Page 89 of The Housekeeper's Secret

On Boxing Day, a fat pink sun rose into a clear sky full of fading stars, and a gentle thaw began. The quilted snow slid down the roof of the laundry, the trees shed their armfuls of white, and the slope of the drive lost its treacherous sheen. The roads beyond Coldwell must have become passable too, because in the middle of the afternoon a spluttering motor appeared on the hill and made a careful descent to the stable yard, where it disgorged four men and what appeared to be enough luggage for a week’s stay.

They took everyone by surprise (particularly since there was no Davy to give notice of their sudden appearance), but introduced themselves as the string quartet, booked by Lady Hyde at the beginning of November. The luggage, it turned out, was an assortment of valises, violins, violas, and a cello which took up most of the back seat. Once they had unloaded it all onto the slush-covered cobbles of the stable yard it seemed that the servants’ ball—which everyone had somehow assumed would be cancelled—was going ahead.

Mrs Gatley was the only one with any enthusiasm for the evening. ‘Heaven knows, I work hard enough every other day of the blessed year, I’m not going to miss the chance to put on my best frock and dancing shoes,’ she said to Susan and Doris, who were grumbling about having to prepare a cold buffet at such short notice. ‘What’s the matter with you young things? Slice the ham thinly for the sandwiches, and we can use up the leftover salmon from luncheon on Christmas Eve. We’re too late for jellies—they won’t set in time, but we can do meringues. I’ve plenty eggs.’

Mr Goddard dispatched Eliza and Abigail upstairs, to remove small items of value from the hallway and dining room, in case they proved too much of a temptation for the less civilised outdoor servants.

It seemed, after Jem’s defection, no one was to be trusted.

From his hiding place in the church, Jem saw the motorcar arrive. He had heard its puttering engine and climbed onto a pew to look out of a tiny diamond windowpane to watch its careful progress along the drive, sending up plumes of slush as it lurched through the puddles, and finally disappearing beneath the stable arch.

He felt slow with hunger, light-headed with lack of sleep, but his hollow stomach clenched. Had Henderson summoned the police, with another concocted story about a missing servant stealing something? He looked around for some means of escape, but there was only a small door to one side of the altar, which proved to be locked, and another in the porch that led only to the dark bell tower.

But it couldn’t be long until three o’clock.

When he’d arrived at the church, the dawn was only a faint hint of pink above the dark blue hills to the east. He’d left his pack in the porch and crept round to the garden bothies by the orchard to steal a couple of apples.

Hollinshead could collar him for that, as well as whatever Henderson was going to pin on him.

He’d dozed a little, propped up on the Hyde family pew (cushioned in red velvet and twice as deep as the narrow shelves the servants perched on), slipping in and out of uneasy dreams but not managing to escape the bone-deep ache in his shoulders, his neck. He’d thought he was back in a cell waiting to be brought into the Norwich Assizes, and heard his own voice saying not guilty. It jolted him awake, and he suspected he had spoken it out loud.

He didn’t dare sleep after that.

The church was small, surprisingly simple in style, its edges softened with age. He paced around, killing time, eventually picking up one of the Bibles from the shelf by the door. Lying on his back on the velvet cushion, his head propped on his pack, he flicked through the tissue-thin pages, idly noting how many times he spotted the word servant (We are unworthy servants… Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching… Well done, thou good and faithful servant…) until the light started to fade and he had to strain his eyes to read.

A noise, out in the porch, made him sit upright. He got to his feet—too fast, making his head swim—and stumbled into the aisle. The afternoon gloom tented the little church, and he blinked to see into the shadows as the heavy door creaked open, his lips parting to say her name.

But it wasn’t Kate whose slow footsteps tapped on the stone floor; who came forward to stand, arms folded, beside the ancient stone font.

Henderson sighed deeply. ‘You just won’t be told, will you?’

There was something wearily unsurprising about it. Jem had no idea how Henderson had found out about the meeting place, but he’d known somehow that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. That didn’t mean he had any intention of letting Henderson stand in his way. He was tired and he was hungry, but a quick mental calculation told him that he had the advantage of height and strength. And rage. He had a lot of rage.

‘You didn’t think I’d just give up and go quietly, did you?’

Jem’s aching shoulders squared, and his hands balled themselves into fists. By contrast, Henderson appeared completely at ease as he leaned against the font. In his neatly buttoned overcoat and expensive leather gloves, he looked unprepared for a fight.

‘No, I suspected you’d be foolish enough to push your luck,’ he drawled. ‘That’s your trouble, Arden. You don’t know when to accept that you’re beaten. You think you’re on some noble quest for justice? You’re a fool. Your purpose—the purpose of all the staff here, and in every great house—is to serve your betters. To represent the family. Don’t you realise that the good name of a man like Sir Randolph and the reputation of a house like Coldwell are far more important than the petty grievances of a nobody like you?’

Jem let his hands go limp at his sides. There was no point in arguing; nothing to be gained by taking him on, this tin-pot downstairs despot, who wouldn’t survive for five minutes out in the real world without Randolph Hyde’s name to hide behind. Shaking his head, he leaned across to pick up his pack, then walked up the aisle towards Henderson, confident that if he tried to stop him on the way out that he could take him down.

The judge in the Norwich Assizes had instructed him to learn from his poor choices, and he had. One of several valuable things he’d learned in Norwich Gaol was how to stand up for himself. How to punch hard and clean.

But Henderson didn’t try to stop him. He made no move at all. And Jem, opening the door to step into the darkness of the porch, felt a flash of surprise as he collided with a solid figure, barring his way.

There was no time to think. No chance to speak. He saw the glint of gold epaulettes and the flash of braid on a chauffeur’s cap, and felt a meaty hand grab his arm, holding him still in the second before a fist connected with the side of his face.

An explosion of white light inside his head. (Maybe the chauffeur had spent time in gaol too.)

Pain tore through him as the world reeled and turned upside down. Another blow, and his cheek smashed against the stone floor, wetness seeping into his ear, running into his eyes, turning everything dark.

The blue silk dress was lovely. Kate could see that, as she smoothed the narrow band beneath the bust, where the little glass beads caught the lamplight. It made her feel acutely uncomfortable.

Her black working dress hung on its hook on the back of the door. As she went through the motions of brushing out her hair, twisting it up, and repinning it (tightly, with no concession to frivolity,) she kept fighting the temptation to exchange it for the unfamiliar blue, which exposed her arms, her neck, her throat, her former self. The woman in the mirror in the silk and chiffon looked like the one who had sat on overstuffed sofas in the Bristol house and sipped Madeira wine from cut crystal. The woman she had tried so hard to outrun.

But she had discovered that you couldn’t escape yourself. And she couldn’t bring herself to snub Miss Dunn’s kindness, either. Even in her state of shocked numbness, with her heart like a stone in her chest, she couldn’t do that.

We women should stick together.

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