Season of Darkness

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Isabella, sir? Didn’t you know?’ She faced him. ‘She’s been found, sir, found dead. Dragged out of the river. Strangled.’ She kept her eye on his face when she said that. He knew. He must know. Everyone else in the house knew. Mrs Dawson was telling everyone about it last night. The two lads, Mr Allen and Mr Carstone, they both knew. Had been talking about it. Popped into the kitchen last night. Were sorry about Isabella. Not at all as larky as usual.

  ‘Strangled.’ She could have sworn that his face went a little pale. ‘Who found her? Who identified her? How did they know that she came from this place?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ That was the easiest answer. Funny questions, though. The lads on the top storey didn’t ask any questions like that. Just said that they were sorry, and how much they liked her, and how Sesina would miss her friend.

  Suspicious, him pretending that he didn’t know, she said to herself as she went up to the top storey. She and Isabella used to leave these two to the last, used to argue over who would do them. She’d take up their breakfast. They were always dying for their coffee. Drinking the night before makes you thirsty in the morning, they told her that nearly every day.

  ‘Do the hall first thing this morning, Sesina; we’ll be having the landlord, I’d say,’ said Mrs Dawson as soon as Sesina had swallowed her own breakfast – and the remains of Mr Cartwright’s rasher and egg.

  ‘Not hungry this morning, sir?’ she had said when she fetched his tray and he had given a grunt in reply. Bad conscience, she said to herself. As soon as she got back to the kitchen she gave it a quick heat-up and gobbled it down before taking her polishes out to the hall. Why shouldn’t she have a cooked breakfast? Mrs Dawson always did.

  Mrs Dawson was right. The landlord arrived. Bright and early, he was, too. Nice fellow. Came in. Opened the front door when she was polishing the hallstand, and slipped her sixpence. Wasn’t alone, though. Mr Dickens and that friend of his, Mr Collins, came with him. Up early. She didn’t think that Mr Dickens lived anywhere local. And Mr Collins looked half asleep. Giving a big yawn and then rubbing his glasses with his pocket handkerchief.

  ‘I’ll get Mrs Dawson, sir.’ Wouldn’t be too pleased to have her breakfast interrupted. Liked a good old sitdown by the kitchen stove at this time of the morning while herself and Isabella tore around like wasps in a preserving jar.

  ‘Drat the man. What’s he come so early for? Go on, girl, use your loaf. Put him in my parlour. I’ll be up in a second.’ Mrs Dawson sloshed some more tea into her breakfast cup and tried to wash down the rest of the food with it. Sesina went back up the stairs to find them standing in the hall looking all around them. Mr Dickens hadn’t said a word yet. Not like him. What would she do if he said nothing and just went away without talking to her? She needed to get his attention, to make him interested in hunting down the murderer. When she reached the top of the stairs, she just addressed herself to the landlord.

  ‘Would you like to wait in the parlour for a minute, sir? Mrs Dawson won’t be a minute. She’s just sorting the linen.’ No harm in saying that in case the old cow was listening. He shook his head, though, and stayed where he was. Mr Dickens was looking around him, just like he did yesterday evening, but he stopped and listened to the landlord’s question.

  ‘All your lodgers gone out, are they, my dear – it’s Sesina, isn’t it?’

  Yes, sir. I’m Sesina. The other housemaid was Isabella.’

  Very silent, Mr Dickens, this morning. No harm in bringing in Isabella’s name; she looked across at him when she said it, but he did not look back at her, just gazing up the stairs like he was wondering how they were built. She might get some information.

  She allowed a few seconds to go by, to allow them to remember about Isabella before she added, ‘No, sir, none of the lodgers have gone out yet.’ She should probably ask them if they wanted to take off their hats and coats, but it would be bound to be wrong in Mrs Dawson’s eyes. She was in a fine old mood this morning. Didn’t like Sesina standing up for her rights.

  And just at that moment, the sound of footsteps, heavy, firm footsteps, coming down the stairs. She knew who that would be.

  ‘It’s Mr Cartwright, sir, the schoolmaster.’ Looking up at him now, she could see what a big, burly, heavily-made fellow he was. A bit like some of those prize fighters that you’d see at fairs, especially with that scar. Except that he was dressed all in black, with a black top hat. He took off the hat when he saw the landlord. Looked better with it on. Hid that orangutan hair of his.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Diamond.’ Just that. Never anything human about him. Didn’t ask what brought the man here, didn’t say anything about Isabella.

  ‘Ah, Mr Cartwright. Off to the grindstone. How’s everything going at St Bartholomew’s School? Got your cane with you?’

  That took the schoolmaster aback. He seemed to give a bit of a jump. Sesina moved to the back of the hallstand and began rubbing a bit of polish on to it. She usually didn’t bother with that more than once a month or so, but she wanted to see his face. Looked furious, scar gaping, like an angry mouth. Didn’t like that remark. No doubt about that. And Mr Dickens looked ever so keen when the landlord had said that. Watching the man’s face. Listening. Listening to his answer when it came to his lips after that strange pause. A bit of a stammer when he replied. Sesina could see the faces as she polished the dusty wood vigorously. Time for the schoolmaster to speak, now, but he seemed a bit uncertain, stammered a bit.

  ‘N-not much need of that, Mr Diamond. The boys in St Bartholomew’s School are all very well behaved. Nice boys from good families.’ And then he was gone, out of the door, as fast as he could go. Sesina looked at Mr Dickens. Yes, he’d certainly taken an interest. Saw her looking too. He saw everything. And then he looked back at the landlord, waiting for him to do his errand, whatever it was. There was a sound of the kitchen door closing downstairs. Would take Mrs Dawson a while to get up those two flights of stairs, especially with the size of the breakfast that she had just put away.

  ‘Ah, here comes Mrs Dawson, yes, I think I’ll pop into the parlour now, my dear,’ the landlord said to her in his American accent.

  ‘I’ll stay here, and have a chat with Sesina.’ Cool as a breeze. Giving orders in another man’s house. A quick look at his friend Mr Collins. When she came back from showing the landlord into Mrs Dawson’s parlour, the two of them were still just standing there with their hats in their hands. Mrs Dawson hung around for a minute after saying good morning to them, but Mr Dickens just nodded at her and then ignored her. The housekeeper glared at Sesina who was standing holding the door open, but in she went, her head in the air. She’d make a stuffed bird laugh with her airs and graces.

  And still Mr Dickens didn’t speak. He just stood there, looking up and down the stairs and all around him. And his friend just twirled his hat on his ladylike little hand. Sesina didn’t take too much notice of them. Let him wait, she thought, as she took up her polish again. She could hear Mrs Dawson. Making a big fuss about some dinner party that the landlord wanted her to give. Any excuse for Mrs D. if it was a question of her getting off her backside and doing some work. Could she do fish? Not her! Just you come and look at the fish kettle, Mr Diamond. Can’t say fairer than that. She had the cheek to tell him to order oysters; that they were in season and wouldn’t need no cooking. And followed that up with advising him to get some roast fowls – from the pastry cook on the Strand; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables – from the pastry cook; a raised pie – from the pastry cook.

  ‘Let’s go down to the kitchen,’ said Mr Dickens abruptly. Suddenly looking back at her as if he’d just noticed her.

  Sesina nodded. She felt like keeping him waiting, just as he had kept her waiting, but she had something to tell him and couldn’t wait to see his face. I’ll put you under an obligation to me, Mr Dickens, Sesina thought to herself and so she packed up her polishes and followed him. Mr Collins came behind the two of them. He hadn’t said a word, but he ga
ve her a friendly smile.

  ‘Not there, sir,’ Sesina said when they got to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Not into the kitchen. In here, Mr Dickens, into Isabella’s room. I want to show you something.’ It would be safe for the moment, she felt. The landlord would be talking or trying to get a word in edgewise, that would be the way of it. Mrs Dawson would have a lot of suggestions of ways for her to avoid any actual cooking for this dinner party that the landlord wanted to have. She knew her. It would be something else that could be bought in: a raised pie and a dish of kidneys – from the pastry cook, of course; a tart, and (if he liked) a shape of jelly – from the pastry cook. And various other suggestions. And, of course, the wine to be bought in, never mind that there was a stash of it in the cellar, left there by the previous owner of number five.

  ‘So this was Isabella’s bedroom, was it?’ Mr Dickens had a look around. A bed and a clothes press. Looked all right, thought Sesina, but she didn’t answer his question.

  ‘Isabella was a great one for hiding things, sir, but I discovered this. It was under a floorboard.’ Sesina took the flat piece of card from her pocket and handed it to him. ‘I wonder could it be anything to do with who murdered her.’

  The empty bedroom had made a great place to conceal a secret. And this was an explosive one.

  ‘A calling card!’ He read the words aloud: ‘Mr Jeremiah Doyle, 54 Robert Adam Street.’ He frowned suspiciously at it and did not turn it over. ‘How did she get hold of this? Don’t tell me, I suppose she stole them …’

  ‘She didn’t really steal the cards, sir,’ said Sesina, making her voice sound virtuous and shocked. ‘Mr Doyle threw them away. They were in the wastepaper basket. They were no good to him, you see. They have the wrong address on them.’

  He nodded. He would see the sense in that, of course, but Sesina kept her eyes fixed on him. A bit anxious, a bit worried, loyal to her friend, not wanting him to think badly of Isabella. She needed him to stir up things, to hunt down the murderer.

  ‘What on earth did the girl want with them?’ he asked and now his voice was a bit gentler, almost indulgent; almost a bit amused.

  ‘She wanted to make a book, a book, that’s what she told me. She was going to write something on one of them any day that something interesting happened and then she was going to turn it into a book. But it would be too expensive for someone like her to buy paper, of course, so she saved the cards.’ Mr Dickens would like that. Always very keen on self-help and being ambitious to improve. ‘Isabella wanted to be a lady, sir. She wanted to better herself.’ Sesina kept her eyes fixed on him and her expression demure and respectful. ‘That’s what she told me, sir. She wanted to go on with her education. Do the things that you told her to do. See, she’s written something on the back.’

  And then he turned it over. Read it aloud. “‘I’ve talked with him today. He’s the one. I know that he is. I’ll make that man pay for what he did.” Who was this person, this man that she mentions, Sesina?’

  Sesina knew that he would ask her that. ‘I don’t know, sir. I really don’t know.’

  ‘Nonsense, you girls would have been very close, lived close to each other for years now, didn’t you, shared a bedroom in Urania Cottage, if I remember rightly. Don’t give me that nonsense. Of course you know who she’s talking about.’

  ‘I don’t. I swear!’ Sesina was enjoying this. He was always a one to think that he knew better than anyone else, always knew the truth. Let him find out the truth now. Let him find out that villain who murdered poor Isabella.

  ‘Perhaps Sesina doesn’t like to betray her friend. Perhaps she has sworn to keep a secret.’ Mr Collins said that in such a kind way that Sesina wished she had something to tell him, just to him in private, a little secret between the two of them. And then she knew. Yes, she would tell him, but not Mr Dickens.

  ‘It might be on another card, Mr Collins, the name of the man that she’s talking about.’ Sesina said the words softly, and just to him. She saw Mr Dickens swing around and look at her. Astonished that she would dare to speak without being spoken to. That she would dare address anyone else when he, the famous Mr Dickens, was present. Mr Collins, though, he was nice. He gave her a wink.

  ‘You counted those calling cards, didn’t you, Sesina; you know that there are some missing; you can see by them that some have been removed,’ he said, quick as a flash.

  ‘Yes, sir, well, it was Isabella who counted them really. There were twenty of them. Don’t look like twenty, there, do they, sir?’

  Mr Collins went over to the drawer that she had left slightly sticking out and took out the pack of visiting cards, running them through his fingers. Nice nails, thought Sesina, pink and sort of polished-looking. She watched him count them; he did it twice.

  ‘Only twelve here, Dickens,’ he said. ‘So she has written eight of these cards. You said that she was going to put them together to make a little book, when she was finished, is that right, Sesina?’

  ‘That’s right, sir, she wanted to make a book or a diary. Mr Dickens used to tell us that we should keep a diary.’

  ‘Wonder what she’s done with the rest of the cards.’ He was talking to himself, but Sesina answered him, straight away.

  ‘Hidden them, sir. She was set on hiding things. She would be afraid that Mrs Dawson would read them.’

  ‘Or you, perhaps?’ But he said it with such a nice smile that Sesina smiled back at him. She nodded.

  ‘Or me, neither. She liked to keep a secret, did Isabella. That’s why she didn’t like Urania Cottage. You couldn’t have no secrets there, sir, not anyways.’ She said it confidentially, lowering her voice and standing on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. He looked amused. Mr Dickens, she noticed, was pretending not to hear, looking all around the miserable little bedroom with a frown on his face. She looked hastily at the window, then away, and then back again, leaning a little forward and narrowing her eyes.

  And, of course, he saw the card that she was looking straight at. She had left it there for him to find. Had taken it out from its hiding place in the window frame and then had put it back in again, but making it slightly more conspicuous. And it just stuck out, just a little edging of gold, but enough to catch the attention of someone holding a candle close to it. He reached out and twitched it from its place.

  ‘Another one, Collins, look at this.’ He had pounced on it and he pulled it out like one of them tricksters in Covent Garden taking a rabbit from a top hat.

  ‘What does it say?’ His friend was as excited as himself. Love a mystery, all of them!

  ‘“Going to see the coachman tomorrow. I’ve found the place. The Saracen’s Head”.’

  ‘I say, Dickens, this is jolly interesting. There’s some sort of mystery here.’

  Sesina looked from one to the other. A mystery, indeed. What could Isabella have meant? She began to ponder the matter in her mind.

  ‘Come on, Wilkie. It’s Hunt the Thimble time. Bustle about, my boy. You take that side of the room and I’ll take this one. Six more cards to find. A bottle of wine to the one who finds the next one.’

  He didn’t mean her, of course. That was obvious. Not that she liked wine much. She had tasted some once when the landlord had given one of his dinner parties. A bit sour, Sesina thought, though Isabella had pretended to like it.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, Mrs Dawson is coming down the stairs.’

  That stopped them. Looked like a pair of lads who had been caught larking around. Mr Dickens had taken the two cards. She’d memorized them, though. Bet I work out the story behind them quicker than you do, thought Sesina.

  Mrs Dawson was bringing the landlord down to see her range. Just to show that she couldn’t cook anything special on it. Sesina left the two of them to play about, Mr Dickens pulling out drawers, Mr Collins looking under the bed and she went into the kitchen to support Mrs Dawson.

  ‘If only I could have one of them new stoves, the Leamington Kitchener, Mr Diamond,’ Mrs Dawson was saying, ‘Well, then �
��’

  The sky would be the limit, that’s what she means. On the day that I’m leaving this place I’ll tell her a few home truths, Sesina promised herself. And the first one will be: you can’t cook for toffee, Mrs Dawson. Leamington Kitchener or no Leamington Kitchener, you’ll never make a cook.

  But it mightn’t work out. She mightn’t be leaving this place. They mightn’t be able to find out the name of the man who killed Isabella. And then her dreams of getting tons of money and living the life of a lady might come to nothing. She had better keep Mrs Dawson happy until the mystery of Isabella’s death was unravelled.

  ‘Missus is right, sir,’ she said to the landlord. ‘The range is ever so unreliable. Best get the fowls and oysters sent in and a few stews and the tarts. Then she can put her mind to the rest of the dinner.’

  He was a funny fellow, the landlord, shrugging his shoulders, looking from the stove to Mrs Dawson, and then he shouted out in his American accent, ‘Dick, Dick, you’re a man for gadgets. I bet you know all about something called the Leamington Kitchener!’

  And, of course, Mr Dickens came in straight away, couldn’t resist that. Always had to be the ‘know-all’, had to tell everyone the right thing to do. Sesina slipped out of the kitchen and left them to it. Mr Collins was still wandering around the kitchen maid’s bedroom, tapping on walls and peeping into the chimney.

  Sesina went right up, very close to him and whispered in his ear, ‘I can tell you one thing, sir. I know that Isabella never went out by the back door that night.’

  He gave her a kind smile, his big round glasses catching the light from the candle.

  ‘How do you know that, Sesina?’ he said. And he spoke in a whisper, just like they were having a little secret together.