Season of Darkness

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Yes, she’d probably keep it to herself.’ He said that, not to Sesina, but to his friend. ‘That would be her. Isabella was always the queen bee. This one was just a hanger-on.’ He gave a nod towards Sesina. Just like I was a dog or something, she thought.

  ‘And what time did she leave?’

  ‘About this time, sir, a little later, perhaps.’

  ‘By the back door?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’ Now was the time for a little hesitation.

  ‘Good, good. Might be able to find someone who saw her, perhaps even saw her meet someone.’ He was talking to his friend again. But then he suddenly swung back at her. ‘You think so?’

  She looked at him blandly. ‘I thought that she might have gone upstairs, sir, but afterwards I thought that I must have been wrong. It was probably one of the gentlemen going out. Just after she left. She wouldn’t have gone out with one of the gentlemen, would she, sir?’ Let him do a bit of asking questions, get the man a bit jittery. That would be the best way of going about things. Now to get rid of him. ‘Will that be all, sir? Mrs Dawson likes us, likes me, to get to bed early. We, I mean I, have to be up before six in the morning.’

  ‘That will be all, Sesina. Which is the door that leads out to the arches? Out through the scullery, is that it? Come on, Collins, let’s go this way. We can have a look round and then we’ll go to see my wealthy American friend and find out if he has any information about his tenants.’

  He gave her a nod when she showed them out, but his friend gave her a nice smile.

  ‘Goodbye, Sesina,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye, sir,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Mr Dickens.’ And then, just as he was going through the door, something occurred to Sesina. She hung her head and made her voice sound hesitating. ‘I’ll be going through Isabella’s things, tomorrow morning, sir, after I finish serving up the breakfasts and cleaning the kitchen.’ The light from the river was coming in through the open door and she could see a flash of interest in his eyes. She lowered hers, again. ‘Should I tell Mrs Dawson if I find anything, anything to …?’ She stopped there. Let him do the talking now.

  He pretended to think about it, great play actor he was. Sesina had seen him at it, out in Urania Cottage, pretending that some girl was going to be thrown out and then pretending to give in to Mrs Morson asking for mercy.

  ‘Well, you know, Sesina,’ he said in the end, ‘it might be just as well not to trouble Mrs Dawson too much about this affair. I’ll drop in tomorrow morning and you can have a quiet word with me. We want this villain caught and put out of the way of harming poor girls, don’t we?’

  ‘And Mr Dickens is in touch with Inspector Field from the police.’ Mr Collins put that in. There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye again. ‘Inspector Field would be very interested to get any information to solve this crime.’ And then he said, ‘Poor girl!’ in a very different tone of voice and Sesina liked him for that.

  Mr Dickens nodded. ‘And I’m sure that my friend, Mr Diamond, would want me to give as much help to the police as possible. So you have a very careful look, Sesina. You’re a clever girl; I know that.’ He gave her a little pat on the arm.

  And then they went out, the two of them, Mr Dickens leading and Mr Collins following, out into the Adelphi Arches. Plenty of poor girls out there, girls begging, girls feeding babies, girls picking up bits of food that had dropped from some of the carts, bits of coal for the fire, girls trying to sell the only thing that they had to sell.

  Poor girl; poor Isabella; that was right. She’s dead now. But what about me, thought Sesina. I’m not going to be poor all my life. Things happen to poor girls. If you have money you’re safe. She shut the door behind them, sat at the kitchen table and began to think hard.

  FOUR

  Wilkie Collins, Basil:

  … the place gave room for the air to blow in it, and distanced the tumult of the busy streets. The moon was up, shined round tenderly by a little border-work of pale yellow light. Elsewhere, the awful void of night was starless; the dark lustre of space shone without a cloud.

  It was like a picture, I thought as I looked around, just like a picture that my father would have painted when he was alive. The rounded arch framing the scene, the moon above the river, set in a cloudless dark sky, and the ships lying passively on the water’s shimmering surface. Not raucous, not sordid, not reeking of bad odours, not at this hour. Somehow the moon and the cool air of the night lent the place a certain beauty. Dickens was looking around, just as I was. Both of us caught by the strange beauty of the hour and the place.

  ‘Geniuses, those Adam brothers.’ He was enchanted. Quite moved. Almost mesmerized by it all. ‘What an idea, Wilkie, old man!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Dig out the Thames, keep the mud at bay with all those underground warehouses, build roads above ground and underground, those lovely arches to rest the buildings and the road upon. Like heaven and hell this place. Beauty above; ugliness and evil tucked away out of sight. And the poor, of course.’ Suddenly the note of exaltation had gone from his voice and he sounded sad, preoccupied. He heaved a sigh and looked around at the miserable creatures huddled under the arches. ‘Poor Isabella,’ he said. ‘Well, I did warn her.’

  ‘She came out here, two nights ago. Where did she go then, Dickens?’

  ‘Along the shoreline, I suppose. As far as Hungerford Stairs.’ Dickens was always decisive. The words came out with a certain explosive power. One tended to believe everything that he said because of this certainty.

  ‘So her friend said.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He wasn’t listening to me, hadn’t heard the note of doubt in my voice. And then he started to walk briskly, back up through the arch.

  ‘We’ll see the landlord of the house, my American friend, first,’ he said. ‘On my way home, I’ll drop into the police station and tell them that we know who the girl was and where she came from. I might have another word with Inspector Field.’

  ‘Why do you think she was murdered?’

  ‘Obvious, isn’t it?’ He had turned away from the river and was walking briskly uphill, under the arch. We had to stand in a few times to allow a carriage, pulled by tired horses seeking their stables, to pass by, but otherwise there was not much traffic around. Not many people either, just the few sad wretches who would sleep there all night under the shelter of the arch. On an impulse, I pulled a coin from my pocket and went across to one of them. She had three children with her and the boy almost looked as old as she did herself. I bent down towards her.

  ‘Did you see a girl come out from that house, two nights ago, about this time?’

  Mechanically, she stretched a hand towards the coin. A hand! It was more like a claw. I moved the coin away a little. ‘A girl, a servant, she would have come out of that door down there, the door that myself and my friend came from. Did you see her?’

  Her look sharpened. She opened her mouth. She seemed as though she was dredging up words from the bottom of her mind.

  ‘Yes,’ she said eventually, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  ‘Did she have anyone with her?’

  She looked at me as though trying to guess the right answer. Dickens had come back and stood impassively beside me.

  ‘Yes,’ she said again.

  ‘A man?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Give her the money, Collins!’ Suddenly Dickens was impatient. I could tell by the quick jerk of his head. ‘Those children are starving,’ he said to me. He took out half a crown from his own pocket and handed it to her. ‘There you are, my poor woman. Send the boy to get some buns from the coffee shop. Make sure he gets one for each of you.’ He waited until the bare legs had disappeared to the other side of the archway. Did not look at me and I was conscious of a feeling of shame. And then, as though suddenly making up his mind, he bent down to look into the woman’s face.

  ‘Did you really see her?’ he asked, and the gentleness in his voice surprised me.

  And she looked up at
him then. The dazed expression on her face was not so obvious and her eyes had brightened a little. Her eyes went towards the arch. No sign of the boy. He and the money had disappeared and by now he might be buying the buns from a coffee shop on the Strand. She shook her head.

  ‘No, sir, I didn’t see no one come out of there that night.’

  Dickens nodded. ‘Make sure that you have one of the buns for yourself,’ was all that he said, but he touched her shoulder gently, and then, almost as though feeling slightly ashamed of the gesture, he jerked his head at me and I followed.

  ‘Pay first and ask after. You’re more likely to get the truth,’ he said as we walked side by side up the hill and emerged from the arch to turn into a steep side road.

  ‘You’re right.’ I felt a little shame at the way that I had held that coin in front of the unfortunate woman as though she were a dog that I was enticing to perform a trick.

  ‘Best leave that sort of thing to Inspector Field; he knows these people and he knows how to get the truth; he knows when they’re lying. You’re a softy; you would believe everything and anything,’ he said. But he said it affectionately and I didn’t resent it. He looked more cheerful now, far less grim, almost as though the bestowing of half a crown had opened a spring of talkativeness in him.

  ‘You know, Wilkie, I have a feeling that there might be more in this business than meets the eye. She was a sharp young lady, Isabella Gordon. Can’t see her risking her comfortable place in that house just to go out and meet the coalman or a porter from the Hungerford Market. No, I think if she went out when she was supposed to be in her bed, well, then she was expecting some money, quite a bit, not half a crown or even a sovereign. And, what’s more, little Miss Sesina suspects something of the sort. And there was some strange business about Isabella pretending to go out by the scullery door, but not really. Going upstairs, perhaps. Whatever happened, little Sesina knows more than she is saying. I’d lay a dollar on that as my American friend would say. Turn here, Wilkie, old chap, now you can see we’re back on Adelphi Terrace, back at the front doors again. My friend has the end house for himself, runs a sort of club for visiting Americans. Place is always full of them.’

  The door of number one was opened to us by a well-fed, well-starched, middle-aged parlourmaid. She knew Dickens immediately.

  ‘Well, Mary,’ he said as he gave up his hat, ‘Mr Diamond at home this evening?’

  ‘Yes, sir, certainly sir, he’s at home and all on his own. Will be glad to see you, sir. Let me take your coat, and yours, sir,’ she said to me. And, indeed, I was glad to be rid of it. The house, despite the cold damp November fog outdoors sweltered in an almost summer-like heat. There was a huge stove in the hallway, the flames burning with a blaze as it threw out such heat that one could not stand very close to it.

  And then there was a roar from above, the voice travelling down the stairway where the vaulted ceiling seemed to add a majestic sound to the words. I looked up at it and admired the frieze and the decorated cornice. It would, I thought, make a magnificent opening to a play. There was a man standing on the top stair, arms outstretched.

  ‘Mr Dickens,’ said the voice with a strong American accent, ‘Mr Dickens, you are more welcome than the Niagara Falls in a desert. Come in, come in.’

  ‘My poor friend, are you as thirsty as that.’ Dickens bounded up the stairs energetically. ‘Shall we send out for a bottle?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a bottle, Dick, got hundreds of them, all lying peacefully in my cellar. It’s the company, man, the company. That’s what I’m crying out for.’

  Dickens’ American friend, Mr Donald Diamond, was a huge man with an enormous paunch and a reddened complexion. He wore the largest and brightest waistcoat that I had ever seen on a man. And it advanced before him, swirls of red and yellow twinkling a welcome as much as his cordial face.

  ‘Well, the company has come, Don,’ said Dickens, shaking the enormous hand held out to him, ‘and look what I’ve done for you. Brought you one of the most talented men in London! You should read his book, Basil. Spine-chilling! Blood-curdling! I predict a great future for him,’ he said and I blushed a little, modestly, but thrilled with excitement as Mr Diamond pumped my hand up and down, the enormous diamond on his ring carving a glittering trajectory beneath the overhead gas lamp.

  ‘Well, isn’t that the greatest thing,’ said our host. ‘Mary, this calls for a celebration. A bowl of the Smoking Bishop, Mary and a few cuts of your pie.’

  ‘Yes, sir. In a minute, sir.’ Mary disappeared down the steps to the kitchen.

  ‘Great girl, that, best girl in the whole of London. She’d work all day and all night, too, if I didn’t stop her. “Don’t you turn yourself into a slave, my dear,” I say that to her. “I used to work like you when I was a young man and I’ve never forgotten it. Never have forgotten what my legs felt like at the end of the day, making those beds, cooking, cleaning, did it all.” Made my money out of hotels and boarding houses, Mr Collins, you know,’ he said to me, propelling me up the stairs with a large hand spanning the entire space between my two shoulder blades. ‘Now come into the drawing room, the two of you. Come and warm yourselves. That’s what I call a fire, Dick, just feel the heat coming from it. What do you think? Your Mr Pickwick would relish a fire like that, wouldn’t he?’

  He was a bit like Mr Pickwick, himself, I thought, as he propelled me into a chair beside one of the most enormous fires that I have ever seen. I could see how Dickens looked at him with almost the fond smile of a creator. They had met on board ship when my friend was coming back from America. I had heard the story many times, but this was our first meeting. Dickens had told me that I would like him and I did.

  ‘And so, you’ve had a book published, Mr Collins, well, isn’t that a great thing.’

  ‘Two; two books published,’ I said and hoped that it didn’t sound like boasting.

  ‘Two! A young man like you. Well! How about that!’ And the American accent made the words even more striking.

  I smiled modestly, glad when Mr Diamond turned his attention to his fire, carefully placing a few more large lumps of coal in strategic places.

  ‘Mary won’t be long, gentlemen,’ he said, as anxious for our comfort as though we were both starving with hunger and faint with the cold.

  ‘We have brought you some bad news, Don,’ said Dickens and I was glad that he had broached it before the maid returned. It seemed wrong to talk about that poor girl, Isabella Gordon – and I had a sudden vision of her lying dripping on that marble slab – while the Smoking Bishop and the slices of pie were handed around.

  ‘It’s one of your rooming houses, number five, a girl, a housemaid, she was strangled and thrown into the river.’

  ‘Poor girl!’ He was prompt in his response, but a bit puzzled, too. I could see that.

  ‘I have an interest in the matter because she was a girl that I had for a year or so in Urania Cottage – you remember that I’ve told you about the charity that Miss Coutts and I have set up, a charity to educate and train girls and give them a new life in Australia? You were good enough to give—’

  ‘One of these girls, what a terrible thing.’ I had a feeling that he interrupted Dickens before his generosity could be spelled out and I liked the man all the more for that. ‘What happened to her, Dick?’

  Dickens shrugged. ‘She went out to meet a man. The old, old story, you’d think, but somehow, from cross-questioning the other maid, another girl from Urania Cottage, I get the impression that it was money she was after, not just a love affair or anything like that.’

  ‘Money?’ He seemed a little puzzled.

  ‘Very possibly blackmail. And, I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that it might involve one of the men who lodge in number five.’ Dickens, I could see, had made up his mind about that. He came to the point with his usual efficiency. ‘What do you know about those men in your house, Don?’

  Mr Diamond, I thought, looked somewhat taken aback at that. I could see
the words: ‘they pay rent’ tremble on his lips, but he, like everyone else, was probably used to Dickens’ determined character. Obediently he got to his feet, crossed over to his desk and pulled out a fat notebook. It had a label glued on to its front with the words: Adelphi Terrace written on it in a large round hand, an uneducated hand, I thought, looking with interest at our host and thinking of him cleaning and making beds in boarding houses when he was a young man.

  ‘I rent out all the houses on Adelphi Terrace except this one, but number five is the only one where I let rooms, not the whole house,’ he said to me when he saw me looking at him.

  I felt a little uncomfortable. It seemed a bit impolite to be cross-questioning a man about his tenants, just because Dickens had suddenly got some bee in his bonnet. I knew what it was, though. It had been that mention of the schoolmaster coming from Yorkshire that had started this train of thought.

  Oddly enough, it was of the schoolmaster that the American spoke, first of all.

  ‘Well, there’s Mr Frederick Cartwright. He’s the latest tenant. Took the rooms after a man who used to have them gave in his notice. Went off to be married to his boss’s daughter. Mr Cartwright is a friend of his and he offered to take over the rest of the lease and then when that was up, well, he stayed on.’

  ‘And how long ago was that, Don?’

  ‘Just about six months ago, Dick, no longer, yes, that’s right. I see the date here now. Just a week over the six months.’

  ‘Gave references, I suppose, did he?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s a schoolmaster at St Bartholomew’s, got the reference from a clergyman there, at St Bartholomew’s Church, all very respectable. Bank reference, too. No, I never worried about him.’

  ‘But there was someone else, someone that you did worry a bit about.’ Dickens reminded me sometimes of a little terrier, named Ben, I had once when I was a boy, a splendid ratter with very upright ears and bright black eyes. He’d pounce on a rat in the way that my friend would pounce on a piece of information.