Butlers Beware! Mrs Finnegan is Seeking Out Wily Intrigues and Wanton Ineptitudes

Faithful readers will remember that when we were last together I had the MOST difficult decision to make. Should I hang up my apron and retire to share my SUNSET years with my husband Master Peregrine (whose sun has been setting this long while).

OR ought I stay and SAVE the Hankey household from the wily intrigues and wanton ineptitudes of Cubbage, the butler? It would mean spending every night apart from dear, dear Peregrine (albeit he would only be a sparrow’s wing away on the other side of Brunswick Square). That is every night EXCEPT for Sunday night, but even then I am told I can only leave the premises after the Mistress and Master have retired, lest they would be in need of something that only I could furnish. (No, I can’t think what that would be either.)

I weighed it all up but STILL I could not settle on an answer.

So, I left the decision in the hands of Master Peregrine.

He looked up from the cricket scores in The Brighton Gazette and twitched an eyebrow. He is a man who doesn’t waste energy on unnecessary facial expressions and I KNEW this would be a defining moment of our marriage.

“Every Sunday?”

Such stoicism! Such courage!

So, Cubbage has LOST and I am back where I belong…

…fighting new battles.

I long suspected that Cubbage would wallow in extravagancy if there was no vigilant eye glued to his accounts (unfortunate image, please erase) and I soon had PROOF.

Mr Cubbage has ordered himself the most superfluous butler-ing item of equipment ever devised. There is much I can tolerant (with a witty quip and a sad half-smile), but for this I will not stand. He wants a butler’s BALL and he shall not have it. Fashioned out of mercury glass, they sit on the serving table while a grand dinner is being served and allow him to see what is happening BEHIND his back.

“Only to observe if Lord T is in need of a further portion of jelly,” he told the Mistress. “Or if Miss D has dropped a pastry fork and requires another.”

“To spy,” I told her. “To witness the looks exchanged over the tureen of asparagus, the indiscrete nod across the Brussel sprouts, and the hand gently raised in the steam of THOROUGHLY boiled broccoli.”

“But why?” squeaked the mistress, her face as pale as goat’s milk.

“Why indeed?” This was my moment. “Have you not heard of the blackmailing butler of Buck’s Hill? Responsible for the dissolution of at least two marriage and the breaking of any number of engagements, he acquired a tidy sum before being apprehended. And it all started with a well-placed Butler’s ball.”

“But it’s only a gazing glass. They have been used for centuries in the finest houses.” Cubbage was whining to himself. The mistress had already swept out of the room.

He turned to me. “I don’t want one anyway. Some people think they keep witches at bay.” He looked me up and down. “But they clearly do not work.”

I’m back. And there will be no BALLS here.

Except for perhaps a rather small delicate one that will sit nicely on my desk in the housekeeper’s room. Cubbage tends to enter without knocking, an annoying habit as he is the kind of fellow who can walk on his toe nails. I think I will put the cost in the accounts ledger under haddock. The poor man WAS opening and shutting his mouth rather a lot.

I’m BACK.

Mrs Finnegan’s masterpiece LOVE, LIFE AND LAXATIVES can be purchased from the finest shops in Brighton AND worldwide from Shanghai to Scunthorpe using this handy link https://mybook.to/Mrs_Finnegans_Guide

All proceeds go towards maintaining The Regency Town House and will be SQAUNDERED on lime plaster, electricity bills and other fripperies.