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Sarah lowered her head. She’d lasted longer than she had dared hope. And though the work was menial, she had liked it here. It was better than the dairy. Here they paid a fair wage. The master may have been messy, but he was not unkind. Even Mrs. Walker, with all her lectures and warnings, seemed to have a softness hidden within her heart.
Sarah had only just been given a new charge—the child sleeping in her bed. It would not be hard to find a new governess. A real governess. That would probably be best for Rose anyway.
“I understand. I’ll collect my things and leave directly.”
“Senseless girl,” Mrs. Walker said. “I meant that you cannot stay here in this room.”
Sarah raised her head. “I’m not dismissed?”
“Who am I to go against the master? If he says you are the governess, then the governess you shall be. Much good may it do us.”
Sarah grabbed Mrs. Walker’s hand. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”
Mrs. Walker pulled her hand away. “I have the other girls preparing the Stewart room. Take the child and move your things there.” Mrs. Walker turned and walked away, muttering again about propriety as she went.
Sarah had never been in the Stewart room. It was in the oldest part of the house, the same wing as Mr. Selwood’s rooms, the part of the house from before improvements had been made and the south wing added.
Word among the staff was that all the rooms in the house were named after a person who had died in them. Perhaps they’d told her this only to scare her; nevertheless, she’d been very relieved that her current room was simply called Room Number Five. But the great house with its gothic arched windows and half-timbered ceilings did not make it hard to believe that something terrible might have happened here. More than once.
Sarah went back into her servant’s room. Rose still lay sound asleep, her tiny breath coming in a slow and steady rhythm. Sarah repacked Rose’s meager belongings into the dirty carpetbag. It would take her several rounds to move everything from here to the Stewart room. She would start with the child.
She lifted Rose from the bed, cradling her in her arms. The child weighed almost nothing, so Sarah slipped one arm through the handles of the carpetbag, dangling it from her elbow. Might as well carry as much as she could with each trip.
Sarah made her way carefully down the servant’s stairs. She could have cut across the house on the main floor, but a woman toting a sleeping child past the drawing room and across the great hall would hardly be invisible. So she went down another set of stairs, through the underbelly of the house until she came to the servant’s stairs leading back up the north wing. These stairs were so narrow, she kept bumping Rose’s head against the wall.
The child was getting heavier and heavier, and Sarah’s arms ached. She needed a shortcut whether she wanted one or not. She peeked her head out of the servant’s door. All was clear. She longed to set Rose down, but if Rose had managed to stay asleep through all of this, Sarah would not wake her because of weak arms.
This was the time of day Mr. Selwood was either locked in his library or outside doing some kind of sport. Sarah stepped out and started toward the main staircase. It was wider and would be much easier to carry the child up. As she reached the bottom step, the front bell rang. Someone was at the door. Again.
Sarah glanced around. Where was the butler? In fact, why was the house so blasted empty? She’d hardly seen anyone doing their duty besides Mrs. Walker. And she supposed the housemaids Mrs. Walker had sent to ready the Stewart room.
Somehow Rose had gained two stones since Sarah began this journey. And the carpetbag dragged in front of her, bumping into her legs as she tried to walk. She couldn’t possibly answer the door holding a sleeping child. But the bell rang again, and still not a footman in sight.
She looked up the stairs then toward the door. The bell rang a third time, but Sarah hitched up Rose and started up the grand staircase, the carpetbag trying to trip her with every step. Hopefully there was not another abandoned child waiting on the other side.
“What is this?” came a deep voice that could only belong to Mr. Selwood because it was the same voice that had only recently appointed her to the role of governess.
Sarah thought about curtsying, but she was afraid she might not be able to right herself.
“Oh. Sir.” She turned on the stair so she could better see him, but mostly so she could rest the arm supporting Rose’s head on the handrail. “Mrs. Walker told me to move to the Stewart room, and I made it down the stairs all right, but I couldn’t make it up the servant’s stairs on this side of the house because they were too narrow for me and the child and the bag.
“So I had no choice but to come this way. I do beg your forgiveness. Then the bell rang, but no one is coming to answer again, and I cannot understand where everyone is. I thought maybe I should answer in case it’s another delivery orphan. But then carrying Rose, it seemed inappropriate. So I thought to hurry to the Stewart room and lay Rose down—I call her that because Rosalina Basingstoke is such a grand name and she’s no bigger than a mayfly—but even so she is right heavy and my arms are aching, so I do beg your pardon again, if you don’t mind, I think I should take my leave before I drop her.”
Sarah dipped her head, then started up the stairs again. She would probably make it. Or she’d have to wake the child, which perhaps she should have done in the first place and avoided the main staircase altogether.
Mr. Selwood opened the door himself, which would likely cause whoever was on the other side to wonder how he managed his home so poorly. Sarah wondered too, because really it was absurd that no footman was where he was supposed to be.
She heard Mr. Selwood grumble a greeting. Then the high-pitched voice of a woman responded.
Sarah glanced over her shoulder. No one had ever called here in her weeks of service. But a beautiful woman stood at the door with curls framing her face to utter perfection. She looked up at Mr. Selwood with bright eyes and a sweet smile. Another woman was with her. Her mother, probably. She was shorter than her daughter, and her nose was sharper, but the resemblance was clear.
For a moment Sarah doubted Mr. Selwood would let them in. He stood squarely in the doorframe, staring them down the way he’d done to her when she countered his command to be governess. In the end it didn’t matter what he wanted. The young woman and her mother stepped in without invitation, smooth and graceful in every move as they skirted his blockade.
“You know where the drawing room is,” Mr. Selwood said. He motioned in that direction. “I’ll join you shortly.”
A look of shock crossed both women’s faces. First off, the master of the house opened the door himself, and now he was leaving them unattended. Whatever his reasons, they were none of Sarah’s concern. She went back to her climb. Halfway there.
“Give me the child.” Mr. Selwood appeared beside her, reaching for Rose.
Before Sarah could protest, he had lifted the girl right out of her arms.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time. He carried Rose on outstretched arms, as far from his body as possible.
Sarah hurried to catch up. The young woman and her mother both stared open-mouthed at them as they took on the second set of stairs. She followed Mr. Selwood down the corridor, past Mr. Selwood’s room—the Lockwood room, past the Cottersham room, and the Bigley room, and around the corner to the Stewart room. Across the hall was the Selwood room. A room which, if the rumors were true, must be a sad place for Mr. Selwood.
“Where shall I put her?” he asked.
“Here is fine.” Sarah pulled back the covers of the bed. “Thank you ever so much. I don’t think I would have made it.”
He laid the child down and quickly stepped away.
Sarah rubbed her sore arms. “I’ll just go back for the rest of my things while she’s sleeping.”
“Why did you not ask for help?” he asked. “Mr. Walker or a footman?”
“I could not. They are . . . they wouldn’t listen to me. I’m only a housemaid.”
“But you are not a maid anymore, Miss Woolsey. Is that not so?”
She nodded. Or shook her head. It was hard to tell. No matter what title he gave her, she was the lowest of the staff. How could that change from one moment to the next?
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I told you why. Mrs. Walker told me to move here. Now that we have Rose, my room is too small. Not that I’m complaining. I was in Number Five, you may recall.” She laughed. “But why would you know something as trivial as that?”
One of his eyebrows slowly rose. “I meant why are you here in my house. You clearly have some degree of education. You’re well enough looking that there must be a man somewhere willing to have you.”
Sarah did not have many secrets. Only one, in fact. And though it was not as secret as she would wish, she would not now nor ever voluntarily tell Mr. Selwood about that swine Charlie Crump. Perhaps, one day, news of her greatest humiliation would reach Banwick House, but it would not come from her.
“Sir,” she said, opening Rose’s little carpetbag, “should you not hurry to your guests?” It seemed he had forgotten about them, and now was the perfect time for him to leave before he could ask more questions.
“Guests?” he said as he turned to leave. “More like intruders.”
Somehow, she’d always assumed these wealthy families did nothing but entertain each other. Parading their social status back and forth, making a show of extravagant hospitality. But Mr. Selwood seemed different. He kept to himself. He answered his own door without thinking twice about it.
But wait. Had he just told her she looked well? Or at least well enough? She stared at the door he’d just left through. Was it normal for a master to say that to his servant? Not that she cared what he thought about her—she was done with men after the foul Charlie Crump. But still, to be complimented by Mr. Selwood was unexpected.
She checked on Rose once more before leaving the room to collect the rest of her things. The poor girl must have been exhausted to have not awakened through all this. It was one thing to lie in bed and sleep, but quite another to sleep while being carried through the house, jostled and bumped and changed from one person to the next.
Sarah went down the servant’s stairs. Then, to save herself an extra two flights of stairs, she cut across the entry hall and through the main level. Mr. Selwood would be in the drawing room with his guests, and she could slip by.
As she passed, she heard the word that had been following her around all day.
“Governess?” It came from the younger woman in a voice a pitch or two higher than normal. “Why on earth do you need a governess?”
Sarah paused. This was the question burning inside her as well.
“I have recently taken on a ward. I believe a governess is generally considered the proper thing when there is a child that needs educating.”
“A ward?” Her voice, if possible, had gone even higher. Sarah hoped the glass wouldn’t shatter.
“Yes, Miss Lynn. A ward.”
Silence from the room. It was not hard for Sarah to imagine the thoughts in Miss Lynn’s head. Sarah had had the same ones.
“But whose child is he?”
Yes, Mr. Selwood. Whose? Sarah inched closer to the door.
“The child is a female, Miss Lynn. A she.”
“Then whose child is she? A cousin’s child, perhaps?” Miss Lynn sounded very hopeful about this prospect. The alternative they were all thinking was unimaginable.
“Not mine, Miss Lynn. If that’s what you’re implying.”
“Sarah.”
She gasped and spun around. Mr. Walker had appeared behind her.
“Oh, sir. I’m glad to see you.” She retrieved the letter from her apron pocket. “Mrs. Walker asked me to give you this.”
He took the letter, his displeasure clear on his face. She’d been caught eavesdropping. What more could go wrong on this most peculiar of days?
“Bessie tells me there is a child crying in the north wing,” he said.
Rose! Sarah turned to dash away, but her escape was cut short when she ran straight into the frontside of Mr. Selwood. She bounced against him, then stumbled back.
“I beg your—”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. His face had turned completely white. “Are you hurt? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—” He cut his words short and turned quickly away, stumbling down the hall and into his library.