Swallow Hall Murder

by Noreen Wainwright

  She’d rang the hospital and though she expected the news on Archie to be the innocuous “comfortable”, there were still a few moments of high anxiety, while she was waiting to be put through and again while she was waiting for the ward sister to come on the line. He was comfortable, she said. But, further than that she wouldn’t go. They would know more after the consultant’s round in the morning.

  Edith had telephoned Aunt Alicia and reassured her. Henry had come and kept her company. She’d said nothing about the conversation with Julia. Talking about it with anyone but Archie would be idle speculation; pointless. It was neither fair nor logical, but she resented Julia for saying anything and not just because Hester was there. But also, if she were brutally honest, it was annoying that Julia claimed to know the inward workings of Archie’s mind after a brief fling, whereas she who shared a house with him, was clueless.

  * * *

  Albert Greene sipped the neat whiskey, steadily, slowly. What the hell had he done? Bet had been up, in the kitchen when he got in and his instinct had been to acknowledge her with a brief word, and go straight up to the spare room.

  She hadn’t fawned over him or offered to make him a drink or a sandwich or any of the ploys he was getting used to. She just sat there, in the small armchair, by the stove, her hands folded in her lap; something diminished about her.

  “Are you all right?” he just hadn’t been able to help himself.

  She shrugged, “yes,”

  “You don’t look it.”

  Why hadn’t he stopped there? It was because he’d never before seen her like this; that was why. He’d seen her angry more times that he cared to remember—petulant, seductive, demanding…all those things. But, never like this. Defeated.

  Still, she didn’t say anything, and it became like a compulsion with him to get to the bottom of this abrupt change in mood.

  “Something must have happened to upset you?”

  “Nothing, Albert. I told you. I’m going to bed.” Her voice wobbled, and as she got up, she got a handkerchief from her cardigan pocket. He moved to one side to let her pass. That should have been it.

  Her smallness, her disappointment, in him, in life, got through to him. It was a muddle, wasn’t it? Some her fault, but some his too. Memories… a picnic where it had rained and she sulked, but he made her laugh. Their wedding, hurried because of the war; letters full of trivia. He’d liked getting them, if only for a while, before everything changed.

  “Oh, Bet,” was all he said and he only touched her arm with a feather-like touch. Then he put an arm around her and it became a hug and she rested her head on him in a way that was at the same time right and wrong. Even then, it could have been left at that. A comforting hug. Unwise, but harmless.

  She raised her face and with a split second of clarity, of knowing he was making one of the biggest mistakes of his life, he hesitated. Then, he kissed her.

  She was asleep now. After they had sex and it was sex not love, she looked at him and in the light from the lamp, she’d put on the table, he saw her eyes gleam. They had the iridescent quality of a tiger’s eyes. Was it satisfaction he saw in them, or triumph, or neither? He lay there, praying for her to turn away from him, praying even more for her to fall sleep. It had taken a long time, and he’d crept out of bed soundlessly, listening to her breathing.

  The whiskey was dulling everything, making him think that it wasn’t the end of the world, he was making too much of it. He couldn’t drink much more, there was a big day a head of him tomorrow. Just another small glass.

  * * *

  Archie was sitting up in bed when Edith and Henry walked into the small room he’d been allocated.

  “You look better; Archie you really do. They’re not releasing you today?” She’d waylaid the staff nurse on her way past the office in the big ward.

  “They would if I had anything to do with it. I’ll stay one more day, and then if needs be, I’ll discharge myself. What have you done about surgery, Edith?”

  “It’s under control. Don’t go off the deep end, Archie but Roland Pritchard has helped out. Phoebe and I went through the appointments. Almost all of them could be postponed; the odd urgent case, he agreed to see. The same with home visits.”

  “Eek,” Archie put his head in his hands and then raised and shook it.

  “I knew you wouldn’t like it, Archie, but it was Hobson’s choice.”

  “I know. Look, I’m not complaining, really. You did your best and Phoebe too. Thank you, too, Henry for bringing Edith in and supporting her.”

  Edith looked at her brother. What had got into him? It was ridiculous, but it was like a weight had dropped from him. His face was slightly pale, but apart from that, there was a lightness which was new and at odds with what she’d been expecting to see. At odds with how he’d been lately too.

  “I’ll need to get a locum in. I could do with some help with that, Edie. I’m hoping to get out of here tomorrow, but in the meantime, old Prendergast in Harrogate should be able to suggest someone.”

  More surprises. Edith avoided Henry’s eye. On the way here, she’d agonised about this. How was she going to persuade Archie that he’d need some help in the practice; at the very least, in the short-term? She had braced herself to broach it with him. She glanced at her brother, looking comfortable, sitting up in a hospital bed, organising them all. It was the direct opposite of what she’d expected to see. That Yorkshire saying about there being nowt so queer as folk—the older she got, the truer it seemed.

  * * *

  “I need a walk, Henry. Do you have time? Hospitals have that effect on me, funnily enough, despite the fact that I used to work as a VAD. But, first and foremost, I must call on Aunt Alicia. I promised faithfully. She’d love to see you too.”

  “Well, I’ve managed to clear the decks for a few hours so I’ll be able to do both, if you want company, of course?”

  “I do,” Edith hesitated, considered whether to say anything. After all, wasn’t it just bothering trouble, looking for something else to worry about? It was. She’d leave it for now. Henry wouldn’t have any more insight into Archie’s frame of mind than she herself. She’d speak to Archie when he was out of hospital. It should be easy if his present mood remained with him.

  * * *

  “That’s one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Only a few sandwiches,” Aunt Alicia said.

  It had been, though. Edith hadn’t eaten properly since the middle of the previous day, and it was always restful at her aunt’s house.

  “I’ve been doing a little bit of investigating since I spoke to you last.” Her aunt looked from one to the other of them. Her relief on hearing that Archie was apparently well and recovered from his chest pains had been great. Edith saw the tension leave her body. Their simple meal had been eaten in an almost festive atmosphere. Maybe that was why a few sandwiches had tasted like a fine feast.

  “There’s an old friend of mine…older than me by a few years. She lives now with her widowed daughter in Shropshire. Mavis Goodwin. We ring each other up maybe three or four times a year. I have to shout a bit as she’s become hard of hearing, but it’s always an interesting chat with Mavis. Unlike myself, she spent her whole life…well, up to the last few years in this corner of Yorkshire. I’m not saying that she hasn’t settled in Much Wenlock; she has, but her conversation is always about Ellbeck, very often about characters from our youth.”

  Edith looked at her aunt. It was always interesting, this sort of conversation. Older people should have their words and stories recorded. Hadn’t she read somewhere that the BBC was doing that very thing?

  “Where she gets her news from, I’ll never know. She knows more of what’s going on in this area than I do myself.”

  “She must keep in touch with a few others, then.”

  “She does and a niece sends her the Gazette every week. Of course, she’d read about the body found on the grounds of Swallow Hall. She didn’t know
anything about the young man, but of course, she knew the Turners well, particularly Muriel Turner. But, the daughters too.”

  “Really?” Edith’s interest was piqued. Hester had been open about her relatives, but how much did even she know? After all, her life was in London. And her father had been dead now for years.

  “She told me a horrible story,” Aunt Alicia’s voice had a tone of intense interest. But then, she hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t repeat gossip.”

  “Oh, Aunt Alicia, you can’t do that, tell me half a story and leave me wondering…” Her aunt had a guilty expression now, and Edith laughed.

  “Fair enough. It’s about Elizabeth. She was always a handful growing up; mistreating her sister and brother too, if she could get away with it. I think the only one of them who could handle her was Kate. They had several governesses; all left saying the child was unmanageable. The parents didn’t help by all accounts. The mother had no time for any of them apart from Leonard, the son. The father was indulgent or at least he turned a blind eye to it all, refused to believe that she was capable of pinching and biting and throwing the most appalling tantrums.”

  “Sounds like she needed help, to me, Aunt Alicia.”

  Her aunt sighed. “It’s 1936, dear, and we live in more enlightened times. Forty or so years ago, there was a stronger belief in good and evil. Bad behaviour was punished, and on the whole, parents and teachers did that because they thought it would work, teach the child right from wrong and therefore save her from a life of misery, and maybe even from becoming a criminal of some sort.”

  It was true. Some of the older women at St. Bride’s, whom she’d seen there, had had something so sad about them, beaten down and institutionalised by the system. But maybe if you read their old notes, the reason they came to the attention of the authorities in the first place would be because of the wayward sort of behaviour her aunt was describing. Then, there had been the tragic story of poor Esther Kirk… She shook her head against such sad thoughts and turned back to her aunt.

  “Eventually, they sent her to a small church school as a boarder. All was well for a while until the novelty wore off. Then she began picking on smaller and weaker girls. But one of the girls she bullied wasn’t strong enough to deal with it. She ran away, and a search was launched.”

  It was history repeating itself. Hadn’t her mother also kicked against the system and caused mayhem. “Oh, no,” Edith dreaded what was coming next, unsure of whether she wanted to hear it.

  “It wasn’t the worse it could have been. They found the girl in the countryside in some farmer’s barn; frozen and practically dumb. They couldn’t get her to speak. She was taken to hospital.”

  “Did she get better?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. She was a nervous child to start with—an orphan brought up by two maiden aunts. She suffered badly from some nervous skin complaint. That made her a particular target. Amongst other things, she found soap and bandages and ointment left regularly on her bed. The other girls made a point of walking away, moving away when she was near, or when she’d be driven to scratch at her skin, they would start doing the same and talking about catching lice from this girl.”

  “You say girls; not just Elizabeth, then?”

  “No, by this time she had a little gang around her.” Aunt Alicia sighed and gestured at the teapot. “We’ll have another cup, shall we, dear?”

  Edith poured, angry and full of pity for the poor little girl. Wonder what had become of her. Had she become a strong woman because of her bad start in life or had she gone from one bullying situation to another becoming a downtrodden wife or one of those poor women in offices who was everyone’s whipping boy.

  “What happened to Elizabeth?”

  “She was expelled. It took a while for the story to come out. First of all, the poor girl couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. Then the story was confusing. As Mavis said, other girls were involved. It took a while and a lot of questioning at the school for Elizabeth to be identified as the ringleader. Then, they acted swiftly, and she was sent home.”

  Silence fell, and Edith stared into her china cup. It was a sad and unsettling story. What turned a person into a bully? She looked up as Aunt Alicia spoke.

  “In all my years as a teacher that was probably the most difficult thing I had to deal with and I know my colleagues in the profession would agree with me. Sometimes, the child who becomes a bully is to be pitied too—someone at some point has done the same thing to her. In one case, at my school, the child who was being bullied, quite viciously by two of her classmates wouldn’t hear a word against them. She was a bit like Elizabeth Turner’s victim, quiet and timid with no confidence in herself. The two classmates, her two tormentors, were very nice to her at times, made a pet of her, in fact. So, it was very difficult to get her to say anything against them. It was like watching a cat play with a poor mouse.”

  “It makes you wonder what was going on in Elizabeth’s head, doesn’t it? What became of her after that?”

  “Mavis wasn’t sure. She went home, and that was that, I think. She was given some sort of a job in the family business, slotted into an office, somewhere, and that was about it. A waste of a life in many ways.”

  “According to her niece, Hester, she now torments the maids, accusing them of stealing and she also bullies her timid sister. It probably has nothing at all to do with the poet’s murder. It would take a big stretch of the imagination to put her anywhere in his life at all, but it’s a big coincidence, isn’t it? A disturbed woman living yards away from a murder.”

  It was difficult to think of any scenario where these unlikely characters would be brought together.

  She changed the subject. There was good news, too. “I’m going to the hospital in the morning to bring Archie home. I hope they find some explanation for the chest pain. It’s a bit worrying to think it might happen again.”

  Aunt Alicia frowned. “His job is difficult, and he is on his own a lot. I wonder sometimes…my brother was very forceful.”

  Edith wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this.

  “I sometimes wonder if Archie is even in the right profession…and then there was poor Brigid’s death.”

  “That’s a long time ago, now, Aunt Alicia.”

  Now, Aunt Alicia opened her mouth as though to speak and shut it again. If Edith wasn’t so worried, she would have found it amusing. Talk about biting back the words.

  “What is it, Aunt Alicia? I can’t help if I don’t understand.” It might not be comfortable hearing her aunt’s views, but she needed any enlightenment she could have. It seemed the world knew her brother better than she did. But, that was stupid, pointless thinking.

  “It was a very long time ago. But, he has never begun again, not properly, has he, Edith? He was young enough to meet someone else after time had elapsed, maybe marry again; have children. Your news is so happy, Edith, and you deserve that happiness very much. But, I wonder if maybe it has stirred something in Archie…that’s just my own musings, and some people would say it comes of spending too much time on my own, doing a little too much thinking.”

  Vera came in then, and Edith left, promising she would ring her aunt as soon as she and Archie got home from the hospital.

  She got back to Ellbeck and remembered nothing of the journey, as though she’d driven in some sort of fugue state. It was difficult to know what to think. Two people had implied that Archie’s episode had been brought on by distress or nerves. But, he was the last person to suffer anything like that. Look at how dismissive and at times, unsympathetic he’d been when she had had her breakdown.

  Was she looking at this in the wrong way? Of course, it would be better if Archie’s troubles turned out to be about his state of mind rather than his heart. Was that possible? She wasn’t a state-registered nurse, but she’d learned enough and seen enough to have her doubts that what she’d seen was anything other than a physical illness.

  She slept soundly, despite feeling that she woul
dn’t. Maybe, doing the very thing she’d sworn never to do and letting Max sleep in his basket by the side of her bed had something to do with it. It could be her imagination, but Max had gone to the door several times today. When he realised that Archie wasn’t about to come through the door, he had sloped back into the room with his tail down. His dejected air made her think she’d have to tell Archie how much he’d been missed. She’d have to bring Max back here very often when she moved up the road to the vicarage.

  Henry had offered to postpone today’s appointments too, and go with her to the hospital, but she’d persuaded him that she’d be fine, without giving any indication that she’d quite like the time on the journey back to have a chat with her brother, or maybe just allow him the chance to talk if he wanted.

  “They want to write me a prescription, ironically. I think that may be a bit “coals to Newcastle”, but they tell me that it’s the rules.”

  “Prescription for what?”

  “They want me to go on beta blockers for a while.”

  She scrabbled about in her mind, but her pharmaceutical knowledge was scratchy. Something about slowing and steadying the heartbeat, wasn’t it? But? “I thought your heart was fine, Archie.”

  He shrugged. She’d found him dressed, sitting by his bed, looking not as good as she’d seen him, yesterday. A bit pale and diminished.

  “I haven’t had a heart attack, but they are concerned about an irregular heartbeat; not uncommon in middle-aged men and they don’t think it’s anything to worry about…but better be safe etcetera…Don’t hang around here, Edith. Go and have a cup of tea. I’ll be at least half-a-hour.”

  “Are you sure?” She didn’t relish the thought of waiting in this small side ward with the distinct feeling that she was in the way.

  “I’m sure. Go and get yourself a drink.”

  There was a small coffee shop just up the street from the hospital. What a prime position for customers; all that hanging about, waiting for visiting time, waiting for people to be discharged.