Picking up the edges of my dressing gown, I hurry after them, following a trail of leaves and muddy rainwater. The maid is calling my name. I’m halfway up when she bolts past me, planting herself in the way with both hands pressed against my chest.
‘You can’t go up there, Mr Collins,’ she says. ‘There’ll be merry hell to pay if Lady Helena catches you running around in your smalls.’
I try to go around her, but she steps sideways, blocking me again.
‘Let me pass, girl!’ I demand, immediately regretting it. This isn’t how I speak, blunt and demanding.
‘You’re having one of your turns, Mr Collins, that’s all,’ she says. ‘Come down to the kitchen, I’ll make us a pot of tea.’
Her eyes are blue, earnest. They flick over my shoulder self-consciously, and I look behind me to find other servants gathered at the bottom of the stairs. They’re watching us, their arms still laden with flowers.
‘One of my turns?’ I ask, doubt opening its mouth and swallowing me.
‘On account of your burns, Mr Collins,’ she says quietly. ‘Sometimes you say things, or see things that ain’t right. A cup of tea’s all it takes, a few minutes and you’re right as rain.’
Her kindness is crushing, warm and heavy. I’m reminded of Daniel’s pleas yesterday, his delicate way of speaking, as though I might fracture if pressed too hard. He thought I was mad, as this maid does now. Given what’s happening to me, what I think is happening to me, I can’t be certain they’re wrong.
I offer her a helpless look and she takes my arm, guiding me back down the steps, the crowd parting to let us through.
‘Cup of tea, Mr Collins,’ she says reassuringly. ‘That’s all you need.’
She leads me like a lost child, the soft grip of her calloused hand as calming as her tone. Together we leave the entrance hall, heading back down the servants’ staircase and along the gloomy corridor into the kitchen.
Sweat stands up on my brow, heat rushing out of ovens and stoves, pots bubbling over open flames. I smell gravy, roasted meats and baking cakes, sugar and sweat. Too many guests and too few working ovens, that’s the problem. They’ve had to start preparing dinner now to make sure everything goes out on time later.
The knowledge bewilders me.
It’s true, I’m certain of it, but how could I know that unless I really am the butler?
Maids are rushing out carrying breakfast, scrambled eggs and kippers heaped on silver platters. A wide-hipped, ruddy-faced elderly woman is standing by the oven bellowing instructions, her pinafore covered in flour. No general ever wore a chestful of medals with such conviction. Somehow she spots us through the commotion, her iron glare striking the maid first, then myself.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she strides over to us.
‘I’m sure you’ve somewhere to be, haven’t you, Lucy,’ she says with a stern look.
The maid hesitates, considering the wisdom of objecting.
‘Yes, Mrs Drudge.’
Her hand releases me, leaving a patch of emptiness on my arm. A sympathetic smile and she’s gone, lost among the din.
‘Sit yourself down, Roger,’ says Mrs Drudge, her tone aspiring to gentleness. She has a split lip, bruising beginning to show around her mouth. Somebody must have struck her, and she winces when she speaks.
There’s a wooden table at the centre of the kitchen, its surface covered in platters of tongue, roasted chickens and hams piled high. There are soups and stews, trays of glistening vegetables, with more being added all the time by the harassed kitchen staff, most of whom look to have spent an hour in the ovens themselves.
Pulling out a chair, I sit down.
Mrs Drudge slides a tray of scones from the oven, putting one on a plate with a small curl of butter. She brings it over, placing the plate in front of me and touching my hand. Her skin’s hard as old leather.
Her gaze lingers, kindness wrapped in thistle, before she turns away, bellowing her way back through the crowd.
The scone is delicious, the melting butter dripping off the sides. I’m only a bite into it when I see Lucy again, finally remembering why she’s familiar. This is the maid who will be in the drawing room at lunchtime – the one who will be abused by Ted Stanwin and rescued by Daniel Coleridge. She’s even prettier than I recall, with freckles and large blue eyes, red hair straying from beneath her cap. She’s trying to open a jam jar, her face screwed up with effort.
She had jam stains all over her apron.
It happens in slow motion, the jar slipping from her hands and hitting the floor, glass spraying across the kitchen, her apron splattered with dripping jam.
‘Oh, bloody hell, Lucy Harper,’ somebody cries, dismayed.
My chair clatters to the floor as I dart from the kitchen, racing down the corridor and back upstairs. I’m in such a rush that as I turn the corner onto the guest corridor, I collide with a wiry chap, curly black hair spilling down his brow, charcoal staining his white shirt. Apologising, I look up into the face of Gregory Gold. Fury wears him like a suit, his eyes empty of all reason. He’s livid, trembling with rage, and only too late do I remember what comes next, how the butler looked after this monster did his work.
I attempt to back away, but he takes hold of my dressing gown with his long fingers.
‘You don’t need—’
My vision blurs, the world reduced to a smudge of colour and a flash of pain as I crash into a wall, then drop to the floor, blood trickling from my head. He’s looming over me, an iron poker in his hand.
‘Please,’ I say, trying to slide backwards, away from him. ‘I’m not—’
He kicks me in the side, emptying my lungs.
I reach out a hand, trying to speak, beg, but that only seems to infuriate him further. He’s kicking me faster and faster until there’s nothing I can do but curl up in a ball as he pours his wrath upon me.
I can barely breathe, barely see. I’m sobbing, buried beneath my pain.
Mercifully, I pass out.
10
Day Three
It’s dark, the net on the window fluttering in the breath of a moonless night. The sheets are soft, the bed comfortable and canopied.
Clutching the eiderdown, I smile.
It was a nightmare, that’s all.
Slowly, beat by beat, my heart quietens, the taste of blood fading with the dream. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am, another to pick out the dim shape of a large man standing in the corner of the room.
My breath catches in my throat.
Sliding my hand through the covers towards the bedside table, I reach for the matches, but they seem to slither away from my searching fingers.
‘Who are you?’ I ask the darkness, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.
‘A friend.’
It’s a man’s voice, muffled and deep.
‘Friends don’t lurk in the gloom,’ I say.
‘I didn’t say I was your friend, Mr Davies.’
My blind fumbling almost knocks the oil lamp off the bedside table. Attempting to steady it, my fingers find the matches cowering at its base.
‘Don’t worry about the light,’ says the darkness. ‘It will little profit you.’
I strike the match with a trembling hand, touching it to the lamp. Flame explodes behind the glass, driving the shadows deep into the corners and illuminating my visitor. It’s the man in the plague doctor costume I met earlier, the light revealing details I’d missed in the gloom of the study. His greatcoat is scuffed and tattered at the edges, a top hat and porcelain beak mask covering all of his face except for the eyes. Gloved hands rest on a black cane, an inscription inlaid in sparkling silver down the side, though the writing’s much too small to read at this distance.
‘Observant, good,’ remarks the Plague Doctor. Footsteps sound from somewhere in the house, and I wonder if my imagination is sufficient to conjure the mundane details of such an extraordinary dream.