Half the World in Winter

by Maggie Joel

  The kitchen was in uproar.

  Cook had got up before dawn to start preparations for the dinner. The delivery from the butcher’s had arrived late and they had forgotten to include the legs of lamb. The vegetables had been put on late and had only been boiling for an hour. A miscalculation with the icebox meant that the pineapple creams had frozen into a solid mass whereas the raspberry ices had melted into a single pool of crimson liquid. The venison, a whole carcass that had been delivered the previous day and had spent the night hanging from a hook in the scullery, had been got at by Mr Gladstone and Hermione had been put to work removing the more obviously savaged bits of flesh. Mr Gladstone had been booted outside and was now yowling indignantly even as he licked his paws and cleaned his bloodied whiskers.

  ‘I was led to understand you were a professional, Mrs Varley,’ Mrs Logan had declared, surveying this chaos an hour or so before the first guests were due to arrive.

  ‘And so I am, Mrs Logan. But I have to work with amatoors, don’t I? And if you think this is a disaster you shoulda seen the dinner I prepared at me last house. On that occasion, a rat got into the pigeon pie and no one noticed till it was served up. Now that was a sight to behold, and no mistake!’

  ‘You certainly instil confidence, Mrs Varley.’

  ‘Can’t abide pigeons ever since,’ Cook had continued, lighting her pipe and clearly warming to her subject. ‘It quite turns me stomach to see one. And I won’t cook wiv ’em, neither.’

  ‘Then it is a good thing we are not having pigeon pie this evening,’ observed Mrs Logan, who was a party to the Prussian fowl deception and who had already taken delivery of the pigeons—ready-plucked and minus their feet—from the butcher’s that morning.

  She had left the chaos of the kitchen for the relative calm of the cellar, where she had passed a solitary but not unpleasant half-hour digging out the appropriate bottles for the dinner. She had just located the Cheval Blanc when she heard a commotion in the kitchen. Assuming the worst she ran along the passage to the kitchen, almost tripping over Mr Gladstone, who had somehow found his way back inside and was now positioned on the stone-flagged hallway with his tail stuck up straight, his ears pinned back, his teeth bared and his orange fur standing up on end. He jumped at Mrs Logan’s arrival and hissed at her.

  In the kitchen Hermione stood in the middle of the room, quivering from head to foot, the palms of her hands pressed against the sides of her head, moaning softly.

  ‘What is it? What’s going on?’ Mrs Logan demanded, coming swiftly over to the distressed maid. ‘Oh, get out of the way, cat,’ and she pushed the furious orange beast with her foot.

  ‘I seen it! And I ’eard it, too!’ exclaimed Hermione, reeling around, her face as white as Cook’s shortcrust pastry and about as appealing.

  ‘She seen the ghost!’ said Cook, chortling with delight. She turned away, wielding the chopping knife, which she now brought down with a thud upon the necks of the first two Prussian fowls.

  Mrs Logan took things in hand. First she slapped the girl smartly on her left cheek, then she shook her by both shoulders. Then she said, ‘Don’t be so daft, girl. There isn’t any such thing as ghosts.’ Finally she sat the girl down and handed her a small nip of Cook’s gin.

  ‘’Ere, don’t you be too generous wiv that!’ Cook warned and she beheaded two more of the fowls.

  Mrs Logan ignored her.

  ‘Hermione, the silver still has not been cleaned, the carpet in the dining room needs to be swept and the lamps lit, the tablecloth needs to be laid, the places need to be set, the curtains in all the rooms need to be drawn, and in the drawing room the carpet swept and lamps lit.’

  She was certain she had forgotten something but that would keep the girl busy for the time being.

  But Hermione had not moved.

  ‘That’s where I ’eard it!’ she said in a terrified voice. ‘The ghost! In the drawin’ room, just like you said, Mrs Varley.’

  ‘You told her about the little girl?’ Mrs Logan demanded, rounding furiously on Cook.

  ‘Ain’t no secret,’ replied Cook, picking up one of the headless Prussian fowls and regarding it suspiciously.

  ‘Hermione, what exactly did you see or hear?’

  ‘It. The ghost.’

  ‘Yes. Now describe to me, as precisely as you are able, the noise the ghost made.’

  ‘A child cryin’. Sobbin’, like it were in terrible pain. ’Orrible, it were. Turned the blood cold in me veins. And then clothes rustlin’, like it were movin’, like it were comin’ towards me—’

  ‘And you were in the drawing room at the time that you heard this noise?’ interrupted Mrs Logan.

  ‘No! I was right outside. I was goin’ in to sweep the carpet and do them other things when I ’eard it through the door. I couldn’t move. I knew if I went in, if I saw it, if it saw me, I’d be turned to stone.’

  ‘How’d you know that then?’ demanded Cook, putting down the bird carcass. ‘’Appened to you before, has it—bein’ turned to stone?’

  ‘No. Never. But I know others what ’ave.’

  ‘You know folk what ’ave turned to stone?’ said Cook, ceasing her work completely to stand with her hands on her hips.

  Mrs Logan had a sense of things getting out of hand.

  ‘Hermione, come with me and we will go up to the drawing room together and—’

  ‘No!’ refused the girl, shaking her head, her eyes wide with terror. ‘Don’t make me do it, Mrs Logan, I’d as soon quit.’

  ‘I can arrange that,’ observed Cook. ‘Plenty more girls in the orphanage.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Varley. As always your observations are pithy though of no help whatsoever. Hermione, for this evening only, you will do the jobs in the dining room and elsewhere in the house and I shall do the drawing room. Now, get back to work or I will follow Cook’s advice.’

  Hermione got shakily to her feet, seemed for one agonised moment to consider her future in the household, then grabbed a bucket and a broom and left the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t think much of these ’ere Prussian fowls,’ said Cook, nudging one with her knife. ‘Can’t think what the Kaiser wants with ’em. Look no better than pigeons to me.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mrs Varley. They look nothing like pigeons.’

  Mrs Logan had set to work in the drawing room, aware that they were behind schedule and that the family would be coming downstairs in a matter of minutes and the first guests arriving not long after. A cursory glance around the room before she set to work confirmed that no ghost was currently in residence and she snorted and shook her head at the girl’s foolishness and Cook’s unhelpful goading. Having completed the drawing room, she prepared to withdraw, backing straight into Mrs Jarmyn.

  ‘Oh. Is the room not ready, Mrs Logan?’ she asked, both eyebrows climbing delicately up her forehead.

  ‘Certainly it is, Mrs Jarmyn. I was just giving it one final check.’

  ‘Did it require one final check? Or do you not trust the maid to do her job?’

  Mrs Logan did not trust the maid to do her job, particularly when the maid believed she had just seen a ghost, but she was certainly not going to admit this to her employer.

  ‘It is customary to make one final round of checks prior to guests arriving,’ she replied.

  ‘A custom I am not familiar with. But no doubt you know your business. Thank you, Mrs Logan,’ and Mrs Jarmyn swept icily out of the drawing room and closed the door firmly behind her.

  After her mistress had gone Mrs Logan stayed for a time in the room calming herself. For the best part of the three years they had existed, herself and Mrs Jarmyn, if not exactly side by side, then certainly with a single purpose: the good running of the house. After Sofia’s death Mrs Jarmyn’s interest in the good running of the house had, perhaps not unnaturally, waned. But since the family had emerged from mourning the atmosphere had altered markedly and Mrs Jarmyn’s antagonism, never far from the surface, appeared to be escalating. Oddly she had
not attempted to wrestle back duties that for the most part now fell to her housekeeper and that her housekeeper would willingly have handed back. No, instead she seemed intent on undermining her.

  Am I afraid of her? Mrs Logan wondered, uneasily. It was not a pleasant thought. No, she decided after a moment’s reflection, she was not afraid. But the balance had definitely changed.

  A sound outside the room, a floorboard creaking followed a moment later by light footsteps retreating up the stairs, made it clear Mrs Jarmyn had been standing just the other side of the door.

  Is she afraid of me? Mrs Logan wondered, and the thought stunned her.

  She left the room and hurried down to the dining room on the ground floor to see where Hermione was up to and for the next half hour they prepared the room. Only about half the plates had been cleaned but if they rotated the cleaned items quickly enough during dinner it was likely no one would notice.

  ‘Fingerbowls,’ said Mrs Logan, signalling Hermione with a click of her fingers. ‘In the sideboard. Quickly. Fill them up.’

  Hermione found the bowls and laid them at intervals on the table, then she filled them up with water from the jug.

  ‘Rosewater. We need rosewater,’ said Mrs Logan and Hermione gaped at her. ‘We ain’t got no roses, Mrs Logan! It’s winter!’

  ‘Then we improvise! Coloured paper. Go on, girl, to one of the children’s rooms. It must be red or pink or yellow, and scissors, hurry!’

  Whilst Hermione was gone she surveyed the table, adjusting one or two pieces, rearranging the chairs. When Hermione returned, triumphantly waving a sheet of pink notepaper and some sewing scissors, they set busily to work cutting out rose-petal-shaped pieces and dropping them into the fingerbowls.

  ‘Looks like bits of coloured paper,’ Hermione concluded as they stood back to survey their handiwork.

  ‘Don’t be defeatist. The guests may think that but no one will say so. We will say it is a new variety of rose. A Prussian rose. Now, go and help Cook and keep a lookout for the first guests. It will be the Miss Courtaulds and they’ll be here in … four minutes.’

  By a quarter to eight all of the guests had arrived and had congregated in the drawing room.

  By eight o’clock a drunken man had turned up outside the house threatening violence to all those within.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IT WAS HERMIONE WHO SPOTTED him first. She came running along the hallway, skidding to a halt in the dining room doorway, her cap askew, eyes wide, and Mrs Logan, who had been making final adjustments to the table settings, paused, hands on hips.

  ‘Hermione, if you’re about to tell me you’ve seen the ghost—’

  ‘No, Mrs Logan, I ain’t. It’s a man and he’s outside the house, shoutin’ and carryin’ on and threatenin’ all sorts!’

  They picked up their skirts and ran together back down the hallway. Mrs Logan could hear the rumble of voices and the occasional laugh coming from the drawing room. She also heard what sounded like an explosion coming from below stairs, but she chose to ignore that and to concentrate on the immediate danger: to wit, a man threatening violence and, more to the point, potentially disrupting the dinner party.

  The hallway was illuminated by a single lamp halfway along its length and neither she nor Hermione carried a candle, whilst outside Cadogan Mews was flooded with street gaslighting. Consequently they could clearly make out, silhouetted against the stained glass panels in the front door, a man’s figure, looming and grotesque, and a moment later, a thud as something hit the door.

  ‘Oh, he’s comin’ in!’ shrieked Hermione, cowering behind Mrs Logan as they both stopped.

  ‘Oh, no he’s not!’ said Mrs Logan, marching up to the front door and opening it.

  The man, whoever he was, seemed for a moment to fill the doorway and Mrs Logan was aware of her heart pounding painfully. A second later the man staggered backwards, appearing to have been thrown off balance by the door unexpectedly opening and an angry housekeeper standing before him. She could make him out more clearly now and she saw that this was a working man, a young man with a limp moustache but with a usually clean-shaven chin, though he clearly had not shaved for some days or longer. He wore a shabby jacket with a collarless shirt beneath it—ripped and bloodied, she noted—and a cap of some sort on his head and working men’s boots on his feet. He was evidently taken with the drink for he stared at her uncomprehendingly, then blinked through swollen and bruised eyes, and he swayed for a moment, almost falling over the doorstep so that she got a faceful of alcoholic fumes.

  ‘What do you mean by coming to this house in this manner?’ she demanded.

  ‘Mr Jarmyn—that’s the gentleman’s name, in’t it? That’s the gentleman whose father built the railway?’ he replied, swaying towards her and catching at the doorframe to steady himself so that his face was briefly lit by the streetlight, and it was a terrible face—bruised and swollen and cut up.

  ‘Mr Jarmyn? Mr Jarmyn will not see you. What do you mean by coming here at this hour? What is your business?’

  ‘He knows! He knows why I’m here! Tell ’im it’s Thomas Brinklow of Dawley.’ The man’s voice rose as he said these words and Mrs Logan cast a glance upwards where the voices from the drawing room could be clearly heard. Perhaps seeing she had momentarily taken her eyes off him, he made a move towards the front door, pushing against it and almost succeeding in getting in but Mrs Logan held him back and, after a brief tussle, managed to close the door. A moment later she saw him throw himself against the door with a curse.

  Mrs Logan turned and walked quickly back towards the cowering Hermione.

  ‘Wait here. Do not let this man get in—’ (Hermione gaped at her) ‘—and I shall go and consult Mr Jarmyn. And it may be that someone will need to be dispatched to get the constable.’ Hermione’s eyes widened and she paled visibly.

  Mrs Logan ascended to the drawing room, her steps slowing as she approached. Here she paused, remaining unobtrusively in the doorway, trying to catch Mr Jarmyn’s eye but seeing instead Mrs Jarmyn, who flashed her an irritated glance. Mrs Logan had no wish to consult Mrs Jarmyn on this matter but Mrs Jarmyn came directly over.

  ‘What is it, Mrs Logan? Is there a problem?’

  ‘There is a young man—a working man—outside, asking to speak to Mr Jarmyn.’

  Mrs Jarmyn looked a little bemused. ‘Then I suggest you inform the young man that Mr Jarmyn is not available.’

  ‘Indeed, I have done so however he is most insistent, to the point of—’

  But Mrs Jarmyn had turned away to catch something someone had said. Now she turned back and appeared surprised Mrs Logan was still standing there.

  ‘I feel certain you can deal with the matter, Mrs Logan,’ she said, and she rejoined her guests.

  And so I shall, thought Mrs Logan, picking up her skirts and heading quickly back downstairs. Hermione had not moved, and neither had the drunken young man for she could make out his darkened form leaning against the front door.

  If she had thought he had called off his assault Mrs Logan was disappointed, for Mr Brinklow, with an intoxicated roar, began to pummel himself bodily against the door. Mrs Logan, who had momentarily placed herself just on the other side of the door in order to draw breath, jumped with fright but the front door was a solid one and no drunken working man in a soiled cap was going to knock it down anytime soon. Still, the guests would be descending to the dining room imminently and a drunkard attempting to batter down the front door was not a sight they should be confronted with.

  Another explosion—muffled, but an explosion nonetheless—could be heard from below stairs. Mrs Logan took a deep breath.

  ‘Get Cook, Hermione, hurry. Tell her to come upstairs.’

  ‘Upstairs?’ repeated Hermione. ‘Cook?’

  ‘Yes! Oh, for Heaven’s sake!’ and she pushed the girl aside and plunged down the stairs, tripping over Mr Gladstone and narrowly avoiding a nasty fall.

  She paused in the kitchen doorway, confro
nted with a fog of thick smoke that instantly made her choke. Out of the fog, Cook appeared.

  ‘These Prussian fowls go off like firecrackers if you cover ’em in brandy and hang ’em from a roastin’-jack for ’alf an hour,’ Cook observed, wiping exploded fowl from her hands onto her apron and smoothing down her singed eyebrows.

  ‘I’m sure it will make a most amusing party trick. In the meantime, Mrs Varley, I require your urgent assistance upstairs!’

  ‘Upstairs?!’ repeated Cook, aghast.

  ‘Yes. Now please.’

  Cook shook her head but nevertheless followed Mrs Logan back up the stairs.

  ‘I ain’t been upstairs since the business of the spilt bisque and before that, last May,’ she muttered, ‘and look what happened then,’ she added darkly.

  ‘This is not a time for reminiscences, Mrs Varley. There is a drunken young man attempting to break down the front door and I require him to be removed before the guests come down to dinner. As you have considerably more … presence than myself or Hermione, I would be much obliged if you would kindly remove him.’

  Cook gave a second bewildered shake of the head. ‘Right you are, Mrs Logan,’ she replied, pushing up her sleeves and getting into the spirit of the thing, and she set off down the hallway in what could only be described as a businesslike waddle. Upstairs the rumble of voices got louder and Mrs Logan realised the guests were on their way downstairs.

  ‘Hermione, there is nothing for it, I’m afraid.’ And Hermione, who had not moved from her position behind the potted fern, gazed up at her with a look of dismay.

  How futile it all was, thought Dinah, feeling the weight of a hundred dinner parties pressing down upon her shoulders.

  They were preparing to go down to dinner. Her mother had marshalled each of the couples into their correct formation in the procession and now they were ready to set off. Father and Mrs Freebody, as host and most important lady, were first, followed by Emily Duvall who had been trumped by Mrs Freebody and now found herself being led to dinner by Mr Freebody, then came Miss Fresia Courtauld and Captain Palmer, Miss Adelaide and Dr Gant, Mr Eberhardt and Mrs Gant, Mrs Eberhardt and Mr Duvall, then her mother, as hostess, with Professor Dallinger as the most important gentlemen. Herself and Mr Hart, as single and (on one side, at least) youngest, brought up the rear. The Eberhardts, who were American, had embraced the idea of a procession with an enthusiasm that did not falter when their own lowly position in it became evident. Bill, with no partner of his own and strictly against the rules of protocol, took Sissy Eberhardt’s other arm and looked very pleased with himself.