Dear Laura

by Jean Stubbs

  ‘Do you think he was murdered then?’ She hesitated. ‘Come now, you don’t know and I don’t know. Do you think he might have been?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Who did it, then? And how?’

  ‘The mistress, or Mr Titus, or both together. They were a deal too familiar. I’ve been in service here since Master Edmund was born, and I’ve seen a thing or two. I’d be surprised if all the children were my late master’s

  ‘That’s gossip,’ said Lintott coolly. ‘Keep to the point. Why should they do away with Mr Crozier?’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s plain enough. He was short of money and she wanted her freedom to carry on as she pleased.’

  ‘I see. How do you suppose they administered a bottleful of capsules?’

  She had been hoping he would ask her so that she could confound him.

  ‘They quarrelled that evening somethink awful, and the master was took poorly and went to bed.’

  At the end of their road and tether, whispering together in the drawing-room. Laura calculating in white composure: Titus easily influenced and impulsive. The port decanter, suddenly glowing with terrible promise, taken upstairs and used as both palliative and deadly carrier. The pills crushed and administered, glass by glass …

  ‘Have you any idea, Miss Nagle,’ said Lintott idly, ‘what a gritty drink that might have been?’

  ‘There’s ways and means,’ she cried, brushing away the suggestion. ‘They could have said it was medicine. The master would take anythink that was medicine.’

  ‘What made you think of port wine, I wonder?’

  ‘Why, Harriet heard them talking of it, and she said that the mistress sent her away as if she didn’t want her by. And the decanter and glass was there the very morning he died, by the bed.’

  Lintott’s eyes were pinpoints.

  ‘Did you keep it as evidence?’

  She cried, frustrated, ‘Nobody thought at the time. Harriet never said no think until it was all over. The decanter had been took back, and the glass washed by then, but that was when I thought of foul play, sir. That’s when.’

  ‘I see. Well, that’s the conjecture part. Now for the truth. Have you ever seen Mrs Crozier and Mr Titus together in a compromising situation? In her room? No. Exchanging a kiss, perhaps – ah! you know all about that, my dear! Under that parasol of yours with the brave sergeant, eh?’ Wagging his forefinger at her in pretended rebuke.

  She smiled uncomfortably, and admitted she had seen nothing of the sort.

  ‘But you can tell when people are over fond of one another. I’ve been in that drawing-room, when they was waiting for Mr Theodore, and the air was full of it.’

  ‘The only trouble is, my dear, that a judge don’t accept air as evidence. A lovely lady, Mrs Crozier, very much admired I believe?’

  ‘She was always spoiled and ailing!’ Miss Nagle’s colour was high. An old grievance and an old envy beset her. ‘Who watched over the master, well or ill, might I ask? It was me, sir, from the beginning. He asked for me whenever he was took poorly. “Send for Nanny!” he used to say. “She’s a good nurse!”’

  ‘Then he got what he wanted, didn’t he?’ said Lintott, unimpressed. ‘And he was ill enough, Lord knows, to tire any wife out.’

  ‘She could never be bothered with him, sir. Dr Padgett was taken in by her, too,’ said Miss Nagle, who had never taken in any man at all. ‘Giving her tablets and powders and sending her to Brighton for a month at a time, and Cheltenham Spa and that. I’ve no patience.’

  ‘Who looked after Mr Crozier then, while she was away? You, Miss Nagle?’

  Queening the household, chastizing the children, indulging every sneeze from that miniature deity, undermining what little influence Laura still had.

  ‘You don’t like your mistress, do you, my dear? You don’t think much of Mr Titus, come to that. But it’s your mistress that you don’t like.’

  She was still, knowing she had said too much.

  ‘It’s not my place to like or dislike. I know my place, sir. I do my duty.’

  He returned to worry the main issue.

  ‘Well, we’ll say that Mrs Crozier and Mr Titus felt warmly towards each other – since I trust a woman’s instinct in such matters. But there’s no harm in that, is there?’

  She twisted her hands and pondered.

  Finally, she said, ‘I found a letter in her wastepaper basket, a few months since, torn to pieces. A love-letter. From him.’

  ‘I didn’t know that a nanny was called upon to empty waste-paper baskets?’

  ‘I happened to notice her tearing it across and across, when I come in, and I know his hand. Well, I should do, after fourteen year. So I took a look afore Kate got in.’

  His voice was lazy, his eyes alert.

  ‘If it was torn to pieces how did you manage to read it?’

  Her hands were a rough knot.

  ‘I – put it together again.’

  ‘And then threw it away, I’ll be bound. Well, that’s not evidence either, my dear. I’ll take your word for it, but a court wouldn’t.’ She did not answer. ‘Or did you keep it, after you’d pasted it on to a sheet of paper, perhaps? Put it in a safe place?’

  She justified herself with anger.

  ‘The master was good to me and I respected him. He knew my worth – she never did. If he suspected somethink between her and Mr Titus, and wanted proof, I had it for him. If he wanted to send her packing, I had that letter.’

  ‘Send her packing where?’

  Miss Nagle gestured somewhere vague and far off.

  ‘She’s got an uncle in Bristol. She could have gone there, couldn’t she?’

  ‘Which would have left you in charge of his children, and nursing himself? And Mr Crozier, separated from one wife and unable to take another, would have relied on you. You have a taste for power, my dear, haven’t you? Quite a taste for backstairs politics. Does anyone else know about this letter? The other servants?’

  She shook her head firmly.

  ‘Not even the courageous sergeant – and he’s a braver man than he knows! – not even the admirable Malone?’

  ‘I believe I may have mentioned it to him once, casual like,’ she whispered. ‘But he promised not to say.’

  He smiled at the cornice over her bowed head, and smoothed his chin.

  ‘Fetch it for me, will you, my love?’ he asked gently.

  Titus had been indiscreet. Little could surprise Lintott, but his eyebrows testified to the aptness of the phrases.

  ‘Very warm indeed,’ he said at last, ‘but not conclusive. She tore it up. A love-letter from her husband’s brother. Hardly her fault? And she got rid of it, would have got rid of it but for a pair of sparkling eyes. Not conclusive. Have you anything else for me? – I’ll keep this, my dear, it’s safer with me.’

  ‘She’s always a-writing in her diary, but she keeps it locked up and hides the key.’

  ‘Then this is all we have. Very well, my dear. You’ve done right by your master if not by your mistress, at any rate. I think that will be all, for now. Oh, Miss Nagle,’ regarding her closely, ‘if you do come across anything, let me know. Keys get mislaid. Drawers are unlocked. Diaries left lying about. I think you understand my meaning. Mind!’ he cautioned her, as she nodded and curtseyed, ‘I’ll have no prying. But as long as you help me, my dear, I’ll help you. You never know, you might be glad of a bit of help from me someday.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  His eyes returned from the closing door to Titus’s letter. As a postscript the lover had drawn on the greater resources of the late Robert Browning. His writing drove across the paper: passion clouding judgement.

  See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek!

  ‘That’s a pretty way of putting it,’ said Inspector Lintott to himself. ‘Uncommon pretty!’

  *

  The tussle for power had begun fourteen years before.

  ‘I should like t
he baby with me, Nanny,’ said Laura, as Miss Nagle seized and swaddled him.

  The new nurse, engaged by Theodore, though only two or three years older than her mistress, already brandished the qualities for which she had been chosen. Begin as you mean to go on, she always said to herself. She had started from the first day.

  ‘He’ll only disturb you, ma’am, and the doctor says you must have your rest. Besides, as you’re feeding him …’

  The feeding was another tug-of-war. Nanny wanted the baby to herself, and on a bottle.

  ‘But you are in the adjoining room, Nanny, and can hear him if he cries.’

  Laura’s voice was fretful. The linen corset beneath her breasts stretched down to her thighs, and its four linen straps were tightened daily to restore her figure. She could move very little, dependent on those about her for every need, and the sensation of being merely a helpless body increased her wretchedness.

  ‘Now, ma’am, we can’t have you worrying yourself into a fever. If you do that,’ Miss Nagle threatened, ‘you’ll lose your milk.’

  ‘I want my baby where I can see him,’ said Laura, and as the Nanny waited implacably she cried, ‘I will have him! I will, I will.’

  Two tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘What did I say, ma’am? You’ll fret yourself into a temperature if you go on so.’

  Miss Nagle laid Edmund in the crook of Laura’s arm and sought an ally.

  ‘Hysterical?’ said Theodore. ‘Well, what do you propose?’

  They had recognized each other as dictators, and himself as lord of the ascendant. She thought him a proper man.

  ‘Mrs Crozier takes too much upon herself, sir, instead of letting me do my duty. And the poor lady is too weak to know what’s best for her and Master Edmund. Spoiling,’ said Miss Nagle, with a glint, ‘never formed Character.’

  The baby was shunted through an obstacle race of artificial foods until, fortunately for himself and Laura, he found one which suited. By the time his mother crept downstairs to lie on the sofa he had been irrevocably cloistered behind the nursery walls.

  Lindsey, less hardy than his brother, suffered more, and Laura suffered for him. Only with Blanche did she find a little freedom, for Blanche, being a girl, seemed of less account to both Theodore and Miss Nagle. Once, Laura spoke to her husband about the nanny’s dominance.

  ‘Her qualifications were excellent,’ he pronounced, ‘otherwise I should not have engaged her. I am satisfied that she knows her business. My son requires firmness and discipline – and you appear to hold small regard for either. Besides, you have them to yourself for an hour after tea. They go for rides in the carriage with you. They wriggle and chatter at breakfast, and that is another point – Laura, you really must control them better. I must not be disturbed. I will not be disturbed over my newspaper.’

  *

  ‘If you’ll excuse me saying so, sir, you seem on the poorly side this morning.’

  ‘It is nothing, Nanny, and I have too many responsibilities to care for myself as much as, perhaps, I should.’

  ‘I think you’ve got somethink of a heavy cold coming on, sir, myself. The Hon. Mr Prout, as I was nursemaid to his children, was a martyr to heavy colds. Could you not rest yourself, sir, this morning?’

  ‘Impossible!’ Looking at her sideways for contradiction.

  ‘Well, sir, I hope you don’t think as I’m speaking out of my place, but I believe you should. A stitch in time saves nine.’

  His dark face intent on business appointments which must not be broken.

  ‘At the very least, sir, you should come home early and I’ll make you a blackcurrant cordial.’

  ‘I was to have taken Mrs Crozier to the theatre this evening.’

  ‘Why, sir, Mrs Crozier would be the quickest to say as you must care for yourself first. If you caught a chill atop of that cold, in the night air …’

  *

  ‘Where did you expect that my sons would find an education, madam? At home in the parlour?’

  ‘Fräulein Walther is most competent. I feel that Edmund has changed so since he left home, and Lindsey cries every time he thinks of it, Theodore.’

  ‘No boy was ever taught by a governess beyond his early years, Laura. And you should not indulge Lindsey’s tears. He is too much inclined to weep. He must be a man. If it were not for Miss Nagle’s training I should have been presented with three daughters.’

  Children locked in a cupboard. Perched on a table which leered below the short legs in a long fall. Favourite books, cherished toys, placed too high to reach. Lying in bed with the blinds drawn for punishment, while outside the sun shone. Weeping in the compulsory dark of night. Sitting down to bread and water, while the kitchen feasted on roast mutton and college pudding.

  *

  Between five and six o’clock they entered a forbidden Eden: all the dearer because of its brevity, already retreating from them as they grew older.

  ‘Do not shout so, Edmund dearest. You must not be so noisy. Show me what you have painted.’

  Blood and rifles, soldiers slain by the dozen, misery and destitution.

  ‘It is the Battle of Waterloo, Mama.’

  All the violence that he could not wreak.

  ‘Are you not going to sit by me, Edmund?’

  Torn between the need for proximity, and the male pride which forbade it, the boy perched a foot away from her on the edge of the sofa. But Lindsey burrowed a fair head on her shoulder, and Blanche climbed on her knee, still.

  ‘What shall I read to you?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Not Struwwelpeter, Mama,’ Lindsey begged, who dreamed dreadfully of having his thumbs severed by scissors.

  ‘No, indeed, that is not one of my favourites.’ Nanny Nagle read it, and quoted constantly. Theodore approved of retribution, of great vengeance for little sins.

  ‘Alice in Wonderland, Mama, if you please,’ Blanche whispered.

  ‘That’s a girl’s book!’ cried Edmund accusingly.

  ‘We will read Alice another day, my love. What then? Quickly, or it will be six o’clock and we shall have read nothing.’

  ‘Gulliver’s Travels, Mama?’ Lindsey suggested.

  Edmund did not disapprove. Blanche loved the Lilliputians. Laura reached for the book.

  ‘Why did they not torture him, I wonder?’ said Edmund curiously. ‘He was tied down.’

  ‘They were not cruel people,’ Laura replied, disquieted. ‘They were merely curious because they had never seen a giant. They must have been afraid of him.’

  The two fair heads, one on each shoulder, were very still. Dark as his father, inscrutable, deprived, Edmund thought of men buried to the neck in anthills, lidless eyes shrivelled by the sun. He loved Lindsey, because the younger boy was dependent on him, and therefore he must punish him. Lindsey lived in Edmund’s world of imaginary nightmare, and clung to the tyrant who might protect him from all others.

  ‘How happy we are together in this pretty room,’ said Laura, momentarily content.

  Lindsey’s grey eyes met Edmund’s opaque brown beseechingly. Mollified by this tribute to his power, the elder boy winked reassurance. Much she knew about life, they thought. Much she knew, who could throw up no mightier shield than soft arms and gentle heart.

  Blanche closed her eyes, and two fingers wandered towards her mouth.

  ‘No, dearest,’ said Laura. ‘Nanny will be cross with you.’

  13

  It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable repetitions of the same phase of character.

  Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens

  MRS HILL copied the anonymous letter more slowly, received her warning against gossip with a heightened colour, and sought to placate Lintott from the outset. Her small black eyes fixed on the curtains, she recited her particulars.

  ‘Beatrice Hill. Fifty-one year of age come March. Sev
enty pound a year as cook-housekeeper and all found. Been with the family fifteen year and never a wrong word. The master give me a dress-length for Christmas – a nice blue it was. I respected the master, he was good to me. Yes, Mrs Crozier is a kind mistress.’

  ‘You don’t hold a grudge against her, then?’

  ‘Why should I?’ said Mrs Hill roundly. ‘We’ve never interfered with one another. She was only a slip of a girl when she come here first. She didn’t know a kettle from a quart pot. Not that that didn’t suit me better,’ the cook added honestly. ‘I could do my own way – though I treated her with respect. And when she learned how to manage alongside, as you might say, she didn’t come the high and mighty. No, I’ll say that for the mistress. Always a thank you when I’ve done somethink extra, and her compliments. Very easy and proper.’

  ‘What about Mr Titus? Is he well-liked on the whole?’

  Her mouth screwed up. She pondered between discretion and the inspector’s flat gaze, and decided for the latter.

  ‘Not by me he isn’t and wasn’t, sir. I’m quite a judge of character. I may say I’m known for it.’

  ‘Now that’s lucky,’ said Lintott. ‘I’m something of a judge of character myself. Shall I tell you what I’ve thought and then you can tell me? Mr Titus is an amiable gentleman with a weakness for the ladies. Free with money, whether his own or others. Civil until his temper’s roused. A good talker and makes it sound right. Women spoil him, and what he can’t get from one he gets from another. A fine figure of a man until you need him, and then he turns into a suit of clothes. Lean on him and he’s not there. Am I right, Mrs Hill?’

  She nodded, lips compressed.

  ‘What sort of man was your late master?’

  ‘Why, sir, I think I may say I knew him better than the other servants did – though Miss Nagle worshipped the ground he walked on. He was a Christian gentleman. He can’t speak up for hisself now, God rest him, and I know as they’re making out he was a hard gentleman, but I know different.’

  Interested, doodling with his pencil, Lintott asked, ‘How do you know, Mrs Hill?’

  She paused, embarrassed, and then replied. ‘I’d been ill, sir, for quite a time afore I came into his service. I hadn’t got no job and my last mistress give me no reference.’