Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The smell of a fair assaulted her nose: roast meat, trampled grass, spilled ale, horses, and hot humanity. Kate picked her way through the crowd, around fractious children and snappy mothers; stocky farm workers whose cheeks were crimson with warmth and beer. Her throat was dry and beneath her hat the hair at the nape of her neck was damp. The clouds had swelled, swallowing up the blue sky and blocking out the sun. It was warmer than ever; a dull, sticky heat.
She had finished her business in Hatherford quickly, aware that Johnny Farrow had not hitched the horses and gone into the Bull’s Head for his usual pint, but was waiting on the wagon outside the bank. She had seen him through the pyramids of cocoa tins and tea packets piled in the window of Pearson’s the grocers as she’d placed her orders, flicking his whip moodily, impatient to return to Howden Bridge where the aroma of roasting hog was already filling the air when they’d dropped the others off.
She had also seen herself reflected in the window’s glass—a stiff-shouldered, pinch-faced spinster in an unbecoming hat, whose image stayed with her as she made her way through the crowds at the fair. She would have liked to go into the tent where tea was being served, or join the queue for homemade cordials at a penny a glass, but she felt self-conscious and exposed. Each casual, curious glance of a passing stranger was like a blow on an old bruise.
And there were so many strangers. So many men whose eyes sought out a woman alone, who looked, and kept on looking, just because they could. It was idle interest, that was all, not purposeful scrutiny. Even so, she saw him everywhere; in a set of narrow shoulders or the curl of black hair on a collar. A purposeful walk, the flick of a hand. A shouted greeting in a Scottish accent set her heart rattling.
It made no sense, of course. Alec Ross had his fingers in many business pies, all bigger and more richly filled than trading animals at a rural fair. There was no logical reason to suspect that he might appear in Howden Bridge; but fear, once it had taken root, didn’t need logic to spread and flourish.
Slipping through the knots of people, she lowered her head and quickened her pace, not slowing until she’d crossed the packhorse bridge and left the fair behind. Her blouse stuck to the skin between her shoulder blades and her scalp prickled. The day’s mood had changed; the light had congealed and the summer warmth had thickened into something oppressive. Clouds billowed and boiled above the hilltops.
If the weather was fair, she rather enjoyed the two-mile walk between Howden Bridge and Coldwell. The path followed the river for a little way as it rushed and crashed over rocks (the water brown with peat, like coffee) before they parted company and the path twisted upwards between rocky outcrops, thickets of bracken, and purple heather to cross an exposed stretch of moorland, with the hills of the Dark Peak circling it like an amphitheatre. Today the climb felt arduous, and she longed to be in her room, where she could peel off her heavy clothing and drop her mask of respectability. She wanted to shut the door, unhook her corset, and lie in luxurious cool and quiet, safe from prying eyes.
She felt the first drops of rain as she reached the top of the ridge. A shiver of wind went over the clumps of coarse cotton grass and rippled through the heather. Black Tor was a little way ahead, a dark shape against the pewter sky. She broke into a half run as, with a rushing sound, the heavens opened. The world’s edges dissolved into a hazy blur, its details lost behind sheets of teeming water.
She stopped and tipped her face up, surrendering to the downpour. Within seconds her shoulders were soaked, the cold water seeping onto her skin, dripping down her face. After the fears and frustrations of the day the force of the rain seemed unsurprising, and almost personal—one more challenge to overcome—and there was something liberating in refusing to run and simply giving in. But she couldn’t stand there forever. Unpinning her hat (made of black raffia and not intended to withstand such a soaking) she walked on, shaking back her head and hitching up her wet skirts, wading over the splashy ground.
The gritstone rocks that made up Black Tor had not been positioned by human endeavour but carved from the landscape by a million years of weather. It was rain and biting wind that had created a shelter between the massive stones; a sort of cave, like a cupped hand, which had offered centuries of protection to drovers and their animals. Rain bounced off the flat stone that formed its roof. Inside it smelled of earth and wet and sheep.
And… tobacco smoke?
She peeled off her gloves, freeing her reddened, work-roughened skin from the chafe of damp cotton. The roar of the rain was hushed here, so she heard the soft inhalation of breath before she noticed someone leaning against the back of the cave, smoking a cigarette.
She stiffened, her heart cartwheeling as he straightened up and came forward, so she could see him properly.
‘Nice day for a fair.’
Jem Arden. He had taken his coat off and his shirtsleeves were rolled back. He was almost as wet as she was, and she wondered where he’d come from; she hadn’t seen him on the path ahead of her. He held up his cigarette and muttered an apology before stubbing it out against the rock, then he pinched the end and carefully tucked it into the pocket of the coat slung over his arm.
She turned away, aware that her blouse was soaked almost to transparency and her hair was coming loose at the back. Clamping her ruined hat beneath her arm, she attempted to push the pins back in. ‘It’ll pass quickly. Sudden showers always do.’
As she said it there was a fresh onslaught, a crescendoing hiss from the silvery world beyond their shelter. Water cascaded from the overhanging stone above their heads.
He laughed. ‘You were saying?’
She pressed her lips together, irked by his ease and the way he talked to her, as if she was… an equal. A fellow human being, rather than the housekeeper. The others wouldn’t dare address her so informally. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Inside her head, she grappled for the words to reprimand him. And then the image of the woman in Pearson’s window came back to her—that joyless stranger with the pursed-up mouth and lines between her brows.
‘It must have caused quite a disruption at the fair,’ she said instead, in a grudging concession to conversation. ‘It seems we left just in time.’ Realising that her wet blouse told a different story, she hurried on. ‘Are the others still there?’
‘I imagine so. They seemed to be enjoying themselves when I left.’
‘And you weren’t? Enjoying yourself?’
‘Ah—I’m a good bit older than them. I think I’ve reached the age when swingboat rides and the helter-skelter have lost their appeal.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘You make it sound like you’re ancient.’
The noise he made was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. ‘It feels that way sometimes. I’m twenty-seven—I discovered the other day that’s five years older than Thomas; eight years older than Eliza. Closer to your age than theirs.’
On any other day she would barely have registered the comment, but the ghost woman in Pearson’s window floated before her, a taunting contrast with the laughing girls spilling out into the yard that morning in their sprigged dresses and pretty hats. On this day—this date, that she had been trying so hard to ignore—his casual comment found the chink in her carefully assembled armour.
He must have noticed her stiffen, or perhaps he felt the weight of the silence that followed, because he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean that you’re ancient; the opposite, in fact. You’re surprisingly young for a housekeeper.’
‘And you’re surprisingly forward for a footman.’
It came out far more sharply than she’d intended, but she didn’t want his apology. She didn’t want his pity or his curiosity. She didn’t want him to speculate about her age or where she’d come from and what had brought her to be keeper of the keys in a house full of silence and shadows. She didn’t want him to know that today—unmarked and uncelebrated—was her thirtieth birthday, and to look at her with those eyes—granite-grey and shimmering with reflected rain—and remind her of who she used to be and what she’d given up.
She didn’t want him to see her at all.
‘You’re right. Forgive me.’ He turned away, his voice subdued but edged with bitterness. ‘A footman… of course. I’m only there to carry their trays and clean their boots and pour their wine and stand in the dining room. I forget sometimes.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t—’
‘No, it’s my fault. I know how it works. We don’t have eyes, or ears, or opinions, or feelings. Especially not feelings . What did Thomas say this morning, about Hyde’s ancestor? He brought all sorts of artefacts back from India—including a boy. We’re possessions, aren’t we, in our uniforms and crested liveries? We mustn’t be allowed to see each other as human beings. Even downstairs we play the game. We know our place .’
As he spoke, she felt the heat rising in her cheeks and something like panic tightening her chest. She had to fight the urge to clap her hands over her ears and shout at him to stop. Because not only had he seen her… It was as if he had looked into her heart and read aloud what was written there, putting all her loneliness into words.
‘It’s—it’s not—’
Her throat was tight with emotion, making it hard to speak, but he cut her off anyway.
‘Look—the rain’s stopping. We can go.’
They walked back together in the hazy aftermath of the downpour, as the ground steamed and the bracken shimmered with diamond droplets.
Jem sensed that she would have preferred to go on alone, but with them so obviously heading to the same place it was difficult to think of an excuse to walk separately. It made no difference to him; his plans had been disrupted the moment she’d appeared through the deluge. He’d been banking on taking advantage of an almost-empty house (Mr Goddard hardly emerged from his room) to have a good look around, but it was better to have come across her unexpectedly out here, rather than at Coldwell, in an upstairs room where he had no business.
The sky above the hills was still bruised, painted with a watercolour rainbow. The washed-clean world was loud with birdsong, and clouds of insects hovered above the grass as they descended the ridge to the road, and the Coldwell boundary beyond. The ground was spongy, but she walked briskly, her posture upright, the space between them observed as rigidly as if Mr Goddard had appeared with the ruler he used to measure out place settings in the dining room. Nothing about her invited conversation, so he didn’t attempt it.
God forbid he was too forward .
In the servants’ basement she seemed so severe and aloof—a pillar of black—but out here, with her hair slipping out of its pins and her damp blouse showing the lace of her chemise beneath, she seemed softer and slighter. He suspected that was the last thing she would want. He smothered a sigh, turning his head to look out across the heather. It was the last thing he needed too. It took enough effort not to notice her when she was dressed in her housekeeper’s armour, with the silver chatelaine at her waist like a crucifix to a vampire.
He spent a lot of energy not noticing, and wasn’t always successful.
A dragonfly appeared, blundering through the blue like a drunk at the fair, and she recoiled sharply, batting it away. Caught by the air current, its glass wings stuttered and it plummeted, tangling in her hair. With a little cry, she came to an abrupt halt.
‘Hold still.’
He went to stand in front of her, reaching out his hand to cup the insect. Her eyes were closed, but he could sense her agitation and feel the tremor of her body as his wrist rested lightly against the top of her head.
‘Ugh. Please, get rid of it.’
He was close enough to catch the scent of her skin. Vanilla, nutmeg, roses—the scent that had haunted him since the afternoon in the library, overlaid now with rain. Gently, unhurriedly, he closed his fingers around the dragonfly and cupped it between his palms.
‘I’ve got it.’
A little of the rigid tension ebbed out of her.
‘What is it?’
‘A dragonfly. Look.’
Slowly he opened his hands. The insect trembled on his palm for a moment before launching itself skywards in a flash of iridescence.
‘Thank you.’ Her smile was small and reluctant, her eyes as blue as the dragonfly. ‘On its behalf as much as my own. If you hadn’t been here, I would probably have swatted it.’
They resumed walking. ‘That would have been a shame,’ he remarked. ‘They only live for a week or two. Imagine that—having a matter of days to live your whole life, and being cut down before you’ve had half of it.’
Imagine that.
‘I would never have forgiven myself,’ she said, in a tone that was laced with enough irony for him to know that she was teasing.
It felt like a small breakthrough. A minor victory.
The hillside got steeper and stonier as it dipped down to meet the road. Gathering up her skirts, she cast him a quick sideways glance. ‘For someone who spends their life carrying trays and standing in rich people’s dining rooms you seem to know quite a lot about nature.’
‘That’s because I grew up in the countryside.’
When they reached the drystone wall their steps slowed and he held out his hand to help her over the stile. She ignored it, as he had half expected she would, and used the wooden post to steady herself instead.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Oxfordshire.’ He jumped down from the stile. ‘The Upton Priory estate. My father was coachman to Lord Halewood. I started in the stables there.’
‘As a groom?’
‘Carriage groom.’
‘Ah. A tiger.’
It was the second time he’d heard that word today; an old-fashioned name for the young lads who helped with the horses and sat on the back step of carriages in their gold-striped waistcoats. It made him think of the disembodied head snarling from its mount in Coldwell’s godforsaken hallway. You hardly heard the term now; it was dying out, along with the role. These days, the wealthy and titled had mostly exchanged their horse-drawn vehicles for motorised ones and had no need of boys to run alongside and fold down steps.
‘What made you swap the stables for the servants’ hall?’
The rutted road was all puddles. He glimpsed the white hem of her petticoat as she lifted her skirt clear to pick her way between them.
‘I was poached by one of Lord Halewood’s guests. Offered a job as a footman at a place in Hampshire.’
‘The French countess?’
‘That’s right.’ He felt a pulse of surprise (and foolish pleasure) that she remembered, and tried to recall exactly what he’d said in the servants’ hall that first night: his employment history was more pitted with dangerous potholes than the badly made road. ‘I didn’t particularly want to leave, and I certainly never wanted to work indoors, but the wage was too good to turn down. And my mother wanted me to take it.’
Lucy Arden had always been proud of how well her oldest boy had done at school. She was fond of saying that he might look like his handsome, feckless father but he took after her with his reading and writing, and he was wasted in the stables. When Lord Benningfield made his offer, she must have known she was unwell, but she kept that from him, urging him to take the job for Jack’s sake as well as his own. ‘I had a younger brother who was old enough to start work by then. Moving on meant he could have my place.’
On the other side of the road, the high wall that formed the boundary to the park stretched away into the distance in both directions. There was a little gate set into it, weathered and furred with moss. He went ahead of her to push it open and stepped aside to let her go first.
‘Is your brother still there? In your old place?’
The question caught him off guard. ‘No,’ he said, more abruptly than he’d intended. ‘No, he—He’s not there, he—’
She had been walking in front of him, along a path through rank-smelling, overgrown shrubbery. Emerging, she gave a sudden, strangled cry and startled back, so that he almost collided with her. Instinctively he stepped forward to put himself between her and whatever had frightened her, and saw it was only the lad from the gate lodge.
‘Davy…!’ Mrs Furniss’s voice was breathy with relief. ‘You gave me such a fright, lurking in the undergrowth like that. Were you waiting for me? Was there something you wanted?’
Davy Wells shrank away, staring intently into a rhododendron bush. His face was crumpled into a scowl, but he nodded.
‘What is it?’
Her voice was gentle. Jem hadn’t heard her speak like that before, and he almost envied Davy. The lad shifted on his feet, folding a rhododendron leaf over and over, snapping it into pulpy fragments, which he brushed from his green-stained fingers. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his too-small jacket and thrust it out.
‘A telegram? Thank you, Davy. You took this from the telegram boy, today? I expect he was very glad that you saved him from cycling down to the house, but next time that’s what he must do. It says ‘Coldwell Hall’ on the front, you see, so that’s where he should have delivered it.’ She smiled at him kindly. ‘He’s lazy, that telegram boy. He’s lucky you’re so trustworthy and reliable. Thank you.’
Davy nodded fiercely, backing away, then turning and breaking into a shambling run. Mrs Furniss turned the telegram over. The envelope flap was loose. She lifted it and slid out the paper.
‘It’s from Whittam Park—Lady Etchingham’s house.’
Jem watched her. He saw the flicker of shock cross her face and her hand fly to her throat. Her eyes rose to meet his and she handed him the telegram.
LORD ETCHINGHAM DEEPLY REGRETS TO REPORT SUDDEN DEATH OF SIR HENRY HYDE STOP MR RANDOLPH HYDE INFORMED STOP PLEASE MAKE PREPARATIONS FOR MOURNING
Yesterday we were given orders to dig the graves of three Welshmen who were killed in their own trench when an enemy shell hit a box of hand grenades. It was raining and the ground was heavy and wet. As I dug, I thought of the words on that telegram. MAKE PREPARATIONS FOR MOURNING.
It’s astonishing to remember the lengths we went to that summer for one friendless old man who died peacefully in bed. Black drapes and armbands and stopped clocks. Out here the dead don’t even get coffins. The Welshmen were sewn into blankets before being lowered into the mud, and that’s far more ceremony than most of us will get.
No one likes being picked for jobs like that, especially the ones who haven’t been out here long. I don’t mind so much. It turns out life in service was good preparation for life as a soldier. I’m lucky that I’m physically suited to the work, which men from offices or factories often are not. I’m used to following orders, even when I have little respect for those issuing them. I don’t question what we’re told or argue with senior officers.
I don’t have eyes or ears or opinions or feelings.
I know my place.