The Silent Companions

by Laura Purcell

  Elsie spun around. Mabel the maid lay crumpled beside the door with her skirts spread about her.

  ‘Heaven above, what are you doing, Mabel?’

  ‘Tain’t nothing I’ve done! Floorboard gave way and swallowed me foot!’

  ‘Goodness me!’ Sarah rushed forward, her own injury forgotten. ‘Are you hurt? Can you feel the ankle?’

  ‘Yes, I can darn well feel it! Hurts like hell.’ Mabel bit down on a spurt of pain. ‘Miss.’

  Taking an arm each, Elsie and Sarah wedged their shoulders beneath Mabel’s armpits and hauled her free. A smell emerged from the hole in the boards; something reeking of wet ashes and decomposition.

  Seated on the floor, Mabel reached out to prod her ankle. ‘Torn right through to my stocking. Lucky the whole bleedin’ leg didn’t come off.’

  ‘We had better fetch Mrs Holt,’ said Elsie. ‘I am sure she will have a poultice to put on it. Whatever were you doing, Mabel, sneaking up behind us?’

  Mabel lowered her chin onto her chest. She looked more truculent than ever. ‘Didn’t mean no harm. This door ain’t been open since I come here. Wondered what was inside. Then I heard Miss Sarah cry out, like. Thought she needed help. Lot of thanks I gets for it,’ she added sourly.

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ Sarah said. ‘Come here, I’ll wrap your skirt around the cut. Keep pushing on it until we can bind it with some bandages.’ She moved tenderly, but Mabel still moaned. ‘How strange that you should come in just then! Mrs Bainbridge and I were about to fetch you. We wanted your help moving our new discovery downstairs.’

  ‘What discovery?’ Sarah pointed to the wooden figure. Mabel looked up and recoiled. ‘Bleedin’ heck. What’s that?’

  ‘Mabel,’ Elsie said, ‘I appreciate you are injured but that is no excuse for your continued bad language. Please remember the company you are in.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ she mumbled, although she did not sound contrite. ‘It’s just – I never seen anything like that before. What is it, a picture?’

  ‘No. We believe it is some kind of ornament for the floor. A standing figure. Not a statue or a painting but somewhere in between.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’ Mabel’s jaw set. ‘Looks at me funny. Would give me the creeps, something like that.’

  ‘Hogwash,’ said Elsie. ‘It is no different from the portraits that hang in the corridor.’

  ‘It is,’ Mabel insisted. ‘It’s nasty. Don’t like it.’

  Elsie’s skin prickled. She found it uncanny herself, but she was not about to admit that to a servant. ‘It is not necessary for you to like it. You are required only to move it for Miss Sarah and clean it.’

  Mabel pouted. As if coming to her defence, a fresh pulse of blood pushed up through the gash on her ankle. ‘Can’t do no cleaning now, can I?’

  Elsie sighed. ‘I suppose I had better fetch Helen.’

  Helen regarded the wooden figure, hands planted on her broad hips. Crinkles appeared beside her eyes as she squinted through the dust. ‘Is this new, ma’am?’

  ‘New?’ Elsie echoed. ‘No, I expect it is very old.’

  ‘No, ma’am, I meant new to the house. I’m sure the master had something like it.’

  A spasm in her shoulder muscles. To hear Rupert spoken of like that, as if he were still present, still in charge here. ‘He never mentioned such an object to me. We didn’t have one in London, and if he found one here . . . Well, I have not seen another around the house, have you?’

  Helen shrugged and picked up the figure. ‘Can’t say I have, ma’am.’

  ‘Then what makes you suppose Mr Bainbridge owned one?’

  ‘He was a nice man, Mr Bainbridge,’ Helen said as she manoeuvred the wooden figure past the hole in the floor and out through the garret door. ‘No airs about him. He used to chat with me, when I was dusting in the library. One day he starts to tell me about figures from Amsterdam, just like this one. Said he was researching them from a book.’

  Outside in the corridor, Elsie squashed her crinoline against the wall to make space. ‘Indeed? I cannot think why that topic would interest him.’

  ‘Me neither, ma’am. I didn’t ask, because I just presumed he owned one.’

  Rupert always possessed an active, enquiring mind. That was what led him to Livingstone’s match factory. He loved the idea of progress and new inventions. She had not realised he was interested in the past, too.

  Helen’s words made her feel better about taking the strange wooden girl downstairs. It might be unsettling, but it was another link to Rupert. He might have warmed to the figure himself, if he had ever opened the garret.

  ‘Did Mr Bainbridge say what these figures were, Helen?’

  ‘Called them companions. Silent companions.’

  Elsie’s lips curled. She looked down the corridor to where Sarah supported a limping Mabel. ‘Did you hear that, Sarah? Helen calls it a companion! Mrs Crabbly might have saved her money. Your species have been replaced by wooden statues.’

  ‘Oh, how wicked you are!’ Sarah laughed. ‘I would dearly love to see a piece of wood plump cushions, read poetry, play the piano and make gruel. If it did, I’d get one myself.’

  Helen pulled her sleeve down over her knuckles and tucked the companion under her arm. It lay horizontally, as if it had fallen into a swoon.

  ‘This way,’ said Elsie. ‘Miss Sarah wants it in the Great Hall. Not too close to the fire, mind. She can greet our guests as they arrive.’

  ‘Guests, ma’am?’

  She grimaced. ‘You are right. I don’t suppose we will have any for a while.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sarah pulled up in the corridor ahead of them. ‘Mrs Bainbridge, would you mind going back? I’m terribly sorry . . . I left one of the diaries behind. What with poor Mabel’s accident, I forgot to pick up the second volume. I would so dearly love to read my ancestor’s story.’

  Elsie glanced over her shoulder. She did not want to be running up and down; she was already tired out by the day’s exertion. ‘Can it not wait until later? I—’ She stopped, confused. The door to the garret was shut. She had not heard it close. ‘Helen,’ she scolded, ‘I told you to leave the garret door open. God knows it needs a good airing.’

  ‘I didn’t close it, ma’am.’

  ‘Didn’t close it? What do you think that is, then?’ She pointed back.

  Helen puffed out her red cheeks. ‘Sorry, ma’am. I don’t remember doing it.’

  Where did Mrs Holt find such servants? ‘I will go and open it,’ she sighed, ‘while I fetch Miss Sarah’s book.’

  ‘Thank you ever so much, I do appreciate it. If you could leave it in my room I would be most grateful,’ Sarah called. ‘It might have a record of the visit from Charles I! I will put Mabel to bed. And perhaps you might see if Mrs Holt—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will fetch her too.’ She walked back with sharp, irritable steps, her crinoline bouncing behind her. What was the point of being mistress of the house if you had to do all the work yourself?

  Remembering how Jasper had simply swatted the door open, she stretched out a hand as she approached the garret. Her palm struck the wood hard; her shoulder jolted back. She grunted and tried again, using a little more force. The door did not budge. ‘What?’ She reached for the doorknob; rattled it from side to side. It would not turn. ‘Damnation.’

  There must be something in the latch that stuck – that was why it had jammed before. They would need to get someone in to replace the mechanism, or perhaps fit a whole new door. Another job to be done.

  Wearily, Elsie retraced her steps and began the long descent to the ground floor. Really, she was not feeling entirely well. It must be this house: the weight of it pressing on her. After she had spoken with Mrs Holt, she would have a lie-down.

  She passed Helen in the Great Hall, adjusting the companion beside the window. ‘Thought I’d set her here,’ Helen grinned, ‘so as she can see out.’ She cocked her head. ‘Looks a bit like you, she does, ma’am.’

  In
the stronger light the wooden girl’s resemblance to Elsie was more pronounced. It made the skin on her scalp tingle.

  ‘A little. Isn’t that strange?’ Taking one last look, she crossed over to the west wing and disappeared through the green baize door of the servants’ quarters.

  On this side of the wall, the air was thick with mingled smells of soap, ash and burnt fat. A warren of bare walls and stone wound deeper into the house, the path just visible through oily light.

  Mrs Holt’s room was marked Housekeeper with white letters. Elsie knocked on the door – the second time today that she had knocked for admittance to a room in her own house.

  ‘Come in.’

  She squeezed into a room with an atmosphere that reminded her of pea soup. A single lamp burnt upon the desk, throwing an anaemic glow over Mrs Holt’s papers and drawers. The housekeeper turned in her plain wooden chair and, seeing her mistress, started to her feet. ‘Why, Mrs Bainbridge! This is unexpected. Please come in.’

  A little table was set for tea with blue and white cups. Elsie sat down in relief. She was too ashamed of her weariness to ask for a drink, but she wished Mrs Holt would offer one.

  ‘I was going to come and see you,’ Mrs Holt confessed as she tidied the papers on her desk. ‘We’ve just had a delivery from Torbury St Jude and I wanted to consult you about the menus I’ve drawn up.’

  ‘I am sure they will suit perfectly well. We will live very quietly, Miss Sarah and I, until Mr Livingstone returns.’

  ‘I expect you will, madam. But that is no reason not to enjoy your food.’

  ‘Very true. Actually, Mrs Holt, while I am down here . . . There is a matter I need to discuss with you.’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  It was only Mrs Holt looking back at her with those bleared, yellow eyes, so why did it feel like a furious light trained upon her face? She swallowed, not knowing how to start. This was nothing to be ashamed of, she reminded herself. This baby was conceived honestly, however misbegotten it might feel. ‘We will soon be in need of . . . extra staff. Yet Mabel has led me to believe that no person from Fayford will consent to work at this house?’

  ‘Ah.’ The lines in Mrs Holt’s face deepened. Elsie nodded for her to sit. ‘It’s a very strange situation, madam. There’s been a long feud between the village and the family – dating back, I think, all the way to the Civil War. They believe one of our ladies was a witch, or some other silly thing.’

  Elsie stared down at the tablecloth and its small wreaths of embroidered flowers. When Mabel had said the villagers were afraid of the house, she had imagined ghosts and goblins, not a witch. But everyone knew that in those days women could be, and often were, accused of witchcraft for all manner of things. ‘Did you at least try to recruit in Fayford, Mrs Holt?’

  ‘Oh yes. But you see my case was not helped by the Roberts family. One of them was a footman here around the turn of the century, and he met with an unlucky accident.’

  ‘What do you mean, accident?’

  Mrs Holt pressed a hand to her chest and adjusted a cameo brooch. ‘No one is sure how it happened. The poor soul fell all the way from the gallery into the Great Hall. Broke his neck, of course. A great tragedy. But some of the Roberts maintain, even now, that he was pushed.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Well, that particular master lost his wife shortly after. There’s a story about the Roberts man being the wife’s admirer . . . You know how these things go.’ Mrs Holt waved her hand. The flesh upon it was like chicken skin. ‘A jealous husband, taking revenge.’

  ‘Upon my word, the village seems full of stories, and all of them about us.’

  Mrs Holt smiled. ‘Country folk, madam. They must have something to keep the winter nights occupied. But have no fear. I am sure we will find some excellent workers elsewhere, for both your house and your garden.’

  ‘Let us hope so.’ Clearing her throat, she went on, ‘You see, I have cause to be particular about my staff. There will soon be – I mean, come spring – I have reason to hope there may be . . .’ Heat rushed to her face. There was no delicate way to say it.

  ‘You don’t mean . . . Bless me, Mrs Bainbridge, are you telling me that you have sprained your ankle?’

  Sprained your ankle. She hadn’t heard that expression in years – a common phrase, but it did the trick. ‘Yes. The baby should arrive in May.’ It was unsettling to see tears sparkle in the old lady’s eyes. Embarrassed, she hurried on. ‘I will need nursemaids, and also a new lady’s maid for myself. I mean to go into Torbury St Jude and visit the Registry Office. Is that where you found Mabel and Helen?’

  Mrs Holt opened her mouth. Closed it. ‘I – I did not have a large salary to offer, madam. And given the deserted nature of the estate, without a resident family or opportunity for progression . . .’ She twisted in her chair. ‘I found it better to take girls from the workhouse, madam.’

  ‘The workhouse,’ she said flatly. Of course, that explained so much. ‘I suppose they did not have any formal training?’

  Mrs Holt blushed. ‘Helen did.’

  ‘And how exactly did Helen come to leave service?’

  Again, Mrs Holt fiddled with her brooch. ‘I have not enquired into it.’

  ‘I must say, I am astonished you could think such women suitable for employment in my house! You knew nothing of their characters. How did you ascertain if they were honest? And how can I trust them near my child? Mabel is a terrible influence. She has left trays of food to grow foul in my room. The language she uses, her inability to even curtsy – I cannot risk my child copying such behaviour!’

  ‘I can only apologise. I will speak to her, madam. They’re not used to serving a mistress and perhaps I have been too soft on them, in the past.’ She took a breath. ‘But I’ve found their general cleaning and cooking quite satisfactory.’

  ‘I wish that I could say the same. The amount of dust in the maroon corridor is phenomenal. I even found sawdust, of all things, upon the stairs – where could that have come from? Some of the carpets look as if they have never been beaten, which I cannot comprehend when the nursery is in such perfect order.’

  Mrs Holt’s head jerked up. ‘The nursery?’

  ‘Yes. That is one room I will thankfully have no need to prepare. It is practically ready for my child.’

  Mrs Holt looked at her strangely. ‘Perhaps there has been some confusion. The girls rarely go into the nursery.’

  ‘You are mistaken, Mrs Holt. They have even been brushing the rocking horse and setting up dollies’ tea parties.’

  ‘Dear me.’ Mrs Holt shook her head. ‘I had no idea. Helen told me she was afraid of that room. Everything was covered up with dustsheets.’

  ‘Not this morning. Come, I will show you.’ She stood.

  Mrs Holt rose too, grasping at the keys dangling from her waist. ‘I hardly ever go there,’ she confessed. ‘The servants’ stairs lead up to the landing just outside. If you do not mind?’

  ‘Not at all. I am quite capable of going up servants’ stairs.’

  Elsie spoke bravely, but she had cause to regret it. There was no space for her crinoline; it jammed and stuck out behind her in a hefty tail which she lugged from step to step.

  They emerged onto the landing she had crossed with Sarah earlier that day. She followed Mrs Holt to the door. Once again, that tense, unsettled feeling held her captive. It is just a nursery, she told herself. There is no need to cry.

  Mrs Holt jangled the keys at her waist and slipped one into the lock. It clicked as the tumblers moved.

  ‘But it was not locked when—’ It could not be. It was simply not possible.

  The airy, perfectly manicured room had perished. Tatty curtains covered the windows, admitting only sparks of light. The dolls were gone. The ark was gone. A few toy chests remained, but they were coated in the dust of countless years. Great white sheets, like those in the garret, formed lumpy shapes where the rocking horse and the cot had been. Rust spotted the firescreen and the iron
bedstead.

  Mrs Holt did not speak.

  ‘I – it’s not—’ Words swarmed into her mouth, but she could not form any of them. How could it be? Striding over to the crib, she took hold of the sheet. ‘Right here, there was the most beautiful . . .’ She gasped. As the sheet slithered away, a musty smell of camphor welled up. The shape of the crib endured, but the delicate draperies were moth-eaten and stained.

  ‘I didn’t think the girls would trouble it much,’ Mrs Holt said carefully. ‘It’s a sad place. Not opened except for a sweep every few months, since the little ones went.’

  Elsie stared at her. The nursery had been glorious. She could not have imagined the things she had seen. Sarah was there too – she had pushed the horse.

  ‘What – what did you say? The little ones?’

  Metal keys clunked together as Mrs Holt shifted her stance. ‘Yes, God bless them.’

  ‘Whose little ones?’

  ‘The – the master and mistress. That is, Master Rupert’s parents. He was the third child – or so I was told.’

  Elsie leant against the crib. It creaked. ‘You knew Rupert’s parents? Before they died?’

  ‘I did, madam. I did.’ All at once she looked older and profoundly sad. ‘I worked for them in London. Just a lass I was, then. Saw Master Rupert delivered.’ Her voice grew hoarse. ‘He – he was the first of the babes to be born away from The Bridge. The others died, they said, before the move. That was the reason they relocated to London.’ She looked away. ‘You can imagine how it would be, living in a house where you have lost a child.’

  ‘The other babies died?’ Elsie looked down at the decaying crib and felt sick. She released the edge and it swayed, empty. God, what a heritage for her baby: a nervous mother and a nursery of death. ‘Mrs Holt, I do not wish to upset you. But—’ She took a hesitant step towards her. ‘You were one of the last people to see my husband alive. No one has told me exactly how he died. He did not write that he was ill. Was he taken, suddenly?’

  Mrs Holt withdrew a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Ah, madam. It was a shock to us all. He seemed hale and hearty – perhaps a little preoccupied. I was under the impression he was not sleeping. But he did not seem like to die!’