The Housemaid

by Sarah A. Denzil

  “Then he started telling me about different kinds of wine. We’d go down to the wine cellar together, and he’d uncork a bottle and tell me all about the grape and the flavours of each one.” She blushed. “That was how it started, over wine.”

  I wanted to tell her that he’d asked her to be in vulnerable situations with him, plied her with alcohol and then used his superficial charm to get his way. What would’ve happened if she’d turned down his advances? She was so pure that I hated the thought of it. I was already sullied. I knew how to play Alex’s games. But Roisin? No. It made my blood boil just thinking about it.

  “Please don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell Pawel.”

  “I won’t. I promise. But you’re going to have to break it off with him. Or with Bertie.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Chapter 29

  Roisin and I spent our Sunday apart from each other. She had breakfast with Pawel in the kitchen, whereas I took a croissant out to the garden and sat on the retaining wall to look out at the woods. I had a lot to think about, from the dioramas to Alex Howard to Lord Bertie and the confirmation that he’d slept with at least one maid. There were decisions I needed to make and information to uncover. Part of me longed to talk to Roisin about my suspicions; things were awkward between us since she’d revealed her secret. I picked at a rose petal and tried to get the thought of them together out of my head.

  I spent the morning waiting and wishing I could tell Roisin everything I planned to do, even though she’d probably try to talk me out of it. But I had a hunch, and I wanted to follow through on that hunch.

  When Mrs Huxley left the hall, as she did every Sunday, I did too, but I cut through the forest while she walked down the road. I knew she didn’t have a car, so I knew she’d have to walk to Paxby before she went anywhere else. I’d thought about heading there before she left, but I didn’t want to miss her if she jumped straight on a bus or took a taxi.

  It was my first time in the woods, and I hoped that the path was relatively straight through the trees. If I ended up getting lost, I’d never be able to keep up with her. I’d worn appropriate footwear and clothing for the walk. I had on my trainers and thickest pair of jeans. Even though it was warm, I wore long sleeves to help beat back the branches and vines.

  Every step brought with it a sense of unease. These woods were not the kind you walked your Yorkshire terrier through with your husband and your North Face jacket undone at the collar. No, these were woods that weren’t particularly welcoming to your average dog walker. I almost fell three times, feet sliding on the mossy stones. The place made you believe that nature was capable of rejection, that it could close up around an outsider and spit them out.

  Luckily, I wasn’t rejected after all, and I stumbled out across from the village before Mrs Huxley emerged from the road. I quickly smoothed down my hair, brushed off as much mud from my shoes as I could, and picked thorns from my clothes. Then I walked in a semicircle across the road, hurrying so as not to stay out in the open for too long. I hovered in between a newsagent and a dentist, keeping one eye on the bus stop in case the housekeeper left before I had a chance to follow her.

  She walked confidently towards the village in her dark burgundy dress, a tan leather bag slung over her shoulder. When she reached the shelter, she took a seat on the bench, crossing one ankle over the other. Concealed in the passageway, I waited, considering my options. There were a couple of taxis waiting in a lay-by. Perhaps I could jump in one and follow the bus. But what happened if Mrs Huxley went far out of the village? Then what? I had some money left over from the night in the pub that Roisin had insisted I keep for emergencies, but I couldn’t afford a taxi ride for a long journey.

  I decided to wait and see what kind of bus pulled up. If it was a bus to York, I’d have to let her go. If it was a small, local run bus that circled around the villages, I’d hire a taxi and follow that bus.

  The last diorama had done it for me. I knew then that Lord Bertie was either delusional or lying or both. Margot’s diorama had been so personal, so nasty and cruel that I couldn’t think of anyone but Mrs Huxley. She was the one constant at Highwood Hall. She must have been a witness to many awful things over the years, from Lottie’s bad behaviour to Lady Laura’s death and, possibly, Lord Bertie’s affairs. Perhaps one of those events had made her snap and now she wanted revenge. What if the first diorama wasn’t a threat but an attempt to frighten me away? And now she was taking down each of the Howards one by one.

  Whatever her motivations, I needed evidence. I needed the truth.

  I’d thought about what to do. It was possible Mrs Huxley made the dioramas herself, painting and painstakingly constructing them in her room. But how and when did she buy supplies? Wouldn’t we notice her bringing special cardboard boxes into the hall? Perhaps I could catch her in the act today. On the other hand, it was possible that Huxley was commissioning those pieces, and every Sunday she went to see the artist creating them. I’d decided that even if she wasn’t doing anything nefarious, I’d at least gain some insight into her strange little world if I followed her.

  A small, local run bus trundled up to the shelter, and I decided that was enough to tell me she wouldn’t be going far. I remained tucked away between the buildings until she stepped onto the vehicle, and then I hurried over to the taxi stand and asked the driver to follow it. He gave me an odd expression before shrugging and letting me in.

  “Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite way around?” he said.

  I hardly heard him; I stared at the bus in front of us instead. “What?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to follow the taxi?”

  “On a bus?” I said, confused.

  “No,” he said, grinning. “In another taxi.”

  He was older, perhaps in his fifties, and I sensed he wanted me to laugh, so I did.

  “You might want to hang back a bit. They’ll be making stops. I’m waiting for someone to get off, but I don’t know which stop it’ll be,” I told him.

  He slowed down, waved a couple of cars past, and then maintained a steady speed so I could watch the bus pull in and out of its countryside stops. My eyes were glued to its back window as adrenaline coursed through me. It wasn’t exactly a high-speed car chase, but the thrill of figuring out a mystery ignited a fire within me. I fidgeted around in my seat, tapping my knee, biting a thumbnail. I wondered what my aunt would make of this side of me.

  “Stop,” I called out. The taxi driver pulled onto the side of the road. Mrs Huxley stepped off the bus at the corner of a deserted shelter near a narrow road. “Is there even anything here?”

  “There’s a village up the road,” the taxi driver replied. “And some sort of care home, I think. The kind for people with… difficulties.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Like a psychiatric facility?”

  “I suppose so. That’s all I know about it. Why are you following that woman anyway? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “She’s… my aunt,” I said. “And she lied to me.”

  The driver shrugged one more time before asking me for £5.50. I handed over the money, waited for change, and then got out. By that time, Mrs Huxley was a minute or two ahead of me, but seeing as there was only one road, I wasn’t too concerned.

  I walked slowly, keeping an eye on the distance ahead. There were a few bends and a narrow pavement. Every now and then she came into view and I tensed up, expecting her to see me. She never looked back.

  We were deep into the countryside now, passing the bobbing heads of cows and sheep as they watched me. I smelled the farm before seeing it and heard a tractor rumbling around a field somewhere. I rolled up my sleeves, feeling the burgeoning of perspiration along my hairline.

  Around four or five minutes after getting out of the taxi, I came to the small village of Wicklesworth, which appeared to be structured around a small park. The road signs mentioned York, Bishoptown-on-Ouse and Paxby. I stopped for a moment because for the first time, I couldn’t see her
ahead of me. And then my heartbeat quickened, expecting her to pop up behind me. One fingernail tapping me on the shoulder and her stern face tilted downwards, demanding what I was doing following her. But all I needed to do was round a corner away from the park, and there I saw her heading towards a facility called Heather Grove.

  The psychiatric facility. What was she doing going there? I walked closer but hung back out of sight. I plonked myself on a skinny wooden bench across the road from the home, taking a book out of my bag. It didn’t matter which page I opened. I wasn’t planning to read it. Across the road, Mrs Huxley disappeared into a white painted building.

  She must be visiting someone, but whom? I’d hoped to catch her going into an artist’s workshop, but there I was at a care home. Who was Mrs Huxley visiting? Her husband or wife?

  I remained on the bench for about fifteen minutes before I saw her leave the building with a person by her side. They walked down the front lawn together, strolling and chatting. They were close but didn’t touch. My book was on my lap. My eyes were fixed on them.

  The other person was slightly taller than her, male, and younger. He walked with a slight stoop, with his face mostly watching the ground and his hands clasped in front of his body. Every now and then he pointed at flowers in a childlike way, one finger jabbing excitedly. Outside of Highwood, Mrs Huxley walked with a completely different posture. Not quite so upright, her shoulders set at a natural angle instead of pulled back. She took the flowers he picked for her, smiling broadly. If she’d worn a different outfit, I would’ve thought she was a different woman.

  And while I was there, watching, a change washed over me. I felt ashamed for following her. Mrs Huxley was visiting a family member—I’d guessed her son in my mind, the approximate ages seemed to fit—and I watched them, creepily, from my bench. I packed my book away and hurried back along the road towards the bus stop. If I left now, I could catch a bus to Paxby and return to the hall before her. On my way, tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and for the first time in a while, I felt lost.

  Chapter 30

  I’d brought them with me in my bag. I allowed my fingers to grope inside and touch the edges as I sat at the back of the bus. The letters from my mother to my dad. Pages that I knew off by heart that talked about me and what I’d meant to her and why she did what she did. They were a comfort blanket to me. They were dog-eared and worn thin from my fingers and thumbs as I read and reread them. I’m not sure why I’d slipped them into my bag that day. I was scared of what I might find Mrs Huxley doing or the potential confrontation that could occur, and before I knew it, they were in my bag with me.

  Sometimes I think about running away from it all. From my baby.

  My father, David, had given me the letters when I went to find him for the first time. He lived in a run-down terraced house between Leeds and York. Even though I saw he’d cleaned for my arrival, the place was still grimy. Mould mottled the grouting between the kitchen tiles, and limescale edged the circumference of the taps. The mug he gave me was chipped, and the tea tasted watery.

  “You look like her,” he’d said, pale, watery eyes bloodshot and difficult to scrutinise. “Just like her. It’s remarkable.”

  And then he’d told me about how young they were when she found out she was pregnant and the difficult conversations they’d had. He hadn’t been in a good place, not that he’d ever been in a good place, but it’d been especially bad when I reared my ugly presence into their lives. He’d taken recreational drugs that developed into an all-consuming addiction, not unlike my own story. He’d spent much of his life homeless, never able to keep a job for more than a week or two. By the time I met him, he’d been in prison twice and since then, found God and a decent charity to get him back on his feet. By then, caffeine remained his last addiction.

  He worked in the coffee shop at the local church, cooked food at a pub on the weekends, and in between went from washing windows to mowing lawns to cleaning wheelie bins and guttering. His pressure washer was his pride and joy.

  I felt the tiniest bit jealous that I’d been replaced by a pressure washer.

  He had no other children, which meant I didn’t have to worry about half brothers and sisters. From what I gathered, there wasn’t a significant other in his life when I met him, though he did talk about an ex. He’d shown me photographs of my mother when she was young, dressed in oversized jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with band names like the Offspring and Blink-182. Her eyes were lined with thick black eyeliner.

  “I haven’t spoken to her since you were born,” he’d said. “Every time I answered the phone, I thought it might be her. It makes no sense because she doesn’t know my number or where I live now, but I always thought I’d hear her voice.”

  “Sometimes I think that too,” I’d admitted. “Whenever the doorbell rang, I imagined her on the doorstep ready to pull me into a hug and tell me who she was. But it was always a delivery or someone wanting money.”

  At least Mrs Huxley stood by her kid. At least she visited him every week. At least she smiled and took the flowers and talked to him, loved him. Now a lot of things about her clicked into place for me. He was the reason she’d stayed at Highwood. I was sure about that. Not only was Highwood Hall close to Heather Grove, but Mrs Huxley, as the head housekeeper, had a stable, well-paying job that helped to pay for her child’s care. She needed the money, and where else was she going to get a wage like that around here?

  There were many other mysteries about the housekeeper, like why the Mrs, but for now I understood her better. Could she still be the person sending the dioramas? Possibly, but now I knew she had more to lose than I’d thought. It seemed as though I was back to square one, and I’d spent bus fare and taxi fare for no reason. Luckily, it was payday tomorrow, which was a huge relief.

  When the bus pulled into the Paxby bus stop, I decided to spend a little time in the village before heading back to Highwood. And yes, it was partly to avoid Roisin, but also to acclimatise to the area I lived in but knew nothing about. Perhaps it was time to get used to its eccentricities and find the best place to buy the flakiest pastries. But as I walked around, browsing the few shops and cafes there, I constantly felt as though people were watching me. It came from a paranoia I’d never been able to shift, that someone would look at me and they’d know I came from nothing. They’d see it written on me—rejected by her own mother. They’d know.

  With one hand on my bag, thinking about my father and the letters he’d given me as I’d left his house, I slipped into the woods to be alone. It was cold in the dark. I wrapped my arms around my body, waiting for the hall to emerge above the canopy of bent trees. Soon I witnessed its ramparts blocking out the afternoon sun. A cloudy sky surrounded those turrets.

  The woods had been suffocating, but I wasn’t relieved to be back at the hall. Nerves tickled at my stomach as I made my way through the hallway into the kitchen. I placed my bag next to a chair and sat down for a few moments. Before I knew it, a plate appeared before me. Pawel had made a cheese sandwich. Next to it was a homemade chocolate truffle. I started with the chocolate first.

  “Is it nice?” he asked, sitting opposite me with a plate of more tempting truffles.

  “Delicious.” I reached out for another, but he slapped my hand away.

  “One for you, greedy girl. I’m setting up a business. Letterbox chocolates.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  He nodded solemnly. “It is. And I can do it outside my hours here. At the beginning anyway. If things go well, I’d have to leave I suppose.”

  “I’d miss you.”

  “At least someone would.” He frowned, and I understood immediately that he was talking about Roisin.

  “We’d all miss you,” I added.

  He rolled his eyes. “All right. You can have another if you’re desperate enough to compliment me.”

  I grinned and snatched the chocolate before he changed his mind.

  “Where is she?” he asked, takin
g me by surprise.

  At first I thought he meant Mrs Huxley and that he’d figured out I followed her. But then I realised he was talking about Roisin. “Isn’t she in the hall?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t seen her all day. She’s avoiding me.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” I said. “I think she’s avoiding me too.”

  He propped up his head on one hand and frowned. “Why would she avoid you? You’re her best friend.”

  His eyes were a pale grey searchlight that narrowed on me, making me squirm. I had a secret that he wanted—needed—to know, but I didn’t want to be the person to reveal it. I shouldn’t be the one to tell him; it should come from Roisin. And now I had to lie. Or at least obscure. I fixed my eyes on the plate of chocolate between us. “Oh, no reason.”

  Pawel pulled the plate away from me. “There is a reason. She didn’t cry last night for no reason. She isn’t avoiding you or me for no reason. Tell me.”

  “I can’t, Pawel,” I said. “She needs to tell you herself.”

  He paled then. I think he probably always knew, and now I’d given him the proof he needed. He saw it written all over my face. There wasn’t anything I could do or say, so I backed out of the kitchen and left him alone. When I went to my and Roisin’s room, it was empty. I put my mother’s letters away and decided it might be best to try to find her. I could at least give her a heads-up that Pawel had guessed what was going on. But on my way to the front of the house, Lord Bertie pulled up in his Porsche with Alex in the passenger seat. Seeing them changed my mind. I didn’t want to be walking through their private quarters on my day off. Instead, I made my way back to the servants’ entrance and decided to walk around the grounds at the back of the house. I noticed Ade’s truck parked there, which was unusual for a Sunday. Then again, he was dedicated to the plants and would often pop back to the hall to finish up any jobs that needed it on the weekend.