Page 4 of The Housekeeper's Secret

A shout sounded through the open door to the kitchen yard, its London accent jarring. The wagon bearing Mr Hyde’s and Miss Addison’s luggage had already rumbled under the stable arch and the Twigg boys—Stanley and George, from the stables—were beginning to unload it. The Portman Square footman clearly considered himself above manual labour and superior enough to issue orders to Joseph who, as hallboy, was at the bottom of the pecking order.

Kate was about to go and disabuse him of this notion when Mr Goddard emerged from the butler’s pantry, settling his tailcoat over his shoulders and tugging at his lapels.

‘Positions everyone!’

In the subterranean light of the passageway, he appeared taller and more cadaverously thin than ever, his half-moon spectacles glinting dully on the end of his long nose. ‘Smarten yourselves and make your way upstairs, please.’

The London footman would have to wait. Kate turned into the stillroom passage that led to the housekeeper’s room, almost colliding with Abigail hurrying the other way.

‘Sorry, Mrs Furniss.’ The girl’s eyes were bright and her cheeks faintly flushed. Kate stepped aside to let her pass.

‘Oh, Abigail—did someone come to the servants’ entrance earlier? A man?’

‘Yes, Mrs Furniss.’

‘And what did he want?’

‘He was asking about the footman’s position.’ Abigail began to untie the coarse work apron she wore over her black afternoon dress, in preparation for swapping it with a finer lace-trimmed one. ‘He saw it in the newspaper and came direct. Eliza took him to Mr Goddard’s room. Thomas is finding him a livery now.’

‘He’s been engaged? Just like that?’

The girl shrugged apologetically and edged away.

There was no time to verify this improbable story. There was no time to brush out her hair and repin it either, so she stood before the looking glass in the small housekeeper’s parlour and tried her best to make it tidy enough to go take her place on the front steps alongside Mr Goddard, and welcome the visitors to Coldwell.

June 24th 1916

Somewhere in France

Dear Kate,

The commanding officer has told us that if there’s anything we want to say to loved ones at home, not to put it off any longer. Things are happening here, the whole of the British Army seems to be assembling in these small villages and country towns, bringing guns and shells and supplies and setting up first aid posts, so I know it will be something big. Something that I might not survive.

And, Kate, there is so much I want to say.

This morning, our guns and trench mortars started a bombardment that has continued all day without stopping. The noise is indescribable. We spent the day unloading crates of shells, and in the distance the artillery bursts like fireworks, which makes me think of you.

Everything makes me think of you. For five years I have tried to look forward and build some sort of life without you, though it would never have been the life I would have chosen. Now the prospect of any sort of future seems unlikely and there’s nothing to stop my mind from returning to the past.

I wish I could go back too, and do everything differently, but of course it’s too late for that. The only thing I can do is try to explain. I have little hope that you’ll ever get to read this letter, but I believe that setting it down on paper counts for something. If I don’t come through this, at least the facts will be recorded, for what that’s worth.

At least I will have let it be known that I loved you, and I’m sorry.

Chapter 2

‘So where is he, then?’

Eliza spoke out of the corner of her mouth as she stood beside Abigail on the front steps, watching the carriage navigate the drive’s final descent. Mr Goddard and Mrs Furniss were in place on the gravel below, and Thomas, the first footman, had come running down the steps just in time to take up his position behind them, ready to spring forward and open the door when the carriage came to a halt.

‘Must be still getting himself smartened up,’ Abigail replied. She didn’t have to ask whom Eliza was referring to. Lads as handsome as that didn’t appear at the kitchen door of Coldwell Hall every day, though Eliza would have shown an interest in any man under forty as long as he had most of his own teeth and didn’t smell of horse manure, like the Twigg boys. Abigail liked to think she set the bar a bit higher, but she had to admit the new footman had exceeded even her exacting standards.

‘He looked pretty good as he was to me,’ Eliza muttered.

Abigail’s snort of laughter escaped before she could stop it. Mrs Furniss looked round sharply, the spring breeze blowing a strand of dark hair across her cheek. Abigail pressed her lips together to hide her smirk until the housekeeper had turned away again.

The ring of hooves and harness was louder now as Johnny Farrow slowed the horses for the turn. Another figure sat beside him on the box, dwarfed by the coachman’s bulk. Frederick Henderson, Abigail thought with distaste, Mr Hyde’s oily valet. She remembered him from the last time Mr Hyde had visited his father. Fancied himself a cut above the rest of them, did Mr Henderson, walking around the entire time like there was a bad smell under his nose and even talking to Mr Goddard like he was there to do his bidding. She turned her attention back to the far more attractive subject of the new footman.

‘He’s called Jem,’ she whispered. ‘Jem Arden. I wonder if it’s short for something?’

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