Castle of Secrets

by Amanda Grange

  He went on, recalling her thoughts.

  ‘You came by your position with Mr Plumley through the registry office, I see,’ he said, referring to the letter. ‘You wrote to the office again when Mr Plumley married, because his wife chose to manage the house herself, and the office recommended you for the job at the castle.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Well, you will find it very different here. A castle is not a tradesman’s house, even one as lost as this.’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Now, to your duties. You will make sure the dining-room and the other inhabited rooms are kept clean and warm. You will make sure there is a fire in the library at all times, and you will tend to it yourself. You will not allow any other member of staff to enter the library, except Miss Parkins.’

  ‘Miss Parkins?’

  ‘You will meet her later. She has my full confidence. You will take responsibility for everything that goes on inside the castle and you will make sure that I am not troubled with household matters, except for an appointed hour once a week, when you will report to me. As this is your first week, you will report to me tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock, when I will answer any questions that might have arisen once you have had an opportunity to familiarise yourself with the castle.’

  ‘Very good, my lord.’

  ‘You know enough to begin with.’ He waved his hand and said: ‘That will be all for today.’

  It was a dismissal. Helena inclined her head then left the room.

  As she closed the door behind her, she let out a sigh of relief, for she had passed the test, and been accepted as Elizabeth Reynolds.

  She crossed the hall and mounted the stairs, returning to her room. I can do no more this evening, she thought, but tomorrow I must question the footman.

  As she opened the door she felt a welcome heat and realised that a fire had been lit in her absence. She was about to cross to the fireplace when she saw, with a start, that she was not alone. A figure was standing in the corner, its dark eyes like blots of ink set in a parchment face. It was dressed in a grey woollen gown, and its hair was drawn back into a severe chignon. It was holding a taper, and there was a sepulchral look about it. She wondered if one of the other servants had played a trick on her by putting a mannequin in her room to frighten her . . . until it suddenly moved, and Helena realised with a creeping sensation that it was not a mannequin, but a woman of flesh and blood.

  The woman ignored Helena and used the taper to light the candles. The gesture seemed territorial, as though she were saying to Helena, This is my room, and you do not belong here.

  ‘I thought you would like a fire,’ said the woman at last, putting down the taper. Her words were welcoming but her voice was hollow and it sent a chill down Helena’s back. ‘The day is very cold.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Helena, having a sudden urge to flee.

  ‘You have had a long journey?’ the woman asked.

  ‘I have been travelling all day.’

  ‘You are very young to be a housekeeper,’ said the woman.

  Helena hesitated. Until she knew to whom she was speaking, she did not know what tone to take. Was this a member of the family? A distant relative of Lord Torkrow, perhaps? Or another servant?

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said cautiously. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Miss Parkins.’

  So this was Miss Parkins, the servant his lordship trusted absolutely. They made a fine pair, she thought. They were both intimidating in different ways.

  ‘His lordship mentioned you,’ said Helena. ‘I am not sure what your position is?’

  ‘My position,’ said Miss Parkins, allowing the word to pass her lips as though it were a spider, ‘is unusual. I came here many years ago as a lady’s maid. Now, I help his lordship in whatever capacity he desires.’

  Helena gave a tentative smile, wondering if it was possible to make a friend of the woman, for if Miss Parkins had been at the castle for a long time she must have known her aunt.

  ‘You must have been a great help to the previous housekeeper,’ she said.

  The woman said nothing. There was something unsettling about her, beyond her appearance, and as Helena looked at her she began to realise that the woman’s face had no expression. When the woman spoke, she did not smile, or frown, or look surprised. She seemed, as she had seemed at first sight, like a waxwork dummy. ‘It must have been difficult for you when she left. She left very quickly,’ said Helena, persevering.

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Her sister was ill, I understand? It must have been inconvenient for his lordship to have her leave so suddenly. Was her sister very ill? Could she not have given him some warning?’

  ‘Servants these days care for no one but themselves,’ said Miss Parkins in a toneless voice

  Helena felt a retort spring to her lips, but she was prevented from uttering it by a flicker of interest in Miss Parkins’s eyes. She sensed a strong and malevolent personality at work behind the maid’s immobile face, and realised she could not afford to make any mistakes, so she stifled her retort, and said: ‘It was very good of you to light a fire for me, it’s cheerful to see the flames. It was very cold on the moor and the castle is not much warmer.’

  ‘The scullery maid will do it for you in future,’ said Miss Parkins.

  ‘Then you do not usually . . . ?‘ asked Helena, trailing off as she saw a gleam of sour amusement in Miss Parkins’s eye.

  ‘Light fires for the housekeeper? No, I do not.’

  ‘It was good of you to do it on this occasion.’ As Miss Parkins showed no signs of leaving, Helena said, in a friendly manner: ‘If you do not mind, I am very tired. I have had a long journey, and if I am to be capable of fulfilling my duties tomorrow, I must get some rest.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Miss Parkins.

  But although she had accepted her dismissal, Helena was under no illusions. It was Miss Parkins who held the power, Miss Parkins who had agreed to leave, and not Helena who had dismissed her.

  As Miss Parkins left the room, she left a chill in the air and Helena crossed to the door, on an impulse pulling a chair against it.

  She went over to the fire and held her hands out to feel the heat. Aunt Hester had never mentioned Miss Parkins, and yet she must have known her.

  Helena stared into the fire, as though she would be able to see her aunt in the flames. Aunt Hester, she thought, why did you leave? Where did you go? Why did you not write to tell me you were leaving? And why did you lie to Lord Torkrow, telling him you needed to tend your sick sister, when I am your only relative?

  Simon, Lord Torkrow, stood by the window in the library, looking out over the courtyard. It was too dark to see anything but the silhouette of the outer wall in the distance, with a patch of grey where the archway cut through it, and beyond, the deep dark of the moor.

  He turned round as the door opened and Miss Parkins entered the room. She had not knocked or waited for permission to enter. She stood before him in a respectful attitude, but her face was devoid of all emotion. Her dark eyes looked out from her white face, their large pupils seeming to swallow the light, but as she looked at him, he wondered what was going on behind her eyes. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and he thought, with a passing fascination, that in all the years he had known her, he had never seen her hair loose. He did not know how old she was. Forty . . . fifty, perhaps . . . maybe older, maybe younger. She had a quality of stillness about her that made her seem scarcely alive. That had not always been the case. There had been a time when she had been vital.

  ‘There is a woman here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know. She is the new housekeeper.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘She is very young for such a position.’

  ‘It is not easy to get servants these days, particularly in such a remote corner.’

  ‘She is not wearing a wedding band,’ said Miss Parkins.

&nb
sp; ‘It is possible she calls herself Mrs for reasons of employment, or that she has had to sell her wedding ring,’ he said.

  Inwardly, however, he berated himself, for he had not noticed her lack of a ring, and had been too ready to accept her as the person she claimed to be.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I will call in at the registry office the next time I am in York,’ he said. ‘Someone there will have met Elizabeth Reynolds and I can find out what she looks like, and see if her description matches this young woman.’

  ‘Have you questioned her about her previous employment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A pity. If you had been on your guard, you might have laid a trap for her.’

  ‘What’s done is done, but we must be careful. Watch her, Parkins. See where she goes, and what she does. Make yourself her shadow. Find out if she knows how to keep house. Because if she is not who she claims to be, then we must be prepared.’

  ‘And if she discovers what has happened here?’

  ‘She must be stopped.’

  She looked at him unwaveringly.

  ‘Very good, my lord.’

  There was an almost imperceptible note of scorn in her voice when she said My lord, and it did not escape him.

  You don’t think I should be the earl, he thought. You think the title should belong to another.

  ‘Very well, Parkins. You are dismissed.’

  She did not blink. She did not speak. But when he addressed her as the servant she was, he could feel the venom coming from her.

  She unfolded her hands and moved to the door, going through it in a gliding action, and leaving the room on noiseless feet.

  He knew what she felt about him. He knew that she blamed him, that she had always blamed him.

  Perhaps she was right.

  Helena unpacked her few belongings, hanging her two woollen gowns in the wardrobe and putting her chemise and petticoat in the top drawer, together with her handkerchiefs and her woollen stockings. Her shoes she put next to the bed. Then she took the hot brick from its place by the fire and put it between the sheets.

  It was not the first night she had been expecting. She had been hoping for a warm welcome from her aunt, and after their reunion she had been intending to tell her aunt of Mr Gradwell’s proposal, and to hear her aunt’s advice.

  Should she be practical and marry him? she asked herself, as she unpinned her fair hair and let it cascade down her back. Or, once she had found her aunt, should she continue in her quest for a new position, and refuse Mr Gradwell’s hand?

  Caroline had been in no doubt. “Marry him, Helena,” she had said. “He’s a kind man, a gentleman. He’ll take care of you. You’ll have servants of your own, instead of having to be a servant. You’ll never have to sleep in an attic again.”

  But Helena was still uncertain. She wanted a home of her own, yes, and it would be good to be no longer at someone else’s beck and call, but she was not sure she could face a future with Mr Gradwell. He had kissed her once, and although the experience had not been unpleasant, she had hoped for something more. She had hoped for the sensations Lord Byron had spoken of in his poetry, and she recalled the lines of her favourite poem:

  Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move . . .

  Each kiss a heart-quake . . .

  Each kiss a heart-quake, she thought with longing. There had been no quaking of her heart when Mr Gradwell kissed her. But was Byron’s poetry a true vision of love? Or was it simply a romantic dream?

  What would it really be like, to be married? she wondered, as she brushed her hair; to live with a man every day, to share a home with him, and to be with him every day of her life?

  Aunt Hester knew. Aunt Hester had been married to Uncle Edward and could tell her what to expect, as well as helping her to decide whether or not she could be happy in a marriage to Mr Gradwell. But Aunt Hester had disappeared.

  She undressed in front of the fire, stepping out of her gown and stripping off her underwear before lifting her nightgown over her head. As she did so, she caught sight of her hand and she froze. She was not wearing a wedding ring. She should have thought of it sooner, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Besides, Lord Torkrow seemed to have accepted her. He knew as well as she did that many women had become destitute after losing their husbands at Waterloo, and had been forced to sell their jewellery in order to stay alive.

  She climbed into bed. The hot brick had warmed the sheets and she pushed it further down the bed, resting her toes on it and basking in its heat. She blew out her candle then, worn out from her day, she fell asleep.

  It seemed hardly any time before she awoke to the sound of scratching on her door. At first she did not know where she was. The bed felt strange and the red hangings confused her, but then it came back to her and she remembered that she was in the castle. Fumbling on the table next to her bed she found the tinderbox and lit her candle then, throwing a wrapper round her shoulders, she removed the chair she had set in front of the door before calling, ‘Come in.’

  The door opened and Effie stood there. She wore a shapeless dress, over which was a large, grubby apron. In one hand she carried a jug of water from which steam was rising, and in the other she carried a bucket of coal.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Helena.

  The girl made a nervous noise that could have been: ‘Morning,’ and then hurried across the room lumpishly, without grace. As Helena watched her, she thought of her aunt’s letters, and as she recalled that Aunt Hester had taken a motherly interest in the girl, she hoped she might learn something from her.

  Effie went over to the washstand and deposited the jug of water there clumsily, spilling the water.

  ‘Oh, missis, I’m sorry, missis, I’m sorry,’ said Effie, mopping up the water nervously with her apron.

  ‘That’s all right. You did not mean to do it,’ said Helena.

  ‘No, missi.’

  The girl left the water half mopped and crossed to the grate, putting the bucket of coal down with a clatter that made Helena start, and then knelt down in front of the fire. Her skirt rode up to reveal a few inches of leg, and Helena saw that she had holes in her woollen stockings, which had been badly darned.

  Effie picked up the poker, setting the other fire irons jangling, and began to rake the coals, which had turned to ash as the fire had burnt down overnight. The poker made a scraping noise across the iron grate, and there was a soft, shifting sound as the ash fell through into the box beneath.

  ‘It’s an early start for you,’ said Helena, trying to put the girl at ease.

  Effie dropped the poker with a clatter.

  ‘Sorry, missis, I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t mean to,’ she said, grabbing at the poker.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Helena, wondering how many more times she was going to have to soothe the girl. You knew my aunt, she longed to say, but instead she went on: ‘It must be confusing for you to have a new housekeeper in the castle. Perhaps you did not expect to find me still in bed. I am usually awake early, but I had a tiring day yesterday. Mrs Carlisle, my predecessor, was an early riser, I suppose?’ she enquired casually.