Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One
Even the most callous-souled reader—yes, you—will be forced to spare a wandering thought for Sniggly, a footman without a mistress—as useless, it could be argued, as a foot without a brain. There had been a time when this was all he longed for—not his mistress’s death, by any means, but freedom—to escape the disgrace, as he’d judged it, to win re-baptism in the lagoons of the community, and evolve to become a righteous man, like his father had been—and to find his father, who must surely still be alive, and join him in dignified penury. He had never felt himself brave enough to leave her, or capable of reforming himself sufficiently to be worthy of his saintly begetter. And it was only lately that it became clear to him that he had grown to relish his debasement at his mistress’s hands; and that he did not wish, truly in his heart, to become deserving of his father. Earlier that year, he and the duchess, on their never-ending travels, had bumped into his father, who did not recognise his son, while Sniggly, recognising him, could not bear to admit to him—an old, wrecked man, slumping along the street in hole-worn shoes, failing to sell to contemptuous passers-by the pamphlets he’d penned—that it was he. Should he search for him now—now that his mistress was no more, and his sole purpose in life had been pulled out from beneath his feet? No. For Sniggly had become another man; for better or for worse, another man, unrelated to those who had once been his kin.
He allowed himself to be consoled by Voot. The manager offered to fellate him, but Sniggly replied that he wasn’t in the mood. Sniggly stared straight ahead, from the bed on which they sat, at the white, unadorned wall, and felt, for no particular reason, that if he could summon up the will to try, he’d be able to see right through it. When he mentioned this curious sensation to Voot, in an attempt to lighten the mood, Voot chuckled, but then pointed out that, in fact, there happened to be a hidden recess in some of the suites, as a place to secrete assets. Sniggly, who had had no notion of such a thing, got up and, with Voot’s help, felt around the wall until the invisible cavity revealed itself. Inside, in addition to some of her highness’s most sentimentally cherished jewels, was a document: her will, amended that week, signed by two guests as witnesses, leaving everything, jointly, to Herr Erasmus Voot and Mijnheer Kamiel Snijder (alias, “Sniggly”).
There was nothing for it, then, but for the two to vow to move back to her highness’s estate, free her servants, parcel out disused rooms of her manor for the subsistence of stray dogs, and found a museum through which to preserve her memory forever.