House of Secrets

Polly Perkins first walks through the imposing gates of Swallowcliffe Hall at the age of fourteen to take up her position as under-housemaid. The year is 1890, and the fashion for lavish entertaining is at its height. Guests are constantly arriving for country house parties, and Polly is one of the many servants who must cater for their every need. She soon discovers, however, that beneath the gaiety and elegance of high society runs an undercurrent which is altogether darker and deeper … 

'Polly, wake up!’ For a moment I had no idea where I was – perhaps in the bed I shared at home with my younger sister Lizzie, who must have been telling me it was time to be up and off to the vicarage to work. But when I opened my eyes, it was Iris who was shaking my shoulder and smiling down at me.

‘What is it?’ I asked in a panic, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘Am I too late? Are they all still here?’

It was nearly the end of my second week at the Hall, and the Vyes were entertaining guests to dinner. The gentlemen were in the billiard room, smoking and drinking brandy, while the ladies chatted over cards and tea in the drawing room. Jemima had told me to wait out of sight across the corridor, so that I could tidy up the rooms after the company had gone. It was well after midnight and, although I was sitting on a hard chair in a corner of the dining room, I had not been able to keep my eyes open a second longer.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Iris whispered. ‘Don’t worry, William told me you were here – no one else has seen you. I’ve just made hot chocolate for a couple of the ladies and he’s taken it through. They probably won’t be much longer.’

‘I hope not.’ I yawned and eased my aching back. Every bone in my body felt stiff and sore: my knees were blistered from those terrible hard floors, my arms red raw up to the elbow with scrubbing, and the skin on my hands all cracked and chapped from a constant dunking in icy water. I had been up since six o’clock that morning and felt decidedly sorry for myself. 

‘You’ll get used to the work in the end,’ Iris told me sympathetically. ‘I’ll sit here for a while with you, if you like. Has Jemima gone off to bed?’

I nodded. ‘You’ll get used to her too,’ Iris said. ‘She can be a little – well, sharp, sometimes, but don’t take it to heart.’

‘I think she hates me,’ I confessed. ‘I seem to have offended her, and haven’t the first idea what to do about it.’

Iris laughed. ‘Oh, it’s not your fault. She’s only cross because she has to clean the servants’ quarters, and that’s something she considers beneath her dignity. We are one housemaid short, you see – there was a girl dismissed the week before you came, so Mary picked Jemima to work with you. She thinks she’s a cut above the rest of us, and she’s very quick to take offence. But there’s bound to be a new maid coming soon and then everything will be back to normal. So cheer up! Besides, it’s Sunday tomorrow. We’ll have the afternoon off.’

Then we heard the gentlemen coming back to join the ladies after their cigars, so I hurried off to tidy the billiard room. It was another half hour before the guests finally left, and another half hour on top of that before I was done with my work and could at last climb the endless staircase to our room. All I wanted was to sleep like the dead until morning (not so very far away now), but a storm was building up and the wind battered against the window beside me as though it was determined to break in – even though I had managed to stop the worst of the rattling with a handkerchief wedged into the frame. The noise made me feel restless and afraid as I drifted in and out of sleep, tossing and turning in my narrow bed. And then suddenly I was startled completely awake by the certain knowledge that somebody was there in the darkness with me, their face very close to my own and their breath cool upon my cheek.

I lay there for a few seconds, rigid with terror, staring wide-eyed into the pitch black while my heart hammered as though it would jump out of my chest. The room seemed to be full of strange noises: rustling, creaking, and a low moaning which was surely something other than the wind outside. At last, after what seemed like an eternity, I summoned up the courage to reach for the matchbox on the chair next to my bed. But by the time my trembling fingers had succeeded in lighting the candle, whoever – or whatever – had been leaning over me, was gone. All I could see were the humped, still shapes of Jemima, Becky and Iris, sleeping soundly through the night.