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He’d never come across one like Mrs Furniss; an aloof beauty with a cool, blue gaze that he felt might see straight through his tissue of falsehoods and fabrications. She was the last thing he had expected in this neglected, out-of-the way place, and for some reason that jolted him.
As if reading his mind, she looked up and caught him staring at her. It seemed she was about to say something but was interrupted by the scrape of a chair from the other end of the table as the butler got to his feet, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. A murmured groan went round the table as cutlery clattered down onto unfinished plates (the standard servants’ hall rule that everyone had to stop eating when the butler did was one of the reasons Jem had preferred work in a hotel). Beside him, Thomas crammed in a last mouthful of ham and piccalilli as they all stood up.
The butler drew himself upright from his habitual stoop and peered down his long nose at the rows of servants on either side of the table. ‘This is an important evening for Coldwell and its visitors,’ he said in his rusty voice. ‘I ask everyone to do Sir Henry proud. Let us make it an occasion to remember.’
The impact of this speech was slightly diminished by the distant slam of a door and the advance of heavy footsteps. The cook’s voice echoed along the passageway. ‘Right, then, everyone, let’s get this ruddy show on the road.’
Without turning his head, Jem knew the housekeeper’s gaze was still on him. The moment she looked away, he felt it. As if some physical contact had been broken.
Chapter 3
It had been a long time since a formal dinner had been held at Coldwell.
Usually, old Sir Henry had his meals at a small table in the Yellow Parlour or on a tray in his bedroom, but that night, the dining room had been opened up; aired, dusted, and polished to within an inch of its life. When Kate brought up the floral centrepiece for the table, created from the sparse materials available in the gardens (more lilac—the poor plundered tree—filled out with plenty of trailing ivy) she was satisfied with what she saw.
With the blinds lowered against the deepening evening, the bald patches on the dark green flocked wallpaper were less obvious, and the room was alive with candlelight. It glinted off the gold rims of the Spode dinner service and Indian silverware, brought back from the subcontinent by generations of Hydes who had followed the family tradition of serving in the East India Company. The house, like some ancient dowager duchess, had been woken up and decked in the finest trappings of Empire, the best family jewels, ready to receive her guests.
It was a different story downstairs. As the family and guests assembled in the drawing room, Mrs Gatley, her face glistening like a boiled ham, shouted a mixture of instructions, invectives, and prayers through the swirling steam while Susan scuttled between stove and scullery. A trio of girls, fetched from the nearest village of Howden Bridge for pot-washing duties, huddled in the passage, whispering behind their hands and gaping at the footmen. Walter Cox strutted up and down in the formal livery he had brought with him from the London house, which was newer and smarter than the ancient ones from the Coldwell wardrobe, its brass buttons untarnished, its scarlet cuffs unfrayed. Beside him, Thomas and the new footman looked like they’d stepped out of the sepia servant photographs on the wall of the kitchen passage: the ghosts of the men who had first worn the faded, braided tailcoats and white knee-breeches to climb the same stairs and carry the same silver serving dishes more than a century before.
Kate had seen the new footman looking at those photographs. He’d turned away guiltily when he heard her approach, as if she’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t. It occurred to her that he might be looking for someone in particular, someone who had worked here, in which case he would likely be disappointed: the most recent photograph was over ten years old. The tradition of the biannual servants’ hall portrait was just one of the many things at Coldwell that Sir Henry had neglected to maintain.
She couldn’t deny that there was something about Jem Arden that bothered her. Something that didn’t quite add up. He had gone out of his way by some considerable margin to secure the footman’s position (which in itself was unusual) and yet he didn’t seem pleased to be here. She had watched him at teatime, noticing that he seemed ill at ease and ate hardly anything. She wondered what had compelled him to leave his employment in the bustling Station Hotel and cross the moors to this place.
Servants’ halls were full of secrets. Character references were full of lies.
Maybe she was reading too much into it. Maybe Jem Arden was simply regretting his decision; he’d probably expected Coldwell Hall to be a much grander and more comfortably appointed situation. He wouldn’t be the only one to find the place unsatisfactory. He wouldn’t be the first to stay only a few days before heading off down the drive, back to civilisation.
Just as long as he waited until Miss Addison’s visit was over, she thought grimly. It didn’t matter what had brought Jem Arden to Coldwell, or whether he liked it, so long as he provided the benefit of his handsome face and fine, liveried physique for the next three days, and left the girls alone.
After that, he could join the ranks of faded, forgotten figures who had marched before him through Coldwell’s basements and back stairs, before disappearing, never to be heard of again.
Thomas didn’t lose his temper easily, but Walter Cox was sorely testing his patience.
As if it wasn’t hard enough, three of them serving a five-course dinner in full livery with Mr Goddard watching like a hawk from his place by the sideboard. The last thing they needed was Cox showing off and fooling about, necking wine from bottles the minute he was through the dining room door and tossing grapes in the air to catch in his mouth. Mrs Furniss had caught him in the kitchen passage, swiping an almost full glass of champagne from a tray Thomas was carrying, and given them a tongue-lashing that ended with a threat to dock both their wages.
It was ruddy unfair.
The new lad wasn’t much help, either. Thomas wasn’t sure how dinner was served at the Station Hotel in Sheffield, but he would have thought they’d have to be a bit more on the ball than Jem Arden had been, serving the first course. Maybe he was nervous, but that was no excuse for sloshing consommé over the side of the bowl, so it nearly splashed into Randolph Hyde’s lap. You’d think he’d never set foot in a dining room before.
Maybe it was the heat, which billowed steamily through the downstairs passages and made his shirt stick to his back. Depositing a serving dish containing the ruins of Mrs Gatley’s poached salmon in the scullery, Thomas tore his white gloves off and pushed past Susan at the sink to plunge his hands under a stream of cold water.
‘Just be glad those old wigs weren’t fit for use,’ Susan remarked sympathetically. ‘They’d be the devil to wear in this heat.’
Thomas, drying his hands on the dish towel she held out, gave a grudging grunt of agreement.
It had been years since the white powdered wigs worn as part of the formal livery had last been needed, and when they were taken out from the cupboard in the footmen’s wardrobe they were found to be as yellowed and patchy as the stuffed ferrets in the glass case on the garden corridor.
‘Don’t get too excited,’ Walter Cox said knowingly, swaggering in behind him with a tray of glasses. ‘When Mr Hyde takes over it’s my guess you’ll be getting new wigs, and new livery too. Likes his footmen to look the business, Mr Hyde does.’ He winked at the village girl who was unloading the tray. ‘Come to think of it, he might look to get some new footmen while he’s about it.’
‘You cheeky sod—’
It was the final straw. Without thinking, Thomas flicked the dish towel in Walter’s direction, but Walter dodged aside and darted out into the corridor just as Mrs Furniss appeared in the doorway. She opened her mouth to issue a reprimand, but only managed a gasp as Cox nearly collided with the new footman coming the other way, a laden tray in his outstretched arms.
Time faltered and stalled.
Kate heard Jem Arden spit out a curse and saw the stack of plates teeter. The Spode sauceboat tipped. For a second, she was frozen, helpless… before the world jerked into motion again and she was lunging forwards, somehow managing to catch it as it fell.
Dimly, she was aware of Walter tossing an apology over his shoulder as he ran up the stairs. She would have to deal with him later, and Thomas, who was hovering miserably behind her, his face a picture of contrition. For now, her skirts were splashed with hollandaise, and the new footman was standing in front of her, his face ashen and his lips white.