Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘Perce?’ Saffy’s voice still trembled. ‘Do I need to put my girls under guard?’

‘You should have told me,’ Percy said with a short sigh, snatching the matches from her pocket. ‘That’s all. You should have told me about Lucy.’

‘I wish you’d just put the whole thing behind you, Perce. For your own sake. Servants have done worse to their employers than leave them. It’s not as if we found her with her fingers in the silver drawer.’

‘You should have told me.’ Percy’s throat ached as she spoke. She fumbled a single match from the deck.

‘If it matters so much, I won’t ask her back. For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine she’ll put up much argument; she struck me as rather keen to avoid your society. I think you frighten her.’

A snap as the matchstick broke between Percy’s fingers.

‘Oh, Perce – now look, you’re bleeding.’

‘It’s nothing.’ She wiped it on her trousers.

‘Not on your clothing, not blood, it’s impossible to clean.’ Saffy held up a crumpled item of clothing she’d brought with her from upstairs. ‘In case you failed to notice, the laundry staff left us some time ago. I’m all that’s left, boiling and stirring and scouring.’

Percy rubbed at the bloodstain on her leg, smudging it further.

Saffy sighed. ‘Leave your trousers for now; I’ll see to them. Go on upstairs, darling, and make yourself tidy.’

‘Yes.’ Percy was looking at her finger in mild surprise.

‘You put on a nice party frock and I’ll put on the kettle. Make us a pot of tea. Better yet, I’ll fix us a cocktail, shall I? It is a celebration, after all.’

Celebration was taking it a bit far, but Percy’s fight had left her. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Good idea.’

‘Bring your trousers down to the kitchen when you’re done; I’ll put them in to soak right away.’

Percy clenched and unclenched her hand as she started slowly up the stairs, and then she stopped and turned. ‘I almost forgot,’ she said, taking the typed envelope from her bag. ‘A letter for you in today’s post.’

Saffy hid inside the butler’s pantry to read the letter. She’d known immediately what it would be and it had taken all her efforts to conceal her excitement from Percy. She’d snatched at the envelope, then stood watch at the bottom of the stairs, making sure her sister didn’t suffer a last-minute change of heart and head for the woodpile instead. Only when she’d heard Percy’s bedroom door close behind her had she finally allowed herself to relax. She’d all but lost hope that a reply would ever come and, now that it had, she almost wished it hadn’t. The anticipation, the tyranny of the unknown, was nearly too much to bear.

Downstairs in the kitchen, she hurried into the windowless butler’s pantry, which had once swollen with the indomitable presence of Mr Broad but now contained little more to evidence his reign of terror than the desk and a wooden cabinet of old, impossibly tedious daily records. Saffy pulled the string that fired the light bulb and leaned against the desk. Her fingers turned to thumbs as she fumbled with the envelope.

Without her letter opener, which was sitting in its cradle on her writing desk upstairs, Saffy had to resort to tearing the envelope open. Which she didn’t like doing and therefore did as neatly as possible, almost enjoying the prolonged agony such extreme caution brought. She slipped the folded paper from within – very fine paper, she noted; cotton fibre, embossed, warm white – and, with a deep breath, opened it out flat. Eyes scanning quickly, she drank in the letter’s meaning, then went back to the beginning again, forcing herself to read more slowly, to believe what she was seeing, as incredible joyous lightness of being spread from deep within her body, turning even the outermost tips of her fingers to stardust.

She’d first glimpsed the advertisement in The Times when she was leafing through the lettings. Female companion and governess sought to accompany Lady Dartington and her three children to America for the duration of the war , it had read. Educated, unmarried, cultured, experienced with children . The advertisement might have been written with Saffy in mind. Though she had no children of her own, it was certainly not for lack of desire. There had been a time when her future thoughts had been filled – surely like most women’s? – with babies. It seemed they were not to be had, however, without a husband, and therein lay the sticking point. As to the other criteria, Saffy was quite confident she could claim without immodesty to possess both education and culture. So, she’d set out immediately to win the position, composing a letter of introduction, including a pair of splendid references, and putting together an application demonstrating Seraphina Blythe to be the ideal candidate. And then she’d waited, trying as best she could to keep her dreams of New York City to herself. Having long ago learned that there was no point ruffling Percy’s feathers unnecessarily, she hadn’t mentioned the position to her twin, allowing her mind to fill privately, and vividly, with possibilities. She’d imagined the journey in rather embarrassing detail, casting herself as a sort of latter-day Molly Brown, keeping the Dartington children’s spirits buoyed as they braved the U-boats en route for the great American port…

Telling Percy would be the hardest part; she wasn’t going to be pleased, and as to what would become of her, marching the corridors alone, mending walls and chopping wood, forgetting to bathe or launder or bake – well, it didn’t bear thought. This letter, though, this offer of employment Saffy held in her hand, was her chance and she wasn’t about to let a bad habit of sentiment stop her from taking it. Like Adele, in her novel, she was going to ‘seize life by the throat and force it to meet her eyes’ – Saffy was very proud of that line.

She closed the pantry door quietly behind her and noticed immediately that the oven was steaming. In all the excitement she’d almost forgotten the pie! What a thing! She’d be lucky if the pastry weren’t burnt to a cinder.

Saffy slid on her oven mitts and squinted inside, breathing a great sigh of relief when she saw that the pie’s top, though golden, was not yet brown. She shifted it into the bottom oven, where the temperature was lower and it could sit without spoiling, then stood to leave.

And that’s when she saw that Percy’s stained uniform trousers had joined her own pinafore on the kitchen table. Why, they must have been deposited when Saffy was in the pantry. What luck that Percy hadn’t discovered her reading the letter.

Saffy gave the trousers a shake. Monday was her official washing day, but it was just as well to leave the clothes to steep a while, especially where Percy’s uniform was concerned; the number and variety of stains Percy managed to collect would’ve been impressive if they weren’t so jolly difficult to remove. Still, Saffy enjoyed a challenge. She stuck her hand into first one pocket, then the other, in search of forgotten odds and sods that would spoil her load. And it was just as well she did.

Saffy pulled out the pieces of paper – goodness, such a number! – and laid them beside her on the work top. She shook her head wearily; she’d lost count of how many times she’d tried to train Percy to clear her pockets before putting clothes out for laundering.

But how strange – Saffy shifted the shreds about with her finger, located one with a stamp. It was, or had been once, a letter, torn now into pieces.

But why would Percy do such a thing? And who was the letter from?

A slamming noise above and Saffy’s gaze swung to the ceiling. Footsteps, another slam.