Page 14 of The Housekeeper's Secret
He showed no sign of it. In the days that followed, as the work got properly underway and the kitchen yard rang with the voices of the laundrywomen and village girls who’d been drafted in to help, the epithets of ‘hardworking’ and ‘strong’ in his character proved well chosen. Furniture was hefted away from walls and rugs were rolled up and carried outside more quickly and efficiently than in any previous year Kate could remember.
In addition, he was easy company in the servants’ hall, diffusing the petty squabbles that erupted when days were long and tempers short. He made sure to compliment Susan, left in charge of cooking for the staff while Sir Henry was absent, on the meals she rather erratically produced; and in the evenings, while the others dealt hands of cards and gambled for matchsticks, he taught Joseph to play chess. Joseph the skinny hallboy, who had come to Coldwell from the Sheffield Union Workhouse, who slept on a shelf in front of the silver cupboard, and whose job was to do all the things that no one else wanted to. Who was usually left out of servants’ hall games or permitted only to take the role of scorer, ball retriever, or referee.
Arden was troublingly handsome too, which was the most highly prized asset for his role (she had overheard an exchange between the laundrywomen one day, with one remarking that he’d fill a livery suit very nicely indeed, and the other one commenting that he’d look even better without it.) All in all, he appeared to be the living embodiment of Mrs Beeton’s ideal footman.
So what was he doing at a lonely, left-behind place like Coldwell Hall?
The rhythm of the year was such that the end of the spring clean fortnight always coincided with Howden Bridge Fair, held on the first Monday in May on the expanse of open ground at the edge of the village.
Howden Bridge itself was small and unremarkable; a huddle of grey stone houses tumbled at the foot of the hillside, with a pub called the White Hart (a reference to Henry VIII’s legendary hunting coup); a school; a blacksmith’s forge and police house; and a tiny, cave-like village shop, poorly stocked with basic provisions. However, its position where the toll road to the north met the old packhorse route running from east to west had long made an obvious place for the trading of livestock. Over the years, the May sheep fair had grown in size and sophistication, drawing farmers, their wives, children, labourers, and maids from every village and lonely moorland farmstead in the Dark Peak, to enjoy novelty stalls, entertainments, food and ale, as well as the business of buying and selling animals. In this remote spot, it was the high point of the year.
It was also an incentive for the Coldwell staff to work hard on the spring clean; and after two weeks, all the major rooms had been turned out. Paintwork had been washed, floors waxed; every delicate china figurine had been wiped over; every gilded picture frame cleaned; and every item of intricate Indian silverware polished to a gleaming shine. Even the animals in the hallway had enjoyed their annual grooming, with Thomas and Jem taking turns to climb the ladders to rub oil into dull horns, brush clouds of dust from dead fur, and buff the tiger’s bared teeth so that Mrs Furniss could find no fault and Mr Goddard had to grudgingly agree to a rare day off for the whole household to attend the fair.
The spell of good weather held. Warmth was already thickening the air beneath the sloping attic ceiling as the girls got ready. Eliza had decided she was going to wear the muslin blouse with the embroidered daisies on the collar that she’d bought for two shillings from a former housemaid (whom, except for the blouse, she would have entirely forgotten), but Susan eyed her doubtfully as they hurried down the stairs.
‘Aren’t you going to put a coat on?’
‘No need,’ Eliza replied airily, by which she meant no way. The blouse was far too pretty to be covered up with her ugly old blue coat, which would also look daft with her summer hat, newly trimmed with the spray of paper violets she’d bought last time she’d made the long trek to Hatherford on her day off.
‘It looks fine now, but you know what they say,’ Susan warned, hitching her own coat more securely over her arm. ‘“Cast ne’er a clout till May be out.” It could turn nasty yet.’
Eliza had no intention of letting Susan’s pessimism spoil either her outfit or her mood. Johnny Farrow was already waiting with the wagon in the stable yard, and Joseph had been sent to hurry them up. ‘We’ll be going without you if you don’t get a move on!’ Thomas called as they emerged into the bright dazzle of the yard.
Eliza was surprised to see Mrs Furniss sitting on the front bench beside Johnny Farrow; she didn’t usually bother with the fair. But then she remembered that Johnny had agreed to take the housekeeper on to Hatherford to settle the accounts and place orders, tasks which had been postponed over the past fortnight. Mrs Furniss gave a pointed look when she saw the tussle between her and Abigail as they both tried to get the seat next to Jem Arden.
‘Hurry up, girls,’ she snapped. ‘We’ve waited long enough already.’
She’d been in a sour mood for the last two weeks. Behind her back Eliza pulled a face, feeling a little buzz of satisfaction as Abigail made way and she was able to take the place beside Jem. She folded her skirt neatly about her knees, hoping he’d notice how different she looked when she wasn’t in her dowdy uniform. For once—feeling pretty in her pin-tucked, daisy-sprigged muslin—she didn’t envy the housekeeper, or wish she could change places. Instead of her usual head-to-toe black Mrs Furniss was wearing a cream cotton blouse with a high lace-edged collar and a dark blue skirt, but she still looked uptight. Like her laces needed loosening.
The wagon creaked and rocked as the others climbed up, Joseph the last to scramble into place. Johnny Farrow flicked the reins and they jolted into motion; and Abigail, still settling herself, pitched sideways and was caught by Thomas. ‘You can sit on my knee if you like,’ he joked. ‘All you had to do was ask.’
‘In your dreams, Thomas Booth,’ Abigail retorted, throwing Eliza an accusing glare.
But nothing could tarnish the shine of that bright morning. Not even Thomas launching into the tired old story about the year Stanley Twigg got so drunk at the fair that he was sick on a swingboat and fell asleep under Black Tor on the way home.
‘What’s Black Tor?’ Jem asked.
‘Dirty great pile of rocks on the track across the moor to the village,’ Eliza said, aware of Jem’s long thigh inches away from hers on the bench. One hand rested loosely in his lap, the other—thrillingly—stretched along the back of the seat behind her. ‘There’s an overhanging stone where travellers used to shelter from the weather.’
‘Davy Wells saw him wandering home at first light and thought it was Samuel’s ghost.’ Thomas laughed, finishing the story. ‘Gave him such a fright they had to send for the doctor to give him something to calm down.’
Jem turned to Eliza, one eyebrow raised in faint resignation. ‘Davy Wells?’
‘Mrs Wells’s lad, from the gate lodge. Grown-up, but not right in the head. You’ll see him wandering around the estate. If you speak to him, don’t be offended if he doesn’t answer. He’s mute.’
Jem nodded. ‘Right. So that just leaves Samuel. Or his ghost.’
Abigail gave a gasp of mock horror. ‘You mean no one’s told you about Samuel?’
‘Shows how busy we’ve been,’ Susan remarked. ‘Go on, Thomas, you tell it best.’
‘Well, it should be told at night, really,’ Thomas said, ‘but anyway… It all starts with Sir Aubrey, the second baronet—the one whose portrait hangs in the entrance hall. He worked out in India, same as the present Mr Hyde, and when he came back to Coldwell, he brought a lot of the things you see around the house today: hunting trophies and fancy silverware and all manner of artefacts, including a young Indian boy called Samuel.’
‘That wasn’t his real name,’ Abigail interjected, ‘but what Sir Aubrey called him. His English name.’
Susan nudged her to be quiet. ‘Whatever you want to call him, Sir Aubrey used him as a tiger—carriage groom, you know? Unsurprisingly, the lad didn’t take to Coldwell—homesick, I should imagine; missed the warmth—and the story goes that during one of Sir Aubrey’s long house parties, he tried to escape. But, here’s the thing—’ Thomas leaned forward in the swaying carriage, lowering his voice. ‘It was winter, and the boy wasn’t familiar with the landscape. He lost his way in the snow, and his body was found by poachers in the woods behind the temple, stripped naked and frozen to death. It’s said that on winter nights when the moon is bright, you’ll see his ghost running between the trees as if pursued by the hounds of hell…’
For a moment, they clipped along in silence. They had crested the rise now and the house was lost from sight, though the tower was still visible. Jem turned his head to look at it, and Eliza saw that his expression was oddly tense. Usually, the ghost story generated a thrill of excitement, but somehow it had fallen a bit flat. Thomas was right: it was best told at night, when the circle of lamplight made all the listeners huddle together in awareness of the shadows at their backs.