Mrs Finnegan is on the Cusp of Change

The Regency Town House Housekeeper has a spring in her step and a GLINT in her eye.

I am NOT a woman easily flustered. Indeed my husband has often remarked that I am the most flusterless, gormful woman he has ever known.

And yet the Mistress made an announcement last week that has given me new palpitations and provoked old worries.
A new man is coming to THE house.
A butler.
Long standing readers will know we have been down this path before. It is no surprise to anyone that the Mistress should CRAVE the prestige of having a suited-booted butler on the premises, but the truth is she doesn’t need one. She has me.

You may think me prejudiced, but I say that a shrewd housekeeper with competent pickle skills is worth FIVE key-twirling, nose-in-the-air butlers even if they can tell a Beaujolais from a Burgundy by smell alone. (I find it takes me at least two glasses to be absolutely sure.)

What is this new butler like?

I have no idea. He was not interviewed in THIS house that I know for certain, BUT he has been engaged on a FULL year’s contract to start on a date uncertain but SOON.

He will be given the keys to the wine cellar. He will be put in charge of the silver. He will greet visitors at the door and hold SWAY over the male members of staff. No doubt he will also sit at the head of the table in the servants’ hall, which is by rights my place, only I divide my time between THE House and my husband across the Square so rarely take possession .

Perhaps I should.
Perhaps I should smarten myself up a little. What do you think? Notice a difference? (Peregrine didn’t.)

The BOOK?

O yes, the book is coming along nicely, thank you. Every day a new sentence. Sometimes with added commas. And lists. And all manner of good stuff that will make it a must-read, must-borrow guide to life’s essentials. Yet, this business with the butler is unsettling me.

The Mistress informed me of his name. I nodded politely when she told me, but it VANISHED from my head as soon as I left the room, like a snow ball on a stove.

It has something to do with a green vegetable, of that I am certain.

Mr Asparagus?

Master Broccoli?

Mister Sprout?

CABBAGE?

Yes, that’s it. Or something like.
And now that’s settled in my mind, I can turn back to the THE book and cheer you with news I have just finished a chapter on the three Hs which I do believe will OUTDO any guide on the subject written since the Battle of Waterloo. Can you guess what the Hs stand for? Go on, give it a go.
Go on.
Go ON.

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CUBBAGE!
That’s the new butler’s name.
Do I dress to impress? Or devour within the hour of our first meeting?