Page 69 of The Housekeeper's Secret
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’
‘Bit of a filthy one.’ The postman looked up at the sky, tipping his head back so that water ran off the flat top of his hat and splashed onto the shoulders of his oilskin cape. His cheeks, beneath straggly whiskers, were mottled red by the rain. He winked. ‘All right for some though, warm and dry inside.’
His gaze skimmed down Eliza’s body, making her pull her shawl more securely around her. They all pitied the postman for the long ride out to Coldwell, and he was often given a mug of tea and leftovers from breakfast, which he paid for with local gossip as he gathered his strength for the return journey. But today Eliza was in no mood for idle chatter and flirtation.
‘Sir Randolph’s on his way back today—we’re rushed, getting ready for him,’ she said shortly. ‘I presume you must have post, as you’ve come all this way?’
Beneath the dripping peak of his hat, the postman’s face hardened. He reached into the bag at his hip. ‘A few letters,’ he said. ‘For Mrs Furniss and Lady Hyde. And this’—he pulled out a small package—‘for Miss E. Simmons…’
He gave it a little shake, making the contents rattle. Eliza felt colour flood her cheeks as she snatched it from him. ‘I’ll take those, thank you, and let you get on. I wouldn’t like to keep you out in this weather.’
She caught a glimpse of his startled expression in the second before she closed the door. Going back along the passage, she left the letters on the table outside Mr Goddard’s room. It was the butler’s responsibility to distribute any correspondence, which meant that he could monitor it, and withhold it, if he chose. He could call you into his pantry to open it in front of him, which was exactly why Eliza had made sure, for the past week, that she was by the back door when the postman came, and she was the one to receive the package with her name on it.
Tucking it beneath her shawl, she glanced over her shoulder and slipped through the door to the back stairs. When she reached her attic room, she closed the door and stood against it as she tore open the paper with shaking fingers.
A small brown cardboard box rattled into her hand.
Dr Octavius Pink’s Female Pills it said in scrolling writing on the label. For the Treatment of Menstrual Irregularity, and to Restore Feminine Vitality and Well-being. Safe, Fast-Acting, and Effective. A Boon to Womankind.
Eliza felt a rush of relief so powerful that it brought tears to her eyes. She had found the advertisement for Dr Octavius Pink’s pills in one of Lady Hyde’s magazines when she had been tidying the Yellow Parlour, and had hastily torn out the page. The Lady was a respectable publication, for respectable people. They wouldn’t allow advertisements for anything dangerous, would they?
Dr Octavius Pink offered two choices of pill—‘ordinary’ at 2/9, and ‘special’ at 4/6—which, for some reason, further reassured her. ‘Ordinary’ sounded like they were made for girls just like her, and so she had sent her coins (carefully wrapped in an old piece of flannel and parcelled in blue paper torn from a sugar bag) to the Hygienic Stores on Charing Cross Road. And she had waited, hardly daring to let herself hope that this might bring an end to her trouble.
There was a leaflet enclosed in the package, which she unfolded and skimmed quickly. Formulated from a Patented Combination of Specialist Ingredients inc. Pennyroyal, Rue, Bitter Aloes, and Slippery Elm, these Pills offer Immediate Relief from all Female Ailments… Universally Efficacious in Removing Obstructions, Regulating the Natural Cycle, and Restoring Health. Two Pills to be taken Three Times a Day, After Meals.
Eliza pried off the flimsy lid. The pills were small and greenish in colour, and the box smelled faintly of liniment. She took two out and dropped them onto her tongue. Her mouth was dry and swallowing was difficult. The pills stuck in her throat and she retched, eyes watering, before gulping them down.
Dr Octavius Pink was right, the relief really was immediate. She tucked the box into her pillowcase, and as she closed the door and went back down the stairs, she felt calmer than she had for weeks.
The police house in Howden Bridge was situated on the edge of the village, at the junction of the High Street and the road to Hatherford. Built in the middle of the last century and constructed of smart red brick under a steeply gabled roof, it was a good deal taller and more imposing than the straggle of stone cottages that lay beyond it. In the summer, the front garden was a riot of colour, but in dreary November it had a bleak and forbidding aspect.
Jem walked past the gate once, his hands bunched into fists in his pockets, his mind still at war about whether to go in. Bitter experience had taught him that the law was not there to serve the likes of him, but some innate sense of justice had brought him here anyway. The fact was, his brother had been at Coldwell and had disappeared without a trace. Surely the constable couldn’t dismiss Jem’s theory out of hand without supplying an alternative explanation?
The sudden memory of Jack—quick and skinny and smiling, alive—was like a kick to the stomach. He turned abruptly and walked through the gate of the police house.
The front door was painted dark blue. On either side, the large-paned windows were blank and unlit, though there was a bicycle covered with an oilskin propped against the wall, which suggested the officer was in.
Jem knocked.
The door was opened by a stern-faced woman in a red-smeared apron. She’d obviously been cooking and was wreathed with an air of impatience and the smell of frying onions.
‘What’s it about?’ she said when he asked to see Constable Hollinshead, looking disapprovingly at the drips falling from the hem of his jacket.
He didn’t know how to answer. The word murder seemed too melodramatic, but wasn’t that what it was when a fourteen-year-old boy was sent out into the night to be hunted by a pack of men, fired up on fine wine and brandy?
‘A disappearance,’ he said gruffly.
She went ahead of him up the tiled hallway, wiping her hands on her apron before knocking on a door and gesturing to him to enter.
The room he stepped into had an impersonal, institutional look. The walls were painted shiny brown and yellow, and the bookcase by the fireplace was untidily stuffed with piles of paper and bulging folders. A large map hung on the wall and a board to which newspaper cuttings, flyers, and handbills were pinned.
‘What can I do for you, lad?’
The man behind the desk leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over the paper he’d been reading.
Jem had seen Constable Hollinshead at a distance before; a tall man, well built, with a florid complexion and fulsome grey-flecked beard. He’d always been wearing his helmet, and looked incomplete without it now, the top of his bald head appearing naked and vulnerable.