The Servant Girl

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Ah, there you are, Matthew. Come into the study, will you?’ Painter was there at the door of his study. He nodded to the manservant. ‘It’s all right, Parker, you can go to bed now.’

  Matthew followed him into the room where there was an aroma of good cigars and malt whisky. He stared at the tray. The decanter was half full but there was no spare glass. He wasn’t going to be offered a drink, then. Bile settled on his stomach, bitter and burning.

  ‘Good God, Matthew, what have you done to your face?’ Jeremy was standing by the fire. He picked up his glass and drained it before putting it down on the tray.

  ‘I walked into a door,’ he said, and his need overcame his pride. ‘Are you going to offer me a drink, Jerry?’

  Jeremy looked regretful. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Matthew, better not. I want you to go to Thirsk and pick up a client – he’s on the midnight train from King’s Cross. Señor Allemany, from Barcelona. Do you think you can manage that?’ He looked Matthew over critically and Matthew was within an ace of telling him to pick up his own client and walking out. To hell with him. But the thought that all his humiliations over the last few weeks might then go for nothing stopped him.

  ‘Thirsk, you said? How will I know him?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll know him, I think. There shouldn’t be many Spanish businessmen getting off the train at Thirsk.’

  Matthew turned for the door but Jeremy was not finished with him yet. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t call me Jerry. Well, it doesn’t sound right in front of clients, does it? I am, after all, owner as well as managing director of the firm. Better call me Mr Painter. Oh, and Matthew, while we are on the subject of names, do you prefer to be called Matt? Well, do go and clean your face up a little better than you have done. You can use the bathroom at the head of the stairs.’

  Matthew went out, not trusting himself to reply. It was a wonder to him he didn’t smash Mr Painter’s head in. In the bathroom, he studied his face in the mirror; the bruises on it were turning purple. He patted a little talcum powder into them, wincing as he did so. That looked better. Well, at least he had remembered to change before he came out, though he’d had the devil of a job to find his clean shirts. Where the hell had Hetty got to? When he got back he’d have to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

  Hetty woke with a start. It was morning, a chink of light came through the heavy velvet curtains. What was it she had heard? Jumping out of bed, she went to the window and drew back the curtains. Matthew’s car was there, he was just getting out of it. Hurriedly she grabbed her clothes and ran. She was already opening the door of the attic when he came into the house.

  ‘Hetty? Hetty, where the hell are you?’ His voice was slurred but belligerent. She held still, her hand on the doorknob. He mumbled obscenities and went into one of the downstairs rooms, getting himself a drink, she supposed. She slipped inside the attic and fastened the door.

  The house fell quiet. She supposed he had gone to sleep in an armchair, that was what he usually did. She pulled on her clothes, thinking longingly of the bathroom. Dare she go down to it? She would have to. Carefully, silently, she opened the door and crept down the stairs in her bare feet. She closed the bathroom door after herself, bolted it and leaned against it, sighing with relief. By, the bliss of washing herself all over, even if it was in cold water. She daren’t start the ancient boiler, it rumbled and thumped alarmingly and might wake him. She left flushing the lavatory until the last minute then ran like a hare for the attic again.

  This was no good, she told herself. Where was her backbone? She had to go out and face him, she had to. But when she heard his step on the stairs, he had indeed heard her in the bathroom, she panicked and shrank back deeper into the attic, deeper than she had been before, looking for somewhere to hide. The latch would not hold against his shoulder, she was sure of it. She stood by the side of what looked like an ancient painted chest, peeping round at the door.

  ‘You in there, Hetty?’ he shouted. He tried the door. Luckily he did not test the strength of the hook which held it. After a minute, mumbling something inaudible to Hetty, he started down the narrow stairs which led to the broader staircase below. She could hear him wandering about the house then there was quiet. She was fairly sure he would not have gone out. She would have heard the front door, she thought. Well, she would just wait.

  Going back to her nest of blankets, Hetty rummaged in the box of old books, looking for something to read apart from the antiquated books on household management. Right at the bottom of the box was a pile of yellowing bills, all written in a copperplate hand. The top one was worn and thin and the ink so pale that she couldn’t read it but the others were in better condition. November 9th, in the year of our Lord 1793, she read. Provisions for the sloop Primrose. Pickled herrings, 1h- a barrel, flour, 4d a stone, salt … Hetty forgot all about Matthew as she turned them over.

  At the bottom was a larger sheet, folded, the paper along the folds broken with age. Carefully she opened it out. It was a map of a small bay, but there were no names written on it. But it was a dotted line drawn from the bay which interested her: it led up to a house. This house, she was sure it was. Not only up to the house but to the very top of the house. It was intriguing.

  Hetty sat back on her heels. Dowstairs she could hear Matthew moving about again. She stared at the map, trying to figure it out. The line went up the back of the house, along the line of the chimneys. The place where the chimneys converged was at this side of the house behind the old cabinet. The chimneys were big, but surely not big enough to hold a secret passage? But perhaps it wasn’t really so fanciful. She remembered tales of the smugglers who used to abound on this part of the coast: John Andrews, for instance, who ran a band from the old Ship Inn in Saltburn until the revenue men rounded them up. Smuggler’s Cove too. There were tales of houses there with secret passages. She went over to have a closer look at the wall by the chimneys but she could see no sign of a door.

  There was a distant thud. The front door – Matthew must have gone out again. Hetty forgot about secret passages and smugglers. Her imagination running riot again, she thought ruefully, when there was a great deal of work to do. She made her way down to the first landing and through the window saw Matthew getting into his car again. Relief flooded through her. Now she could get on with the work of cleaning the house. She had a suspicion that Mr Painter would be coming to have a look at it one of these days.

  Hetty worked all morning, going over the rooms she had already done, dusting and mopping and polishing, and then began on the second bedroom on the first floor. Dust lay thickly over everything; there had been a fall of soot in the fireplace and it had billowed out on to the carpet. It was three o’clock when she decided to have a break. She made herself a sandwich and took it outside, going beyond the garden and making for the cliffs. She sat on the grass and ate the sandwich, thinking about the map she had found in the attic. Looking back at the house, she wondered about the people who had lived there so long ago – a crony of John Andrews, perhaps, and his family. It could have been money made from smuggling which had built the house, or at least given the family a start. They could be ancestors of Jeremy Painter and look where he was today.

  Hetty went to the edge of the cliff. By, it was high. There was a small beach but it was uneven with piles of waste which had been tipped there from some long worked-out mine; there were old workings all along the coast. She walked along the cliff top and after a while found a sort of dip in the edge. There was a path down and another small beach. Hetty followed the path down; it wound its way between dunes that could have been man-made or not. In any case, the path led her to the bay.

  By, it was lovely. She took off her shoes and buried her toes in the fine sand. So warm it was on her toes. The cliffs rose high beside her, gulls swooped about and a crab walked determinedly along the water’s edge. She thought of taking him up, they could have dressed crab for supper, but changed her mind. The crab knew whe
re he was going, who was she to stop him? She smiled to herself. Anyroad, she couldn’t kill him and she didn’t want to.

  This wasn’t the beach of the map, or she didn’t think it was. She walked along the water’s edge, back towards the spoilt beach near the house. She had to climb over rocks to get round a small headland, keeping a weather eye on the tide as she did so, but it didn’t seem on the turn. The beach when she came to it was a hideous mess, with piles of rusty rocks and small pools of stained water. But it could be the one on the map. She studied the cliff face but most of the bottom half was hidden under rubble. There was nothing to see.

  Hetty began to walk back to the path, disappointed. It was when she skirted round a pile of boulders that she saw what looked like an opening to a cave, half hidden by rubble. If she hadn’t been on the alert for something of the sort she would have walked past it. As it was she paused and bent down to peer inside. There was nothing to see, it was so dark inside. But nevertheless she bent even lower and went in. After a moment her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she saw it was quite a big cave and at the other end was a lighter area – light coming in from above. Hesitating for only a second, Hetty moved forward and began to climb.

  By, it was a long way. Her legs began to ache, her back too. Hetty thought of the poor miners of long ago who had had to climb ladders up the shafts with baskets of coal on their backs, women too and little lads. No wonder they had celebrated when the first winding engine and cages were installed at Haswell Colliery. And she wasn’t carrying anything! She paused and looked down. The cave bottom was a very long way away but she could see the glitter of water. The tide must have come in. Well then, she had to go on up, she couldn’t go down.

  The door at the top was behind the painted cabinet. She had to use all her strength to get it open, leaning her back into it and pushing the cabinet away. For a while she thought she wasn’t going to do it but suddenly the cabinet shifted, almost toppling over but steadying and allowing her just room enough to squeeze through into the attic.

  ‘Hetty? Hetty? Oh, come out, Hetty, will you? I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t lay a finger on you.’

  Matthew was on the stairs. She had a painful stitch in her side but managed to push the cabinet back to hide the gap and ran across to the door to the stairs. She had to face him some time.

  Chapter 26

  Hetty sat in the armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace to where Matthew sprawled, legs stretched out in front of him. He clasped a glass in his hand but his eyes were closed. He snored gently. The curtains were pulled against the sea fret which had rolled in soon after she had returned to the house. His mouth was open slightly; his mouth … so like his brother’s yet different somehow, slacker, weaker. Hetty smiled gently as she thought of Richard smiling down at her from his horse. By, those had been happy days. Even though Richard was the master’s son and she was the maid, he had always treated her with respect. The smile faded and she stared into the fire, her hands stilled over the sewing in her lap, a petticoat she was mending. What did Richard think of her now? she wondered.

  Matthew snored a little louder and she glanced at him. He was on the point of dropping the almost empty glass, she saw. Putting her sewing down, she tried to ease it from his hand but Matthew stirred and opened his eyes.

  ‘Leave me alone, woman,’ he growled. A fog horn sounded out on the sea, the sound muted by the heavy curtains. She let go of the glass.

  ‘I thought you were going to drop it,’ she said. ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘I was not asleep,’ he snapped, and poured himself another drink from the bottle on the occasional table beside him. He nodded his head blearily and glared across at her where she had settled back into her chair. He looked as though he would take it further but in the end decided not to bother. He swallowed half the glass of whisky thirstily and stared over at her.

  ‘You look tired,’ said Hetty. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’

  ‘Fancying coming with me, are you?’ he leered, and drank again.

  ‘You didn’t get any sleep last night,’ she reminded him.

  ‘No, thanks to Mr Jeremy bloody Painter.’ Matthew scowled blackly. ‘But, by God, I’ll get my own back, I’ll be damned if I don’t! Sending me off to Thirsk on a wild goose chase. I wouldn’t be surprised if Señor Allemany or whatever the dago was called wasn’t supposed to be coming after all. There I was, waiting on Thirsk station, and not a bloody soul got off the train. A wild goose chase, I tell you. Then this morning Mr bloody Painter – Mr indeed – tells me he had a phone call after I left. The damned fellow wasn’t coming at all!’

  Matthew rarely talked to Hetty about his work. Now she felt a glimmer of sympathy for him. By, how he must hate working for his old school chum. She watched as he drank again from the glass; the bottle was almost empty and she was pretty sure it had been full only half an hour ago.

  He had been sitting here when she had descended from the attic. At first she had hovered warily out of his reach, just in case he was going to knock her about. But Matthew had stayed in his chair, contenting himself with glaring at her in his usual manner.

  ‘So you’ve decided to make an appearance, have you?’ he’d said, and filled his glass with whisky, splashing a tiny amount of water in after it. He looked dispirited somehow, not himself at all, more human perhaps.

  ‘Come to bed,’ she said again now.

  Matthew looked at his empty glass. He picked up the bottle but it too was empty. Cursing, he threw it on the hearth. Luckily it did not break, simply knocked down the long poker with a clatter on the hearth. Hetty picked up the glass and stood it on the tray.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he decided with a sudden change of mood. ‘Help me up, Hetty.’ He staggered to his feet, holding on to her arm, then leaned on her as they made their way to the door.

  He tripped over the bottom stair, falling heavily against her, but, cursing and panting, he righted himself and they were almost to the top when he tripped again and this time they both fell, Hetty managing to save herself from falling all the way by hanging on to the banister, but Matthew – and she was to remember the scene in nightmarish detail ever after – went rolling over and over to the bottom where he hit his head on the claw foot of a side table and lay still.

  He’d passed out, she told herself, refusing to believe it was worse. Of course he’d just passed out. Everyone knew drunks never hurt themselves. Why, Matthew drove home pallatic drunk practically every night, didn’t he?

  ‘Matthew?’ she said, then louder, ‘Matthew?’ She was frozen in position where she half sat, half lay against the banister, her fist clenched around the square dolly rail. It was the telephone, shrilling out shockingly loud and insistent, that made her aware of the pain where the sharp angle of the rail bit into her hand. She got to her feet carefully and walked down to the hall, stepping carefully to the side of Matthew, not looking at him. Gingerly she lifted the receiver from its rest.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who is that? I can’t hear you. Is that you, Hetty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Speak up, woman, do! Is Matthew there? This is Jeremy Painter.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you not say anything else? I asked you if Matthew was there?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, yes, he is here, Mr Painter. But he can’t come to the telephone.’ She looked over to Matthew for the first time. His eyes were open, as was his mouth, hanging slackly. There was a dark patch on the carpet beside his head. Oh yes, he was dead. She had seen men dead before, brought out of the pit after an accident at Morton Main. She had seen them. Oh yes, she knew what death looked like. Her mind shied away from a sudden image of Cissy, dead in the snow.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, girl, I wish to speak to him.’

  She tore her gaze from Matthew’s face. ‘Matthew can’t speak to you, Mr Painter. He’s dead.’

  Afterwards Hetty couldn’t remember how it was the police were informed, or Havelock Fortune. She sat in the kitchen, awa
y from the gaze of Matthew’s dead eyes and eventually a police car drew up, followed by an ambulance.

  ‘It’s too late for the ambulance,’ she observed calmly as she opened the door to them and the policeman looked sharply at her. Shock, he decided, the poor woman, and in the family way too. He took her into the drawing room and sat her down in the wrong chair for it was Matthew’s usual armchair and she stood up quickly.

  ‘I’ll make you some tea,’ he said, but she declined.

  ‘No, I’ll make it.’ And he understood that she had to be doing. He was a man of middle age and experienced in these things.

  ‘Take it easy, missus,’ he advised. ‘You’ve had a nasty shock.’ She nodded her agreement. There were sounds from the hall and she understood the ambulance men were moving Matthew. Oh, well, she thought dimly, there’s that bloodstain on the carpet, I’ll have to clean it before Mr Painter gets here. But she didn’t, she went back into the kitchen and sat down. The policeman came in and there were questions and she answered them truthfully and he seemed to be satisfied. Mr Painter came and was talking to the policeman; he said Matthew had drunk a lot at luncheon.

  ‘He had a disturbed night, Officer,’ he said. ‘Had to meet a client of ours off the midnight train. Then with the whisky—’ And Mr Painter shrugged.

  ‘I’m sorry about the stain on the carpet, Mr Painter,’ said Hetty suddenly, and both men looked at her, startled.

  ‘Perhaps we had better ask the doctor to have a look at her?’ suggested the policeman.

  ‘No, I think I’ll just go to bed, I’m all right,’ said Hetty.

  She fell asleep the moment she got into bed, a deep heavy sleep with no dreams, and woke the next morning with a throbbing headache. But at least her thoughts were not so muddled. Matthew was dead, she was on her own again. No, not on her own, she had the baby to think about. She washed and dressed in a plain brown dress, the nearest she had to black for her mam would be scandalised if she didn’t show some respect for the dead. She brushed her hair and pinned it back behind her ears with hair-clips, then looked at herself in the glass. She was decent.