes forward as if she was afraid to look me in the eye. I suspected something under her reluctance.
“Who am I replacing?” I asked as we arrived at the door.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“You heard me, girl. I was told my predecessor had to leave abruptly. Who was he?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.” She was actively avoiding eye contact now and tried to head away from me.
“I asked you a direct question, Rose. His name?”
“Kentworth, sir,” she said, eyes focused on the floor.
“Why did Kentworth leave?” I pressed. “What was the reason?”
For a moment I thought she was going to bolt.
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” she squeaked. When I kept her eyes locked with mine she continued. “I, uh, he just was gone last week. We don’t know why he left, sir. It was — strange.”
“How so?”
“His belongings, sir,” she said. “They didn’t go with him. Nothing. He was gone one morning, and then the Misses came to us and told us to pack his things, and then some men came and took them away.”
“What do you think happened to him?” The fear was back behind her eyes. “Why do you think he left?” I asked.
“It was that girl,” she said on the verge of tears. “That little vixen done it, I know. Her invisible friends and all her strange ways.”
Almost the moment she spoke she clearly regretted what she had said and turned on her heels so I was alone.
I changed from my travel clothes to something more formal — one must set a good example — and returned downstairs to take my car to the garage. It was a stone building joined with a stable that had an apartment above it for the chauffer.
I found space for my own car and then, because I wanted to know the whole of my ‘domain’ as head butler, I went to the stable next door.
There were only three horses in residence and a young stable hand who greeted me with a certain suspicion.
“Aye, sir,” he said when I pressed him. “Mister Kentworth left. For his own reasons, I’m sure.”
As I turned to walk back from the ultra modern barn toward the house I spotted the little fireball Penny again. This time the young girl was crouching in the loft of the stable above an empty stall like a tiny gargoyle.
“Hello again,” I said as I saw her.
“Hi,” she chirped.
“What are you doing up there?” I asked.
“Perchin’,” she said.
“Perching?”
“Yup.”
“Like a bird?”
“I’m an owl,” she said. She was, to my mind, dangerously close to the edge of the loft so I positioned myself below.
“Well, do you think, maybe Ms. Owl might be a bit safer further back in that loft.”
“Oh, I won’t fall.” She gave a broad and confident smile.
“Because your ‘friends’ will save you?” I did my best not to laugh.
“Yup!” she said. “Wanna see?”
Before I could say ‘no’ she tottered forward and started to fall over the edge of the loft. I started to brace myself to catch her when the most amazing thing happened. She stopped.
I do not mean that she balanced in place and then rolled back to her crouch. No. Instead, the girl clearly fell forward to almost ninety degrees to fall off the ledge and simply stopped as if invisible hands were holding her suspended in the air.
In a few eye blinks she rocked back and was as solidly placed on the ledge as if she had never left.
“See?” she said. “My friends always protect me.”
Before I could say anything to the child, Penny giggled and then dashed off into the darkness of the loft.
I stood there, my jaw open in astonishment, and tried to make sense of what I had seen.
Or had I seen it? Had the girl played some trick on me? Could, perhaps, she have a hidden rope tied off behind her so that it appeared as if she was going to fall? Or a bungee cord?
“That’s it,” I said aloud. “The little minx was playing a trick on me.” I laughed out loud. “No wonder Kentworth was driven out. She tried to drive the fellow mad, I’m sure.”
I went to the center of the house — the kitchens — next to meet with the cook. The ‘center of the center’ was a full-figured woman named Mrs. Wilson.
“Yes, I’ve been here since the Hobbsons came over the pond,” she said. “And nicer folks I have not worked for.”
“Little Miss Penny,” I said, “Now she must be quite a handful.”
I thought I detected a tightening of the features of the portly woman, but she gave a brittle laugh. “Oh, yes, sir, Mister Cork she is. Always playing and running around.”
“Under foot frequently?” I asked.
“Oh, not so much,” she said with obvious relief. “She likes to stay out in the woods or by the stables.”
“With her invisible friends, eh?” I quipped. The cook seemed to shake herself at my words but gave me a wan smile.
“Yes, something like that,” she said. She went back to her work and I let her ramble on for a bit about Rose and the rest of the staff, occasionally asking a question but mostly letting her talk.
“Do you know why Mister Kentworth left so suddenly?”
For the space of two breaths she did not move then she turned her heretofore pleasant face to me, and there was something dark in her expression. “He just left,” she insisted. “People do things sometimes just ‘cause they want to.”