Chapter 9
Chapter 9
As the day of the servants’ departure for London approached, it felt to Kate that the outside world itself was slowly edging closer to Coldwell.
Sir Randolph’s programme of modernisation got underway, and an invading army of tradesmen’s motors and carriers’ carts rumbled up the drive. The sound of sawing, hammering, and shouting echoed along corridors and down stairwells, shattering a century of stillness, and making it feel like the clamour of progress had finally found the house, sleeping amongst the sheltering hills.
With the unprecedented thrill of a trip to London in the offing, the girls embarked upon their own programme of improvements, poring over a dog-eared copy of Home Chat magazine for hair-styling advice and rummaging in the attic sewing room for ribbons, feathers, and silk flowers to trim hats and pin to their coats.
But by the eve of their departure, excitement had tripped over into irritability, and tensions were running high. Kate’s nerves were stretched tight by the mess and disruption of Coldwell’s usual steady routine. Part of her longed for the quiet that would settle when the servants’ hall was empty, but another part dreaded it. She couldn’t stop her mind returning to what Lady Etchingham’s maid had said about break-ins and the noise Jem had heard on the night of Sir Henry’s death. Was someone watching the house, waiting for the right moment to come back?
The weather made everything more arduous. As each oppressive night was followed by another sweltering day, June no longer felt like the blue-skied overture to a gentle English summer. The temperature rose, but by mid-morning the sun was a pale smudge in an opaque sky; and the air was heavy, not like air at all. If it was like that at Coldwell, in the hills of the Peak District, what would it be like in London?
‘Awful,’ Susan moaned, as they sat in the servants’ hall after dinner the night before they were due to leave. ‘The kitchen in the London house is half underground, isn’t it? And poky compared to ours. We’ll steam inside our clothes, like puddings.’
Eliza was replacing a loose button on her best blouse. ‘Oh, yes—I remember Walter Cox saying that the kitchen looks out on a brick wall and all you can see is shoes going by on the street above. He said it gets as hot as hell itself.’
‘Ugh—Walter Cox.’ Thomas groaned. ‘I’d forgotten he’ll be there. You know what—you can keep your city goings-on and your fancy coronation parade. Reckon I’d rather stay here, if I’m honest.’
‘You’d rather stay here than have a chance to experience one of the biggest events of the century?’ Henderson scoffed, coming in with a hatbox and a newspaper. He brought with him the smell of smoke, which had hung around him for days, like the devil trailing sulphur. (It made a change from hair oil.)
Immediately after the funeral, he and Sir Randolph had begun clearing out Sir Henry’s suite of rooms, which Sir Randolph intended to take as his own, and a huge bonfire had been kept burning in the overgrown yard by the abandoned joiner’s workshop. The Twigg boys supervised the blaze as Henderson and Sir Randolph fed it with a lifetime’s papers, magazines, letters, and diaries.
There was something quite brutal in their thoroughness, Kate thought. As if Sir Randolph, who took such an interest in his more distant ancestor’s personal papers, wished to obliterate all trace of his father’s.
Henderson opened the newspaper and spread it on the table, then took Sir Randolph’s top hat from the box. ‘The eyes of the world will be on London in the coming days,’ he said, with an air of self-importance. ‘Preparations have been going on for weeks—streets hung with flags and shop windows done out with pictures of the new king and queen. It’s quite the spectacle. Count yourself fortunate to be part of it.’
‘ Part of it? ’ Jem echoed with amusement. ‘I’m pretty sure Sir Randolph ’—studying a catalogue of household linen sent to her by Mrs Bryant, Kate heard the slight sneer in the way he said the name—‘isn’t inviting us as guests. The only thing we’re going to be part of is a lot of fetching and carrying in a different house.’
Henderson had been rubbing the top hat with a velvet pad, stroking the silk to a soft sheen, but his hand stilled as Jem spoke. Two spots of colour appeared on his pitted cheeks above the line of his beard.
‘I should say you’re very lucky to be able to do that, in the house of a gentleman like Sir Randolph. Wouldn’t you, Arden?’
The softness of his voice, and its reasoned tone, were at odds with the undercurrent of threat the question held. The distant thunder that had been rumbling over the hills all day seemed to come a little closer, and hostility sparked like lightning in the heavy air.
Jem, who had given in to Joseph’s hopeful request for a game of chess, retaliated by completely ignoring Henderson, telling Joseph that if he made that move with his castle, he was leaving his king exposed. The long, low room was suddenly very still. Kate watched Henderson’s brows pull together.
‘A word to the wise, Arden…’ Holding up the top hat, he examined it through narrowed eyes. ‘That disrespectful attitude of yours might have been acceptable in a railway inn, but it won’t get you far in a good household like this. The old man might not have noticed, but Sir Randolph expects a bit more. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure you’re the right fit for the job.’
Kate had been looking at the same page of eiderdowns for ages but couldn’t have described a one of them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Eliza’s needle had stopped in mid-air, as she and Abigail exchanged looks. The windows were all open, though there was no breeze on the heavy, smoke-scented air. The evening had darkened, but no one moved to light the lamp.
Jem didn’t raise his eyes from the chessboard.
‘Your turn, Joe.’
It was as if he had forgotten about the valet, or hadn’t heard him. Joseph’s eyes were wide and wary as he looked between the two men. He reminded Kate of Sir Randolph’s spaniel, eager to please but sniffing the air for danger.
Henderson’s face hardened. The forward jut of his jaw was more pronounced than ever. Joseph bit his lip as he surveyed the chessboard, his hand hovering over the pieces. Touching the queen, he looked questioningly at Jem, who sucked in a breath. ‘Remember—she’s the most useful piece in the game,’ he said quietly. ‘And the most powerful. Use her carefully. Don’t expose her to danger. You don’t want to lose her too soon.’
No one else spoke. The silence bristled with tension as Eliza bent her head to resume her stitching. Kate turned the page and stared unseeingly at some ‘bedspreads, finest quality.’ And then, from out in the passageway came a strident jangle that made them all jump.
Jem glanced up at the row of bells.
‘Library,’ he said calmly, glancing at Henderson.
Henderson’s chair scraped loudly on the flagstones. As he passed Jem, he bent down, placing his mouth close to his ear. Even so, everyone heard quite clearly what he said, hissing the words through his teeth.
‘I’ve got my eye on you, Arden. Watch your step.’
Outside, leaning against the back wall of the stable block, Jem took a deep drag on a cigarette made from the last little bit of his precious tobacco. The taste was tainted by the drifts of more acrid smoke that came from the bonfire, still smouldering in the corner of the weed-choked yard.
The light had almost gone, swallowed up by the swollen clouds that massed above the trees, as if all the smoke from the fire had risen and was trapped beneath the great oppressive blanket of the sky. He tipped his head back and breathed out a long column of his own smoke, watching it dissolve slowly in the still air, undisturbed by any breeze. In his mind he replayed the scene in the servants’ hall.
I’ve got my eye on you, Arden.
It was a threat, but it filled him with a strange exhilaration. After all this time spent moving from place to place, asking questions, telling lies, following a trail of clues and connections so tenuous it had at times vanished altogether, it suddenly felt like he was getting close to the truth.
Dangerously close. Which was why all that remained of it was a pile of smouldering ashes.
He drew on the last bit of cigarette and walked over to the bonfire to drop the butt into its glowing heart. He knew what they had burned there. He had seen the Twigg lads chucking those small blue cloth-covered books into the flames, one after another, and he knew why Sir Randolph and his flunky wanted them gone.
They could try to burn the evidence, but he was onto them now. He knew that the answers he’d been looking for were here at Coldwell. The truth wouldn’t stay buried forever.
Frustration simmered inside him at the thought of leaving for London in the morning. After almost ten years, another ten days hardly made a difference, but it killed him to think of being down there, in close quarters with that bastard Henderson, while here the house would be all but empty.
A pale shape glimmered beyond the bonfire’s smoulder, lurking at the corner of the old joiner’s workshop. Jem squinted through the sting of lingering smoke. He recognised the hunched shoulders and uneven movements of Davy Wells and called his name, only for the lad to dart out of sight behind the tumbledown building.
Jem kicked at the ashes, sending a shower of sparks and dark flakes into the dusk. Watching the rose-gold embers fade, he turned his attention to the idea that had materialised at the edge of his mind, and was slowly beginning to shape itself into a plan.
In her parlour Kate was having a last look at the list of supplies Mrs Bryant had requested and checking them off against the baskets she had packed.
She felt cross and jumpy, out of sorts. The scene in the servants’ hall had unsettled everyone, and the thought of what it would be like after Sir Randolph’s wedding, when Frederick Henderson would be at Coldwell so much, was increasingly difficult to ignore. People would look for positions elsewhere. No one would put up with his aggression, his disagreeableness for long.
Except her, because what choice did she have? If the idea of living with Mr Henderson was unpleasant, the thought of leaving Coldwell and seeking another place—having her face scrutinised, her background examined, her character reference picked over and its fictions exposed—was, well… unthinkable.
Of course, staff resignations meant finding replacements, a perennial problem at Coldwell. They exasperated her, her girls, with their mercurial moods and butterfly minds, but she was fond of them. They had formed, during these past few quiet years, a family of sorts, as servants often did: flawed and at times fractious, but steadfast. Loyal. If one of the girls left, the bond would be broken and the others would surely follow, as would Thomas, who was cheerful and dependable but who hated a bad atmosphere. Even he had his limits. And as for Jem…
There was nothing to keep him here. In fact, he was leaving for London tomorrow—what were the chances that he wasn’t intending to come back? That would explain why he wasn’t making the slightest effort to stay on the right side of Henderson and why he wasn’t afraid to goad him. Jem Arden, the dark horse, who kept himself a little separate from the others and hid his thoughts and feelings behind that handsome mask of courtesy, would no doubt be planning to take advantage of paid passage to London, where any number of employment opportunities awaited a footman with his looks and skill.
It seemed so obvious; she wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to her sooner.
Or why she should mind so much.
The answer came to her in the next heartbeat. It was because she felt safer, having him there. On the nights when her sleepless mind roamed out into the parkland, conjuring watchers in the woods, or hearing Henderson’s footsteps outside her door, it was a comfort to know that Jem had taken Joseph’s place on the pull-out bed by the silver cupboard. On nights when the past came back to her in heart-jolting dreams she was reassured by his nearness. She drew comfort from recalling his voice.
It’s quite safe, I promise.
Well, she should know better than anyone that it didn’t do to rely on anyone, for comfort or for anything else.
She gathered herself, smoothing her skirts in a jangle of keys. Looking briskly around the room, she took her list to check it one last time against the hamper that had been left in the kitchen passage, ready for loading onto the wagon tomorrow.
It was dark—the velvet blue dark of summer—and the lamps had been lit at the bottom of the basement stairs and in the corridor outside the kitchen. Going past the servants’ hall, Kate saw that it was empty, the chairs pushed back as if everyone had left in a hurry. It was stuffy and still, and the smell of the haddock Mrs Gatley had poached in preparation for tomorrow’s breakfast kedgeree lingered in the air. In spite of the heat, it appeared the windows had all been shut.
Hearing voices, she went into the kitchen. The girls were coming back through the door that led to the game larder and the bakehouse, huddled together, talking in low voices. Susan, seeing Kate in the doorway, grasped Abigail’s hand and gave a little shriek.
‘It’s Mrs Furniss, you daft goose,’ Eliza snapped, pressing her hand to her chest. ‘You’re making me jumpy with your squealing.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Jem saw someone,’ Abigail said quickly, keen to be the one to relate such dramatic news. ‘Lurking along the side of the house by the garden corridor.’
‘Poking around in the dark,’ Eliza cut in. ‘Shifty as you like. He thought it was Davy Wells at first, but he realised it couldn’t have been when he saw Davy over by the old joiner’s shop a bit later. He told the stable boys, and Stanley Twigg came to tell us.’
Kate’s heart lurched and seemed to lodge in her throat.
The stable boys are looking outside,’ Susan said, sounding almost tearful. ‘Mr Henderson went up to the garden corridor. We’ve shut the windows and made sure they’re all fastened. I can’t bear the thought of someone climbing in when we’re sleeping, creeping along the corridors—’
‘That’s enough, Susan.’ Kate’s voice was sharp. Despite the heat she felt clammy, as though her body had been doused in ice water. Suddenly, the face she had spent years trying to forget loomed in her head; and as she looked up at the high window it seemed to appear there, looking in at her from the darkness. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.’
But even as she spoke, a distant shout echoed faintly through the house. The girls clutched at each other in alarm.
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Upstairs…’
Kate forced herself forward. Her head buzzed, like a hive full of bees. As she went up the stone steps to the green baize door she felt for the chains on her chatelaine, grasping the scissors and opening their blades.
‘Bring a lamp,’ she said, over her shoulder, and was impressed at the steadiness of her own voice.
The hallway was washed with shadows, painted in shades of inky blue. The animals on the walls seemed to be listening too, quivering and alert, their glassy eyes wide. All the doors leading off the hall were shut, and the stairs stretched up into darkness (for the first time Kate could see the advantages of Sir Randolph’s plan to have electricity installed), so she turned in the direction of the garden passage.
There was someone there.
A figure. No more than a silhouette, though her imagination imposed on it the face she dreaded seeing. The bees in her head swarmed, and her grip tightened on the scissors as she tried to stifle a whimper.
‘Mrs Furniss—’
Frederick Henderson’s voice. Dizzying relief swamped her.
‘No need to panic. There’s been a slight accident.’
‘What’s happened?’
Abigail was holding open the baize door for Eliza, who was running up the stairs with a lamp. Her hurried steps made the shadows jump. Panic had given way to a different kind of dread as Kate went forward, pushing past the arm Henderson held out to restrain her.
‘ Jem?’
He was on the floor, by the doors that opened out from the garden passage onto the veranda. She could see his shirt, ice white in the blue summer dark. And then Eliza was there with the lamp and Jem was unfolding himself and looking up, and she saw that the front of his shirt wasn’t white at all but splashed with scarlet, and there was blood oozing between the fingers of the hand he had pressed to his mouth. His face was oddly lopsided, his right cheek puffy and glistening.
Henderson had followed and stood a little distance away, beyond the circle of lamplight.
‘Like I said, an accident.’ His tone was offhand. ‘It was dark. I mistook him for the intruder. I’m sure it looks worse than it is.’
They took him down to the servants’ hall, Thomas and Kate supporting his weight between them, while Abigail and Susan went ahead to heat up water and find flannels.
Jem slumped in Mr Goddard’s chair at the head of the table. The brighter light hanging overhead showed up the damage: a split lip and a bleeding nose; a bruise purpling on his cheekbone, forcing his right eye half-shut. His face was the same colour as his shirt, making the blood stand out more starkly.
There was a lot of blood.
The smell of it, the stickiness, churned up buried memories. Kate moved automatically, dipping a cloth into the basin of cold water, watching it turn pink. ‘It’s going to need ice,’ she said. ‘For the swelling. Eliza, would you get some, please?’
‘From the ice trunk?’ It had been filled that afternoon by the garden lads with blocks brought down from the icehouse, and a whole salmon—gutted, cleaned, and packed with fennel—was now suspended within it, ready for the journey to London. ‘Mrs Gatley said it mustn’t—’
‘I know what Mrs Gatley said.’ Kate cut her off tersely. ‘It’ll only be open for a second. Thomas—get the brandy from the top shelf in the pantry.’
After they’d gone Kate took hold of Jem’s hand and gently pulled it away from his face. Above the blood and the swelling his eyes glittered darkly into hers. Her heart lurched.
It was natural that she should want to put her arms around him, to stroke his hair and soothe the shock; that’s what she told herself. She had felt that pain and remembered too well the disorientation; how a blow could scatter your senses so it felt you might never recover them. Leaning closer to examine his lip, she exhaled softly and hoped he couldn’t hear the thud of her heart.
Chattering voices in the corridor heralded the return of Susan and Abigail, bringing hot water and more cloths. It was only when Kate went to take a clean flannel that she realised that her fingers were still twined with Jem’s. She withdrew her hand, but before he let it go she felt his grip tighten for a second.
Warmth pulsed through her. She didn’t notice Eliza come in.
‘The ice, Mrs Furniss.’
It looked like a picture she remembered from the Sunday school Bible: Mary Magdalene kneeling before Jesus. Mrs Furniss wasn’t kneeling, but she had the same dark hair as the woman in the illustration, the same expression of fierce tenderness. Eliza felt like she was intruding. Like none of the rest of them should be there.
‘Here we are, pal.’ Thomas came in, oblivious, and handed Jem a glass with an inch of amber liquid in the bottom. ‘Not quite Sir Randolph’s finest, but Mrs Gatley’s best cooking brandy.’ He puffed out a breath. ‘Doesn’t look like you’ll be fit to come to London now. Not with a shiner like you’re going to have.’
Eliza looked away, following the trail of crimson splashes on the flagstones, and realised with a sick thud of disappointment that he was right.
Ever since they’d found out about going to London, she’d been looking forward to it, for all that what Jem said was true and it was just scrubbing in a different kitchen, toiling up a different set of stairs. But she’d thought that, away from Coldwell, she might be different too. Someone he might notice.
She was so sick of this old place. Of the drudgery and the sense that life, in all its colour and excitement, was happening somewhere else. Going to the London house at coronation time had seemed like an opportunity to glimpse it for herself and she’d felt sorry for Mrs Furniss, being left behind. Stuck at Coldwell with miserable old Mr Goddard.
Now, watching the housekeeper gently sponging Jem’s bloodied cheek, she felt cheated. Tricked. As if she had been winning at a game when the rules had suddenly changed. And once again, she found herself the loser.
That night there was thunder.
Sleepless beneath the sheets in the airless footmen’s attic, Jem listened to the rain on the window and the throb of his blood in his pounding head. Thomas had offered to take the bed in the silver cupboard, and every now and then the lightning lit up Joseph’s sleeping face a few feet away.
It reminded him of Jack.
His plan had paid off. In a dark corridor with no one watching and the perfect excuse, Henderson hadn’t been able to stop himself from letting fly with his fists, punishing Jem for his disrespect. Jem had sensed that in him—the need to control and subjugate, that instinct for violence. He’d met men like Henderson before. Too many of them. He’d known how Henderson would respond and predicted that he wouldn’t realise until it was too late that he’d played right into Jem’s hands.
He’d been right.
Everything hurt. But an ember of triumph burned in his heart.
There are plenty men here who do what I did that summer. There are lots of ways to injure yourself just enough to be taken out of the line, or—if you do it properly—get sent home.
You have to be clever though. The officers are wise to an ‘accidental’ gunshot wound to the foot or the hand. They’ll court-martial you, if they suspect. They’ll put you in front of a firing squad and shoot you at dawn.