The Death of Mrs. Westaway(26)

“Follow me,” Mrs. Warren said, and Hal caught Mr. Treswick’s eye and raised one eyebrow in mute question. He gave a little dry smile and waved his hand towards the stairs, but Mrs. Warren hadn’t waited for Hal to acquiesce and was already making her way painfully up the long flight, step by step, her arthritic knuckles clamped to the banister.

“It’ll have to be the attic,” she said, as Hal hastened up after her, her case bumping each step. There were brass stair-rods across each tread, but so much dust had lodged in the crevices around them, it was almost impossible to see them, or the pattern of the carpet beneath.

“Of course,” Hal said breathlessly, as they reached the landing, and Mrs. Warren began another flight, this one carpeted with a more utilitarian stair runner that felt hard and bumpy beneath Hal’s feet. “No problem at all.”

“There’s no point in complaining,” Mrs. Warren said grimly, as if Hal had done so. “No warning I had, so you’ll have to put up with it.”

“It’s fine,” Hal said. She pushed down the prickle of resentment at Mrs. Warren’s manner and smiled again, hoping it showed through in her voice. “Honestly. I wouldn’t dream of complaining. I’m very grateful to have a room at all.”

They had reached what seemed to be the top landing. There were no more stairs from here—only a tiled passageway with a long row of what seemed to be bedrooms opening off either side. A window must have been open in one of the bedrooms, for there was a cold draft blowing, forceful enough to stir the dust around Hal’s ankles as she stood.

“Lavatory is there,” Mrs. Warren said shortly, nodding at a door at the far end of the tiled corridor. “The bathroom is a floor below.”

The bathroom? Surely there had to be more than one bathroom for this whole house?

But Mrs. Warren had opened one of the doors that Hal had taken to be bedrooms, revealing a narrow staircase set into the wall. She pressed a light switch, and a bare bulb at the top flickered and illuminated a narrow flight, this one bare wood, with no carpet, not even drugget, just a thin strip of lino at the top landing. The old lady started up the steps, her metal-tipped cane thudding against the wood as she climbed.

Hal waited at the foot of the stairs, under the pretense of catching her breath.

There was something she didn’t like about that staircase—perhaps it was the narrowness of it, or the lack of natural light, for there were no windows, not even a skylight, or perhaps it was the way that it seemed to be shut away from the rest of the house, the door at the bottom hiding its very existence. But she swallowed, and pushing the door as wide as she could, she hitched up her case and followed Mrs. Warren up the final flight.

“Is this where the servants used to sleep?” she asked, hearing her voice echo in the confined space.

“No,” Mrs. Warren said shortly, without turning back. Hal felt snubbed, but when they reached the landing, Mrs. Warren stopped and looked at her, and seemed to relent a little. “Not anymore. They moved the servants’ quarters over the kitchen when they rebuilt,” she said. “Of course, they’re all shut up now, there’s only me left and I sleep downstairs, next to Mrs. Westaway’s room, in case she needed me in the night.”

“I see,” Hal said humbly. She shivered. She had never felt more out of place, in her draggled wet coat, her laddered tights, her short black hair drying into spikes from the rain. “She was lucky to have you.”

“She was,” Mrs. Warren said. Her mouth was a thin line of pinched disapproval. “God knows the family cared little enough for her comfort, though I see you’re all happy enough to come down picking like magpies over the spoils now.”

“I—I didn’t—” Hal started, nettled, but then stopped as Mrs. Warren turned away and hobbled down a short, unlit corridor towards a closed door, rattling the knob with her gnarled hand. What could she say? It was true, after all, at least as far as she herself was concerned. She let her mouth fall shut and waited as Mrs. Warren struggled with the stiff knob, her cane clamped under her arm.

“Damp,” Mrs. Warren said shortly over her shoulder, as she tugged at the knob. “Frame swells.”

“Can I—” Hal began, but it was too late—as the words left her mouth, the door gave suddenly, and a flood of cold light illuminated the landing.

Mrs. Warren stood back and let Hal pass through. Inside was a narrow little room, painfully bare, with a metal bedstead in one corner, a washstand in the other, and a barred nursery window overlooking the garden. There was no carpet, only bare boards, and a tiny knotted rug by the head of the bed. There was also no radiator, just a small grate filled with coal and kindling already laid out.

The bars gave Hal a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, though she could not have said why. Perhaps it was the incongruity of finding them up here, in the attic. On the ground floor they might have been needed to keep out intruders. But up here there was only one explanation: these were bars not to keep someone out—but in. Only . . . this was not a nursery room, where the bars might be needed to safeguard a clambering toddler. It was a maid’s room, far from the rest of the house, totally impractical for a small child.

What kind of person needed to stop their maids from escaping?

“Well, here you are,” Mrs. Warren said irritably. “There’s matches on the mantelpiece, but we’re short of coal, so don’t be thinking you can have a fire willy-nilly, now. There’s no money to burn. I’ll leave you to unpack.”