Half the World in Winter

by Maggie Joel

  He had stayed just long enough to hear the inquest adjourned, the details for the forthcoming public inquiry arranged, and had returned to his hotel unable to get the details out of his head.

  He had sought the woman out at a cramped and badly constructed tenement building in Wolverhampton to ascertain her situation. Was she destitute now her husband was gone? There were plenty who would be, after this day’s work, plenty of breadwinners gone and wives dependent on the charity of the parish. But it was this woman whom he had sought out. She had come to the door, unsurprised, it had seemed to him, by his sudden and unexplained appearance at her home. She had asked him in, offered him refreshment, and he had offered her the position of housekeeper in his house in London.

  She could read and write. Her father had been a clerk. Her mother’s people had been clergy a generation back, in some Northern place. She had been in service herself before her marriage. They had a position vacant and would she take it?

  She had asked a number of pertinent questions and ended by saying she would consider his offer. He had returned to his hotel and a telegram had awaited him. She would be honoured to accept his offer and would start at once.

  The strangeness, perhaps even the impropriety, of this woman, whose husband had been killed by his company, coming to work for him had not even occurred to him. He had offered her the job and she had accepted. Now, three years later, it was impossible to imagine the house without her.

  ‘Mr Jarmyn?’

  He spun around and stared at Mrs Logan, aghast, as though his thoughts had conjured her up. She was looking at the Wombourne crash report that lay on the desk where he had dropped it, its frontispiece printed in a large bolded typeface. He wanted to snatch up the report, to remove it from her sight, but to do so would only draw attention to it. He faced her over the table with a level gaze.

  ‘Mrs Logan?’

  There was a slight frown on her face as she looked at the report.

  ‘A package was hand-delivered whilst you were at breakfast,’ she said, holding out a large, flat envelope. He knew what it was and he stared for a moment at it in her hands. He reached out to take it from her, looking up and seeing her studying him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, turning away. But she did not leave.

  ‘Mr Jarmyn, I—it may not be my place to say so, but I overheard Miss Jarmyn tell your wife that she intends this morning to go out to her committee,’ she said, and he turned and looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Dinah said nothing at breakfast.’

  ‘It was mentioned in my hearing last night.’ She hesitated. ‘Mrs Jarmyn was not concerned but then she is not, of course, aware of the threat that occurred on the night of the dinner party. I think she might not be so agreeable to the excursion were she in possession of all the facts.’

  ‘But surely Dinah has resigned from her committee? She told me so herself.’

  Mrs Logan offered no explanation for this.

  ‘Did Mrs Jarmyn not question this?’

  ‘Not in my hearing, Mr Jarmyn. She was engaged in some private business of her own. And we are to conduct an inventory of the cellar this morning—no doubt her thoughts were taken up with this.’ Mrs Logan hesitated a second time. ‘I would not have mentioned this were I not concerned for Miss Jarmyn’s safety.’

  He nodded. ‘You were right to tell me, Mrs Logan. I shall speak to her.’

  And Mrs Logan nodded and withdrew.

  When she had gone Lucas picked up the large envelope that she had handed him. He dreaded to open the package and take out the papers that he knew were contained within. They were copies of the sworn depositions from the witnesses of the Lea’s Crossing accident, which he had requested from the secretary of the Board of Trade. Urgent business here in London had meant that he and Kemp had attended only the first two sessions of the public inquiry and had missed many of the witnesses’ accounts. He wished to read for himself what had happened. It would change nothing, but he owed it to the dead and maimed to at least know what had occurred.

  He laid the envelope on his desk and slit it open with the letter knife, then he stopped and put the knife down with a sigh. It was not true: there had been no urgent business in London. They had fled—there was no other word for it—he and Kemp. The hostile mood of the inquiry had rendered their continued presence … what was the word Kemp had used? Ah yes: ‘unproductive’; and they had fled back to London.

  He put the envelope into a leather portfolio. He would take the reports to the office and open them there rather than read them here in his own house. He put the report from the Wombourne crash into his desk drawer and locked it. Then he went in search of Dinah, pausing outside her door and only now remembering the letter that had arrived at breakfast. Dinah had been distressed by it, as well she might be, though it was odd Roger having written to her, singling her out like that. But perhaps if Dinah were indeed planning to go out this morning the unfortunate arrival of the letter would be enough to dissuade her.

  He knocked on her door and after a longish wait it opened. Dinah stood in the doorway and she said nothing, her face bore no expression but he felt suddenly—though quite illogically—unnerved. She was not dressed to go out, at any rate, and that was all to the good.

  ‘Dinah.’

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘I understand you were planning an outing this morning—to your committee? I know this will sound strange but I ask you not to do so today but to remain indoors. Please do not question me on this, Dinah. It is enough that I ask you not to go out. I would be obliged if you were to accede to my request.’

  If she thought this an odd request she showed no sign of it. ‘Of course, Father, but—as you see, I am not planning on going out,’ and she indicated her indoor attire.

  ‘Ah, good. Well then,’ and he left her and returned to his study. But it was odd, he thought, that interview with Dinah, though he could not say why. Still, it was distinctly odd.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Logan,’ he said, seeing her passing before the door, and he waved her into the room. ‘I have this minute spoken to

  Dinah and advised her not to go out. I did not offer a reason and she knows better than to ask for one.’ He paused, looking down at the portfolio that now contained the depositions. ‘Thank you, Mrs Logan, for your intervention. I—’

  He stopped then, not quite certain what he had been about to say.

  She came further into the room. ‘Are you unwell, Mr Jarmyn?’

  ‘No … but I find myself suddenly … struck by the enormity of what it would mean to lose Dinah. To lose my other daughter.’

  He could not believe he had said those words to her. He could not raise his face to hers for the shame he now felt. What must she think of him? But she put out her hand and rested it on his arm and after a moment he pressed his own hand over hers.

  A letter had arrived from Roger. It lay now at the bottom of the trunk in Dinah’s room where it would remain and Dinah sat at her dressing table brushing her hair. The letter had not been opened and it never would be. Its contents, whatever they might be, meant nothing, they could change nothing. Dinah laid down the brush and turned to her tray of ribbons and trimmings and began to pin up her hair.

  The letter had arrived on the very morning of her outing with Rhoda to see the spiritualist who was bound to be a charlatan, and the absurdity of their outing and the inevitable disappointment it would bring was now clear to Dinah. She would cancel the appointment.

  She had no sooner resolved on this course of action than her father had knocked on her door and asked her not to go out. It was an odd request, she thought now, pausing and staring at her reflection in the mirror. Father had known she was intending to go out yet the only person she had told was her mother the previous evening. The feeling in the drawing room after dinner had been so disagreeable that she had fled rather than endure it and a short time later the door had slammed and her father had come upstairs. She could not imagine her mother mentioning the outing at such a time. />
  She must let Rhoda know the outing was cancelled but the effort involved seemed, for a while, too great. And she did not know what reason to give. After a time, when nothing further was resolved and it did not seem like anything would get resolved, she reached for her notepaper and wrote a note to her cousin. She left her room to take the letter directly to the post-box so that it should reach Rhoda, if not exactly in time to prevent her dressing to go out and waiting on the corner, then at least as an explanation as to why Dinah had failed to turn up. Her father’s request that she stay inside did not, she presumed, include a trip to the post-box on the corner. Even so, she moved softly as she passed his study door, where she looked in and saw her father and Mrs Logan, and Mrs Logan’s hand lay on her father’s arm, his hand on hers.

  Dinah fled. When she came to herself she found she was back upstairs in her own room, where she stood quite still in the middle of the floor. Her eyes settled on her dressing table—a chaos of hair pins and ribbons; her looking glass; the purple-bordered notepaper on her writing desk, a half-written letter to a dressmaker. These things made sense. They calmed her.

  Mrs Logan’s hand on her father’s arm, his hand on hers.

  She rubbed the palms of her hands into her eye sockets to erase the scene. What could it mean? Her mind baulked at the possibilities. She found herself staring at a map that had no compass points and no roads marked on it. One heard of such things—husbands having a mistress—though one could not imagine anybody one actually knew doing such a thing. And Mrs Logan resided in the house with them. Those sorts of women were housed in discreet little flats in St John’s Wood, out of sight, away from prying eyes (or so Bill had once remarked, though how he knew this he had not said). She could not imagine her father visiting a woman in a small flat in St John’s Wood.

  She reached blindly behind for her chair, sitting heavily down on it.

  Mrs Logan. But we trusted her, she thought. We. Trusted. Her.

  ‘Dinah, where is Mrs Logan? I shall require her soon so if you see her, please send her to me.’

  Dinah stared mutely at her mother, who had appeared somehow in the doorway of her room.

  Did she know? If a man had a mistress surely his wife would know? But she must not know, otherwise how could she arrange to do an inventory of the cellar with her?

  ‘But are you not going out this morning, Dinah?’ her mother added, noticing Dinah still in her indoor attire at the hour she had said she was leaving.

  ‘Father does not wish me to go out. And I have not seen Mrs Logan,’ Dinah replied and her face flushed scarlet so that, in her dismay, she sprang up and fled to the window. She had wondered how her father had known that she was intending to go out this morning when the only person she had told was her mother, last night after dinner. But Mrs Logan had been there. Mrs Logan, she realised, was always there. Dinah could feel her face burning. She wanted her mother to leave now, at once; it was intolerable that she stood in the doorway asking about Mrs Logan.

  ‘That is an odd thing for your father to request. And as for the elusive Mrs Logan, one would almost think she had reason to wish to avoid the inventory,’ her mother remarked. ‘If you should see her please remind her.’ And she left.

  The inventory of the cellar. Her mother’s proposal, which had struck her as odd last night, now had an almost cataclysmic feel about it.

  And Dinah, who had resolved to abandon her appointment with Rhoda and the spiritualist who was bound to be a charlatan not ten minutes earlier, now threw away her hastily written note to her cousin and pulled on her boots and her gloves and scooped up her cloak and threw it over her shoulders. She had an appointment and she intended to keep it. Besides which, it was insufferable to remain in the house another minute.

  Downstairs the front door opened then closed and from her window she saw her father setting off, his head bent against the wind, in the direction of Cadogan Square, a small leather case under his arm, his cane clicking on the pavement.

  This was just as well for she had no wish to run into him. Dinah left her room, closing the door. If anyone came looking for her, well it was too bad for them. She went silently down the stairs. There was no sound from Uncle Austin’s room, her brothers were on an excursion with Mr Todd and she reached the front door unobserved, pausing only to tie the cloak beneath her chin. Ought she to carry an umbrella? It didn’t look like rain. She would risk it—it was a day when nothing more could touch her.

  ‘Miss Jarmyn. You’re going out?’

  She turned slowly and there was Mrs Logan standing in her way. For a moment Dinah could not even look at her. ‘That is so, yes,’ she replied, lifting her chin very high. ‘I am paying a visit to the National Gallery,’ she added, though she had no intention of going to the National Gallery and was not sure why she had said it nor why she felt the need to explain herself.

  Mrs Logan replied in her usual calm, serene manner just as though everything was quite normal. ‘I understood from Mr Jarmyn that you would not be going out today.’

  ‘Did you? I wonder why he told you that?’

  Mrs Logan did not hesitate. ‘He seemed to think there was a good reason why you would not be going outside.’

  ‘Did he? And what was that reason?’ Dinah stood square-on, her eyes level with Mrs Logan’s.

  ‘I am afraid I am not at liberty to say.’

  ‘But you know? Do you not think it odd that my father saw fit to tell you but not me? And not my mother, his own wife?’

  ‘I could not comment—’

  ‘Or, for that matter, that my father appeared to know I was intending to go out this morning in the first place, even though I said nothing and I am certain my mother made no mention of it to him?’

  ‘I told Mr Jarmyn myself. I believed it was the right—’

  ‘How dare you! How dare you spy on me and report my actions to my father!’ The words came out in a rush as though a dam had broken and Dinah felt them as a heady release.

  As for Mrs Logan, a fissure had appeared in her calm serenity and there was something, now, in her eyes that revealed the woman behind the housekeeper. The muscles on either side of her jaw tensed and colour appeared in her face where a moment earlier there had been no colour. Some line had been crossed, a line on the map that had no compass points and no roads marked on it.

  Dinah pressed on, lightheaded and determined to crush her. ‘You have no right! Do you think we allow servants to interfere in our private family matters? You have overstepped the mark and I shall ensure my mother is made fully aware,’ and she threw herself at the front door, fumbling with the catch, then fleeing down the steps.

  ‘Miss Jarmyn, wait!’

  But Dinah would not wait! She set off along the mews, her head high, her stride purposeful, her gaze unflinching, displaying a dignity that was entirely at odds with what she felt inside, not pausing until she had reached the corner of Cadogan Square. Here she walked straight into a man standing on the corner who, startled by her purposeful stride and her unflinching gaze, shied away from her, and in another moment she had hailed a passing hansom.

  ‘Miss Jarmyn, wait!’

  But Dinah had not waited.

  Hermione, who was standing at an upstairs window engaged in a bitter struggle with the drawing room curtains and a rug beater, paused in her struggle and looked down to see Miss Jarmyn sweep majestically around the corner and disappear from sight. She was astonished a moment later to see in the street below the deranged man who had attempted to storm the house on the night of the big dinner party.

  Dropping the implements of her labour she ran down the stairs to find Mrs Logan standing on the front steps.

  ‘It’s ’im!’ Hermione gasped, pointing.

  ‘It is him,’ Mrs Logan grimly confirmed, coming back inside and knocking the mud from her boots. ‘I fear his intention is to follow Miss Jarmyn. He observed her getting into a cab and has this minute set off on foot in the direction taken by the cab. I confess myself somewhat concerned for h
er safety.’ She reached for her shawl and began tying on her bonnet.

  Hermione gaped at her. ‘What will you do?’

  Mrs Logan took a deep breath and lifted her chin. ‘My duty is clear: I will follow him. I shall find Miss Jarmyn and assure myself of her safety and if that means I shall be obliged to inform her there is a madman on the loose, so be it. The fact of it can no longer be kept hidden. Then I shall go to Mr Jarmyn’s office and inform him of what has happened.’

  ‘Go to Mr Jarmyn’s office!’ gasped the horrified Hermione. ‘Whatever will folk say?’

  ‘It is of no interest to me what folk say. I see no other possible course of action. However, it is no concern of yours, Hermione. Please return to your duties—’

  Mrs Logan stopped mid-sentence. Turning around, Hermione saw Mrs Jarmyn walking towards them. She curtsied but Mrs Jarmyn appeared not to notice her presence.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Logan. There you are. We shall commence the inventory of the cellar at once, if you please.’

  Hermione, who had no wish to become embroiled in the inventory or the discussion preceding it, threw in a second curtsey and scurried up the stairs.

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Jarmyn,’ she heard Mrs Logan reply, ‘I have to request that we postpone the inventory. Something—’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Mrs Logan, is there some reason why you do not wish to undertake this inventory?’

  ‘I believe something bad may happen unless we act at once. Miss Jarmyn has gone out—’

  ‘Surely you are mistaken. I understood from Dinah herself that Mr Jarmyn did not wish her to go out?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct and that is the reason for my concern. There is—’