Rutherford Park Read Free Page A

the corridors, and take tea and toast to the upper staff: Amelie, the ladies’ maid; Mr. Cooper, the master’s valet; and Mrs. Jocelyn. The last month they had also been helping the scullery maid—it was rightfully her job to make sure the kitchen was clear—but Enid Bliss had bronchitis and could not breathe when she got up, a fact that the three chambermaids had been trying to hide from the housekeeper.
    Emily was still counting to herself as she worked. There were three sets of guests here already, so that was eight rooms upstairs. Her fingers flew over the paper, kindling and coal. Finishing, she wiped her hands on the apron, stood up, and immediately felt the familiar swing of sickness. Waiting for it to subside, she looked around. Hundreds of shapes inhabited the shadows: chairs, tables, lamps, occasional tables with flowers, others with hothouse plants; shelves with pernickety little flower-girl porcelain that Mr. Bradfield claimed was so expensive; fire screens, footrests. “I shall hoist the complete collection into the river one day,” the mistress was supposed to have said, annoyed to find the parlor maids still polishing the furniture after breakfast. Or so Mrs. Jocelyn claimed. “A progressive woman,” was the housekeeper’s verdict. “I doubt she means it. The class of furnishings are so important.”
    Emily had found it funny. Not the remark, but the voice. Mrs. Jocelyn couldn’t keep her Leeds accent out of her mouth, though she tried. Twenty-seven years in the Cavendish service, and there was still the broad, flat sound of Hunslet in Mrs. Jocelyn’s tone.
    Emily gazed into the middle distance. Had Mrs. Jocelyn ever been married, really? Every housekeeper was called “Mrs.,” married or not. But she couldn’t imagine anyone ever clasping Mrs. Jocelynin his arms, holding her close, kissing that plain face. She had a ring on her finger, but that meant as little as the title; she might have put it there herself. It always flashed brightly as Mrs. Jocelyn fervently clasped her hands at morning prayers in the hall. Emily wiped a hair out of her eyes. Still, for all that, she might have had someone to love her; there might be a Mr. Jocelyn somewhere out in the wide world. Mrs. Jocelyn might have grasped what it took to make a man adore her. Which was far more than she herself had done. She gripped the sides of her skirt, her heart thudding. There was nothing to see: no, really, despite all that there was in this room, all that there was all over this enormous house, there was nothing to see. Nothing but night. She’d never be in the light again. Never, never.
    She went to the drawing room door, sick in her heart, sick in her soul, sick of the rooms and the stairs and the fires and the secret hand that had touched hers, sick of him, sick of the abyss crawling towards her as if it were alive. It would writhe out there in the dark, sticky with guilt, like tar in the road that stuck to her shoes in the summer, and one day it would catch her by the ankle and drag her down. “God help me,” she murmured, and turned out into the hall.
    Lady Cavendish was six feet away, standing near the bottom of the main stairs.
    “Oh, ma’am,” she whispered. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Lady Cavendish never came downstairs at this time of day. None of the family did: none of them ever stirred from their rooms until breakfast. Emily tried to step back against the wall. That was what she was supposed to do if any of the family appeared: flatten herself against the wall and look at the floor.
    “Is it…Malham?” Lady Cavendish asked.
    “Maitland, ma’am.” Emily dared a glance upwards. Her mistress was looking at her amusedly. She was wrapped in some astonishingcoat all lined with dark fur; under it she wore a pair of matching slippers.
    “I’m rather out of place, Maitland,” Lady Cavendish said, still smiling. She leaned forward. “But I’ve come to look at something.”
    Emily said not a