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Miss Dunn hovered at the door, picking at a flake of paint at its edge. The moment stretched and quivered, and then she glanced up with a swift, unconvincing smile. ‘Well. I should let you get on.’
Kate didn’t argue. ‘Thank you—for the dress.’
‘You’re welcome. It’s the least I can do.’
She seemed to regret the words before she’d even finished speaking them. Flustered, her fingers went to the white ribbon on her dress, and she gave Kate a curt nod, almost trapping her skirts in the door in her haste to close it firmly behind her.
Chapter 25
The air smelled of iron and stung like splinters. The ground Jem had walked over from the house was hard, each blade of grass edged with frost. Early afternoon and the sky had an odd yellow tinge. The bare trees were a scribble of black against it.
It was going to snow.
The hills were already blanked out. Day by day he had watched the snow thicken on the tops, until it was hard to make out where the icy horizon met the hard white sky. As the temperature dropped, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the outside world was disappearing; that they were being sealed off.
In the servants’ basement, Susan listed signs and portents—a halo around the moon, the sheep huddling together under the trees—and Mrs Gatley talked about previous winters when Coldwell had been cut off for weeks, inaccessible to the grocer’s cart, the postman’s bicycle, visitors. Her tone was one of I-told-you-so warning: Lady Hyde had been daft to make all those grand Christmas plans. If the weather closed in, no one would be coming to Coldwell.
Nor leaving neither.
Those words had haunted Jem these past few days. The thought of them all being trapped together, beyond reach of the outside world, filled him with an unease he couldn’t shake off.
His patience was as brittle as the twigs underfoot. He didn’t trust himself not to snap at the slightest provocation from Henderson, so he avoided him as much as possible. Still, he was always aware of him, watching, like he had that day at the gate lodge, never letting Jem forget he was on borrowed time. And so, as the days darkened and the weather closed in, Jem had the sense of something gathering to a head. The atmosphere shifting, as if some sort of reckoning was coming.
Instinct told him to leave while he still could, but the next quarter day, when wages would be paid, was at Christmas, and it pained him to leave without what he was owed. And, of course, there was Kate. If he had his way, he would leave with her, but, having forfeited that chance, he wouldn’t go without her blessing at least.
The wicker hamper he carried bumped painfully against his leg and he shifted it to the other hand, so it bashed the other shin. It was less of a weight now, returning to the house, than it had been when he’d brought it out, laden with hot soup, game pie, jars of chutney, bottles of claret and port. The novelty of the new gamekeeper hadn’t yet worn off, and Hyde went out to play with his guns most days, picking off the game birds that had been allowed to breed undisturbed during the years when there had been no ritual of annual slaughter at Coldwell. Today he had demanded a picnic lunch, a table and canvas chair at which to eat it, and a man to serve it. As first footman that dubious honour went to Thomas, thank Christ. Jem had only to trail back and forth, burdened with cushions, china crockery, silver cutlery, and rugs to bring indoor comfort to Hyde’s outdoor whimsy.
Thomas, poor sod, had looked frozen to the bone when Jem had unloaded the hamper. He was wearing one of the old coachmen’s coats, but even so, his ears were scarlet, his lips almost blue, and he had seized the jar of soup and clutched it against his body to absorb the warmth for a few moments. Jem had promised to bring two small jars of hot water to slip into his pockets when he came back with Hyde’s plum crumble and coffee.
Leaving the cover of the woods, he paused and set down the hamper, flexing his stiff hand. It took a moment for him to notice that it had begun to snow: fine white flakes, barely there. Not heavy enough to fall properly, they blew on the wind, like ash.
He was bending to pick up the hamper when he became aware of movement between the trees to his left. He didn’t look round immediately, but busied himself unfastening the hamper and making a show of looking inside, unhurried.
‘It’s cold out, Davy,’ he called out casually. ‘Starting to snow too. You’d better get yourself off home.’
He stood up as he finished speaking, and caught a glimpse of Davy Wells’s scowling face before he darted clumsily behind a tree, leaving half of himself still visible.
Abandoning the hamper, Jem trudged towards the tree, and the shoulder and arm that stuck out from behind it.
‘It’ll take you a good while to walk back to the village from here, Davy. Set off now and go quickly and you’ll be back in the warmth before your mum starts to worry. She won’t want you being out in the snow, will she?’
Davy didn’t move. Keeping his head bent, he didn’t look at Jem either. It was as if he was hoping to make himself invisible so Jem would leave him alone.
Jem sighed, at a loss. Already the snow was falling faster, more decisively. The flakes were still fine, but they had lost their timidness and the air was a mass of swirling white, softening the great solid shape of the house, almost obliterating the dark tower at the top of the hill. Jem thought of the walk across the park and the time it would take, and the ever-present uneasiness quickened. The hamper stood where he’d left it, waiting to be carried back to the kitchen and refilled. He couldn’t offer to take Davy back himself, though something told him he ought to.
He tried again.
‘You’re not supposed to be here anymore, Davy. Remember?’ Pausing, he lowered his voice, his eyes darting back towards the woods. ‘Look, if Henderson sees you, you’ll be in trouble. He’s out shooting with Sir Randolph—’
The name had a dramatic effect. Davy cowered away and clapped his hands to his ears, his face screwed up in anguish.
‘Davy—it’s all right—’
Alarmed, Jem reached out to reassure him, but Davy twisted away and stumbled a few paces backwards. With a panicked glance at Jem, he turned and began to run.
‘Davy!’
But he didn’t look back.