The Housemaid

by Sarah A. Denzil

  But as she started to move away, I suddenly felt an urge to keep her talking to me. God knows when I’d get another opportunity to spend time with her, and there was so much I wanted to know.

  “Mrs Huxley.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Yes? Are you confused already?”

  “No,” I said, a prickle of annoyance at the back of my neck. “I just wondered how long you’d worked here.”

  She frowned, and a line emerged between her eyebrows. She could frown at least, if she couldn’t smile. “Twenty-three years.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Wow, that’s a long time to work in one place.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  Huxley’s lips pursed together. “You’d best unpack. We don’t have much time for chit-chat at Highwood.”

  Before I opened my mouth once more, she turned away and walked back down the bare corridor. But at least now I knew she’d worked here at the same time as my mother. I placed a hand on the door, hesitating. It was a small sliver of knowledge that I had to chew on and decide what to do with. I could be upfront with Huxley and mention the connection right away. Or I could keep it to myself.

  I pulled in a deep breath, opened the door and entered my new bedroom, not sure what to expect. In this servants’ wing, a damp odour—like a cellar or a bathroom that hasn’t been aired—permeated the space. I placed my palm on the wall and felt a chill.

  Still, it was a spacious room. The walls were the same dark shade of bottle green as in the corridor, and a window overlooked the stables behind the house. There were no horses inside the stables, which was a disappointment. They seemed to have been converted into yet more rooms. What the Howards needed more rooms for, I had no idea. I dumped my bag next to the bed with the uniform folded neatly on top of the duvet. Then I lifted the clothes and examined them. I’d dreaded a formal uniform, one of those French affairs with the frilly apron and the short skirt, the kind parodied by Halloween costumes and farcical pornography. To my utmost relief, I unfolded a sensible pair of elasticated black trousers and a loose-fitting black tunic. I stripped to my underwear and pulled them on. Despite me not giving Mrs Huxley my measurements, they actually fit fairly well.

  Another slim single bed had been pushed up against the opposite wall with a bedside table, lamp, wardrobe and drawers. I saw a pair of sparkly silver shoes kicked under the bed and a book on the table. Curiosity got the best of me, and I picked up the book. Love poems.

  The other maid had spent little time decorating her space, but there were some touches. A red cushion on the plain white bedspread, photographs tacked to a corkboard. Two short people stood next to a waiflike girl with strawberry blonde hair and red lips. Parents, I presumed, from the ages and a likeness around the eyes and mouth. I picked up a lipstick from the top of a chest of drawers and read the shade: Cherry Kiss.

  Fearing that my new roommate would walk in and see me snooping, I quickly filled the drawers of the cabinet with my clothes, slipped my phone into the pocket of the trousers, and paused. I had a thin bundle of letters in my hand. Letters that mentioned Highwood Hall. I threw them underneath my underwear and then tucked the empty bag under my bed. It was an easy walk, following the bleak walls back to the kitchen. Perhaps it was the darker shadows in that part of Highwood and the cool chill that none of the many fireplaces in the hall could touch, but goosebumps spread along my arms despite the long sleeves of my top.

  In the kitchen, a small team had gathered around the table. Mrs Huxley sat at the head, her heavy-lidded eyes watching me approach. A girl around my age laughed along with one of the cooks. My gaze immediately went straight to her because she moved and breathed life into the room with that musical laugh and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. She tilted her chin towards me and immediately jumped to her feet.

  “Roomie!” she declared with a little squeal at the end. Then she threw Huxley a worried glance and sat down, nodding at me to make sure I followed suit.

  The owner of the Cherry Kiss lipstick, the slim, strawberry blonde girl from the photograph. Her smile was as infectious as it’d seemed in the picture, and I found myself returning her grin. But before I could say anything, Mrs Huxley shushed us.

  “Yes, thank you, Roisin,” Huxley said. “Perhaps we can maintain decorum.” The taciturn housekeeper sipped tea from a porcelain teacup.

  As I sat down, Roisin leaned across the table, her hands reaching my arm between a teapot and a stack of cups. I noticed there wasn’t any breakfast food on the table.

  “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been positively lonely these past few weeks since—”

  “Roisin, we’re on a schedule,” Huxley snapped. She turned to me. “I’ve allowed us ten minutes to have a cup of tea. Then Roisin and I will lay out breakfast for the Howards.” She shifted a large ring binder across to me. “While we do that, you can make a start on this reading material. And then after the Howards are catered for, we have our own breakfast before getting on with the cleaning. Is that clear? Both of you?”

  Roisin retracted her hand and stared down at the tabletop in dejection. “Yes, Mrs Huxley.”

  That was the first time my temper rose up. I recognised that look. It was the expression of a scolded child. Worse, a child who had grown accustomed to their scolding, and I wondered how many maids Huxley had snapped at, berated and bullied during her time at Highwood. But I didn’t say anything. I poured myself a cup of tea, craving the caffeine.

  Roisin and I managed to talk quietly while Mrs Huxley turned her attention to the cooks. Roisin was just eighteen, a couple of years younger than me. She’d moved away from her family in Sligo and ran out of money while working as a waitress in London. This job was a way for her to earn a living without going back to her family.

  “It’s not that I’m too proud,” she said. “We just don’t get on.”

  I decided not to pry.

  As Mrs Huxley and Roisin cleared away the teacups, I opened the ring binder and began thumbing through it. My mind was already drifting from the extensive lists of which cabinets in which rooms I should dust and which I was never to touch. Then there was the schedule, a long, boring timeline of weekly tasks. The Howards would keep out of certain rooms at certain times so we could clean them. All I wanted to do was go exploring. I forced myself back to the binder. How was I ever supposed to remember this?

  A printed map caught my attention. I ran my fingers along the corridors, wishing I had a pen and paper to replicate them. I wanted to know each hidden passageway, each nook, cranny and secret. This was an old house, and I was sure there would be many.

  After Mrs Huxley and Roisin carried breakfasts up to the Howards, the cooks drifted out of the kitchen, presumably for a break. I was alone in that old room. After a minute or two, I heard the sound of footsteps travelling along the hallway outside the kitchen. Dainty, short strides that almost sounded as though someone was skipping. And then someone began to hum.

  When the door opened, a blonde-haired young woman strode in, carrying a small box in her arms. It was about the size of a generous box of chocolates, but taller.

  “Hello,” she said brightly. “You must be the new maid.”

  I nodded cautiously, aware of the fact that this person was definitely not one of the staff. She was wearing casual clothes, shoes with a short heel, and had her hair pulled into an untidy bun. The shoes were leather, expensive, and the clothes were high quality too. She wore them like her expensive clothes meant nothing, slung over her body, slightly crumpled, slightly lopsided, and yet clearly luxurious.

  “Our postie delivered this,” she said. “I got to the door before Huxley, so I thought I’d pop it down here. It seems it’s for you.” She placed the box on the table next to the folder. “Oh, I see Huxley has the binder out. Lucky you. I’m Lottie, by the way, the youngest Howard.” She rolled her eyes as though being the youngest was a bore. “Go on then, open it. If you have a secret admirer, I want to be the first to know.” S
he grinned, rubbing her hands together. I got the impression I was this morning’s entertainment.

  A flush of heat worked its way up from my collarbone to my cheeks. “It can’t possibly be for me.”

  “Check the label,” Lottie said, pointing towards an envelope tucked into a red bow.

  I pried the envelope from under the ribbon. She was right. It had my name on it.

  “This box came inside packaging, but the label had nothing but our address on it, so I opened it up, I’m afraid,” Lottie said. “I figured it was for you because I know everyone else’s name, you see.” She lifted her hand, palm up, towards the box. “Go on then.”

  Tentatively I reached across the table and tugged at the thick ribbon, which swooshed as it slowly unspooled. As the bow melted away, the front of the box fell open and the last coils of the ribbon shivered down to the tabletop. I spun the box to face me so that I could see what was inside.

  At first I thought I was looking at a doll’s house. The box had been transformed into the walls of one room. The first element of the scene that caught my eye was a cleverly constructed spiral staircase that travelled down from the roof of the box to the floor, made out of some sort of fine wood, like matchsticks, and painted black. The bottom of the box had been painted to look like wooden floorboards. Wainscoting ran along the “walls” of the box, and actual wallpaper stuck to the sides. It was blue with golden feathers.

  “Oh how funny. That’s the back staircase,” Lottie said. She leaned in, close to my shoulder, and then gasped and leaned back.

  I’d seen it before her, but I hadn’t quite processed what I was looking at, it was so strange and out of place. The entire scene was unnerving, the situation quite bizarre. Someone had sent me a diorama in the post, and I had no idea why or even who knew I would be working here. In the centre of the scene was a little doll with brown hair, like mine, dressed in the uniform I was currently wearing. The parcel had been addressed to me. The doll, surely, had to be me.

  And it was dead. It lay in a pool of blood at the bottom of the staircase.

  Chapter 7

  The idea of someone sitting down to create this scene and then send it to me was preposterous, and I think for that reason, I sat there dumbfounded for several seconds, just staring at the box. Why would someone go to so much effort for an utter nobody like me? Lottie was speechless too, hovering somewhere behind me after she’d manoeuvred around the table for a better look. We remained like that until the silence was finally broken by Mrs Huxley and Roisin walking back to the kitchen.

  “Miss Howard!” Mrs Huxley stopped in her tracks next to the table. “Is there a problem I can help you with?” Her eyes drifted over to the table and the small box on top of it.

  I saw Huxley and Roisin out of the corner of my eye because I couldn’t pull myself away from the diorama. It was so intricate. This person had taken the time to measure and cut little treads for the staircase. They’d painted knots on the “wooden” floorboards and arranged the hair around the doll’s shoulders. It was exquisite and grotesque and baffling.

  “I’m afraid something odd has happened.” Behind me, Lottie must have gestured for Mrs Huxley to come around the table. I watched the housekeeper glide towards me. Both her and Roisin stood behind my chair to see what the diorama depicted.

  “Christ!” Roisin said. “That’s the staircase in the servants’ quarters.”

  “Yes,” Lottie said. “I noticed that too.”

  “Why would someone send this?” Roisin said.

  Mrs Huxley was quiet until she added, “What would you like to do with it?”

  It was a moment or two before I realised she was talking to me. I wanted to burn it. I wanted to see flames destroying it, tearing through the paint, melting the doll, reducing the wallpaper to ash. But when I didn’t answer, Roisin reached over my shoulder, lifted the front of the box and retied the ribbon so that I didn’t have to look at the gruesome scene anymore. Then she pushed it to the other side of the table, and the others filtered away from behind me so I could see them without turning around.

  “Perhaps it was a joke,” Lottie offered, her voice light and playful. “A rather bad one, obviously.”

  Mrs Huxley nodded. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it is.” She smiled warmly at the girl, and the sight was almost as jarring as the diorama. But an understanding washed over me—Mrs Huxley was always going to agree with whatever one of the Howards said. She was a sycophant. “It’s a bad joke, that’s all. Nothing to get too upset about.”

  But from whom? One of the Howards? One of the staff?

  “Do you have any friends who would find this funny?” Roisin asked gently.

  “No one would find this funny,” I said, finally able to find my voice. “No one.”

  “Perhaps you should contact the police,” Roisin suggested. I saw her glance at Lottie and then back at me. “Whoever sent this knows what the inside of Highwood Hall looks like.”

  “That’s true,” Lottie said. “But there are some photos of the interior online. We had the photo shoot a few years ago.”

  “A three-page spread in Tatler,” Mrs Huxley said proudly.

  Lottie Howard stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was a strange first meeting with her. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the gesture, whether it was genuine or patronising or designed to keep me in line. “Daddy will take care of this. He knows people. Shall I take it to him?”

  In hindsight, it was a bad idea to let her take the evidence away. I should have kept an eye on it myself to ensure no one else touched it. There would be DNA evidence, wouldn’t there? Would the police use such resources for someone like me? Would they care? It wasn’t as though I’d been physically attacked. It was one strange parcel. That was it.

  I watched slack-jawed as Lottie carried the box out of the kitchen. Something unusual and downright surreal had just happened to me, and I wasn’t sure how to process any of it.

  “Look, you can sit around and cry about it, or you can get to work and take your mind off it,” Mrs Huxley said.

  Her tone wasn’t completely cold, but it wasn’t exactly warm either. She was right though. I wasn’t one to wallow, and I needed a distraction. Plus, it felt like an appropriate opportunity to show the inimitable housekeeper my mettle.

  “What do you want me to do first?” I asked, straightening my back.

  Roisin smiled and nodded encouragingly. Mrs Huxley’s eyes narrowed as though she was trying to suss me out. Inside, I thought I might crumble. This wasn’t how I imagined my first day at Highwood Hall. I’d had other plans. I’d hoped to be the one in control, the one with a hidden agenda. But that power had ebbed away from me as soon as I’d opened the box, and now my legs shook with fear.

  Chapter 8

  I followed the housekeeper back through the servants’ quarters in a daze. She rambled on about my routine. Mopping hallways, scrubbing bathrooms, hoovering carpets and making beds. In the afternoon, I might be asked to run errands for the Howards or help with the laundry. There were many tasks for two young maids to complete in one day.

  I managed to take in maybe half of what she was saying and hardly noticed the corridors around us. I’d told myself to pay attention to everything in order to learn quickly, but of course that was before the parcel showed up. When we turned a corner and came to a spiral staircase, it took my mind a moment to understand what I was looking at, but as soon as it hit me, I gasped.

  I stood before the dollhouse room only without the dead maid at the bottom of the stairs. I craned my neck up, following the track of the ornately carved wood as it travelled up to the next level. As I looked up and up, I imagined my body plummeting down the steps, face smashing against the balustrades, nose bursting, shoulder cracking against the treads, my body landing crumpled and broken by the time I reached the floor below my feet.

  “Are you coming?” Mrs Huxley asked. She stood halfway between me and the staircase. For a heartbeat, I stared stupidly at her, conf
used as to what she wanted. Then I realised she wanted me to walk up those stairs, and I was appalled. How could I possibly do that after what had happened this morning? “You’ll have to get used to them eventually. This is the servants’ staircase, and we use it every day. You’ll be taking tea up to Lady Margot soon.”

  I rubbed my upper arms and took a moment to compose myself. While I was building up the courage to use the steps, I noted that the diorama had depicted this part of the house perfectly. How did the artist know what the staircase looked like? Surely the photo shoot featured in Tatler focused on the grand living room and the wood-panelled hallways with the painted ceilings.

  Of course, Mrs Huxley flew up the stairs with ease, her back straight, her hand never once veering to the rail. When I followed her, I tried to block the image of the doll out of my mind. It was just a doll. One of the kitchen staff probably sent it to haze me. Maybe they were all in on it and it was supposed to make me so nervous I didn’t want to stay. Well, if that was the intention, I’d show them that I’m made of tougher stuff than that.

  Even though the stairs were much sturdier than I thought they would be, my hand gripped the support the entire way up. Ever since I was a child, I’d had the strangest worry that one day I’d throw myself over the side of an escalator or tall staircase. Whenever my aunt took me to a department store, I would cling on, my eyes trained on my feet. But that wasn’t an option when traversing the servants’ stairs. I needed to keep my attention focused on both the steps and where I was going because it was easy to bump into the rail and throw yourself off balance.

  “Wasn’t so hard, was it?” The corner of Mrs Huxley’s lip twitched upwards. Perhaps she was attempting a smile to reassure me, but it seemed more like a smirk. “I’m going to set you up in the library. It’s a large room, but it’s one of the easiest to clean.” She led me through what I assumed was the servants’ corridor from its bare walls, until we arrived at a door.