APRIL

Monday, 1st April

Something has happened. I don’t trust it, but I’m not going to tell my lucky stars that. I’m nervous even of writing it down. My letters look as skittish and unsteady as I feel. Where to start? The worst row yet with Clockface. I was in the scullery – she’d gone for her rest – and washing up the nursery lunch things. A few days of cold hands, roughened knees and aching arms had made me feel the smallness of my life again. I hadn’t seen the missus since I took her the canary – the bright flashes I have of her are like the flame of a guttering candle, always on the point of going out. Even so, I’d still not fished the letter to William out of my pocket.

Mary’s been ill in bed with something vague again, so I had all her rough work to do as well, but when I came back through to the kitchen, the door had been left open and light was spilling down the steps and making a square on the matting. It had been dull when I was cleaning in the morning, grey and wintry. There’s a lovely blossom on the drive you can see from the nursery, and the sky loomed over it like a horrible old man leading a child away. So when I saw the patch of sunlight, I went and stood in it and lifted my skirt to warm my ankles. It was like stepping into a bath. I thought, what harm in going up into the yard for a few minutes to let it warm my face too?

The first swallows were overhead, and the air had that soft touch you don’t think about all winter. It was like exploring a new world, walking from the kitchen door and across the yard. Freedom. To stride out as if I was going somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t another room to clean or another thing to fetch. Even the different feel of the ground under my feet. The old dog was warming herself against the wall, as free as any lord, and I stopped to give her a scratch.

There are formal gardens behind the house, which I would never dare set foot in, but the kitchen garden is walled off just beyond the yard. It’s lovely in there with fruit trees blossoming along one wall and everything in order and smelling richly of earth and mulch. Hens were clucking somewhere out of sight. The garden lad nodded at me and went back to hoeing. I felt emboldened. A gate leads through to another walled space, now used more for storing implements, with weeds allowed to grow in the corners. I closed my eyes and was breathing in the fulsome green of nettles when there was a commotion out of nowhere, a rapid beating noise I couldn’t locate – it seemed to come from all sides. A voice hooted, and I was hit in the neck by something the size of a marrow, soft and sharp at once. It scored the skin under my ear and thudded to the ground.

A chicken. A chicken without a head, just a bloody mess above its breast, its feathers clumped with crimson. It jerked, wings beating rapidly again and leapt at me. I screamed sharply and twisted out of its way. Revulsion made me slap all around where it had touched; I didn’t know if the blood on my neck was mine or the bird’s. A bark of a laugh reached me.

‘Frightened of a little blood, are we?’

Clockface. Not at her rest after all. She came through a doorway, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked at the top of the wall with interest.

‘Never had one fly that high before.’

The coolness of her observation, the mild satisfaction in it, turned my stomach, I don’t know why. It was only a dead chicken, a routine household task, but it felt as if something dark and sinister had broken through the sweetness of the day. The corpse came to a rest finally, twitching and weeping blood amongst the nettles. Clockface reached down and caught it up by the legs. It danced grotesquely by her side as she turned to me. I knew what was coming: a deal of trouble for being out of the house. I walked quickly towards the door that led out of the walled gardens as if I was on some urgent errand.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

I knew I would have to pay for it, but I couldn’t bear to look at her just then and pretended I hadn’t heard. Once through the wall, I ran. The estate opens out on that side, and there’s a large pasture with oak trees dotted about and woods all around the edge. I chose a tree and sat down. Why couldn’t she just break their necks neatly and without fuss like they do at home? But then I remembered William had ripped a hen’s head right off doing that, just to show he could. Tears stung the back of my eyes, and I pressed my hand to my scratched neck.

Narrow paths disappear into the dark of the woods. They beckon, like invitations. I wondered what would happen if I just picked one and walked down it without looking back. It’s not a new fancy. I used to think the same thing at home, staring down the lane. Seemed to me that lane could go anywhere – over new lands, across seas; it was a path to freedom. Perhaps that’s why I was so drawn to the girl in green, so eager to know what she is seeing beyond the picture – perhaps it was myself I was seeing in her and not the missus at all. But my life is different from hers. Drudgery and butchered chickens, I thought, that’s where all my paths lead, all of them – there is no ‘freedom enough’ for me.

I don’t think much would have made me get up. All the same, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’ve no memory of drifting off. Just one moment feeling the relief of getting off my feet – and thinking how strange that the body can still feel its own joys even while the mind is wishing itself dead – and the next moment believing I was drowning. I took water up my nose, which hurts. Clockface must have come looking for me after she washed her hands and changed her apron and then gone back for a mug of water to throw in my face. The bitch.

Odd that words – just writing them down – can make my heart bump about like I’ve screamed them in her face. She loomed over me, watching me splutter, and then bullied me to my feet and followed me back to the house. I was insulted in both English and French – the gardeners heard every word. When we got to the steps, I tripped head over heels down them in my haste and landed on my knees at the bottom. My cap had come off and my hair fell loose and was plastered to my face. I must have looked a sight. Clockface was coming down the steps behind me, in full flow about all the work I was going to do to make up for the time I’d wasted. I was trying to get out of the way on all fours when all of a sudden she stopped dead. In the same moment I found myself looking at the toes of two spotless satin slippers, poking out from beneath a dark blue skirt.

‘What is happening here, Mrs Clarkson?’

For some reason, I didn’t get up. I don’t know, why – I’m not one to beg, but something told me to keep small and wait. It was a strange moment. Clockface must have thought so too because she didn’t answer straight off. The missus had to prompt her again before she spoke.

‘I found her asleep outside, ma’am. She’s been shirking, and not for the first time.’

‘Asleep?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Fast asleep for anyone to see in the middle of the day.’

There was a silence. A drop of water found its way around the back of my ear and swooped down my neck. It itched.

‘I see.’

And then …

‘Is this not usually the time you have your rest, Mrs Clarkson?’

It was so pointed, it made hope lurch in my chest. I didn’t look at Clockface, but I could feel the sting of it in the tightness of her voice. Fury snapped in every word as she made a twisted little speech about believing it her duty to keep an eye on new servants at all hours. The missus gave a small smile.

‘Your thoroughness is admirable, Mrs Clarkson.’

Clockface bowed her head.

‘It is my duty to provide Mr Gethin and yourself with the best servants, ma’am, and leaving their appointment to myself and Mr Barrett will ensure the smoothest running of the household. I am confident my visit to London will result in an excellent new housemaid for you.’

I felt as if she’d kicked me in the chest. It was the first I’d heard of another housemaid. I remembered she had written to the master about me – Mr Barrett is his valet – and felt my heart stop. The missus was staring at Clockface too, her expression unreadable.

‘Your visit to London?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Clockface tilted her head.

‘As Mr Gethin requested, ma’am? I’m to hire a girl from one of his charitable societies.’

The kitchen seemed filled with shrieking though no one spoke. After a moment, the missus straightened.

‘Well, I am sure you will make an excellent choice, Mrs Clarkson.’

They both smiled – Clockface gloatingly – and I realised then that these two women loathe each other. I was simply the latest thing to get caught between their jaws. My face went blood hot. I felt I had let the missus down as much as myself – now I know we have a common enemy – and rose to my feet to protest, but she cut across.

‘Harriet, sit down, I want to speak with you.’

She’s never used my name before, and it was like the girl in the painting had stepped out of it and started talking to me – that’s how unexpected it was.

‘You can return to your rest now, thank you, Mrs Clarkson.’

Clockface looked just as taken aback.

‘There’s no need, thank you, ma’am. I’d just as soon get on with some work, as we’re behind.’

‘As you wish. With Mary unwell would you make sure there’s a fire in the drawing room.’

Clockface baulked.

‘Laurence …’

‘Laurence is occupied.’

Another day I might have enjoyed seeing Clockface thrown out of ‘her’ kitchen and made to work on her knees, but I had no stomach for it in the midst of my own humiliation. She managed to leave without saying anything. I realised the missus had sat herself down and was watching me. She sits very straight – neat and still like a cat. It made me aware I was hunched over – a bedraggled heron – and I pulled my shoulders back a bit. She smiled slightly, in approval, I think, and I felt that sense again of two question marks facing each other.

‘Were you asleep, Harriet?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Do you not sleep well here?’

‘It’s not that, ma’am.’

She looked at me very intently and then dropped her gaze to my hands, which I realised were clutching the edge of the table. I hid them in my lap and didn’t meet her eye.

‘Why were you outside?’

‘Why do you go outside?’

I don’t know what it is about her that makes me say what’s at the top of my mind, but I couldn’t help it – the words lashed out of me before I could think, leaving an angry welt on the silence. It was as if I was suffocating again – everything I’d been thinking was rushing up my throat, but it was all coming out as fat, choking sobs. I couldn’t see – for tears this time. Her chair scraped back, and I heard footsteps. I thought she’d gone to fetch Mrs Clarkson, but she returned at once and I found she was offering me a cloth. It was what the ham had been wrapped in and still damp, so I just held it in my lap.

‘I don’t want to go home.’

It came out in croaks and juddery breaths. I felt her hand gently squeeze my shoulder, and we both waited for my breath to stop jumping about.

When I could look at her again, her head was turned to the window, so I had the full show of her profile. She was an exotic thing in the kitchen – larger than life and shocking, like a lion in a stable. Even if we swapped clothes she wouldn’t look right. She felt my stare and turned. Instead of giving me my notice though or asking more questions, she shocked me by answering mine.

‘I go outside so I can imagine …’

She stopped, searched for it.

‘So I can imagine what it would be like to keep walking or riding and never come back.’

It was so like what I’d been thinking myself, I stared at her with my mouth open. At the same time, I felt a sort of fear brushing along my arms and the back of my neck. She herself didn’t look disturbed at all and even smiled a little as if pleased at finding the right words.

‘Lady Berrington spoke very highly of you. She wrote that you’re a gifted needlewoman.’

I don’t think the missus has said anything to me yet that wasn’t odd or unexpected. She turns like the weather – I remember thinking she looked like the light and shadow of moving clouds. I said something about Mrs B always being kind to me and explained about my mother doing the fine work for Lady Stanworth at Beechwood, how she taught me, hardly knowing whether I was going to get a sermon or more confidences. Neither, as it turned out. She began speaking again almost before I’d finished.

‘Well, I don’t think you can continue as housemaid here, Harriet, and I don’t believe you wish to.’

I was silent and quickly lowered my eyes. The thought that she was about to dismiss me – never mind what I’d decided about William – fair cleaved me in two.

‘However, I require the services of a lady’s maid. Do you think you would like that?’

I watched my rough hands with their black nails fiddling with the ham cloth. A faint whiff of vinegar came off it. She might as well have asked if I’d like to be a horse.

‘Harriet?’

I couldn’t speak or move. She started talking again, saying I’d have a room to myself next to hers and even that I could use the library and read all the books I want. Her voice had gone higher, and she spoke faster. I looked up, not quite believing it, but she really did seem nervous. She placed a hand on the table – I don’t know if a gesture towards me or to steady herself as she stood up.

‘Will you think about it? If I let you go to your room and dry yourself …’ (she looked with some puzzlement at the abandoned ham cloth). ‘I’ll send for you later.’

Her appeal sounded so earnest, I could only reply with a ‘yes, ma’am’ and stood up also. She lingered.

‘Why do you refer to Lady Berrington as Mrs B?’

I hadn’t even noticed, it comes so natural, so I just told her the truth.

‘That’s what she wanted, ma’am. She wouldn’t let us call her anything else usually.’

I hesitated, not sure if I should explain how strange Mrs B was as a mistress.

‘She liked to talk to us, ma’am, not like other employers talk to servants. But then …’

She raised her eyebrows, waiting.

‘Well, I don’t know if you ever noticed, ma’am, but she talked to the furniture too. Especially Lord Berrington’s portrait. That got a scolding most days.’

The missus looked startled, then thoughtful, then strangest of all, she laughed out loud. It wasn’t a laugh I’d ever have put with the singing voice. That belonged to the heavens and butterflies and mountaintops – I don’t know what I mean – that sort of thing – this was stones and dirt and ditch water. But mirthful, like she had been at Mrs B’s about my elephant. She put a hand to her mouth as if she knew she’d let out an imp. Then she looked at me and took it away, letting me have a full wide grin. And there we were again at the edge, this time with a rope thrown across.

‘I hope you accept my offer, Harriet. Hurry and change your dress now before you catch cold.’

As I went along the passage, I heard her singing again, full voiced, something jaunty and joyful without words. I couldn’t help myself – I started laughing. The impossible had walked right into the kitchen and tried to wipe my tears with a ham cloth. I must have looked mad to Laurence, who lurched out of the boot room just then as if he’d been lying in wait. There was something defiant in his face, which was at odds with – but also explained by – the small posy of spring flowers he brandished at me. I stared at them and then at him, thinking the whole house had turned gate over chimney pot. He tossed his head like a horse.

‘Take them to Mary for me?’

Of course. I collapsed into laughter again, and the wounded look he gave me is still making me giggle.

Nook

It took me an age to write that out. I wanted to get it all down while I remembered, so I just dabbed at myself and wrote it sitting on the bed, trying not to let the frame squeak and wake Mary. When I finished, I found she was watching me anyway from her pillow. Naturally, she wanted to know what I was laughing at and why I was wet and – always – what I was writing about. I told her what had happened with Clockface while I got changed into my print dress and re-pinned my hair. Her little rat eyes grew as wide as nature’d let them, and she raised herself onto an elbow.

‘Are you going to be dismissed?’

She was enjoying the drama.

‘No.’

I spoke abruptly and then, emboldened by the missus’ offer, poured out everything I have ever thought about Clockface, every resentment and spiteful feeling. It was a little cruel, seeing as Mary’s her niece, but perhaps that’s why I did it. It felt good to speak my mind. I said I doubted whether she had ever even set foot in France.

‘Oh, no, she has!’

Mary was shocked. Words tumbled out of her in a rush.

‘For ages. She ran away with a man – he was the son of the mayor, so it was a terrible scandal.’

Her face gleamed briefly with the thrill of it.

‘But he deserted her there, and she had no one to turn to – she had to find work when she couldn’t understand a word anyone said to her.’

I stared at her, my mouth stopped, and tried to match her words with the housekeeper of Finton Hall. It was like trying to make a shirt out of cloth that has been cut for trousers.

‘Why didn’t she go home?’

Mary shook her head, eyes wide.

‘She and my grandad wouldn’t speak to each other. She came over once but only on a trip with the French family she worked for – and that’s when the master saw her hauling a knife-cleaner over the coals. Once she was settled here at the hall, she sent for me, but my da still won’t see her. He says she thinks she’s better than the rest of us. I have to leave her out of my letters.’

She looked truly sorry for a moment, but then a look of terror passed over her face, and she clutched my arm.

‘Aunt Sarah will beat me to death if you say I told you.’

I thought of her and Laurence having to sneak about for fear of what Clockface might say and wanted to run down to the kitchen and twist Aunt Sarah’s ears.

‘Of course, I won’t tell her.’

I picked up the posy and held it out.

‘From Laurence.’

I didn’t wait for her reaction but pulled my box out from under the bed to put this away. The letters from William and Mother were poking out from under my Bible. Two things struck me – that the course of the rest of my life was about to be decided, as surely as Clockface’s had been when she ran away with the mayor’s son, and secondly, that something wasn’t right with the letters. They looked like they had been taken out and put back again in a hurry, not hidden as I had left them. I took them, shut the box and came out to the little window seat at the end of the passageway.

I’ve been here half an hour now, and my belly is full of frogs. They jump between equal terrors, and I have to stop writing out of confusion. I keep looking at Mother’s and William’s letters. Even their handwriting seems to talk – homely and practical, good enough to be useful. My letters look different now, but what’s the use of pretty handwriting when the hand that makes it is red and cracked? It is still not good enough to write for a mistress and, apart from my needle, I don’t have the skills. Likely she’d never keep me on for all I think she likes me. And even if she does, what will the master do? He’s already hired a different housemaid after Clockface’s letter about me – surely, he’ll never tolerate me as an upper servant. And there’s still the other lady’s maid the missus went searching for – what happened to her?

Later

I marched back into the bedroom and plumped myself down on Mary’s bed.

‘Tell me what happened to the maid who left, or I’ll tell Laurence where he can shove his flowers next time.’

She quivered like a flower herself.

‘Helene?’

‘If that’s her name, yes.’

I was sitting on her leg and leaned so she couldn’t move it.

‘She got into trouble.’

‘With child?’

A nod. I felt strangely relieved it was something so ordinary.

‘Why did the missus go after her?’

A shrug.

‘Well, who was it? Who got her that way?’

She avoided my gaze, looking to the window as if she might escape through it. My eye fell on the posy that was still clutched in her hands. I remembered her jealousy and the reputation of footmen.

‘Was it Laurence, Mary?’

It was as if I’d poked a snake. She grew rigid, drew herself up and all but hissed.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

She wrenched her leg free from under me and curled her body away.

‘Ask Mr Barrett if you want to know.’

I’ve heard the master’s valet mentioned before and some griping about the money he earns, but little else.

‘Why? Was it him?’

She huffed and shook her head. I thought suddenly of the missus throwing the canary out of the house – a gift from the master – and how he hired only the prettiest servants. I looked closely at Mary.

‘Not … the master …?’

A look of disbelief crossed her face, and she shook her head again. I almost shouted at her.

‘Why won’t you tell me?’

But I had cut her too deep by accusing Laurence. She turned from me, her whole body rigid. Changing my tone, I looked for a way back.

‘They’re very pretty flowers.’

She glanced at them and away again, but I saw her soften. I kept my voice light.

‘My William never gives me flowers.’

I have rarely spoken about him, and I felt her interest sharpen.

‘But I’m not pretty like you. It’s funny, isn’t it? How everyone here is so fair?’

She looked sideways at me. I smiled as if it didn’t bother me.

‘Was Helene pretty?’

I could tell by the way she blinked that she was. Leaning in, I lowered my voice.

‘Do you think the master will mind, Mary? That I’m not? I’m worried he won’t like me when he sees me.’

I didn’t have to do any pretending about that and watched her closely. She frowned as if she’d never thought about it, and to do her justice, tried to say I was also fair. I only hope she never has to lie to save herself. Before I could change the subject and ask about the missus’ portrait, heavy footsteps sounded in the passage. It was Clockface sent to fetch me – the missus means to humiliate her at every turn, I think. I wasn’t going to betray Mary for telling me about the mayor’s son, but I didn’t mind giving her aunt a brazen look. She returned it powerfully.

I was reluctant to leave my letters and diary out when I was sure Mary had helped herself to a rummage through my box, so had to carry them with me to the drawing room. The missus looked at them – curious – but only asked me to sit down and told Clockface to fetch us some tea. It was strange sitting with her like that. In her dark blue dress, she looked a natural part of the room, like the whole thing was a picture. I would have liked to have been able to sit and stare at it all, unseen myself, and study how it all fitted together, but I kept my eyes down. If she was a lion in a stable, I was a monkey at a tea party.

‘Have you considered my offer?’

The words I wanted to say rushed up my throat – or rather just the one word, Yes! but at the last moment it faltered and grew shy and disbelieving of itself. Other words came.

‘It’s difficult, ma’am.’

‘Difficult?’

‘You see, I still have someone … waiting for me …’

‘Oh.’

Her voice dropped down into the ditch again, but without the mirth. It was only a small sound, but it carried both surprise and disappointment.

‘I wouldn’t want to let you down, ma’am. He’s getting impatient.’

It was strangely weak as an argument and I was conscious of it falling short. There was a pause – while she waited for it to flutter to the ground is what it felt like.

‘I thought you didn’t want to go home.’

She sounded confused. I couldn’t say otherwise. I couldn’t say I’d stay. Eventually, she nodded.

‘Well, Harriet. I wish you all happiness.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

I was aware of a terrible disappointment. A door slamming shut in my face. Had I expected her to fight for me, to beg me? She had closed up tightly like a clam. Neither of us moved.

‘You have been writing to him?’

She smiled faintly, looking at the materials I was holding. I looked at them too, barely understanding.

‘Oh, no, I wasn’t. I … It’s a diary.’

She paused.

‘I keep a diary.’

It came out quite fiercely as if I’d accused her of something.

‘Well, keep is not the word. I burn each page as soon as I’ve written it. That way I can write anything I like, and no one will ever see it.’

Her eyes shone briefly with some burned-up secret. I wanted to ask why write at all – but remembered how writing down ‘bitch’ had made my very insides churn. Making words brings them into the world in a way just thinking can’t. Perhaps even burning them can’t get rid of them then. I realised I was clutching my diary to my body. Could I burn this? I knew I should, but the thought made me feel sick.

‘Have you always kept a diary?’

The missus had come back from her own thoughts.

‘No, ma’am. Mrs B – I mean Lady Berrington – said it would help me get better at my letters.’

She nodded.

‘Is that the reason you still do it?’

‘Yes, and …’

I had been going to say it was like having someone to talk to but stopped myself.

‘I have never known a maid to keep one.’

‘There’s not often the time, ma’am.’

She nodded again and looked beyond me out of the window.

‘I remember you saying.’

I felt my heart plunge, recalling how I had spoken to her in the library.

‘Well, it’s a shame. You could have helped me with notes and messages and had plenty of time to write for yourself. But of course, you will have far more interesting things to do with your time when you are married.’

I couldn’t tell if the bitterness had been in her voice or if it was how I heard it in my head because a doleful chime seemed to ring in the room. Just then Clockface came in with the tea things. My face must have shown my distress because she smiled in her gloating way before fairly slamming the tray down on the table. The missus rose to her feet.

‘Thank you, Mrs Clarkson, you can leave that with me.’

Clockface turned and looked her up and down. Her voice carried that tone of knowing better how a mistress should behave than the mistress herself.

‘Very well, ma’am.’

With another more interested glance at me, she left the room. I thought I should get up to serve but felt glued to my chair. The missus busied herself with pouring tea and chatted away about weddings, I think, and the fine summer we would be having. It was all at a light musical trot I imagine she uses on guests – if she ever has any – no more needing an answer than the tinkling of the spoon against china – a thousand miles from what I’ve come to think of as her real voice. I couldn’t listen properly anyway. More interesting things to do with your time. I looked about me as if I might find some relief or answer in the fine things in the room. The staring, blank eyes of the busts repelled me, and I looked quickly away from the master’s piercing gaze. My eyes turned instead to the missus’ portrait, the girl in green. She was still misplaced amidst all the grandeur, but her expression was as fresh and captivated as ever.

The missus was handing me a cup of tea. I had to balance my things in my lap to take it, hands shaking, cup and saucer rattling. She was still talking – a bride she had seen last year at a country wedding. I took a sip. The portrait glowed at the edge of my vision like a green island in the middle of a sea. I remembered the missus holding my hand in Gloucester Square and imploring me not to live my life for others; I remembered buttoning her cuff and feeling a kind of grace in the act; I thought of the strange distance between her and her baby son and remembered my promise to Mrs B.

There was a silence. She was standing between the table and her own chair, staring down at her cup. I looked at mine and realised all at once it was ordinary black tea that the servants drink – not the special kind reserved for upstairs. I don’t know how Clockface dared.

She drank it very slowly – deliberately, as if it was a wine she was tasting. I expected her to ring the bell or fly down to the kitchen, but she seemed to come back to herself and sat down with that smile turned on me. She’ll be safe with you, is what Mrs B had said. I don’t suppose she meant safe from inferior tea, but somehow this tiny, poisoned arrow from Clockface threw the woman in front of me, my mistress, into stark relief. I seemed to see her clearly for the first time. The fine silks, japanned cabinets and expensive wallpaper grew gaudy and florid against such loneliness. She seemed as fragile as the china cup I was holding. I stood up.

‘Ma’am.’

She waited. I waited. Honestly, I think I’d be standing there still if I hadn’t been holding the diary and everything so awkwardly with one hand that they finally swivelled away like they’d turned to soap and fell to the floor. I tried to stop it all by clutching at the falling book but only managed to spill the tea in my other hand, which slopped over the rug and the letter from William. The ink blurred, held the shape of the letters for a moment, and then dissolved away. They ended up a sort of shoreline at the edge of the tea stain. It didn’t matter that I’d just proved myself too hopelessly clumsy to be any kind of servant – the washing away of William’s handwriting was too much.

‘I’ll be your lady’s maid.’

Everything was very still. She seemed fixed back into a painting. I looked down at the mess on the floor – and heard myself. My cheeks burned.

‘If you’ll still have me.’

A bubble of mirth popped from her. She glanced at the diary, which had landed open and face down, and at the tea soaking into the rug.

‘Yes, I’ll still have you, Harriet.’

She rose then, stepped across, and alarmed me very much by holding out her hand for me to shake. It was so soft I could hardly feel it in my roughened fingers. I don’t know how on earth I’m to be a lady’s maid. My hands make me feel I’m no maid at all.

Tuesday, 2nd April

Here I am. In my own room, and it has a view, same as the missus’ next door and the nursery upstairs, out the front with the drive sweeping around in a circle and then miles of woods and farmland with chimney smoke pointing out invisible dwellings. It makes me take a great breath in every time I look at it, as if I’ve been shut in a tiny room and someone’s just opened the door. My letter to William is written and sent, and I don’t feel as guilty as perhaps I should. I have a little desk where I’m writing this – much easier than in the nook or in bed – and my own comfortable chair, a prettily patterned washstand with daisies running around the bowl and jug (not cracked). The rug looks new – pink and yellow flowers that match the curtains.

Mary saw me packing my things into the box and thought I was being thrown out without notice. When I told her, her face went quite white and her mouth fell open. Even her whiskers went still. She wanted to know what Clockface had said about it, as if Clockface is mistress here. At Beechwood, Lady Stanworth’s maid eats with Mrs Hyatt in her room instead of the servants’ hall – thank goodness that isn’t the custom with Finton Hall’s housekeeper. At dinner last night, she was an angry swarm of bees all on her own; when Mary dropped a spoon, she lunged for it herself and whacked the girl on her arm. She couldn’t look at me, never mind speak. There was something almost fearful in the way she avoided me. But this morning she was smiling that nasty smile again as if she knows something I don’t. She left for London straight after breakfast – I think to interview housemaids – but made a point of calling me Miss Watkins in a mocking voice a dozen times before she went. I wish I could eat with Lizzie in the nursery. At least I can see her more often now and help with the baby whenever she needs it. To think I’ll be able to hold his sweet little body whenever I like almost and watch him grow up into his own little person. I can hardly believe it. And I shall find out what’s come between the missus and her son. I can feel it now, like a calling. Mrs B must have been some kind of fortune teller.

The missus called me after breakfast – any time she rings the bell, it’s me that’s to go to her. She went through what’s expected of me, and it’s all the nicest bits of working for Mrs B. A cup of tea to her room first thing, then breakfast for myself in the kitchen. When she’s ready, I’m to help her dress. She didn’t mention hair, and I hope she won’t. Mary will help me make the bed, and she even empties the slops. I’m in charge of the wardrobe, including the mending, which is one thing I can feel sure of doing properly. We made an inventory of every article, from her finest gown to her plainest hatpin, and she declared herself ready to throw it all out. I noticed there was only one drawer she didn’t touch, at the bottom of the cabinet, but I didn’t like to ask.

When we opened her wardrobe, she looked me up and down as if I was a joint of meat and fetched out what she called one of her old dresses. It’s nothing like the dark, sombre gowns I’ve seen her wear. This one’s lovely – rich blue velvet and lilac satin with ruffles all over the place and buttons down the front – and hardly looks worn. She held it up to me.

‘I think it will fit well with little work.’

I was too surprised to answer. She didn’t stop there but frowned hard at my head.

‘I don’t like caps on ladies’ maids. Tie your hair with a ribbon, that will suffice.’

I don’t know where I’m supposed to get ribbon from. She didn’t offer any. I wish I hadn’t spent the money on new aprons now, though I suppose I can send them home for my sisters at Beechwood. The missus pointed out a large basket of mending, saying how pleased she was that she’d finally have some items back she’d been missing. All for the want of a decent needlewoman. Ladies are as trapped by their situation as servants in some ways. Surrounded by lovely things but unable to help themselves if anything goes amiss. I remembered that the missus’ family had lost all their money and felt grateful I can at least make my own living.

I wanted to say something to thank her. No other lady would have picked me out for her particular servant, especially after I’d been found asleep under a tree.

‘I’ll do my very best for you, ma’am. I hope you’ll find me useful.’

She was still picking out the items I was to mend first, but when I spoke, she straightened and looked at me.

‘Useful? You don’t know how happy I feel already, knowing you are next door. But I hope we will enjoy ourselves as well.’

She stepped towards me and took hold of my hand again.

‘I will do my best for you too. A lady’s maid should be more than a servant.’

A glint came into her eye, and I think from what she said next, she was thinking about the scene with Clockface.

‘We all need a little freedom. I won’t tell you how to use yours.’

I smiled back, laughed even. Truth is I could have kissed her. Her gaze fell on the blue gown laid out on the bed, and her expression darkened a little.

‘Take that with you. Be sure to alter it to your liking.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She turned away abruptly and waved her hand towards the door. It was a sudden end to our time together, but perhaps that is how ladies are with their maids. I shall have to get used to it.

Thursday, 4th April

She sings to me. Just to me, and it seems to gladden her heart almost as much as it does mine. Performing to people, even one, makes all the difference, she says, and she dreams of singing operas on a real stage, like the theatres she was taken to in Italy as a girl. My cheers and clapping delight her like a child. Yesterday she sent me to fetch the book of Milton’s poetry from the library and then sat me down next to her at the piano to sing Mrs B’s version of ‘When I consider how my light is spent’. I couldn’t have been more dumbstruck if she’d pushed me onto a stage in front of a crowd. She put one cool hand on the back of my neck and the other on my middle.

‘Drop your shoulders and breathe from here. Breathe with me.’

Her touching me like that made me curl up, but then she started making the most ungodly sounds to show me how to place the voice. Great belting ‘hoos’ and ‘hahs’. Laughter burst out of me; I couldn’t help it.

‘There. See?’

She beamed and patted my middle.

‘Now, sing for me, Harriet Watkins!’

She roared it – but using my voice. It was my way of speaking exactly, coming from her mouth. I stared at her in astonishment. She returned my gaze and, still in my voice, asked innocently what the trouble was. It made me snort as loudly as if I’d been in Gloucester Square with Annie and Mrs B’s brandy. Somehow, I got the tune out. The missus picked out the notes on the piano and wrote them down. Then we sang it together, and it was like floating on a river with her voice in full sail, pulling mine along.

I wonder if the talent she told me is buried is just that – her singing voice – and nothing to do with Edward after all. Perhaps she is angry at the master for keeping her in this remote house with almost no one to sing for and that is the reason she dreams of walking away. Certainly, something is amiss; she seems not herself at times, as Mrs B said. It’s as if a different, darker mistress takes over. Her moods can turn on a sixpence, from laughing and teasing to ill humour and impatience. She had the canary brought to her room yesterday and was whistling to it, holding it on her finger and feeding it morsels, but today she just stared at it through the bars.

‘It always returns to its cage.’

She sounded scornful.

‘Always.’

In the same mood, she turned on me.

‘Where is the dress?’

I was sorting out some items for the laundry at the time and jumped as if I’d been pricked by a stray pin. It’s true I’ve been putting off the alterations – the dress has been watching me from my mending chair, flaunting its richness and detail as if daring me to try on anything so fine. The missus’ frown deepened.

‘And I told you to put a ribbon in your hair.’

I began stammering about going to town (though how that will help when I haven’t been paid yet), but she turned to the window with another flick of her hand, batting me away. I suppose it is only natural for ladies to be annoyed sometimes, and not always fairly, especially if they have troubles. It doesn’t mean she will dismiss me. Lizzie agreed. (I ran up to the nursery first chance I had.) She said servants are convenient for masters to kick now and then, like a stool. No one then throws out the stool. She had just fed Edward and was putting him down. I spoke quietly.

‘But what about Mr Gethin?’

I didn’t look at her as I said it. My fears about the master are like spiders in a matchbox – I’m scared even to peek at them.

‘What if he doesn’t like it that I’ve been made lady’s maid? When I don’t have any experience and I don’t look … right?’

‘Harriet.’

Lizzie waited until I had met her eye. I was taken aback to see amusement playing with pity in her face.

‘The master won’t notice you.’

Later

Dinner was awful. I knew it would be with me wearing this dress, but it’s not as if I have a choice. It didn’t take much to make it fit as the missus had said, though I’m more angular than her. I could hardly meet my own eyes in the mirror – I look, not like a lady, but not like myself either. Some strange new creature that could do I don’t know what. It took long minutes outside the kitchen door before I found the courage to enter; I had to remember not to wipe my palms on the expensive fabric.

If I’d walked in naked, it couldn’t have caused more trouble. Clockface was in high spirits, but she dropped the smile when she saw me – nearly dropped the basin she was holding too.

‘What do you think you’re doing in that?’

I told her. Mary appeared in the pantry doorway, whiskers bristling.

‘She never gave it you?’

They both looked amazed.

‘Well, I didn’t walk in and help myself to it, did I?’

That brought Clockface’s smile back, and more than that – she put the basin down and hooted with laughter.

‘Enjoy it while you can, (something in French that was certainly rude). You won’t be in it for long. Or in this house.’

I looked at Mary, but she turned away. There was a long high whistle from Laurence, who’d just walked in behind me (I felt Mary go sharp). He came up short though and looked questioningly at the others. Something passed between them, I don’t know what. Finally, Clockface spoke.

‘Master’s coming home in time for Easter. Told me so on Tuesday.’

She was looking at me as she said it, but it was as if she was really speaking to someone else, saying something more. My insides went cold. I stuck out my chin.

‘And he’s going to box my ears and throw me out, isn’t that right, Mrs Clarkson?’

There was a stung moment, and then her lip curled.

‘Oh ho, seems being lady’s maid has lent your tongue an edge. Well, Miss Watkins, we’ll have to mind our manners around you, I can see that.’

And then she was at it for the rest of the meal. Curtsying and calling me m’lady and trying to get the others to laugh with her. She spoke about all the fine maids she’d talked French with and then pretended to be baffled when I couldn’t understand her.

‘But I thought you were a lady’s maid!’

The worst was the way she watched me eating. Everything I did with my hands, dipping bread in the stew, picking up a spoon – she raised her eyebrows as if to say it wasn’t her place to comment. I gave it up after barely having anything, and she feigned dismay at my leaving. She’s not the queen she thinks though. There was a knock on my door a while later, and outside I found a plate of stew and bread. Laurence. He nearly ruined it by tugging his forelock and calling me ‘ma’am’ as he disappeared down the stairs.

Friday, 5th April

Dearest Har,

Not a peep? Not even to congratulate me? What, I’ve been asking myself – and that poor dear husband of mine at least three times a day – is wrong with the girl? Have you got married without telling me? Have you fallen down a hole? Andrew can’t tell me however often I ask. Please save him from a nagging wife and write!

He sends his love – or he would do if he wasn’t sprawled on the rug fast asleep with his boots on. He’s been helping Robert with his baby farmer investigations as well as working his usual beat, so the poor lamb doesn’t know which way his head’s on most of the time. Robert wants him to leave his division altogether and become a detective constable – the whole department is about to change and become all shiny and correct and ripe for good, hard-working men to make their names apparently – like Robert’s doing. It’s what I’d do, but Andrew says he’d rather deal with drunks and pickpockets all day long than baby killers, and I can see how that could wear a lad down. The stories I could tell you, Har, it would turn your hair white. Poor mothers paying some nurse to look after their babies while they scrape a living together, and then finding the woman’s disappeared and their babes dead in a ditch. You’ll remember Robert was a dour soul already, so it suits him well enough, and besides he lives for his work.

If I didn’t have a kitchen stacked to the rafters with reeking police collars and shirts myself, I’d be marching up to Hertfordshire, you can be sure, to find out what’s buttoned your lip. WRITE, Har – as God’s my witness, you’re giving me the collywobbles.

You’re ever affectionate, bit cross friend,

Annie

Poor Annie. I’ll write and tell her I’m a lady’s maid now, she’ll enjoy that. And first chance I get, I’ll go to London and see her.

As I was putting her letter away with the others, I had an idea and untied the red ribbon binding them all. Mother gave it to me years ago. She couldn’t use it for her Lady Stanworth work because of a small oil stain that won’t come out. It doesn’t really match the dress, but at least the missus can see I’ve tried. It’s important that she sees I’ve tried.

Monday, 8th April

An arrival this morning. I had just finished dressing the missus and was on my knees pulling her skirt and petticoats straight. Waiting on her is beginning to feel more natural now and even wearing her dress no longer shocks me in the mirror. She was saying how quick-fingered I have become in only a few days when the sound of wheels and hooves made us both start and turn towards the window, alert as squirrels. The master. I was so convinced of it I nearly pulled her forward by gripping the petticoat too tightly. She shooed me away.

‘Who is it? Quickly.’

I scrambled up in time to see Duncan driving the dogcart towards the yard. Behind him, half hidden by a box, was a girl. Relief made me breathless.

‘Oh! It’s the new housemaid, ma’am.’

I looked back with a smile, thinking it would mean little to her, but a shadow fell over her face – sudden, like a grief remembered. Her head turned as if I’d said something ugly.

‘What sort of girl is she?’

‘What sort …?’

I glanced back at the now empty drive, unsure of what she meant or how I was supposed to know.

‘Quite … small, I think, ma’am.’

‘Small?’

Her eyes were black again. I felt the same helplessness as before, of being found wanting.

‘From what I could see, ma’am.’

She stared at me a moment longer and then seated herself at her dressing table.

‘I shall go out. Dress my hair – something different, but don’t take all morning.’

I stared at her, shocked, and felt panic rising. Until today, she had only ever asked me to brush her hair and pass pins while she caught it back. I didn’t dare tell her I had no experience and tried to think back to what Mrs B had me do. Her hair was so thin though, it was more about sticking in great switches all over her head. I think she just wanted to be touched more than anything.

I let the missus’ hair down. It’s very thick. She looks quite different with it all around her face – half wild. I always think that brushing her hair and seeing her head jerk back a little with each stroke is such a liberty. Today, I became aware of how much damage I could do as well. My fingers turned clumsy.

There was a hair rat on the dressing table. I decided to try and make some height at the front and draw up the hair from the back, as I’d seen on other ladies. She didn’t say a word. When I glanced in the mirror, she was looking at me. No expression. Whatever thoughts she had were deep down those black wells. I didn’t look again.

The hair wouldn’t come right. I couldn’t get the shape to stay and kept dropping sections. It wasn’t going to work, not by a long march. My hands started to shake.

‘Leave, Harriet.’

She said it so quietly, I felt my heart catch – there was such dismissal in it. It bothers me that she calls me Harriet still – as if she doesn’t take me seriously enough as a lady’s maid to use my surname. But the way she spoke, I felt as if she was offering me advice. As if she was urging me to leave Finton Hall altogether, for my own sake. Leave, Harriet. I put the pins I was holding down on the dressing table and met her eye briefly. Her expression was cold and feverish at the same time. I can’t stop thinking about her other maid. Helene.

Back in my room, I looked at myself in the mirror and no longer felt like a strange creature that might do anything, certainly nothing that could help the missus. I saw myself as others see me – absurd. The red ribbon caught my eye, the bow knocked askew, and I snatched at it, pulling it out along with several strands of hair, which brought tears to my eyes. Sobs followed. I was sure Clockface was about to walk in and dismiss me for good. That housemaid had been hired to replace me entirely – I was supposed to have been driven out of the house, not made lady’s maid. I threw the ribbon on the floor and gave myself over to misery. But there was no use hiding. When Clockface didn’t appear, I dried my eyes and smoothed my hair, trying to conjure a less tortured face in the mirror. Better to ‘sally forth and meet my adversary’ as Mrs B used to say.

I took the servants’ stairs down to the kitchen. Clockface was standing by the range looking very pleased with herself and, shrinking behind her box, was the child. My heart sank at how pretty she is. Her clear complexion and little waist feel like personal rebukes. Before anyone could speak, Laurence crashed into the kitchen, shirt and jacket open at the neck, half soaked and grinning. He took an exaggerated step back on seeing the girl.

‘Well, what have we here?’

The child looked as if a bear had charged in and spoken to her. She dropped into a curtsy with a squeak. I think she called him sir. Clockface roared with laughter.

‘There you are, Laurence, master to a (something French) at least.’

She threw a cloth at him and leered grossly.

‘But not if you get yourself caught half dressed. Your master will be back any day now. Don’t worry, dear.’

She turned to the girl, drawing her to the table and, before my disbelieving eyes, serving her a slice of lemon cake.

‘Don’t you take any notice.’

Laurence curled his lip but wiped the cloth over his face and neck while watching the girl with a thoughtful expression. Tup anything that moves, I thought, and felt sorry for Mary.

‘Are you deaf, Watkins?’

Clockface barked it so suddenly at me I jumped and realised a bell had rung and was ringing again. It was the missus’ room. Clockface peered at me, no doubt taking in the red eyes and blotchy cheeks.

‘Or is it that the mighty have fallen?’

I turned and walked quickly out of the room and back to the stairs. By the second floor, I could hear hurried footsteps following. Laurence bounded up behind me. He looked worried.

‘Does she know the housemaid’s here?’

I nodded.

‘We heard the cart.’

My voice was shaky, I realised, and it made him study me as Clockface had done.

‘What’s wrong?’

I was reluctant to tell him, but the simple fact of being asked made the words spill out of my mouth like a pot boiling over.

‘She’s different, the missus. Angry. I think she might dismiss me. I don’t know how to do hair.’

I expected him to laugh and wouldn’t have blamed him, but if anything, he looked relieved. He shook his head.

‘She won’t. She has her ways, that’s all. You shouldn’t worry about her.’

He made it sound as if there was someone else I should be worrying about. I swallowed.

‘Mrs Clarkson says the master will throw me out when he comes. Is it because I’m not so … so … fetching as the other servants?’

I blushed to be telling him to his face that he was handsome. He did laugh then and tapped my cheek.

‘A smile now and then would help nature along.’

I wanted a real answer and raised my voice.

‘Why am I the only one? Everything in this house is so beautiful or grand, even the people.’

‘Is it?’

He raised his eyebrows at me.

‘Come here.’

Taking my arm, he pulled me through to the second-floor passageway. The doors to the missus’ room and mine were yards away, but he turned his back on them and looked up. I followed his gaze to the corner of the ceiling and started back. There was a face. A tongue arched out of its grimacing mouth, and its eyes were greedy with hate. A stone gargoyle or grotesque, from a church most likely. I shivered. Me and the missus had been walking under its evil gaze every time we went in and out of our rooms. It’s so high up, I’d missed it even while cleaning. Laurence dropped my arm.

‘I wouldn’t call that beautiful.’

‘What’s it for? Did the master put it there?’

Fear made me shrill.

‘Just do your work and look after the missus.’

‘But I don’t know what her trouble is – why won’t she see her son?’

I lowered my voice.

‘Is it something to do with the master, Laurence? I don’t know how I can help her.’

He seemed to regret showing me.

‘You can stop asking questions.’

‘Laurence …’

He drew himself up to his full height as if to put himself out of reach. The muffled ringing of a bell reached us.

‘You’d better go to her.’

Before I could answer, he had slipped back through the servants’ door, and I was left alone with the gargoyle. It made me think of the creepy lover’s eye, still hidden behind the butterfly paperweight in the hall cabinet, and I knew I would never be able to walk to my room again without glancing at it. The missus must surely do the same. She rang the bell once more, and I hurried to her door, barging straight in as if I expected to find her in some peril.

‘Harriet, where have you been? I’ve been ringing for days.’

She was sitting in the window seat. Her cheerfulness sounded forced, but I was flooded with relief all the same. I smiled, as if my failure earlier had never happened. Her hair was as she usually wore it. With a sudden movement, she was up and laughing.

‘I shall go straight out. I don’t want breakfast. Tell Duncan I want the carriage. And have this sent to the vicarage.’

A letter was swept from the desk and appeared in my hands.

‘Tomorrow afternoon, you will accompany me on a visit. But wait …’

She hurried to the cabinet and opened one of the small drawers which held spare laces and ribbons. After a moment’s thought, she pulled out a length of dark blue ribbon and held it out to me.

‘For your hair.’

I took it and thanked her. She lingered, watching me.

‘I want you to be happy here.’

I nodded.

‘Thank you, ma’am. I am. And ma’am …’

We both paused.

‘I would like to help you in any way I can.’

Our smiles tried to meet each other like before, and almost did.

‘I shall be in the morning room.’

She was gone. I sat on the bed and let myself lie back flat on the muddle of soft sheets – I felt I deserved the liberty. Staring at the drapes of the four-poster, folding themselves in and out of darkness, I thought about gargoyles. I believe they are meant to ward off evil spirits, but the presence of one inside the house is unnerving. I propped myself on my elbows and looked around the missus’ room for anything sinister lurking in the corners.

Her room is as lovely in its way as any of the others in the house, but it’s so crammed with red plush and floral patterns, working in it feels smothering at times. I feel I’m wading through an overgrown garden, as if the patterns don’t stay flat but curl around my ankles and waist. It hadn’t struck me ’til today that there’s not much of her in it at all. Her perfume on the dressing table, her night things I was to put away – nothing else. She’s invisible here, disconnected, like a ghost moving amongst furniture it doesn’t recognise. The paintings are all of royalty. Some of the ornaments might be personal to her, but I think not. Mrs B had a story for every trinket, likeness, and stick of furniture in the house – even if I didn’t believe half of them.

‘This necklace a gift from a foreign count, that portrait a roguish ancestor who ran off with a baroness, those fire irons used by one servant to murder another!’

She even talked to things, especially the portrait of her late husband. I found a blob of marmalade stuck to the canvas once, as if she’d hurled a teacake.

I rose and went to the cabinet. The contents of the upper drawers were already familiar to me: belts and gloves, smaller items, then petticoats and chemises, all the undergarments. I knelt to open the bottom drawer, the one she hadn’t shown me, and felt a tiny shock when it didn’t budge. Locked. And no key that I could find.

Tuesday, 9th April

I’ve been at the hall for more than six weeks, and today was the first time I truly made it outside the grounds. The missus didn’t offer much in the way of explanation – I had no warning of where we were going or why she wanted me until we were nearly there. Though I suppose, as a lady, she’d no more tell her shawl why she had brought it. After the last few days, it was a relief to be going anywhere. The carriage is a huge, ornate thing – it looks a hundred years old – with big windows the missus ordered to be opened. I couldn’t take my eyes off the countryside. The air was warm, everything green was awake and fresh, the hedgerows alive with little birds and so many blooms. It made me realise how miserable the weather has been and that I’ve only watched the spring coming through moments at windows and feeling the air change as I worked in the yard. To be in it made me giddy. I was almost sorry the missus wanted me in the carriage with her and I wasn’t sat at the back with Laurence. She kept watching me with that deep look of hers. I couldn’t stop my face opening up and beaming like I was a flower myself.

After a short while, out of nowhere, she burst into song. A sweet note that fell away into a tune about someone making trees with his lute, and plants and flowers springing to life. She leaned forward to sing it out of the window, flinging magic over the hawthorn and hogweed. When we passed an astonished labourer on the side of the road with a hunk of bread frozen halfway to his mouth, she collapsed into laughter. I had to remember to breathe.

‘That’s a lovely song, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Harriet. Do you know it? “Orpheus with his lute”?’

She sang the first line again and smiled, eyes shining.

‘I heard Jenny Lind sing it when I was fourteen. Have you heard her?’

As if that was likely – I’d never heard of her. The missus took a big breath in and closed her eyes as if hearing the Lind lady in her mind again.

‘She is the greatest singer that ever lived.’

I don’t know how she could know that, but watching her face, I believed it.

‘She sang all over Europe. Oh, Italy! I wish I had seen her there. She went to America too.’

I tried to imagine that, touring the world, and couldn’t. With effort, I can imagine finding my way to Italy, perhaps, but the idea of reaching anywhere like America through simple, earthly means has always seemed preposterous.

When the missus blinked her eyes open, there were tears in them. I remembered how she had spoken in the library of having a gift.

‘I’ve never heard a voice like yours, ma’am. I heard you singing in the house when I first arrived, and it made me …’

I didn’t know the right word as usual.

‘It made me happy, even though the song was sad.’

She held my eye.

‘I’m glad you agreed to be my maid, Harriet.’

‘Me too, ma’am.’

I meant it. She was still looking at me.

‘Harriet Watkins. The greatest lady’s maid in the world.’

I jerked backwards. She had used my voice again, but this time she took more care over it, as if she had made it her study and wanted to get it right. I blinked at her stupidly. She laughed and put her hand briefly on mine.

‘I like your voice too, Harriet. You mustn’t mind me playing.’

She waited until I had returned her smile.

‘Now you are my lady’s maid, you must remember the rules are different for you. I trust you to use your time well, which means striving not to waste the advantages of your situation. A maid dulled by too much work doesn’t please me. As I said, you must enjoy your freedom. There is the library to make use of, of course – you must read as many books as you wish. And the grounds to explore. My last girl, Helene, liked to walk.’

She sat back then and hummed the tune to herself. Her mention of Helene stumped me. I wanted to ask more, but what could I say, knowing what I know? The missus cared enough to follow her to London herself – they must have been close.

After half an hour or so we turned into the drive of a fairly modest house – I only say modest because I had been scared we were going to Hill Court, which is more like a palace if you listen to Mary. I was dreading meeting other servants and having them look at me, but the vicarage is smaller than the hall.

‘Before her marriage, Mrs Trevelyan was a lady’s maid and has kindly agreed to teach you hairdressing.’

I didn’t have time to think about that before Laurence had opened the carriage door and we were being invited into the house by a freckle-faced parlour maid. Mrs Trevelyan appeared and kissed the missus like an old friend. Turning to me, she held both my hands and called herself delighted. I don’t think anyone’s looked at me with such uncomplicated kindness since Mrs B in one of her more whimsical moods. The vicar is a much more sombre figure with a long beard, quite a lot younger than his wife. Younger, but not so youthful. He looked at both the missus and me, I thought, with disapproval.

To my surprise it was decided to ‘start’ straight away, and we separated – me and Mrs Trevelyan to her bedroom and the missus and the vicar into a room downstairs. I thought – stupidly – I’d be practising on the missus herself, but the freckly maid Tabitha was to be the model. She went up ahead of me, and I had a shock when I noticed the sleeve of her right arm ended too soon. Her hand and a few inches of her forearm are gone.

Mrs Trevelyan is the kindest teacher, and Tabitha the most patient model even though she can’t be more than fifteen. She didn’t mind my first disasters on her head. I kept dropping the brush and scattering pins, but Mrs T laughed so much, Tabitha and I caught each other’s eye in the mirror and laughed too. Mrs T has very fine lines around her eyes which suit her, especially when she’s smiling, and fair hair which hardly shows the grey. She’s a gently ageing elf. I wonder about her and the vicar. He seems so mirthless in comparison. I felt a shot of guilt when he looked at me for never going to church.

I learned a little more about him – and the missus – once I’d managed to do something halfway sensible with Tabitha’s hair and Mrs T decided it was enough for one lesson. Their doors are big heavy things that shut out the rest of the house very well. I could hear music as soon as it was opened, and it grew clearer as we came down the stairs. It was without doubt the missus, but not just her – a man’s voice and a piano. We stopped in the hallway to listen. His voice – the vicar’s – was like a glorious river running beneath, and hers was the sunlight glittering on top. Mrs T listened intently. Then the music broke off and there was muffled talking, quite passionate it sounded, and a quick flurry of notes on the piano. Mrs T nodded.

‘Yes, that last refrain was a little heavy-handed.’

She turned to me, and the creases were back, making stars of her eyes.

‘I think we had better not disturb them. I am sure you would like some tea after all your hard work. Tabby will show you where the kitchen is.’

I thanked her warmly and Tabitha too as she took me down. She seemed as kind as her mistress, but I was still nervous of being seen in the servants’ quarters in this dress. I needn’t have worried – they were as curious about the missus as I was about their master and, if anything, I think my fine clothes awed them a little. The cook, Gertrude – she doesn’t like being called Mrs Gray despite her position and age – pushed tea and bread with jam in front of me, and the three of them – the housemaid Selina was suddenly there too – huddled around as if it was a council of war.

What was the missus like to work for? Had I met him? How was the baby? Why were the indoor servants so aloof? Duncan sometimes came in for a cup of tea, but Laurence never showed himself. Selina sighed and licked her lips.

‘The more’s the pity.’

Gertrude seared her with a look.

‘If that man puts one foot in this kitchen, I’ll set a hot iron on him.’

I eyed her, surprised, but the girls were running on. They saw the others at church sometimes or at servants’ balls at Hill Court, but they didn’t mix much. I told them how hard the work had been and how I came to be lady’s maid. Selina nudged Tabitha.

‘Same as when you were there then.’

I stopped pushing bread and jam into my mouth to stare at Tabitha. She shrugged.

‘Only for a few weeks, over a year ago now. Mrs Trev offered me a place here …’

She lowered her voice.

‘I was glad enough to say yes.’

‘Fair stole you away, didn’t she?’

Gertrude gave her a motherly look, then shook her head.

‘They get through housemaids and boys quicker than I do hairpins. It’s a bad lot when upper servants are worse even than their masters can be.’

I was still staring at Tabitha, thinking she must have known Helene. Gertrude patted my arm.

‘Now you’re a lady’s maid, you can use the position you’ve been raised up to by God’s grace to bring His love and goodness to the other servants.’

Her eyes shone with joy. For me, I think. I’ve never considered I might now have some sway in the house. The thought of bringing any kind of goodness to Clockface! But it has made me think I could be a friend to Lily, the new girl. She cowers in the kitchen close to Clockface, staring sullenly, as if the rest of us are all grinning goblins.

Gertrude hadn’t finished, and I could see what was coming.

‘I hope we’ll see you in church when Mr Gethin is back. I’m sure things will be much easier at the hall then. He sets a wonderful example. Such a kind man.’

I stared at her. She smiled encouragingly and lowered her voice.

‘And very patient.’

She threw a meaningful look upwards, in the direction of the missus. I thought of the missus’ dark moods I’d seen or heard about and wondered if she was spoken of in that way all over the county. A flash of loyalty made me bristle. Gertrude’s eyes shone more brightly talking about the master than when she was talking about God. I wonder what she’d make of the gargoyle. Changing the subject, I was bold enough to say it seemed strange that the missus doesn’t go to church but comes and sings at the vicarage as often as she does. Selina spoke in a whisper, which was hardly necessary.

‘Shut up together for hours sometimes.’

Her eyebrows made it obvious what she thought of that. I recalled the grim-faced man I had glimpsed and nearly choked on a piece of bread. Gertrude told her to mind her mouth, but it was clear the conversation had become as worn as old cloth between them. She sniffed.

‘God moves in mysterious ways. Music is a path to the soul and our good parson knows that.’

She took my plate away to make an end of the subject, and I watched it go with sadness – the jam had been very sweet. A bell rang then anyway. Tabitha jumped and beckoned me.

‘That will be for you too.’

I was sorry to leave. The vicarage was so ordinary after the hall – it seemed easier to breathe there somehow – and the servants so cheery and normal. It was a relief I hadn’t expected – to be amongst faces as unremarkable as my own. Only Tabitha has a truly sweet face, even with her freckles, which are much more becoming on her than on my spattered face.

I was wondering if I had time to ask about Helene when she turned suddenly halfway up the stairs and took hold of my arm. She stared at me as if she was searching out something invisible.

‘You’re all right at the hall?’

I didn’t know how to answer, so I nodded. She leaned in closer.

‘There’s something wrong there.’

‘Wrong?’

She nodded.

‘Something didn’t feel right, which is why I was glad to come here. Servants keep leaving. I think it’s more than Mrs Clarkson’s bullying.’

My chest tightened.

‘Is it the master?’

She frowned and looked down at her right arm.

‘I don’t think so. He hired me after my accident and brought me down here. He was kind.’

She rubbed below the elbow with her one hand and saw me looking.

‘Caught it in a spinning machine, trying to fix a spindle when I was twelve.’

I felt my own right hand bunch into a fist. She shrugged.

‘I don’t notice it now. But if it wasn’t for Mr Gethin, I’d be in the workhouse.’

I took a step closer and whispered.

‘Do you know what happened to Helene, Tabitha? The lady’s maid? Mary won’t tell me.’

She glanced up and down the stairs before speaking.

‘Not everything. She got into trouble, but it wasn’t like her. She went to church even when none of the others did, which is how the vicarage lot came to know her – Mrs Trev was especially fond. They spoke French together.’

She frowned again.

‘I didn’t know her very well. I had only just started at the hall when the Gethins took her to London with them. They took a boot boy too, a little Indian lad, but he didn’t come back. Helene said he ran away while they were in town, but she wouldn’t say anything else. She was nervous all the time, and then, when her condition was known, she left. Everyone said it was Laurence – you must have seen what he’s like?’

I nodded reluctantly.

‘Duncan says he confessed, but Mr Barrett kept it quiet and forced Helene to go. Since then, servants have been leaving more quickly than makes sense. Though it’s true most of them are dismissed almost as soon as they arrive. I don’t know that I might have been thrown out too, but Mrs Trev got to me first.’

The bell rang again down in the kitchen. Tabitha made an impatient noise.

‘Just mind yourself. Especially around Laurence.’

She turned and was at the top of the stairs quick as a hare, leaving me with a queasy feeling, as if the ground had become unstable. In the hallway, the vicar was looking as dour as before, but the missus was shining like a beacon, talking to Mrs Trevelyan almost as if she hadn’t stopped singing. Words poured out of her like notes up and down a scale. They are planning a gathering at the hall for when the master is back, a musical evening. She was flushed and looked younger. Mrs T kept nodding and smiling in a motherly way, guiding her towards the door with the smallest shifts in her body and graceful turns of her wrist that the missus didn’t notice. At the carriage, Laurence shut the door just as I was going to step up.

‘You’re at the back with me.’

After what Tabitha had just said, I shrank from the idea.

‘No, I’m not.’

I feel hot just writing that down. He gave me the look it deserved and lowered his voice.

‘Who do you think gave the order?’

I had no choice but to walk around, hoping the missus hadn’t heard. There’s not much room at the back, and we had to sit close. I was aware of the warmth and pressure of his arm against mine.

‘You’re a ray of sunshine today.’

I glanced at him. Strange to be so close, so private together on the carriage. Knowing what was being said at the vicarage, that he had even confessed to Barrett, I became aware of him in ways I didn’t want to. But Mary had said Barrett knew it wasn’t Laurence. I wanted to be alone to think clearly.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

I tried to sound unconcerned.

‘I’m tired. Don’t have to talk, do I?’

There was a silence. He blew air through his lips.

‘Plenty of talk in the vicarage kitchen, I don’t doubt.’

Something in his tone made me feel ashamed. He knew what had been said or could guess it. I glanced up again and was shocked by the directness of his look – he was watching me as if to see what a small animal might do. For all the pale nakedness of his stare, I couldn’t tell what lay behind it and turned away, flustered. He gave one of his bitter laughs.

It’s odd how a place can change without looking any different. Finton Hall seemed darker and more troubling. Mary was waiting. I hardly knew how to meet her eye. She handed me a letter on the sly – William’s handwriting on the envelope. It was kind of her. Clockface might have kept it from me for days. I returned her quick smile and hid it under the missus’ cloak as I followed her up to help her change. Afterwards, she sent me straight back down for the wine and biscuits. I could hear Clockface talking in the kitchen as I drew near. She was speaking in urgent tones, and I stopped outside the door.

‘… had to restrain her. If they hadn’t, the portrait would have been ripped to shreds, and who knows what else? It makes me shudder to think of it.’

‘But why did she want to cut up her own picture?’

I caught Lily’s voice, low and worried. There was a splat as Clockface threw something fleshy onto a board.

‘Sensible questions like that won’t get you far with the likes of her. Frightful the look on her face when she saw it, and with that knife in her hand! (Something abrupt in French). If I were the master, I wouldn’t feel safe in my own bed. It’s no wonder he stays away.’

Lily said something else that I couldn’t hear, and there was a huff.

‘The rest of us have to put up with it and hope she’s not taken any worse. There’ll be blood shed one of these days.’

It sounded to me as if Clockface was enjoying the idea, but when I walked in, Lily was as white as a sheet. She turned her large eyes on me with distaste, as if I was as mad as the world believes the missus to be. I can see Clockface has her claws in her, as deep as in the fish she was gutting. I greeted them both cheerfully enough and earned myself a sneer. As I left, I could hear the silence behind me thrumming with all the unkind words waiting to be said.

I took another look at the portrait before taking the wine up. It is still in its awkward place on the drawing room wall, and the missus hasn’t mentioned it again. I can’t understand why its arrival should have upset her so much. The girl in green looks so fresh and happy, it’s hard to imagine such pretty hands wielding a knife. But if it ever comes to it, I shall be ready. I have decided there is nothing she can do that will shock me.

Later

I won’t copy out William’s letter. He said he’s glad, and now he’s free to marry someone he feels proud to be seen with. Then he sent me greetings from my mother – my own mother – because, he explained, she’s too upset to write herself yet. I crumpled the letter, threw it on the floor and stamped on it. I shall recommend that he marry my mother instead – they do think so very much of each other.

Wednesday, 10th April

My red ribbon has disappeared! I wanted to tie up my letters again when I put William’s away in the box (after uncrumpling it). The ribbon should be on the floor where I threw it, but I don’t remember seeing it. There’s no crack it could fall down. While that’s vanished, something else has appeared – a little pot of cold cream on my washstand. It’s made with rose oil, I think – I can’t stop lifting my knuckles to my nose to breathe in the smell. I had a moment’s shame that the missus must have put it there because of my hands, but she’s said nothing. All she can talk about is the musical evening – what food to order, what to wear, what to sing. The idea of having guests and music at the hall beats inside her like a second heart. We have been to the vicarage again, and I think my hairdressing skills are improving. Clockface makes lewd comments in the kitchen about the missus and the vicar, but I take no notice.

Friday, 12th April

She’s gone to London, some business at Gloucester Square. Mrs B left the house to her, which is another thing keeping the master in town. He’s making it into their London home and no doubt stuffing it full of paintings and statues and whatnot like he has here. I knew nothing of her leaving until yesterday when she said I was to pack for her and that I could have the whole weekend to myself. She’s taken Laurence. My heart sank when I heard that. Why him and not her lady’s maid? I worry the separation from me will not be good for her. Finton Hall seems further from the world than ever. It’s flat and stale without her. I wander around her room, needlessly dusting and rearranging items and searching fruitlessly for the key to the bottom drawer.

Saturday, 13th April

First my ribbon, now my print dress has been taken, and I don’t know when. I wanted to change into it to go for a walk, but the drawer is plain empty. Mary was washing the front steps when I went looking. She was so uninterested in my missing dress, I couldn’t believe it was her that took it. When I turned to go, she asked me what London was like. I’m amazed she’s never been.

‘Busy, dirty. Big.’

She nodded.

‘But all the people, the places …’

I knew what she was thinking of. Or whom.

‘Laurence will be too busy with errands for the missus to see any of it.’

She glanced at me sharply but didn’t take offence. I wanted to ask her about what Tabitha had said but knew she would shut me out if I did that. She looked troubled.

‘I don’t know why she took him with her.’

I offered her the feeble reason I’d found for myself.

‘Muscle, I expect. There will be things to carry back she won’t want to trust to a porter.’

She thought about it, wanting to believe it too. I wondered how far her jealousy reached.

‘She hit him once.’

I stared at her.

‘What?’

‘She thought Helene was his fault, everyone did.’

Her voice went hard.

‘She went for him, wild as anything. Called him horrible names.’

I studied her face.

‘Why wasn’t he dismissed?’

She shrugged and stared back down the drive.

‘She changed her mind. She can’t do enough for him now, treats him like a pet.’

‘But I don’t understand – why would she change her mind when everyone says it was him?’

It was the wrong choice of words. She stiffened, and I got a sense of bared teeth. I quickly changed my tone.

‘Well, he doesn’t give her flowers, does he?’

Her eyes brightened in spite of herself. I could feel her whiskers twitching as she tried not to smile.

‘I found bluebells in my workbox on Friday.’

We hadn’t shared confidences before. I was trying to think how to ask her more about the missus when she made a swift, deft movement with her hand at her neckline and pulled free a necklace. It was a small ring threaded onto a thin strip of leather. She showed it to me with the same half-defiant look Laurence gave when he offered his posy. It’s a strange, skittish courtship they’re having. I suppose I’m the best she has as a witness.

‘It was his grandmother’s.’

I looked more closely. It’s a split ring from a charm bracelet, prettily engraved, and looks like gold. Expensive. I felt a flash of suspicion – hadn’t the master rescued Laurence from a life of poverty? It seems unlikely he would be in possession of an heirloom. Mary held the ring in her palm as if it was a little bird she feared might fly away. I told her it was beautiful – it was – and she tucked it back inside her dress, looking happy for once. She was starting to tell me another story about Laurence, unable to stop herself now she had an audience, when Clockface appeared in the doorway like a witch in a fairy tale and that was that.

I asked Lily about my missing dress. She looked at me as if I was speaking in tongues and didn’t bother with an answer. I think she is beginning to understand her position as Clockface’s favourite.

Sunday, 14th April

I thought I had taken leave of my senses completely this afternoon. Opening the door of my room, I saw the girl in green gliding up the stairs. She was looking over my shoulder still, even as she moved straight towards me, and I nearly cried out. For a moment, I watched helplessly as she floated closer, convinced that in some shadowy way she was coming for me. Fear squeezed my throat shut. Which was lucky. She took a sharp turn at the top of the stairs, and there was Laurence – of course – carrying the portrait. The sight of him made my heart lurch in a different direction – he was supposed to be in London, so where was the missus? My face must have turned white because he paused when he saw me. I collected my wits and asked if the missus was back. No. She’d sent him home alone with orders for the portrait to be hung in her room.

‘Why?’

I followed him in. It made me uncomfortable that the girl in green was being moved around. Laurence leaned her against a small table and squared up to an earl hanging near the door.

‘Damned if I know. The housemaids should be doing this, not me.’

I was in no mood for glib replies.

‘Why was the missus upset when her portrait arrived? She told me to send it from London herself, but Mrs Clarkson said she had a knife ready for it. I don’t understand why.’

He turned his head to look at me as if I’d said something strange, then briefly back at the portrait. I carried on.

‘And when the canary came – why did she throw it out? Is she angry at the master?’

He didn’t answer for a moment.

‘I told you. Just do your work.’

I wanted to kick him.

‘Tell me.’

Shaking out his shoulders, he took hold of the earl.

‘Laurence.’

He lifted down the painting, then picked up the girl in green. I felt my blood surge higher with every second he ignored me.

‘I’ll tell Mary what they said at the vicarage. That you confessed about Helene.’

He went very still for a moment. Horribly so. I was afraid suddenly of the thoughts going through his mind, of how his hands clenched the sides of the picture. Tabby had told me to be careful, but I saw I had set something building in him that I could not take back. Without speaking, he positioned the painting in the gap and reached behind to hook it by the chain. It wouldn’t catch. He tried several times, handling it roughly until I worried for the painting itself. The final time, he must have caught some skin because he cried out loudly, holding one hand up and letting the portrait slide perilously to the floor. I saw pain set fire to his anger. It rushed up his body like molten iron and, with a roar that set my hair on end, he punched the wall. I stumbled backwards into one of the chairs, hands lifting feebly. He turned, breathing heavily, and I thought of the fire irons, if I had time to reach them. His face was full of rage and something else too, a private, anguished look. He glared at me.

‘Tell her. See where it gets you.’

The skin on his knuckles was broken. He uncurled his fingers painfully and seemed on the point of saying more. Nothing came, and he turned abruptly, snatching up the painting of the earl on his way out. I rushed over to make sure the painting of the girl in green was undamaged and, though my hands were shaking, managed to hang it without trouble. After that, I retreated to my own room and haven’t left it, even to eat. The hours are filled with sewing. And praying that the missus will return soon.

Monday, 15th April

It happened like a clap of thunder on a still day – nothing to warn of what was coming. I feel struck by lightning. I was in the library as the missus says I can use it whenever I like, but I wasn’t there for the books. I still can’t believe I’m allowed to touch them and, apart from the Milton, I don’t know that I want to. I’m no reader except for letters – and I like tidying up the missus’ papers in the morning room, if only because I now know how to spell words like ‘soirée’. The thought of all the serious words on all the pages in the library makes me bone tired. But I was restless this afternoon, worried about the missus being in London without me and still unsettled by Laurence. My stitching went awry on a petticoat, and I gave it up. I searched through her room for the hundredth time and the desk in the morning room, looking for the key to the bottom drawer or a clue about her portrait, or Helene, or anything. Nothing. So, I tried the library instead for something more about the master, peering at books and behind them and tugging at anything with a handle. The only odd thing I found was a lump of flint in the drawer of the middle table.

I slammed the drawer shut again, and my eye fell on the strange machine. It had dulled since I cleaned it three weeks ago. Mary’s lazy, and I doubt Lily has the strength to apply a duster with any spirit, she’s so doll-like. I don’t know why she was hired for a house like this. Perhaps it’s no wonder they lose staff so quickly. I’ve tried talking to her again, but I can see she’s reluctant to have anything to do with me. What I do know is she’s an orphan with even bleaker choices than me outside this position. I keep thinking of Gertrude’s words at the vicarage. I should try harder.

I considered the wheeled thing a moment more, then picked it up and gave it a good buff with my pocket handkerchief. The shine came back and with it somehow the shine to my day. It started me thinking how housemaids should really be held in higher esteem. We’re priestesses, perfecting the beauty of common, ordinary things. The fancy made me laugh. Perhaps dusting really is a way of serving God.

I heard a man’s tread and felt my insides clench – Laurence on some errand or sloping off to his room, which is quickest by the backstairs at the library end of the house. He sleeps in the same place the silver’s locked up in for safety (though I doubt it’s any safer with him). My pulse quickened as the footsteps grew louder. I waited for them to fade again – no part of me knows what to do with itself when he is near – but instead of walking by, he turned into the doorway. My heart lurched and then seemed to cease altogether. He took two strides into the room before we were both stock-still like two dogs catching each other’s scent. Not Laurence. The master. Without doubt. As if the man in the drawing room portrait had escaped but in doing so aged instantly. Everything Clockface and Laurence had said or hinted at roared into my head, and I had a dreadful urge to bolt for the door.

‘Excuse me, sir.’

It was a whisper. I could hardly hear myself with the clamouring in my ears. His gaze travelled all over me.

‘Ah.’

And he walked towards me.

I will try and get him down as Mrs B said I should. First impression is that he’s a gentleman, of course. His face has that soft look – no whiskers. It’s heavier than in the painting. There’s not much hair on his head, and he’s not overly tall. If anything, I was surprised by how ordinary he looks – except for his eyes. They are faded, with age perhaps, but alive in a way I’ve not met with before. I’ve never felt so looked at. And Lizzie had said he wouldn’t notice me. I swallowed and spoke quickly as if talking would fend him off in some way.

‘Harriet Watkins, sir, the new lady’s maid.’

I felt as if I’d told him I was the butler. He raised his eyebrows, and his smile widened as if he was in on a joke I wasn’t. After what Clockface had said, I was waiting for him to start speaking French. Instead, he touched my chin with his soft fingers, which gave me a start – I was mostly looking at the floor except for quick glances up. It was like the missus had once touched me, only he lifted my head up and a little to the side as if he was inspecting me for purchase or judging an ornament or I don’t know.

‘Harriet Watkins.’

He said my name slowly as if it was some sort of secret between us, and with a jolt I remembered Clockface had written to him complaining about me.

‘May I?’

He looked at the metal thing in my hands.

‘Oh!’

I thrust it at him and started talking quickly again about how I’d just picked it up to dust. I became aware of my hands and tried to hold them out of sight, which he saw – he saw everything – and then I was telling him how I had been a housemaid and was used to cleaning. Clockface could not have done worse for me herself.

He slowly drew his sleeve across the wheels, like a caress. His hands are smooth and soft like his face. Then he held it up, so it caught the light.

‘Do you know what this is, Watkins?’

‘No, sir.’

With great care, he placed it back in the centre of the table. I was expecting something more, but he only stood there admiring it. The silence was unbearable.

‘I think it’s lovely, sir.’

He looked at me with that searching expression.

‘Hm?’

‘Yes, sir. Well, I mean interesting. I think almost not knowing what it is makes it beautiful, sir.’

He seemed to take the idea seriously.

‘If you knew what it was, it would stop being lovely?’

I hadn’t thought that far on, and with him waiting for an answer like that – looking at me like I was something interesting – I found my thoughts wouldn’t keep on a clear path but kept skittering off into the undergrowth.

‘Oh … I don’t know, sir. No …’

I leaned forward to peer at it, mind a frightened blank, when Mrs B came to my rescue.

‘My last mistress, sir, said if you give your attention to something beautiful, it will tell you a secret. I think if you’re used to seeing something and know what it is, you might forget that it’s beautiful – not see it at all.’

I chanced a look at his face. His attention was all on me. I thought I shouldn’t be talking this freely, even if he did ask the question. He answered just as if it was normal to be speaking with a maid like this.

‘Perhaps its secret is that it is beautiful. If you give your attention to an object or person, however outwardly plain, then its beauty will be revealed.’

I could tell he was still looking at me and burned up hotter than before. The gargoyle flashed into my mind. Did he think that beautiful?

‘Take this.’

He broke off gazing and wafted a hand at the machine.

‘It’s a steel and flint mill, used by miners in the last century to provide a light while they worked. The naked flame of a candle was too dangerous with the gases below ground.’

He opened the shallow drawer in the table and took out the lump of flint.

‘Let me show you. Close those curtains.’

There are windows either end of the library. He walked briskly towards one and, bewildered, I hurried to pull the drapes opposite. The library was plunged into gloom.

‘Now, come closer.’

We met in the middle, either side of the table. He picked up the mill and held it with one end pressed against his body. I could make out the handle on the wheel closest to him. He turned it, and immediately sparks flew up in the air, blasting the area between us with light. There was a frantic, grating sound, and I saw that his other hand was holding the piece of flint against the turning disc. His face, lit up and floating behind the streaming sparks, made me think of a line from Paradise Lost that Mrs B read to us – with head up-lift above the wave, and eyes that sparkling blazed. He was grinning like a schoolboy, his lips and teeth strangely magnified in the burning light. I found my own face rigidly drawing itself up into a smile too, as if some bolt of energy had passed from him to me. He let out a shout of a laugh, and the mill whirred to a stop which, after the bright light, cloaked us in almost total darkness. I blinked. The sudden blindness and silence made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Something moved in the dark, I thought, and I stumbled back towards the window, groping for the curtains. Daylight rushed in.

‘Very effective, you see.’

The master tossed the flint back into its drawer.

‘But still not very safe. This particular flint mill caused an explosion that killed a miner.’

He placed it carefully, almost lovingly, back on the table.

‘But the man operating the mill itself survived. Interesting, isn’t it?’

He seemed really to want me to agree with him. I moved slowly back into the room as he continued.

‘They say the sparks change colour as the methane levels rise. He would have seen what was coming for a brief moment. I expect it was rather beautiful.’

I looked at the thing. It was awful now, like the beautiful paintings of death and horror. But also – it was true – interesting. He cleared his throat.

‘You will no doubt have seen many items from my collection – handled them, of course. I am delighted you observe so closely. Nothing in this house lacks beauty, whether its purpose is ornamental or useful – that is of utmost importance to me.’

I remembered Clockface saying I was a dirty blot and felt my shoulders hunch, but he was looking at me quite seriously.

‘Even the humblest-seeming thing can surprise one with its beauty. One simply needs to learn how to look.’

Still looking at me, he pointed at the flint mill.

‘Behold! This funny little contraption was never designed to be beautiful, but it so fascinated lady’s maid Harriet Watkins, she couldn’t refrain from soiling her pretty white handkerchief to bring it up.’

I couldn’t tell what his tone was – the hint of mockery made me look at him more boldly, but he was now smiling. I laughed – again as if my features were being moulded to his will.

‘Of course, we use lamps in the mines now – much safer, much less lovely.’

His smile waned as if he was thinking something new.

‘And what happy hearth have we deprived of the observant Harriet? You are from north of here, I think?’

I told him about home, and he wanted to know all about my parents and sisters and the Stanworths, and how often I wrote or visited, as if any of it could mean anything to him. Finally, he clapped his hands together and turned towards the desk.

‘Well, we must be sure to take good care of you.’

It was my cue to leave, and I took it with a mixture of reluctance and relief. I was anxious to tend to the missus but came to my room first to look in the mirror – partly to see if there was any red left in my face but also to see what he was looking at. If I stared at myself for long enough, I wondered if I’d see beauty hidden in my humble features. Not really. Same solid jaw and long face. But not so tired now I’m not doing the rough work. My skin’s clearer, and there’s something – not in the features but in my expression I like. I don’t think it was there earlier.

The missus was in her room, still in her travelling cloak, staring out of the window. I was very pleased to see her.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I never knew to expect you.’

She turned her head, and I saw she was down those black wells again as I had feared. While I changed her out of her dress, she stared at her portrait, and I waited nervously for her reaction. The girl in green looks much more at home in the bedroom with the lush green wallpaper around her. I see more of the missus in her since last week. Or her in the missus, I suppose. It’s as if they’re moving towards each other.

‘I remember how tedious it was to sit for that portrait.’

Her voice had a dreamy quality.

‘He was a surly old man, the artist, resentful I think of having to paint spoilt aristocrats for a living. And I was a terrible subject, very impatient. He painted me in the garden itself only one time, and when the musicians started playing, I remember wanting to run through the gate and join them – so much so that I stood up. He swore terribly at me, and tore off his necktie in a rage, so I sat down again. I wish I had not. I wish I had run.’

I finished arranging her collar, thinking (after my talk with the master) how an ugly scene and bitter artist had still created something beautiful.

‘Then you would not have had such a lovely portrait, ma’am.’

She shook her head, still staring at her former self.

‘I wish I had. I wish she had. Then I would never have forgotten that day or the musicians for so long.’

Perhaps that’s why she had wanted to attack it when it arrived at the hall. I imagined the girl in green jumping up and running out of sight beyond the frame, leaving still sunlight on an empty seat. The image was a happy one, but I didn’t give it very much thought. My heart was still beating with a kind of excitement that the master had finally returned and, if anything, seemed to like me.

Tuesday, 16th April

Dear Harriet,

I know there is no earthly use in telling you the shock you have given your father. The damage is done, and I am not sure he will ever recover completely. God knows I have tried to guide all my children with a fair and loving hand; He alone sees the trials I have suffered without help and without complaint. The first banns were read for William and Dorcas at church on Sunday, and it won’t have crossed your mind to think of the looks I had to endure from neighbours and friends. Not to mention from Prudence Harding who has always thought her family above the rest of us. If it wasn’t for all the work to do and looking after your father and no one but me to do it, I would take to my bed myself.

I only hope you don’t live to regret the course you have taken, Harriet. But that is a mother’s vain hope, I fear. You have made your bed and you will have to lie in it. A man of Mr Gethin’s liberal and compassionate nature only invites trouble into his home by his charity, I believe. I have heard rumours that I would not think to repeat from a parlour maid at Beechwood who knew a laundry maid in her last place whose brother’s sister-in-law worked for the Gethins in London. I am sure it is only the vengeful tittle-tattle of a dismissed servant, one who was no doubt underserving of the Gethins’ kindness in the first place, telling stories to undermine Mr Gethin’s good name. It troubles me that they have chosen such an unfinished girl as yourself to serve as lady’s maid and I pray daily that you do not give me cause to feel ashamed. You have chosen to disregard the loving guidance of your mother, Harriet, but I entreat you, above all else, to be honest with yourself.

With love,

Mother

PS Sam Jessop was crushed to death in the quarry last week by a barrow that slipped off a plank. His widow, poor soul, will receive some relief through the Association in her time of sorrow. Not everyone can claim to be so fortunate.

I doubt I shall ever open a letter again, if only for the sake of my nerves.

Wednesday, 17th April

The house has jumped to attention. Everyone is busier, smarter, more serious about their work, as if it was all not quite real before. Even the furniture and paintings – the walls themselves – look more alive. The blank eyes of the statues seem luminous, as if something behind them has awoken. Laurence is up and down stairs as much as I used to be. Meals are served properly – the kitchen thrums like a machine with a red and sweating Clockface in the middle shouting orders and insults equally at the kitchen maid. She’s from the village and comes in for the day. There was a different girl to start with, but she only lasted one morning before running home in tears according to Mary. This one is built like a ram. Clockface’s tirades don’t seem to have any effect at all. Perhaps it’s because if she chose to, Bridie could knock Clockface flat with her forehead alone. I like her very much.

Servants’ meals are different too. Mr Barrett sits at the head. He looks like someone who spends money on himself – Mary says he has a small fortune squirrelled away from all the years with the master, and Mr Gethin gives him advice on investments. He’s short but well-fed, and sleek. Blinks slowly. No one knows what he’s thinking. He stared long and hard at me when we met and hasn’t looked at me since. I can’t stop watching him, thinking about Helene, but I don’t dare ask him what he knows. He says very little, which keeps everyone else quiet, so for now I like him too.

Clockface has to make do with murderous looks. I feel foolish now for ever believing her spiteful words about the master – I think she was just trying to frighten me. The man I met in the library would never throw a servant out without just cause. In truth, I wish they’d all heard how he spoke to me. Every time I enter the kitchen, I catch Mary and Laurence studying me as if they’re expecting me to sprout a second head.

The master’s been busy with visitors asking for charitable donations since his return – Mary says they descend like a blizzard the moment he’s home. From what I’ve seen, they go away beaming. It seems Laurence was right – he really is a saint. I was in the hall when one rosy-looking gentleman came out of the library, talking nineteen to the dozen and spluttering with gratitude. They shook hands, and as the master clapped him on the back, he threw me a fleeting look of amusement, as if we were in the habit of sharing jokes about his visitors. Taken by surprise, I smiled back. This morning I saw him again from my window; he was getting into the carriage when Francis – a black servant boy they’ve brought back with them – tripped over the blanket he was carrying and landed flat on it. The master roared with laughter and threw him a coin once he was upright. Finton Hall feels lighter with him in it, less remote, and it’s shaken off the heavy solitude.

I love Francis already. He’s a sort of under footman or pageboy in lovely green livery like Laurence, only just turned ten years old – he proudly showed me the little clay pipe the master gave him for his birthday last week. No one has blinked at his colour – I think the master often hires servants with foreign forebears. The boot boy that Tabby said ran away was half-Bengali, not Indian, according to Duncan (he scratched a map in the dirt to show me) – his father was a sailor who married a Cardiff girl but then died, and the master found the little boy shoeless on the streets. He seems especially keen on helping the helpless. Several ladies have visited from societies that train friendless girls for service like the one Clockface hired Lily from.

Francis is not another stray like Lily though, or Laurence, or Tabby; his father’s a writer and temperance lecturer, and his older brothers are apprenticed or clerks. The master talked to his mother at some political rally after she asked him a question from the crowd and, according to Francis, his whole family is pleased as Punch that he’s been given this chance in such a grand house. He loves paintings and sculpture – especially anything shiny, I’ve noticed – and wants to study art one day. The master told his mother he’d be sure to show him some of his treasures. My mouth fell open at that. Francis has already had a letter from his father, which he read out to me with great care and huge breaths every three words or so. I wish I had letters from home like it. It urges him to work hard and take pride in his service and to learn everything he can. I’ve promised to help him write a letter back. He’s a burst of sunshine, full of wonder, gazing at all the treasures in the same way I did. I saw him staring in amazement at the painting of the little black child. The artist has been particularly clever at making the light shine off the silver neck circlet – Francis nearly butted the painting with his forehead trying to study how it was done. He even lifted a finger to touch the paint but caught himself in time, before I suffered a small fit. His other great love seems to be Laurence. He follows him about like a smitten duckling, but Laurence looks angry and shakes him off with unkind words, or tries to. Duncan said he had been very fond of Joe, the boot boy who went missing. Neither had family of their own, and Joe looked up to him. Whatever the reason, Laurence has lost his swagger since the master’s return. At dinner, he’s sullen and doesn’t look at anyone.

The missus is different too. Glassy. Looking at her, there’s only a smooth, hard surface reflecting back, showing nothing of what’s underneath. The master being home and the new bustle in the house have made her no happier. But she’s no worse than her dark days before either. I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes she’s so still, you’d think her spirit had slipped away, and I think of everything I’ve heard about her, the rages and sudden turns of mood. I keep watch. Planning the musical evening is the only thing that brings her to life, so I talk of it often, trying to draw her out. More trips to the vicarage are planned. Next time, I’m to learn a hairstyle for the soirée. With Barrett and the master here, I’m more aware of my supposed standing in the house and my lack of experience. An ‘unfinished girl’ as my mother put it, as if I’m missing an organ.

Thursday, 18th April

My dress has been returned, no damage to it that I can see, and placed back in the drawer. The thought of someone going through my things again and now playing games – I growled like a bear. It was just before lunch yesterday, and I marched downstairs meaning to say what I thought of it for everyone to hear in the kitchen, never mind Barrett. I’m an upper servant – I suppose I must act like one to be respected. Only I was stopped in the hall by the sound of the piano being played in the drawing room and voices. The missus for certain – the first I’ve heard her sing since the master returned – but also another high voice, clear as a bell. No song really, but flurries of notes they were repeating to each other, the missus leading. The drawing room door was open, and as I tiptoed near, I heard a giggle – I couldn’t believe it. Peering in, I saw Francis standing next to the piano and the missus turned to him with her face lit up like it is in the portrait. There was no danger of being noticed.

I got a shock though, looking beyond them. Something in me must have sensed the figure in the doorway at the other end of the room, mirroring me. The master was spying on them too, though I don’t suppose I can say that of a man in his own house. But it’s what it looked like. He’d seen me, and when my eyes met his, he smiled slowly with that hint of mischief. His face glimmered at me, if that’s the right word, until I thought I would fall forward into the room. I coloured and curtsied, then thanked my stars all the way down to the kitchen – another master would have had my hide for eavesdropping.

I was filled with hope for the missus and spent most of lunch wondering how I might keep her in such good spirits, forgetting about the dress and ribbon until Barrett rose from the table. I cleared my throat and stood up too, knocking cutlery off my plate. The clatter at least caught their attention, and I set forth my complaint about my missing garments, directing most of it at Barrett’s top button so I wouldn’t lose my nerve. It was met with silence and confused stares. Clockface stood and pushed her chair under the table, so it shrieked horribly against the floor. She raised her eyebrows at Barrett.

‘Something’s missing from the girl’s head, more likely.’

He sniffed and nodded without changing his expression. But none of that’s the strangest thing that happened today. I took my moment as usual this afternoon to run up to the nursery and see Edward for a few minutes – and there was the missus again, holding him. She’d said she was going for a walk around the garden. I stood in the doorway like a statue and exchanged a look with Lizzie. The missus was walking slowly past the windows, humming, but stopped when she saw me. I tried to smile the surprise from my face.

‘You look very comfortable, ma’am.’

She nodded faintly, suddenly not looking comfortable at all. Edward sensed the shift in her and started to squirm, leaning his head back. He let out a whimper. She shushed and jigged him as anyone would, humming softly again, lips almost touching his skin. For a moment, it seemed she had soothed him; he relaxed against her, eyes closing. Lizzie leaned forward to say something – a kind word no doubt – then changed her mind. I understand why. She knows Edward better than his own mother but showing it in any way would be an impertinence. I enjoyed watching the missus – she looked like the girl in the green dress again. A smile had crept over her face. I thought, this is Francis’s doing; he’s unlocked her heart.

Edward had the fidgets though. Some unknown want jerked him out of his slumber, and his little face went to creases. He arched himself backwards, pulled his mouth into a cavern of distress, and screamed at the top of his voice. It cut us all like a whip. The missus grew rigid and gripped him too tightly. She made soothing noises, or tried to, but he turned his face from her, bawling. I saw her own face shift from distress to anger. She began walking up and down with hurried, jerky movements that upset him more. Lizzie was telling her it was to be expected at this time of day, but I don’t think she heard. In a sudden movement, she turned and thrust Edward at me. I had no choice but to gather him into my arms. He let out a piercing wail, but then slumber cloaked him again just as quickly and his cries quietened. His little hand found a pleat in my dress and his body curled into mine.

The missus stared at us in a way I didn’t like. Lizzie said something again about him always being crotchety at this time. She was kind as could be, but the missus lifted her chin as if she’d received an insult. Next moment, she’d stalked out of the room. Lizzie sank back in her chair.

‘Well, there’s a shame.’

I knew it would be better to wait a bit before running after her. She’d be unreachable. Readjusting Edward, I pressed my lips against his hot little head, and we sat ourselves down on a rocking chair.

‘What’s she so scared of?’

Lizzie shrugged.

‘I should never have told her the master had been up here with him.’

‘The master?’

‘Oh yes.’

She smiled brightly.

‘The gifts he brought. Books, toys – too old for him yet, but so handsome. That’s from him …’

I looked to where she’d nodded and saw a prettily decorated zoetrope sitting on the small chest next to me.

‘He carried him about showing him everything, proud as any father I’ve seen.’

I rocked forward and gave the cylinder a push with my finger. Through the gaps, two seals bounced a ball back and forth off their noses. It was lovely – gave my heart a pang somehow to see such a pretty, childish thing and be holding a baby so close.

‘Why would she mind the master being here?’

Lizzie shrugged again.

‘I don’t know, but it was as if I’d said a bear had been in.’

The missus was back under glass when I dressed her later. Not a ripple or shadow to hint at her feelings. I tended to her with all the kindness and care I know how to give. It’s times like these she needs me most, I think. Though I can’t help feeling a precious chance has been lost with Edward, that we’ve taken a backwards step. I miss how it was between us before she went to London.

Friday, 19th April

I was tidying her toilet when I heard her coming back to her room this morning – not her usual habit. She said she would rehearse a song for the musical evening – the one she sang in the carriage on my first trip to the vicarage. Delighted, I suggested the drawing room and piano, but she shook her head.

‘We must imagine this room is a grand theatre filled with people, and you are a fine lady, sitting in the best box.’

She gestured that I sit on the bed and curtsied to me gravely, which made me smile.

‘I dream of this.’

She closed her eyes.

‘Whenever I sing on my own, I imagine there is only the little distance of the stage between myself and the audience. The silence is only the people holding their breath while they wait for me to begin.’

As she prepared herself, the quiet of the room really did begin to feel like the hush before a performance. The first note peeled away from her, and I felt my skin prickling all over. She sang quietly, as if not wishing to be heard, but I knew that in her mind the bedroom had disappeared completely, and she was standing before an audience of hundreds. The door was at my back, and her eyes remained closed, so neither of us noticed it swing open. We were, in our different ways, caught up in the performance, far away from Finton Hall. As she paused for a breath, a different voice intruded.

‘Ah! Sullivan’s Orpheus.’

I jumped from my seat, but the master didn’t spare me a glance. He was leaning against the door frame, not even over the threshold, smiling in at the missus. She blinked rapidly like a sleepwalker who has been roughly awakened.

‘I hope you will be singing it at the soirée?’

She stared as if not understanding. Her eyes seemed uncertain even of sight. The master pressed a hand to his chest and laughed lightly.

‘Forgive me, I interrupted. I was only thinking that Garston will appreciate it, as a Gilbert and Sullivan admirer, you know?’

He was turning to leave when the missus spoke in a thin, high voice.

‘Garston?’

‘Yes.’

He swung back around, eyebrows raised.

‘I’ve invited a few fellows from London.’

When she didn’t respond, he gestured appealingly.

‘We should be generous with our gifts, not hide them away for ourselves. And your voice, my dear, is a rare talent. We both know you’re wasted at church and on servants. You deserve an audience that truly appreciates you.’

I was standing almost directly between them, but neither of them showed even a flicker of awareness that I existed. The missus was looking at him as if he had stopped short or spoken in an unfamiliar language. Two spots of red slowly bloomed across the top of her cheeks. I confess I do not know what happened in that silence. I was simply beneath notice as servants are. Finally, he smiled again and bowed to her.

‘I look forward to hearing it in full at the party.’

The moment he was gone, the missus sat on the bed and pulled me back down with her.

‘Harriet, listen to me.’

She took my hand but didn’t meet my eye. Her ungloved fingers – cool and white – slid over my thickened skin and circled my paw.

‘I need your help.’

I waited.

‘At the musical evening.’

Her grip tightened as if what she wanted to say was finding its way out through her hands instead of her mouth. I didn’t move, but whatever it is that lies inside just under my ribs closed up tight like a prodded hedgehog. The last thing I want is to be in sight of all the ladies and gentlemen at the party. I think she got a sense of spikes because she suddenly let go and clasped her own fingers. She changed into the remote lady, issuing orders.

‘There will be more guests than I thought. We will arrange extra help, of course, but I would be so grateful if you would …’

She didn’t finish and dropped her voice.

‘I shall depend on you.’

I nodded reluctantly.

‘Of course, ma’am.’

She squeezed my hand again, relieved, but said nothing about what she expects me to do. I wish I knew what she had been going to say.

Saturday, 20th April

Visitors. I’d been tidying the morning room, and when I came out into the passage there was a gentleman standing there. Face like a half-rotten apple. He glanced at me once and then again quickly, as if I was an unpleasant surprise, a dirty yard dog somehow got into the house. I thought he must be another one come begging for some cause, but when the missus rang for me later in the drawing room, he was there again with his grey and bony wife and the master.

The missus was talking brightly in a cold way, much like the chilly white sky that’s been glaring down at us all week. She sent me off to fetch a newspaper from her desk. There was an advertisement in it by a lady’s maid she wanted to show Mrs Murray. When I returned, she asked me to wait and walked over to a side table to find the page, talking all the while to Mrs Murray about the problem with servants and then – louder, I thought – about how fortunate she was to have such a clever, kind maid herself. I blinked. Odd to be spoken of as if I wasn’t in the room, but my heart gave a little leap. The master was speaking quietly to Mr Murray, adjusting the position of objects on the mantelshelf from how the housemaids had left them as he did so. Mr Murray listened with his eyes turned to rest on my face. I felt hot. The fire was making a roaring sound in the chimney as if it was a winter’s night. Then the missus strode back and handed me the dishevelled paper.

‘Cut out this part for Mrs Murray and return with it.’

There are scissors in her bureau in the morning room. I read the maid’s hopeful words once I’d snipped around them and felt sorry for her, being offered up to the Murrays. As I refolded the paper, I noticed a pen had been used to roughly circle a column. Looking more closely, I saw it was part of an article about the possible war and what had been debated in and out of parliament. The writer had sharpened his claws for those in favour, especially Liberal MPs like the master.

Mr Gethin famously fills his servants’ quarters with the needy, the injured and the friendless in the name of Christian charity and social progress; will he make room for the maimed soldiers, fatherless children and destitute widows which his impassioned words (met with grim silence on his side of the house) will most certainly help create? There is a deplorable inconsistency in the character of some Englishmen, who conduct themselves with quiet dignity at home but call for excessive violence and unnecessary blood-spilling abroad.

I don’t know much about the reasons for war, but it seems harsh to turn the master’s goodness against him. ‘Famous’ goodness, it said. Funny, I felt my own chest swell with pride. To know I am lady’s maid in a household written about in print. Finton Hall is not so cut off from the world then as, living in it, one might suppose. I walked a little taller back through the hall and found Francis, handsome in his new post. He is being trained to answer the door to visitors, now such things are known to exist. I’ve never seen anyone wait with such expectation. He looked ready to spring at the handle.

In the drawing room, the missus was busy handing out cups of tea from the tray that Laurence had just set down. As she served, she talked about the musical evening and how the ladies from Hill Court had agreed to play and sing. There was no sign of the anxiety she had shown when she asked for my help. She was extravagantly praising the elder Miss Spencer’s voice when a shriek from Mrs Murray cut her off. We all turned and saw Francis in the doorway. He hadn’t been able to resist following me to peek in at the party. The cry seemed to have rooted him to the spot, and one fist was bunching up the cloth of his coat. Mrs Murray put a hand to her throat and muttered something. I saw Laurence straighten slowly from the tea tray and turn his eyes to her.

‘Of course, we have no need to look beyond our own walls for delightful voices.’

The master picked up the conversation again as if nothing had happened and strode over to Francis. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and beamed at Mrs Murray.

‘Sings like an angel. You must hear him.’

His enthusiasm didn’t find its fellow in the room. I caught Mr Murray staring at Francis in a way that made me want to stand between them. The master didn’t seem to notice; he was taken with the same boyish excitement as when showing me the flint mill.

‘Come. Clara was teaching him yesterday. Show us, my dear.’

He led Francis stiff-legged towards the piano. The missus put down the sugar spoon.

‘Ralph, I don’t think …’

‘Oh, come now. Just for us. What were you playing, hm?’

He gestured to the piano stool. She didn’t move. The master flapped his hand at her before sitting down himself.

‘Why shouldn’t we all enjoy ourselves? Now …’

He played a few notes, looking at Francis encouragingly.

‘Don’t be afraid. I know at least three people in this room who have enjoyed hearing you sing already.’

He glanced at the missus and then at me. The missus gave me a confused look.

‘Da-da-da-da …’

His voice was rich and loud.

‘Now you.’

Francis looked as if he might faint from breathing too fast. His chin lifted and his mouth opened. A sort of gasp escaped and a hiccup. We all waited in painful silence. Then the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes filled.

‘Oh!’

Mrs Murray flicked a fan in front of her face.

‘Must we really suffer this?’

Almost at the same moment, the missus dropped her cup and saucer. They crashed onto the tea tray, drowning the sugar and breaking into pieces.

‘How careless of me.’

I rushed forward to help, but she waved me away, turning to say something to Mr Murray. Laurence shook his head at me too and snatched up the tray. I looked at Francis, who had at least been startled out of his tears. The master was watching the little drama with an air of studied patience. He turned to Francis and smiled, squeezing his arm.

‘There now, good lad. Never mind.’

He pressed another coin into his hand and nodded at Laurence, the smile dropping again. Laurence jerked his head towards the door, and Francis set off like clockwork. I wanted to leave too and held out the newspaper cutting to Mrs Murray.

‘The advertisement, ma’am.’

She was still fanning herself like a belle at a ball about to swoon. I’d put her at fifty-five, face hard and sharp as slate. I’m every bit as tall and square-jawed as she is and my voice isn’t weak, but she acted as if I wasn’t there. I’ve heard of it before, servants being ignored by their betters just to confound them. She has strangely pale eyes, as if the colour has been leached from them. I watched them looking at anything but me and wondered if the master had been trying to show her how little he cared for her shrieks and comments. I put the clipping down next to her teacup.

‘I’ll leave it there, ma’am.’

‘No.’

She tutted and pointed at a different place. The blood thumped in my cheeks. As I turned, I ripped off the address at the bottom of the advert. I hope she ends up with a girl like Bridie.

Francis was back at his post in the hall. I wanted to console him, but Laurence was there, yanking the boy’s coat straight and slapping down the material where it had been creased in his fist. When Francis’s chin started quivering again, Laurence pinched it between finger and thumb.

‘Stop that.’

He thrust his face close.

‘Never let them see you beaten. Never show them. Especially him.’

I stepped towards them.

‘Let go. You’re hurting him.’

He turned his head and glared at me. I was shocked again by how naked his eyes look with their pale lashes, as if the violence in them might spill out unchecked.

‘Of course, Miss Watkins. You know best. You know everything there is to know, don’t you? A great pet with master and mistress alike.’

He straightened and walked right up to me, close enough so I could feel his heat and nearness. From the outside it would have looked like something else. My damned blood stirred.

‘I’ll tell you what you are, Harriet Watkins. You’re a starved little mouse that’s found some cheese.’

The back of my neck turned gooseflesh.

‘Too pleased with itself to notice the trap’s shut behind it.’

He snapped his fingers in my face and then mercifully picked up the tray and left. I felt myself trembling as I went to comfort Francis. He had his face turned to the front door, mouth twitching with the effort not to cry. I told him not to mind Laurence nor the master and mistress’s guests, but I made a poor job of it, too distracted by my own smarting. He set his face into a scowl and wouldn’t look at me. This is how it starts, I thought. All the meanness, all the secrets amongst servants. As I turned, my eye happened to fall on the cabinet and, with a start, I saw that the lover’s eye had been moved from behind the paperweight and was staring at me with even greater malevolence than I remembered. Laurence’s words are as empty as Clockface’s, I keep telling myself, meant only to frighten me. It’s the missus that is trapped here, not me. But I fancy I can feel all the eyes in this place watching – in pictures, on statues, carved into the gargoyle – and I think about Helene. She must have sat at this very table in this very room and thought herself well settled. Thought herself safe.

Easter Day, Sunday, 21st April

I slept fitfully and dreamt of dark, doorless corridors. An uneasy feeling has followed me since yesterday, and it was only made worse in church this morning. Lizzie was right that the whole household is made to go. There were all the neighbours I never meet, young and old faces seeking out ours, curious about the recluses at Finton Hall. I had been looking forward to seeing other people, but when it came to it, I felt like a creature in a zoo. The master moved amongst them all, clapping shoulders and shaking hands, greeting everyone like an old friend.

Laurence was also a welcome return, at least for some of the parish’s daughters. He knew it too, firing glances and smiles about until I could have dried my stockings on all the flaming cheeks. Mary glared at them, stony as the font. I saw him slip a feather into her hand as we came out of the church. Cunning devil. It looked as if it had come off some lady’s hat.

My place was in a pew with Barrett and Clockface, and I sat between them as stiffly as something stuffed. From the corner of my eye, I watched Barrett’s hands making precise little movements, turning pages of the prayer book, straightening his immaculate cuffs, pinching a crease in his trousers to kneel. Mary says he’s the reason Laurence is so rough with Francis. I pulled her under my umbrella while we were waiting to go in and made her talk to me. Barrett claims Laurence will be taken out of livery and made to work in the yard once Francis is trained – that he’s here to replace him. Laurence also told her it was Barrett’s fault that Joe left, the boot boy he was so fond of. I pointed out it’s the master pays our wages, not his valet, but Mary shook her head and whispered,

‘He can make anything happen he likes downstairs. He’ll pretend a reason to make the master turn against him.’

In church, I kept glancing sideways at him, trying to learn more, but nothing seems to come off him – no scent, no emotion, no hint at his thoughts. There was only the sound of him breathing through his nose – a soughing noise, like waves breaking in the distance. I hated listening to it, hated sitting between him and Clockface. I think of them now as two parts of a grim machine, joined together like the wheels on the flint mill, but grinding out darkness instead of light.

The only really happy thing about church was hearing the missus sing again. Her voice rose above the rest of us like a blackbird amongst magpies, none of the hushed tones she’s been using at the hall lately. I’m sure now that’s what she meant by her talent being buried. The master is right that her gift is wasted; ladies have so few chances to perform. Invitations to charitable concerts spill over her desk; she pointed one out to me last week, a children’s hospital that attracts great singers and artists, very respectable. Perhaps she has hopes.

I couldn’t hear Francis singing, though he was in the pew behind me. No one spoke to him that I heard, but the stares were loud enough. His own gaze somehow rested on nothing and no one, even as dozens of pairs of eyes searched him all over. I hope he hasn’t been frightened into silence. He should have a half day now the lunch has been cleared – I’ll go and find him. I think I know what will cheer us both up.

Later

I thought I wanted to know all the secrets of this house. It would have been better to walk around with my eyes covered and ears stopped. I took some sheets of paper from the missus’ desk and went to find Francis. He wasn’t anywhere. Not in the room where he sleeps, nor the boot room where he goes to blow soap bubbles out of the clay pipe the master gave him, nor the pantry where I came across him once drawing the big, round bottles of oil from Italy. (I was amazed at how he managed to show the light glinting off them, but found him almost in tears about it, having only slate and slate pencil to work with.) He wasn’t in the yard either, where he pats and talks to the old dog. I didn’t believe he’d go any further, being so used to the crush of London streets and so unused to woods and fields and quiet spaces. Then I remembered with some loss of heart that if I wanted to find Francis, it was Laurence I should be looking for, and the quickest way to find him was through Mary.

She was in the hall, toying with the feather he’d given her at church. She hid it in her skirt until she saw it was me coming and then brought it out with a shy smile, wanting me to notice. I wish she had someone else to share it with. For once, she couldn’t say where he was, or Francis. I left her sliding the tip of the feather under her chin and slowly down her neck, lost in a fancy, I imagine, where she knew exactly where Laurence was.

Bridie was in the kitchen when I passed through again and said she’d seen them go outside. I remembered how Laurence likes to preen in front of the stable lads and wandered down the block, breathing in the dark, sweet smell of dung and hay and horse sweat, sensing the heavy warmth of the bodies inside. Horses scare me a little, all that muscle and opinion in an animal.

There’s another yard behind the stables with barns for feed and tack, and the carriage house. I’d given up looking and was standing by the wall, making the most of the fresh air on my face before the next raincloud burst. One of the big doors of the carriage house was open a man’s width, and in the quiet I thought I heard a clunk. I’ve never been inside before and walked over to stick my head in. It was very dim, there being no windows, and the air colder. As my eyes got used to it, I made out the big carriage more clearly. I could just see that the door furthest from me was open. There was a voice, and the garden lad who reminds me of William loped around to the front, looking back over his shoulder. The carriage rocked as someone jumped out, the door slammed, and there was Laurence. He dropped his handkerchief and ducked for it, which drew a jeering comment from the boy. They both laughed, and Laurence slapped him on the arm as he passed. He looked as if he was going to jog straight on towards the doors and me – I opened my mouth to say his name – but he doubled back suddenly, put his hand around the boy’s neck and kissed him.

Their lips were together for perhaps three astonished beats of my heart. There was only the firmness of Laurence’s grip, the creases in their brows as their eyes shut tight, the fierceness of it. When it was done, they stayed face to face, foreheads touching, mouths smiling into each other. I remembered the scent of Laurence when he’d stood almost as close to me, and the blood swooped through my body.

Some part of me jerked, I don’t know what or how exactly, but the big door creaked. Two heads whipped around, and I stumbled backwards into the light before turning to run across the yard. The door rattled again as someone followed. At the corner of the stable block, I glanced back. Laurence was coming for me, his expression set with a purpose that frightened me out of my wits. I fled again into the yard by the house and stopped in the middle, not knowing where I was going, where was safe. He slowed to a halt and glanced about at the house and stables. My feet had planted me in the safest place after all, within hearing of the kitchen and gardens and in sight of all those windows this side of the house – it was as if the hall itself had flicked open a hundred eyes to watch. We were both caught on invisible hooks and could only look at each other. But such a look. I had a more honest conversation with Laurence Triggs in those few moments of silence than we have ever had in words. He wanted to stop my mouth for good, and I believed he would do it. But there was a question too, a beseeching even – his naked eyes were raw with it. I didn’t know how to answer – I thought of Mary and couldn’t order my thoughts. He saw my hesitation and hated me for it. Even stronger than his hate though was his fear; I could taste it, like the sweat of the horses.

A clattering of hooves interrupted us. It sounded like fresh trouble bearing down, but it was the master, trotting through the archway on his grey mare. He yanked hard on the reins, hollering for the stable boy, and swung himself out of the saddle.

‘She’s cast a damned shoe.’

Seeing Laurence seemed to put him in a blacker mood.

‘Never where you’re paid to be.’

He bent to inspect the hoof, giving the mare a vicious jab in the ribs while he carried on talking. Laurence’s gaze didn’t shift from mine – it pinned me to the spot.

‘I should put you to work out here, on your knees in the filth, as you like it so much. Help me with my boots then, man.’

Rising, the master caught sight of me and paused. I was forced to turn my eyes away from Laurence; it was like turning my back on a bull. I curtsied. The master stared for longer than was comfortable, none of his usual smiles, then strode off towards the house while the stable boy led the mare away. Laurence didn’t move. His face was dreadful – full of desperation and threat.

‘Do you know what could happen to me?’

His eyes bored into mine.

‘Do you know what you could do?’

I stared back, unable to answer, and watched his jaw clench.

‘Why did you have to go into the damned carriage house? You’re meant to stay in the …’

He stopped, defeated suddenly, and his head dropped forward.

‘This fucking house.’

I have never felt any advantage over Laurence before. The fear began to leave me.

‘Why do you stay then?’

He looked up sharply.

‘You think I can leave?’

‘Why not?’

His eyes narrowed.

‘You think they’d let me walk away and find another position, when I could …?’

The words failed him again.

‘Could what?’

He hesitated, fear and distrust working his face. In another moment, he bit his lip so hard I thought it would bleed, and he shook away whatever he might have said.

‘They know what I am; they can make me do anything they want.’

‘They?’

I frowned.

‘You mean Barrett?’

He looked at the ground, not answering. I thought of what the master had just said.

‘Is it the master as well, Laurence? Does he know everything about you?’

Still no reply, but he made a movement like a horse trying to unbridle itself. I took a risk.

‘Does he know about you and Helene?’

It was a mistake. He turned on me, and there was all the anger in him I had felt when he punched the wall. I lifted a hand.

‘I won’t …’

He waited.

‘I won’t say anything.’

I watched him struggling to believe it. Common sense told me to offer more, to make promises, but the question pounding in my head burst out instead.

‘How could you do this to Mary?’

His eyes widened. The fingers of his right hand splayed themselves as if to grasp something, and light flashed off his signet ring. When he spoke, it was with great care, as if the words he was offering me were fragile and might break.

‘I love her.’

I simply stared at him.

‘Then why?’

He bit his lip again. I could see him searching for an explanation I might understand and failing.

‘It’s … a different part of me, that’s all. Telling Mary won’t help her.’

Desperation showed in his face, rising fear and anger, and I grasped at an idea.

‘All right. But you must be kinder to Francis. In return, if you like. Teach him properly. It’s not his fault he was hired to replace you, or that Barrett got rid of the boot boy.’

Mary’s words about Barrett had come back to me from outside the church. Surprise flashed across Laurence’s face – I had knocked him off balance. I stepped closer.

‘What happened to the boot boy, anyway? Why did he run away?’

An angry shout came from the house. Laurence wiped a hand roughly over his eyes. He turned and was halfway across the yard before spinning around again in sudden fury.

‘Keep your bloody mouth shut. Or, damn your eyes, I’ll make you pay.’

The door slammed shut behind him. I watched it as if expecting it to explode open again. Nothing moved except for one of the horses shifting about, bored in its stable. A single drop of rain hit my cheek, and I flinched. I took what felt to be my first breath since I had witnessed the kiss inside the carriage house. There was, after all, little to wonder at there, I realised – besides my own slowness. Annie would have seen it at once – his teasing and peacocking around the stable and garden boys, Clockface’s leers. In London, she was always nudging my arm to look at certain men or pointing out streets and public places, eyebrows raised, while I would have strolled by without a glance. Now, to my surprise, the garden hand was no surprise at all. Tup anything that moves indeed – and why not out here as well as in the alleys and parks of London? But Mary. I remembered their kiss too, so full of need for each other. Perhaps it really is something different for him; I had never thought love could be divided up in that way, like different cuts of meat. But to let her believe she has the whole of him? Is that love? She would break in pieces if she knew. She would never trust him again – even about Helene.

The house loomed darkly. I walked away from it, out of the yard and past the kitchen gardens. Turning the corner of the wall, I saw Francis in the pasture sitting under an oak tree. It seemed a hundred years ago that I had gone looking for him. He was slumped with his legs out, head sunk to his chest, pulling up clots of grass in his fingers. I watched for a while, tempted to go another way as my head was ringing so. But I had sat in the same place myself once, feeling as lonely and hopeless as he looked. The tears of a thousand servants must have watered that tree. I remembered the paper and pencil in my pocket and walked towards him. He lifted his head, and I saw his face was flickering with hurt again. As I knelt down, he turned away, and I reached out to stroke his cheek. He was still child enough to let me.

‘What’s wrong?’

He tucked his chin further into his chest and spoke so I could barely hear him. It was something about the stables and wanting Laurence to show him the horses. Laurence had made fun of him in front of the stable hand, mocking his big smile and asking if he was after stealing some hay as he had the teeth of a horse. I shifted my legs from under me, so I was sitting next to him.

‘Let’s think of all the happy things to tell your parents.’

He didn’t answer, only fiddled with a bit of wire he had wrapped around his little finger to copy Laurence’s signet ring. I started listing things aloud myself – the old dog, his smart livery, the clay pipe. His nature is too sunny to resist such a game for long. He soon piped up with riding on the dogcart, sleeping in his own room (that’s a pallet in a crowded storeroom), and most of all, the master giving him a sketch-book for Easter and saying he could draw the glass paperweight with a real butterfly encased inside. I thought Francis would want to write about the missus too and how he’d sung with her, but maybe that memory’s been marred forever by the Murrays and Laurence. Instead, he turned bashful and impish at once.

‘And you, miss.’

I heard myself laugh out loud and then just as suddenly wanted to cry. Putting the pencil into his hand, I spoke briskly to hide it.

‘Let’s begin with the date.’

His letters came out slowly and at drunken angles. They looked as if they’d fallen onto the page from a height. Silly comparing myself to a child, but I had a moment of pride at how far my own writing has come, and how grateful I am to the missus – since we were counting blessings – for making me lady’s maid. When Francis had finished, I asked if I might write something to his parents too. I wrote who I was and that they could be very proud of their boy, and I also promised that I would be his friend and take good care of him. Laurence will do as I ask, I think, despite his final threat. But not if I tell Mary his secret. I wish I could unknow it or lay it aside; I feel she will see it in my every move, as if his betrayal is now mine too. The sky finally opened again to pelt us with showers, and we ran inside to seal Francis’s letter and add his family’s address in Stepney.

Tuesday, 23rd April

I have been pleading ill health to take dinner in my room and skipping breakfast so as not to face anyone, Mary especially. I couldn’t avoid her forever though. The missus sent me away this morning, while she pored over printed programmes for the musical evening, and I crept down to the kitchen for some food. Mary was in the servant’s passageway, blocking the way with two cans of water. She looked tired and had put them down for a moment to rest. My heart went out to her a bit. I asked if she wanted help, which made her whiskers stand on end for several seconds.

‘They’re for the master’s rooms.’

‘All right.’

She hesitated, looking me up and down. Not wanting to meet her eye, I picked up a can and set off. We were halfway up the stairs when a timid question came from behind.

‘Has he said anything to you?’

I slowed, immediately regretting my offer to help.

‘No?’

I didn’t look around, but I don’t think I’m any better at lying than she is.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’

There was a silence. I’ve seen little of Laurence downstairs since Sunday and wondered if he was avoiding her too. We climbed a few more stairs, and then my feet came to a stop. My brain heaved. Why should I keep his secrets for him? He had probably already ruined Helene’s life, so why was I letting him hurt Mary? If I was her, I should want to know, however painful the truth might be. I turned to look at her unhappy face; it peered up at mine, searching.

‘All right. I’ll tell you.’

I put my can down.

‘Laurence has been keeping something from you.’

Her eyes widened.

‘I know how much you care for him, Mary, but you need to know.’

A hardness came into her face, and she began climbing past me. I sighed.

‘Mary, you don’t understand. He—’

‘No, you don’t understand.’

She stopped a step above me and turned, shaking.

‘Everyone thinks they know everything about him, but they don’t. It wasn’t his fault. If he hadn’t said it was him, he’d have lost his place.’

I opened my mouth and shut it again. She glared at me.

‘No one would have believed her anyway. She would have had to leave.’

I caught what she was talking about slowly enough. My mind groped blindly about until it smacked into the middle of it.

‘Helene?’

Angry tears appeared in Mary’s eyes.

‘She was going to accuse …’

She dropped her voice and looked nervously up and down the stairs.

‘She was saying it was a gentleman that got her with child, a friend of the master’s in London. That he gave her something to make her sleepy and forced her. When she knew she was done for, she was going to go to the master himself with it and the police. Mr Barrett stopped her. He made Laurence say it was him, so no one would believe her if she ever did go to the police. They’d think she was trying to get more for herself.’

The fierceness returned.

‘That’s what Mr Barrett does. He said he’d get Laurence thrown out if he didn’t say the baby was his. He said he’d make sure everyone thought it was him anyway and he’d be friendless and with no character. Nowhere would hire him after that, he’d have nowhere to go. He didn’t have a choice.’

I heard Laurence’s words again, that they could make him do anything they wanted, that he couldn’t leave. He was trapped by Barrett, even more than Mary knew, and my resolve to tell her about the garden hand began to melt away. Besides, I had pressing questions of my own.

‘Did the master know?’

Mary’s lip curled.

‘Barrett protects him; the master believes whatever he says.’

‘But couldn’t Laurence tell the missus?’

She scoffed and shook her head as if that was the last place anyone would look for help.

‘She was vicious to him, and then she went so mad when she saw the portrait, the doctors had to lock her in her room for a week.’

‘They … what …?’

Her face screwed itself up with contempt.

‘Laurence hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s Barrett and her …’

She jerked her head at wherever the missus might be.

‘They cause all the trouble.’

She stomped on ahead, leaving me with my mouth open. My cheeks grew warm, thinking of how I had goaded Laurence about Helene in the yard. I had been more than ready to believe he was to blame, wanting to trust Tabby over Mary. But it was Barrett again. The master’s valet swelled in my mind, a monstrous sponge, soaking up all the dirty swill before it could reach his employers. Was it possible he had acted to save Mr Gethin’s reputation, to bury the scandal of his friend, without the master’s knowledge? Gertrude had said upper servants can be worse than their superiors. I looked up. Mary was stomping back down towards me, fresh anger in her face.

‘And I wasn’t asking you about Laurence anyway. I was asking if the master had said anything about that.’

She prodded me painfully in the shoulder. I must have looked as blank as a sheet as her fury subsided slightly. She watched me a moment, and I could see her coming to a decision of her own.

‘Come with me.’

She abandoned her can of water and pulled me up the stairs and onto the third floor. The master’s rooms are at the back of the house, with Barrett’s across the hall. I’ve never been in before – keeping them in order while he was in London was Mary’s job, and I was never told to go in there when she was ill. She took me straight into his private sitting room. Gorgeous – all kinds of pretty armchairs, side tables, footrests and screens – and on every surface dozens of beautiful ornaments and curiosities. I could have spent hours looking at it all. There were many things I didn’t recognise, strange objects like the flint mill.

Mary stood in the middle of it, waiting for my eyes to become accustomed, as it were. She looked quickly above the fireplace and back, directing my attention. There was a large painting – a portrait of a woman. For one delirious moment, I thought it was me. She sits on a stone balcony with her elbow resting on the ledge and her fingers raised to her throat as if to play with a pear-shaped pendant there. Beyond her a vast and beautiful landscape sweeps away with a colliery in the distance – heaps of coal merge gleamingly with the green hills, so they seem a harmonious part of the scene. The balcony is full of lovely things that speak of comfort and happy pastimes – a dog sleeps at her feet, music sheets rest near to hand, an empty birdcage with its door open is half-draped with green cloth, but then one sees the canary fluttering prettily in the air. It’s like a painting from another era. Mary moved closer.

‘This is the portrait that caused all the trouble. Not the one downstairs of her in the green dress.’

I tried to swallow and failed. It is the missus, of course. She looks out into the room, very serious; the painter’s caught a bit of her wild look. But it was the dress that made me start, that made me see myself up there. The very same I’m wearing still. Blue and lilac with ruffles and pleated trims, buttons down the front. On her, in the picture, it looks even finer – whoever designed the dress knew exactly the effect it would have, brightening her brown eyes and showing off her lovely skin. Standing there, looking at it, I felt as if the real dress could see it too and rebelled at being stuck on such a poor substitute. It grew tighter around my chest, making it difficult to breathe; the cuffs chafed, and the weight of the skirt grew heavier.

‘He had the dress made specially for the portrait, aunt says. It was an anniversary gift.’

Mary’s shine was back, her love of scandal.

‘But she refused to wear it again and wouldn’t have the picture downstairs.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged.

‘She threatened to rip it with a knife, so he had it brought up here. But turns out she was already carrying the baby. The doctor said it was because of that. Something not natural in her. That’s when they locked her up to stop her stabbing anything else. She’s only ever worn dark colours since then. We never saw the dress, ’til you turned up in it.’

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. All the breath seemed to have left my body. This was the portrait all the gossip had been about, not the girl in green at all. I remembered how the master had looked me over when he first walked into the library, and the long look Barrett had given me. And the missus – I felt suffocated. A horrible sinking feeling plunged down and down. What had made her act that way? It is the master she fears – or hates – there can no longer be any doubt about that. But why? I stared hard at the portrait, looking for anything at all that could upset her, that could make her want to rip it to pieces. It was simply a beautiful gift, like the dress.

A clock somewhere in amongst all the treasures sounded a death knell, seemed to me. It put Mary in a sudden fuss.

‘They’ll be back soon – I haven’t finished. Quick.’

‘Mary.’

I touched her arm before she could flee.

‘Thank you. For showing me.’

Her shoulders lifted slightly in a shrug.

‘And I’m sorry. About Helene … for thinking it was Laurence.’

She looked sideways at me, reluctant to forgive so soon, but then nodded. After she had gone, I gazed up at the missus staring out of the portrait. Did she know the truth about Helene? Perhaps she had told the master, and he didn’t believe her. My stomach churned with dread. She had gone so mad – turned so violent – they had locked her up. I felt the dress tightening around me again, a symbol of something awful that I couldn’t name. The idea of the master finding me there was unbearable. He must think I knew about the portrait and conspired with the missus to wear the dress. No wonder Clockface laughed the way she did when I walked into the kitchen the first time – she saw me for the puppet I am. They all did. A mouse in a trap, Laurence said.

I hurried up to the nursery and found Lizzie sorting out baby clothes. She made me sit down when she saw my face, but my worries about the portrait didn’t impress her.

‘There’s nothing wrong with her giving you a dress she doesn’t want.’

‘But this one? It’s too much for a servant, and now I know it means something between her and the master.’

She rubbed the lace at the cuff between two fingers.

‘It is very fine.’

I could feel tears coming to my eyes.

‘What if she only made me a lady’s maid so she could dress me up in this? I’m a housemaid really, and I’m not even pretty like Mary and Lily.’

Lizzie leaned down so we were eye to eye.

‘You forget, Harriet. Whatever they’re about, it’s not your fault or your business.’

It wasn’t the comfort I’d come for. She straightened and walked to Edward’s cot as he had started to cry.

‘All the same, I’m glad I won’t have her for a mistress much longer.’

She was walking away from me, so I only just caught it. My heart felt the first rumblings of a second calamity.

‘What do you mean?’

She picked up Edward and kissed his scrunched little face.

‘She was in here earlier. She wants him weaned.’

‘Weaned?’

It seemed to me I couldn’t have heard her right over Edward’s wail. She gestured to wait a minute, sat down on the nursing chair and undid the front of her dress. Silence returned to the room. She shook her head.

‘I don’t know what’s put her in such a hurry. The doctor won’t be pleased. It’s far too early.’

I didn’t know what to say. Everything that feels safe and good about the hall is falling to pieces in my hands. The idea of losing Lizzie makes me feel orphaned. It makes no sense that the missus would let her go so early. A dark chasm has opened between me and my mistress. She doesn’t know it, and I won’t tell her yet; I shall tread carefully at the edge. I stared at my lap and the lovely folds of the dress, which now feels like a cage. It’s as if the missus’ troubles have taken a physical form and trapped me too. Mrs B had said she would be safe with me. She can’t have thought at all about the other question – if I would be safe with her.

Friday, 26th April

What do I do? God, I can’t even keep my writing even. I keep thinking it’s my fault – I should never have asked poor Lily. I should have kept to my place and let her keep to hers.

It’s because I wanted to get the hair right. My last lesson with Mrs T and Tabby was yesterday, and there will be so many people in the house tomorrow, I’m terrified of not doing it well. I thought of Lily because her hair is thick and a mass of curls when she lets it down, which meant I wouldn’t have to worry about heating tongs. And I also thought it would be a way to be more friendly to her – show her I’m not a monster, whatever she hears in the kitchen. I asked her on the stairs after lunch. She stared at me for a moment as if I was a dog that might bite, but then put a hand up to the back of her head and smiled, a little slyly, I thought. Perhaps just at the thought of shedding the plain cap and servant’s bun for a while.

She wasn’t as patient a model as Tabby. We took the mirror off the wall in the attic room so she could hold it, but she kept lifting it up and twisting her head. In the end, I took it from her and put it face down on the bed until I needed it. The style started to come together in spite of her restlessness and my impatience – her hair was easy to shape and the plaits didn’t slip. Finally, I stood back and told her to stand up and face me.

‘Lily!’

I’d been so concerned with the details, I hadn’t noticed the effect. The pretty little housemaid had vanished – before me was a child princess of the fairy kingdom. She should have been in a ball gown, not a plain cotton dress in a cramped attic room.

‘Show me!’

Her voice is surprisingly strong and low for someone who looks like they’re made of porcelain. The London in it has hard edges. I held the mirror up for her and watched her eyes go wide. She stared in amazement, tilting her head different ways, as if she couldn’t find herself in her own reflection. There was a sound outside in the passage – someone on the stairs – and then pounding footsteps. Mary flung the door open and stood panting and urgent. When she saw Lily, she seemed to stop breathing altogether.

‘What are you doing?’

I felt myself stand a little straighter and my lips creep into a smile.

‘I’m practising a new hairstyle for the missus.’

I’d have liked to parade Lily around the house and village – is what I felt right then. Mary blinked quickly, whiskers on end. I could see her thinking it should have been her that was asked to model. She looked Lily up and down.

‘One of the guests has arrived a day early and the room’s not done. You’re needed. Now.’

There was a battalion of pins in Lily’s head as well as the combs and ribbons I’d taken from the missus’ room. I reached out, but she shied away.

‘Lily, you can’t go down like that.’

Mary looked cross.

‘She has to. And the missus has been ringing for you. Come now.’

I scooped up Lily’s cap.

‘Take this. Try and get the rat out on your way down so it will fit on top.’

I didn’t fancy her chances – the rat was also skewered with pins – but no one should have been about. No one would have been either. I found the missus with a familiar grey face in the drawing room, having tea. Mrs Murray had snagged her gown getting into the carriage in London and wanted it mended once she’d had her refreshment. There was plenty of time for Lily to have carried up coal and water and made herself scarce, but her reflection in the big mirror transfixed her. She couldn’t tear herself away. When the missus showed Mrs Murray up to the room herself with me in tow, Lily finally turned, caught between the bed and the washstand like a startled deer. She hadn’t taken out one pin. The missus was as calm and icy as a frozen pond.

‘Leave the room at once and wait outside.’

As Lily scuttled out, I took a step forward.

‘Ma’am …’

‘Not now.’ She didn’t even look at me and turned to Mrs Murray. ‘Please excuse me a moment, Victoria. Watkins will take your gown.’ There was a determination to her that was somehow grimly cheerful.

‘Ma’am, I asked Lily to model …’

I had to say something, explain for Lily, but she cut me off again.

‘Thank you, Harriet.’

She stalked out and shut the door. Mrs Murray shook her head slightly, disapproving.

‘Well.’

I imagine smiling for her would be equal to hitching up her skirts.

‘There should be no difficulty in making this as good as new.’

It took me a moment to realise she was showing me the tear in her dress. I looked at the rent and the grease stains and wanted to laugh in her face. She was looking at me with her leached eyes as if daring me to contradict her.

‘Ma’am.’

I helped her change – it was like getting clothes on a scarecrow, she made it so difficult. The missus returned as I was gathering up the damaged dress, full of charming apologies. She wouldn’t meet my eye as she drifted past.

I ran to my room and dumped the dress next to my mending chair, then hurried up to the maids’ room. Lily was sitting on the bed, hunched over, her hair a mess of pulled-out plaits and loose pins. I knelt in front of her and took her hands.

‘Lily, what happened? What did Mrs Gethin say?’

She pulled away from me and drew the back of a hand across her nose, sniffing.

‘She’s throwing me out. Today.’

‘Didn’t you tell her what happened?’

‘I tried.’

‘She can’t dismiss you without notice.’

She gave me a sour look and turned, crouching, to pull her box from under the bed. With her wild hair, she looked from the back like a scrawny witch intent on some wickedness. I had an idea.

‘I can write home – there’s a big house there …’

She turned and bawled at me.

‘I don’t want your help. You’re bad luck. Leave me alone.’

Her face was set grimly, chasing away the doll look. The features of an older, more vital woman – the witch – were trying to push through. I backed off and went straight to find the missus, but Mary told me she had gone for a ride with the master and Mr Murray. Thinking of anything else is impossible until I have spoken to her. Oh poor Lily. I should have been ready for this.

Later

There was nothing to do in the end but take up Mrs Murray’s dress and wait for the missus to return. Sewing is like writing. Stitches are words – placed one after another, bringing together pieces of cloth but also fragmented thoughts. I grew calmer as I worked. It took an age to remove the grease – the stain was stuck as fast as all the blackness of the day. At one point I heard the dogcart and ran to the window to see Lily being carried off with her box – I can only think to the station. Her hair was back under her cap and her head hung down. Lord knows what was going through her mind. She looked up at the house just as the cart passed under the trees, too far away to see her expression.

The missus was out all afternoon and came straight up to dress for dinner. I didn’t go in immediately though as I could hear the master with her. Their voices were muffled, and I tiptoed quickly across the room to put my ear to the wall. I caught enough to know it was about Lily. The missus sounded brittle, saying she was glad to have her out of this house and that she’d do it again, a hundred times over if need be. There was a weariness to the master’s voice.

‘And what do you think will happen to her now? You’ve sent her back to London alone.’

The missus said something about finding a new place, but the master cut across her.

‘After this? She’ll be selling herself on the streets by the middle of the week.’

There was silence. The missus’ voice, when it came, was low and hoarse.

‘She should never have been brought here by that woman.’

He sighed, exasperated.

‘That woman is my housekeeper, and loyal.’

‘Oh, yes.’

A bitter laugh followed.

‘No one can doubt her loyalty, not with the sums you pay her. And Barrett.’

She spat the name out.

‘But, of course, they are more than servants to you, aren’t they? More like abominable kin. There is blood between you.’

‘This must stop, Clara.’

He must have turned because his voice was suddenly much louder, making me jump.

‘All these servants leaving the hall so quickly – what does it say about you, do you think? It is only your reputation, my dear, that is suffering.’

Steps, and the door closed. I let a good ten minutes pass before going in myself. She was sitting at her dressing table in her hat and cloak, staring at nothing.

‘Ma’am.’

I spoke gently. She didn’t look at me or move.

‘Ma’am, Lily only had her hair dressed like that because I wanted to practise. And there wasn’t time to take it out with Mr and Mrs Murray arriving so early.’

She looked at the floor as if chastened, but her words were cold.

‘Are you a party to my decisions regarding servants, Harriet?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Yet you believe you know all the reasons for Lily’s dismissal?’

She met my eyes briefly. It seemed to me that behind her question was a different one. I couldn’t make it out.

‘She has no family, ma’am, nowhere to go. You gave her no notice.’

The missus turned again, more sharply.

‘You forget yourself, Harriet.’

So I had. But I couldn’t believe Lily had done anything worse than what I’d seen, and clearly the master thought so too.

‘Do you think I must answer to you every time I hire or dismiss a servant?’

‘No, ma’am, but it wasn’t Lily’s fault. It was mine.’

‘No, Harriet.’

The anger left her suddenly.

‘It is not your fault.’

She leaned her arms on the back of the chair and dropped her head to dig her fingers into the loosening coils.

‘She was a thief.’

The words were swallowed, so I nearly didn’t hear them.

‘A thief, ma’am?’

It came out as disbelief, but at the same time the idea rang in my head as possible enough. Barely a child, coming from who knows what hardship and suddenly put in the way of treasures and luxury she can’t ever have imagined. I’d noticed a slyness in her manner more than once. The missus, of course, hadn’t followed my thoughts. She straightened, still without meeting my eye.

‘Who do you think took your ribbon?’

My ribbon. It had disappeared shortly after Lily arrived, but … something inside me snapped to attention.

‘I never said my ribbon was stolen.’

She stared at me.

‘You stopped wearing it. Is it not lost?’

‘It …’

I faltered, not wanting to say I had thrown it on the floor.

‘It looked wrong with this dress.’

Neither of us was making any sense. She ran her eyes over the dress, much like the master had. Then she looked at me with an expression I’ve never seen before. It was as if she was holding in her hand something very important to both of us and was slowly, questioningly moving her arm out over a very long drop.

‘Do you not like the dress, Harriet?’

I saw at once that she knew I had seen the painting. At the same time, with a horrible turn of my stomach, I understood how she knew. My own words had told her. The blood drained from my face and then rushed back with force. I had thought it was Mary going through my things. The missus watched as I worked it out. It was how she knew my ribbon was missing; it explained the pot of cold cream for my hands; it’s why she made a point of saying I could go outside for walks when I liked. She had read my diary. This diary.

As we faced each other, doors were flying open one behind the other. Waves of humiliation broke over me as I remembered what I had written – about wanting to be her handmaid, about Helene.

She didn’t attempt to deny what we were both thinking.

‘You should have burned every page, Harriet, as I do.’

I couldn’t speak. Eventually she rose.

‘We’ll find you something more suitable.’

Walking towards the wardrobe, she stopped again.

‘Harriet. That dress …’

‘You wanted the master to see it.’

‘Yes.’

She turned.

‘Yes, I did. I wanted to show him …’

Her face became agitated, as if it were attached to a hundred tiny threads all being yanked at cross purposes. She made an effort to gain control.

‘I wasn’t thinking of you. It was cruel. Allow me … please, allow me to make amends.’

I turned to one side to gather my thoughts, to recover a little – I was remembering my promise to myself not to let her shock me – but she misread the movement. She darted forward and took hold of my hands.

‘Don’t leave, Harriet.’

Her eyes hungered at me. She talked quickly, urgently in my face.

‘That painting. It isn’t how it looks. Did you see the dog?’

Her grip tightened.

‘The little dog, George Frederick? He looks asleep in the painting, but he isn’t. He was hanged. He had him hanged. The canary is falling not flying – it’s already dead. And the music … all the pages are torn or blowing away. There’s a choker around my neck … did you see it, a pear?’

Something mad happened to her eyes. They loomed wide and then narrowed again.

‘He wants to destroy me. And he can do it. Now I’ve given him a son …’

The darkness in her expression sent sudden panic into my throat. What she was saying sounded fantastical, insane. I have seen the portrait – I know there is nothing so sinister in it.

‘Let me go, ma’am.’

I wrenched my hands from her grasp and staggered backwards, sitting down abruptly on the bed. There was a moment neither of us moved. Her breaths came in great heaves. With her hair pulled about and the fierce expression, she made me think of witch Lily. Gradually, the emotion left her. She nodded, put a hand to the front of her neck.

‘Forgive me, Harriet.’

She crossed to her dressing table and began pulling out more hairpins, painfully it looked like.

‘I expect you’ll go home and marry William. I’m sure it’s not too late.’

The bitterness in her voice took me back to our interview in the drawing room when I told her he was getting impatient. I wondered if she had started reading my diary then – I dropped it almost at her feet – but remembered my box had been disturbed before that. And I had heard her in the kitchen the time I hid in the pantry – she had been trying to open the servants’ drawers in the dresser. My mouth went dry as felt.

All the pins were out, and her hair fell around her shoulders, heavy and soft. She turned in her seat to look at me.

‘You have been a friend to me without knowing it.’

It was almost the same thing she had said at Mrs B’s about me liking her portrait.

‘You have made me understand … something. Something very important.’

I waited for more, but she was staring at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to know what she meant. After a moment, she lowered her gaze.

‘You know about my lady’s maid before you? Helene.’

I nodded.

‘She … she became pregnant in London. Once her condition was known, I had to dismiss her. I believed it was Laurence and …’

Her eyes glistened and the words seemed stuck in her throat.

‘She had tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. Not until it was too late. There was a boy, who …’

She stopped, swallowed.

‘He ran away. And when I saw the portrait – saw what it meant – I knew. I made Laurence tell me the truth.’

Taken by a sudden thought, she stood up and went to the fireplace. Pulling out the candle from one of the candlesticks, she raised the pusher until she could pick out something from inside. Next, she went to the dresser and knelt down. She slipped what turned out to be the key into the lock of the bottom drawer and opened it. I stood up to see, half expecting a glimpse of red ribbon, but she took out a photograph.

‘I want you to know why I read your diary. This was the house when I first came here.’

The picture was taken at the front and all the household was arranged there. It was clear the indoor staff was three times the number of people now with extra maids and boys in livery. The boot boy was there. Clockface was unmistakable, in pride of place next to the missus with Barrett on the other side of the master. The missus pointed at the girl next to Clockface.

‘That’s Helene.’

She was pretty in a clear, simple way. Like a sketch, all lines and blank spaces that add up to something pleasing. And young. Likenesses often aren’t likenesses at all though from what I’ve seen. I remember Annie’s Andrew and his friend Robert talking about police photographs in the kitchen at Gloucester Square – you’d think likenesses of criminals would mean they could always be identified, but they said it seldom works out that neatly. The missus’ face alone could have been such a photograph, showing one side of herself, remote and haughty. Clockface might have been a pleasant sort if that was all there was to judge by. I’d like to be able to make a picture of them that was true. Only the master seemed to have been caught in full. The others were looking at a camera, having their picture taken one day in the past – he was looking through it, now, at me. The illusion was disturbing and made me step back.

‘Wait.’

She caught my skirt with one hand and, dropping the picture, reached into the drawer again.

‘Helene had her baby in London. She was reconciled with her family in the end, and she wrote to me after she returned to France. It says everything. You can read it.’

I didn’t want to. Helene’s story was already familiar to me. What monsters it had spawned in the mind of the missus is what concerned me now. I took the letter from her and dropped it back into the drawer.

‘Please, Harriet!’

She was kneeling at my feet and clutched my skirt with both hands. I tried to raise her up.

‘Ma’am …’

‘Please don’t leave us. For my son’s sake.’

I paused, surprised.

‘For … for Edward’s sake.’

His name sounded unnatural in her mouth, unfamiliar, and I remembered Lizzie saying that she had never used it, that she only ever called him ‘the baby’. The missus rose to her feet – awkwardly as she wouldn’t take her eyes from mine.

‘Please, Harriet.’

She whispered it this time, as if I was a deer that might flee.

‘I know I don’t deserve you. But I have not been as wicked as you think … No, please wait …’

I had opened my mouth to speak.

‘Please wait until this awful party is over.’

Never in my life has anyone looked at me so desperately – not even Laurence.

‘I’ll tell you everything. I’ll explain it all, I promise. If you want to leave, I won’t try and stop you.’

I have no intention of leaving. Not then, not now. I won’t abandon her to her fears, whatever they are – shadows in her mind or a real darkness in Finton Hall. Both, I think, though I suspect the worst is in her imaginings. I can’t believe the master put things into a portrait to torment her, or that he means to harm her now Edward exists. What a belief to come between a mother and her child. I can believe he might have been wicked enough to protect his friend over Helene, and that knowledge has worked on the missus, alone and fretting in this house, until she can see nothing but evil at every turn. Even Clockface might seem more monstrous than she already is. Make her better, Mrs B had said, and I think I can see my way finally, now I know the thoughts that afflict her so terribly. And not only for her sake – I haven’t forgotten Gertrude saying I should use my position to help the other servants. Lily is beyond me, I think – I wonder if she was a thief at all or if the missus dismissed her for more confused reasons, another strike at the master perhaps. His prediction that she will turn to life on the streets weighs heavily on me. I won’t abandon Francis without a friend. Nor Edward, who won’t even have Lizzie soon. I know that out in the world I am a paper lady’s maid – no one else would take me on these terms with these skills. It is here that I am needed, at Finton Hall, with my mistress. I gently pulled a strand of hair away from her face and took her hands in mine.

‘I won’t leave you, ma’am.’

Her whole body buckled with relief. She nearly sank all the way back to the floor.

In my own room, my first impulse was to snatch this diary from under my pillow and take it down to the kitchen to burn every page, as she said. Seeing the green cloth cover pained me as much as if it was the face of a friend who had betrayed me. I made myself leaf through it, remembering the missus had read every word – wanting to feel the worst, I think. Some passages mortified me; others sent ice through my veins. I had told Laurence I would keep his secret, but it is right here waiting for anyone to chance upon it. For that alone, I should burn the book. But the more I continued reading, the more protective I began to feel of my paper self. Why should I give up something that has been counsel and friend to me? It would be like banishing a blameless part of myself. If the missus read about what I saw in the carriage house, she has shown no sign of it. I shall simply be more careful in future about what I say in these pages. I changed into my black cotton dress that has the big pockets, and this fits in snugly with a pencil – it won’t leave my person again.

Saturday, 27th April

There is so much bustle and excitement in the house now the day of the party has arrived, I can’t keep still. I keep wandering about and getting in the way. The only guests staying at the hall are friends of Mr Gethin from London – single gentlemen or here without their wives. The Hill Court party is larger though, bringing guests of their own, and I’m full of nerves that I will be needed by the ladies in ways I’m not ready for. I heard two gentlemen arrive together. Mary let them in. Very loud and full of good spirits they were. I was lingering in the back hall and caught a glimpse of a tall, lean figure with sparse hair on his head and a strangely sagging face for one so young, about thirty. The other I only saw the back of, but he is broader with a mess of dark hair. I heard Mary giggle at something, and the portly one laughed – a surprisingly high cackle – and spoke to his friend.

‘Steady, old man. Remember your manners.’

He dropped his voice a notch and said something about rules I didn’t quite catch. There was more high-pitched laughter, and they moved to the drawing room.

The saggy-faced one has brought his valet with him. He and Laurence hauled luggage up to the guest rooms, and I got caught behind them going up the stairs. They were competing over who was the strongest – all that liveried muscle crouching and heaving and taking twice the time needed to get the job done. Laurence saw me first and nearly dropped his end of a trunk. They hurried to move out of my way, but I retreated back down the stairs. There was nowhere in particular I was going anyway. If the missus wants my help, I don’t know what with; she wouldn’t even let me do her hair after Mrs Murray saw the style on Lily. Every corner of the hall is busy with people. Downstairs is a storm with Clockface at the centre, and there are servants from Hill Court helping prepare and serve. Francis runs about like a little steam engine. The hall was probably always meant to be like this – alive with people and activity upstairs and down.

With nothing to do, I finally let myself be drawn to the library again to write this. No one seems to have been in here. I’m at the table by the unlit fire, and the door is shut so I will have fair warning of anyone entering.

I left my seat and drifted about a little. The flint mill is still in its place, and I ran my finger over the cold metal discs and frame, then picked it up and with a bit of effort turned the handle. No sparks without the flint, only the whir of the spinning wheel. I tried to imagine being the miner lighting up the dark space for his fellow worker and then – what? Did he see the sparks change colour but had no time to act? I pulled on the handle to bring the disc to a stop and hurriedly put the mill back down again – feeling as if I was about to spark a deadly explosion myself.

My room

It is as if the walls are closing in on me. This house is built more from secrets than stone. I was feeling restless in the library still and wandered along the shelves again, enjoying the orderly rows and straight spines. The steps had been pushed underneath some mighty-looking tomes that caught my eye. When I climbed up, I found they were agricultural magazines bound together, going back to the last century. It seemed strange to keep such enormous, outdated papers. I thought they must be valuable and pulled one forward. The pages snaked heavily, resisting. A strong smell of old matter lifted off the paper, as if it carried something of the sod and animals in the words. I flicked the edges with my thumb and there was a flip of the paper – something had been wedged in. Feeling for the break, I heaved the book open. A photograph had been slipped inside.

As soon as I understood what I was looking at, I clawed the pages back over, tearing and creasing the edges. I stood the book back up, pushing it into place, and turned to look at the room. No one was there, the door was still shut, but I felt as if every object, book and piece of furniture was watching me. Heat moved around my body – throat, cheeks, chest, belly. I felt a flicker through my middle. The picture was of a man, dressed only above the waist, everything below on show and standing up. And a woman not dressed at all with her hand on it, lying open to view between her legs as I’ve never seen anyone, not even myself.

My fingers reached for another tome and battled it open. A wide strip of card was inside this one with a series of similar painted pictures all along it – a zoetrope card. Spinning, it would have shown a woman bouncing up and down on a man – his bright prick flashing in and out of view. I feel warm just writing about it. Beneath that, the magazines had been turned into a box – a rectangle cut out and the pages pasted down. Another book nestled inside, a novel – I read scenes at random that were alike to the pictures until I heard my own breath getting short. Between the pages were photographs of a black man and a white woman joined in different poses. And not just photographs; loose, hand-drawn sketches showed men and women and sometimes men and men in amazing detail stuck onto each other in every way possible. I put everything back and got off the stepladder. Small wonder we weren’t allowed to touch the books.

I stood still for a moment, feeling like a wind had ripped through the room, whirled me about and then set me back down in sudden quiet. The books seemed less homely now, less honest in their neat rows. I looked at them as at troubling strangers – strangers I couldn’t help seeking out. The shelves below the agricultural magazines are full of foreign books with titles in languages I don’t know. My eye was caught by an English title, The Complete Grazier. It was so out of place, I stared at it for long moments before my hand reached up and pulled it free. It fell open where a photograph had been placed between the pages. A woman leaning over another woman with a lash raised. The lady lying down was reading a newspaper as if unconcerned, and I saw with a sort of jolt that it was the New York Times. American photographs.

I remembered the book on pig breeding, misplaced, as I had thought, near the Milton. My legs walked me over to the poetry books, heart clattering like a cart over cobbles. There was no need to climb up – at waist height a volume of Stephens’ Book of the Farm was tucked between volumes of Shakespeare. There was a small photograph of a man seated and a woman astride him but facing the same way, both naked. She was leaning back, turning her head so they could smile at each other. They looked so happy, so free.

I snatched my diary from the table and fled to the nursery. Lizzie would listen – say something sensible, I thought. I was wrong. There’s a change come over her since the missus demanded Edward be weaned. It’s as if she’s already half gone. It all poured out of me as I paced around the room – how the missus had read my diary and all the things she had said about the painting. I got that far before I realised she hadn’t even put down her sewing.

‘And there’s pictures in the library, Lizzie, hidden in the books – men and women – naked and doing things.’

‘What were you doing looking through the books?’

My jaw dropped, she’d missed the point so wildly.

‘But what if it means the missus is right …’

She blew air through her nose before I could finish.

‘The missus is wrong in the head, that’s as clear as day. And Harriet …’

She softened her look a bit.

‘I doubt there’s a house in the country that isn’t stuffed full of pictures like that.’

I looked at her and then around the nursery, half expecting to see pictures of cunnies spilling out of Edward’s toy box or propped between embroidery samples on the mantelshelf.

‘I’m allowed to read the books.’

‘And who told you that?’

My silence was answer enough.

‘Maybe she wanted you to find the pictures, since she likes playing games with you.’

Finally, she put her sewing aside.

‘Another girl would have kept her head down and enjoyed her good fortune and the freedom of the position. You can’t help but go looking for trouble, though, whether it’s there or not. You forget what you are to them, Harriet, and what they should be to you. And before you go accusing the master of I don’t know what, there are few gentlemen who pay such loving attention to their babies as he has. He’s been up with gifts and kind questions more times in the last week than she has since the mite was born.’

My eye fell on Edward’s zoetrope, but it prompted such troubling thoughts, I looked away again. Lizzie picked up her sewing, applying her needle with quick jerks of the thread. I made for the door and didn’t look back when she called my name.

Later

It must be past one. I’m in the missus’ room. She can’t be long coming up now as I heard carriages leave, but I must do something other than simply wait. I’ve been pacing for hours, drinking the missus’ sherry, and trying to capture tonight in my mind like a photograph. The ladies’ dresses – some so modern, they barely had bustles at all – their jewels and hair – brushstrokes of different colours and textures; pinks, golds, ambers, greens and more, all gleaming in the lamplight. It was like a conversation between materials and light as much as between the people – and that was a thundering like I’ve never heard. I think it has been a while since Finton Hall heard such a range of voices all at once – a mountain range it was – from the heights of Mrs Trevelyan greeting the young ladies to the booming foothills of the visiting gentlemen paying their respects to Lady Spencer’s father, and laughter tumbling like streams through all their conversations. There was a heady smell of cut flowers and perfume, musky hair oil when a gentleman leaned in close to me (as if I was a piece of furniture) to allow a lady to pass (coils upon coils of caramel hair), and the warm scent of the elder Miss Spencer’s skin as I helped unhook her necklace from her lace collar (tiny blond curls at the nape of her neck).

Only the missus stood out amongst the finery and shimmer of the ladies. She was wearing her plainest black gown, not the green dress we had picked out together, and her hair was so simply done, it almost didn’t look dressed at all. The only decoration was a nosegay of violets that Mrs T had sent, pinned at her breast. She might have been a governess. I felt irritated. It seemed so contrary to make so little effort, and I was conscious of how it reflected on me, her lady’s maid. A surge of sympathy for the master surprised me, and I wondered if Lizzie was right at least in part. He was faultlessly dressed and moving amongst his guests like a sun; all faces turned towards his warmth. I had not seen him before with men of his own standing and was aware of an energy running through the house, powerful as a river. I caught snippets of conversation that made my mouth drop open. There was the war, of course, but the prime minister was spoken of as an intimate, his private words reported in an off-hand manner, just as I might mention something said in the kitchen. I heard other names too, familiar to me only from the cries of newsvendors or from reading them on posters outside theatres or hustings, but to this gathering, they were real people with tastes and flaws and desires. Everywhere I went, I felt as if burning fingers were beckoning me. They slipped under my ribcage, tugging me into the river.

I wasn’t alone, I think. Barrett sent me to fetch extra candlesticks from the silver room, and I was surprised to see Clockface out of her kitchen and standing at the bottom of the same stairs I’d dropped the coal down. She had one hand on her hip and was laughing her dirty laugh at someone further up.

‘Not on the menu tonight, sir.’

She wagged a finger. A man’s deep chuckle trickled down the steps. As I drew near, I saw her reddened face was alight with a sort of frantic joy like an over-excited child. She turned almost triumphant on seeing me. After a secretive nod to the person out of sight, she breezed past, still quivering with some horrible delight. Of course, I looked up the stairs myself to see whom she was being so familiar with and couldn’t stop myself from staring openly. Mr Murray. He turned away almost as soon as our eyes met, as if he hadn’t seen me at all. I was glued to the spot, feeling as if the hall itself had shifted suddenly, revealing doorways and passages I didn’t recognise and was scared to go down.

As I went back up, I passed Laurence, who was flicking the bottle cloth at the legs of the valet. He held my gaze, but I didn’t mind him; he was taking care of Francis as I had asked, sending private, approving nods his way when the boy took a gentleman’s hat correctly or thanked another for a tip without trembling.

In the hall, guests were starting to drift towards the drawing room for the first part of the music programme. I delivered the candlesticks and was helping rearrange some of the seating so Lady Spencer’s elderly father could be pushed through in his chair, when I heard the missus introduce someone as Mr Garston. It was the name the master had mentioned, the man who liked Gilbert and Sullivan. I looked around and saw the larger of the men I had heard speaking to Mary in the hallway. His face is sharper than I expected with a pointed nose and, when he laughed, curiously small teeth. I kept glancing at the missus, but her face was unreadable.

I saw her and the master together only once while I was handing out programmes to guests who had already managed to lose theirs. Conversations were naturally turning to music, and the saggy-faced man, Mr Hicks, was speaking to a group, including the master, of opera in Italy. He described how even the most celebrated singer might be booed off the stage if the crowd found her wanting.

‘At the Teatro Regio di Parma, even the servants won’t open the door for her on her way out!’

He laughed, enjoying himself, and everyone joined in. The missus was turning from a different conversation and smiled coldly.

‘That is because the Italians go to the theatre to hear music, not to ogle each other.’

There was an awkward moment of half-laughs. The master gave her a slight smile.

‘Perhaps tonight we should embrace the spirit of the Teatro Regio. Lest our appreciation be held in any doubt. Hm?’

He beamed suddenly, making what had nearly started out as a threat into a joke, and slapped Mr Hicks on the shoulder. He whirled away from the renewed laughter and clapped his hands.

‘Friends! Dear guests!’

Leaping to the front, he ran his fingers quickly along the piano keys. Everyone fell silent like obedient children. He smiled quietly into their expectation, letting the moment draw out, as if he knew his foot was on their attention and he could keep it there as long as he wanted. Someone giggled. He raised his hands and dropped his voice to almost a whisper.

‘The magic is about to begin.’

He made a short speech, praising the missus lavishly and promising wonders. The air around him seemed to glow as he talked. His gaze found everyone, flickering over the room like a flame. People’s faces caught light as it touched them; their smiles widened. I thought what a presence he must be in parliament. He didn’t look at me, but a flicker ran through my middle like it had when I found the photographs, and I wondered if Lizzie was right about them – nothing to be worried about, just something to be expected in a gentleman’s house, hidden away like the plate and jewels. A blush crept up my throat.

The master didn’t take a seat but stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelshelf. Ripples of conversation started up again as Mr Trevelyan took his place. The vicar didn’t have the master’s command of the room and looked a morose figure, slightly comic too with his beard sticking out under the violin he was about to play. I looked for Mrs T, feeling a bit embarrassed for her, and noticed that she also looked out of place in this company with her old-fashioned dress and naked face. The vicar raised his bow, and there was some half-hearted hushing. A rustle of skirts, a cough, a crackle from the fire, and then the music entered the room like a god. It was a shock, like being taken hold of by something invisible. I closed my eyes and felt each note twining around me like a ribbon. Together they lifted me up. I can’t recall the tune now – it’s vanished like a fairy.

I felt a jolt of nerves as the missus stepped forward next. She looked smaller in her plain dress, unprotected without the swing of jewels and mass of hair. Mr Trevelyan was on the violin again and Miss Spencer the piano. I clutched the front of my dress and didn’t let go, but I needn’t have worried. Her first note seemed to stun the room. No one moved. It was not Orpheus as I was expecting but the song I first heard her singing when I took her tray up. I have no idea what the words were, only that it was filled with such yearning and light, my eyes filled with tears. Our stillness and silence felt devotional, and her dress and hair all at once made sense. She was there to serve the music – a nun at its altar, filled with grace.

My chest heaved with pride, and all my earlier irritation and nerves were forgotten. I glanced around the room, revelling in the spellbound expressions. Only the master seemed distracted; he looked at the door twice, as if still expecting a guest to arrive. Francis appeared instead, bearing a loaded tray and a terrified look. I frowned, though he didn’t see me. The ices he was holding were supposed to be handed out between the parts, but he was early. Clockface hadn’t waited for the order. I saw Barrett beckon him towards the serving table instead of sending him out and felt my heart lurch. It was a long way across the back of the room. Laurence was watching too, pinned to the wrong wall. Francis stepped forward as if onto a tightrope, and Barrett gestured again to hurry him up. I couldn’t watch and turned back to the missus.

The song was rising, gathering itself. Her eyes closed and her brow furrowed as she sang a line; the words – whatever their meaning – possessed her completely. She breathed in, and I could feel the music about to soar to a new height when a tremendous crash of glass shattered the spell instantly. It was as if the hall itself had cried out in protest. The guests turned as one with shocked faces to see where Francis had tripped and smashed the corner of his tray into the front of a display cabinet. Objects fell from the shelves as the cabinet rocked to a standstill, joining the wreckage on the floor where dozens of moulded ices now lay ruined and laced with broken glass. Panicked, Francis tried to scoop them up with his hands until Laurence reached him and hauled him out of the way.

‘I believe our refreshments have arrived.’

The missus spoke over the hubbub, drawing consoling laughter from those nearby. I didn’t know whom I wanted to run to and comfort more, her or Francis. Her face was hard and bright, and she seemed to have shrunk, all her holiness fled away, so her dress was simply plain again. She looked across the room, and I followed her gaze to the master. He was still leaning against the mantelshelf and – my stomach flipped – staring at me. With a slight movement, he gestured behind me, and there was Barrett signalling to clear up the mess. It wasn’t part of my duties, but I was too shaken and jostled to object. I looked at the missus again as I turned, trying to convey the tangle of awe and sympathy I felt for her, but Miss Spencer had moved between us to take her hand. I cursed Barrett under my breath.

Mary appeared with an old sheet and dustpan, and we gathered up as much glass and cream as we could, carrying the bundle downstairs. Several Hill Court servants passed us on their way up with new, full trays of ices. I couldn’t see Francis anywhere and hoped Laurence was being kind. Mary was full of questions, her eyes shining with the drama.

‘Do you think she’ll dismiss him?’

I hesitated, feeling a jag of doubt.

‘I don’t know. She dismissed Lily for less.’

We dumped the sheet in a storeroom by the kitchen to be dealt with later. Mary wasn’t satisfied.

‘But Lily stole things.’

‘Like what?’

‘My lip …’

She paused, looking self-conscious.

‘Your what?’

‘My lip colour went missing.’

‘How do you know it was her?’

I was more interested in returning upstairs to the party and tried to push her towards the door as I spoke.

‘My red ribbon went missing too. But if they were found in her things, we would have them back.’

She scratched her nose, standing stubbornly still.

‘I didn’t tell anyone it was gone. Aunt Sarah would have taken it off me anyway if she knew. There’s a rule about servants not using paint.’

I looked at her doubtfully.

‘Even in our own time?’

She shrugged.

‘That’s the rule.’

‘Whose rule?’

I guessed Clockface, but Mary shrugged again.

‘The master’s, I suppose.’

I stared at her. The master? She had turned for the door, but on impulse I caught her arm.

‘Do you know what’s in the library, Mary? Hidden in the books?’

She shook her head. I felt a quickening at the thought of talking about the photos.

‘In any book that’s about farming, livestock management, anything like that, there’s pictures …’

A shape loomed in the doorway. Mary started.

‘Coming, Mr Barrett.’

He looked as if he was about to give us the talking to of our lives but turned instead to let us out. Mary scurried past like a mouse. I followed her through the heaving kitchen to fetch water and cloths. When we were back on the stairs, she slowed, snout twitching.

‘Tell me about the books.’

A servant was rushing down the stairs, and I shook my head.

‘Not now. I can show you later.’

The thought of going back to the library made my heart thump.

‘I’ll come and find you when I’m finished with the missus. It will be late.’

Mary hesitated. I don’t know what Clockface would do to her if she was caught, but Clockface will be in bed herself first chance she gets, leaving Bridie with the hard, late work.

‘It won’t take long.’

A gleam came into her eye, and she nodded. We shared a nervous laugh. Like friends.

Barrett appeared again like a bad penny at the top of the stairs, service-side. He made Mary take the cleaning things and waved her through. The door opened onto the chatter of guests; they had spilled into the hall. I caught Mr Garston laughing and raising his glass to someone, a lady arching her elegant neck to fan it, a whiff of perfume, and the door shut again.

‘You may return to your room now, Watkins.’

‘What?’

I stared at him in horror. Not to re-join that realm of shining people, not to return to the missus and hear her sing again was unthinkable.

‘But Mrs Gethin asked for me to be on hand to help, Mr Barrett.’

His eyes closed slowly, and he breathed in, long and noisily through his nose. I couldn’t think why I was being banished – unless he had overheard me starting to tell Mary about the photographs. I had no choice but to carry on down the passage to the servants’ stairs. He didn’t move until I had walked up them, could be there still for all I know, keeping guard like a malevolent, overfed lizard. I came up here and ripped open a perfectly good bit of mending I’d been working on. It maddens me not to know what is happening downstairs, or how the missus is. Wait until the party is over, she said, and she will tell me everything.

I roamed about her room like a caged animal until my eye fell on the bottom drawer of the cabinet. With a start, I remembered the candlestick on the mantelshelf and darted over. Blowing out the flame, I removed the candle and worked the pusher as I had seen her do. The key was there. I moved to the dresser and knelt down, turned the lock. Inside was a jumble of things, but the letter from the French maid was on top – the missus’ name spelled out in a beautifully even, flowing hand that gave me a pang of envy. I took it out and, still kneeling, opened it up. It took me a moment to understand why I couldn’t make sense of it. French – the whole thing, and there are several pages of it, all tightly packed with the same gorgeous and completely mystifying letters. I threw it back into the drawer and started looking through the other papers and trinkets massed together. There is a small leather dog collar with a brass plate engraved ‘George Frederick’, a large iron key, masses of sheet music written by her, bills for music concerts, and a bottle of dry sherry on its side.

Then, in a cloth bag underneath it all – money. More than I’ve ever seen in my life. Coins and bundles of five-pound notes – first time I’ve laid eyes on paper money. I stared at it for ages as if it was only a painting of treasure. Then I pushed my fingers into it – I swear the furs in the missus’ wardrobe are not so good to touch. I imagined what it would feel like if it was mine and a fire lit up in my chest. The freedom of it. The choices. Even a handful of that wealth. It made me feel reckless, as if I might push back the limits of my life, break them even. I groped for the sherry bottle, pulled out the stopper and swallowed down a great mouthful. The liquid sang down my throat and roared fire through my nose. I swigged the sherry and held the money under my hands as if it might leap away from me until my legs went numb from kneeling, and I had to pace again. All I have seen and heard tonight, the photographs and music, the beautiful guests and dizzying riches swirl around my head, around this very room. The air is alive with it. I cannot write anymore. The hall itself is spinning, faster and faster, as if it won’t ever stop.