Terry Pratchett: Snuff

It wasn’t like that now, not even close.

But in those days young Vimes had seen butlers as double-traitors to both sides and so the large man in the black tailcoat got a glare that skewered him. The fact that he gave Vimes a little nod did not help matters. Vimes lived in a world where people saluted.

‘I am Silver, the butler, your grace,’ the man carefully intoned reprovingly.

Vimes immediately grabbed him by the hand and shook it warmly. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mister Silver!’

The butler winced. ‘It’s Silver, sir, not Mister.’

‘Sorry about that, Mister Silver. So what’s your first name?’

The butler’s face was an entertainment. ‘ Silver , sir! Always Silver!’

‘Well, Mister Silver,’ said Vimes, ‘it’s an item of faith with me that once you get past the trousers all men are the same.’

The butler’s face was wooden as he said, ‘That is as maybe, sir, but I am and always will be, commander, Silver. Good evening, your grace ,’ the butler turned, ‘and good evening, Lady Sybil. It must be seven or eight years since anyone from the family came to stay. May we look forward to further visits? And might I please introduce to you my wife, Mrs Silver, the housekeeper, whom I think you have not met before?’

Vimes could not stop his mind translating the little speech as: I am annoyed that you ignored me to shake hands with the gardener … which, to be fair, was not deliberate. Vimes had shaken the gardener’s hand out of sheer, overpowering terror. The translation continued: and now I am worried that we might not be having such an easy life in the near future .

‘Hold on a minute,’ said Vimes, ‘my wife is a Grace as well, you know, that’s a bit more than a lady. Syb — Her grace made me look at the score chart.’

Lady Sybil knew her husband in the way people living next door to a volcano get to know the moods of their neighbour. The important thing is to avoid the bang.

‘Sam, I have been Lady Sybil to all the servants in both our houses ever since I was a girl, and so I regard Lady Sybil as my name, at least among people I have come to look on as friends. You know that!’ And, she added to herself, we all have our little quirks, Sam, even you.

And with that scented admonition floating in the air, Lady Sybil shook the housekeeper’s hand, and then turned to her son. ‘Now it’s bed for you, Young Sam, straight after supper. And no arguing.’

Vimes looked around as the little party stepped into the entrance hall which was to all intents and purposes an armoury. It would always be an armoury in the eyes of any policeman, although undoubtedly, to the Ramkins who had put the swords, halberds, cutlasses, maces, pikes and shields on every wall, the assemblage was no more than a bit of historical furniture. In the middle of it all was the enormous Ramkin coat of arms. Vimes already knew what the motto said: ‘What We Have We Keep’. You could call it … a hint.

Soon afterwards Lady Sybil was busily engaged in the huge laundry and ironing room with Purity the maid, whom Vimes had insisted she take on after the birth of Young Sam, and who, both he and his wife believed, had an understanding with Willikins, although exactly what it was they understood remained a speculation. The two women were engrossed in the feminine pastime of taking clothes out of some things, and putting them into other things. This could go on for a long time, and included the ceremony of holding some things up to the light and giving a sad little sigh.

In the absence of anything else to do, Vimes headed back out to the magnificent flight of steps, where he lit a cigar. Sybil was adamant about no smoking in the house. A voice behind him said, ‘You don’t need to do that, sir. The Hall has a rather good smoking room, including a clockwork air extractor, which is very posh, sir, believe me, you don’t often see them.’ Vimes let Willikins lead the way.

It was a pretty good smoking room, thought Vimes, although his first-hand experience of them was admittedly limited. The room included a large snooker table and, down below, a cellar with more alcohol than any reformed alcoholic should ever see.

‘We did tell them I don’t drink, didn’t we, Willikins?’

‘Oh yes, sir. Silver said that generally the Hall finds it appropriate — I think his words were — to keep the cellar full in case of arrivals.’

‘Well, it seems to me to be a shame to pass up the opportunity, Willikins, so be my guest and pour yourself a drink.’

Willikins perceptibly recoiled. ‘Oh no, sir, I couldn’t possibly do that, sir.’

‘Why not, man?’

‘It’s just not done, sir. I would be the laughing stock of the League of Gentlemen’s Gentlemen if I was so impertinent as to have a drink with my employer. It would be getting ideas above my station, sir.’

This offended Vimes to his shakily egalitarian core. [4] It was tricky; to Vimes all men were equal but, well, obviously a sergeant wasn’t as equal as a captain and a captain wasn’t as equal as a commander and as for Corporal Nobby Nobbs … well, nobody could be the equal of Corporal Nobby Nobbs. He said, ‘I know your station, Willikins, and it’s about the same station as mine when the chips are down and the wounds have healed.’

‘Look, sir,’ said Willikins, almost pleading. ‘Just occasionally we have to follow some rules. So on this occasion I won’t drink with you, it not being Hogswatch or the birth of an heir, which are accounted for under the rules, but instead I’ll follow the acceptable alternative, which is to wait until you’ve gone to bed and drink half the bottle.’

Well, thought Vimes, we all have our funny little ways, although some of Willikins’ would not be funny if he was angry with you in a dark alley; but he brightened as he watched Willikins rummage through a well-stocked cocktail cabinet, meticulously dropping items into a glass shaker. [5] Metal, in the circumstances, would not be appropriate … or safe.

It should not be possible to achieve the effect of alcohol in a drink without including alcohol, but among the skills that Willikins had learned, or possibly stolen, over the years was the ability to mix out of common household ingredients a totally soft drink that nevertheless had very nearly everything you wanted in alcohol. Tabasco, cucumber, ginger and chilli were all in there somewhere and beyond that it was best not to ask too many questions.

Drink gloriously in hand, Vimes leaned back and said, ‘Staff okay, Willikins?’

Willikins lowered his voice. ‘Oh, they’re skimming stuff off the top, sir, but nothing more than usual in my experience. Everyone sneaks something, it’s the perk of the job and the way of the world.’

Vimes smiled at Willikins’ almost theatrically wooden expression and said loudly for the hidden listener, ‘A conscientious man, then, is he, Silver? I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘Seems like a steady one to me, sir,’ said the manservant, rolling his eyes towards heaven and pointing a finger to a small grille in the wall: the inlet to the fabled extractor, which no doubt needed a man behind the scenes to wind the clockwork, and would any butler worth his bulging stomach forgo an opportunity to keep tabs on what the new master was thinking? Would he hell.

It was perks, wasn’t it? Of course people here would be on the take. You didn’t need evidence. It was human nature. He had constantly suggested to Sybil — he wouldn’t have dared insist — that the place be closed down and sold to somebody who really wanted to live in what he had heard was a creaking, freezing pile that could have housed a regiment. She would not hear of it. She had warm childhood memories of the place, she said, of climbing trees and swimming and fishing in the river, and picking flowers and helping the gardeners and similar jolly rural enterprises that were, to Vimes, as remote as the moon, given that his adolescent preoccupations had had everything to do with just staying alive. You could fish in the River Ankh, provided you took care not to catch anything. In fact it was amazing what you could catch by just letting one drop of the Ankh pass your lips. And as for picnicking, well, in Ankh-Morpork when you were a kid sometimes you nicked and sometimes you picked, mostly at scabs.