At the top of the stairs, I turned right. Up ahead was a passage full of doors. My brain went blank.
Which room was Kit’s? Left? Right?
Then Gracie’s words came back to me, and I headed for the furthest door. I counted each one as I passed it, stopping at the last to wipe my hands on my skirt. The handle felt cool as I gripped it. I checked over my shoulder. Gracie worked fast, so I didn’t have long. Five minutes maybe, ten at the most and she’d be back with her buckets of coal. I pushed the door open. Legs shaking, I stepped inside.
The lamps were lit and the room was unusually warm because a good fire glowed in the grate. I stared about me. Books lay open on a table, fresh clothes were draped over the chair. There was a half-empty glass of water, a pen with its lid off, bed covers all crumpled and slept in.
My stomach dropped. It was the wrong room. Someone had spent the night in here. Any minute they might be back, and I’d get caught where I shouldn’t be.
Too late.
The door handle turned. Someone was coming in.
I froze. There was nowhere to hide. My heart started pounding and my mouth turned dry. Here I was, snooping again. It didn’t look good at all.
A pair of grubby hands and a bucket of coal appeared. Gracie stuck her head through the half-open door. I gasped with relief.
‘I got this from the library. Dorcas didn’t need it all. Here, take it,’ she said.
She handed me the bucket. I took it, bewildered. So I was in the right place. This was Kit’s room.
Over by the hearth, a pair of filthy riding boots caught my eye. They stood upright like someone had just stepped out of them. A chill came over me. What queer business was going on here?
‘Gracie, why . . . ?’
‘I’ll be back in a minute. I’m just going to get the water.’
‘What water?’ Suddenly I didn’t want to be left here on my own.
‘Every morning I bring up a jug of hot for the washstand. It sits there and goes cold.’
She must have seen the shock in my face.
‘I know. Mad, in’t it? It’s her Ladyship’s special request, though God knows we’ve got enough to do without waiting on someone who’s dead.’
My head began to spin. ‘So . . . wait . . . this . . .’ I waved an arm at the books, the used pen. ‘Is it all Kit’s? Are these things his?’
Gracie shuddered in the doorway. ‘Yes. As it was on the day he died, exactly. No one’s been allowed to move nothing since. We just dust, that’s all.’
It was too strange for words. All right, so people wore black when their loved ones died. The Queen had pined for poor Prince Albert for years on end. Yet this room, so full of Kit, was like a blinking museum. My heart was beating very fast. The room felt too warm, too close.
But before I knew it, I’d crossed to the bed. The head-shaped dip in the pillow was still there, and the covers had been thrown back carelessly. It was like he’d just got up and left the room, like he’d be back any minute to get dressed in the clothes laid out on his chair. Heck, I even reckoned the sheets might still be warm. If I just slid my fingers in . . .
‘Don’t touch nothing!’ cried Gracie.
I snatched my hands back quick. She looked at me oddly.
‘Do the fire like you promised and keep your hands off the rest,’ she said. ‘And I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
She shut the door behind her.
Everything was quiet and hushed, but for the murmur of flames in the grate. This had to be the saddest, strangest place I’d ever been. I didn’t know quite what to do with myself, feeling a great ache grow inside of me. I went over to the window, pulled back the drapes and eased open the shutters. My breath misted up the cold glass. I rubbed it clear and saw it was almost daylight now. The sky was pale, the lawns deep white and the driveway flanked by banks of snow curved round to the main steps beneath me.
Wait.
This was the window, the very spot, where yesterday that figure had watched me arrive. It had slipped my mind completely, but now I shrank back from the glass, shivering.
So someone did use this room. Or maybe it wasn’t a person at all, but that thing that’d followed us up the stairs last night. The thing I struggled to believe was Kit.
I looked nervously over my shoulder, wishing that Gracie would hurry up so we could get back downstairs again.
But I still had the fire to do. I went to the hearth and got down on my knees, just like Dorcas had done. There was still plenty of heat in the coals, so I added more and swept out the ashes. The sight of a good fire cheered me a little. Once I’d gathered up the brushes though, the flames had died down and the grate suddenly filled with smoke. I cussed loudly, blew on the fire, took off the extra coals, added a few sticks. Nothing worked. Soon it was dead as a doornail. And I was up to my elbows in soot.
The one task I’d been left to do, I’d messed up. I started to panic. I had to get this flipping fire going. As I crouched down, I sensed the door opening behind me. It closed again softly. Something told me it wasn’t Gracie. I turned round dead slow, almost too scared to look.