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CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH I AM INVITED INTO THE KENNEL.

T onight marks the first month since my arrival at Ensor House and I have – as has been the case almost every night, despite Mrs Pounds’ evident reservations – been invited to dine with the masters.

Beneath the coffered ceiling of the dining-room, under the ruddy glow of the brass chandelier’s candles, each painstakingly lighted by servants, Mrs Pounds watches me eat my dinner. She watches her husband watch me eat my dinner. Her eyes follow his gaze as it lands fleetingly upon my bosom. She watches me beam at his every ridiculous joke.

She dabs a napkin at the corners of her mouth before we rise from the table. Her eyes are fixed upon the floor as Mr Pounds bids us both good-night and retires to the library. Once her husband has departed, she picks up an ornate candelabrum from the table and bids me to follow her upstairs.

Andrew is asleep when Mrs Pounds enters his bed-room. The light of the candles stirs him. He wakes to find us standing over him amongst dancing shadows and bleats a little bit in shock.

Mrs Pounds extends her hand, and I wonder if she is about to caress the boy’s cheek, but instead she snatches a corner of his counterpane and yanks it off him.

‘This is filthy,’ Mrs Pounds says, waving the soiled material in my face.

‘Mother?’ asks Andrew in a shy timbre.

‘Are these paw prints, Miss Notty?’

I study the muddied pattern with a frown of concentration, then look to Mrs Pounds and say, with a hint of triumph, ‘Yes!’

‘Have I not made it expressly clear that the dog is allowed nowhere near the children’s beds?’

Andrew, intuiting the impending punishment developing in the air, feigns an immediate return to slumber.

‘Yes, Mrs Pounds,’ I say.

‘You have allowed this to happen under your watch, Miss Notty. As such, you are to blame. My children cannot be expected to follow rules if you, their moral compass, do not abide by them yourself.’

‘Well –’ I begin, about to suggest the differences between educating adults and children, when Mrs Pounds continues:

‘If you do not consider it abominable for my son to share his bed with a beast, then surely you will have no trouble doing the same.’

THE KENNEL IS a little house of painted pine with an iron tether, to which the dog is occasionally chained. Now unleashed, it is comfortably sprawled inside its quarters, blinking blissfully, its tongue lolling.

‘Get in,’ Mrs Pounds says.

‘Into where?’ I ask, a na?ve part of me wondering if she means we are to return to the house.

‘Do not play coy with me, Miss Notty,’ she says, regarding the dog unflinchingly. ‘Into the kennel.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Get in, Miss Notty. You shall sleep here tonight.’

Mrs Pounds grips the candleholder with force, her knuckles so white they appear reflective. I stoop to the ground and settle on my hands and knees. She stares at my buttocks, I can sense it as I crawl toward the dog, my skirts dragging through the mud.

I encounter some trouble entering the kennel; the dog refuses to make room for me, its drool heavy where it falls between my shoulder blades. I wriggle further in. The fresh country air is eclipsed by the stench of urine and damp fur. My eyes water. I try to turn away from the dog, but my elbows scrape the coarse pinewood walls.

‘You should be thankful the kennel is a large model,’ I hear Mrs Pounds say. ‘Other employers would not have been as forgiving.’

I refuse to allow my constricted lungs to waste air on words. There is only the reply of the wind shaking the surrounding shrubbery like a hushing choir.

‘This is my house, Miss Notty,’ Mrs Pounds tells me, somewhere behind me, as the dog yawns and a blast of hot, rancid breath blows into my mouth. ‘You will do well to remember that.’

The kennel is not as wretched as other servants’ accommodations, I reason, even in this house, where I’ve spied the hall boy shivering on a makeshift cot in the servants’ hall. This bed is, at least, supplied with thick woollen blankets and a warm, affectionate companion. ‘I do not covet this house,’ I assure it. It pants, swallows, continues to pant.

I had pictured Mrs Pounds as the sort of kind, matronly figure I have been lacking since Mother died, but these whimsical notions of mine have once again proved to be mistaken. What prompted Mr Pounds to choose her over other potential matches – and I’m sure there were many, given his wealth – is beyond my comprehension. The dog licking the side of my face, I picture Mr and Mrs Pounds making love. I find it is almost impossible to conjure them in a tender moment. He would surely be contemptuous the entire act, hands squeezing her throat, irritated by the slightest expression of her pleasure, watching her eyes go white . . .

I resolve to have no more of these thoughts. I shan’t go back to old ways. Old ways hasten me onto far too many trains. And I can’t leave Ensor House – not yet.

It is a cold, sleepless night. At one point the dog goes out to bark at something, extracting himself so fast and smoothly I feel he must have gone right through me.

At the purplish light of dawn, to the dainty tweeting of winter birds, I press against the kennel wall to push myself backwards, my skirts riding up my legs as I slide out, hard, boggy dirt smearing the front of my frock. The head gardener offers nothing in the way of a morning greeting after chancing upon the governess emerging, skirts-first, from the kennel. He regards me curiously as he chews on a crab apple, fishing into his mouth for deviated seeds with his gritty fingers.

I stumble on cramped legs to the privy, shaking dog hair from my shawl. Mid-way, sensing eyes on me, I stop, and turn, meeting the gaze of Mrs Pounds, who is watching from her favourite window. I smile a toothy grin, and wave. Mrs Pounds backs away from the window, disappearing from view.