She opened the little door and showed Milly there was nothing behind it. Such a space under the roof was called the eaves. There was nothing to be afraid of. She lit a candle, made Milly take it, made her look left and right—at nothing. The candle flickered. The flame died. Milly knew that was a sign. The dead maid had blown out the candle, as a warning.

Since then, there had been more noises in the night.

Last night she woke from a dream. Stephen, blindfolded, bleeding, being led along a corridor to the gallows.

What woke her was the sounds. Someone was in the room. She had lain still, not daring to move, not daring to open her eyes. It was the dead maid, come to warn her, but a ghost could not warn you if you kept your eyes tight shut and your body stiff as a log. The ghost slipped back into the eaves.

If a person can be brave once in a day, she can be brave twice. She struck a match, watched it splutter. The wick on the candle was low and so she held the match close, watching the black wick turn blue before the flame took and burned yellow.

There is nothing there, she told herself. Open the door. Do what the housekeeper did. Make yourself look. She would look right, she would look left. There would be nothing.

The candlestick trembled in her hand. The flame flickered as she stretched her arm into that cold dark space.

And then she dropped the candlestick. Metal clattering against beams, candle falling, the flame still glowing, and then blackness.

But before the blackness, she saw that there was something there.

She did not want to go below stairs and be mocked for her foolishness.

It was not time yet to turn down the bed for Mrs. Shackleton, but she went and did it anyway. After that, she sat on the carved oak chair in Mrs. Shackleton’s room, and waited.

Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

We were three for Sunday dinner, Gertrude, Benjie and me. Over Yorkshire pudding and gravy, Benjie gave a brief account of the sermon at Holy Trinity. “Vicar’s away still. Thought we’d have the curate but we had a stand-in from Wakefield. Sound chap, doesn’t overdo it. He spoke compassionate words on the loss of poor Mrs. Farrar.”

“That must have hit people so very hard.”

“It was a terrible shock. Left people frightened for their lives, until an arrest was made, and even then –”

Gertrude rested her knife and fork. “Darling, you were very good at reassuring the congregation afterwards.” She turned to me. “And what was your experience of the chapel, Kate?”

Knowing very well they would soon hear of the protest at the prison, I praised the music of the Temperance Band, and the peaceful vigil outside Wakefield Prison.