Goodnight Lady

by Martina Cole

  Briony turned up at nine on Christmas morning, laden with food and presents. As soon as she walked into her mother’s house she knew that something had happened. The three younger girls ran to her and she kissed them, pushing gaily wrapped presents into their hands. The smell of roasting duck was heavy on the air, but her mother’s wan, swollen face and the absence of Eileen told her that something was afoot.

  ‘Where’s Eileen?’

  ‘She’s lying down, Briony. Come upstairs and see her.’

  Briony followed her mother up to the bedroom without even removing her coat. Once inside the tiny room, she gasped. Eileen was lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

  ‘What’s wrong with her, Mum? And where’s me dad?’

  Molly bit on her swollen top lip.

  ‘Eileen ... she hit him last night. He was drunk and trying to ... Eileen saw him and something snapped inside her, girl. She hit him with the flat iron.’

  Briony stared into her mother’s face.

  ‘Where is he then? In the hospital?’

  Molly shook her head.

  ‘He was dead, Briony. Stone dead. And Abel ... Abel...’ She swallowed back tears. ‘He dumped him in the Thames. In the docks. She’d have been taken away otherwise.’

  Molly’s voice was rising and Briony put her arms around her. ‘All right, Mum. All right. You did the right thing. What’s the next step?’

  ‘I’m going to report him missing like, this afternoon. I’m going to pretend that he stayed out often all night and that if he’s been picked up drunk then they can keep him. Abel ... well, Abel says that’s the best way. More natural like.’

  Briony nodded, seeing the sense of what was being said. The police in this area were used to women like her mother who brought up families on the money they could slip from a drunken husband’s pockets. But if they came to Oxlow Lane then they’d wonder where the hell the money came from for the house. Briony felt no loss at the death of her father, he had been like a thorn in all their sides. All she had ever known was either the back of his hand or his drunken caresses. She was more interested in looking after Eileen and her mother.

  ‘If they question you about this place, then you tell them about me. I’ll deal with them when and if I have to, all right?’

  Molly nodded. Briony went over to the bed and stared down at her sister’s face. It was white and pinched. Her eyes, normally so blue and clear, looked dull. Eileen stared back at Briony and her lips trembled.

  Kerry and Bernadette burst into the room, both waving pairs of shiny new leather shoes.

  ‘Oh, Bri, they’re lovely, thanks, thanks!’

  Briony turned and hugged them, while Molly hastily wiped her eyes.

  ‘Keep your noise down now, Eileen’s not feeling well.’

  Kerry jerked her head towards Eileen and frowned. ‘Will I sing you a nice song, our Eileen? To cheer you up.’

  Eileen nodded weakly, trying to smile.

  Kerry put her new shoes on the bottom of the bed and, pushing back her thick black hair, began to sing.

  Chapter Five

  Isabel Dumas watched her husband closely as he cosseted his niece. He had pulled the little girl on to his lap and was caressing her blonde hair as he whispered endearments to her. Isabel felt a sickness inside herself as she watched him. She glanced at her husband’s sister and saw that she was smiling benignly at her brother and daughter. Isabel dragged her eyes from the scene and, excusing herself on the pretext of seeing how dinner was progressing, went up to her room.

  Standing in their brand new bathroom, a marble and brass affair that she thought vulgar in the extreme, she splashed cold water on to her face and looked at herself in the mirror. She was twenty-five years old and had been married to Henry Dumas for seven years.

  Her dark brown eyes took in the slight droop of her generous mouth and premature lines under her eyes from sleepless nights. Nights when she tossed and turned until she saw the daylight creep under her heavy bedroom curtains and intrude on her private world. She had long thick brown hair that had lost its gleam; her whole appearance was dull. It broke her heart every time she looked too closely at herself. She fancied sometimes that she was getting so sad and grey that eventually she would pass through the world completely unnoticed. Her mind went back to her husband caressing his five-year-old niece and she felt a wave of nausea engulf her.

  It was true about Henry, she knew it. There was nothing for her with him any more, she couldn’t hide from that fact. Her marriage was a lie, a blatant lie that she was beginning to regret with all her heart. All the long, lonely nights!

  After their marriage her fine new husband had taken her up to bed and, after kissing her perfunctorily, had left her. She had assumed he was being kind, thinking of her, of how it was all new and the wedding had been tiring, and at first she had actually felt a surge of happiness to have such a thoughtful husband. But as the months passed it had become a nightly ritual. Henry pecked her on the cheek and went straight to his own room or left the house altogether. She had begun to think that something was dreadfully wrong with her. How was she to get a child if he never came near her? The worst of it all was that it was not something she could discuss with anyone. Her mother would have a fit of the vapours and be taken to bed for the day with a liberal supply of brandy if Isabel so much as mentioned it to her. So she had kept it to herself, and every month the strain was telling on her more. As friends had babies and talked of their husbands’ indelicate appetites she felt like screaming, because everyone assumed her childlessness was her own fault.

  ‘Oh, Isabel must be barren.’ She knew what was being said after seven years of marriage, and the sympathy all went to Henry. Poor Henry. To be saddled with a barren wife. She gritted her teeth together and pressed her forehead on the cool glass of the mirror.

  After a year of marriage, one night she had brushed out her long brown hair and, when she was sure the servants were all in bed, crept surreptitiously to her husband’s room wearing just her chemise. She was a buxom girl with large firm breasts, and had slipped into bed beside Henry, thinking that maybe he was shyer than she was. She had put her arms around him and tried to draw him to her. In his sleep he had put out his own arms and then, opening his eyes, had recoiled from her.

  She would never forget the look of horror and repulsion on his face. He had stood by the bed and upbraided her soundly on the wantonness she had displayed. He had reminded her that good women from good families did not lower themselves to the same level as harlots. Isabel had sat up in the bed white with shame and shock and listened to him. But after that night a hatred for him had begun to grow in her.

  Isabel wanted a man, and she desperately wanted a child. The two went together. But as the years had gone on she had despaired of ever getting what she wanted. Her father would not hear of divorce, and so she was stuck. Sometimes she daydreamed that Henry got hit by one of the new motorcars and died, or that he fell under a train. She knew these thoughts were wicked but his dying was the only way she could escape from this life.

  She closed her eyes to stop the tears from falling.

  ‘Isabel! Are you staying in here all night? My sister has come all the way to visit us and bring the children and you’re not even trying to be entertaining.’

  She faced her husband.

  ‘I see you’re quite enamoured of your little niece, Henry. You take no notice of the boy.’

  Husband and wife looked each other in the face and both felt the subtle threat. Henry had the grace to lower his eyes first.

  ‘She’s a very engaging child. Now come along, Isabel.’

  She followed him out on to the landing and persisted with her conversation.

  ‘And you like engaging little girls, don’t you?’

  Henry turned to her on the stairs and whispered under his breath: ‘I’ve been a very good husband to you, Isabel, never raised my hand to you, but you’re sorely near to that now. Now come along, and forget this nonsense.’

  Isabe
l followed him down the stairs and was surprised to find she was smiling. She knew a lot about her Henry, but it could wait until after Christmas.

  Molly stood in Barking police station with Briony. Her hands were trembling. A man with large handlebar moustaches who had told them he was Sergeant Harries was writing down the description of Patrick Cavanagh. Briony watched him closely for any tell-tale signs that he was suspicious, but his eyes lingered sympathetically on Molly’s black eye and swollen lip. Sergeant Harries had always had a loathing for wife beaters, even though it was a pretty common occupation. His own mother, God rest her soul, had always told her son that women were like flowers, gentle and fragile, and that they needed careful tending. He smiled at Molly.

  ‘Was it a bad fight, madam?’

  Molly nodded.

  ‘And had the gentleman been drinking?’

  She nodded again, afraid to speak.

  ‘I take it your husband’s Irish?’

  Molly nodded once more.

  ‘Have you thought of getting the priest out to him? I know many women in your position who’ve got the priest out, and their husbands haven’t raised their hands to them ever again.’

  Molly looked at the man in front of her as if he had just arrived from another planet. It was on the tip of her tongue to shout: ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’ll ... I’ll try that, officer, when he comes home.’

  ‘Good, good. Now where does he normally go like?’

  Briony answered for her mother, her voice low. ‘My father will go anywhere there’s a drink. He’d been drinking all day yesterday and came home like the devil was in him.’

  She had guessed the policeman was Temperance and embroidered her story with that in mind.

  ‘Without a drink he’s the most mild-mannered man in the world, but with it ...’ She rolled her lovely green eyes. ‘He’s like a demon.’

  The policeman nodded his head sagely.

  ‘So he could be anywhere then?’

  Molly and Briony nodded vigorously.

  ‘Once he didn’t come home for a week, and then he couldn’t remember where he’d been!’

  ‘That sounds a familiar story, ladies, if you don’t mind me remarking. Well, we’ve got his description and if he turns up we’ll let you know. How many children did you say you’ve got, Mrs Cavanagh?’

  ‘Five, sir. Five girls.’

  ‘Well, you get home to them, and if we hear anything, we’ll be in touch.’

  It was three days after Christmas that Briony went with her mother to identify her father. He had been found by a man walking the shoreline looking for driftwood. His boots were gone as was his jacket and Molly and Briony were told that he had probably been set upon by thugs and robbed. He was to be given a funeral courtesy of the parish and Briony and her mother hoped that that would be the last of that.

  Molly hurried home to tell Abel the good news and Briony made her way back to Barking with a dragging feeling inside her. Since her show the month before she had been expecting a period, and when none had come she had felt euphoric, though her breasts were still sore and tender. On this particular day she was expecting Henry at five-thirty and as he had lately taken her straight upstairs she was not expecting a long evening.

  She was to be proved wrong, however.

  While Briony had been identifying her father, Henry Dumas had been dealing with a crisis of his own. After taking a light tea with his wife, he had got up as usual to get his hat and coat. He always made a point of being very civil and kind to his wife whom he saw as an ornament rather than anything else. Today however, as he had stood up to leave her as usual, Isabel put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I don’t want you to go tonight, Henry. I think we should talk.’

  He had looked down at her and frowned. But he had resumed his seat, and that in itself gave Isabel courage.

  ‘I know this is a delicate subject, Henry, and believe me when I say I don’t like discussing it any more than you do, but I feel we must get this thing sorted out. I want a child, Henry, I want a child desperately.’

  She saw the look on his face and felt a knot of anger begin to form inside her.

  ‘As you know only too well, Henry, it takes two to make a baby, and I think that you should give this some thought.’

  Henry stood up, gave her a cold glance and left the room. A little later she heard the door slam as he left the house.

  Isabel stared into the fire. She would endure Henry’s attentions to get a child of her own. She was trapped in this marriage whether she liked it or not. She knew that a lot of women took lovers but those opportunities never presented themselves to her, and as she was still a virgin she had no idea of the wiles women used to inaugurate such affairs.

  In order to forget his wife’s unpleasant suggestion, Henry went straight to Briony. She was playing with her kitten in front of the fire in the morning room, her hair braided into two plaits. She was wearing a simple lemon-coloured dress with matching socks and hair ribbons. When he was due she made herself look as young as possible.

  ‘Hello, Henry.’ Her voice was high and girlish.

  Henry smiled at her wanly. She really was a pretty little thing and her beaming face when she saw him always made him feel better. With this child he was in control, master of everything. He sat himself in a chair and patted his lap. Briony picked up the kitten and went to him. She slipped on to his knee and kissed him chastely on the cheek. She knew exactly how to act with him. He rubbed her thigh under the silky dress and felt the first stirrings inside him.

  ‘How’s my best girl been?’

  Briony dropped the kitten gently on to the carpet and put her slender arms around his neck.

  ‘I’ve been good. I’ve been a very, very good little girl. You can ask Mrs Horlock.’

  Henry grinned and felt the tension seeping out of him. He rubbed at her little breasts with his large hand and Briony stared at an oil painting over his shoulder. It was of a ballerina and she loved the brightly painted scene. Henry nuzzled her neck.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs and play some games?’

  Briony rolled her eyes at the ceiling, then putting her face in front of his, smiled engagingly.

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  As she followed him up the stairs to her bedroom she saw her father’s face as it had been that afternoon, and tried to blot it out.

  Inside the bedroom a small fire blazed in the grate. Briony went through the usual routine of letting Henry undress her, then in nothing but her long socks she sat on the side of the bed while he undressed himself, carefully folding his clothes and putting them neatly on to a chair. Once he was naked he went to sit beside her on the bed. Taking her tiny hand, he placed it on his member and Briony gently massaged it the way she knew he liked her to. He closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. She looked down at what she was doing and saw that her breasts were much more prominent than they had been. Then she sighed. Her body was letting her down.

  As Henry pushed her backwards on to the bed, she played her own personal little game. In her mind she was grown-up and famous, with lovely clothes and a lovely house and lovely friends.

  Henry Dumas, unaware of his charge’s lack of enthusiasm, drove her hard that night before leaving. But although her body ached with his roughness, Briony’s mind stayed crystal clear and untouched.

  It was two-thirty in the morning when she felt the first pain. It shot through her like a red hot knife, waking her from her sleep. She pushed her knees up to her chest in an instinctive move to stop the pain. But it came again a little later. It was like a cramp inside her. Pulling herself from the bed, she made her way to Mrs Horlock’s room. Shaking the old women roughly awake, Briony explained what was happening to her.

  Mrs Horlock leapt from the bed in her haste, her old bones forgotten as she took the terrified child back to her own room. It must be her period coming. The old woman went down to the kitchen and made her a hot drink of milk with a touch of whisky in it.

&
nbsp; ‘There, there now, me pet. You’ll feel better soon.’

  But when Briony vomited and the pains got worse, Mrs Horlock woke Cissy and went for the doctor. Mrs Horlock was very worried. The child looked as if she was about to give birth! She held her hand until Dr Carlton arrived and then thankfully gave way to him.

  Dr Carlton was in his fifties and, though he was a respectable practitioner in many respects, was also known for his attendance on people with money who could afford to pay for medical services with no questions asked. He helped gentlewomen who, for one reason or another, needed an abortion, usually because the child wasn’t their husband’s. He also helped men who had contracted certain diseases and were worried they had passed them on to their wives.

  Dr Carlton examined Briony with practised hands and then, after giving her a draught to make her sleep, stepped outside to Mrs Horlock and Cissy.

  ‘You called me just in time, madam, the girl was about to miscarry. I can’t guarantee she won’t lose the child, the next couple of days will be crucial, but if she keeps taking the draught I’ve prescribed and sleeps as much as possible, she may give it a chance of survival. She must not be distressed under any circumstances. At this stage it’s crucial she rests in bed. I can’t emphasise strongly enough, madam, the need for peace and quiet.’

  He looked at the old woman as he gave his speech. Always a lover of drama, he injected it into his work as often as possible. He was nonplussed at the old woman’s look of utter astonishment.

  ‘How old is the girl, by the way?’ he asked in a whisper. He could smell a rat before it was stinking, he prided himself on that. It hadn’t occurred to him at first that the patient was a young girl, he didn’t really take much notice of women as a rule, but something in the housekeeper’s face alerted him.

  ‘She’s just twelve, sir. We thought it was her periods like.’

  Twelve! He had put her at about fourteen or fifteen.

  ‘Only twelve, you say? Where’s her mother and father?’