‘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 Your species have been replaced by wooden statues.’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?’