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There was no ceremony and no ritual to mark a bereavement of that kind. Just silence, and absence, and bitterness.
It was after midnight when she went through to the little panelled chamber that opened off her parlour and got stiffly into bed. Mrs Walton, her elderly predecessor, had moved her bedroom down here from the maids’ attic when the stairs became too arduous for her to manage. Mostly Kate was happy with the arrangement—in winter, it was warmer in the passages near to the kitchen, and in the summer, the stone flags and lack of sunlight kept her room cool. But tonight, the confined space made her feel trapped. Its wood-panelled walls were like the inside of a coffin.
The day behind her seemed to have been stretched out of all recognisable shape; it felt like a week since she had departed for Hatherford, and the fair. As she lay in the dark, a procession of images flickered through her head, like the jerky moving-picture reel she had seen at a travelling fair on Clifton Down one summer. When she finally slipped into uneasy sleep it was to find herself walking through a crowd of stiff-limbed figures in mourning black who turned to stare at her with accusing eyes that said, That’s her.
She woke suddenly, disorientated and damp with sweat.
Her shadow lurched across the panelled wall as she struck a match and held it to the candle, driving back the darkness. Gradually her heart slowed and the blood beat more gently in her ears, but the feeling of disquiet persisted: a primitive instinct for danger which wouldn’t be dismissed.
She got up, wincing at the cold of the floor, and took her candle out into the parlour. Before she had reached the door a faint noise stopped her in her tracks: a high-pitched creak, familiar and unmistakable. The noise made by the hinges of the green baize door at the top of the basement stairs.
Her pulse rocketed again, but after a moment’s hesitation, she covered the remaining distance to the door and opened it softly. Out in the passageway the candle flame dipped and guttered in an invisible breath of air. She moved silently, holding the candle high in front of her, though it was difficult to see anything beyond its circle of light. Her blood felt hot and stinging in her veins. The light crept ahead of her into the kitchen passage and licked at the feet of a figure on the stairs.
She glimpsed it for a second only before the panicked jolt of her hand made the candle splutter and go out.
‘It’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about.’
Jem Arden’s voice came from the shadows, steady and low. She heard him come down the last few stairs and could see the white of his shirt, though the rest of him was lost to the darkness.
‘What are you doing down here?’
‘I swapped places with Joseph. He was done in when they came back, and not feeling well, so I said he could have my bed. Just as well. I heard something upstairs and thought I should check.’
They were whispering. Mr Goddard’s bedroom was beyond the butler’s pantry at the far end of the kitchen passage; but even so, the lateness of the hour, the stillness of the house, the darkness—as velvet soft and quiet as a cat’s paw—made their voices so low they were little more than a breath.
‘Was someone there?’
She remembered what Lady Etchingham’s maid had said about the break-ins, and suddenly had that old, unwelcome sensation of being watched. Her eyes darted around, probing the shadows.
‘I don’t know. I’ve checked all the main rooms and can’t see anything amiss. I can’t get into the library though.’
Sleep-slowed thoughts tumbled over each other in her mind. The disquiet from the dream still lingered, along with the irrational fear that it might have been more than a dream. A premonition. Her husband and tormentor had slipped out of the past and finally found her, as he’d said he would. He was here, at Coldwell.
You made a promise, don’t forget. To honour and obey, till death do us part. I never go back on my word, and I expect the same from other people, Katherine. No one breaks a promise to me and gets away with it.
She shook her head, trying to dispel the demons. Alec Ross was miles away, in Bristol. There was no way he could have discovered her, much less broken into the house in the middle of the night to reclaim her. She was being ridiculous. Hysterical and unhinged, like he’d always said she was.
Jem Arden touched her arm, just lightly, and his hand was warm through the thin cotton of her nightgown. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry to have caused you alarm. Go back to bed. I’ll have a proper look around outside, just to make sure, but it was probably only the wind. It’s quite safe, I promise.’
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded and did as he said. It was a relief to return to her room, knowing that he was there and had taken charge. His presence—his certainty—reassured her, and as she got back into bed her mind was easier.
This time her sleep was undisturbed by dreams.
Sir Henry Hyde returned to Coldwell on a bright May morning in a black carriage with the blinds pulled down, drawn by four black horses. Word of his death had spread; and although he couldn’t be said to be a popular figure in the locality, the roadside by the gate lodge was lined with people—tenant farmers and villagers—drawn by old custom, superstition, and curiosity. They fell silent, pulling off their caps and bowing their heads as the carriage rattled past.
Inside the house it was as dark as an endless winter’s evening, with the blinds drawn and the mirrors draped in black. Mr Goddard, stooped and stricken, made his usual ponderous circuit of the Coldwell clocks, but instead of winding them, he silenced their ticking and circled the hands back to the time of Sir Henry’s passing (or the time that it had been discovered, the old man having slipped away quietly at some point between his bedtime brandy and morning tea).
Mrs Bryant had sent a lengthy reply to Kate’s letter, though its erratic spelling and complete lack of punctuation made her instructions difficult to understand. Fortunately, it transpired that Susan was a mine of information when it came to the rituals of mourning. On her authority, the few photographs of the deceased had been laid face downwards and his portrait in the dining room covered, though it turned out her expertise didn’t make her any less jittery about having a corpse in the house.
Sir Henry’s open coffin was carried up to the bedroom he had so recently occupied and laid in the centre of his vast four-poster. As the family arrived for the funeral—along with Miss Addison and Sir Henry’s land agent, physician, and solicitor—Kate found herself once more in the position of managing a house party, but one for which she’d had no chance to prepare. In the kitchen, Mrs Gatley stomped around, muttering darkly about the impossibility of producing a succession of lunches and five-course dinners at a moment’s notice, and with only the chime of the clock in the stable yard to help her with timings. She didn’t quite come out and say that Sir Henry might have had the decency to die with a bit more warning, but it was clear the thought was in her mind.
The day before the funeral chairs were placed around the bed in Sir Henry’s room, for the family to gather and pay their final respects. For the most part, they remained empty; Sir Henry’s nearest and dearest passed dutifully through the room but didn’t linger. However, custom dictated that someone must sit with the body throughout the night before the burial. Mr Goddard (who, it seemed, was the only one who felt any genuine grief at the old man’s passing) went up to take his turn as soon as his presence in the dining room was no longer required. He maintained his private vigil with the man he had served for thirty-two years, until midnight, when Thomas and Jem took over.
‘Rather you than me,’ said Abigail with a shudder, as they emerged from the footmen’s wardrobe dressed in their formal livery. Thomas’s face was as white as his shirtfront, making his freckles stand out like a sprinkling of nutmeg on a milk pudding.
‘The dead can’t hurt you,’ Jem said grimly, slipping a small pewter flask into his inside pocket. ‘But they’re really boring company. It’s going to be a very long night.’
He knew it would happen.