Eileen’s sister came to collect the maid mid-morning, and proved to be a much more solid type than her flighty sister, nudging Eileen as they were leaving and reminding her to say thank you to ‘miss’. Lady Harris had left it to Sarah’s discretion as to whether she allowed the new maid any days off, and the allotted four had been more than Eileen had hoped for.
‘Yes, thank you ever so much, miss.’ Eileen’s pretty pert face was full of smiles. ‘I’ll be back nice and early on the twenty-ninth, me dad’s going to drop me off when he visits me aunty in Lewisham. Don’t get too lonely all by yourself, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
‘I’ll be perfectly all right, Eileen.’ Sarah was smiling but her voice was cool. The new maid was slow in her work about the house but a sight too forward in every other respect.
‘Ta-ta, then, miss, and Merry Christmas.’
Sarah stood for a moment more, watching the two of them walking down the street, then stepped back into the house. She had plenty to do and she had to be at the hospital at midday. She was hoping there would be time, when she left the hospital later that evening, to call in at a couple of the good secondhand shops and have a look for a pair of shoes to go with Lady Margaret’s outfit, but if she couldn’t find anything she would have to make do with the pair she wore on Sundays and for best. They were nice, fashionable, but being brown, not quite right with the outfit. And she wanted to have a bath and wash her hair tonight before she went to bed, and press the suit ready for morning. Excitement gripped her again, and she found herself humming a Christmas carol as she collected her parcels for the children and made ready to leave.
As it happened, she was later leaving the hospital than she would have liked. One of the children who had taken a particular fancy to her was fractious and over-excited, and she didn’t feel able to leave until the little tot was soundly asleep. When she emerged into the foggy December night all the shops had long since shut, and the mercurial British weather had transformed the crisp bright cold of the morning into a bone-chilling dampness, curling wreaths of mist floating in the cold air.
The streets were almost deserted as she hurried home, although it was only just eight o’clock, and circles of dull gold from the street lamps cast an eerie glow on the wet pavements. By the time she reached Emery Place her heart was thudding and she was out of breath, and once in the house she leant against the closed door for a moment or two before walking through to the kitchen and warming some milk.
The problem of her footwear was still occupying half her mind as she drank the milk and ate two chocolate biscuits that Hilda had made specially for Christmas, but when a cat screeched somewhere outside, the sound jarring the peace and quiet of the warm kitchen, it reminded her she was all alone in the big house. But she was safe enough. She made a deep obeisance with her head to the thought. Lady Harris had shutters on all the downstairs windows that could be bolted each night, and the front door and the back door, which overlooked a small paved area surrounded by an eight-foot brick wall, had three bolts each, besides heavy mortice locks. Fort Knox couldn’t have done better. And then there was the telephone.
She washed her mug and put it away, and was just crossing the hall, intending to begin the procedure of locking up for the night, when the doorbell rang, making her jump. She stopped dead, staring first at the door and then glancing at her watch. A quarter to nine. Who on earth would be calling on Lady Harris at a quarter to nine on Christmas Eve?
When the sound came again she walked across to the door and put the safety chain on, before opening it two or three inches and peering out.
‘Well? Open the door, girl.’
‘Sir Geoffrey?’ In her surprise she almost did what he said, closing the door again and her hand reaching for the chain before it froze on the cold metal. What was she doing? What
was
she doing? Why had Lady Harris had the locks changed if not to keep her son out?
‘I’m sorry, Sir Geoffrey.’ He had been standing at the bottom of the steps when she had first opened the door, but as she peeped through the opening again she saw he was now on the top step and just inches away from her. ‘Lady Harris and Lady Margaret and the children are away.’
‘Are they?’ There had been the barest pause, but enough to tell Sarah the family’s absence was not unexpected. ‘No matter. There are some papers I need, and it is a matter of some urgency.’ And then, as he pushed against the door, ‘Is the chain still on? What are you thinking of, girl. Let me in.’
‘I - I can’t do that.’ She hadn’t seen Lady Harris’s son since the night he had raped Peggy, but now, as she met the light, speckled eyes, the intervening weeks fell away and she felt sick to her stomach. ‘Lady Harris left orders no one was to be admitted to the house in her absence.’
‘And you are following her directive to the letter? Very commendable, I’m sure, but I hardly think it applies to me.’ He paused, and as his tongue flicked briefly over his full bottom lip Sarah actually shuddered, the licentiousness she could read in his pale, unhealthy-looking face making her flesh creep.
‘I’m sorry, Sir Geoffrey.’
‘You will be if you don’t open this door, girl. I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘Lady Harris—’
‘Is your employer, and my mother,
my mother
, got it? I hardly need to stress where that places you with regard to who has the authority here. I’m going to tell you one more time. Open the door.’
‘I can’t do that, Sir Geoffrey. If you want to tell me which papers you need, I will phone Fenwick now and ask Lady Harris if it’s all right for me to get them for you, but I can’t open the door without her permission.’
‘
Open it
.’
‘No. If your mother had wanted you to have free admittance she would have given you a key.’
‘You conniving little upstart.’ It was soft and deadly, and in the same moment that a string of obscenities began to flow Sarah made to shut the door, but Sir Geoffrey was too quick for her, forcing his foot into the opening.
‘No, no . . .’ How long she struggled with the door Sarah didn’t know, but she was aware of an almost paralysing fear that the chain wouldn’t hold, her terror so great that it was strangling any cries for help she might have uttered.
‘You think you can get the better of me?’ There were bubbles of saliva at the corners of the loose-lipped mouth. ‘You? A little whore like you? I’ll make you rue the day you were born, girl, you see if I don’t. You think I don’t know what you’re after? Why you’ve been filling their heads with your poison?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘You might fool those two dried-up old sticks, but not me. Oh no, not me, girl. I’ve seen too many like you on their backs earning their keep when they’ve got too cocky. I know exactly how to treat a scheming little bitch like you.’
‘Get away, you just get away from me.’
‘You’ll be begging me to take you one day, do you know that?’ He had thrust his face close to the crack now, his fingers wrapped round the edge of the door as she moaned in hysterical panic. ‘But I shall enjoy myself first, and I’m a man who knows how to enjoy himself. Oh, you’ll beg all right, but it won’t be easy and quick. Oh no. Not for you.’ There followed something so lewd that Sarah fell back a pace, one hand going to her throat as the other pressed into her breastbone, and as he seized the opportunity to force his shoulder against the door again she let out a scream of such piercing intensity that she surprised both herself and Sir Geoffrey. Following that she flung herself against the straining door with such force that she actually heard something crack at the same time as Sir Geoffrey let out a shrill screech of pain, and then, as the door bounced against the chain and released him, he fell backwards, landing in a heap on the pavement below where he lay groaning and clutching his foot.
Sarah didn’t wait to see any more, shutting the door and fumbling for the bolts, her efforts hindered by the tears streaming down her face. When the last one was in place she leant against the door before sliding down onto the floor, aware that the commotion outside had ceased and all was quiet. She felt sick, so sick. It had all been so violent and happened so fast.
Oh, oh, he was a monster, he was
. Her ears were ringing and but for the fact that she was already on the floor, she knew she would have fainted. As it was she felt her head swimming, consciousness fast receding, before she forced herself to draw long gasping breaths into her labouring lungs. He had been going to attack her, physically attack her - she had read it in his eyes.
The dizziness was clearing but now shock began to cut in, making her shake from head to foot. He must have been planning this. It wasn’t coincidence that he had chosen the first night she was here on her own to try and force his way in to his mother’s house. No, he had known she was all alone here tonight. He had been watching the house; either that or he’d got someone else, a neighbour maybe, to tell him the comings and goings of its inhabitants. Had he really been after some papers from the morning room, or had it all been a ruse to enter the house with a view to attacking her?
She just managed to reach the big deep porcelain sink in the kitchen before the nausea swamped her, but once the retching was over she felt slightly better, splashing cold water from the running tap over her face and neck and then straightening as she heard the telephone ring in the hall.
‘Hallo?’ It was all she could manage after she had lifted the receiver.
‘Is that Lady Harris’s residence? It’s Colonel Barnett, number twenty-three, don’t you know. You got a spot of bother in there, m’dear? My man heard the devil of a commotion in the street a few minutes ago, and knowing the Robinsons and the Mathers are away, either side of you, I thought I’d give you a bell to make sure nothing’s amiss.’
‘Oh, Colonel Barnett.’ She felt limp with relief at the sound of the kind and terribly normal voice. ‘It’s just . . . There was someone here, and Lady Harris had said not to let anyone in. She’s gone to her country house.’ She wasn’t making much sense, but even in her distress she knew Lady Harris would not like her private affairs becoming public. ‘I think he’s gone now.’
‘Would you like Jackson to see what’s what? He doesn’t stand any nonsense, Jackson. Whoever the blighter is, Jackson will be up to it. Best batman a fellow could have.’
‘That’s - that’s very kind of you.’
‘Not at all, m’dear, not at all. Poor affair if we can’t look out for each other, what? He’ll have a scout around, don’t you worry, but I won’t disturb you again if there’s nothing to report.’
‘Thank you, thank you very much.’
She took down Colonel Barnett’s telephone number as a precaution in case Sir Geoffrey came back, although she didn’t think there was much chance of that, and after thanking the old soldier again, replaced the receiver.
After checking each of the downstairs windows to make sure the shutters were bolted and secure, and also the front and back doors, Sarah walked through to the kitchen and poured herself a hefty measure of brandy from the bottle Hilda kept in her cupboard for flavouring the fruitcakes Lady Harris liked so much. She drank the neat alcohol straight down, grimacing as she did so, but felt better for the fire in her belly.
The things he had said. She shook her head slowly in a downward swaying motion. What a vile man, and to think poor Lady Margaret had been married to him for nine years. No wonder she said she felt as though she had been reborn.
She warmed some more milk in a saucepan, and added another good tot of brandy to it once she had tipped it into a mug, before leaving the kitchen and walking upstairs with the steaming drink. Once in her room all strength seemed to leave her, and she sat for some minutes on the bed before forcing herself to sip the milk and get ready for her bath.
Should she tell Lady Harris what had occurred this evening? She contemplated the matter as she walked through to the bathroom and ran the hot water. It would upset the old lady though, she knew that, and perhaps all things considered Lady Margaret was the one to tell. She could leave it to her whether she told her mother-in-law and how she broached it. Yes, she’d phone Fenwick once Christmas Day was over and ask to speak to Lady Margaret.
She had a long soak in the hot water, revelling in the luxury as she felt the therapeutic effect of the warmth relax tense muscles and ease the strain from her limbs. She washed her hair after half an hour of wallowing, towelling it almost dry before she left the bathroom clad in her nightie and dressing gown.