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‘I don’t—’ Her voice has dried to a husk. Her heart seems to have ballooned and is booming inside her chest. ‘I mean, how do you—?’
‘I haven’t got time to explain—Sister will skin me alive if she catches me here. His name is Joseph Jones, Fifteenth Battalion, Sherwood Foresters—I undressed him when he came in, and in his tunic pocket I found this.’
From the pocket beneath her apron, she produces a letter, and shoves it towards her. On the grimy envelope it says Miss Eliza Simmons.
The handwriting.…
She knows it immediately. Stars burst like fireworks inside her. The words shimmer and blur in front of her eyes as the blood beats hotly in her head.
‘That’s you, isn’t it? I’m not wrong, am I? Nurse Williams said we should hand everything over to Matron to go through, but—well, if it is you, and not another Eliza Simmons, I was quite sure you wouldn’t want Matron reading your business, and it would be jolly annoying if this got posted on to’—she glances at the envelope—‘Little Langley in Nottinghamshire, when you’re right here.’ There are spots of colour on Nurse Frankland’s china doll cheeks, suggesting that there had been some disagreement over this decision. ‘And if you don’t know Private Jones, and it’s just a coincidence, I’ll slip it back with his other things.’ She shoots another glance over her shoulder, and turns back expectantly. ‘So, do you? Know him?’
Joseph Jones. Skinny Joseph from the Sheffield Union Workhouse with his bony knees and birds’-wing shoulder blades. Surely he isn’t old enough to be fighting in France?
‘Yes, I know him.’
Her voice is little more than a whisper, but Nurse Frankland’s face breaks into a beaming smile and she gives her hands an excited little clap. ‘Oh, phew—thank goodness for that! Thought I’d made a chump of myself for nothing for a minute. Wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway—I’d better dash—’
‘How is he?’
‘Oh—you know…’ A shadow passes over her face. ‘Bullet wound to the thigh, and he was out in no man’s land for an awfully long time. Heatstroke and sunburn haven’t helped. He was brought in by a friend, apparently… a few more hours and he wouldn’t have made it. Come and see for yourself before you go.’
‘Yes,’ she says faintly. ‘Thank you.’
She wants to, but she can’t.
Of course she can’t.
Because Joseph knows that she is not Eliza Simmons, and the letter is not intended for her. He will recognise her and name her for who she is: Mrs Kate Furniss, disgraced housekeeper of Coldwell Hall.
He will say she is a murderess.
Winter
Chapter 22
‘I’ll need currants and beef suet. Candied peel…’ Mrs Gatley crashed pans in the kitchen, raising her voice over the cacophony of her own racket. ‘Mixed spice, I daresay—I’ll have to look out a recipe. It’s been a good while since I’ve had to bother with fancy festive folderols, but if her ladyship wants a traditional Christmas with all the trimmings, what does it matter what I think?’
She slammed a roasting tin down on the range, conveying her thoughts on Lady Hyde’s tentative Christmas plans very clearly indeed. ‘Seven guests for five days? Who on earth is she thinking will trail out here for that long in the depths of December?’
Kate picked at a crusted spill at the edge of the table, missed by Susan’s cloth. ‘Well… Lord and Lady Etchingham, of course… And Lady Hyde’s father and an aunt, I think…’
She trailed off. She had only just left the Yellow Parlour, which Lady Hyde had chosen as her sitting room and the place where she conducted daily meetings with Kate to discuss household matters, but already the details of what they had discussed escaped her. As Lady Hyde had chattered on about plans for Christmas—still almost two months away—Kate’s attention had wandered as it so often did lately; her head as light as a balloon, only loosely tethered to the body in which she went through the days.
Outside, the park was a blur of brown, the outlines of trees and hedges smudged by the rain running down the window. The year had entered the tunnel of winter, with all the extra labour and inconvenience that entailed. The servants rose in frozen darkness to clean grates and lay fires, and the days were a race to complete the household tasks before the light faded again. That morning, writing the date in her ledger—November 1st—Kate had thought back to the syrupy heat of summer, but it felt improbable now, impossible to recapture. It was hard to believe she hadn’t imagined it.
Along with everything else.
‘Yes,’ Lady Hyde had said, with a brave attempt at conviction, ‘I think that will be just what we all need, don’t you? A lovely festive celebration, with the house lit up and decorated with as much greenery as Gatley can supply. Singing and games by the drawing room fire, and dear Papa and Aunt Ethel here.’ Her eyes had grown suddenly bright and damp then, and she’d rummaged in her sleeve for her handkerchief. ‘I wonder if we might be able to organise a group of carol singers to come from the village? We could give them sherry and mince pies for their trouble. I’m sure Mrs Gatley will be up to the challenge, won’t she? I know it’ll mean more work for her, but she can begin preparations now. The Christmas cake can be made and set aside, and of course, the pudding should be made on Stir-up Sunday, in the last week of November. It’s a tradition I’ve kept since childhood. We must all take a turn in the stirring—all the servants too—and make a wish for the year ahead.’
Kate had pressed her lips together, holding back the sour torrent of cynicism that threatened to spill out over Lady Hyde’s determined optimism. It would take more than wishes or childhood rituals to rid Coldwell of the misery that weighted the air in its upstairs rooms and seeped through the basement like smog.
‘Well, we’ll see what Sir Randolph has to say about it when he gets back,’ Mrs Gatley said knowingly now, bustling past Kate to collect a bowl of eggs from the dresser. In the weeks since the wedding, unspecified business had taken Sir Randolph away from Coldwell on several occasions, accompanied by his valet and chauffeur. These periods of absence were a relief to everyone, though the inevitability of their return, the knowledge that the reprieve was temporary, cast its own shadow.
Mrs Gatley plucked off a feather that had stuck to one of the eggshells. ‘I can’t see him agreeing to spending Christmas out here with his sister and some old maiden aunt of her ladyship’s. That’s if his sister even agrees to come… Anyone who’d willingly leave Whittam Park for this draughty old place should be spending Christmas in the county asylum, if you ask me. Place the orders at Pearson’s by all means, but I won’t get myself worked up about a Christmas house party just yet. My guess is it’ll come to nothing, like all of Madam’s other grand plans.’ She cracked an egg into a bowl and gave a scornful laugh. ‘A sewing circle in the village—wasn’t that one of them? I could have told her that was a non-starter. As if most of us have got time to sit around doing fancy embroidery on church kneelers.’
Kate watched the feather drift on one of the icy draughts that curled through the downstairs rooms. She couldn’t argue. It was true that Sir Randolph’s bride had come to Coldwell with an abundance of rather childlike enthusiasm for the role of lady of the manor. In the weeks immediately following the wedding, there had been an air of brisk purpose about the meetings in the Yellow Parlour, which had provided a welcome distraction for Kate. Noting down her ladyship’s plans and requirements—when she would need the carriage and what to put in the baskets of provisions she took on her visits to the elderly and sick in the village—had given her something other than the gulf between her and Jem to think about.
For a little while, at least.