(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

crying-of-lot-37 asked
cute greenhouses things: lafayette's day off. are there kittens? pastry shopping? coffee or tea houses? goofing off with the servants?

as per the usual, he awoke slightly before dawn. it was a longtime habit; one day with both his lords out was not going to change. that being said, usually his excellency would like to be awake more or less as soon as possible, to begin his day - but his excellency was at general knox’s. so lafayette treated himself to rolling over and dozing in the bright light of the early spring sun. his bed was very warm, because he had put another blanket on himself the previous evening. it would a little chilly if he got up. he rarely felt lazy, perhaps as a consequence of spending so much time around his excellency, who (unless he was at tricky odds with his past) saw slothfulness as distasteful. but there was a small part of lafayette who was still a young boy who could only be removed from his pillow in the most forceful of ways, and perhaps it was that boy that currently rose up, in the absence of other forces. there was nothing urgent to do today, after all. no would suffer if he rolled over.

when he stumbled back into consciousness, someone had set breakfast at his desk, which was overflowing with pamphlets and his neat little summaries of them, to help him remember who had said what about his excellency. biscuits and jam and a carafe of coffee and cold sausage. with a yawn he finally pulled himself out of his bed, taking new top blanket with him; he settled the blanket around his shoulders as he dumped himself into his desk chair for the breakfast. the coffee was still just a little warm, which was fine. he ate the sausage anyway, and dressed, and queued his hair.

what was to do, on a day where little was to do? this early in the spring there would not be crops to check on or guests to arrange for or ballrooms to arrange. he thought he need to find something else to do.

“good morning, steward,” meade said, after knocking, “it is nearly midmorning. are there any duties?”

lafayette gulped down the rest of his coffee, “good morning. i think not; the lords are both out for several more days. assign amongst yourself basic tasks; the rest of the servants can have the day off.”

meade brightened. “certainly!” he said, before lafayette could change his mind, and disappeared with this news. many of the servants had family or otherwise, some on the grounds or not. despite the chill, it would be a good travel day. hard ground to move on,a chill wind to inspire the horses.

what in fact he settled on was a book had began reading waiting for washington to arrive home late one night. it was dramatic, reading material below his excellency’s station. but lafayette liked adventurous stories, and their habit of ending well. he set a cheery fire in his hearth and curled up on the couch in his room to read. and so it was here he was found, resisting the urge to weep at the ending and reunion of the lovestruck main characters, who had been torn apart by fate.

it would be luncheon soon, he guessed, by the sun. he did not feel hungry. in any case, he dabbed away the beginnings of tears and decided he would go into town. someone had recently delivered through him a gift of some special sort of coffee bean, that had been different and more delicious than what he usually drank. he selected a jacket and a hat and a horse and made off to their usual trading down, many times smaller and less busy than their council city. here he was mostly lafayette, washington’s man. a good title, and it was indeed true they had gotten many different types of coffee beans as part of some experimental business idea, and each sip tasted a little different. he knew which one his excellency would like and put in an order; lord hamilton tended to drink coffee without tasting it. next, the bookshop, to look for a new novel that he would read in bits and pieces over months, and then to the haberdasher, for gossip. gossip was the stock and trade and servants, and lafayette had a good mind for names and events, and also delighted in every story. in many ways the real events that other managed to get themselves into was even better than such a novel. for one story he traded the information that his lords were at general knox’s; for another a tidbit about the schuyler-churches; for a third, a bit about the stonemasons down the road.

finally he took his horse up the road to a second hamlet, and this one with a bakery he had grown much too fond of to remain fitting into his jackets if he did not have excessive restraint. today was not such a day, and as a result he ate three pastries, until he was feeling pleasantly buzzing from too many sweets. the chefs at the manor, of course, were excellent, but somehow he could not make the particularly divine lemon filling that his sweet bun had had.

after this he went to the tea-house, and gossiped some more, and also drank a large quantity of tea and read pamphlets. washington disliked them, but lafayette found most of them too ridiculous to take seriously. for lunch he had a quantity of tavern stew, delightfully seasons, and learned an interesting story about lady schuyler-church and a man with unrequited affections and, at the end of the story, a broken nose. eventually he felt the tug of obligation that said to return home, and so he began those preparations, including buying lord hamilton several pastries. they would be stale by the time they were eaten, but his excellency was constantly upset with lord hamilton’s disregard for such a thing. hamilton did not waste food, perhaps as a result of his orphan upbringing. he would like the pastries, stale or not.

when he returned back to the manor, he put his new book in the shelf and his pamphlets in his collection to be notated. then he went down to the servant’s quarters, where a large quantity of board and dice games were occuring. men and women shot him surprised looks, as if they were about to be told they should have been working, but he held up an easy hand.

“chess,” he announced, and sat himself at the table against Humphreys, who was staring at a half-completed game against himself. he looked out to the rest of the room. “if anyone can beat me, they can have the whole week off with pay.”

this was enough to allow him to beat almost every servant, for lafayette was a deadly chess player, almost as good as general washington and beat lord hamilton, when the latter choreographed his hand too much, as he was wont to do. they all ate dinner together, bread and cheese and fresh eggs and the exotic spices lafayette’s presence allowed them to enjoy, and at lafayette’s suggestion opened a less-valuable cask of wine and had a glass.

after dinner, in the dusky sunset, he took a lantern and his jacket and a hat and took a leisurely walk around the ground, delighting in the faint chill and the land and all the many blessings he had. he looked out into the distance and wondered how his excellency was doing. he retired to his room and slipped into his nightshirt. he would be able to go to sleep much earlier, with no evening tasks. the extra hours seemed almost more precious than anything else.

he had a charming dream about a ball and washington and hamilton and laughter, and woke up the next morning feeling very satisfied indeed.