He decides to accept Dr. Miller's offer

Dear Sir Williard,

It is official. I have been offered a provisional position in the Company with a yearly stipend of 1,500 pounds and the use of a small of villa for as long as I satisfactorily meet needs and directions of my mentor, none other than your acquaintance Dr. Miller. I am writing this letter from the spartan comfort of my small library and confess that although I still have grave reservations about some of what goes on in Dr. Miller's clinic that this villa and the financial package offered far exceeds anything I might have been able to find on Earth. After years of sharing an apartment with other medical students and making do with eating the questionable offerings of the dining halls of King's College I find myself in the position to establish a household here in New Thames.

I wonder if this safe choice will be one that I regret as the weeks pass by. I was very close, Sir Williard, to accepting Lady Peach's tempting invitation, but in the end I worried that being discovered during indiscreet encounter with Miss Peach would be devastating to any hopes I have of advancement within the East Orion Trading Company. So far I can report that I have had no reason to regret my decision. I did of course send a note to Lady Peach politely declining her kind invitation and wishing her and her family the best with a vague promise to visit their estate once I had settled in at my new position.

Dr. Miller was most proper when I arrived at his office literally 'hat in hand.' It would have been in his rights to take me to task concerning my abrupt departure from his clinic the day before. Yet he made no reference to my ungracious reaction upon learning in just what way his clinic services the needs of the colonial families, nor did he comment about the condition of his nurse when she returned to him this morning no doubt fully briefing him on how she spent her night. For my part, I too played the role of a gentleman and did not comment on the vileness of sending a lovely twenty-year old employee to a gentleman's private room with the threat of leaving her to the mercies of the city night if she could not appease said gentleman. There is much to be said for the British custom of avoiding uncomfortable words, if either one of us had spoken our minds (as I hear the Americans do regularly) this partnership could not have taken place.

Dr. Miller has graciously given me two days to set up my household and find staff to run the house. When I suggested that I had little need of a staff, he flatly informed me that a man of my standing simply could not live alone like a hermit. We sat at his desk as he outlined my minimum needs:

Manservant: to manage the villa and see to my wardrobe - ( roughly 100 lbs/year);
Cook: to deal with the native foodstuffs on the planet - (roughly 40 lbs/year);
Maidservants: (two minimum) one to clean the villa and the other to work in the scullery and assist the cook (12 lbs/year each)
Gardener: to maintain the grounds of the villa (roughly 20 lbs/year).

When I protested that I was just a simple Doctor, Dr. Miller told me that on Rajah-4 a staff this size is not at all excessive, he employs four maidservants not two, and in addition to all of the above two assistant gardeners (burly fellows who also serve as guards and porters when needed,) a chauffeur to maintain and drive his velocicarriage and a major-domo to oversee his entire household. None of the great family estates have fewer than forty employees and several have more than a hundred, although many of these workers are never even seen by the colonial inhabitants.

I will admit, Sir Williard, to leaving the clinic shaking my head in doubt, overwhelmed by the thought of how rapidly my life is changing. I had thought to live simply with just a gentleman's gentleman to tend to my needs; it seems now that much of my yearly stipend will be spent on running this villa. The house will require significant amounts of effort and money to restore to its former glory. It is constructed of native brick that acquires a pale green color when fired rather than the red we are familiar with, it is built on a Tudor-revival style; grandiose rooms with magnificent windows and high ceilings on the lower floor much smaller rooms above. The structure lies on the outskirts of the city bordering the River Arjun only a ten minute walk from Dr. Miller's clinic.

It is, I suspect, the villa's location here by the Arjun that has made it available, its previous owners likely having moved away from its muggy banks to the much cooler hills that overlook the city. I have been warned that during the spring monsoon season the waters sometimes rise high above the river banks flooding the lawns and gardens and that the local bloodsucking insects are particularly troublesome on the waters edge, but I for one am delighted by the view from this office that looks out over the sparkling waters, and having spent the last six years of my life in Tai Pei, I do not fear the heat as much as many of the immigrants who have arrived directly from England.

This library is one of the few rooms in the house that has any furniture at all, a great desk that must have been assembled inside the room for it is much larger than either of the two doors that lead into this room. Apparently the previous occupants thought it too much trouble to disassemble before moving so I am sitting upon a old crate but writing this installment my ever-growing letter on a surface of polished hardwood as big as a bed. Speaking of beds, a small utilitarian bed has been set up in what I believe is the servant's dining room, no doubt for the convenience of a night watchman who is supposed to keep an eye on the grounds. I shall most certainly have to buy clean sheets before tonight, as judging by the stains the bed has been used for more than just sleep, furthermore none of the Aetherlamps are charged, so everything I hope to accomplish must be done before nightfall.

I am off to close my accounts with the Edwardian Royal and see to setting my new house aright. Wish me luck, Sir Williard as I am now embarking on a pathway that all my education and training has only poorly prepared me for.