Castle of Secrets (4 page)

‘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.

‘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.