The Secrets of Hartwood Hall: A Novel

by Katie Lumsden

Genres: Gothic; General Fiction

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

It's 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, is offered a position as governess at Hartwood Hall. She quickly accepts, hoping this isolated country house will allow her to leave her past behind.

Cut off from the village, Margaret soon starts to feel there's something odd about her new home, despite her growing fondness for her bright, affectionate pupil, Louis. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs Eversham, Louis's widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village.

Margaret finds distraction in a forbidden relationship with the gardener, Paul. But despite his efforts to reassure her, Margaret is certain that everyone here has something hide. And as Margaret's own past threatens to catch up with her, she must learn to trust her instincts before it's too late...

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall is a chilling gothic mystery, and an authentic and atmospheric love letter to Victorian fiction.

'I loved this fresh take on the gothic genre. Vivid, haunting, surprising' STACEY HALLS, author of Sunday Times bestsellers The Familiars, The Foundling and Mrs England

'A full-blooded gothic mystery with bite, great characterisation and heaps of atmosphere' EMMA STONEX, author of Sunday Times bestseller The Lamplighters

©2023 Katie Lumsden (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Release date: February 28, 2023

Publisher: Dutton

Print pages: 347

Sample

When I think of Hartwood Hall, there are moments that come back to me again and again, moments that stain me, that cling like ink to my skin.

My first view of the house: a glimpse of stone, of turrets and gables, sash windows and long grass.

The sound of Louis’s laugh. Bright and golden, eager and young.

Paul’s hands in my hair, his body pressed against mine.

The silver locket, the dim portrait of the lost girl faded and worn within.

Lying cold in my bed at night, covers pulled tight around me, listening with my good ear to murmurs and taps in the darkness.

A figure in the distance, a shimmer beyond the lake. There, in the corner of my eye one moment. The next, vanished, leaving an empty impression behind.

The sound of a gunshot in the dark, running footsteps, burning flames and black, black sky.


CHAPTER I

Four weeks after we buried my husband, I found myself in the back of a carriage, trundling slowly uphill. The road was rough, the carriage ill-built, my black dress heavy, my eyes heavier. I had that kind of tiredness running through me that comes not from lack of sleep but from lack of rest, lack of calm. My body ached for something new.

Beyond the windows, I could see sweeping hills, tall grass swaying in hedged fields, rows of trees in distant apple orchards. We rattled by farmhouses and far-off villages, passed great houses set back from the road. Then green-brown wilderness for miles, not another carriage or even a laborer in sight. The sun streamed down on rivers and pathways, on dairy fields and scattered trees. This was a quiet part of the world, all mud and sun and sky.

I had caught the Great Western Railway from London to Bath the day before, emerged into a busy station in a cloud of steam. I'd stayed overnight in a quiet inn, then taken the post-chaise to a town I had never heard of. From there, a carriage was sent to meet me. I had thought at first it must be from the house, but when I inquired after Mrs. Eversham, the driver only scrunched up his nose and said, "I don't know, ma'am. Never heard of Hartwood Hall before now."

He had been instructed from afar, I supposed. He knew no more about Hartwood Hall than I did, and that was precious little. That the mistress was called Mrs. Eversham. That she, like me, was a widow. That she, unlike me, had a child. Louis Eversham. My new charge. A boy of ten years old.

And that was all.

I had met only with an agent in London-a stout woman of around fifty with iron-gray hair. The study in her house in Cheapside was gray, too, with dull-colored furniture and cushion-less chairs, a huge ledger adorning the pedestal desk.

"And you have been at several places, I see?" she'd asked, surveying my references.

"Yes."

"You are nine-and-twenty?"

"Yes."

"This last character is from three years ago."

I swallowed. Another mark against me. "I have been married, ma'am."

She glanced up, taking in my black dress, my widow's cap, with a quick nod. "A recent loss?"

I hesitated. If I told her how recent, she would think ill of me at once. "A little while ago," I said slowly.

That seemed to satisfy her. "You play the pianoforte, of course?"

"Yes."

"French? German? Latin?"

"Proficient in all, ma'am."

"You can teach mathematics and the sciences as well as reading and writing?"

"Certainly."

She glanced back down at her desk. "I see you have some trouble hearing."

"None that has ever caused me difficulty, ma'am," I said at once. "I cannot hear in my left ear, but my right is very good. You will see, I think, that my former mistress mentions it only to note how little it affected my abilities."

Once more she nodded, and I shifted uneasily in my chair. I needed work. I needed something. I had lost positions before because of my bad ear. Some mistresses caught word my hearing wasn't perfect and decided another woman would be more suitable for their child.

"That won't be a problem," she said. "I believe I may have something for you, Mrs. Lennox."

I breathed out. Here was salvation. A life to build. A fresh start.

That was a week ago. Characters from my previous employers had been sent, letters had been exchanged, and finally I was engaged. And now I was sitting in this carriage, heading toward my new life. It felt as though I had never been anything but a governess, as though it had been only a few weeks since I left my last place. Three years of my life, vanished into thin air. Three years of my life, and nothing but widow's weeds to show for it. I thought of Richard, his dark eyes, his freckled face, his gaunt figure those last few weeks.

I shut my eyes tight.

Beyond the carriage windows, the weather was turning. The sky had darkened from blue to mottled gray. I reached into my skirt pocket for my watch-well, Richard's watch, though it was mine now-and saw that it was not yet seven o'clock. I heard a rumble of thunder, and the coachman outside uttered a curse.

I had meant to think over future lessons in the carriage, to remind myself what a boy of ten might need to learn. But every time I tried to concentrate, I thought of Richard's face and my mind balked.

It was not my fault I was returning to work so soon. Everything else aside, I needed the money. I had spent the last four weeks in cramped lodgings, living off the sale of a necklace Richard had given me when we were first married. Even my mourning was reused; I had been forced to make the best of the black dresses I had worn when my mother died, darning here and there, turning out a seam, unplucking tighter threads at the waist.

A bad start, perhaps, for a widow-but it was not as though I had ever been a good wife.

Two hours later, the rain was furious and the darkness immense. The road seemed all turned to mud, and the horses were whinnying. I was about to call out and ask the driver how long it might be until we arrived when the horses began to slow.

Beyond the window, to one side, I could make out nothing but tangled hedges. When I looked to the other side, I could see the hazy glow of lamplight, just visible in the distance. Then the coachman's face appeared at the window, making me start.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said. He was wet through, tufts of gray hair matted to his forehead below his hat. "I don't know the way from here, 'specially in weather like this. See yonder-that's the village. Hartbridge, I believe. Bound to be a public house there. Someone'll know the way." He hesitated. "The track'll be rougher into the village. I could walk, or-"

"No," I said, not out of compassion for him as much as because I did not relish the thought of sitting alone in a storm. "You will only catch a chill on an evening like this."

He nodded. "Thank you, ma'am."

The road that led to Hartbridge village was indeed in a bad state of disrepair, and the carriage jolted over every stone, caught on each bramble. Gazing out of the window, I saw shadowy shapes in the dimness-scattered farmhouses and cottages, I supposed, the occasional patch of what must be yet another orchard-and then the dark black of water, a river snaking its way through the landscape. We rattled over an old stone bridge, and back onto the rough road.

By the time we reached the public house, the rain was falling harder still. The building stood out, its lamps aglow in the darkness. It was an old, quaint sort of place, the walls made of sandy gray stone, the roof thatched.

As the coachman dropped from his perch and walked up to the inn, I pulled the window down. I could smell the cider from here, a tang of apples that filled the air. We were only a few yards away from the open door. A man stood on the threshold, looking out into the gloom, dressed in dark trousers and a worn shirt, with an apron over his clothes that told me he must be the landlord.

I turned myself around so that my good ear was nearer to the conversation. The rain was thunderous, but still I could make out the landlord's voice.

"You'll have to wipe your boots bloody hard before you come in here," he was saying.

"I don't want to come in," the coachman replied. "And you'd best not swear-there's a lady in the carriage."

The landlord gave an incredulous smile. "We don't get many ladies here."

"I'm taking her up to Hartwood Hall. Can you direct me?"

The man hesitated, and his expression changed from one of amused surprise to one of distaste. "Hartwood Hall?" he repeated. "Don't get folks going there much."

"Do you know where it is?"

He hesitated. "You certain it's Hartwood Hall?"

This was absurd. I opened the door and stepped down from the carriage, feeling my boots sink into the mud. I was two yards from the carriage before I realized I had forgotten my bonnet. If the landlord had doubted I was a lady before, he would certainly do so now.

"Is there any reason," I asked, "why I should not go to Hartwood Hall?"

The coachman started when he heard me speak close at hand. "Ma'am, you might have waited in the carriage."

"Nobody ever goes to Hartwood Hall," said the landlord slowly.

"There is a family called the Evershams living there, I believe. I am engaged to be governess to the little boy."

He raised his eyebrows. Then, addressing the coachman, not me, he said, "It's north of here. Go back to the main road and on about a mile-there's a path up through the woods to the house. Once you come out of the trees, you'll find it. Big, grand place."

Beside me, the coachman was nodding, seemingly satisfied. He murmured his thanks and was about to turn back to the carriage when I said, again, "But is there any reason I should not go there?"

I spoke in the voice I used with young charges who would not confess to mischief.

"No reason, miss," the landlord said. "Folks say it's cursed, but I dare say a lady like yourself wouldn't believe such talk."

"Of course not."

The coachman took a step toward the carriage.

"What are the family like?" I asked. "Mrs. Eversham and her son?"

"Couldn't tell you. Never seen them since they came, and that was seven years ago now."

"And the servants?"

He shrugged. "They keep themselves to themselves. No one from hereabouts works up there, save Paul Carter."

My coachman was with the horses now, and my dress was becoming heavy with rain. I thanked the landlord, perhaps not very graciously, and struggled back through the mud to the carriage, thinking over his words.

Cursed.

How ridiculous. How thoroughly foolish.

I heard the horses neigh and sat back, wet through, as we began to move.

After a mile or two, I could make out the woods, a dense black shape in the distance. It was nearing ten, and I was late. The little boy would already be in bed.

The trees were mere shadows, twisting forms of curling branches and scattered leaves. Rogue brambles and undergrowth tapped and scratched at the carriage, and I heard the coachman swear and whip the horses to go faster.

Out in the darkness, amid the driving rain, I saw something stir in the woods, a shuffling, a shifting, a figure moving through the trees.

No, not a figure. An animal, no doubt. A deer in the moonlight, a bird preparing for flight.

Of course I did not believe the house was cursed-but when people feared a place, there was usually a reason. I must expect to find these Evershams strange.

At last we were out of the trees. As the horses pulled on, I saw rain falling on water, and a shadowy little building standing apart on the other side of the lake. I leaned out of the window to look up at the main house, and found my head soaked at once.

Hartwood Hall was very grand. I could tell it must be the shape of a horseshoe, with the middle part of the house set back from its two wings, a courtyard in the center-but in the darkness I could see only two towering shapes of gray stone, a dark void between them. I saw a dim light in a sash window in the east wing, and that was all. The rest of the house was dead.

This, then, was my new home.

We pulled up to the house, the horses complaining all the way. When we finally stopped, there was a splash of boots in mud and the carriage door opened.

"Here we are, ma'am," said the coachman.

While he took my trunk and carpet bag from the carriage, I crossed the cobbled courtyard. The gray walls of the house, surrounding us on three sides, blocked any moonlight the clouds had not smothered, and I had to wait for my eyes to adjust before I could make out the faint outline of a fountain in the center of the courtyard, a tree grown close to one side of the house, and an ornate brass knocker on the huge oak doors.

I pulled it forward, let it drop and bang.

We waited for some minutes in the driving rain. The coachman looked half drowned by the time I heard the heavy sound of bolts moving, and one of the double doors finally creaked open.

A woman stood before me. She was small, wearing a neat gray dress, her hair tucked beneath a mobcap. The housekeeper, to be sure. She looked somewhere between fifty and sixty, with little wrinkles about the eyes and a grave, set mouth. She held a candle in one hand.

"You are Mrs. Lennox, I suppose?" Her voice was clipped and low, the accent not local. She sounded as though she might, like me, have come from Hampshire or Surrey.

"Yes. I am sorry I am late. The weather-"

She nodded, and held the door open a little wider. As I stepped inside, she handed me the candle without a word, then took my trunk and carpet bag from the coachman and hauled them into the house. If he expected to be asked inside to dry himself by the fire, he was disappointed. He glanced between me and the housekeeper, then trudged slowly back to his horses. The housekeeper closed the door with a crash, and we were left alone in the dark.