The Housemaid

by Sarah A. Denzil

  When I closed and locked the door behind me, collapsed onto the bed and removed the file from under my top, a realisation hit me. Before Roisin died, I’d considered losing my job to be the worst thing that could happen to me. My lifeless body left swinging from a branch was the worst thing that could happen to me. I shivered, the sweat grown cold on my skin and the chill of the secret corridor buried deep in my bones. I pulled the covers around me, praying I was safe in my room and no one had any proof that I’d been snooping. The file lay on the cushion next to my head. I needed to build up the strength to open it.

  It didn’t take long. Curiosity chased away the fear. I reached for the file, pulled it open, and let my fingers flip the pages, searching for her. Huxley had kept written notes of the maids at that time. When they started, their CVs, their references, when they left, transcripts of their exit interviews if they had one—I read one interview that gushed about Bertie but complained about the food—and any details of misconduct. One maid had been accused of stealing. Some of them had come from troubled backgrounds just like I had, and they relapsed and left. Some of the girls had even spent time in prison for minor offences, usually drugs. It made the high turnover of maids inevitable, just like Mrs Huxley had warned me. I read every account of these young women trying to make a life for themselves, but she wasn’t there. My mother was missing.

  My heart sank, but I thought that perhaps I’d made a mistake. I quickly checked the dates on my mother’s letters to my father and then checked the files again. When I matched up all the different maids within the timeline, I noticed a gap. One maid worked at Highwood between the 17th of January 1999, and the 20th of March 1999, whereas before there were always two. Why would my mother’s records be removed?

  In addition to the missing record for my mother, I noticed that another maid had left during that time, and the Howards hadn’t found a replacement for over a week. Surely someone as meticulous as Mrs Huxley wouldn’t have allowed the Howards to be without a maid for that long? There were always temps to hire, but the Howards were a demanding family, and Highwood Hall was massive in scope. I knew Mrs Huxley, and I knew she needed at least two maids.

  I shoved the folder into my underwear drawer, covering it with pants and bras. All that sneaking around and hiding for such little information. I’d found nothing linking Bertie to Roisin’s death, but I hadn’t truly expected to. There’d be no convenient lengths of rope or CCTV footage of him killing her. I’m sure it happened in the dark, away from people, if he’d even killed her himself. Bertie was so rich that he could’ve had help from an outsider to cover it up.

  I’d found nothing about the dioramas. If Lord Bertie had any additional information about that, he hadn’t shared it with anyone, and I guessed it’d be on his private computer. If I even tried to guess Bertie’s passcode, the computer would probably take a picture of me. No, I wouldn’t be able to hack into his laptop, that was certain.

  The mystery of the secret passage could be explained with logic. It made sense for the housekeeper’s rooms to be connected to Lord Bertie’s office. I’d heard about servants’ rooms being linked via secret passageways to children’s rooms in the past. That way the nanny could comfort a crying baby without having to walk through the house to get to the child. Perhaps Bertie and Huxley took advantage of that pre-built corridor. But why? And why wasn’t it common knowledge amongst the staff? I had my suspicions, but I was a long way off confirming anything.

  But what had I learned? I now knew that Alex had a key to Lord Bertie’s office and that he disappeared through another door while in that room. I’d learned the name of Mrs Huxley’s son and I’d seen that records connecting my mother as a maid here had been either lost or destroyed.

  All those things added up to… what? My mind swam with the possibilities. I sat up in my bed, wrapped my arms around my legs, and felt true, all-consuming fear grip every one of my muscles. I didn’t like where these nuggets of information were taking me. There’s something wrong with Highwood Hall. Secrets, so many secrets to be uncovered. Now I wondered whether I’d be the one to expose them before those secrets consumed more innocents like Roisin. Or me.

  For the rest of that Sunday, I avoided Mrs Huxley and took a chunk of Pawel’s freshly baked bread to eat in the garden. The grass was warm beneath my jeans, and I wished I’d put on shorts or a skirt. The aroma of the rose garden grew cloying in the late spring heat, especially when I thought of Roisin and heard her voice in my mind. Cross-legged, I waited, chewing on the bread, hardly tasting it despite Pawel’s baking talents, until Ade walked over, blocking the bright sun from view. He sat down on the lawn next to me.

  “I need to tell you something,” I said.

  “Funny way of saying hello.” He flashed me some teeth and adjusted himself on the lawn. Then he noticed the expression on my face and his smile dissipated. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t just come to Highwood Hall because I needed a job and a place to stay. I came here because my mother used to work here a long time ago when I was a baby.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Wow. That’s a lot to take in.”

  “I know,” I said. “Sorry, I should’ve told you sooner. But I didn’t want Mrs Huxley to know. She worked here at the same time as my mother.”

  “They knew each other?”

  “Maybe. My mum, she left me right after she stopped working here. Dumped me with my aunt and disappeared.”

  Ade shook his head. “I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s okay.” I glanced at my fingernails and grimaced. “I have so many… so many conflicting thoughts, and I don’t know how to arrange them…” To my horror, I began to cry, and then I couldn’t stop. The tears burst from me, breaking through every barrier I’d ever constructed. I thought I’d built a sturdy wall, but it was little more than a delicate veil.

  “Hey, come here.” Ade pulled me into his arms, encasing me, covering me with warmth.

  I blinked away tears, looking up at Highwood. Alex stood in the window. Watching.

  I let Ade comfort me and then we carried on talking until the sun went down. About my mother, about Mrs Huxley, about Roisin, about everything. But all I could think about was Alex at the window. Watching.

  Chapter 38

  My sleep was light and frequently interrupted by bad dreams that I forgot as soon as my eyes opened. When I woke, I expected to see Roisin there, mussed hair spilling over her shoulders, waiting for me to tell her my dreams. But the bed was empty.

  I sleepwalked through Monday, thoughts elsewhere. My hands worked while my mind made decisions. Going through the motions became life. I followed Huxley’s orders to the letter. I swept, I polished, I served food.

  Tuesday and Wednesday came and went in the same way. I ran some errands for Margot, helping her pack away items from her wardrobe that she wouldn’t need for summer. Several moth-eaten Chanel dresses were thrown away completely. She’d placed a diamond necklace in my hand with a wink, but I put it back on her dressing table as I carried bags of old clothes out of the room. I could never accept a gift like that. For all I knew, Mrs Huxley or Lord Bertie would turn around and accuse me of theft and Margot would suddenly forget that she even gave me the necklace in the first place.

  And then the second half of the week dragged me kicking and screaming out of my fog, forcing me to sit up and take notice. First, in the early hours of Thursday morning, I woke up convinced that I’d heard someone closing my bedroom door. It was like an echo, something I wasn’t sure if I had dreamed, but I staggered out of bed and ran down to Mrs Huxley’s rooms anyway. A terrible sense of déjà vu hit me as I pounded the door with my fists and waited. She never answered. I hurried through the kitchen, but it was empty. I went along to the stairs and checked there, but it was empty too. Quietly, I opened the door to the cupboard above the stairs so I could wait and watch to see if anything strange happened, something that could help me figure out what was going on at Highwood Hall, but instead a hand reached out, grabbed me
by the throat and squeezed.

  I panicked, clawing at the thin fingers around my neck until the attacker suddenly ceased his throttling and let go. Alex’s striking blue eyes emerged from the darkness. He let out a long, breathy sigh.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realise it was you.”

  When he came out of the cupboard, I still took a cautionary step backwards, a hand resting on my neck. “Who did you think it was?”

  He was dressed in silk pyjamas. Scarlet red, almost ridiculously bright but somehow threatening on his body. “I don’t know. I was sleepwalking.”

  I glanced at the cupboard and back to Alex. “Do you do this often?”

  “Yes. Odd, isn’t it? I’m fixated with this place.”

  “Because you saw—” I caught myself before I said it out loud.

  But he knew what I was going to say. His chin tilted down, and he took a step towards me. “Because I saw my mother die from here.”

  My cheeks flushed with heat. My throat ached. It made me think of Roisin with the rope around her neck. Lady Laura hanging from the chandelier.

  “Women seem to have a habit of dying at Highwood,” Alex said. “Sad, isn’t it?”

  “Disturbing,” I said. “Were you in my room?”

  I saw that his mind was elsewhere. Perhaps he was still half-asleep. He didn’t seem focused on anything in particular, just lost to his own thoughts. He didn’t answer me at first.

  “Hey,” I said, grabbing him by the arm. “Answer me. Were you in my room?”

  “No,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I come into your room?”

  I stepped away from him and staggered back to my bed, rubbing the part of my throat he’d gripped. When I reached my room, I tested the lock. It worked. I remembered specifically locking my room that night, and yet the sound had been clear as a bell in my mind. If someone had come into my room, then they needed a key. Who had a master key for the house? Mrs Huxley? Alex? Lord Bertie?

  It took a long time to fall back to sleep, which remained restless until my alarm blared. When I pulled on my uniform and made my way back to the kitchen, I had a feeling Alex wouldn’t even mention what had happened the night before.

  Zombielike, I carried trays through the servants’ corridor to the dining room, kicked open the hidden door and stacked up the pastries, eggs and bacon. Alex avoided my eye contact as usual, but I did see him stare at my neck. Luckily, his fingers hadn’t left a bruise, and I think he was relieved about that as well. Even Mrs Huxley seemed distracted. I hadn’t forgotten how I’d banged on her door in the middle of the night, and not only had she not answered, but she hadn’t asked me about it this morning. When I caught her yawning, I knew she hadn’t been in her room. So where was she? Perhaps she’d come into my room to find the stolen file and hidden in the corridor when I woke. I mulled on that for a while, but I didn’t get much time for idle thought.

  The second of the strange occurrences happened during breakfast. When the buzzer sounded for the front gate, Mrs Huxley disappeared and later re-emerged as I poured Margot’s coffee. There, in her arms, lay yet another white gift box tied up with a red bow. I splashed hot coffee on the tablecloth when I saw it, swearing under my breath. But no one noticed because we were all staring at the box as Mrs Huxley placed it in the centre of the table.

  “There’s no card,” she said, stepping back. “All the others had cards.”

  Lord Bertie slammed his newspaper down. I flinched as the porcelain clattered.

  “Daddy,” Lottie said. “Be careful.”

  I noticed Alex regard his sister with a sardonic expression on his face. “This should be over and done with by now. Why haven’t we found the person sending these things?”

  When Lord Bertie answered, it was as though he addressed the entire table rather than his son. “Because it wasn’t who I originally thought, that’s why. If we’d been right the first time, this matter would be over. But now we don’t know who it is or what they want.”

  “You mean you can’t pay them off,” Lottie said with a scoff.

  “Isn’t anyone going to open it?” Margot snapped. “We’d may as well see what we’re dealing with. Go on, Huxley. You fetched it; you can do the honours.”

  Mrs Huxley nodded, stepped forward, and gently pulled on the bow. As with the others, the front flap dropped, and it revealed the scene inside. I was standing straight in front of it, and I saw the contents first. I let out a little gasp that I tried to cover with my hand, then my eyes flew up to Alex, which he noticed right away.

  “What is it?” Alex asked his grandmother.

  “See for yourself,” she said, turning the box around.

  His eyes flicked up to mine, held them for half a second and then flicked back to the box. He didn’t look at me again. He either stared at the diorama or the table, pointedly anywhere but me. Lottie shrugged and glanced away, seemingly disinterested, seeing as the scene didn’t involve her. Lord Bertie frowned but said nothing.

  This diorama showed nothing violent or disturbing like some of the others, but its scene shook me down to my bones. I saw the music room brought to life, with the floral mural and striped wallpaper garishly recreated. A miniature chandelier, again made out of tiny plastic jewels, hung from the box lid. Beneath the lights, curved cardboard mimicked the shape of the grand piano, painted a glossy black to match its counterpart. Tiny individual keys spread along the front like bared teeth. And about to play the instrument were two small figurines sitting on the stool. One, a man with dark hair cut neatly short wearing a smart shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The other, a young woman in simple clothing. My maid uniform. Her brown hair was pulled back, but there were loose, wispy tendrils framing her face.

  The box wasn’t labelled, but it clearly showed me and Alex together in the music room. But why? And how did they know small details like the fact that I sat on the piano stool with Alex. Most page-turners stood next to the piano to turn the music, but Alex liked me to be close to him. How did they know that? I clasped my hands together behind my back and fought the urge to run from the room. I needed to know… I needed to be sure… that we hadn’t been watched.

  Chapter 39

  By that point, a fatigue had settled over Highwood Hall, and everyone in the room almost seemed bored of the latest diorama, as though it’d become such a common occurrence that no one cared. Margot asked what it meant, and Alex explained to her that he practised the piano with my help each Friday. Lottie then made a comment about how Alex liked spending time with the help, to which Alex stood up and walked out of the room. Shortly after, Lord Bertie took the diorama away, and breakfast was over.

  Dusting the library could wait, and as soon as Lord Bertie and Mrs Huxley were out of the dining room, I sprinted all the way to the music room. My raw throat choked on air, feet scuffing the floorboards. When I grabbed the door handle, it didn’t budge.

  “Need a key?”

  I spun on my heel to find Alex dangling the key between his thumb and forefinger.

  “It seems I had the same idea,” he said, reaching around me to unlock the door.

  “Someone’s been watching us,” I whispered. “How else would they know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That I sit next to you, that you roll up your shirtsleeves? And why are they showing it to us? I don’t understand the context. That’s two dioramas with me in it now. Why am I being targeted more than anyone else? Do you think whoever it is will hurt me? Like how Roisin was hurt?” I loathed myself as I rambled on and finally snapped my jaw shut. I was saying too much, blabbing to a man I didn’t trust.

  He simply rolled his eyes as he pushed the door open. “I think you might be being a tad dramatic. But I also thought it might warrant a double check.” He shrugged. “Like you said, this person knows some odd details.”

  “What’s so interesting about you playing the piano and me turning the pages?” I stepped in, noticing that everything was in its usual position. The piano top h
ad been closed over the keys. Sheet music for a Rachmaninoff prelude waited on the stand. A violin lingered in its usual position on the wall.

  “God knows,” Alex said, sounding almost bored. He closed the door behind us, blocking me from the exit.

  As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, my hand rose to my throat. I thought of the dark, the pale fingers emerging from the secret cupboard, and my eyes drifted to his. I hadn’t been afraid of him before, but I was now.

  “Who do you think it is sending these boxes?” I asked, moving a few steps closer to him, defying the fear making my muscles tremble. “Do you think it’s someone in your family? Whoever it is knows a lot about you all. Or is it Mrs Huxley? I’ve always thought so. At least I did until she received one herself.”

  “Not Huxley,” he said, dismissing the thought as though it was preposterous. “She’s far too loyal to Daddy. No, I could never see it. Lottie or Margot, however…” He ran a hand along the wall as though looking for a secret door. His eyes roamed up and down the length of the room.

  I checked the corners for any secret cameras. I peered into the violin through the taut strings. “You’d expect this of your family more than you would an employee?”

  Alex hesitated by the piano. “Yes, I would.”

  I let out a shuddering breath as I made my way around the room. “It feels strange being in here in the daytime. When we come in here on Friday evenings, I feel as though we’re in a different time and space. Do you ever feel that way?”

  “Yes,” he said. He faced me now, and his expression was as impassive as ever, but his eyes were bright and burning. I could’ve sworn I saw longing illuminating the ice water of his irises. “I’ve felt like that from the very first week.”