Treated as Murder

by Noreen Wainwright

  “Nothing, Cathy. Nothing at all for you to worry about. Your dad isn’t that settled, I suppose. No steady work. Then there’s my own job…well, with Miss Horton in hospital, who knows what will happen there. That’s all. Eat up and get off to the shop, you need to look after your own job and not be worrying.”

  Cathy did as she was told, walking, not cycling, down the lane to the village. She felt like breathing the fresh autumn air and shuffling her feet through the golden crisp leaves as she and John used to do when life was much simpler.

  She had not believed her mother. They weren’t well off. But, neither were they very poor like some of the other people in the village. Cathy had been to school with some who hadn’t even had shoes to wear and you could tell they didn’t have enough to eat. It had never been like that at home, and Cathy had seen enough to appreciate it.

  Her mam had always worked, but the real stroke of luck had been that her mother inherited their cottage, outright, from an uncle. So, they didn’t have to worry about rent, or losing the roof over their heads. Her dad always seemed to be, well, maybe not flush, but have a wad of money in his pocket. If he did fall short of beer money, he scrounged it off mam.

  So, whatever was bothering her mother, it wasn’t just that. Also, whatever was going on at the Horton’s she didn’t think her mam would ever lose her job there. They were very fair to her and needed a good, reliable housekeeper, whatever happened.

  Mam had actually told her about Miss Horton, which had been a bit shocking. But, her mother said Miss Horton’s breakdown would be the talk of the place and she wanted Cathy to know the truth so she could put a stop to any gossip that was going on. That was what her mam was like.

  “Miss Horton’s had to go into hospital, that mental place, St. Bride’s. She’s had a bit of a breakdown. It’s more common than you might think, our Cath, for all that ignorant people say stupid things about it. Lots of people who served one way or another in the war, suffered with their nerves afterwards, and Miss Horton worked as one of them volunteer nurses. Her fiancé died as well. So, if you think about it, it is not all that surprising that she should have a bout of depression.”

  She hesitated, as though about to say something else, but thought again about it, “So, no gossiping Cathy. The woman is a good friend and employer and the last thing I want to be doing is to be adding to her suffering.”

  This had all sounded very grown-up to Cathy and she vowed there and then that she would do as her mother asked. There had been a bit of talk, too, in the shop, especially if the Sowerby sisters were out of hearing. Everyone knew her mother worked for the doctor and his sister. No one actually came out and asked her, but there were lots of half questions like, “your mother must be very busy at the doctor’s, Cathy, with his poor sister being ill, and all?” Cathy prided herself on remaining polite, as you had to in her job, but at the same time giving nothing away.

  The minute she reached the shop, she knew there was something wrong. That was because, by now, the door was always on the latch and one of the sisters, usually Miss Prudence would be busy setting up for the day. Now, there was no sign of life. Something was amiss because it felt so wrong. You could set your watch by the routine in the shop and the sisters were sticklers for reliability and punctuality. Cathy checked the door and as she’d feared it was locked and bolted.

  She went round to the side door and knocked with the big, heavy brass knocker. This door was hardly ever used, but she didn’t feel right about going round to the rear entrance that backed into the ginnel. There was no response to her knocking and Cathy had no idea what to do next. She wished she’d come on her bike now, and she could have gone back home, in a matter of minutes to fetch her mother.

  Then, she heard a noise behind the door. Her heart began to race and she felt clammy—almost as though she were going to faint. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. What did she expect? That a monster of some sort was going to unlock the door?

  She heard the sound of the door being unbolted and it opened in a cautious way, as if the person behind it was unsure about opening it.

  Miss Marjorie stood there, but it was a Miss Marjorie who didn’t look like the same woman. She wore a blue quilted dressing gown and her hair was in some sort of net. Her feet were bare, and that was the most shocking thing of the lot. Her face was pasty and puffy and looked completely different without her usual lipstick and powder.

  “Oh, Cathy, it’s you. I’m afraid the shop won’t be opening today. You can go back home and have the day off. We’ll still pay you, don’t worry.”

  Her voice sounded different. She always spoke in a high, cheerful voice, but now, she sounded sad and dazed.

  “I’m going to make a notice now, to put on the door. It’s a busy day in the post office, but people will have to cope without us for one day. Her voice had tailed off, as though she were talking to herself.

  Cathy stood there. She didn’t have a clue what to do or say, but something was clearly very wrong.

  “Off with you now, Cathy. I need to get on.”

  “Are you ill, Miss Sowerby?” Cathy said.

  “No, well apart from a headache and I didn’t sleep well. No, it’s my sister, Prudence, who isn’t very well at the moment.”

  “I hope she’ll be better soon,” Cathy answered, but it felt inadequate.

  She turned to walk away and then, before she could help herself, she turned back again.

  “Miss Sowerby, please don’t be annoyed with me, but couldn’t I open up? I know most of the routine by now and I could ask you if I was stuck about anything?”

  Miss Marjorie shook her head slowly, “No, that would never do.”

  “But, won’t you be pestered all day by people knocking you up, wanting to know what the matter is?”

  She saw the expression on Miss Marjorie’s face change and felt sorry for having worried her. But, she was right. Look at how she, herself had reacted to a change in the shop’s routine. If the place didn’t open at all, the village would be filled with rumour and speculation.

  “You’re right, Cathy. What am I thinking?”

  “Come in quickly and we’ll have a cup of tea and get things ready.”

  Cathy followed her onto the porch, through the narrow corridor, and into the kitchen. Last night’s dishes were on the draining board and the curtains hadn’t yet been drawn.

  “If you like, Miss Marjorie, I’ll start things while you have a cup of tea.

  “No, stop with me, if you don’t mind. There’s a good girl. In fact, why don’t you put the kettle on, and I’ll get dressed? What must you think of me like this? I bet I look a fright.”

  Well, in fact, you do a bit. But she just said, “I’ll put the kettle, on, then Miss Marjorie.”

  “I made a decision while I was getting dressed, Cathy,” said a voice behind her.

  Cathy was sitting by the table having set out the cups and saucers and put a cosy on the pot. She wondered about making porridge or something, but thought she had better leave it, until Miss Marjorie came back downstairs. She was thinking how surprising the day was turning out and how unsettled it was all making her feel. Sometimes, when the shop was quiet, she often wished something would happen, a bit of excitement, like.

  Now, that something had happened, Cathy found that she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Miss Prudence is missing, she’s disappeared.”

  Cathy stared at her employer. What on earth on earth did she mean? Miss Prudence had disappeared? Where would she go? Why? “Do you mean you woke and found her missing?” Cathy asked after a long pause.

  “Yes, I got up at 5:30 a.m. as usual, made a pot of tea. There was no sign of Prudence. I went up and knocked, went into her room when she didn’t answer the door, but there was no sign of her.”

  Cathy wished her mother were here. Maybe she could suggest going and fetching her? Her mother always knew what to do, in a crisis.

  “Don’t say anything about this, Cathy. Please. I don’t want us to
be the subject of gossip in Ellbeck. You know what the place is like.”

  Cathy drank some of her tea, wanting to do something ordinary and familiar, wanting the floor beneath her feet to stop moving. Miss Marjorie needed a friend, but it couldn’t be her. She was too young, a kid in Miss Sowerby’s eyes and what’s more, she was an employee. Maybe she’d help best by opening up and carrying on as normal—give Miss Marjorie a bit of time.

  She got up to take her cup to the sink. “I’ll get on Miss Marjorie,” she said.

  A noise, made her turn back to the table. Tears were flowing down Miss Marjorie’s face and she made a move with the back of her hand like a child to brush them away. Cathy came back to the table. “Is there something I could do to help, Miss Marjorie?”

  She summoned her courage. After all Miss Marjorie had allowed her in, talked to her about what had happened. “Did you have a bit of a fall-out, like?” She closed her eyes for a second, hardly believing her own daring. But, whether it was because she was in such a state, Miss Marjorie didn’t see anything wrong in the question.

  “We did argue yes, last night. I suppose you’re not blind or deaf, dear. You will have noticed that not all has been well between my sister and me. But, to leave like this…oh, dear, what if she’s harmed herself in some way. Oh, dear, oh dear, Cathy, what am I to do?”

  She had to do something. “Miss Sowerby? I think I should get my mother. She’ll know what to do.” There was no answer. At least she hadn’t said no. “I’ll go now, quickly and then I’ll let you talk to her while I go and open up.”

  Within twenty minutes, Cathy had returned to the shop, on her bicycle this time and told Miss Marjorie her mother was on her way down.

  “All slept out today, lass?” asked a man already standing at the door when she opened. He was waiting to buy his baccy.

  Her mother was in the back room for a long time. Then she and Miss Marjorie, both looking serious, came through to the shop. Her mother was back in her tweed coat and headscarf and Miss Marjorie was in a flared blue coat, but without the usual scarves and with an old-fashioned looking hat perched on top of the greying fair hair.

  Her mother beckoned Cathy to one side. “We’re going to have a word with Inspector Greene. Miss Marjorie is ever so worried and as the day goes on, well, we can’t leave it. Don’t say a word to anyone about anything. Just continue with your work, there’s a good girl.”

  Surely, to goodness, the sight of both of them going into the police house was going to be enough to get the gossips going, but she nodded at her mother. At least all of this had made her look like her normal mother again, not like the pale ghost she was becoming.

  * * *

  “Thank you so much for coming, Henry. I can’t tell you how nice it is to see you.” She meant it. But, she was afraid she might be sounding a bit too eager, feverish even. “I’m going out again, next weekend, again, to Aunt Alicia’s. Also, Julia is coming to see me tomorrow. Now, you too! I’m beginning to feel human again.”

  Henry smiled, “Good, you’re looking brighter too, much more so than the last time I visited.”

  “Well, Archie’s been in too. We talked a bit more honestly. He admitted that he finds it difficult to have me at home, that the last few months were hard. Believe me, that’s unusual, coming from Archie. He’s not the best at talking about that sort of thing…”

  “Maybe it is by small steps that recovery takes place. No magic wand, or magic treatment, just a gradual resumption again of life.”

  “Henry,” she shook her head, decisively, “I don’t think that will work, you know, a gradual resumption of normality. There were reasons that brought me into this place. Unless I manage to change some things, then what’s to say that it won’t all happen again? Maybe part of that involves looking at exactly what I was like before I was admitted here. All the events that led to me being admitted.”

  “Edith, I understand what you’re saying, but I also think you should tread carefully.”

  She laughed, shakily, “Don’t rock the boat, you mean?”

  “Not exactly. But are you strong enough right now to start looking back at distressing times? By its nature any sort of breakdown is painful, and I’d worry that dwelling on it too much could set you back. Have you talked to the doctor, or the nurses?”

  “Yes, a bit. But, they only know me since I came in here. It’s what went on before, what led to that point that’s the most difficult, and I suspect the most important.”

  Henry looked at her. Then down at the floor. He didn’t say anything for what seemed a long time.

  She eventually broke the silence. “Dr. Uxbridge is interested in analysis, you know, Freud and all that sort of belief system that you have to explore the past, your childhood even, to look for explanations for present day neuroses and problems.”

  “I suppose you might expect me to say that maybe the answer to our problems might equally lie in prayer and faith?”

  She looked at him, startled for a moment—not sure how serious he was being. She saw he was smiling.

  “I don’t suppose they are mutually exclusive,” he said, “though you would find plenty people on each side, to tell you different. The main thing, Edith, is how do you feel about it? Do you think it will help?”

  She nodded. “It is the first proper ray of hope I’ve found for a long time. If burying painful things have brought me to this pass, surely there’s not going to be any solution, or any peace, until I disinter some of them.”

  Suddenly aware of the blunder she had made, she winced. “I’m sorry, Henry, that was a bad choice of words. The worse thing I’ve had to deal with in the last weeks, I suppose, is Archie’s reaction to me coming home. But, it’s forced me to think about things that happened before I came in. I try to remember, but so much of it is hazy. What did I do? Do you know? She could see he had been dreading this question. But he’d probably sensed some time ago that she would ask him.

  “You became very preoccupied with a friend of your brother’s.”

  “Matthew?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I don’t think it was all one-sided, Edith, but he was married. I think it sent you into shock when you found out.”

  “I remember being obsessed with him, I think. But, Archie says it was all in my head. I’m sure that it wasn’t. It can’t have been, though they tried to say it was. But, that’s stupid, Henry. Even if I doubted my own sanity and my own memories, I know I wouldn’t have invented the whole thing. I wouldn’t.

  “In the years since Alistair’s death, I’ve had one or two romances. They were nice while they lasted, but no hearts were broken on either side. I was perhaps seeing other people to prove to myself that life goes on. I didn’t become so-called obsessed at any point. Why would I, at this time in my life, invent an imaginary love affair, and cause the man and his family distress? I know it wasn’t that simple. I may be in an asylum and have had a breakdown, but I wouldn’t have behaved in that way. I couldn’t have lost myself to that extent, could I Henry?”

  “I only know bits and pieces of what happened, Edith. This Matt came to stay in the house, catching up on the old days with Archie. You spent a lot of time with him, you looked happy, very happy. But, that’s all I saw. I did see you both together, walking. I saw you both when I went round to your house for dinner one night. All I can say is that you seemed to have a rapport between you. I suppose I did wonder…but whether anything else developed I don’t know.”

  “He told me he loved me, that he had a terribly unhappy marriage, that his wife eventually agreed to a separation, but nothing else—no divorce. But, he hoped that time would change her mind, that when she realised there was no going back then she wouldn’t hold back anymore—what would be the point?”

  “But, he wasn’t telling you the truth?”

  “No, it seems not. He went back home, to sort things out, made me all sorts of promises. The first few weeks, I had letters almost every day—he would sort things out. I would go to London. We would be to
gether. Maybe I could take up voluntary nursing. A new life, or, in some ways a return to life. It was mainly him, Matt, but I think some of the dreams were also tied up with the rest of it—the idea of a new life. I don’t know, Henry. It isn’t as though I was unhappy…or so it seemed. But when the possibility of a big change was dangled before me, I grabbed it. I think that as much as anything shocked me.”

  Henry shrugged and shook his head slowly. “Edith, you won’t be the only person that the war unsettled. It was a horrendous, awful time that should never have been allowed to happen and I think we’re all realising that more and more as we see more of what was written during and after battle.” He paused, looked at her then bent his head. After a few beats he looked at her again.

  “But, war also brings other consequences. I suppose invariably some of them are positive, even developments in medicine for instance. For some people, it was a time of camaraderie and adventure. It’s very hard to get back to normal life, or even understand what normal life is. I can understand that. In fact, I frequently deal with them.”

  Edith wiped her top lip with a handkerchief. She hadn’t registered how stuffy it had become. “I still don’t remember all of it. I remember the absence of letters, feeling panic. I thought something must have happened to him. I was beside myself with worry. Archie was even worried. He offered to go up to London, when he couldn’t get through to St. Thomas’ where Matthew worked…”

  This was the hard bit, and in some ways this was the last bit of the story she had clear and sharp memories about.”

  “You got a letter,” Henry prompted.

  “Yes, I got a letter from his wife. I remember shouting out for Archie. I couldn’t believe it. It was his former wife out to cause trouble. I read it over and over. Archie read it—he swore. I think inside somewhere, I knew that every word she had written was true. She had got to the post before him—can you believe him being so careless as to allow that to happen. She wrote that she’d had her suspicions. He had spent longer in Yorkshire than he’d said he was going to, and the big, irrefutable thing was this wasn’t the first time. He’d done this sort of thing before, or so she said. His wife, Hetty, oh and they had, or, I should say, have a six-year-old son Max.”