Dear Laura

by Jean Stubbs

  ‘What? What?’ he grumbled.

  ‘Are you not comfortable, Theodore?’

  His eyes opened and he stared dully at the mane of pale hair, the pale face, and reached clumsily for her hand. She shrank back, clutching the wrapper to her breasts.

  ‘My – head. My – head,’ he said, slurring the words.

  Obediently, she laid a cool palm on his forehead.

  ‘You have no temperature. Does it ache?’

  ‘Dazed – feel – dazed. Thirsty.’

  She gave him water.

  ‘You are half asleep, that is all. Have you any pain, Theodore?’

  ‘Arms – heavy – legs – like – lead.’

  ‘It is nothing that a good sleep will not cure,’ she said, in soft desperation. ‘You should not have disturbed yourself so.’

  ‘Blood – pressure – Padgett warned – me – send – for Padgett.’

  ‘Do take one of my sleeping capsules, Theodore. Then if you cannot sleep we will send for the doctor.’

  She opened her little leather box and shook out one of two remaining pills. He did not resist her, as she raised him and gave him more water to drink. But he mumbled and rolled his head from side to side as though it troubled him.

  ‘Sit – by – me,’ he whispered, his fingers gripping her arm.

  Huddled in the chair, she sat for an hour before disengaging her cramped hand. He had destroyed the little strength she gathered by being alone. She sought to regain it, and moved over to her writing desk. Until the clock struck two she wrote purposefully, earnestly, finding some comfort in her diary. Then she locked it up again, buried the key in a little bowl of pot pourri and blew out the candle, shivering from her vigil. His breathing seemed regular enough, but noisy. Satisfied that he would not now wake and disturb her, she felt for her glass of water and swallowed the other capsule. She could sleep in the armchair, in peace.

  *

  Kate was letting in the cold light of day when Laura opened her eyes.

  ‘Are you well, Kate?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. A bit on the weak side, but fair to middling. Your tea, ma’am, and your dressing-jacket.’

  To the question of the maid’s raised eyebrows, Laura shook her head. She intended to let Theodore snore on while she drank her tea in peace. So Kate poured out one cup and let her muse undisturbed. As the hot liquid woke her, she was aware that the snores were too frequent to be natural.

  All the colour had left his face. The night’s beard growth stood out against a dusky pallor. Strong nose jutted. Eyes seemed sunk into stained sockets. Labouring breath fluttered blue lips. A thread of saliva, trickling from his mouth, had dried on his chin. Laura pressed the bell and kept her finger on it until Kate ran in.

  ‘Quickly,’ Laura cried. ‘Send Henry for Dr Padgett. Your master is very ill.’

  Then she sank into the chair by his side, hands over mouth, and stared at the deathly mask. She was still sitting there, white and frozen, when the doctor arrived.

  ‘Here, Kate,’ he said, assisting Laura to rise. ‘Help your mistress, will you? Brandy, girl, brandy. And warm clothes. Good God, madam, we cannot have you catching cold.’

  ‘I shall not go. I cannot go. Until you tell me,’ Laura whispered. ‘He is gravely ill, is he not?’

  Kate wrapped a Shetland shawl about her and held her arm. Minutely, Padgett examined the unconscious man. Lifted the sunken lids and peered. Felt for the toiling heartbeat. Laid down the leaden limbs. Covered him gently. Nanny Nagle was waiting, wordless, by the door.

  ‘A severe cerebral haemorrhage,’ he pronounced. ‘Take a good hold of your mistress, Kate! No hope, I’m afraid. Miss Nagle, I want you to sit by him while I am downstairs with Mrs Crozier. Ring if you see any change. And where is Henry Hann? We must send for Mr Crozier’s brother at once. Mrs Crozier will need all the support we can give her.’ He took her other arm. She seemed not to hear him, and he spoke across her as though she were indeed deaf. ‘A nervous disposition, Miss Nagle, suffers acutely at times like these. She was always highly strung.’

  Shock had anaesthetised Laura. She drank the brandy they gave her and answered his questions with terrible calm.

  ‘When did you observe this change in him?’ Dr Padgett asked. ‘I should judge that he must have been in this condition for some hours.’

  ‘Last night,’ she admitted with difficulty, ‘he complained of a heaviness in the limbs. He wanted to send for you. But I thought …’

  ‘Yes, yes. He was inclined to worry unduly. You must not blame yourself if, for once, there was cause to worry.’

  ‘But I gave him one of my sleeping capsules,’ Laura said. ‘I did it for the best. I wanted him to sleep. I wanted to sleep myself. I blame myself.’

  She had so often wished him dead, but the reality appalled her.

  ‘I blame myself,’ she repeated.

  The doctor sat by her, patting her hand, saying, ‘Fiddlesticks, ma’am! Fiddlesticks! The capsules were mild enough. One could not hurt him. Nothing could have hurt him.’

  He did not add that if she had sent for him straightaway he might have done something. He knew the Croziers too well to blame the one or further distress the other.

  ‘Your husband was inclined to cry wolf, ma’am,’ he said kindly. ‘You were not to know better. Do not fret yourself. Kate, stay with your mistress. Miss Nagle is with your master. Whom may I order to see to the child? Until Mr Titus comes we are without a head.’

  ‘Mrs Hill, sir, will see to everything. Should I tell her?’

  ‘If you please, Kate, if you please. And hurry back.’

  Then he exerted his particular talent of giving confidence to the patient. Indeed, it was the only talent he possessed, for he was inclined to rely upon Nature’s powers of healing, and looked askance at new-fangled notions. Had the queen herself not set an example of using chloroform for childbirth he would have opposed that too. But his sturdy body and deep voice, his simple character and good heart, were a form of medicine, and he did not stint the dose. Had anyone told him he was a little in love with Laura he would have been horrified and incredulous. As a respectable husband and practitioner such emotions were forbidden by the laws of God and man. As he abided by rules he set down his concern for Mrs Crozier as paternal benevolence. Only, it was pleasant to speak to that troubled mouth and tumbled fall of hair, and hold those soft hands between his own.

  Theodore never recovered consciousness. Losing his grasp upon worldly goods, he sought oblivion and that deity in whose name he had reigned over his household. Downstairs Henry Hann muffled the knocker with a black silk scarf and Harriet drew down the blinds. Kitchen chatter was subdued, and related only to the work in hand. Blanche sat silently, deprived of amusement, and suffered the ennui that normally attended Sundays only. Outside, under a winter sky, the Common was alive with elegant perambulators and starched nursemaids. Children bowled hoops, played hopscotch, shouted and were reprimanded. And round the Common gleamed the house fronts: representatives of the good order that prevailed over one quarter of the earth’s surface, and was called the British Empire.

  Laura turned distractedly from one to another person about the deathbed, and gave way to a storm of tears and self-reproaches. Titus, troubled, hesitated to go near her but would have preferred to comfort.

  ‘Come, sir,’ said Dr Padgett, drawing a sheet over the stern face, ‘a brother’s sorrow, though deep indeed, cannot be so great as that of wife for husband. Take Mrs Crozier downstairs and offer her what solace you can. It is a good thing,’ he added to Alice Nagle, ‘that they were all so close. Mr Titus will be a tower of strength to that poor lady.’

  Disapproval crackled from every crease of Nanny’s apron. She sniffed loudly.

  ‘You and Mrs Hill must order the house between you for a while,’ he continued. ‘I fear that Mrs Crozier’s delicate constitution may have been overstrained. Watch her closely, and send for me if she seems more than commonly disturbed.’

  ‘Kate will watc
h her, sir,’ said Nanny Nagle stiffly. ‘Kate is the only one that you could call close to the mistress – among the staff, that is.’

  *

  The funeral was of ostentatious magnificence. Titus, mindful of his brother’s position, ordered it as Theodore himself would have done. Mutes, lifting black-edged handkerchiefs to their eyes, carrying long black staves, walked on either side of the procession. A dozen carriages followed the hearse. Across the Common they moved in stately measure. The subdued jingle of harness, the shuffle of feet, the restrained rumble of wheels, were a saraband to the dead. Within the glass-walled hearse the great walnut coffin rested beneath a mound of doomed flowers, which seemed to shiver in the winter afternoon as though they knew that the approach of night would wither them. In the first carriage, driven sadly and soberly by Henry Hann, Laura and Titus sat very straight-backed opposite the three straight-backed children. All was a rich unrelieved black, from the drooping plumes upon the horses’ heads to the veil over Laura’s face. The horses themselves were chosen for their silky sombre coats, and trained to walk mournfully. Even the swish of a long tail, the flick of a long mane, was understated, never indulged. No hint of light or sparkle marred the cortège.

  As they passed, men stopped and uncovered their heads, standing in silent respect. Women composed their features into masks of sympathy. Children stared open-mouthed, solemn-eyed, at the terrible splendour of man’s end. In St Mary’s churchyard the grave-diggers blew upon their freezing hands, and stamped their feet for warmth upon the freezing ground.

  ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust …’

  The silver trowel of earth in Laura’s gloved hand.

  ‘… Resurrection to Eternal Life.’

  She had fainted, overcome by emotion and tight-lacing. Murmurs of pleasurable concern, a waving of smelling salts, brought her wanly round. She had become the widow absolute: bereft of protection, prostrated with grief. It was all very sad, strangely satisfying, and very proper.

  9

  An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

  Man and Superman – George Bernard Shaw

  DR PADGETT sat a long time with the letter in his hand, then folded and placed it with the other two in his breast pocket. Unsigned, printed in strong square capitals by someone unaccustomed to expressing themselves literally, it had been posted in Wimbledon. The wording was brief, the meaning plain, the implications far-reaching.

  Should he consult Mrs Padgett? That stout good lady who had shared his bed and presided over her table for a quarter of a century? No, a woman’s judgement in these matters would be faulty. He imagined her throwing up her hands, taking one side or the other according to her caprice, then gossiping over teacups.

  He had discounted the first anonymous note, but preserved it out of uneasiness. The second disturbed him more profoundly. The third forced him to action. Normally he would have consulted Titus, as head of the Crozier family, but Titus was one of the parties named. It must be another man: cautious, trustworthy, objective. The Crozier’s family solicitor, perhaps?

  ‘My love,’ said Dr Padgett, to the lady of his house, ‘I shall be away for half an hour or so. If there should be any urgent call I am with Mr Fitzgerald.’

  Who was a small sharp man with large ears and an inquiring mind: a fox-terrier of a person, bent on hunting out.

  ‘I had thought,’ said Padgett to him, troubled, ‘that you could have printed a warning letter in The Times – or something of that sort?’

  ‘Not a bit of it, my good sir. Not a bit of it. No, indeed. We must fetch this matter into the open.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Crozier. Quite enough distress already. A nervous disposition. Further trouble to be strictly avoided.’

  ‘You speak as a medical man, sir, and quite rightly. I as a legal one, also rightly. And I can assure you that there is nothing here to be hushed up or smoothed over. Tongues are wagging, sir. They will wag the harder if we do not snip them short!’

  ‘Then what do you advise, sir?’

  ‘We must put these notes into the hands of Scotland Yard, sir, without delay. It will mean an exhumation. You are sure of the cause of Mr Crozier’s death, of course?’

  ‘No doubt of it, sir. The late Mr Crozier suffered from high blood pressure, and his temperament was a gnawing one. How often have I warned him that worry could accomplish what the constitution might not? Ah well. Take it from me, sir, post-influenzal weakness coupled to an outburst of rage brought on that haemorrhage. Nature, sir, can work against us as well as for us. She didn’t care to be badgered, sir, and she struck back! I would swear to that on my father’s Bible – God rest him!’

  ‘Then my client and your patient can come to no harm. Scotland Yard, sir, will not only clear the lady’s name – and that of her brother-in-law – but may even track down the scurrilous villain who impugns their honour. Scotland Yard are uncommon sharp on ruffians, I hear. Eager hounds, sir, eager hounds. Glad to track down.’

  ‘The shock will prostrate her,’ Padgett mourned. ‘I would have spared her if I could.’

  ‘So would I, sir,’ said Fitzgerald, so busy over his morsel that he would not have let go for worlds. ‘But we must – in your own jargon – prescribe sour medicine to effect a cure.’

  Dr Padgett smoothed the nap of his top hat.

  ‘Would you accompany me, sir, to call upon Mr Crozier and the lady? I feel we really cannot go straight to the police without informing them of our intention first?’

  Fitzgerald consulted his fob-watch with some complacency, and restored it to his waistcoat pocket in satisfaction.

  ‘This evening at nine o’clock, then? We shall all have dined. Should you ask them if we might wait upon them, or shall I?’

  ‘I will call as I pass,’ said the doctor. ‘I have done so frequently since her husband died. Mrs Crozier’s spirits are not as high as I could wish. I will not have her unduly alarmed if I can help it.’

  *

  Titus was in great good humour when they arrived. He had dined well, and felt confident that Laura as a widow would be more amenable than Laura as a wife. True, she seemed subdued still, but she had lost her sadness. As head of the family, guardian of his late brother’s children, and her official protector, the field was open and he prepared to wait. But he kept his cheerfulness within the bounds of decorum, disguising it as courtesy.

  ‘My dear madam,’ Padgett began, while Fitzgerald sat up sharp and smiling. ‘I beg you to compose yourself. This is a shocking matter, but not irrevocably so – eh, my dear sir?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Fitzgerald, head on one side, watching everyone. ‘Merely a distasteful formality, madam.’

  ‘I was not aware, Mrs Crozier – how could I be? – that you had enemies,’ Padgett murmured. ‘But even unspotted virtue and peerless womanhood, it appears, may rouse vile envy in the human breast …’

  ‘Get on with it, man, get on with it!’ cried the solicitor tetchily, as Laura fingered her jet choker and grew paler.

  ‘I have received three anonymous letters,’ said Padgett, glancing angrily at his colleague, ‘over which I took the liberty of consulting Mr Fitzgerald. Like myself, he utterly denounces and repudiates these abominable slanders. But he feels they cannot be ignored.’

  Laura did not speak, only motioned him to continue, and sat very still.

  ‘The first that came,’ Padgett mumbled, unfolding it and endeavouring to translate it into acceptable terms, ‘suggested that your late husband was poisoned by Mr Titus Crozier in order that he could benefit by the terms of the will …’

  ‘Which allows you full financial control over the family firm, you will recollect, my dear sir – subject to certain restrictions, of course!’ Fitzgerald intercepted, giving Titus a very bright look.

  Laura breathed quickly, and touched her jet as though it could ward off evil.

  ‘The second, my dear madam,’ Padgett continued, embarrassed, ‘and I pray you to forgive me for being forced to mention such
a matter, suggested that you and Mr Titus were – more closely acquainted – than relatives by marriage should be.’

  Fitzgerald eyed them, head tilted, no longer smiling. Laura shaded her eyes from the glare of the fire.

  ‘Should I ring for your maid, madam?’ Padgett asked anxiously.

  ‘Please do not trouble,’ she replied clearly. ‘I am perfectly well. I am deeply shocked and astonished, but I am perfectly well.’

  ‘The third,’ Padgett stated, ‘put together both villainous suggestions, and accused you and Mr Titus of – of – really I do not know how to express myself in the presence of a lady of …’

  ‘Adultery and murder,’ said Fitzgerald roundly, and noted the effect of his words.

  Titus stood up and rested one arm on the mantelshelf, one patent leather shoe on the kerb, looking down at the flames. Laura drew a long breath, reached for her fan, and waved it languidly to and fro.

  ‘I sincerely regret the necessity of this intrusion,’ said Padgett, agitated. ‘I do assure you that never, in all the years I have practised, have I come across so monstrous an infamy. Such a slander!’

  Laura snapped her fan shut.

  ‘As head of the family,’ she said quietly, ‘Mr Crozier must answer you. It is hardly my place to say what should or should not be done. Nor would I know how to advise anyone.’

  Even Fitzgerald was mollified by her behaviour, resolute and yet modest.

  ‘Very proper,’ he said, ‘very right and proper, Mrs Crozier. Well, sir?’ to Titus, who was not nearly so well in command of himself, ‘What do you think of this libel? Libel, sir, not slander,’ he added to Padgett. ‘Libel is written, slander is spoken. We must get our facts correctly, I think.’

  ‘I need hardly say that there is no word of truth in any of these statements, I take it?’ Titus began.