The Housemaid

by Sarah A. Denzil

  “I don’t think there are any cameras or peepholes in here,” I said, scanning the room one more time.

  “No, neither do I,” Alex said. “I think someone has speculated about what happens in this room.” He rubbed his chin. “Unless you told someone about our Friday nights.”

  “I told Roisin almost everything.”

  One corner of his mouth twitched. “Almost.”

  “Almost.”

  “Do you think she could have told anyone else?”

  I shrugged. “I suppose she could. Pawel maybe, or…” I froze. Alex saw the change in me immediately and circled in until he was close. He looked down at me as we stood there face to face.

  “Or?”

  “Your father.”

  Alex’s already clenched jaw tightened, a ripple of tension working its way across his face, and then he let it go, exhaling and closing his eyes as though completely exasperated. “No matter how many times we tell him not to fuck the maids.”

  “And what about you?” I snapped. “How many times have you been told not to fuck the maids? I should go.”

  “No one is keeping you here,” he replied.

  “I’m aware of that.” I wrenched the door open and left.

  My blood boiled. I’d reached the point where enough was enough and I was sick of the Howards and sick of holding my feelings in. I stopped at the dining room on my way back to the servants’ quarters, and I stared at the portraits there for a long time. Those strange, ethereal women and their serene expressions, passively gazing back at me. I sought out the woman I’d noticed on my first day, then I looked at Lady Laura for a moment before ducking through the secret door.

  Tomorrow I’d have to spend yet another evening in the music room with Alex. I wasn’t sure whether I could bear it anymore. But of course, I would go anyway. I’d stay pliable, submissive, the good girl he wanted.

  But what did I want?

  What did I want to do?

  I’d decided it was time to stop playing pretend, and later that day, after eating dinner with Pawel and Ade, I went to Mrs Huxley. Someone needed to tell me why my mother had been erased from the files. She knew. I was sure of it. She’d been here for decades, she had to know. But would she tell me what went on here? And if there truly was something wrong with Highwood Hall, was Mrs Huxley in on it? This one woman held my fate in the palm of her hand, and she’d either close her fist and crush me or she’d guide me through what I needed to do next. Everything I’d learned about her so far suggested that she would close her fist, except for Charlie. I needed to take a chance. I couldn’t take down Lord Bertie on my own. I stood outside her door and took a deep breath.

  She let me in, closed the door and walked over to her desk. She stood behind the diorama and placed her hands on the surface. She said nothing. She waited.

  “I think you know why I’m here,” I said.

  To my surprise, she picked up a remote control and pressed a button. The room filled with the orchestral sounds of chamber music. Then she walked over to the secret door and began to drag a filing cabinet in front of it. When she strained against the cabinet, I instinctively went to help her until the door was blocked. After that, she opened a desk drawer, produced a large bottle of whisky and two stainless steel tumblers.

  “I’m clean and sober,” I said.

  “You were addicted to drugs. Painkillers, tranquilisers…”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Look,” she said, “I think you’re going to need this. I know you will, and I sure as hell do.”

  “So you do know why I’m here.” I reached for the tumbler.

  “I do.”

  “Are you going to tell me everything?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “There’s something very wrong at Highwood Hall, isn’t there?”

  Huxley downed her whisky, and her body crumpled over. I thought for one awful moment that she was going to collapse, but she sucked in a long breath and composed herself. I sat down in a chair next to her desk and listened to every word, a sense of dread running deeper and deeper through my body until she’d finished her story.

  The Music Room

  I was anxious to go in, afraid to see him. Too many times I’d dismissed the strangeness at Highwood Hall, and now I had to face up to the fact that I didn’t trust the Howard family anymore. But at the same time, what I felt for him was more complicated than that. Inside the music room we are me and him and the rest of the world doesn’t matter. We are something else, and time stands still. Whatever I am afraid of, I have to ignore it.

  He walked up to me, smiling, and I thought to myself that perhaps I could talk to him and ask him questions about his father and the things that frightened me about Highwood. But that smile faded as he approached because he noticed my mood right away.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You seem nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous.” To hide the lack of conviction in my voice, I plastered a large grin across my face. But I saw from his frown that it didn’t convince him.

  We went into the room, and he closed the door and leaned against the wall. “Things have been weird around here, haven’t they? Look, I know you’re feeling a bit spooked, but I promise you that things are going to get better. Do you trust me?”

  I nodded.

  He held his hand out to me. “Listen, I don’t feel like playing tonight.” He opened the door again. “Why don’t we go for a walk instead?”

  In the music room time stands still. “I don’t know. I like hearing you play.”

  “Please,” he said. “I’d love to walk with you. Sometimes I feel like you learn so much about me in this room, but I never learn anything about you. Come with me. I’ll give you another tour of the house if you like.”

  I reached out to take his hand but then hesitated. “What if someone sees us holding hands?”

  He smiled, closing the distance between us, and ran his fingers through my hair. “I don’t care. Do you care?”

  At first I leaned into him, and when our lips touched, longing stirred within my body, circulating through my bloodstream. He smelled like the glossy wood of the grand piano, but with the earthiness of the wood was an undertone of sweetness edged with sourness, like a ripe pear about to turn. He was gentle, for a change, until he wasn’t. I felt the pressure on the back of my head, and I wanted it to stop. I pressed both palms against his chest and pushed him away.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” he said.

  “You were hurting me.”

  “You’ve never complained before.”

  “Well, I am now,” I replied. “I don’t think I want to go for that walk after all.”

  But he grabbed me by the elbow and spun me around. “I want to go for the walk. Come on.”

  My heart pounded then, driving the blood so fast that I heard it whooshing in my ears. He was playing one of his games. If I played along, I’d have to do whatever he wanted, just like I had several times already. Despite everything, I felt guilty because I’d been doing it to keep my job here and because I hoped that just maybe it would lead to more. Not because we were meant for each other. This whole time, all I kept thinking about was the financial security someone like him could offer me and all the choices it would give me in life. But then I realised, nothing was worth the kind of pain he inflicted on me. I was wrong about whether I could handle it. I couldn’t. It was time to drop the ruse, to stop leading him on.

  “I should go back to my room. Mrs Huxley—”

  “Isn’t expecting you for an hour,” he pointed out. His smile was unpleasantly toothy, with eyes that flashed underneath the chandelier. He reminded me of a cat about to pounce. “Come on. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  Common sense fought with the instinct to flee. Violence happened to other people and not at the hands of someone you trust. Didn’t it? I wasn’t walking down an alleyway at night; I was with my boss’s son. So why did I feel afraid? The problem with people is we don’t imagine dan
ger around the corner. We never expect to be the person targeted by a terrorist or a violent criminal or to be hit by a car. That’s what we see on the news, and it always happens to them. We have such narrow views of what peril is and who experiences it. Drunk women alone at night. Gang members dealing drugs. The unfortunate people born into a turbulent, war-torn country.

  Even though I was afraid of him in that moment, I still walked with him because—despite the warning signs—I didn’t expect anything bad to happen to me. I should’ve ran.

  He took me to the north wing. He’d taken me there before and told me about how he and his wife would live there together once it was renovated. I’d often wondered if his honeyed words were a ploy to keep me expecting him to fall in love with me. Perhaps I thought I could win him around in that moment and somehow end up being that wife in the north wing with all the money in the world.

  I noticed that the sky was cloudless as he walked me through the great hallway. Craning my neck, I saw the tint of dark blue turning day into night. He walked so quickly that I almost tripped two or three times, and on occasion, he put his hand on my elbow to steady me. A firm hand.

  Why was he walking so fast? Why was he so eager? It seemed as though he had something planned for me in the north wing, but he’d also opened the music room door as normal, ready to start his practice. Had the walk been part of his plan all along? Or was this truly a spontaneous decision? Several times I opened my mouth to ask, but fear stopped me. And then my mind would try to reassure my heart by telling it there was a rational explanation for his erratic behaviour. Then my spine would come into play, trying to get me to speak up. I finally did as he unlocked the door.

  “Why have we come here?” I asked.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “You know,” I said, “I’m not sure I want to go in there tonight.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m feeling a bit off it. I think I’m coming down with a cold. Maybe I should head back now and get an aspirin from Mrs Huxley.”

  He took my face in both his hands. “Five minutes. I promise. It’s worth it. Will you stop being so nervous? This is a nice surprise. I promise.”

  Some of the tension worked its way out of my taut muscles. He was smiling now. A proper smile that reached his eyes. I nodded my head and followed him through. At first he seemed as though he was going to close the door behind us, but I hesitated long enough to force him to go ahead. I’d had a horrible feeling he was going to lock us in at first, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t.

  When we turned the corner into the large rooms, the sound of music took me by surprise. Debussy played in the background. My favourite. He saw my head lift and he laughed.

  “I told you it was going to be a nice surprise.”

  “You did,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Will you relax now?”

  I threaded my arm through his, leaning into his side. “Yes.”

  “Good girl.”

  We walked like that, arm in arm, through the north wing while he recited some of the same things to me as last time. About which rooms will be for children, where he’d entertain, which would be the kitchen, and so on.

  “I want to be more self-sufficient than Daddy. I want to be able to cook for myself and for my wife.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t listen to him anymore. I stopped, withdrew my arm and sighed. “Please stop this. Please stop teasing me. We both know that I’m never going to be your wife. You’ll marry some young woman with a double-barrelled name who drives a Porsche and went to a private school. Your children will go to Eton and then Oxford and probably run the country someday. My children…” My voice cracked. “Well, they won’t do those things. Look, I probably should… Maybe I should just go. I can get a reference from your father and move on. This has been—”

  “No,” he said. “You’re not leaving.” He glanced at the final door, and then he grabbed my hand.

  When my eyes followed his to the door, a strange sense of coldness washed over my skin, like a wet rag being pulled over the flesh. It took my eyes a moment to understand what I was looking at and why it seemed so out of place. The door was nothing like the others in the north wing. And now everything seemed so obvious. All his chattering about the home he’d build for his family was nothing more than a distraction for what was lying ahead inside that room.

  It had a keypad. The door in this abandoned wing of an old house had a keypad. I couldn’t think of any decent explanation for why that was possible. And then I saw him watching me, and I saw the mask slip from his face. He knew then that I was no longer able to distract.

  “Daddy,” he called.

  I tried to wrench my arm from his grip. He held me tight with his strong fingers. My jaw dropped. I stared at him, no doubt an incredulous expression on my face, but he didn’t relent his grip. My eyes widened, the pain taking me by surprise. Yes, he had been forceful and inflicted some pain here and there as part of his games, but this was different. This vice he had me in was cruel.

  And then the door opened. In the doorway stood his father, Lord Howard, tall and imposing, with soft greying hair and those bright blue eyes, filling the space leading into the next room. He glanced coldly at me before turning his hooded eyes to his son.

  “Get her in here,” he snapped.

  “No,” I said. “No, I want to go.” There were tears in my eyes. I should’ve listened to my instinct. I should’ve run away when I had the chance. But now I had a choice. I couldn’t let him drag me into that room. God knows what existed behind that door. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected I’d never come back out.

  “Stop fighting me, you fool!” He bared his teeth at me. All his pretences faded away, leaving the fundamental essence of him on show. I saw it now, finally. He was a monster.

  It was time to fight. I kicked him hard in the crotch, leaned over and bit his wrist, and then spun on my heel to run in the opposite direction. Neither he nor his father reacted quickly enough to grab me.

  I careened through the rooms—the nursery, the kitchen, the space for entertaining guests—feeling like a newborn foal not in control of her legs. And yet somehow the momentum, the fear and instinct to flee, got me through to the door I’d made sure stayed open. I heard the clattering footsteps of their pursuit. As fast as I could, I slammed the door behind me and ran back through the hall. What were they going to do to me in there? I thought of the high turnover of maids. Had anyone heard from the maid I replaced? What did they do to them? And then the realisation hit me.

  I’d been hired for a reason.

  I had a troubled background and very few family members who actually gave a shit. They’d chosen me because I was less likely to be noticed if I suddenly disappeared. They could do whatever they wanted here in this enormous house with as much money as they needed at their disposal. I was nothing to them and nothing to the world. What were they going to do with me?

  I sprinted down the great hallway, past the long stretch of wooden panels and paintings. I wanted to shout for help, but could I trust the rest of the family? What did the women know about their men? Could I trust the staff? My safest option was to get out as fast as I could, run down to Paxby and call the police from there. Though what I would do without any evidence, I didn’t know.

  When I turned the corner towards the door, I ran so hard into Mrs Huxley that I almost knocked her clean over. However, the tall woman was solid enough to take the blow. Even though she was barely a few years older than me, she had this worldly air about her, and I was relieved to see her. Huxley would know what to do.

  She grabbed me by the upper arms and steadied me. By now, I had tears streaming down my cheeks and snot coming from my nose. I struggled to breathe in enough air to tell her what happened.

  “They… The north wing.”

  “Come with me,” she said, taking me by the shoulders.

  It was a relief to have help. I wanted more than anything to have someone make me feel sa
fe. I smiled at her, but she was so intently focused she didn’t return the smile. Then she gripped my shoulders hard and spun me around. With her hands still on me, she walked me back the way I’d come.

  “What are you doing?” I twisted my body out of her grip, but she took hold of both elbows, bony fingers digging in hard.

  “It’d be easier for you if you didn’t fight it,” she said. Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Come on.”

  I made a run for it. I’d hesitated too many times before. But she was between me and the way out, which sent me towards the kitchen. To my surprise, when I tried the door, it was locked. The servants’ quarters were never locked. Heavy footsteps thudded behind me. All I could do was sprint up the main staircase. Breathless, I passed the long line of portraits into the first-floor corridor and groped the walls until I found the secret door to the servants’ corridor and ran inside.

  My heart was a piston, the thumping so loud it frightened me. A tremor vibrated through every muscle in my body as I ran towards the spiral stairs. I could get out through the servants’ door as long as it wasn’t locked. If it was, I’d break a window. I’d do whatever I needed to do. Behind me, a deep voice yelled at me to stop. Oh, I was a fool. I hadn’t believed that I’d be the lady of the house and that I’d give birth to privileged children and buy them horses and watch them grow up in the grounds of a stately home, but I hadn’t expected what I should have known—that my life meant so little to them I was the prey in a game they’d honed together. Now I saw what I should’ve seen before—I could only lose. My heart ached for those who’d gone before me and the ones who would come after. The clues had all been there, and I’d missed each one.

  I still wouldn’t give up.

  Never.

  I had someone to fight for.

  But he was faster.

  He reached me at the top of the stairs, his face flushed bright red. I’d never seen my own fearful expression reflected in someone’s eyes before, but there it was. He wrapped his hands around my neck, and when he strained, his face reddened to a deep scarlet and his hair fell forward across the bridge of his nose.