Fooling Priory

Author note: This is my entry for the April Fools Day Story Contest 2024.

It was after dinner at Fooling Priory, which meant the Duke of Ruthering and his son, Lord Fitzmichael, had gathered in the drawing room to discuss matters of importance. In reality, this meant Daddy and Bertie were smoking the most evil-smelling cigars and talking about tomorrow's hunt, the first of the season. In fact, Bertie hadn't spoken about anything else for the past week: he'd got a new champion hunter he'd been training, called Dodger, and this would be his first chance to put Dodger through his paces, and, far more importantly, his first chance to show his new horse off in front of everyone else at the hunt.

But enough about the drawing room, full of men's talk. On the other side of the door, in the ladies' sitting room, I was seated, re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo.

"I do wish you wouldn't hold with those new, overly-feminine novels," Mummy said, looking up from her work. She was treasurer of the National Society for Friends of the United States, an organisation full of oddballs which had begun as an effort to thaw relations with the new nation in the eighteenth century but now seemed mostly to exist in order to entertain rich, distinguished Americans when they were over here, visiting. Mummy claimed it was geopolitically vital, as some of these Americans held sway over issues of international if not global importance. I told her I was sick of dull Americans and their fat wives at dinner parties and soirées, which doubtless didn't help with my reputation for being insolent. In any case, Mummy was poring over the latest Friend's Bulletin, the tedious monthly magazine of the society which even she couldn't read without yawning, and comparing it favourably with Alexandre Dumas.

I looked at the cover of Monte Cristo. "I think you've confused which book I'm reading, Mummy."

"Well, I don't mean that one specifically, I mean generally," she said, adopting the haughty tone she usually used when she thought I was being unmanageable.

"Mummy, you plainly don't know anything about this book."

"Look, Kitty, darling, all I'm saying is, while we've got your Aunt Peony staying, you ought to involve yourself in something more improving than some awful novel you found in your father's library."

I rolled my eyes, another gesture that tended to lead to suggestions of insolence. "Did you have something specific in mind?" I asked, setting my book down and setting my teeth as well. Aunt Peony was half-American, had been widowed in the Great War and would think Monte Cristo excellent if she ever had the chance to sit down and read it.

"Well, what about helping me plan this wretched April Fools 'joke for tomorrow? I've spoken to Mrs Inbrock and she didn't seem completely sold on the idea. We still have time to change the arrangements..."

Mummy was fishing to cancel it. Fooling Priory had a tradition, going back generations, of living up to its name and throwing a Fools' Festival on the first of April. In the olden days this had meant laying on entertainment for the peasantry at the Duke's expense, but in recent years Daddy and Bertie had altered it and begun playing tricks on the rest of the family, generally for the amusement of the domestic staff. Last year, for instance, Bertie had set a rat loose in the ladies' bedchambers. Obviously we were horrified and our screams seemed to please the staff no end, while Daddy demanded we women were 'soft' and needed to 'sort something out ourselves for a change'. We'd gone as far as calling in a local rat-catcher and his terrier before Bertie admitted it was a mechanical toy he'd bought when he was last up in London. Daddy thought this was hilarious, of course, and he, Bertie, the rat-catcher and doubtless the terrier had laughed themselves hoarse over drinks well into the night, while the ladies were left with red faces.

"Why don't we call Mrs Inbrock and see what she says?" I suggested, sweetly, reaching for the cord-pull that would summon a maid.

"I don't like to bother her after dinner," Mummy said, primly. "She's presumably quite busy with the washing-up."

I scoffed. "They're domestic servants, Mummy, they can manage the washing-up." I rang the bell and sat back, smugly.

"Well, this was your idea and on your head be it," Mummy said, the haughty tone returning.

"You'll enjoy it, really," I hissed at her, half-joking, half-annoyed.

"You called, Ma'am?" asked Gertie, a wizened old housemaid whom I did not like, but who Mummy insisted was the only one who knew how to dust the dining room tapestries properly.

"Fetch Mrs Inbrock please, Gertie," I said before Mummy could interfere.

Mrs Inbrock was plump, middle-aged and, if anyone was laughing, it would usually be her. She loved the April Fools' jokes and I knew she'd back me up. Her apple cheeks and grey curls were at the door in a flash.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Sorry to interrupt your washing up, Mrs Inbrock," I said, tartly, and Mummy scowled.

"Oh, I get the girls to wash up, and if it's not finished by now I'll be raising hell with 'em when I get back, if you'll pardon the expression."

"We were thinking about arrangements for tomorrow," Mummy said, bossily taking over.

"Well now hold on a minute, I don't want to be left out," Aunt Peony declared as she bustled in from behind Mrs Inbrock, skirts swishing.

Mummy backed down, defeated. With Aunt Peony on my side, I'd win for sure.

With the big hunt due, Daddy and Bertie had decided not to play a trick this year, or, as I kept reminding everyone, they'd told us they wouldn't so we'd let our guard down. In any case, now that I was twenty and therefore legally a full member of the household, I had made a suggestion for how to get one back against them. It was simple but had a lot of potential: Mummy, Aunt Peony and I would all dress up and replace members of the household staff, explaining our absence by telling the men that we were urgently needed all day somewhere else in the county. If we were able to do our tasks well, then it would be amusing to see their faces when they realised who was responsible. If we did them badly, it would be even more amusing as they'd be furious with nobody to be angry at.

"It's genius," Aunt Peony announced. "Personally, I have always wanted to be the Duke's chauffeur."

"Don't be silly, Peony, that's a man's job," Mummy said.

"Nonsense, Willow. I can drive perfectly well and putting on a hat and coat is hardly difficult."

"You'll have to take my place, ma'am. It wouldn't be right for any but the lady of the house to be overseeing things," Mrs Inbrock added, talking to Mummy. "I'll help, of course."

"And I shall be a lowly housemaid," I declared, in a fit of egalitarianism. "It will be tough but I am sure I am up to it."

No sooner were things finalised and Mrs Inbrock dismissed than the door to the drawing room banged open and Bertie appeared in a haze of blue smoke, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Father's gone to bed: wants a decent night's sleep before the hunt," he said, throwing himself down into an armchair, a half full whisky glass in his hand.

"I'd advise the same for you," Mummy said, eyeing the glass.

"Rot. I could drink ten of these and be on top form tomorrow," Bertie said, sulkily, his conversation partner for the night gone to bed well before their usual hour.

"I'll join you," I said, partly to spite Mummy.

"Cheers, then," Bertie said, looking pleasantly surprised. "I'll ring for the butler. Gin okay?"

"Gin is hardly a fitting drink-"

"Oh do shut up, Mummy. A glass of gin isn't going to put me on the path of ruin," I scolded her. Bertie guffawed, but Mummy was offended and gathered her work things.

"I will see you both at breakfast," she said, knowing she'd have Daddy on her side then.

"I'll come up too, Willow. Let the young people have their drinks in peace," Aunt Peony said, and after a the goings of the ladies and the comings of my drink (Bertie told the butler to leave the decanter), we were finally in peace, listening to the loud tick of the clock on the mantel; the crackle of the fire and a fine rain falling on the windows.

"Won't rain tonight make it heavy going tomorrow?" I asked, adding soda to my gin.

"Dodger excels if the going is heavy, so it's in my favour," Bertie said, sitting back in his chair. As much as he could be a colossal arse at times, he was every inch the dashing British aristocrat he'd been born to be. Tall, blond, charming and funny, looked damned good in a fashionably cut suit, but he was also curiously keen on being hands-on. He trained his own horses; fixed his own car; loved playing with the hounds; and even did minor bits of repair work around the Priory. He especially loved plumbing, for some reason, and had two pairs of horribly working-class overalls he'd had made in town. This little eccentricity put him well in with his fellow gentlemen and he was eternally popular at social events. And, thanks to the family fortune he'd inherit on Daddy's death, he was wealthy too.

"How's the engagement?" I asked, changing topic before Bertie began another lecture on Dodger's outstanding qualities. Bertie was nominally engaged to an Australian heiress that Daddy knew, the disgustingly rich daughter of an agricultural magnate, but they'd only met once.

"Susie's fine, I keep meaning to write to her," Bertie said lazily, looking at the firelight through his whisky. "She's got the whole of Australia fighting over her: she's quite the arbiter of new world fashion, I hear. A dinner party is wasted unless she's there. So she's quite happy where she is and I'm happy having Mother off my back."

I smiled into my drink. "Wouldn't you rather be together?"

Bertie laughed, his genuine laugh he kept for people he really respected and liked. It flattered me whenever I heard it.

"Look at Mother and Father. They're lucky if they spend an hour together, except at mealtimes, and they barely speak. Having Susie over here or me over there would only make us both less happy. You know how these arranged marriages are. I'm twenty-three, let me live a little before settling down."

"But I thought you liked her?"

"Oh, Kitty, do stop going on about it. You'll no doubt be a bridesmaid at the wedding and Susie like a sister to you, and so on and so forth, in due course. She's stunningly pretty, you know, these Australian girls are. Must be all the sunshine, not like these drab British girls who grow up in the dull climate."

I was reminded why Bertie was an arse.

"You'll have your own engagement soon enough anyway. I heard Father talking to Lord Richmond: his wife's been dead over a year, now, and he's only thirty. The nanny can look after the baby and you'd get to enjoy his money." Bertie grinned unkindly. "Richmond's a filthy gambler, though, you'll forever be dragging him away from card tables after he's lost his shirt."

I pouted. "Daddy can't make me marry him," I pointed out. "He's ghastly."

"Well, if you're very good to me, I'll put in a good word for Arthur Drythe. He's in line for his cousin's money, that big estate up near Perth. If you can tolerate a draughty Scottish castle, that is."

I'd met Arthur at a gala event a year ago and he was fabulous. Fun, handsome, a great dancer. He was definitely a catch, probably the most eligible bachelor at the moment, as Bertie was off the market.

"I wouldn't mind Drythe, especially compared to Richmond," I said, trying to be subtle.

Bertie saw right through me and laughed again, almost spilling what was left of his drink.

"I should think so!" he gasped, before draining his glass. "Drythe is twice the man Richmond is. He'll be my brother-in-law too, so I should get some say in the matter."

"I didn't get any say when you and Susie got engaged, but she's my future sister-in-law," I pointed out, adding more gin to my glass.

"This is why people think you're insolent," Bertie said, putting down his glass with a flourish. "I'm trying to help you, you know. Anyway, I'm off to bed. Think I'll give breakfast a miss, though, doesn't do to ride on a full stomach."

He patted my knee and got up to stretch, then strolled off towards the stairs without a second look. I couldn't believe how some people seemed to be able to behave however they wanted with absolutely no consequence: how did Susie feel about being abandoned half a world away with no firm word on a wedding date? But nobody asked that question. Bertie just did as he pleased, as usual. Even now, he'd walked off when I had just poured myself another drink instead of being sociable, making it clear he couldn't be bothered talking to me.

I ignored him. I was an adult: if I wanted to drink this entire glass of gin and soda on my own, contemplatively, watching the fire die out, I would. He didn't make the rules.

I regretted the gin immediately when my bedroom door opened at five o'clock the next morning.

"Excuse me, Kitty, ma'am, but Mrs Inbrock said you were to be wakened this early," a girl's voice said, obviously unsure.

"Who is it?" I asked, my mouth as dry as paper. I wished the topic of April Fools' had never even been spoken of.

"It's Elizabeth, ma'am, the housemaid."

"Lizzie?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Lizzie was nineteen or twenty, unmarried and as bright as a button. She was practically the ideal housemaid: hard-working and polite, but apparently determined not to marry the first man who came along and become a housewife. She had very dark hair which seemed to endlessly escape her cap and white teeth which shone no matter the day. And, most enticingly, she had a reputation for being a wild spirit when she wasn't trapped by her duties at the Priory.

"Oh, alright, I'm awake," I conceded, reaching for the glass on my bedside and pouring a drink of water to remedy my mouth.

"I've brought one of my spare uniforms to dress you in, ma'am, Mrs Inbrock thought we were a similar enough size."

I eyed Lizzie. She had an hourglass figure with a bust that threatened the integrity of her dress. I wondered if she was still growing in that department. Whereas I was slim in the English style, much more fashionable, but with a tendency for dresses to hang off me like tunics. Lizzie seemed to recognise what I was thinking.

"We'll, ahem, build your bust up a little," she suggested. "It'll help with the disguise, too."

"Good idea. I hadn't really thought about needing to disguise myself, I thought I'd be lurking in the kitchen all day," I said.

Lizzie smiled, and, like Bertie in a way, I could see it was a genuine, free-spirited smile. Not the smile that domestic servants loved to give their masters, obsequious and false.

"I'll try to keep you out of sight as much as I can but it can't be all day. Anyway, with a bit of face paint and a cap you'll look different enough," she told me.

"Do your worst," I declared, returning her smile.

I knew housemaids were worked hard, of course, but the early start combined with racing around lighting all of the fires had me tired even before breakfast. I ate a roll with some cheese standing up in the servants' quarters, while Lizzie desperately gave me instructions for airing the linen between bites. I didn't even see Daddy or Bertie as they went out to the hunt, as they'd been told the ladies had gone out and weren't expected back until the evening, and so didn't hang around to say goodbye. I think it suited them, really, although I exchanged a wink with Aunt Peony as she stood by the door of the car to drive Daddy down. Bertie would ride, of course.

Mummy was having a great time acting as housekeeper, of course, gossiping endlessly with Mrs Inbrock and marvelling at how well everything worked below stairs. I'm not sure I saw her actually doing any work, even though Lizzie and I spent hours with our hands in washbasins. In fact, I think the day would have been quite unbearable but for being paired with Lizzie the whole time. She seemed inexhaustibly cheerful; was always ready to give me a hand where I needed it; and in fact, we seemed to get on quite well as friends. Certainly she was more honest and fun than most of the girls I called friends, society ladies now who only wanted to talk dresses or husbands. Lizzie's two main interests seemed to lie in making harmless mischief, which she did at all available opportunities, or if that diversion wasn't available, then she enjoyed collecting scandalous gossip. When we had thirty minutes' break, sitting and eating apples on the back of the grocer's cart, Lizzie paid for them by passing on a tale of a gentleman from a big house in a neighbouring town whose wife had left him when he'd been caught with a lady of easy virtue in London. I knew the man in question and the story had a ring of authenticity which shocked me.

"If I don't pick up something juicy while I'm 'ere, the wife goes crazy at me," the grocer said to me after Lizzie relayed the 'menu' on offer at that particular London brothel.

"Always happy to oblige, Mr Wilson," Lizzie said, nudging me and we both giggled.

Daddy was back first, in time for a late dinner. The domestic staff could easily put together dinner for the family and twenty guests, so a solo meal of cold chicken and vegetables was well within the talents of the cook alone. There wasn't a huge amount for us to do in the evening, consequently, and although usually Mrs Inbrock would have had Lizzie on a task of some kind of other, she saw us laughing together and said we could have the evening off, as a special, April Fools' Day treat, so long as Lizzie was back in time to turn the house down for the night.

"Well, then," Lizzie said, pleased with her unexpected luck. "What would you say we walk into the village and have a drink at the Eagle?"

The Golden Eagle was not a pub that young ladies from the big house set foot in and I told her so, but she just waved away my concerns.

"Nonsense, just don't wear one of your prettiest dresses, the seats aren't the cleanest," Lizzie told me, putting her arm around mine. "I'll make sure you get a warm welcome."

I had never thought I'd be walking through the dark countryside with Lizzie on my way to the Eagle, but there we are. I'd picked my least nice-looking clothes: an old muslin dress that was, in truth, slightly too small for me, and Lizzie had changed into a cotton frock which was simplicity itself, but it was very low cut.

"It's neoclassical," she said, when I questioned whether it was a wise choice for an unmarried woman. "Influenced by French fashions at the turn of the nineteenth century."

I looked at her, agog.

"I can read books too, you know," she giggled.

After the big hunt the Eagle was quite full, and we immediately saw past the crowd of men drinking in groups around tables to the bar, where Bertie was leaning, in full hunting gear still, spattered with mud. He was holding forth, tankard in hand, when he spotted us.

"Well bless my soul if it isn't my dearest sister," he bellowed, beckoning us over. "Now Mother really would explode if she saw you here."

I had worried about being unescorted but with Bertie here, and the atmosphere jovial, I felt much more at ease.

"I'll just get our drinks," Lizzie said, her eyes flashing towards Bertie, but he shook his head.

"No, my dear, allow me. Barman, two gins and sodas and keep them coming. The ladies are letting their hair down tonight!"

"I don't want too much-" I protested, but Lizzie caught my arm again and pulled me towards an unoccupied table.

"Don't worry about it, I've got to be back before too long anyway. Enjoy yourself, Kitty," she said, and when I looked back at Bertie who was bringing the drinks over, he had definitely also noticed the cut of Lizzie's dress. The way he selected the seat next to her was a little over-familiar and once again I was reminded that certain people seemed to be allowed to get away with anything they wanted. But on the other hand, Lizzie seemed to be enjoying the attention from Bertie, and she could certainly hold her own in conversation with him.