Half the World in Winter

by Maggie Joel

  It was a Monday morning, the last day of February. There was a definite hint of spring in the air and in a downstairs front room of number 19 Cadogan Mews someone had placed a sign in the window that read ‘Cook wanted. Apply within.’

  In the kitchen Hermione, surrounded by a mass of unwashed pots, pans and dishes and an unscrubbed kitchen table, regarded Cook’s book of recipes which lay open on the table before her, a look of controlled panic on her face. Who had written out Cook’s recipes was not immediately clear to her as Cook had boasted on more than one occasion that she could neither read nor write. And, what was more concerning, none of it seemed to bear the slightest resemblance to the dishes Cook had prepared. This morning Hermione had made a beef and onion pie. The pastry had been too crumbly and then it had been too soggy. But she had pressed on and made the filling and placed the pie inside the range. Now she pulled open the range door, glancing over at Mr Gladstone, who stopped washing himself and seemed to hold his breath, and she pulled out the pie. It was burnt to a crisp on the top and, as she gazed at it, the centre of the pie collapsed and Hermione burst into tears.

  Mr Gladstone tactfully resumed his washing and made no comment.

  It was a Monday morning, there was a hint of spring in the air and Mr Jarmyn had gone, not to his office, but to Regent’s Park. He purchased a newspaper and sat down on a bench where he read on page five the headline ‘Defeat of the British Troops. Reported Death of General Colley.’ There had been a great battle, it appeared, which the British forces had resoundingly lost and during which their commander had been killed. There was a list of casualties. One of those listed as killed was Lieutenant Francis Graves of the 58th Regiment. Roger’s old regiment, and the boy Meredith had hoped to speak to upon his return in order to find out more about her son’s death. Well, she would not be speaking to him now. There would be no more information and the campaign, it appeared, had been a failure.

  Lucas put down the newspaper and watched for a while the carriages and riders going past. Two young ladies in green riding habits rode past, their groom on another horse a few lengths behind them.

  ‘Board of Trade Report on Near-Fatal Collision: Signals to Blame!’ reported The Times on page six:

  A Board of Trade report released today, following the near-fatal train accident at Moxley near Wolverhampton earlier this month, commended the owners of the North West Midlands Railway Company whose safety measures undoubtedly prevented what would surely have been a catastrophe resulting in numerous lives lost. On Wednesday, 2 February, a defective goods train had been shunted onto the branch line of the aforementioned railway and into the path of the oncoming 11.50 Birmingham to Wolverhampton passenger train. It being an uncommonly cold day with snowfalls reported the previous two nights, the signals on that stretch of line had frozen into the ‘clear’ position, meaning the driver of the oncoming passenger train was unaware of the mortal danger ahead. Less than two hundred yards from the goods train the passenger train came in sight of a third signal. This signal had, however, the previous day been replaced with the new safety signal. This signal too had frozen, but the design of the new signal was such that it had frozen in the ‘danger’ position. Consequently, the train braked, stopping a mere twenty yards from the last carriage of the stranded goods train. No injuries were reported. The company had initiated the installation of the new safety signals following the Lea’s Crossing accident last December which resulted in three fatalities and 29 injured. The Board of Trade report ended by commending the company for its timely response to the earlier incident, which has undoubtedly saved many lives.

  Lucas looked up. The riders on the bridle path had gone and for the moment he was alone with the neatly trimmed floral beds and the row of elegant black railings that bordered the boating lake. The company had received a letter from the widow of the fireman, Evans, who had died in the Lea’s Crossing accident. The funeral costs, she had explained, had not been paid. They had not been paid either, it had transpired, for the dead driver, Proctor, or for the little girl, Alice Brinklow. Somehow it had been forgotten. A clerk had been threatened with termination but in the end had been served with a reprimand, and it seemed entirely possible the wretched man had never been charged with this task in the first place. Which of them, he wondered, had failed in this duty? Had they all failed? But the three funerals were now, finally, paid for and next time they would do better.

  Mr Jarmyn closed the paper and folded it up. Today was not a day to be thinking about railways, to be thinking about anything more exacting than the two pigeons squabbling over a breadcrumb at his feet or the small boy who now appeared chasing a kite in the distance. The insanity of a few weeks back—it was surely an insanity—had vanished so utterly that it was hard now to remember what he had felt or how it was even possible to have such thoughts about one’s own housekeeper.

  He decided to leave his newspaper on the bench for the next visitor. He no longer had need of it.

  As he prepared to depart a closed carriage passed by led by a team of horses and liveried grooms at front and back with more riding behind. The door of the carriage had a familiar crest on it and when Lucas strained to see inside he saw the Queen, though she did not see him.

  A battle had been lost but Her Majesty still took her ride in the park. The Empire, it appeared, would survive.

  He stood up. He would not go to the office today. He would go home.

  Dinah, coming in from the garden, looked up at the shock of blue sky above and removed her shawl.

  ‘I heard the first cuckoo,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve never heard one so early in the year.’

  ‘Yes, I heard it too,’ said her mother. Neither of them said: perhaps it is an omen, for neither of them believed in such things. It was pleasing though, the first cuckoo of spring so early in the year.

  The second post had come and letters lay in the silver letter tray in the hallway but Dinah ignored them. She saw a button, a tunic button, brass and round, and shiny as though someone—the maid presumably—had polished it but, perhaps not knowing its proper place, had left it where it had lain on the hallway table since December. Dinah slid the button into her hand and her fingers closed around it. She would find a proper place for it.

  Roger’s letter had lain for a month unopened in the trunk beneath her bed and perhaps, finally, it was time to open it.

  She returned to the morning room where a roaring fire was burning in the grate though they hardly required such a blaze on this fine spring day but her father had said there were to be fires in every room. Her mother’s shawl was on the floor where it had fallen and Dinah stooped to retrieve it and placed it over her shoulders. Mama was still weakened by her illness but today there was definitely a patch of colour in her cheeks and a lightness in her eyes, and Dinah was glad. ‘I think I hear Father in the hallway,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he has forgotten something. Or perhaps he has decided not to go to his office today.’

  Beside her Aurora smiled. There had been many occasions recently when Lucas had decided not to go to the office. For reasons she could not fathom but she did not question, her husband had been returned to her. And a fire burned in the grate. She held her hands out to the flames and felt its warmth.

  ‘Come, Dinah,’ she said, getting to her feet and casting off the shawl Dinah had placed over her, ‘I do believe there is a hint of spring in the air. Let us go into the garden and see if we cannot locate the first crocuses.’

  As Dinah and her mother stepped out on the lawn and began to take their turn about the garden, Mr Jarmyn was returning from his walk, making his way at an energetic pace along the Marylebone Road, his cane clipping the pavement with each stride just as though he was in a hurry to get home, so that for the time being, 19 Cadogan Mews was empty.

  Or not quite empty.

  In the basement kitchen Hermione, who had been born in a workhouse and who had been scalded by spilt bisque, who spent her loneliest moments with a large orange cat and who had once dropped a very ugly
vase in front of a house full of dinner guests, took a deep breath and opened the range door. She pulled out a tray of six perfect cottage loaves. Gasping, she clapped her hands together with delight, carefully placed the tray on the table and ran upstairs and, when she was sure no one was looking, she removed the ‘Cook wanted’ sign from the window and hid it.

  EPILOGUE

  June 1880

  ‘SHE WILL NOT LAST THE night,’ Dr Frobisher said, but Sofia did last the night and there followed a terrible time with the child alive, though barely; unable to speak, to eat, to drink even; in such silent and terrible pain it was more than anyone could bear. In another room, Mrs Jarmyn, her arm bandaged, and heavily sedated on the draughts Dr Frobisher had left for her, lay silently in her bed, unable to speak, tormented by the horror of what was in the next room.

  On the tenth night, as the clock in the hallway struck three, she fought off the sedatives and rose from her bed. Outside in the corridor her husband slept on a hard chair and she thought: no one has slept and yet they do all sleep. They just forget. At first Lucas had stayed with her, stroked her hair and kissed her eyelids, willing her to remain asleep. But how could she sleep? She would never sleep again.

  She needed him now to do what could not be spoken but he had failed her—and how could you command what was unspeakable? Lucas had not heard her or had chosen not to hear.

  Aurora stumbled, steadied herself, holding her breath but he did not stir. She made her way silently and without a candle to the horror of the next room. Opening the door she slipped inside and all of Dr Frobisher’s little powders could not have stilled her heart. She ignored the smells in the room, not allowing her senses to begin dissecting the various odours and sounds, the dark slow-breathing shape on the bed before her. She did not pause because she knew her courage would fail her but lifted, gently, a pillow from the bed and placed it over her daughter’s face, shutting out all the sounds and movements that then followed.

  When it was done she offered up no prayer because what she had done she did not wish God to observe.

  Acknowledgements

  THANK YOU TO CLARE FORSTER and Annette Barlow for patience and understanding far beyond the call of duty; to my family Sheila Joel and Anne Benson for your love and support; to my dear friends Tricia Dearborn, Liz Brigden and Sharon Mathews for coming to the rescue at every emotional, domestic, technical and spider emergency; and to all the wonderful people at Curtis Brown and Allen & Unwin, in particular Christa Munns and Clare James, for your assistance, support, expertise and encouragement during the—at times torturous—writing and publication of this book.

  Author Note and Sources

  WHILST I AM REASONABLY CONFIDENT that no one who was alive at the time that this book is set is around now and in a position to read it, I have nevertheless taken every care to produce a work that is, as far as possible, historically correct. Some inaccuracies will inevitably have occurred, and for these I beg the reader’s indulgence and trust that they do not detract from the reading experience.

  The following publications, reports and articles proved invaluable during the writing of this book, in particular Judith Flanders’ wonderful and extraordinary book The Victorian House and Liza Picard’s Victorian London: The Life of a City 1840–1870, both of which provided me with the sort of rich and colourful detail no writer of historical fiction can exist without:

  ‘Affairs at the Cape’ article from The Times, Monday, 13 December 1880, issue 30062, p. 5.

  ‘Comfortable Carriage’ by Hamilton Ellis from Steam Horse: Iron Road, edited by Brenda Horsfield, published by The British Broadcasting Corporation, London, 1972.

  Daily Life in Victorian England (second edition) by Sally Mitchell, published by The Greenwood Press, Westport and London, 2009.

  ‘The Disaster in the Transvaal’ article from The Times, Saturday, 25 December 1880, issue 30074, p. 5.

  The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, published by Wordsworth Editions Ltd, London, 1994.

  Going Green: The Story of the District Line by Piers Connor, published by Capital Transport Publishing, UK, 1993.

  ‘Historic Accidents’ by O. S. Nock from Steam Horse: Iron Road, edited by Brenda Horsfield, published by The British Broadcasting Corporation, London, 1972.

  London Buses: A Brief History by John Reed, published by Capital Transport Publishing, UK, 2000.

  The London Underworld in the Victorian Period by Henry Mayhew and Others, Dover Publications, New York, 2005.

  London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City by Drew D. Gray, published by Continuum UK, London, 2010.

  ‘News in Brief ’ article from The Times, Tuesday, 16 November 1880, issue 30040, p. 5.

  News in Brief ’ article from The Times, Wednesday, 22 December 1880, issue 30071, p. 5.

  Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture by Elizabeth Langland, published by Cornell University Press, New York, 1995.

  The Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Circumstance Attending the Accident on the Great Western Railway which Occurred Near Shipton-On-Cherwell on the 24th December 1874: Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty April 1875, printed by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1875.

  Royal Gardeners: The History of Britain’s Royal Gardens by Alan Titchmarsh, published by BBC Worldwide Ltd, London, 2003.

  ‘The Rising in the Transvaal’ article from The Times, Wednesday, 29 December 1880, p. 4.

  ‘The Rising in the Transvaal’ article from The Times, Saturday, 1 January 1881, issue 30080, p. 5.

  ‘The Rising in the Transvaal’ article from The Times, Wednesday, 12 January 1881, issue 30089, p. 5.

  ‘The Shipton Railway Accident’ article from The Times, Thursday, 31 December 1874, issue 28200, p. 7.

  ‘The Shipton Railway Accident’ article from The Times, Monday, 28 December 1874, issue 28197, p. 9.

  ‘The Shipton Railway Accident’ article from The Times, Wednesday, 6 January 1875, issue 28205, p. 10.

  The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was Built and How it Changed the City Forever by Christian Wolmer, published by Atlantic Books, London, 2004.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Thursday, 11 November 1880, issue 30036, p. 5.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Tuesday, 30 November 1880, issue 30052, p. 5.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Tuesday, 14 December 1880, issue 30064, p. 5.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Tuesday, 21 December 1880, issue 30070, p. 5.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Thursday, 23 December 1880, issue 30072, p. 3.

  ‘South Africa’ article from The Times, Friday, 24 December 1880, issue 30073, p. 3.

  ‘Terrible Railway Accident’ article from The Times, Friday, 25 December 1874, issue 28195, p. 3.

  ‘The Transvaal. Defeat of the British Troops. Reported Death of General Colley’ article from The Times, Monday, 28 February 1881, issue 30129, p. 5.

  The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed by Judith Flanders, published by Harper Perennial, London, 2004.

  Victorian London: The Life of a City 1840–1870 by Liza Picard, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2005.

  The Years by Virginia Woolf, published by Penguin Books, London, 1968.

  The following websites provided historical detail about Majuba, Laing Nek and the 58th Regiment:

  http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/encyclopedia/article_show/Majuba_Battle_of_/m0046565.html?&searchtermold=&searchtermold=

  http://www.britishbattles.com/first-boer-war/laings-nek.htm

  http://www.britishbattles.com/first-boer-war/majuba-hill.htm

  http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/chronology/thisday/1881-02-27.htm

  National Army Museum website: http://www.nam.ac.uk/research/famous-units/58th-rutlandshire-regiment-foot

 
  Maggie Joel, Half the World in Winter