Author's Note: Truth will out. āThe Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
Disclaimer: I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.
"How much money are we talking about?" The Dowager Countess asked.
They had assembled in the library: Lord and Lady Grantham, Matthew and Mary, Tom and the Dowager Countess.
"About two hundred fifty pounds that I've found so far," Tom told her.
"Over how much time?" Cora wanted to know.
"I'm only as far back as 1917," the new agent admitted.
"So fifty or sixty pounds a year?" Lord Grantham asked.
Tom nodded. It was more than he had earned as a chauffeur for the family.
"What do you think, Mama? What will Tom find if he goes back further?"
"Much the same, I shouldn't wonder." She shrugged. "At a guess Jarvis thought it one of the perks of the job."
Matthew stared. "One of the 'perks'?"
"You know, like giving cast off clothes to your valet or lady's maid."
Tom remembered Miss O'Brien telling him, 'Clothes are a valet's perk, not a chauffeur's.'
"What is it, Tom?" Matthew asked.
"What's a chauffeur's 'perk'?" The former chauffeur wondered.
All the others burst into laughter.
"It's a little late in the day for you to be worrying about that," Violet reminded him.
A little to Tom's surprise, the Crawleys decided that to pursue the matter of the former agent's few hundred embezzled pounds was merely to pursue scandal to no purpose.
"But keep an eye on things from now on," Robert cautioned his son-in-law. "Whatever Jarvis may have thought, helping himself to his employer's money is not an agent's 'perk.'
Tom's eyes widened. "No, of cā"
"Relax, Tom," Matthew interrupted. "Cousin Robert is teasing you. If you had wanted to steal from us, you wouldn't have brought the problem to our attention."
In fairness, since they had decided not to punish Jarvis, the family chose not to try to punish anyone else either. The old 'practices' could not continue without the agent's collusion, so the estate should be safe enough going forward. Ergo, they determined that everyone should start with a clean slate.
"Spread the word, but discretely," old Lady Grantham advised. "Don't alarm people. Make sure everyone knows what's past is past, but that there's a new sheriff in town and that going forward it is expected that all monies will be accounted for appropriately."
The new sheriff nodded.
Violet later wondered if her advice would have been the same had she realized that the first casualty of the new regime would be her own comfort and convenience: Mr. and Mrs. Jamison, her long-time married butler and housekeeper team, tendered their month's notice.
They claimed it was a decision a long time in coming, of course, but old Lady Grantham was not fooled.
Tom found himself summoned into the presence. If Jamison's greeting to the former chauffeur was cold, his manner when announcing the agent to his soon-to-be-former-mistress was icy.
"Did I stutter when I said not to alarm people?" the Dowager demanded after the irate old butler had left them alone together. "What did you say to Jamison?"
"The same thing I said to everyone else."
"And what was that?"
"Just what you told me to say."
"Well, it's a great inconvenience, I hope you realize that."
Tom wondered why he was being blamed. "You may find it less inconvenient than being stolen from."
"Hmmpfh," was her only answer. "That remains to be seen."
The Irishman raised a questioning brow.
"You may find yourself pressed into service as a butler, young man, should I fail to find someone suitable," she threatened.
Her grandson-in-law treated her to a lopsided smile. "I'm not opposed to serving you, Lady Grantham, but you'd better not ask Mr. Carson about my skills in serving at table."
