Page 57 of The Housekeeper's Secret

‘In my village it’s supposed to be lucky to throw shoes after the bride and groom’s carriage when they leave for their honeymoon,’ Susan went on, picking up another apple. ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to do when they’re coming back after the wedding though… I’m sure there must be something.’

Eliza reached over to catch a bit of apple peel as it dropped from Susan’s knife. ‘Plenty of old shoes in the boot room—you could hurl a few at the happy couple when they get out of their fancy motorcar tomorrow, just to be sure.’

Laughing, Susan twisted away as Eliza went to grab another bit of apple. The curl of peel fell onto the cracked tiles. ‘Ooh, look—a letter C!’ Susan exclaimed, bending to study it. ‘It’s supposed to show the initial of the person you’re going to marry. I don’t know anyone whose name begins with C, do you?’

‘Maybe you’ll meet a handsome Charles or Cedric at the wedding dance,’ Eliza said. ‘Here—let me have a go.’

Susan shaved off another sliver of peel. Closing her eyes, Eliza tossed it gently over her shoulder and turned round to look.

‘S,’ pronounced Susan with a crow of laughter. ‘Stanley Twigg!’

‘Ugh, I’d rather die an old maid.’

It probably wasn’t even possible to form a W for Walter out of apple peel, but bending to pick it up, Eliza’s heart gave a little skip. It was more like a letter J than an S. Jem, not Stanley.

It was just a stupid superstition, but as she collected her jar of tea leaves and trailed back up to the hall, she hoped there was something in it. Almost three months had passed since the London visit. Two lots of courses hadn’t appeared. There was no point in kidding herself that if she ignored it the problem would go away. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that this kind of problem only got bigger.

Too big to hide.

She didn’t have much time, and she didn’t have many options. In fact, during the nights she lay awake staring at the attic ceiling, she could only think of two; one was illegal and dangerous, the other simply unlikely.

But still, she thought grimly, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Faint heart never won fair maiden, as her mother would say; nor would it win a handsome footman and a last chance of respectability before it was too late.

Tonight she was going to make the effort to wash her ruddy hair.

Chapter 19

The day of Sir Randolph and the new Lady Hyde’s homecoming dawned damp and misty, with a distinct chill in the air. The previous week had been marked by sudden downpours that stripped the dry leaves from the trees and turned the parched grass green again, but it looked like fate was smiling on the newlyweds and the weather would be dry for the celebrations.

Up early; washed, corseted, and dressed in her plainest black, Kate went out onto the front steps. She checked that the garlands of twined leaves and flowers that Gatley’s men had hung between the great pillars of the portico were still in place and the sweep of gravel was raked smooth; and she looked out over the park to where the tents stood, like some medieval ghost village, with the temple emerging from the mist behind.

In the house, Abigail and Eliza were opening shutters as they carried their boxes of dusters and polish from room to room, laying fires, plumping cushions, and sweeping up fallen petals from the flower arrangements Kate had put together the previous afternoon. In the dining room the table had been laid for luncheon with cut crystal, the second baronet’s looted Indian silver, and the flower-twined Rockingham service. Miss Addison (or Lady Hyde, as Kate must get used to thinking of her) had kindly said that she and Sir Randolph would have supper on trays, so once luncheon had been served and cleared, the servants would be free to join the festivities outside.

The park was quiet, but in a few hours, people would begin to arrive: curious, cynical, or just keen to take advantage of free ale and food. It was hard to imagine Coldwell’s spell of solitude being so completely broken, hard to take in the fact that, by the end of the day, this bubble of shimmering seclusion would have burst. The park would be crowded with strangers, upstairs properly occupied, and the household on duty once more.

And Frederick Henderson would be there.

The thought was like a stain on the pristine morning. Taking in a lungful of crisp air, Kate tried to turn her mind away from it, and all it meant. On the rise of the hill, the trees that sheltered the walled gardens were smudges of rust in the pearly morning, their autumn colours glowing like hot coals through ashes. The grass was silvered with dew; and as she watched, a male pheasant—richly plumed in copper and bronze—broke cover from the woods and flew low, landing clumsily in a tumble of feathers on the slope in front of the house.

These birds were the distant descendants of the ones raised by the last Coldwell keeper, before Kate had arrived. Like the red deer that drifted down from the hills, they had grown plump and complacent, never having known the threat of guns. She watched the pheasant pick himself up and look around, comically imperious and indignant.

He was safe enough for the time being: as far as she knew, no one had yet been found to take the gamekeeper’s post. At the start of the month, they had worked hard to clear out the little cottage in the wood and get it ready for a new man, but in a recent letter Mr Fortescue had admitted that no applicants of suitable quality or experience had replied to the advertisement in either Country Life or the Yorkshire Post. The cottage still stood empty, its sagging brass bed unslept in, its fires unlit.

Turning to go back inside, she stopped. Blinked. Looked round in the direction of the temple and the mist-shrouded woods beyond, where the gamekeeper’s cottage was hidden.

And she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

‘There.’ Thomas settled his new livery jacket over his shoulders and smoothed down the facings as he stood in front of the long mirror in the footmen’s wardrobe. ‘That’s me ready. Or as ready as I’ll ever be.’

Jem, who’d just finished helping Joseph replenish the kitchen coal store, was using Thomas’s soap-scummed water to shave. He looked round, lathering soap onto his jaw with a brush. ‘Very nice,’ he deadpanned. ‘I might ask you to dance later.’

In the second before he realised Jem was joking, terror flickered across Thomas’s open face, then he blushed furiously and laughed. ‘Two left feet, me. I’ll be staying far away from that dance floor they’ve set up and sticking to the tent where the ale is. We might not be able to go into the pubs round here, but Mr Goddard can hardly ban us from entering a tent in the park, can he? They’re kitting it out now, the men from the brewery. You should see it—barrels and barrels of the stuff.’

Jem had seen it, and the men who had brought it. To his surprise, Mullins was amongst them. Jem had assumed, from the lad’s reaction the other day, that wild horses couldn’t have dragged him within a mile of this place. It was possible that he hadn’t been given a choice, but watching him as he stood on the dray and rolled the barrels down, Jem had wondered if there was another reason; if Mullins had decided it was time to confront whatever had happened here. As soon as his duties were finished this afternoon, Jem intended to find out.

There was a perfunctory knock on the door, which immediately opened.

‘Eliza—come in, why don’t you?’ said Thomas, with a sarcasm that was quite bold, for him.

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