Half the World in Winter

by Maggie Joel

  Mr Hart, by contrast, was clearly miffed. He had been partnered with the youngest, the prettiest, the only eligible young lady of the evening but she had proven to be uncommunicative, her interest in him limited at best, and now he found himself bringing up the rear as they prepared to make their way down to dinner. To compensate, Dinah gave him her most—indeed, her only—encouraging smile of the evening, which meant he was forced to smile back when he clearly would have preferred to frown.

  The procession set off and Dinah closed her eyes.

  ‘Have you a headache, Miss Jarmyn?’ inquired Mr Hart.

  ‘Not yet,’ she replied and they both lapsed into silence.

  The front couple had reached the stairwell and begun to descend. They must have been about halfway down the stairs, with the rear couple still at the top, when they heard a tremendous crash down below followed immediately by a shriek. Instantly the procession broke ranks, the gentlemen clattering down the remaining stairs to investigate, the ladies standing where they had stopped, and clapping their hands to their faces.

  ‘It’s the maid,’ said someone.

  ‘The maid’s come a cropper,’ someone else confirmed.

  By the time Dinah reached the scene, Hermione was standing surrounded by the remnants of a rather ugly vase that had once stood on the table in the hallway containing dried flowers, and by a semi-circle of guests. Hermione had a rather odd, almost frozen, look on her face, no doubt caused by the shock of the crash and by the sudden arrival on the scene of eight breathless gentlemen followed a moment later by eight shaken ladies.

  ‘Is the girl all right?’ someone asked.

  ‘Yes, she’s perfectly fine. No harm done,’ said Mrs Jarmyn, assuming control of the situation, but she looked over the gentlemen’s heads seeking out Mrs Logan as she said this.

  Mrs Logan appeared from nowhere, smiling brightly. ‘Yes, no harm done, a little domestic accident. Poor girl tripped over Mr Gladstone. He does have a tendency to get underfoot.’

  ‘Good. Well, so long as no one is hurt, I suggest we remove at once to the dining room,’ said Mr Jarmyn and, casting a thoughtful glance at his housekeeper, he began to shepherd the guests inside.

  ‘Tripped over Mr Gladstone? Whatever can she mean?’ said Mrs Eberhardt as she followed Mr Jarmyn into the dining room.

  Once the last guest had gone inside, Mrs Logan grabbed Hermione and brushed her down.

  ‘That was very well done, Hermione. I shall not forget your sacrifice. Now, hurry and serve the soup—the clear soup first. I must check on things outside.’

  ‘Things’ had gone ominously quiet outside, so much so that Hermione’s heroics with the ugly vase had almost not been warranted, but Mrs Logan had taken no chances in creating her little diversion. She made her way up the hallway and, after putting her head against the front door to listen, opened the door wide.

  There was no one in sight.

  She stepped out into the cold night, looking up and down the mews, and found Cook standing over a slumped figure some little way off, hands on hips.

  ‘And let that be a lesson to you,’ Cook said, and she spat on the ground. Then she turned and, rubbing her hands briskly together, waddled back up towards the house.

  ‘Don’t think you’ll be having no more trouble from that one,’ she announced but Mrs Logan, who could see the slumped figure stagger to its feet, wobble for a moment, then reach down for a large rock that seemed to have been placed there for just this eventuality, disagreed with her.

  ‘Always a mistake, in my experience,’ declared Professor Dallinger, ‘naming a cat after a prime minister. Bound to lead to confusion.’ He paused to bring his mouth closer to his soup spoon.

  ‘No doubt you are correct, sir,’ Bill replied, ‘but, in point of fact, it was the other way around: we named Mr Gladstone Mr Gladstone before Mr Gladstone became Prime Minister, so we can hardly be held to blame in this instance.’ He sat back rather satisfied with himself and Dinah, studying her brother from across the table, saw that he was utterly untouched by the two recent bereavements and for a moment she hated him.

  ‘Ah well, not a great deal one can do in that circumstance,’ the professor conceded.

  ‘Except vote for Mr Disraeli,’ suggested her father.

  ‘Oh dear, I trust the men are not going to discuss politics,’ said Mrs Duvall with a pretty smile.

  ‘Politics? Who’s discussing politics? I was talking about cats,’ replied the professor.

  ‘It is confusing, though, isn’t it,’ said Mrs Freebody, ‘having a cat with the same name as the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Yes, I believe we have already established that, Evelyn,’ said her husband in a curt aside.

  ‘Actually it’s not confusing at all,’ said Mrs Jarmyn, jumping into the slight pause caused by Mr Freebody’s remark. ‘For instance, if one hears that someone has tripped over Mr Gladstone or that Mr Gladstone has got at the milk, we usually assume it is the cat. On the other hand, if we hear that Mr Gladstone has made a great speech in Parliament on the Irish Question, then we are likely to assume it is Mr Gladstone, the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I take your point,’ said Professor Dallinger, and Dinah thought: I cannot bear it.

  ‘Run, Mrs Varley!’

  ‘Run?’ said Cook. ‘These legs ain’t doin’ no runnin’. It’s a wonder they got up them stairs at all. Now you want me to run?’

  And indeed the crazed young man was even now careering towards them, his arm raised, the slab of stone clasped in his right hand and a menacing look in his eye. He let out a great bellow of rage and at this, Mrs Varley picked up her skirts and fairly sprinted up the front steps, without so much as a backward glance to see what was occurring.

  With the deranged man barely two yards behind her, Cook plunged through the door, aided by Mrs Logan who reached out and grabbed her arm, bundling her inside and slamming the front door in the young man’s face.

  They both collapsed against the door, the one breathing heavily, the other wheezing and clasping one hand to her bosom, and flapping her face with the other.

  A second later the young man, or the rock with which he was armed, or possibly both, slammed against the door with a thud that made the door shudder, and the housekeeper and the cook hurled themselves to the floor, their hands over their heads as though the Heavens were falling in upon them.

  The thud reverberated down the length of the hallway and could clearly be heard in the dining room, interrupting Dr Gant’s fascinating anecdote concerning an item of rare fifteenth-century glassware he had almost, but at the last minute failed, to purchase in an auction room in Umbria the previous year.

  ‘Oh, the maid has come a cropper again!’ announced Captain Palmer, clearly relieved at the interruption.

  ‘Perhaps she has tripped over Mr Gladstone again,’ suggested Mrs Duvall. ‘I mean the cat, not the Prime Minister,’ she added lest there was any lingering confusion.

  ‘Prussian fowl, madam?’ said Hermione, offering the silver dish to her, and everyone at once realised that the maid had not, in fact, come a cropper as she was, at that very moment, in the room with them.

  ‘Hermione, do you know what is occurring outside?’ inquired Mr Jarmyn, mildly.

  Hermione froze. ‘Outside?’

  ‘Yes. Outside.’

  It seemed to Dinah, silently watching Hermione from her place at the table, that various responses flashed across the girl’s face and were as swiftly dismissed. In the end Hermione went for the simplest option and merely shook her head. ‘I really couldn’t say, sir.’

  ‘Then, if I may be excused for a brief moment, I shall take it upon myself to investigate and report back,’ announced Mr Jarmyn, pushing back his chair and standing up. He paused to dip his fingers into the nearest fingerbowl, frowned for a moment at the rose petal that was stuck to his thumb, then with a bow to the ladies, left the room.

  ‘We require the services of a police constable, Mrs Varley,’ said Mrs Logan as a second
thud caused the front door to shudder again.

  ‘I don’t need no police constable. I need Mr Mappin and Mr Webb. You ’old the fort, Mrs L. I’ll sort this,’ and Cook set off at a brisk waddle downstairs.

  Mrs Logan wasted no time speculating on who Mr Mappin or Mr Webb were and why they were resident in Mrs Varley’s kitchen. Instead she grabbed the occasional table that stood just inside the front door and began to manoeuvre it against the door. Then she heaved the massive potted fern into place beside it and had just completed this task as Mr Jarmyn emerged from the dining room.

  ‘Mrs Logan,’ he called. ‘I trust everything is all right?’

  ‘Good evening, Mr Jarmyn. It would appear that we are under siege.’

  ‘Under siege? Good Lord.’ He came quickly down the hallway just as the young man made his third attempt on the front door. ‘Who the Devil is it? What does he want?’

  Mrs Logan briefly described the man’s arrival and relayed the details of her short conversation with him.

  ‘But he wants me? He desires to speak with me?’

  ‘It would appear so. He did not explain the reason for his request.’

  ‘Then I must speak with him.’

  Mrs Logan at once thrust herself between her employer and the door. ‘I do not believe that is a good idea, Mr Jarmyn. The man is armed and, in my opinion, clearly mad. You will only get harmed—or worse!’

  Mr Jarmyn bowed his head and spoke in a quiet voice.

  ‘I heed your warning, Mrs Logan, however I have a good idea of why this fellow is upset. I think it better if I speak with him.’

  Mrs Logan faced him and for a moment they stood so close the cuffs of his coat brushed the sleeve of her gown. She closed her eyes for a moment then stepped aside. Mr Jarmyn calmly removed her makeshift barricade and faced the front door. At the final moment he turned to her and they exchanged a silent look.

  ‘I believe it would be better if you were to beat a retreat, Mrs Logan.’

  ‘I shall wait right here,’ she replied. She would face the danger with him.

  ‘As you wish,’ and Mr Jarmyn flung open the door.

  The young man stood before them, silhouetted as before and looking massive in the gaslight, his right arm raised and his face in shadow.

  ‘Mr Brinklow? Is it Mr Brinklow? Would you like to come in? We can talk, if you would like to.’

  The man had frozen, his arm still aloft. Mrs Logan, standing just inside the doorway, could feel her heart in her mouth and she knew, in an instant, that if the arm came down, if the madman struck, that she would spring forward and push Mr Jarmyn aside. That she would take the blow herself, if need be. She braced herself.

  No one moved.

  A sound like one might imagine a wounded bull to make, or perhaps a banshee at the gates of Hell, filled the night air and, seemingly out of the ground, a figure arose, giant and grotesque with a glinting flash of metal. The madman spun around, the rock falling from his hand, and he cried out, staggered and fell backwards down the front steps. Picking himself up he ran, in a dazed zigzagging path across the mews and around the corner into Cadogan Square.

  ‘That fixed ’im good,’ announced Cook, standing at the top of the basement steps with her best chopping knife in her hand. ‘Evenin’, Mr Jarmyn,’ and she spat on the ground and descended the steps once more.

  There was a moment when, left alone in the now empty doorway, neither Mrs Logan nor Mr Jarmyn spoke. Finally Mr Jarmyn turned to her.

  ‘I had no idea I had such a formidable team below stairs. Shall we put these back?’ and together they shifted the table and the fern back to their proper places.

  ‘I think I had better return to my guests,’ said Mr Jarmyn once they had removed all signs of the siege. Yet he made no move to return to the dining room. Instead he turned back to her, a look of bemused admiration on his face. ‘A formidable team,’ he repeated. Then he left and headed off down the hallway. As he reached the table where the ugly vase had until recently stood, he paused and turned back. ‘Good choice, Mrs Logan. I never liked that vase,’ and he disappeared into the dining room.

  Mrs Logan stood in the gloom of the hallway for a long moment and was surprised to find she had an overwhelming urge to burst into tears.

  ‘Curious. It tastes a little like pigeon,’ said Nathan Eberhardt. ‘It’s not a delicacy we have in the States.’

  ‘Birds are generally larger in the States,’ Sissy Eberhardt observed to Mr Duvall, who was seated beside her.

  ‘I do not believe we have had Prussian fowl before, have we, Fresia?’ said the younger Miss Courtauld.

  ‘I do not believe so, Adelaide, no,’ her sister confirmed.

  ‘Oh, but I feel certain it was served at the Dempsey-Bowes’ last year,’ said Mrs Jarmyn and Dinah looked at her mother and her mother returned her gaze impassively.

  ‘Yes, yes I do believe you are right, Aurora,’ said Miss Adelaide, nodding. ‘Do you not remember, Fresia? We had it at the Dempsey-Bowes’ last year?’

  ‘And Mama, didn’t Cook mention that they serve it to Her Majesty when she is staying at Balmoral?’ said Dinah.

  The dining room door opened and Mr Jarmyn came back in, resuming his place at the table with a bright smile.

  ‘I do beg everyone’s pardon. Dr Gant, you were telling us about that fascinating item of fifteenth-century glassware. I am impatient to discover whether your bid was successful or not?’

  Much, much later, Dinah removed her gloves and her boots and unfastened her gown—the corset, unfettered now by whalebone, simply glided to the floor—and blew out the candle and went and stood by the window in her bedroom. She pulled the curtains aside and looked down on the deserted mews below. A single gaslight burnt and in the distance a clock struck the quarter hour. It was after midnight.

  At least, she thought as she stood gazing out of the window, at least Mr Hart had not attempted to propose to her. She could not have borne that.

  Much later still, when the army of pots and pans and cutlery and utensils and implements had been cleaned and polished and put away, when the tables had been scrubbed and the range had been cleaned in readiness for tomorrow, and Hermione had finally dragged herself up to her attic room and Mrs Logan had done her final inspection and gone up to her own room, Cook sat up late in her rocking chair, thoughtfully smoking her pipe and gnawing on the bones of the remaining Prussian fowls.

  The house was silent but for the puff of her pipe and the sucking of her gums on the tiny bird bones.

  And the smothered sobbing of a child above.

  Cook stopped gnawing and removed the pipe from her mouth and listened. She heaved herself to her feet, picked up the guttering candle and went along the passage to stand at the bottom of the stairs. After a moment she returned to the kitchen, closing the door behind her and, pausing only briefly, she picked up a wooden chair and wedged it beneath the doorhandle. Then she resumed her position in the rocking chair but her pipe had gone out and she did not relight it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘FATHER, WHY WAS THAT MAN trying to break down our front door last night?’ asked Jack, over breakfast.

  Mr Jarmyn looked up from his morning kidneys and regarded his youngest son in some surprise. ‘Was there a man trying to break down our front door last night?’ He sat back in his chair facing the other members of the family who were seated around the breakfast table. ‘Did anyone else witness this extraordinary phenomenon?’

  He was relieved that neither the maid nor Mrs Logan were in attendance at that moment. He had no wish for either of them to observe him lying to his entire family.

  ‘Not I,’ said his wife, casting a surprised glance at her son. ‘When did this alleged atrocity occur, Jack?’

  ‘Last night! Whilst you were all at dinner! And it’s not “alleged”!

  ‘And yet, oddly, I saw nothing of it at all,’ remarked Gus, fastidiously cutting up the slice of cold tongue on his plate.

  ‘Dinah, did you witness anything?
’ asked Mr Jarmyn.

  Dinah shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I was too busy discussing rare Venetian glassware and suitable names for cats to have noticed anything, Father.’

  ‘Yes, they were high points in the conversation, were they not?’ Mr Jarmyn turned back to Jack, who was looking increasingly agitated, and gave him an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry, old man.’

  ‘But I saw him!’ Jack insisted, getting indignantly up from his seat then noting his father’s frown and sitting down again. ‘I really did,’ he repeated, though in a quieter voice.

  As he said this, Mrs Logan entered the morning room carrying a vase with dried flowers in it. She looked at no one as she arranged the vase on the sideboard. Indeed it was almost as if she was avoiding everyone’s gaze. Then she turned and left the room.

  Lucas placed his napkin on his chair and stood up. ‘I have work to do, so if you will excuse me,’ and he followed Mrs Logan out, closing the door firmly behind him. Mrs Logan was waiting just outside.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Is the fellow back?’

  ‘No, Mr Jarmyn, but there is a police constable outside. I wondered if you wished to speak to him?’

  He hesitated, thinking. Having just lied to his family he did not now wish them to see him in discussion with a police constable. Did he wish this to become a police matter? But there had been an attempted assault on his house; one could not justify placing one’s family at risk of further attack. Mrs Logan was watching him.