"Nightcap
“You have to bring him his soup at exactly five o’ four, no earlier and no later,” explained the stern-faced Miss Abercrombie. She scribbled the schedule down on a wrinkled piece of parchment as she spoke, adding the soup schedule to the long list of other precise instructions I was to follow in her absence.
“The Master required everything must be done by this schedule. He is a peculiar man, but he has always been nothing but kind to me. Just appease him, and be prompt and pay special attention to detail…” she then began to explain the proper procedure for placing the soup and spoon diagonal from one another on the silver serving tray. She emphasized not to let the spoon touch the napkin, which must be folded in the shape of a perfect isosceles triangle and placed with the top obtuse angle facing the Master when served.
Needless to say I was intimidated. As I watched Miss Abercrombie bumble around the kitchen preparing the Master’s lunch I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I had different ideas for this job when I had applied. After all this was not anything like what I had been expecting. Upon walking up the long drive to this stately Victorian style home I had envisioned a lovely Mistress seated on a plush couch with her guests. I would serve them tea and small cakes while listening in on the gossip of high society. Perhaps I would have been taking care of the children, little cherubs with pinched-pink cheeks playing happily with tin soldiers and lacy porcelain dolls in a brightly painted playroom. The Master would have been a dashing fellow, a figurehead of society, who took his coffee and mail in the morning in a grand, dark and smoky reading room..."
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