Alec

by William di Canzio

Now the priory was in its fifth year of ownership by the Wentworths, a couple with no title but unlimited means, thanks to holdings in the B&O Railroad and Cunard and White Star, plus the new Anglo-Persian Oil Company. They wanted to smarten up the old place. To that end they were hiring more staff, like young Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper’s assistant. Alec was of two minds about his new life. He liked being out from under his parents; he liked having money, little as it was, without needing to beg every penny. He liked much of his work—raising the birds, stocking the streams; he especially liked his own particular charge of taking care of the boathouse on the big pond, where he could cool off in the summer. He also felt somehow he’d entered the world: although Michaelmount was no closer to London than Osmington was, the great house kept its eyes on the metropolis as the village never had. But he hated being a servant. Back home he’d had nothing to do with the upper classes. He despised them, of course; everybody did. They’d take the first pews in the church, so the commoners could admire their well-tailored backs by the hour on Sundays. He was taught to show respect by making way and doffing his cap, which he did grudgingly, though he found such gestures merely annoying, not painful, because it was no different from how you showed decent manners to elderly neighbors. But now it irked him to call those his own age—or even younger—sir, while they called him Scudder or hey th...