A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  ‘Urn — well, of course ... ’

  ‘Terrible. Couldn’t stick it myself. For years. Joined one order. Over the bloody wall after five years. Out in the world after that. Odd jobs. Haberdashery. Milliners. Dental nurse.’ Philomena let out a sudden bark of laughter. ‘Waste of bloody time.’ She jerked her head towards the ceiling. ‘Had other plans, didn’t He. So here I am.’ Outside a fresh breeze stirred the branches of the trees. The horse chestnuts were showing new green buds. The tabby cat had clawed its way up a tree after a bird, and now sat there looking foolish.

  ‘Life,’ Philomena said. ‘Like mud. Floundering about, all of us. Only He knows.’ Philomena tilted her chin and fixed Agnes with her bright gaze.

  Agnes felt a sudden overwhelming need to confide in her. ‘But — but it’s so difficult. I mean, how do we know?’ Philomena nodded. ‘It’s a complete bloody mystery.’ ‘And I can’t change ... ’

  ‘No no no. Not change. No point.’

  ‘Then, I mean — how do I — what shall I ... ?’ Philomena stood up and went over to the window. ‘Oliver Plunket,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Silly moggie, he’s always going after those birds. Stuck on a branch now. I’ll have to get old Joseph out with his ladder again.’ She turned back to Agnes. ‘What were we saying?’

  ‘About how one makes the right decisions ... ’

  ‘Ah, yes. Thing is, you see, I realised, in the end — I saw that I didn’t have to be happy. Blinding inspiration. Weight off my mind. I was free then. Free to be glum. Didn’t matter a fig. And the funny thing was, once I’d seen that, stopped being glum. Queer old show.’ She went over to the door and Agnes realised the interview was at an end.

  ‘But it’s not happiness I’m chasing.’ Agnes stood up. ‘I don’t know how best to live, that’s all.’

  Philomena nodded. ‘Mud,’ she said. ‘But at least He’s got an aerial view.’ She opened the door, and Agnes felt her gaze appraising her. ‘Glum for years, I was,’ Philomena said. ‘Didn’t matter a jot.’ She smiled at Agnes.

  Agnes realised that nothing had been resolved. ‘But what shall we — what do you want me to do?’

  Philomena shrugged, and smiled. ‘Decisions. Damned illusions. Even my own.’ She began to chuckle, and went back into her office and closed the door, still chuckling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Who dare argue against me?’ Elias’s face seemed set in defiance as he read the Palm Sunday lesson. ‘Let us confront one another. Who will dispute my cause? Let him come forward. The Lord God will help me — who then can prove me guilty?’

  The term was almost finished. Some of the younger girls had already gone home. The chapel echoed with Elias’s words.

  Afterwards Agnes walked on the moor. There was a freshness in the breeze, and the ground was soft underfoot. She watched the changing sky, the clouds fringed with light as the sun broke through. I could just stay here, she thought. I could just accept, stay in my tiny room, resign myself to the community routine ... One year would pass, and then the next, and soon it would all be over, and I would have been an obedient nun all my life. She thought of Elias, how he seemed to have relinquished his will to some higher force. Perhaps she should try to do the same, to accept whatever life, or God, put in her way. But Elias is so weighted down by it all. That isn’t acceptance, she thought. That’s just evasion. Evasion of life itself.

  An image returned to her, of Jo’s painting, of the withered roses and the clock face. She thought about the old still-life paintings in Baines’s attic, the grapes, painted with such a sense of wonder that they seemed to glow with it; the lemons, shining with lemon-ness.

  If I shut myself away, Agnes thought, it won’t be an acceptance of God’s will. It will be a refusal, a turning away.

  And yet — she could almost hear Julius’s voice — perhaps it’s in the turning away that one comes to find joy, perhaps it’s in the stillness of acceptance that one finds one’s true nature, like the lemons and the grapes.

  Agnes had reached the foot of a crag, and now stood in its shadow, listening to the wind buffeting the stone.

  Life is too short to turn away from the chance to live with joy.

  Or, life is too short to make a decision that turns out to be the wrong one.

  Is there an answer? She wanted to shout out loud, so that the echo would carry her words across the valley; so that the wind might bring her an answer.

  She turned back across the moors, descending towards the school. She was due at James’s in less than an hour.

  *

  ‘Who’d have thought a mere American would know about afternoon tea?’ Evelyn gestured to the table, which was carefully arranged with sandwiches and cakes.

  ‘He’s not entirely American,’ Agnes said. ‘Be charitable.’

  ‘And anyway,’ Joss said, ‘wasn’t Agnes’s father American?’

  ‘Not really. English, mostly. He just ended up living in the States.’

  ‘It’s a favourite occupation, I find,’ James said, coming into the room with the tea tray, ‘maligning my countrymen. A national English pastime. And after all we’ve done for you.’

  ‘What have you done for us?’ Joss laughed. ‘Apart from smearing a sort of phoney junk culture on the surface of English life.’

  ‘You don’t care anyway, dear,’ Evelyn said. ‘You’re far too much a Scot to care what befalls the English.’

  Joss laughed and patted her hand. ‘That’s just the point. We know all about cultural imperialism.’

  ‘I play golf, for Heaven’s sake.’

  ‘We all play golf, James. That’s just globalisation. Even William Baines plays golf.’

  ‘How is William?’ James asked.

  Evelyn glanced at Joss. ‘We hardly see him,’ she said.

  ‘Do you have any news?’ Joss asked James.

  ‘Only from Isabel, my cleaner, she works for him too. She says he’s pretty distraught. This mill business seems to have gone very wrong indeed.’

  Evelyn sighed. ‘Poor man. Such a noble spirit. But ever since his wife died ... ’

  ‘It’s the anniversary,’ Joss said. ‘Of her death.’

  ‘Only a year? Surely not,’ James said.

  ‘Good Friday, she died.’ Joss twisted his napkin around his finger. ‘Last year.’

  ‘It goes against all wisdom.’ James began to pour the tea. ‘Making huge life changes so soon after a bereavement. He should have waited. No wonder it’s gone wrong, handing over the mill. He must be mad with grief.’

  ‘I think that’s just it.’ Evelyn took the cup he handed her. ‘Mad with grief.’

  ‘And they were devoted, weren’t they,’ James went on.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Joss murmured, staring at the floor, and Evelyn nudged him to indicate that James was holding his cup out to him. He looked up vaguely, then took the cup. ‘Devoted. Hannah and William.’

  ‘Which makes this anniversary all the more worrying, then,’ James said. ‘We must make sure we keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Hannah and William,’ Joss said again. He looked at his tea cup as if surprised it should be there at all. Agnes watched him. Then Evelyn took the cup from him and put it on the little table at his side. ‘You were about to spill it, dear,’ she said.

  Joss looked up at her, took her hand and grasped it for a moment as their eyes met.

  *

  Later Agnes helped James wash up. The Campbells had gone, and the house was quiet with the evening.

  ‘James?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How long have Evelyn and Joss known William Baines?’

  ‘Oh, years.’

  ‘And have they always been close to him?’

  ‘In the old days, yes. More recently, it seems that — ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Evelyn said something about the friendship having changed. When they came back from the States, she said, it was different.’

  ‘Perhaps time changes
things.’

  ‘Does it?’ Agnes glanced at him, but he looked away. ‘Hannah had died, of course,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. That kind of thing changes people. Perhaps that’s all it is.’

  ‘They’re still fond of him.’

  ‘They’re good people. When I had to see my doctor last week — ’

  ‘James — you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Oh, I see him so often these days, it’s hardly news.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They were very sweet, the Campbells. Made me cups of tea, allowed me to pace and rage and shake my fist at the sky, until the mood passed.’

  ‘Tell me what he said.’

  James was gazing out at his garden, at the darkness beyond. ‘He said, if I’m going to do this trip, not to leave it till next year.’ He turned to Agnes and smiled at her, and she saw his acceptance of the ending of his life. She wanted to seize hold of him, as if somehow she could make him immortal just by holding on to him. She touched his sleeve.

  ‘I’ll decide very soon,’ she said.

  He looked at her fingers on the cloth of his jacket. ‘Perhaps I’ll go alone,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ the word burst out of her.

  ‘What’s the point of you tearing your life to shreds for the sake of a few months — maybe a few weeks ... ’ He raised his eyes to hers and again he smiled. ‘If you break your obedience vows and it turns out we get no further than two weeks in St Tropez, I’ll never forgive myself.’

  She laughed in spite of herself. ‘At least you won’t be around to care.’

  He was serious then. ‘Agnes, that’s not what I want. I don’t want to burden you with caring for a dying man. I want us to go before ... before ... ’

  She took his hands in hers. ‘James, I’ll let you know very soon. I promise.’

  ‘Any more words of wisdom from Julius?’

  ‘No. But then again, I haven’t dared ask him.’

  *

  She got back to find that Nina had dropped off her mother’s file, and a set of keys, with a note. Tm late in tomorrow, please return these yourself, I’m counting on you.’

  The file was marked ‘Warburton, Louisa’. ‘Baxter’ was crossed out. There were addresses, past and present, date of birth. Some notes related to tax and National Insurance. Details of her retirement, which gave a number and said, ‘Refer to Pension Fund’. A certificate of maternity leave for 1973. A couple of sick notes. One mentioned glaucoma and someone had underlined this in red. Next to it, also in red, Agnes saw ‘Refer to document A52N’. Agnes flicked through the file but couldn’t find any such document.

  She put on the kettle and settled down at her desk. She turned to Ernest Coulter’s file. There were yellowing certificates of service which dated back to the war. Ernest had joined the mill in 1938 at the age of fifteen. In 1942 he’d been called up to join the Army. He’d returned to the mill in 1946. There was a certificate from the Army, describing in cold detail his medical condition on leaving. Facial injuries. She noticed a period of absence in the spring of 1947, and a doctor’s note which mentioned nervous exhaustion. He returned to work in October 1947.

  The similarity with Reg startled her. The same condition, the same length of absence. There were other periods of leave, one for a day to attend his daughter’s wedding on 15 May, 1969. One for a funeral. Then she found a memo: ‘Re Coulter, Ernest. We have today agreed that due to his failing sight, he will be moved from machinework. We have agreed with Mr Coulter a programme of work which will be compatible with his disability.’ It was dated July 1978.

  After that there were papers to do with his early retirement and pension fund, and a doctor’s certificate which gave details of his blindness. Again, in red handwriting it said, ‘Refer to document A52N.’ Again, no such document was in the file.

  Agnes replaced the papers carefully. This daughter, she thought, staring at her heaps of files. The daughter’s wedding, 1969, she thought, pulling out a file marked ‘Press Cuttings, personnel’. There were a few jumbled, shabby cuttings. May 1969, she thought. Although there was no reason to believe that the Allbright’s archives would extend to the marriage of daughters of workers, she thought. She saw 29 April, 1969. The story was about the mill’s old drayhorses, and the photo showed two shire horses harnessed to an old-fashioned cart in the mill courtyard. She pulled out the next cutting. ‘Athletics Team sees out Daphne in Style’, the headline said. It was dated 20 May 1969.

  ‘The boys from Allbright’s Athletics put on a special show for a special girl last Saturday, when Daphne Coulter stepped out on her wedding day. And the lucky groom, Robert Snaith ... ’

  Agnes stared at the yellowing newsprint. Daphne Snaith. Her father was blind. Her children ... In her mind Agnes saw the binoculars, the curve of the arc as they flew up into the air, the mud splashing as they landed. Her children ... If she had two boys ... If ...

  Births, she thought, returning the cutting to its place. Births. From the press cuttings? Or perhaps it would be easier ... If only she had the file ... Her eyes scanned the heap of files. Snaith, D. She pulled it out. On the front it said, Snaith, Daphne. ‘Coulter’ was written on the front of the file, crossed out. Agnes rifled through the sheets of paper, her hands shaking. There were two certificates of maternity leave in her file, for a boy born 1971, named David. And in 1974, Mark.

  She stared at the names, reading them over and over again, her mind struggling as an idea formed, a pattern took shape. Ernest Coulter lost his sight. Louisa Warburton lost her sight. Both were in the employ of the mill. And their descendants were Mark. David. And Nina.

  Reg, she thought. It doesn’t explain why Reg should also ... And what was document A52N? And where was it?

  Agnes put on her coat, gathered up all the files and went out. She drove fast.

  The single-storey spinning sheds were floodlit across the courtyard, leaving the old mill in shadow. She went straight to the admin block, unlocking the door, then let herself into Nina’s office and by the light of the torch carefully replaced all the files.

  She remembered what Nina had said about Turnbull looking for a missing file, his insistence that it was something to do with Baines. Her torch beam scanned the boxes on the floor. Inland Revenue, she saw, VAT, Price Lists, Weavers Lists ...

  She stood up, switched off her torch and left the office, locking the door behind her. She slipped across the shadows of the courtyard and tried the door of the derelict mill, which opened. She ran up the stairs and tried Baines’s door. It was locked. She tried key after key on Nina’s bunch, until at last a brass Yale turned in the lock, and the door gave.

  The room seemed huge and bare in the torch beam. The boxes of files distributed around the floor were gone. The desk was still there, its polished surface empty. There was a chair in one corner. There was nowhere to hide a file. She thought of Baines living out his last weeks in this room, torn apart by his loss, by the desertion of his favourite daughter. She remembered how he’d come to find Nina, saying it was too late, filthy, she’d said, really filthy. Agnes glanced at the empty hearth, the old bricks scattered with soot. Soot.

  Agnes went to the fireplace and shone her torch up the flue. She reached up and ran her hands around the brickwork. She could feel nothing.

  This is crazy, she thought. I’m looking for a document, and I’ve now convinced myself that Baines hid it up the chimney. I’ve allowed some kind of fantasy to get the better of me. She flashed her torch around the chimney again, and saw nothing at all. She was just about to leave when she heard a shout from the courtyard, then several more, loud male voices. As they got nearer, she could make out the words.

  ‘You bastard, Micksy,’ someone shouted.

  ‘Shut it, Keenan. What about your girlfriend, eh? Your older woman?’

  ‘Leave it, you tosser.’

  ‘That the best you can get, eh, Keenan? She must be at least fifty. And is she still a virgin?’

  There was the sound of scuffling, more shouts, je
ering laughter. Agnes backed against the wall by the window, then peered round a fraction. The courtyard was floodlit, and people walked across it towards the gate. The evening shift, Agnes supposed, giving way to the dawn shift. From the archway she could see another group of people arriving, and for a moment the two lines met, exchanged a few words, their long shadows mingling in the arcs of light. Agnes saw Billy Keenan by the gate, his laughing face caught in the glare, before he turned and sloped off home up the hill.

  There was silence again. Agnes thought about Baines. Mad with grief, Evelyn had said. Madness, Agnes thought, is usually based on reason. Agnes put on her gloves and placed the chair under the chimney flue. She climbed up, then braced herself with her back against the brickwork. She wedged one foot on the bricks, then the other further up, and found she could climb far enough to hold on to a ridge inside the flue. Then she found a foothold, and was soon about a yard inside the chimney.

  It was pitch dark. She’d left her torch on the desk. She gripped the ridge with one hand and with the other felt around the edge of the flue. Her hand touched something. She fingered it. A square edge. Paper. She pulled it out, and realised she was holding a bundle, tied with tape. She tucked it into her trousers, and climbed back down the chimney, dropping on to the hearth. She picked up her torch and shone it on to her find.

  There was a label attached to the tape. ‘A52N’ it said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Agnes picked up her phone, glanced at her clock, put the phone down again. It was 2:34 a.m. Nina wouldn’t thank her for waking her now. Even though what she had to tell her was important. Very important.

  Agnes looked at the curled old paper spread out before her, its pink tape hanging down. It was a Deed of Trust, made out in the name of Jeremiah Baines and dated 1869. She read through it again, the ornate Victorian language winding around her mind, trying to assure herself of the truth of what she’d read. That Jeremiah Baines, in honour of his own beloved and devoted wife Dorothea, who had suffered her own loss of sight with such faith and fortitude, does hereby declare that any of his employees, and any employee of Allbright’s hereafter, who do lose their sight while in the service of the mill, shall be recipients of a sum of money, the amount to be decided hereafter ... And such money shall be entrusted to their descendants insofar as children and grandchildren ...