‘What on Earth do you think you’re doing?’ Travis hissed.

‘I had an appointment!’ K shrugged.

‘Yes, with Tollswhip, half an hour ago! I heard him fuming about it outside his office.’

‘But that’s...’ K stopped dead, feeling in his pockets once again for that elusive letter – at last it yielded to his search.

‘Have you got a light? I can’t make out the writing.’

‘Give it here!’ Travis snapped, grabbing the letter. He peered over the writing for a few moments.

‘Dear Mr. K,’ he read. ‘I’d be delighted etc. etc. please approach me in my office etc. etc. discussing some preliminary matters regarding dealings with Her Ladyship, the Lady Avonhurst etc. etc. Yours etc. Tollswhip.’

K felt the blood rising to his temples as Travis raised his eyes, a knowing but exasperated look on his face.

‘Never. Assume. Anything. Your time here is going to be pretty short if you jump to conclusions like that too often.’

K let out a laugh to release some of the tension, and found the air returning to his lungs. Travis turned away contemptuously,

‘Ah! You’re incorrigible!’

‘No, please, Travis.’ K leaned over, feeling slightly winded, and grabbed the footman’s arm.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it. Don’t get angry with me now.’

Travis gave him a sidelong look, lips clamped in the absolute negation of a smile.

‘What can I do to make it up to Tollswhip? Do you think he’ll be free now? Shall I go to him?’

For moment it seemed as if Travis was going to tell him to hop it and leave him alone, but the lad was kinder than that.

‘I wouldn’t risk it with him now. Try getting a seat with him at dinner – he might appear to hate you for it, but that’s the kind of gesture Tollswhip appreciates. Being vain, he loves a bit of flattery, and grovelling especially.’

‘Oh, thank you Travis, that is kind.’ K cried, shaking his hand excitedly.

‘There is the matter of Lady Avonhurst.’ Travis continued, not overjoyed at having his arm wrenched about so vigorously.

‘Yes, of course, I’m forgetting myself. I err, I suppose she’ll be displeased with me over that?’

Travis looked at him sharply.

‘Did she seem displeased?’

‘Not especially, no! I thought she rather liked me. That is,’ K felt his face growing hot again, and this made him a little ashamed in front of Travis, whose eyes narrowed even more.

‘I see. Well, it’s possible she appreciate the distraction from standard procedures. Extremely irregular, but then, word is she’s a spirited sort of girl.’ Travis, who always seemed so composed and aloof, now took on quite a pompous expression, as if he were parroting the remarks of one of his elders. As if he himself noticed this, he cleared his throat and continued in a more serious tone.

‘Be careful, K. I mean it. Don’t get cocky because you took a risk this once and it paid off – I was there with you in the tunnel earlier, don’t think I didn’t hear you following at my heels! You’re playing a dangerous game, and believe me when I say the rules were not written by the likes of you and me, but by the Tollswhips of the world. Keep on their good side and you might be alright.’

‘Might be? So there aren’t any guarantees that if I dance to Tollswhip’s tune I’ll get anywhere in this place? I might have decided differently about coming to the estate if I’d known that!’

‘If you wanted guarantees you should have stayed at home.’ The footman heaved a sigh. ‘Look, just try to keep the advice in mind. Will you do that, for your own sake?’

‘I’ll try.’ K told him, resolutely.

They shook hands properly this time, and Travis led K to the lift to take him down again. Just as he was shutting him in, he made a last, passing remark.

‘Oh, and K: if you do get any mad ideas like that again – of paying her Ladyship a surprise visit – run it past me before you go ahead with it, will you?’

‘It’s a deal.’

And he sent K on his way.

The dinner bell had already sounded when the lift got down to the first floor, so that, much to K’s relief, there no sign of Tollswhip in his office or in the corridor. He surrendered to the surge of staff trudging their way to dinner; some wearily, some contentedly; a soft hubbub of idle chatter about the day’s tidings, or hopes for tomorrow, formed a buoyant crest of sound that swelled and ebbed as the procession gathered its own together, palmers on their nightly pilgrimage.

K switched off his thoughts and cares for the present, satisfied that the day was nearing its end. It would do no good to go over all the mistakes he’d made, for he knew well enough that one can never judge these things clearly from up close. A healthy kind of complacency stole over him, and while he never forgot the task ahead – to sweeten up Tollswhip – he cast it to one side of his mind, where it remained a featureless possibility, not encroaching into the sphere of “worries”.

As he entered the dining room, he was firmly resolved to follow Travis’ advice and grovel for all he was worth. A bottle of wine – opened, but abandoned – stood beside the remains of a meal at an empty table. He whisked this up as a token, and strode over to where Tollswhip was seated with his back to him.

‘Excuse me sir – Mr. Tollswhip, sir. Would you err… accept this as a token of apology? Can I offer you a glass?’ K put on his best simper.

‘I don’t drink wine.’ Tollswhip drawled, without turning his head. He was shovelling down spoonfuls of what looked like some kind of lentil stew, with the same methodical and disinterested approach he would take to filing or filling out forms.

‘Would you mind if I joined you, sir?’ asked K, feeling that he must be doing well not to have raised even a growl from his boss.

‘Mr. K, where you choose to sit is of the least consequence to me, do you understand?’ There was an ugly crease in Tollswhip’s brow, and his hand seemed to grip his spoon ever-so-slightly more tightly. Undismayed, K parked himself down next to him, and began to serve himself some of the same lentil stew. It was really quite delicious; a very wholesome meal to counter the lingering after-effects of his hangover. He poured himself a glass of wine, too, thinking it best not to say anything for the moment.

Sure enough, after just a few minutes of holding his tongue and putting on as meek and humble a face as possible, he felt Tollswhip relaxing a few degrees. Finishing his own bowl of food, he pushed it aside and astonished K by asking:

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘So, Mr. K, how are you finding your work here?’

‘Uh, well, I’m still trying to get acquainted with the right things, and I must say I’m finding it a challenge getting all my reading done – so many documents coming in.’

‘You mean to say you haven’t been told about our priority ranking system?’ Tollswhip turned round to look at him, with an expression as if he’d just asked him how to tie his shoelaces. K was lost for words, which was lucky for him, because it enabled Tollswhip to take on his most professional and condescending of professional and condescending tones of voice (he had quite the wide range) and explain to him the ins and outs of the system. This went on for some time, but K was simply happy to hear Tollswhip in good form, droning on about one of his favourite subjects. It filled the young lawyer with a hope that he really could make it on the estate; that he might stand a good chance of keeping these people on his side, and keeping his mind from turning to mush at the same time.

He continued the conversation over dessert, asking plenty of what he considered to be pertinent and engaging questions, and by the time he was finished and ready to leave, he even received a handshake – like a seal of approval – that put him right at his ease. As he was leaving the table, however, he heard a final, barbed remark from Tollswhip:

‘Oh, and Mr. K, you will be penalised for your little excursion this afternoon, you know that? Report to my office at 6 tomorrow morning.’

If he had needed any more sobering up, these words had that effect. All the hasty optimism, all the bounce, evaporated in an instant.

‘I expect you to give a precise account of where you were, so don’t try cooking up some cock-and-bull story, do you hear?’ Tollswhip’s voice was rising to one of his lower levels of anger – so familiar to those who knew him – and was turning many curious heads from the surrounding tables.

‘Y-yes sir’ K stammered, and rushed from the room, tail between his legs.

…

That night he dreamed again – a dream less vivid than that of the afternoon, but much clearer in his memory when he awoke. He entered some kind of cathedral – he knew not how – which was full of a mysterious music, both lulling and unpredictable, full of all the regularity and rhythm of the waves, but with all their power to buffet a ship in a sudden outburst. Above this undercurrent of harmonies rose a soaring melody, which unravelled itself shyly, and sinuously, like a great, slender vine – exalting the spirit, yet teasingly – increasing the sense of yearning K felt as he heard it.

As he listened to the music he explored the cathedral, observing all at once that it was full of pipes – not like those of the pits hangar, but slender, sculpted pipes, like those of an organ, only woven in a delicate and complex lattice, like a rood screen, that filled the centre of the cathedral up to the height of the roof above. It was through these brilliant bronze-coloured pipes that the music was pumping, and it seemed to give the whole building a gentle sway like a ship on restful waters. As he looked more closely at the central complex of pipes, however, K noticed that the music was only a by-product of their real function – for there were a great many globular glass jars and phials and bottles of various substances which were being drawn into or down out of the pipes in a complex chemistry which K could never have understood.

As he approached the centre of the cathedral to investigate, his attention was diverted by some movement out of one of the windows. These, unstained, and filled with plain glass, showed only the rustic houses of a medieval town outside – but something about one of those houses unsettled K – it had something alive about it. He turned away quickly, lest that sense disturb the calm and beauty of the dream, and continued towards the cathedral’s centre. The music reached a quiet moment, receded into a still hum, as something began to descend from the central pipe, as slowly as if it were sinking through water, light and free as a leaf caught in the wind. It was a rose. Had it been created out of all these tinctures and processes? Was that the point of this apparatus? K felt that the answer must surely be yes and no. Thus music stopped, and K stood for a moment staring at the rose in silent wonder. But then, that same sense of movement out of the corner of his eye, that same unease gripped him, and he could not resist turning his head to the window again.

Outside, the house still stood there – as if watching him through its darkened upper windows. Then, before his eyes, the house began horribly and inexplicably to unfurl itself – its exterior opening monstrously slowly like two huge wings, dusty and moth-like, but crouched and cunning as a raven – K stared at it in horror just before he awoke.

It was some time around 5 or 5:30, to judge by the silence, and the angle of the sunlight that lit up one corner of the room with a pale, creamy-coloured light. K heaved himself upright on the bed and threw off the bed-covers. What a night! He felt rested though, despite the horrible end to the dream. Its vividness burned itself into his memory in a few impressions – like the hasty strokes of a signature – but the general flow of it was lost.

The cold air on his sleepy limbs brought him back down to Earth, and he leaped out of bed without delay – there was simply no point in trying to figure out what it had meant (as if dreams meant anything! he thought, with a scoff); he had pressing matters to attend to.

After a quick wash in the bathroom he pulled on a clean shirt and trousers, and paused for a minute at the window to survey the grounds and collect his thoughts. The trees and grasses glowed effervescent with the gentle rays of the low sun – but for the flight of a few birds and the rustle of the leaves in the branches of the trees, all was as still as a painting of some earlier period, when rare and costly minerals were ground for pigments, and all the hues were simple and vivid – the animals cipher-like in their simple, direct representation. The air was cool and refreshing, faster and more lively at such a height from the ground – it tickled and teased at his hair as he leaned out the window happily. He thought how fine it was to rise so early, as he saw what must have been one of the gardeners making his morning commute down, far below. Still, he had to tear himself away from the view and get moving if he was to make it to Tollswhip’s office in time. The rest of the day was as great and untrodden an expanse, to his mind, as the grounds he’d just been admiring – but less inviting.

Already he began to mark the way through the corridors of the estate with confidence, for his room, his office, and Tollswhip’s were all in the same section of the building. Had anyone told him just how small a fraction of the estate this actually constituted, it would likely have overwhelmed the young lawyer, but everyone he’d met knew better than to spring such things on a newcomer, if it ever occurred to them.

True to form, Tollswhip was already seated and at work when K gave a knock on his door. Probably, he always got in an hour or two before breakfast, ‘to stay ahead of the game’ as his underlings might have said – Tollswhip did not care for games. His pen scratched rhythmically on a great sheaf of paper even as he invited K to enter and be seated. It was with the greatest solemnity that Tollswhip eventually raised his head; his eyes following at a slight delay, to rest on Joseph with a marked dislike.

‘I believe you have an explanation for me, Mr. K.’ He declared, before turning back to his writing.

‘Ah yes, an explanation,’ K began boldly, feeling rather than seeing that the very lightness of this opening remark had set Tollswhip’s teeth on edge and stiffened his spine.

‘I’m really very sorry about that; you see, I made a mistake. I couldn’t quite decipher your handwriting, and I must have interpreted the instructions wrongly, because I got the impression I was intended to go and have an audience with Lady Avonhurst. So I did.’

Up until the point K mentioned the mistress of the estate by name, Tollswhip’s face had been steadily darkening as it filled with blood – but when the words ‘Lady Avonhurst’ escaped his lips, the man’s eyes burst wide open and he almost choked with fury:

‘You met with her!? Am I to understand this was an unsolicited audience with Her Ladyship, the dowager mother to Our Lord Postlethwaite III himself?’ He placed great emphasis on the individual syllables of ‘unsolicited’, simmering with rage. The pen in his hand would surely have snapped, were it not made of stronger stuff than its owner.

‘In a manner of speaking – but I didn’t interrupt anything. It seems she was in exactly the right place at the right time – quite the coincidence, actually.’ K still imagined he could defuse the situation by this method of reassurance, and he was not entirely wrong. If there had been fear mixed in with Tollswhip’s anger before, now it shifted into a purer form of loathing towards K’s reckless confidence. He contained this feeling from any further outbursts – steadying himself with both hands on either side of his desk. After a few moments, he said:

‘I take it from your arrogant tone and… swaggering demeanour, that Her Ladyship looked on this severe indiscretion with her usual loving-kindness and supreme beneficence. Were she not such a treasure of compassion, condescension and magnanimity, this would have resulted in your immediate expulsion from the estate, never to return as long as your name endures on this Earth – exiled unto the seventh generation of K____s has been laid to rest. As it is, in accordance with the powers bestowed upon me from on high by Her Ladyship, I am suspending you from your work until further notice. That is as tough a measure to punish disobedience as I am authorised to take, but you can be sure’ he spat the word out like a glob of phlegm, ‘you can be sure that I will take this up with my superiors and see if we can’t really make you pay for this.’

He fell silent after this speech, breathing heavily; a muscle in his forehead clenching madly. Joseph, taking the only course open to him, got up from his chair and silently left the office – not quite as dismayed as Tollswhip would have liked him to be, but a little shaken.