Page 68 of The Housekeeper's Secret

But, as autumn hardened into winter, Lady Hyde’s cheerful determination had faltered. Her baskets of Gatley’s apples and plums had been accepted without grace or gratitude at cottage doorways through which she was never invited, and her suggestions for a sewing circle and a Mothers’ Union were met with stony cynicism by harried women to whom sewing and motherhood were part of the tough warp and weft of their lives rather than a pretty embellishment upon it.

‘You can’t blame her for trying.’ There was a low note of weariness in Kate’s voice. ‘She’s just trying to make the best of things, like all of us.’

Mrs Gatley snorted. ‘Things would be a lot more pleasant round here if folks weren’t going around with faces like a wet weekend in Blackpool. I don’t know what’s come over everyone lately, I really don’t.’

She wouldn’t, Kate thought.

Mrs Gatley didn’t eat her meals in the servants’ hall. She returned to the cottage in the kitchen garden at the end of the day, and remained unaware of the undercurrents that swirled through the basement, as icy as the draughts. Inconceivable as it seemed, the cook probably hadn’t noticed that Kate went to elaborate lengths to avoid Frederick Henderson—leaving a room if he entered it, making any necessary communications with him via a third party. When she was there, Mrs Gatley moved in a whirlwind of her own preoccupations, too caught up to notice the chasm of silence that had opened up between Kate and Jem, too busy to listen to the whispered reports about what went on upstairs or register the tight set of Miss Dunn’s mouth when she came down from her mistress’s rooms.

The sharp jangle of the bell at the back door saved Kate from having to think up a reply. ‘That’ll be the post,’ Eliza said, appearing in the kitchen doorway so quickly that she could only have been hovering outside. ‘Thomas is cleaning the silver—shall I get it?’

Usually the girls were discouraged from opening the door to the postman, who fancied himself a ladies’ man, and kept them talking too long and in a way that was too familiar for Kate’s liking.

‘Where’s Jem?’

‘Day off!’ Eliza called, already halfway down the passage to the door. ‘Left just after breakfast.’

Kate’s heart twisted. Not so long ago she would have known when he was taking his day off and what he planned to do with it. She might have contrived a reason to absent herself from the house at the same time. But since That Night (which was how she had come to think of it), the closeness they had shared had dissolved, corroded by the acid of her bitterness.

She didn’t blame him for what Henderson had done. It had been her idea to go to the gamekeeper’s cottage that night; she had chosen to risk her reputation and her safety for a few forbidden hours of pleasure. Jem had sought her out the next day to apologise for leaving her there alone. He wanted to explain; but when he touched her, she had flinched away, and a new distance yawned between them. Alone? she hadn’t been able to stop herself from echoing scornfully. I wouldn’t have been afraid to be alone.

It would have been better not to say anything. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him what had happened, but he had worked it out, near enough. And then his anger had filled the space between them, impenetrable, like fog. Directed at Henderson, but chilling and choking her too. Closing her off.

High up on the kitchen window ledge, a hollowed-out turnip with a crudely cut gargoyle’s face leered down, giving off a sulphurous, rotting smell. Susan had insisted on carving several of them the previous day, for All-Hallows’ Eve, and placed them throughout the basement. To ward off evil, she’d said.

Kate thought about Henderson, on his way back from wherever Sir Randolph’s ‘business’ had taken them. She pictured him, sitting in the front seat beside the shadowy chauffeur, his eyes flicking over the passing landscape as the motorcar ate up the miles.

‘Susan, get rid of those turnips,’ she snapped. ‘They’re starting to smell.’

It would take more than a few decaying turnips to drive out the malevolence that lurked in the basement passages at Coldwell, thickening the air with cigar smoke, leaving the whiff of hair oil in its wake.

Jem’s coat was a threadbare jacket, its fabric worn to a shine about the pockets and thinned at the shoulder seams. Before he had passed the church, he could feel the rain seeping through it, wicking into his shirt and chilling his skin.

The discomfort was of his own choosing. There were several heavy livery coats in the footmen’s wardrobe, available for anyone’s use. These had seen decades of service, protecting Coldwell men from the savage Derbyshire weather as they rode on top of the carriage, but some private sense of defiance had prevented him from taking one. It was his day off. He didn’t have to be one of Baronet Bradfield’s men today. He didn’t want to wear his colours or bear his crest on the buttons of his coat. He would rather be soaked to the skin and shivering than be marked as the property of Randolph Hyde.

He kept his eyes downcast as he walked. There was nothing much to see anyway: the trees were stark and skeletal, stripped of their autumn colour, and clouds cloaked the surrounding hills, drawing the horizon closer so that the world was shrunk to the confines of the Coldwell’s park.

Jem’s thoughts felt similarly muffled. His perspective was altered and he had lost sight of the way ahead. He had arrived at Coldwell with nothing more than a few sketchy facts to hang his suspicion on. But now that he had uncovered the truth, and lost Kate in the process, he didn’t know what to do.

The wind buffeted about him, making his face ache with cold. Turning up the collar of his jacket he saw the gate lodge just ahead, a smudged shape huddled against the high wall of the park. Even from a distance it had a forlorn appearance, its windows dark, water falling in a steady stream from its leaf-choked gutters. As he got closer Jem could see that the apples Mrs Wells usually made into pies and chutneys had fallen from the tree and were rotting in the long grass. Weeds had already clambered over the path, as if the house had been empty for a year, rather than a month.

He’d been there on the mellow October day when Mrs Wells and Davy had moved out. He had helped to load their meagre possessions onto the cart, ready to travel the short distance to the damp cottage she had arranged to rent at the back of the White Hart in the village.

Mrs Wells had endured the upheaval with a sort of numb bewilderment, pausing to dab her eyes with a handkerchief as she took teacups down from her kitchen dresser and wrapped them in dish towels. The terse letter from Mr Fortescue had given no reason for their eviction, beyond the terms of their tenancy having expired, since neither she nor Davy were official employees of the estate. I don’t understand, she’d protested. It’s twelve years since my Harry passed away. Why now?

Davy was nowhere to be seen. When the cart was ready to leave, two of Gatley’s garden lads were summoned to comb the woods. They had found him, they told Jem later, right in the heart of one of the giant rhododendron bushes, crouched on the damp earth. ‘Never would have seen ’im in a million years,’ Bert Oakley had said. ‘Never would have found ’im if he hadn’t been making a noise. Sort of whimpering. Like a wounded animal.’

Jem stopped by the fence and looked at the forlorn cottage.

Henderson had come up on the afternoon of the move not on foot but in the passenger seat of the motorcar, driven by that shady bastard, Robson. He had watched as Jem and Stanley Twigg manhandled bedsteads and pot cupboards, crates of china and linen onto the cart, and finally the kitchen dresser itself. He had watched as Davy was escorted across the rough grass, the garden lads on either side of him, gripping his arms as if he were a felon they had apprehended. The valet had watched as Mrs Wells hurried up the path of the place that had been her home for more than thirty years and fussed over her boy, reaching up to brush leaves from his hair and wipe away the tracks his tears had made in the grime on his face, and then he had got out of the motor and walked over to take the key from her. As he tucked it into the pocket of his waistcoat, he had looked straight at Jem and smiled.

Jem was in no doubt who was behind the eviction. That smile had been a warning: a reminder of who held the power at Coldwell.

He had got rid of Davy, and he could get rid of Jem too, if he wanted.

When he wanted.

And there was nothing Jem could do about it.

Source: www.kdbookonline.com