The darkness was absolute – her eyes refused to adjust. It wasn’t like London; there were no streetlamps outside. She was forced to inch along, feeling her way forwards. The leg of the dressing table, a round, springy shape – a hoop of her crinoline. She manoeuvred around it, ears tensed for the sound. The very stillness felt heavy – charged, as if it were waiting.
She placed her hand down and felt it sink into something. She recoiled and cried out. There was a crash and liquid seeped through her nightgown. The odours of chicken and beef announced she had crawled straight into her dinner tray.
Hiss, hiss. Elsie flung herself away from the tray. Black, nothing but black before her eyes. How could she get out of this room?
Finally, she made out a shade of grey. She crawled towards it and felt a solid surface. The door. Struggling to her feet, she groped for the handle and pulled the door open.
It was brighter in the corridor. She took a few steps out, her feet sinking in the dusty carpet. Little clouds floated up as she moved.
There was nothing to suggest what had made the noise. Everything was still. Moonlight fell through the lantern tower in silver bars and the marble busts glowed.
Hiss, hiss. Elsie headed in the direction of the sound. She had to stop it – she would never sleep with that racket. Hiss, hiss. It came faster, frantic. Her feet matched its pace as they turned past the gallery, towards the stairs. She was certain: it was coming from above.
The steps led to a narrow landing with whitewashed walls. The top floor of the house, traditionally the domain of servants. She followed the sound down a corridor, past the lantern tower, until the beacon of moonlight faded to a muted glow. Soft flooring gave way to cold tiles underfoot. She shivered, wishing she had brought a wrap or a blanket with her. She felt small, exposed in cotton and lace.
She stopped to rest and get her bearings. Up ahead, a faint yellow circle stained the wall.
Hiss, hiss. The noise was close. She put one foot forward – and felt something brush her leg.
‘Damn it!’ she cried out. She reeled, nearly losing her balance. ‘Damn, damn.’
Tiny clicks sounded on the tiles. She did not dare to look down and see what made them.
The rasping, sawing noise was everywhere around her, like the voice of God. And just below it, a steady beat. Footsteps.
A yellow orb floated into the darkness, drifting towards her.
Elsie braced herself, hardly knowing what she expected.
The orb was coming closer. The figure of a woman loomed up behind it, her shadow stretched along the tiles at her heels. She saw Elsie, gasped – and they were plunged into darkness once more.
Hiss, hiss. Again something sleek and warm swept against her calf. This time Elsie cried out.
‘Mrs Bainbridge?’ There was a sound like fabric ripping, then the flare of a match. A woman’s face appeared in a flickering halo. She was well past middle-age with wrinkles puckering her skin. ‘Bless me! Is that you, Mrs Bainbridge, up at this hour? You gave me a fright. I blew my candle right out.’
Elsie’s lips flapped, trying to find purchase. ‘I came . . . The sound . . .’ As she spoke, it started up again, that terrible hiss, hiss.
The woman nodded. Her eyes were liquid and jaundiced in the candlelight, as if her irises were swimming in honey. ‘I’ll show you the problem, madam. Please follow me.’
She turned, taking the candle with her. The gloom was all the more fearsome after a moment of illumination. In her tired fancy Elsie imagined a second pair of footsteps, padding behind her.
‘I am the housekeeper here, Mrs Bainbridge. My name is Edna Holt. I had hoped to meet you under more traditional circumstances, but it can’t be helped.’ Her voice was gentle and respectful, without the awful drawl of Mabel’s speech. Elsie followed the sound of it, a rope tethering her to a world of reality and servants rather than the phantasmagoria that raged inside her imagination. ‘I trust you are a little better now, madam? I heard you were unwell.’
‘Yes. Yes, all I needed was sleep. But then—’ The rasping noise cut her off. It hissed and scratched as Mrs Holt stopped at the end of the corridor beside a case of wooden stairs.
What could it be? The circular saw in the factory made a sound vaguely similar, but it was rapid, more staccato. This was drawn out. Like a slow, slow rip.
Something glided over her feet, tickling her legs as it passed. She gasped. A small, dark shape moved up the steps ahead. ‘Mrs Holt! Do you not see it?’ Two glowing slits of green materialised beside the door at the top of the stairs. Elsie’s breath locked in her throat. ‘God have mercy.’
‘I know,’ Mrs Holt said kindly. But she was not looking at Elsie – her eyes were fixed on the door. ‘I know, Jasper. Come down.’
Shapes fell into place – Elsie saw a little black cat, loping back down the stairs to Mrs Holt’s side. A cat. She had never felt so foolish.
‘I think it must be rats, madam. Or possibly squirrels. Something with gnawing teeth. They drive poor Jasper here distracted.’
The cat paced a protective circle around them, muttering in the depths of his throat. His coat and tail swished against their skirts.
‘Well,’ Elsie said, regaining the use of her voice, ‘we must get a man up there to look. A nest is soon cleared out.’
‘Ah, madam, but that’s the problem.’ With her spare hand, Mrs Holt pulled a bunch of keys from her belt and held them up. ‘The garret was closed up years ago, before my time here. None of these fit the lock.’
‘You mean to tell me there is no way of gaining access?’ The housekeeper shook her head. ‘Then someone must take an axe to the door. I cannot allow these creatures to nest unmolested. Think what they might do to the fabric of the building! Why, the whole place could fall down around our ears.’
The candle danced beneath her breath. She could not make out Mrs Holt’s expression. ‘Don’t upset yourself, madam. They can’t have wreaked much havoc. I’ve only heard them the past few weeks. Only, really, since the master came down.’
They both grew still. Elsie was suddenly aware of the body, three floors below – maybe beneath the very spot where her feet arched away from the cold tiles. She hugged herself. ‘And what did Mr Bainbridge say about the matter?’
‘Much the same as you, madam. He was going to write to Torbury St Jude for a man . . . I don’t know if he ever did.’
All the unsent letters, the unspoken words. It was as if Rupert had left the party in the middle of a dance. She ached with the need for him to come and make everything simple, to remove the burden from her shoulders.
‘Well, Mrs Holt, I will check his library in the morning and see what I find. If I have no luck, I will write myself.’
The housekeeper paused. When her voice came it was infinitely softer; a verbal caress. ‘Very good, madam. Now I had better be lighting you back to bed. Tomorrow will be a long and weary day, heaven knows.’
Elsie wondered for a moment what she meant. Then realisation burst upon her: they had only been waiting for her arrival. Tomorrow, they would bury Rupert.
Her knees sagged. Mrs Holt’s spare hand came quickly under her elbow. ‘Easy, madam.’