Page 63 of The Housekeeper's Secret

A mistake.

He saw, and read her intention. When she moved, he was ready to dart in front of her, blocking her way.

‘I swore I’d never say anything. They made me promise. And I never did—all these years. I put it out of my head until you came poking around… digging it all up again.’

Jem had steered Mullins round the back of the ale tent, where he dropped to the ground amongst piled-up crates of empty lemonade bottles, like a puppet with cut strings. After a few moments of floundering to get his balance, he settled with his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

Jem couldn’t see his face. Mullins had reached the pitch of drunkenness when logic was jumbled and speech punctuated by long spells of silence, so it was difficult to tell if he’d fallen asleep. Jem shoved his hands in his pockets and prayed for patience, trying to drown the urge to take hold of him and shake the truth out.

‘It was a game. A laugh.’ The words came grudgingly. ‘That’s how it started. Hyde didn’t live here all the time in them days. He worked in India, but he’d come back for a few months and invited his friends up here. House was fuller than it had been in years. They had a shoot, but it wasn’t up to much—the old keeper had let the bird stocks go down. It showed him up, that did… Made him look a fool in front of his fancy mates. I reckon he felt he had to make up for it. Impress them.’

‘That sounds like Hyde,’ Jem muttered. His reputation in London had been as a bragger and a show-off. Amongst other things.

‘They had dinner in the tower that night. The temple, they called it. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it had never happened before while I’d been there. Foreign food it was, like they have in India. Made the inside of your mouth burn something shocking. Sir Henry didn’t join them. He went to bed and left them to it, and they didn’t want old Goddard hanging about, but the footmen—Wilf Williams and what’s-’is-name, the other one—stayed downstairs in the tower. Wilf kept having to come back for more wine, more port, more brandy and whisky—Goddard looked like he was going to have a turn at all the booze they were going through.’

Mullins had hit his stride now, his initial reluctance disappearing as the events of that night caught him in their current. ‘Wilf kept us informed about what they were getting up to—gambling games and the like. We thought the whole thing was a laugh. There were plenty of bottles around for us to help ourselves to on the sly, and that other lad—Viscount Frensham’s tiger—he was all right. A bit quiet, but we hit it off. The older footmen always treated me like a dog. It was good to have someone the same age to joke around with…’

He trailed off. On the other side of the tent, the country dance tune the band were playing was accompanied by stamping feet and whoops of merriment. Jem had to lean in closer to hear Mullins speak. Close enough to smell ale and sweat and bad teeth.

‘It was a laugh.’ Defensiveness bristled in his tone. ‘It felt like no one was in charge anymore… like there were no rules. We were having a fine time, drinking the dregs in all the bottles, telling ghost stories; then Wilf comes back and says they want us to go over there—me and the other lad. Some game they want to play.’

In spite of the warmth of the evening, Jem realised he was shivering.

‘I didn’t think nothing of it. I’d sat up keeping score for their billiards and that plenty times, and there’s always the chance for a bob or two from the toffs when they’re pissed.’ He squinted at Jem with a frown. ‘I was a bit pissed myself, if I’m honest… so we went up there, me and him. Up to the room at the top of the tower.’

His head dropped heavily, his stubby fingers sliding into his hair to support it.

‘I’d never been up there before. There were these carvings all around the walls and the candles made them look like they were moving. We’d been telling the story of the Indian lad—Samuel—about how his ghost haunts the woods, and there’s his portrait, right there above the fireplace. And they’ve got his clothes—his actual bloody tunic and the silk thing what wrapped around his head and his britches and what have you—and they wanted us to put them on.’

There was a long pause. Jem clamped his jaw shut and looked across at the tower, silhouetted against the blue dark. He felt light-headed, slightly sick. After all these years he was about to find out what had happened to his brother, but for the first time it struck him that he might be better off not knowing. He felt a sudden compulsion to leave Mullins, alone with his ghosts and demons and guilt. To leave the past where it belonged and go to Kate. The future, if only he could find a way—

‘It wasn’t funny no more.’ Mullins’s voice was thick with emotion. ‘There was something wild about them—like you wouldn’t expect of the gentry. Savages, they were. None of them things was ever going to fit me, but they got the other lad and were pulling his jacket off, then his shirt, winding this silk about his head, and Hyde was going on about his stupid ancestor. There was this silver hunting horn on the wall and Hyde took it down and was blowing it. They made Frensham’s lad stand up on the table in front of the painting and they were all cheering and shouting… baying like animals—’

He broke off with a wet, snivelling sound and dragged his arm across his face.

‘I don’t know how it happened. I don’t remember. Someone made a joke about the tiger hunter, and said they didn’t need to go to India when they had their own tigers to hunt. It was… out of control. One minute we were up there, in the temple, the next they were shoving us down the stairs, starting to count. I can still hear their voices, all of them together, counting, before they came after us. Frensham’s lad tried to follow me, but I knew he’d be easier to spot in that stupid bloody get-up. I told him to bugger off and make his own way—every man for himself.’

Jesus.

‘I went back to the house. I’m not ashamed to admit it.’ Mullins’s tone was one of aggressive defiance, at odds with the claim. ‘I hid in the privy for a bit and I could hear that bloody horn… I was going to go back and give myself up, I was, but… I was feeling proper rough by then. I took myself off to the silver cupboard. That was where I slept.’

‘What happened to Jack?’ Somehow Jem was on his feet, though he hadn’t been aware of moving. He looked down at Mullins, slumped amongst the crates. When he didn’t answer, Jem nudged him with his boot. ‘What happened? Did you see him again?’

‘I don’t know what happened, I swear! I went out like a light, slept in my boots, and woke up with a splitting head, a good bit later than I should have. There was no sign of him and damned if I was going to do all the coal myself, so I went looking, up to the nursery corridor where the visiting servants kipped. His clothes were there—the ones he’d arrived in. I was going to tell Goddard he hadn’t come back, but he wasn’t up. The place was still in a state from the night before, but Hyde’s valet was buzzing around.’

‘Henderson?’

‘Bastard.’ Mullins turned his head to spit viciously onto the grass. ‘He didn’t seem that bothered then, but later he came to find me. Twisted my arm right up behind my back and told me that I wasn’t to breathe a word about no tiger hunt. All that had happened was the boy had been dressed up to wait on the dinner. He said that if I told a soul, my family would be turfed off their farm. He said if anything ever came out, they’d know it was me who’d blabbed, and my pa would be finished. Fat lot of good it did them—everyone round here knows what the Hydes are like, any road—’

He made an attempt to stand, fuelled by rage but sabotaged by drink. Collapsing back into the crates, his voice was raw. ‘There’s something rotten about this place. Always has been. That bastard nearly broke my arm, and then he tossed a sovereign on the floor, to buy my silence.’

Jem was pacing in front of where Mullins sat. It was beginning to dawn on him that the answer he had come so far to find was no answer at all and he had only stumbled upon another question.

‘So that’s it—he’d just vanished?’

‘I don’t know, all right?’ Gripping the crates, Mullins made another attempt to get to his feet. ‘I’ve told you everything I know and that’s a lot more than I should have said. I’m sick of keeping their secrets.’ Upright, he took a few staggering paces towards Jem and grabbed the front of his shirt. ‘Ask that fucking bastard Henderson if you want to know what happened. Or Hyde himself. I’ve told you all I know—now leave me alone.’

He gave Jem’s chest a shove and let go, swearing as he stumbled backwards. And then he swung round and lurched away, leaving Jem standing alone in the dark, blood pounding, fists clenched against an enemy that somehow managed to stay ahead of him, always beyond his reach.

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