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It was barmy, in Eliza’s opinion.
All this performance for a fanciful childish notion. But that was how it was, she supposed: if you were a lady, married to a baronet, you could indulge your fanciful, childish notions, and get other people to indulge them too. Lady Hyde stood beside Mrs Gatley, pink-cheeked with her own importance as Mr Goddard stood by to announce each member of staff.
Standing in the doorway, Eliza watched Mrs Furniss take her turn to stir and felt her insides curdle with resentment. The housekeeper’s expression was perfectly composed, as if butter wouldn’t melt. As if she was every inch the respectable senior servant that everyone believed her to be.
What did you wish for, Eliza wondered bitterly, when you had your cake and could eat it too?
A little voice inside her head whispered the answer.
Not to be discovered. And she felt a little beat of satisfaction at the knowledge that she had the power to grant that wish or shatter it.
Jem’s broad back and bent head entered Eliza’s view and she averted her eyes. At least now she knew not to waste her effort on him. Of course, she wished she’d realised earlier and not made such a display of herself, but it was too late for that.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, her ma used to say. Eliza had spent the last three weeks wishing that Dr Octavius Pink’s Female Pills had done what they were supposed to; wishing she’d saved her 2/6; wishing she’d never been stupid enough to fall for Walter Cox’s flattery, nor even set foot in London at all.
A ripple went through her belly, as if a shoal of little fishes were swimming there.
A fat lot of good wishing had done her.
What she needed now was a bloody miracle.
On the first day of December, Kate woke to ice on the inside of the window and a thick furring of hoarfrost on the branches outside.
In the days that followed, the cold only deepened and the earth hardened to iron, like in the Christmas carol. The needle of the barometer in the marble hall swung round to the left and stayed there. The world was bleached of all its colours, iced white like the trays of spiced currant cakes Mrs Gatley turned out in preparation for the Christmas guests. The final descent of the drive glistened treacherously, and Mr Pearson’s lad, bringing the fortnightly order with all the festive treats Lady Hyde had requested, refused to risk his horse by bringing the cart down, so the Twigg boys had to unload packages of tea and tapioca, paper-swathed sugar loaves and crates of fragrant oranges, and bring them to the house in barrows.
Gatley came in from the kitchen garden with potatoes and swedes, too heavy for Mrs Gatley to carry. He lingered in the kitchen, blowing steam from a mug of tea and grumbling about Lady Hyde’s request for a Christmas tree. ‘Seems folly to cut a fine old tree for a week or two of decoration. Sir Randolph won’t like it, I’m sure.’
A new keeper had finally been found and had moved into the cottage in the woods. Arthur Platt brought neither wife nor children with him, only a retriever with a rosy golden coat and a far friendlier disposition than its master. Kate had had no involvement in Platt’s recruitment, and aside from the Sunday when they had all had to play their part in the stirring of the Christmas pudding, had barely seen him; but when she crossed the yard to the laundry, she heard the distant crack of gunshots. They ricocheted between the bare trees and echoed over the frozen park.
The hapless Doris was given the unpopular task of plucking the pheasants that duly arrived in the game larder. She sat on a stool in the yard, red-eyed with crying and red-nosed from the cold, tearing soft feathers from limp bodies, until the air was a swirl of white; a forewarning of the snow that already lay on the distant hills. With Sir Randolph back at Coldwell, Frederick Henderson haunted the gun room at the end of the passage beyond the butler’s pantry, rubbing dubbin into Sir Randolph’s shooting brogues, cleaning his Purdey sidelocks, and oiling his Holland & Holland 12-bores. One afternoon, going to collect cream from the dairy for Lady Hyde’s scones, Kate passed the lighted window and saw him in there, bent over the table as he polished. When she came back, he was standing up, testing the weight of a shotgun against his shoulder, adjusting the balance. As she watched, he closed one eye and looked down the gleaming barrel, as if taking aim.
That evening, in her lamplit attic room, Kate opened each of her drawers in turn and surveyed the contents.
When she had taken a tea tray up to the Jaipur Bedroom that afternoon, Lady Hyde and Miss Dunn had been unpacking boxes that had been delivered from Kendal Milne department store in Manchester. The bed was heaped with garments, and snowy drifts of tissue paper had settled on the carpet.
‘So nice to have something to dress up for, at long last,’ Lady Hyde said, holding an evening dress of emerald silk against herself. ‘I think I might wear this for the servants’ ball…’ She had looked up at Kate, who was setting the tray down on the table by the fire. ‘Have you chosen what you’re wearing, Mrs Furniss? You always look so elegant, I’m sure you’ll put us all to shame.’
‘Oh, I—’ It seemed rude to confess that she hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. ‘You’re very kind, madam, but I don’t really have anything special… I must think about it though. Thank you for the reminder.’
She pulled open the lowest drawer and peered in without hope. Folded at the bottom was her best silk dress; black, of course. She shook it out and squinted at it in the dim light, but there was nothing much to see. All that could be said of it was that it was serviceable, which was all it had ever been required to be.
She should seek only to look neat, professional, presentable. Why would she want to appear attractive?
A knock at the door made her heart jolt, providing the unwelcome answer to that unspoken question. Of course, it wasn’t Jem who came in, but Miss Dunn, mumbling an apology and carrying something draped over her arm.
‘I brought you this—I hope you don’t mind.’ She spoke quickly, darting across to the bed and laying a dress out on it. ‘It’s an old one of Lady Hyde’s which I remodelled. I thought it was too pretty to get rid of, but I doubt she’ll fit into it again. It’s not exactly the latest fashion and it might not be to your taste, but…’ She hurried back to the door. ‘Well. It’s there, if you want it.’
In the lamplight, Kate could see the glitter of sequins, and a chiffon sleeve fluttered in the draught. The dress was midnight blue, with a square neckline and a high waist; it was so far removed from the items that made up Lady Hyde’s current wardrobe that Kate could only imagine the amount of remodelling it had undergone. She was a little lost for words.
‘Thank you,’ she managed. ‘How very kind…’
Through the long, flat weeks of early winter, when Lady Hyde had been struggling to get to grips with the huge changes her marriage had brought, Miss Dunn had been kept busy, altering dresses to suit her mistress’s new role (and to fit her expanding figure—which was, as far as Kate could make out, due to the comfort she found in afternoon tea and Mrs Gatley’s puddings rather than anything more significant). The night of the wedding dance, when Miss Dunn had knocked on Kate’s door so late, had never been mentioned, and certainly never repeated. Sometimes Kate wondered what had brought her there, and felt mildly guilty for not being more welcoming.
But only mildly. For years she had gone out of her way to avoid friendships and familiarity, the swapping of stories and sharing of secrets. She had protected her solitude. She had no wish to change that now, especially for Lady Hyde’s rather serious maid.
Miss Dunn shrugged. ‘Not at all. I just think we women should stick together… Especially—’ she faltered, her heavy brows pulling together in a frown. ‘Especially in a house like this.’
The comment took Kate by surprise. Had something happened to Miss Dunn? Had Henderson—? She opened her mouth to ask, but found she didn’t know how to frame the question without revealing her own experience, which was a confidence she couldn’t afford to give away.