‘You don’t need to knock at the door, daftie,’ said Clara. She jumped down from the table where she had been perching and gave her cigarette to Mattie to finish. Then she seized a cloth, opened the oven and drew out a steaming dish of rice pudding bubbling away merrily under a dark russet skin. ‘I’ll come back and do the tea,’ she called over her shoulder, leaving Mattie and me behind her.
Mattie took a tentative puff of the cigarette, grimaced and threw it onto the fire. I thought I should show willing and I took down the largest of the teapots which were ranged on the chimneypiece and gingerly poured in a little hot water from the kettle to warm it through.
‘Careful, miss,’ said Mattie, then bit his lip. ‘Sorry, but you d’ae look fair handy with that, if you’ll pardon me.’
‘Perhaps you could help?’ I said, holding the pot out to him. He beamed with pleasure and took it from me.
‘I always make the tea at home, at my mammy’s,’ he said. ‘Been doing it since I was a wee tiny boy.’ I looked around myself helplessly; I did not even know where the sugar and milk might be and I wished I had a cigarette to keep my hands busy.
‘So what do you make of all this then, Mattie?’ I said. His face stilled again, the smile gone.
‘Master?’ he said. I nodded. ‘I d’ae ken, miss. I’m glad I never saw it. Was it as bad as Eldry said?’
‘It wasn’t very nice to look at,’ I told him. ‘But what I really meant was what do you make of… what Mr Faulds said? And Harry?’
‘I d’ae ken,’ said Mattie again. I waited, sure that more would come if I let it. Mattie spooned tea leaves into the pot and then reached up to replace the caddy on the chimneypiece. ‘I’m no’ sorry he’s deid,’ he said at last, ‘and I’d be right sorry to see any o’ them through there deid. Hanged, I mean, miss. Even Stanley.’
‘Stanley?’ I could not help echoing. ‘Why him, in particular?’
‘Sorry,’ said Mattie. ‘Sorry, I shouldnae have said that. Just that him and me don’t get on as easy as me and the rest, that’s all. He swanks it a bit to the rest o’ us. And he can be a wee bit two-faced an’ all, miss. He’s aye sucking up to Mr Faulds, but you should hear what he says about him when his back’s turned.’
‘I have,’ I said. ‘Snippets, anyway. But I have to agree with you, Mattie. I can’t think of any of our friends through there that I would see hanged, even after only a day of knowing them. Stanley included.’ We shared a smile. ‘But I am sorry that Mr Balfour died the way he did, for he did me no harm.’
The silence this time was even longer, but eventually Mattie spoke up.
‘He didnae harm me either, miss,’ he said softly. ‘No’ really. It was my own stupid fault, being such a… nancy. That’s what he called it. All it was was he made me wait up for him, up in the wee lobby place, at the front door, when he was out, no matter how late he was out. In the dark there. I’m feart for the dark, miss, and he knew it but he wouldnae let me get Harry or anyone do it instead of me – it had to be me because I’m the only one that was feart.’
‘That’s beastly,’ I said. ‘And quite unnecessary too.’
‘Well, I had to open the front door for him, miss,’ said Mattie, ‘and then lock up again at his back, pull his boots off and take them to clean. Only he wouldnae let me keep a light on, so I just had to wait in the dark. Not every night, mind,’ he said. ‘Only when he was out somewhere. And anyway, I just needed to stop being daft.’
‘I can’t agree with that, Mattie,’ I said. ‘No one can say why one person is frightened of the dark and another isn’t, but there’s no need to go calling yourself unkind names.’
‘Oh, I ken fine why it is,’ Mattie said. ‘It’s why I’m here instead of at the pit still, miss. I was in a fall – a collapse, like – and I was trapped until they came to get me out.’
‘Trapped down a mine?’ I said, grimacing. I could not imagine anything more terrifying, and I could not imagine this child, with his blond hair and his slight frame, ever doing anything so filthy and dreadful as mining.
‘I was putting for my big brother,’ Mattie said.
‘Putting?’
‘Dragging the cart,’ said Mattie. ‘My big brother was at the face and I filled the cart and dragged it back to the road for him.’
‘But aren’t there lifts?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Pulleys?’
Mattie nodded, looking just as puzzled, and then he gave a smile.
‘The coal road, I mean, miss,’ he said. ‘Underground. Joins the shaft to where the coal face starts. Anyway, there was this wee collapse. Naeb’dy died and it never got in the papers and it was only a few hours but… John lost a leg, miss. So I’m lucky really. Only I couldnae go down again, not even for a fortune. It’s no’ like I didnae try.’
‘And master knew this?’ I said. Mattie nodded. ‘But still made you sit in the dark all alone and wait for him?’ Another nod. ‘Unspeakable!’ But even as I spoke up so stoutly – and truly I was incensed on young Mattie’s behalf – there was a question about his story, at least one, which did not make sense. Something about it troubled me. ‘Mattie,’ I began, but someone appeared in the doorway before I could continue. It was Mr Faulds himself, and both the hall boy and I stood almost to attention.
‘What’s happened to that tea?’ he said. Mattie rapidly filled the pot with water, swiped up a large milk jug from where it had been sitting on a stone shelf under the window and left us.
‘Well, Miss Rossiter,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘Fanny, if I may. You’ve been talking to Clara and Mattie, have you? And what say you now? Are you getting to think he’s no loss?’
‘I’m certainly beginning to think you must all love mistress a great deal to stay in a house that had him in it too,’ I said. ‘And here’s another thing, Mr Faulds. You didn’t see what was done to him, but you’ve all heard about it. Aren’t you scared to be in the same house with someone who could do such a thing? Aren’t you worried at all that now he’s started he won’t stop?’
‘He, Fanny?’ said the butler. ‘Who’s this “he”? I’m the only “he” that’s had the finger pointed and if it was me who did it, I’ve nothing to fear, now have I?’
‘Did the superintendent point his finger?’ I said. ‘You don’t seem unduly troubled by it.’
‘The innocent have nothing to fear from the truth,’ he said.
With Mr Faulds’s permission, and since Lollie seemed set to sleep the day away, I went out after luncheon. I had told the cook and butler as we sat together in the armchairs that I hoped they understood but I just needed to get out into the fresh air and lift my eyes to the hills (this was one of Grant’s coded expressions for whenever she feels like sloping off and can think of no actual reason). The cost of my freedom was to regale them with the details of what I had seen, once the youngsters were all safely out of the way and the servants’ hall door was firmly closed behind them. Mrs Hepburn merely sucked her teeth, shook her head and continued unwrapping and devouring an endless succession of mint toffees, but Mr Faulds was badly affected by the tale and wiped his neck and forehead several times with his handkerchief before I was done.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘I hope them police will have the cleaning of it all, Mrs Hepburn. I hope them sheets and blankets won’t get left for our girls to tackle.’
‘I’ll take care of them if it falls to us,’ I said. ‘I was a nurse in the war and I’ve seen worse.’
Mr Faulds shuddered.
‘I’ve never been any good with the likes of that,’ he said. ‘Not as bad as poor Stanley, but bad enough. I saw a man hang himself – by accident, this was – in the backstage at the Bristol Hippodrome in my performing days, caught himself up in the ropes and couldn’t get free and it was the only time in my life I couldn’t go on. I was in my dressing room as grey as a ghost and put to shame with all the chorus and the dancing girls getting on with the show.’ Mrs Hepburn tutted again and offered him a toffee.