The Housekeeper's Rules – Part 2: Lights Out

After the servants' supper, which she ate at the head of the table and he at the foot, she rose and tapped her keys against the wood. "A footman who is careless in the pantry is careless in the drawing room. The household has discussed it. You will receive correction."

"Yes, Mrs Beaumont."

"You will come with me."

The housekeeper's room was a narrow chamber off the corridor with a plain bed, a tallboy and a lamp. She shut the door and turned the key in the lock, and held up the key so he could see her hang it on the hook beside the door, at his side. "That is yours to take, any time."

"I understand."

"Then kneel."

The correction was a masterclass in authority. She never raised her voice. She made him recite the rules of the house until he stumbled, and stopped him, and made him begin again. She stood him against the wall with a book on his head. She held his chin with two cool fingers and looked into his eyes and told him precisely, in the cold phrases of a Victorian servants' manual, what she thought of his character. All of it was theatre, and all of it landed, and the room seemed to shrink to the lamp, the keys and the low voice.

"Are you content?" at every chime of the clock. And every time, "Content, Mrs Beaumont."

At midnight she blew out the lamp.

"Pantry," she said, softly.

It was her word, spoken for both of them. The collar came off, the keys were set down. In the dark she was Cora, warm and a little breathless, wrapping a blanket round him and pulling him against her shoulder.

"How was that?"

"I've never been so tidy," said Julian, and laughed, and was close to tears. "Or so... looked after."

"That is what the housekeeper is for." She kissed his forehead. "Same time in the autumn. The east wing has a very strict governess's room."

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