Page 90 of The Housekeeper's Secret

The only sound in the attic was the whistle of the wind through the window frame and the hiss of the lamp. Eliza and Abigail, Susan and Doris had finished getting ready a quarter hour ago and clattered downstairs in their best Sunday shoes, leaving a trail of lavender water and excited chatter behind them. Kate supposed that everyone would be assembling in the hall, where the candles had been lit on the tree and the band had set up.

She should go down…

She had seen Henderson briefly, after breakfast. Passing the stillroom, he had looked inside and enquired, with guileless courtesy, if she was feeling a little better after her early night? He had appeared pleased to hear that she was (what else could she say?) and said that he was looking forward to continuing their conversation later.

‘I don’t have anything more to say, Mr Henderson,’ she had asserted coolly.

‘Perhaps not, Mrs Furniss,’ he had replied, dropping his voice confidingly. ‘But I do.’

Her ledger lay on the table beside the character reference Eliza had brought from her previous position. Kate had been putting off writing her new one, but even that awkward task was preferable to going downstairs and facing Henderson. She picked up the watch from her chatelaine, lying beside the ledger.

It was half past seven. They would be waiting for her to start the dancing; Mr Goddard with Lady Hyde, herself with Sir Randolph, as was the tradition. If she didn’t hurry, they might send someone up to find her. A sudden unpleasant image of Mr Henderson climbing the attic stairs to seek her out was enough to galvanise her into motion.

She put a silk shawl round her shoulders and picked up the lamp, holding it above the bed for a moment as she made her way to the door. It was neatly made, its secrets folded in the smooth linen, as if everything that happened there last night had been nothing but a dream.

There was a time, thought Eliza, stifling a yawn, that she would have considered this a proper treat.

A string band, done up in evening suits (though they were cheap ones and had seen better days), and a buffet spread out in the dining room, with candles alight in the crystal chandelier, reflecting in all the mirrors. A huge Christmas tree, and dancing; everyone standing around the floor watching Sir Randolph and Mrs Furniss, Mr Goddard and Lady Hyde, waiting to take their turn.

Now she felt only indifference.

Abigail had finally noticed her altered shape. Getting changed into their best before coming downstairs, she had glanced at Eliza in surprise and asked why she wasn’t wearing the velvet skirt she’d made last winter (honestly—this was someone who’d always boasted that she had a good eye for clothes and the fit of them). Eliza, weary of waiting for the penny to drop, had told her, quite bluntly, that it wouldn’t do up. And she’d watched Abigail’s gaze move downwards and her mouth fall open.

She didn’t have to be so superior about it. So horrified. As if Eliza was the first person ever to get caught out after a bit of fun (not much fun, but that hardly mattered now). She was over there now, standing with Susan and Drippy Doris beneath the portrait of the second baronet, and it was obvious from the way they kept looking at Eliza—trying to look as if they weren’t—that she’d told them. Susan would probably let on she’d read it in the cabbage leaves or something, but the fact was, none of them had guessed. They fancied themselves modern girls, but they were as silly and sheltered as hens in a coop, with their old country sayings and superstitions. They knew nothing of the real world.

Tapping her foot idly to the music (some dreary waltz), Eliza’s attention shifted to the dancers. Mr Goddard looked like a broken umbrella—all spiky elbows and flapping black coattails as he steered Lady Hyde around the floor. (She was wearing the diamond choker Sir Randolph had given her for Christmas—the one Jem was supposed to have had his eye on, though that didn’t seem likely to Eliza.) Sir Randolph stumbled on the hem of Mrs Furniss’s dress as they passed, and Eliza caught a whiff of whisky and bad digestion. Anyone could see that he was three sheets to the wind, hanging on to Mrs Furniss like a drowning man on a life raft, his eyes heavy, his hands too low on her back (not on her back at all, you might say). Mrs Furniss was stiff in his arms, straining to maintain a space between her body and his, and you could tell from looking at her that his touch made her skin crawl. Eliza didn’t envy her.

It was funny to think that she ever had.

Even in her own current predicament, Eliza wouldn’t swap places with her now. The mauve silk housecoat and the silver chatelaine and the parlour with the velvet armchair that Eliza had coveted so much hadn’t stopped Mrs Furniss from falling for a bit of charm and a nice smile, just like Eliza had. And a housekeeper had that much further to fall.

Around the walls the deer and cattle watched, looking as bored as Eliza felt. She stifled another yawn and wondered when they would be allowed to start on the buffet. People were pairing up, preparing to join the couples on the dance floor: Gatley and Mrs Gatley, Thomas and Susan. Eliza watched George Twigg offer his arm to Drippy Doris (who looked like she might cry from excitement this time. Tragic.) and the new gamekeeper approach Miss Dunn, who shook her head and turned away quickly, as if he were a dog begging for scraps at the table and shouldn’t be encouraged. She wondered if Mr Henderson was going to ask Abigail, who was sipping her fruit cup and trying not to look like a spare part, but his narrowed eyes were fixed on Sir Randolph and Mrs Furniss as they made their hobbled progress around the floor.

Eliza was so taken up with watching that she didn’t notice Robson the chauffeur until he was almost on top of her. Starting with surprise, she stepped back to let him move past. Except he didn’t. He flexed his thick neck and stared at a point past her shoulder as he asked her if she’d like to dance.

There was a mark on the collar of his white shirt, she noticed. A splash of scarlet, which looked like blood. Fancy being so ham-fisted you could cut yourself so badly while shaving that it dripped on your shirt. Fancy being so stupid you would put your clean shirt on before you shaved.

A few weeks ago, his request might have been a straw she would have gratefully clutched. Now she couldn’t see the point. She’d be leaving any day. It wasn’t what she would have chosen, but neither was meaty Robson, with his thick neck and bristly skin like pink pork rind.

‘No thanks,’ she said, giving him an offhand glance. Then, as an afterthought, she added more kindly, ‘Look—Abigail doesn’t have a partner. Why don’t you ask her?’

Dripping.

Something was dripping, slowly and steadily. The sound reverberated around Jem’s throbbing head, echoing in the darkness.

The darkness was… total.

Perhaps he was blind.

The thought sent a surge of suffocating panic through him. With difficulty he propped himself against the slimy wall and fumbled at his pockets, pain pulsing through every muscle. His hair was wet, and so were his clothes. The brick floor beneath him was mossy and the air was damp and rank, like the inside of a well. Or a grave.

Moaning with the effort, he tried his pockets again, and this time his stiff fingers found the matchbox. He eased himself back, breathing hard, waiting for the florid pulse of pain inside his head to fade a little before he summoned the energy to strike one.

The first match skittered and fell from his grasp. The second sparked and died. The box was almost empty, so he forced himself to wait, to gather his strength and quell the panic that was rising with every slow drip.

The third match flared into a tiny, leaping flame that dazzled in the dark. He was not blind, nor sealed in a grave, but in a wide tunnel, with brick-lined walls. His own hand, holding the match, was crusted with drying blood.

It was too much to take in before the match went out. But as the blackness closed around him, the images stayed. Slime-slick bricks. His fingernails, rust rimmed. His shirt sleeve, soaked red.

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