This House is Haunted (17 page)

“Aye,” she replied, looking away. “Well just think on, Governess. Because next time you might get a ladle to the head.” I smiled and reached for the pot but she brushed my hand away. “Let it brew,” she said. “Let the goodness take.”

She reached into the pockets of her pinafore, removed a small cigarette and lit it. I stared at her, startled. I had never seen a woman smoking before, and certainly not a neat little roll-your-own like this. I had heard that it had become the fashion among the London ladies, of course. That was their privilege. But for a domestic to do so within a house like this was quite extraordinary.

“I’ve not got a second,” she said, noticing my interest in the cigarette. “So don’t ask.”

“I had no intention of asking,” I replied, wanting no part of the malodorous thing anyway. I glanced at the pot again and she nodded, indicating that I might pour. The tea came out thick and steaming and I added milk and sugar and took a sip to warm me.

“Well, go on,” said Mrs. Livermore. “Spit it out.” I stared at her, unsure what she meant. Had she poisoned it perhaps? “Not the tea, you daft mare,” she said, almost smiling. “You’ve got summat to say, Governess, so best that you get it off your chest before you explode.”

“I saw Mr. Raisin yesterday,” I replied, keeping my tone steady; she would not bully me. “The solicitor in the village.”

“I know who Mr. Raisin is,” she said, sneering at me. “I’ve
not been collecting my wages every week for the last year from Farmer Haddock’s prize goat.”

“Yes, well,” I said. “I made an appointment with him and we had a conversation. There were certain things I wanted to know and he was good enough to tell me.”

“Good enough to tell you what exactly?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she leaned forward to lift her cup.

“That Mr. Westerley is still here. At Gaudlin Hall. Residing in this house.”

She snorted a laugh and shook her head, taking another deep drag from her cigarette before washing the taste down with a good mouthful of tea. “How long have you been here now, Governess?” she asked.

“Three weeks.”

“The girl before you, Miss Bennet she called herself, she had all that figured out in half that time. And poor Miss Harkness before her, may the Good Lord have mercy on her penitent soul”—she blessed herself, twice—“she put it all together within two days. But then she were a nosy sort and something of an hysteric. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but I speak as I find, Miss—” She stared at me, a rather startled expression on her face. “I don’t know your name, do I?”

“Eliza Caine,” I told her.

She smoked some more and sized me up. “Eliza were my mother’s name,” she said finally. “I’ve always liked it. I said to my Henry, if we had a girl we should call her Eliza. Only we had a flurry of boys, didn’t we? Great lumps, all of them. One as bad as the next. You a London girl?” I nodded. “I went there once,” she told me. “When I were young, around your age. Couldn’t stand it. All that noise! I don’t know how anyone puts up with it. I should lose my reason. I don’t know how they don’t all go
mad up there. Do you think London folk are a bit touched in the head, Governess?”

“Not especially,” I said. “Although I know it’s a common generalization. Much like saying that all country people are uneducated and even a little stupid.”

She blew a smoke ring out of her mouth—disgusting—and her expression told me that she rather liked what I had just said, admired it even. “My point being,” she said finally, leaning forward and speaking in a much more refined tone to impress this fact upon me. “My point being that you’ve been here three weeks and you’re only coming to learn these things now. Bright as a button, you, aren’t you? Sure that you don’t have some country blood in you somewhere?”

“The truth is that I wouldn’t have known any of it at all if Mr. Raisin hadn’t told me,” I said. “And really, I do think someone might have mentioned it before now. My own employer here in the house and we have yet to speak face to face. I haven’t seen him with his children. He doesn’t join us for meals. When does he come and go? Where does he eat? Is he a ghost or does he take human form?”

“Oh, he exists all right,” said Mrs. Livermore. “He’s no ghost. He’s here in the house right now. But if Mr. Raisin told you that much, then why didn’t you ask these other questions of him? It’s not my place to tell you things.”

“There was no more time,” I explained. “He had other appointments. And he was rather emotional after telling me about the episode that took place here at Gaudlin Hall.”

“The episode?” she asked, frowning.

“When Mrs. Westerley …” I hesitated; it was very early in the day for such terrible stories. “When she set about her husband and the first governess, Miss Tomlin.”

“Hark at you,” said Mrs. Livermore, laughing bitterly. “Pleasant language for a nasty deed. Set about them, you say? When she beat one into the grave and tried to do the same to the other, you mean.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Exactly that.”

“Episode my eye.”

“Mr. Raisin said that I should meet Mr. Westerley.”

“Oh he did, did he?”

“That’s right,” I said, holding her gaze. “He said that you would introduce me.”

She looked away, her brow creasing. “He’s not said ‘owt to me about that.”

“I assure you it’s quite true.”

“Mr. Westerley usually sees only me.”

“And the children, of course,” I said.

“He hasn’t laid eyes on his children since the episode, as you call it.”

I stared at her. “But that’s impossible,” I said. “Why ever not?”

“If you saw him, you’d understand. But I don’t believe it’s in your interests that you do.”

“It seems to me to be the most extraordinary thing,” I cried in frustration, throwing my hands in the air. “The master of this estate, the father of those children, keeps himself hidden away and entertains no company other than, well, forgive me, you, Mrs. Livermore—”

“There’s worse fates.”

“Please don’t be sarcastic. All I want is to understand. We are both employed here, after all, can we not share confidences? I as governess and you as Mr. Westerley’s cook or maid or whatever it is that you do.”

She took a long drag on her cigarillo now in a manner
reminiscent of Mr. Raisin himself. For a long time she remained quite silent, as if she was considering this. Finally, in a quieter voice, she spoke. “A cook, you say. Or a maid.”

“Well, yes. I mean if that is what you are, after all. I don’t mean it in a disrespectful fashion.”

“I should hope not, Governess,” she said, stressing my own position. “There’s plenty would be pleased with the position of cook or maid at Gaudlin Hall. It’s a good job for the right girl. Or a widow woman. And back in old Mr. Westerley’s day there were plenty of staff here. Not like now. The place is falling down about our ears owing to the lack of them. It’s in disrepair, haven’t you noticed? That roof will come down on top of us one day soon if no one sees fit to mend it. But you’re wrong if you think that I’m a cook or a maid. It’s true that I prepare Mr. Westerley’s food,” she added. “But then you’ve prepared food too, Governess, haven’t you?” she asked me. “You know how to put together a stew or a lamb hotpot?”

“Of course,” I said. “When I was living with Father in London I prepared all our meals.”

“Don’t make you the cook though, does it?” she asked.

“Well, no, of course not,” I said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Livermore. I didn’t mean to offend you. Although I really don’t see why it should be offensive.”

She laughed and shook her head. “You’d have to get up a lot earlier than this to offend me,” she said. “I’m made of tough stuff. Have to be, the life I’ve lived. No, I’m not a cook. That’s not where my training lies.”

“Mrs. Livermore, you’re talking in riddles,” I said, exhaustion beginning to overtake me. “Can we not just be clear with each other?”

“All right then,” she said, pressing the remains of her cigarette out and standing up, smoothing down her pinafore, which, now that I looked at it, did not resemble a cook’s outfit as much as I had earlier imagined. “You say Mr. Raisin says you’re to meet the master; all right then, I’ll take you at your word.” She walked towards the door, stopped and turned round. “Well?” she asked. “Are you coming or not?”

“Right now?” I asked, standing up. “But it’s so early? Won’t he be angry to be awakened at this hour?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” she said. “Come along if you’re coming.” And with that she made her way quickly through the kitchen and I followed behind, almost having to break into a run to keep up with her. Where was she going to take me? My mind raced with the possibilities. I had, in my idle moments, visited most of the rooms in the house and they were for the most part quite empty. There were no signs of life. Surely the master of Gaudlin would have a suite of rooms for himself? A bedroom, a library, a study, a private bathroom?

We made our way through the house to the main staircase, ascending and turning on to the landing where the children’s rooms were situated, and Mrs. Livermore hesitated for a moment.

“Here?” I asked and she shook her head.

“They’re not awake yet,” she said. “Come on. Up again.”

We ascended once again to the floor on which my own bedroom and six empty bedrooms lay. But he couldn’t be here, I was sure of it; I had looked inside each one and they were quite empty. To my surprise, Mrs. Livermore went to the room at the furthest end of the corridor and opened it. I followed her in but there was nothing to be seen. The room was stark and empty, a four-poster bed, stripped of its sheets, in the centre of the room. She looked at me and I stared back.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“This way,” she replied, turning round and pressing on a panel in the wall, where I now saw that a door was hidden, painted in keeping with the rest of the wall so that one would not know it was there unless one looked quite closely. I gasped in surprise when she pushed it open to reveal a set of stone steps beyond, and I followed her through, lifting my skirt to prevent it dragging along the dust on the stone floor.

“Where are we?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“All these great houses have secrets like this,” she told me as she climbed the steep steps. “Think of when they were built, after all. They served as battlements, as defending posts. You think that’s the only door like that in the house? It isn’t. I don’t usually use it, of course. I come in from outside the house.”

I thought about the two occasions when I had followed her round the corner of the house only for her to vanish out of sight altogether. As if reading my mind, she turned to me and smiled.

“You want to take a look at that wall, Governess. The door’s perfectly visible if you only look. See it once and you’ll never miss it again. It’s the first time that’s the difficulty.”

“You knew I was following you then?” I asked.

“I have ears,” she grunted, climbing again. “I’m not daft.”

We found ourselves near the top of Gaudlin Hall, at a point where another staircase met our own position and returned downwards to the opposite side of the house. “That’ll lead you back out,” she told me. “That’s how I usually come in.”

A large door stood before us and I felt a distinct chill run through my body. He couldn’t be close to here, could he? Mrs. Livermore reached into the front pocket of her pinafore for a large and sturdy key. I hesitated; I had a curious worry that it
might lead to the roof and that she was going to throw me off for my insolence, but as we went through I was presented with two staircases, leading in two different directions.

“That way’s the roof,” said Mrs. Livermore, nodding towards the left. “This way’s the master.”

We ascended again, a short flight, and turned at the top, where we were met by another solid oak door. She stopped in front of it and turned round, her expression softening slightly. “How old are you, Governess?” she asked.

“Twenty-one,” I replied, uncertain why she would ask.

“You look to me like a girl who hasn’t seen much unpleasantness in her life, would I be right on that?”

I thought about it and finally nodded. “You would,” I said.

She pointed at the door. “If Mr. Raisin says you can meet the master, then I’m not going to stand in the way of that,” she said. “But you don’t have to, you know. You can turn round and walk away right now. You can go back down those stairs and we can lock the door behind us and you can return to looking after them children and I can go back to doing what I do and you might sleep better of a night. It’s your decision. So speak now as there’ll be no turning back afterwards.”

I swallowed hard. I was desperate to know what was on the other side of that door but her warning was sufficiently serious for me to reconsider. It was true that I wanted to meet Mr. Westerley, I had a right to after all, but had he turned into a monster of some sort after his wife’s terrible actions? Would he be as likely to strike me down as converse with me? And I could not get past the fact that it was still so early; might he not be sleeping?

“Speak, Governess,” said Mrs. Livermore. “I’ve not all day to stand here.”

I opened my mouth, almost prepared to say no, that I had changed my mind, but something in her previous speech suddenly struck a chord in my mind and I stared at her. “You can go back to doing what you do,” I said. “That’s what you just said to me. And downstairs, you insisted that you’re not a cook and you’re not a maid.”

“Aye,” she said, frowning. “And what of it?”

“What is it you do then, Mrs. Livermore?” I asked. “What is your position here?”

She hesitated for a moment and then her face relaxed, a half-smile appearing on it, and she reached a hand out, tenderly, and pressed it to my arm. For a moment I saw that beneath all her bluff there was a kind woman locked inside. And that she was not trying to prevent me from learning what I wanted to know but was simply uncertain whether it was in my interests.

“Don’t you know, child?” she asked me. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

I shook my head. “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me please.”

Mrs. Livermore smiled and took her hand away. “I’m a nurse,” she said. “I’m Mr. Westerley’s nurse.”