‘You may see to the fire,’ he replied.
She walked across the room, conscious of his eyes on her, and then poured coal onto the small flames.
‘Tell me, how do you find the castle, now that you have had an opportunity to see it in daylight?’ he asked.
She was surprised by his question, for it was not the sort of thing that most earls would ask their servants. She replied: ‘I find it . . . interesting.’
‘You do not find it too remote?’ he queried.
‘No, my lord.’
‘That is surprising. Most people are disinclined to work in such an isolated spot. It preys on their nerves. The loneliness becomes oppressive. After a time, they find themselves imagining things.’
There seemed to be something behind his words. Was he warning her about something, or was he trying to find out if she had heard anything unusual?
‘I have no difficulty in working here,’ she said.
‘Perhaps you are used to the moors?’
‘I have never seen them before. I think they are beautiful,’ she added.
‘You think so? I used to think so, once.’ His voice dropped and his eyes fell to the desk. He was not seeing the desk, thought Helena, he was seeing something far away, and she wondered why he no longer liked his surroundings. He roused himself. ‘If you are not used to the moors, then you perhaps grew up in gentler climes?’
‘Yes, my lord. I grew up by the sea, in Cornwall,’ she told him.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You do not speak with a Cornish accent,’ he remarked.
‘I left Cornwall many years ago, when I was fifteen.’
‘Ah, I see. Then why did you leave?’
‘My father died, and my mother took me to live in Manchester . . . ’ She trailed away, suddenly conscious of the fact that Mrs Reynolds might have mentioned her abode. She felt herself colouring and hoped he would not notice, or that he would put her sudden flush down to the heat of the fire, but instead she was disturbed to see him turning questioning eyes towards her, as if to say, Now what were you about to tell me? She began to think that his questions were more than a passing curiosity in a new servant; they were designed to find out if she was really Mrs Reynolds.
‘And do you like Manchester?’ he asked.
‘It is my home,’ she said, ‘but no, I do not like it.’
‘I am surprised. You are young. I thought you would enjoy the liveliness of a city. It must seem very quiet here by comparison.’
‘It seems peaceful,’ she said. ‘I like the quiet.’
‘And when did you go into service?’ he asked, returning to his earlier theme.
She was about to say, ‘A year ago,’ when she realised that Mrs Reynolds might have been in service for far longer.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘I cannot recall exactly.’
There was a silence. Then he said: ‘In your letter, you stated that you had been a housekeeper for three years.’ He shot her a sudden glance, and said, ‘You do not have the look of a servant.’
She felt her heart beating more quickly.
‘My father was a gentleman,’ she said, ‘and I was raised to be a lady. But he fell on hard times and our circumstances changed, so I had no choice but to earn a living.’
He said nothing, and she wondered what was going through his mind. Unwillingly, Helena found herself remembering some of the things her aunt had said about the man in front of her. Afraid of him in the village, they are. The stories they tell! It’s always the same in these remote places, but I’ve seen nothing amiss. He’s not an easy master, but I’ll say this for him, he’s fair.
She only hoped her aunt had been right.
At last he said: ‘And now you are keeping house in a castle. Not many people wish to work in such a large establishment, especially with so few servants. What is your opinion of the castle, now that you have seen it?’
She looked round the large room.
‘I think it has been neglected, but it is a beautiful building, and with hard work, I think it will be possible to bring it back to life.’
‘You are an optimist, I see. Hard work will go some way to making it brighter, but hard work has its limits and will not remove the draughts.’
‘Large fires and carefully placed screens can do much to limit their effect,’ she said thoughtfully, wondering how best the disadvantages of such an old building could be overcome.
‘There is no money to waste on large fires at Stormcrow.’
He appeared to become lost in his thoughts, and she said no more.
He roused himself.
‘Very well. The fire will do now. You may return to your duties.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
Helena left the room, relieved that she had escaped unscathed, and made her way to the housekeeper’s room, where she hoped she might find a letter or a diary entry, perhaps, that would tell her something about her aunt’s decision to leave the castle, and her intended destination.
Chapter Three
As she opened the door, she breathed in the scent of lavender, and it awakened memories in her. She remembered how, as a little girl, she had helped her aunt to pick flowers and herbs, and how her aunt had shown her how to plait lavender. Her aunt had always had a plait of it attached to her belt. She remembered summer holidays when her father had been alive, and, in her mind’s eye, she saw her mother and Aunt Hester cutting flowers and herbs, whilst she and her father sat on a rug beneath the chestnut tree with their books. She could remember the pulled thread on the rug, and she could feel its softness beneath her fingers.
She went in, thinking how lucky Aunt Hester was to have such an attractive room to work in. It was newly decorated in cheerful colours, with flowered wall hangings echoing the gold damask of the sofa. There were vases on the console tables, and although they were empty, they were still decorative.
Diamond-paned windows looked out on to the side of the castle. It was a bleak prospect at present, but under a summer sky it would be attractive. Her own position as a housekeeper had not been so grand, and her room had been a dingy room at the back of the house, with a window looking on to a brick wall. She had almost been glad to leave it when the Hamiltons had moved to Wales – almost, but not quite, as she had needed the position, and without it she had been reduced to sharing a room with Caroline.
She went over to the hearth, where there was a fire burning in the grate, noticing that the shelves had been dusted and the furniture polished. She set down the coal bucket and then let her eyes wander over the chintz sofa set beneath the window and the matching chair that was placed by the fire. There were two console tables, one by the chair and one by the sofa, and in the middle of the room was a desk. She went over to the desk, which had a number of pigeon holes down the side and across the top. On the desk was a large book, an inkstand, and a shaker of sand. In front of it was an inlaid chair.
Helena sat down and opened the book. It was in the form of a diary, but it held nothing useful, simply details of the work that needed to be done around the castle. The notes stopped just over three weeks before.
She turned her attention to the pigeon holes, but they revealed nothing more than sample menus, letters to and from tradesmen, and other household items. Then she opened the first drawer.
What did Effie find when she looked for some string? Helena wondered.
But a search of the drawers found nothing more than some household documents, some paper, a quill pen and a large bunch of keys, which she took out and fastened to her belt. There was nothing more of interest.
So what did Effie see? she asked herself. Why did it upset her? And where has it gone?
But perhaps Effie had seen nothing, and was simply nervous because she had looked through the housekeeper’s desk.
As Helena looked round the room she began to think that this must be the case. The chintz upholstery and the placid ticking of the clock were reassuring. Their very ordinariness reminded her that her aunt had been an ordinary woman, and t
hat there must be an ordinary reason for her disappearance.
Maybe she did, indeed, have a sister, thought Helena, or perhaps, a half sister she had never mentioned. Maybe there was a reason for Aunt Hester not mentioning her. Perhaps they had been estranged.
Perhaps Aunt Hester wrote to me, she thought, but perhaps the letter was lost in the post, or perhaps my aunt gave it to the footman to post, and he forgot about it.
The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. There were very few servants in the castle, and with no one to keep them to their tasks, something like posting a letter could easily be overlooked.
She saw a row of bells on the wall by the fireplace, and rang the one labelled: ‘Footman’. Soon afterwards the footman entered the room. He was wearing livery, but some of the braid was missing from his coat, and the buttons were dull. His person reflected the same carelessness. His hair had been combed, but a tuft stuck up at the back, and his nails were dirty.
He stood in front of her with a strange expression. It was part insolence and part insinuation, and there was a cunning look on his face. He rubbed his hands together in an unpleasant manner and looked at her from the corner of his eye, as though he was sizing her up.
She wondered if he had looked that way at her aunt, or if he was simply doing it to her because of her youth.
‘Your name?’ she asked him, injecting a note of authority into her voice: if he thought he could patronise her, he would soon learn his mistake. She had dealt with difficult footmen before, and would most probably have to do so again.
‘Dawkins, Missus,’ he said.
‘Dawkins. I have summoned you here to ask you how Mrs Carlisle went about sending her letters. I will have my own letters to send, and I need to know the routine at the castle. Do I leave them on my desk when they are ready to go?’
‘I don’t come in the housekeeper’s room, not unless I’m sent for,’ he said.
There was something self consciously virtuous about his reply, and Helena found herself thinking that he probably did enter the housekeeper’s room uninvited, though what he could want there she could not imagine, unless it was to snoop through the desk, in order to see if there was anything of use to him.
‘What am I to do with my letters, then?’ she asked.
‘You have to leave them in the hall. There’s a pewter bowl on a table under the window at the far end, in between two suits of armour. His lordship franks them, then I takes them to the village.’
‘I see. And when do they go? Every week? Every day?’
‘Whenever his lordship sees fit,’ he said.
‘And what happens to the letters until then? Do they remain in the bowl?’
‘Nowhere else for them to go,’ he said with an insolent grin.
Helena felt herself bridling.
‘Did that suit Mrs Carlisle?’ she asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, did she ever ask you to take one of her letters, even if his lordship had no letters to send? Perhaps she had something that needed to go urgently, and could not wait.’
‘What kind of thing?’ he asked craftily.
‘I have no idea,’ said Helena quellingly. ‘Anything that might need to be sent in a hurry, and might perhaps require a speedy answer.’
‘No, missus, there were nothing like that.’
‘Did she send letters often, then?’
A sly look crept into his eye, and Helena was sure he knew something she didn’t. It seemed he could say more if he wanted to.
‘No, missus. Once a week, as a general rule. She weren’t a great letter writer.’
‘I see.’ She paused, to give him a chance to say more, but he remained silent. ‘Very well, thank you, Dawkins.’
‘Thank you, Missus. Will that be all?’
‘No. Not quite. I need to find out a little more about the castle, to help me with my duties. Tell me, what other servants work here? There is a butler, I suppose? And his lordship must have a valet.’
‘There’s no butler. The last one died, and his lordship never replaced him. And his lordship’s valet left when . . . he don’t have a valet any more. He likes to see to himself. There’s not many as’ll work in the castle. Servants are hard to come by.’
He puffed his chest out, and she realized that he was taunting her, daring her to interfere with him, and warning her that, if she did, he might decide not to work there either.
‘Then what other servants are there in the castle besides you, Mrs Beal, Effie and Miss Parkins?’
‘There ain’t no more.’
‘None? How did Mrs Carlisle keep the castle clean without any maids to help her?’
‘It weren’t always that way. There were two maids here when Mrs Carlisle worked here. Sally and Martha, they were. But they wouldn’t stay in the castle.’
‘Oh? Why not?’ asked Helena, wondering if he would tell her more than Mrs Beal had done.
‘It was the stories, Missus. About his lordship.’
Helena felt her pulse quicken, but she gave no sign of it.
‘What kind of stories?’ she asked.
‘People likes to talk in a village,’ he said. ‘There’s always been things said about the Stormcrows.’
‘A lot of nonsense, I expect,’ said Helena encouragingly.
He gave another sly smile.
‘You, at least, do not seem to believe them, or you would not still be working here,’ she said, hoping to coax him into saying something further.
‘Oh, I’m safe enough. Nothing’ll happen to me. There’s never anything happened to a man,’ he said.
He was toying with her, trying to unsettle her.
‘I’m glad to hear it. But surely there hasn’t been anything happening to women, either?’ she asked.
He said nothing.
‘Why did the maids leave?’ she prompted him.
‘It were on account of Mrs Carlisle,’ he said, his desire to talk overcoming his desire to have her in his power. ‘Disappeared in the dead of night, she did, and Sally said she heard crying from the east wing, up in the attic, and the following day, Martha said she heard it, too. “It’s a cat,” I said to them, but they wouldn’t listen. Gave in their notice and went home.’
Helena felt a shiver run up her spine.
‘Did you find it?’ she asked. ‘The cat?’
‘Didn’t need to. The crying stopped, so it must have got out. But it’s better not to go near the attics, all the same.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘Rotting floorboards, Missus. Dangerous, they are. Could give way at any minute. Anyone who goes up there could go crashing right through and break their necks.’
He gave her a devious look, and the thought flashed through her mind that she would not like to be alone with Dawkins in the attic.
She questioned him further about his fellow servants, but he had nothing to say, other than that Mrs Beal was a good cook and that Effie was a clumsy thing.
‘And Miss Parkins?’ asked Helena.
He hesitated, and she thought: He is afraid of Miss Parkins, too.
When he had told her all he could, she dismissed him.
Once he had left the room, she took her letter out of her pocket. She had not been going to send it, thinking that she would see Caroline soon, but she changed her mind. She wanted to see if a letter sent from the castle would arrive. If it never reached its destination, then it was possible that Aunt Hester had written to her, but that Aunt Hester’s letter had never reached its destination, either.
Finding sealing wax in the drawer, she was about to apply it to her letter when she paused. If Dawkins read it – and having met him, she would not put it past him – she did not want him to discover that she was not Mrs Reynolds. She found paper and a quill, and she rewrote the letter. As she began to write, she was pleased with the pen’s smoothness, and was reminded of Aunt Hester, who had prided herself on her quills. She had told Helena on more than one occasion that she could not hope to wri
te a neat hand with an ill-mended pen, advice that had gone home, for Helena had always admired her aunt’s handwriting.
She thought for a few minutes, composing the letter carefully in her head, and then began to write.
My dearest Caroline,
I have arrived at the castle, and his lordship has given me the position as his new housekeeper. I have not found what I was looking for, but I have not despaired of finding it either, and mean to persevere. I am sure you will be pleased to know that I am well. You will not have time to write me more than a line or two, I don’t suppose, but let me know if you are well, and if you hear anything of H, please let me know. You may send your reply to me here at the castle. Address it to:
Mrs Reynolds
Torkrow Castle
Seremoor
Yorkshire
Fondest regards,
Your dear friend
She scrawled an illegible signature at the bottom of the letter, then sanded it, and, when it had dried, she folded it and fastened it with sealing wax. Then she went out into the hall, and looked about her for the table.
Seen in full daylight, the hall was even larger than she had imagined, and just as austere. The light glinted on the silver armour and lit the stone with a cold light.
Her eye fell on the oak table, and she crossed to it and put her letter in the bowl. There were no further letters there, and she wondered how long it would be before it was sent.
She heard a clanking sound and started, but, turning round, she saw that it was only Effie, carrying a bucket of coal towards the housekeeper’s room. As she watched her, Helena thought that, although the girl was young and nervous, if she was capable of going through the housekeeper’s desk, she might also be capable of tampering with the mail. Perhaps she had interfered with it innocently, dropping the bowl as she dusted beneath it, and seeing that a letter was damaged, perhaps she had taken it in order to escape a scolding. It was possible.
She questioned the girl gently, but Effie maintained that she never touched the mail, so she let her go about her business.
Who else crossed the hall in the course of the day? she wondered, as she glanced at her letter, which lay defenceless in the bowl. Mrs Beal might venture into the hall occasionally, but Helena did not believe Mrs Beal would interfere with the post. And then there was Miss Parkins. Helena shivered as she thought of the waxen face and the long, cold hands. Miss Parkins would be capable of taking one of Aunt Hester’s letters, but why?