“I don’t—” I stuttered. “I—”
“Perhaps you mean me, miss?” the maid asked. “I was dusting in that room not long ago.”
I paused. It hadn’t been the maid I’d seen—there was no question. I could still see the girl’s face, the expression in her blue eyes beneath the high forehead as she regarded me. But to insist on it would make me sound like Mother, talking of her imaginary viscount. So I said, “Perhaps that’s it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing at all,” the maid said, and she gave me a smile that was tentative and curious at the same time.
I pushed what I had just seen forcefully from my mind. “I’m Jo Manders, Mrs. Forsyth’s companion,” I said. “Can you tell me where the housekeeper is?”
Her smile relaxed a little. “Mrs. Bennett is in the kitchen, I believe, dealing with the wine. She was there half an hour ago.”
“Are there other maids here besides yourself?” I asked, shakily remembering Dottie’s directive.
“Two others, ma’am. All of us arrived the day before yesterday.”
So there was no constant staff of loyal servants kept on at Wych Elm House while the family was not in residence. The entire staff seemed to be newly hired. I thanked the maid and found the door that led downstairs to the kitchen, but as I approached it, for some reason I heard the maid’s steps behind me. I turned to tell her there was no need to follow me, but I found she was gone, and there was no one there at all.
In the kitchen I came upon two women over sixty, one of them sorting through a box of wine bottles and the other sitting in a chair at the kitchen table. When I entered, they dropped silent in embarrassment, and the seated woman made to rise.
“Please,” I said. “I’m only Mrs. Forsyth’s paid companion.”
The woman promptly sat back down, and the two exchanged a brief look of surprise. It seemed Dottie had not bothered to tell anyone about me. As it was, I was stuck halfway between being a servant and a member of the family, which made everything awkward.
The woman with the wine bottles was Mrs. Bennett, the housekeeper, and the woman sitting down was Mrs. Perry, the cook. Both had tidy hair under caps and strong, rough hands. They were women of England’s servant class, brisk and unshakable, who had likely been sweeping and dusting and pounding dough into pie crusts since they were thirteen. A class that was quickly vanishing into a world of tinned suppers and carpet-sweeping machines. They were wary at first, given my uncertain status, but since I had no desire to go back to Dottie after the nasty scene in the dining room, I pulled back a chair and sat at the kitchen table instead.
“I suppose you know Mrs. Forsyth very well, then,” Mrs. Bennett said to me. Her tone was casual, but I knew she was fishing for information.
“Yes,” I replied, thinking that as of today, I did not know Dottie at all.
“I’ve heard she can be a difficult mistress,” Mrs. Perry said bluntly. “It doesn’t frighten me. I’ve dealt with difficult mistresses before.”
“So have I,” Mrs. Bennett said. “In my last place, the mistress lost two children, one after the other. Both died at birth. She was never the same after that. It hits them hard, some women harder than others.”
“I suppose,” I said. She must be referring to queer cousin Fran.
“I’ll never believe the things they say.” Mrs. Perry lifted her chin disapprovingly. “I don’t take to gossip.”
Mrs. Bennett closed the box of wine bottles and made a dismissive shushing noise. “Tales to frighten children, that’s all it is.”
“What tales?” I asked.
Again the two women exchanged a look, but this time their professionalism overruled the need for gossip. “As I said,” Mrs. Bennett repeated, “silly tales for children.”
“Please,” I said, suddenly ravenous to know. “Mrs. Forsyth never speaks of her death, and my husband wouldn’t tell me.”
It was Mrs. Perry who finally answered me. “The girl was mad,” she said, her voice tight with disapproval. “They kept her locked up, out of sight, until one day she escaped her room. Jumped from the roof, she did, from the gable right up at the top of the house. She wasn’t but fifteen.”
For a long moment, I could not speak. The room receded. I remembered getting out of the motorcar, looking up at the high gable. Walking across the cobblestoned path beneath it. Dottie, I thought, no wonder you were unhappy to come home.
Mrs. Perry broke in again, her voice grim. “A man died in the woods that same day,” she said. “Some said the girl must have done it, though he was ripped to pieces, so I don’t see how she could have done such a thing, mad or not. As I say, I don’t take to gossip. They shut up the house after it happened, and all of them left. But now they’re back, and we’re to expect the son, who’s been in a hospital. I hope he isn’t going to be any trouble.”
“If it’s shell shock, he might be quiet as a lamb,” Mrs. Bennett supplied. “I had one of those two employers ago. Barely said a word, the poor boy.”
I pushed my chair back and stood. “I should go,” I said. “Mrs. Forsyth will be looking for me.”
“Tell her the rooms are prepared, just as she requested,” Mrs. Bennett said to my retreating back.
I turned back and looked at her. “How many?” I asked, thinking of the girl I’d seen in the parlor, forcing the question from my throat. “How many bedrooms are prepared?”
Mrs. Bennett frowned, as if I were slow in the head. “Why, four, of course,” she said. “For yourself, Mr. Martin, and Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth.” Her lips pursed briefly. “They sleep separate.”
I had nothing to say to that. I turned in silence and left the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
My bedroom at Wych Elm House was on the second floor, overlooking the front of the house. I could see the circular drive leading off into the trees, and the overgrown front lawn. It did not escape me that my window was almost beneath the upper gable and that my view was of where Frances Forsyth’s body would have landed the day she jumped.
Queer cousin Fran. She has died, poor thing.
That simple sentence of Alex’s, one that hid so much. Perhaps he had hoped to shield me from disturbing family news; perhaps he hadn’t wanted to put the distressing facts in a letter from the Front that would be read by censors, strangers. Perhaps he’d been ashamed of Frances’s madness, the strain of insanity in his family, and he’d hidden it from me.
But Alex had known about Mother. He had met her. He knew about the madness in my family. And he’d come home on leave in early 1918, after Frances had died. Why hadn’t he told me of it then?
They kept her locked up, out of sight.
I sat in my bedroom’s window seat and pulled up my legs, hugging my knees, gazing out at the tangled landscape, a book unopened in my hand, as darkness fell and the house settled into silence. I could not complain about my room, which was nicer than any flat I had lived in—the furnishings were polished and expensive, including the high bed heaped with thick linens and the imposing walnut wardrobe that reached nearly to the ceiling. I almost did not want to touch the gleaming wainscoting or the expensive carpet, so perfect were they. My own modest trunk, lodged against the door of the wardrobe, looked shabby in comparison.
Alex and I had been as intimate, I’d thought, as two people could be. We’d married quickly—I supposed marrying a man two weeks after you’d met him even qualified as hasty—but we’d spent endless hours talking deep into the night, telling each other about our lives. He had been orphaned as a child. He had German relatives on his father’s side—foreign blood was part of what made his father so unsuitable, according to his mother’s family—and had spent some years with them. He had gone to Eton, then Oxford. He’d told me of his relatives in Sussex, but the family rift meant they were not close.
His was a slightly unusual life, due to his being orphaned, but it was not an overly stran
ge one. A man from a good family, educated, brilliant, handsome, tall, and athletic—granted every privilege, on his way to becoming something breathtaking and splendid until the war had taken him. As it had taken so many others.
A mist had settled, sliding among the trees. I watched it dully, following its dirty gray smear as it moved across the darkness. I scraped a cold knuckle across the glass.
I could not countenance what I had seen today. That girl in the small parlor, the set of her thin shoulders, the way she had turned and looked at me. I wondered with a chill if somewhere in this house there was a photograph of Frances Forsyth. Whether that same face would look out at me if I found it.
No. That is Mother. That is not me. That was never me.
I had been the sane one, the one who saw that the rent was paid, the one who had gotten a job and married a good man. Mother was the one who saw things, not me.
A man was torn to pieces. They kept her locked up, out of sight.
The mist had stopped moving, I realized. It hovered in the woods, blurred among the trunks of the trees, still and cold. It almost seemed to be watching me. I stared out the window and watched back.
When I had packed up Alex’s things, getting ready to leave for the Continent with Dottie, I had gone through his personal papers. I had found the usual dry things—bank records, school records, our marriage certificate, all the milestones of his life. But I had not found one memento. No letters, photographs, or journals. No postcards or souvenirs from vacations, no notebooks or letters from schoolmates. Not one.
The man I had married was gone.
I slid into the overweening bed late, and I slept badly. I dreamed of something falling past my window, the ruffle of a skirt and a sleeve, the fabric flashing as I startled awake. And somewhere in the dim place between waking and sleeping, I thought I heard soft footsteps in the corridor, tapping past my door.
• • •
I reported to Dottie at eight o’clock the next morning, as instructed. She was in the morning room, located at the back of the house, a warm room with glass French doors that opened out to the back terrace. The windows let in swaths of sunlight, bright and slightly chill. The sideboard was set with a variety of breakfast foods, steaming in large dishes and smelling thickly of sausage. Dottie sat alone at the table, straight as a needle, surrounded by an expensive tea set. Robert was nowhere to be seen.
I filled a plate with eggs and toast. Dottie checked her watch ostentatiously as I pulled out a chair and sat. She did not greet me, but gave me a prying glare. “I trust you have settled properly in your room,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, picking at my breakfast. “Thank you.”
Her gaze raked me up and down. “Now that we are at Wych Elm House, I see that we will have to find you some new clothes. I will be meeting important people, and you will be with me. I cannot have you dressed like a fat schoolgirl.”
I looked up at her. I was wearing a skirt and blouse again, with a cardigan. Part of me was offended—I was not in the least fat—and another part admired the deftness of the insult. Besides, she was right. I had looked well enough on European trains, but in the luxury of this house, I was as out of place as chipped china or an unpolished lamp. “My dresses are too old,” I said.
“Then go into town and buy new ones. The dressmaker there will be able to send to London for anything she cannot supply. You’ll need new stockings, too, and shoes. Tell the shopkeepers to put the items on my account.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I knew well that the items were not a gift. Dottie would extract repayment from my wages to the penny.
She gave me a nod, then stared at my hair. We had seen each other every day for three months, yet this morning she inspected me anew. “At least you don’t wear cosmetics,” she commented. “I don’t approve of them. You must do your hair more tidily; have a maid assist you if you need it. Also, I warn you that I do not approve of the current fashion for bobbed hair. I think it’s fast and horribly unattractive.”
I touched the chignon at the back of my neck. Alex had always loved my long hair. “I have no desire to cut my hair.”
“That is excellent news,” came a voice from the doorway. Robert Forsyth came into the room, freshly bathed and clean-shaven, dressed in another well-cut suit. He gave me a wink. “Good morning, Mrs. Manders. Dottie.” He moved to the sideboard and put food on a plate. “I’ve had a letter from the Dennistons,” he said to Dottie before either of us could return his greeting. “They’ve heard of our return. I believe I’ll drop over and pay a visit. Denniston has a first-rate stable, and my riding in Scotland was interrupted. I’ll take my own motorcar.”
“Robert,” Dottie said, her voice low. “Martin comes today.”
Robert poured himself a cup of coffee and shrugged at her. “I’ll see him later.”
“He comes this morning.”
“I don’t see why it matters.” His tone had a note of sullenness now. He pulled back his chair with a bang and sat.
“You don’t see why it matters?” Dottie’s cheeks were growing red. “Don’t you want to be here when your son comes home for the first time in three years?”
“For God’s sake, the boy isn’t going to be expecting me.” Robert jammed his fork into a piece of sausage. “Must you ruin everything? Do you expect me to sit here all day while we wait? What did you drag him home for, anyway?”
“You know perfectly well,” Dottie said. “He is coming home to be married.”
“To whom?” Robert said. “I suppose you’re going to choose some milksop girl for him so you can get grandchildren? The boy’s just been to war, and already you’re trying to suffocate him.”
Dottie’s jaw flexed, and she blinked her small eyes. For a horrified second, I thought she might cry. “Martin and I have written about this,” she said, her voice tight. “He has agreed to take a wife. It is our chance for children in this family. Someone to leave our legacy to.”
“Your legacy, you mean,” Robert said. “He’s always been your child, not mine. Besides, I’ve nothing to do with weddings. If I want to go riding, I’m going to go riding. You know how I hate this house.”
“Yes, you’ve made it very clear,” she sniped, “with all the assistance you give me in the running of it.”
“It isn’t even mine,” Robert said. His brow smoothed and he turned to me. “Did you know that, Mrs. Manders? Wych Elm House came to me as part of the settlement upon marrying my lovely wife. From her side of the family.” He smiled sourly, his eyes traveling me as I sat, uncomfortable and horrified, in my chair. “We should start a minstrel show, you and me. The Poor Married-for-Moneys.”
I made to push back my chair, but Dottie held a hand up and I froze. “I won’t sell this house,” she said to Robert, her chin up, her eyes furious. “I won’t.”
Robert put down his fork. I felt the hideous presence of Frances in the room, the heavy memory of her in all of our minds, as if her name were even now echoing off the walls, and all I wanted was to escape.
“It shouldn’t be sold,” Robert said. “It should be burned.” His gaze flickered to me again, and I saw how grief and dissipation had worn away his long-ago handsomeness into something tired and almost haggard. “You’ve made me heel so far as to come here for Martin,” he said to Dottie, “and I’ll do my duty. But you can’t make me sit in this fright of a house all day.” He stood and left the room without another look at either of us.
A long, painful silence followed. I stared at my hands. Finally I raised my eyes and looked surreptitiously at Dottie. Her expression was blank, impassive. The flush of anger had gone from her face.
“Manders,” she said.
“Yes, Dottie.”
“I wish you to go into town and run errands for me. Purchase your new clothes at the same time. Use the car and driver.”
“Yes, Dottie.”
She sat quietly. She made no comment on my use of her first name; she never had. It was one of my small victories. I may be her paid companion, but I was family. I had refused to call her Mrs. Forsyth, and she had never complained.
She turned her head and looked at me, taking me in with her intelligent gaze. “I suppose you think I’m a fool,” she said.
“No,” I said truthfully. “I do not.”
“You were a married woman, so perhaps you have some understanding.”
I nodded. Alex and I had never had a row like that—he had never shown me one-tenth the contempt that Robert seemed to think was Dottie’s due—and yet I did understand. A marriage is unfathomable to those looking on, running as deep as the strata of rocks in the earth. That, I understood.
I pushed back my chair and stood. “What are the errands you wish done?” I asked.
Dottie followed the change of subject without a flicker of expression. “I have letters to post—they are on the holder by the front door. I do not trust the servants to do it. And you must make a trip to the chemist’s for me. You know the stomach remedy I usually use.”
“Yes, Dottie.”
“Manders, there is one more thing.”
I stood by the door and waited.
She raised her impassive gaze to me. “I assume Alex told you about Frances,” she said.
I was so surprised that the truth sprang from my lips without thought. “He told me about her existence. But all I had was a letter from the Front saying she had died.”
She blinked, and before she shuttered her gaze I saw honest surprise in her eyes. “Is that so? How interesting. However, when you go into town, you will likely hear certain rumors.”
I nodded, not wishing to mention that I’d ferreted out those same rumors from the servants’ quarters already.
Dottie lit a cigarette, the fumes mixing with the leftover smells of sausage and tea, making my stomach turn. “Frances is buried in the churchyard in town, if you want to see her,” she said. “That should tell you everything you need to know. I do not wish to speak of her, for obvious reasons, and I expect you to maintain the family’s privacy if you encounter any prurient interest in town. Do you understand?”
Lost Among the Living Page 4