Winter of Despair

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Helen,’ I breathed.

  ‘Wife of our friend William Jordan, the art gallery owner, is she not?’ Dickens asked the question but I knew that he was aware of the answer to it. He grimaced unhappily. I had seen him earlier in earnest conversation with Helen. Though he had only met her once before that very morning, they had been getting on like old friends. She was just the sort of woman that he liked. Discreet, well-mannered, calmly clever, humorous in a quiet sort of fashion. And beautifully dressed. He liked that in a woman. One thing had been missing. Helen, this evening, had not worn the collar of pearls. I had never seen her before without them at a dinner party or at the opera.

  ‘Yes, Helen Jordan, that’s Helen Jordan, I would lay a wager on that,’ I said aloud. ‘She wasn’t wearing that collar of pearls tonight, but I have often seen her wear it.’ Had she seen the picture, I wondered, seen the picture and wanted to lessen her resemblance to it by leaving her pearls at home on the night when she expected to meet Milton-Hayes?

  And then as he still looked unsure, I said, ‘Dick, she’s a gambler. She cannot stop herself. She’s a nice woman, an attractive woman, but she plays cards like a drunkard drinks, incessantly! She gambles. Gets into debt. And then plays again in order to pay off that debt. And then when that doesn’t work, when she finds herself ever deeper in debt, why then she plays again, digs herself deeper and deeper into debt. And, of course, when her debtors find that she will be unable to pay, that she cannot pay, why then they go to her husband. After all, in law, he is responsible for his wife. And that is why he …’

  ‘Did what?’ Dickens, I thought, knew the answer to that question. I had seen a dawning look of remembrance on his face. Most people, I thought, might have seen or heard something about that notice in The Times, but what was a terrible tragedy for one man and his wife, was only a tiny item of news for those who hardly knew them both.

  ‘Why he has repudiated his responsibility for her debts. Shamed them both with the notice in the newspaper. And I did hear that she has been threatened with divorce if she ever plays again.’

  ‘And this diabolical picture is to inform her husband and to inform the world that she has been unable to refrain from the deadly temptation. Poor man,’ said Dickens, always one to be sorry for husbands. ‘Poor man,’ he repeated. ‘He is in a terrible quandary. And it is made no easier by being set out in front of the art lovers of London. Well, what do you think, Wilkie? They both have a motive, do they not?’

  I thought about it for a moment or two. ‘It’s not a huge motive,’ I said at last, speaking slowly. ‘Half of London probably knew that she had gone back to gambling once again. I don’t think, to be honest, that he had any motive. He made no secret of his feelings, would tell anyone about the quandary he was in – a matter of losing his wife, or losing his fortune was how he put it to me and I hardly knew him. He’s bought quite a few of my father’s pictures, but that’s in the past. A couple of Charley’s pictures, but I’ve had nothing to do with that. But it shows that he makes no secret of the matter. So I’d say that he has nothing to lose by the revelation in this picture. Most people were quite sorry for him and he lapped up the sympathy.’

  ‘And she?’

  ‘She’s a different matter,’ I said reluctantly. ‘She had everything to lose if her husband knew that she was continuing to gamble his money away.’ Sadly I wrote the figure five next to Helen’s name, and then crossed it out and replaced it with a six. I felt very sorry for both husband and wife and a surge of anger against this fiend, Milton-Hayes, rose up within me.

  ‘Why on earth did that wretched canon commission that man to do these pictures? Look at the trouble it has caused.’ I banged a fist on the Pembroke table and the drop leaf bounced upon its support.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Dickens with an ironical twist to his lips, ‘that he thought he would save people from sin by bringing to their notice the consequences of their wrongdoing.’

  ‘And he ends up by being the cause of a murder, at least one murder; I feel that I could murder him myself, stupid old man,’ I said savagely as a vision of the fat, self-satisfied face came to my mind’s eye. I looked back at my list. ‘I suppose that there is no doubt that Milton-Hayes was using these pictures to blackmail.’

  ‘No doubt, I’d say. The inspector said that the housemaid had instructions to leave the door on the latch if she had to go out as he had a lot of visitors and he had even told her not to answer the door, that he would do it himself. Of course, she only works part-time for him. He and a house further down the road share her. And so the coast would be clear,’ I said. ‘He would bring them up to his studio, show them the picture Winter of Despair. That would have been on the easel. But what about the other pictures, Dickens? They were unmarked.’

  Dickens thought about the matter for the moment. ‘What about if he first showed Winter of Despair and then went off to fetch the companion piece. The two pictures, the diptych, would be overwhelming, would cause the victim to pay up instantly. That would have been the result in the case, probably, in most circumstances. But our murderer was a man, or woman, of instant decision, a person who immediately recognized the consequences that would ensue. And before the second picture could be produced, the artist and his Winter of Despair were both slashed. The man was killed and the picture was ruined. That’s the only solution that I can see. How many pictures was Milton-Hayes going to bring to your mother’s dinner, Wilkie?’

  I shrugged. ‘No idea. I don’t know whether he would have given advance notice, or not. They were always fairly informal, these affairs. But, remember, Dick, we found just those five pictures packed in a bag. I’d say that was what he would have brought. Would have called a cab, put the bag on the seat beside him and set off for Hanover Terrace. No more pictures were intended, I’d say, Dick. You saw yourself that when the inspector had put in the mutilated picture of Winter of Despair that the bag looked over-full.’

  ‘So, five pictures and we have identified … how many possibilities from each picture?’ Dickens scanned the piece of paper in his hand. I noticed how he, normally the most decisive and fluent of men, had hesitated before choosing the neutral word ‘possibilities’ in preference to the word ‘murderers’.

  I felt like that myself. If it were not for the imperative necessity to clear my unfortunate and helpless brother from the charge, I would have had no interest in discovering the man or the woman who had put an end to Milton-Hayes and his blackmailing – would feel no imperative need to condemn. But Charley had to be extricated from the threat of prison and of the gallows and so I turned my attention back to our list.

  Root of All Evil: Mrs Helen Jordan – a gambler, but could she be a murderer?

  Den of Iniquity: her husband, William Jordan, was he an opium consumer?

  Taken in Adultery: Charles Collins and Molly French. Charley, I had to admit to myself, was a strong candidate.

  Forbidden Fruit: Walter Hamilton, but as far as I and Charley knew, he hadn’t done anything towards an illegal marriage with a girl under sixteen and his pretty little admirer still lived with her parents and did her lessons like any other girl of her age.

  The Night Prowler: now this was a different matter and I felt myself cheering up a little. ‘Lord Douglas,’ I said aloud – ‘not Florence Gummidge; she’s just a silly girl. And as for her mother – well, a woman of that age is unlikely to have taken a knife to a man. Don’t see her murdering anyone, but Lord Douglas is a strong possibility. Would lose his place in society, his inheritance, his liberty and his life itself, perhaps. All of those jewellery thefts which have been happening over the last year or so have involved items of high value.’

  I gazed at my list with a feeling of depression. I seemed to have come to the conclusion that Lord Douglas and my brother Charley were the most likely suspects. The one was guileless and ridden by nervous tensions. The other was cool-headed, fluent of speech and arrogant. I shuddered slightly and put some more coal upon the fire. Charley, I thought, despi
te my mother’s gallant effort to save him and sacrifice herself, was in deadly danger.

  TEN

  Sleeping like the dead. Sesina said those words to herself as she unlocked the door and stole into Mr Charles’s room the following morning. She smiled a little as she thought about Mr Dickens solemnly taking the key last night. As if the house was not full of keys. She wondered whether to wake Mr Charles up and show him that she had a key, but then she thought she’d allow him to sleep while she lit the fire and made everything comfortable for him.

  She felt wide awake herself. The trip out through the empty streets to find a letter box had woken her up thoroughly. Just arrived when the postman was collecting the letters. Had a bit of fun with him. Cheeky lad. Pretending that he could fit her into his sack. She had wished that she had a job like that. Would have enjoyed going around the streets and knocking on doors. But girls didn’t do things like that. Nothing but boring housework or stitching for girls, or else join the streetwalkers, and she didn’t fancy that at all. No, delivering and collecting the post would be fun.

  She tried to imagine what that postman was doing at the moment, bringing his bag down to the Regent’s Park Post Office and then taking the sorted letters and going through the streets popping them into letter boxes – perhaps Mr Wilkie’s letter would already have been delivered to that Mr Pigott. She imagined him going to that address and having a bit of backchat with the girl cleaning Mr Pigott’s steps.

  A bit dull, though, Regent’s Park; she’d prefer to be around Covent Garden; it would be fun delivering letters there, she thought, imagining how lively the place would be even as early in the morning as this. Still, no good thinking like that. She riddled the range in the kitchen, made sure that it was burning brightly, then cleaned all of the downstairs grates; since she was early up, she would do them first, she decided and then she worked her way through the bedrooms, leaving, as always, Mr Charles to the last.

  After two years of working in the household, after all the warnings that she should not wake anyone, she was expert at opening a door soundlessly, at emptying the ash into her bucket, black-leading the fireplace, then piling up the balls of crushed newspaper, placing the kindling on top, adding coal, piece by piece until the fire was glowing a bright red. Quite a task to do all that without waking the person sleeping in the bed, but she was an expert by now. She cast a glance through the hastily drawn bed-curtains. Still stretched out, but something strange about him. Mouth wide open. A strange noise. Snoring.

  She began to brush the ash softly through the grate but then there was another loud noise. Not an ordinary snore. Sounded more like someone choking. She put down the hearth brush and went towards him, slipping soundlessly through the curtains.

  And he lay there.

  Mouth open.

  Face bright red.

  Not like him. Always so pale.

  Sounded very strange. She went a bit nearer. There was a stain on his pillow. A bright red stain. Blood. Very, very bright red blood. It was dripping from the cut that she had noticed yesterday. The cut just under his ear that he had made when he was shaving. Something had made it bleed, and there was something strange about the blood. Very thin, and that strange colour. She had never seen blood look as red as that. Softly she took a linen handkerchief from on top of the commode cabinet beside his bed, folded it and placed it gently against the blood. In a second, the linen was stained a bright red. The blood was flowing very fast. She pressed it a bit harder. He didn’t move. Didn’t seem to notice. Just went on snoring in that strange fashion. She began to feel a little panic-stricken. There was something very odd about the way that the blood was flowing out of that tiny cut that had been almost healed yesterday and now that she was near to him she could see that the sheet and the pillow were both stained with that same bright red blood.

  And now that she was so close to him she could see something else. Foam in his mouth. Foam in his nostrils. Strange glistening foam. And clutched in his hand, an empty jewelled pill box.

  ‘Oh, my God, you bitch!’ said Sesina aloud. She dropped the handkerchief. She was doing no good. Already it was soaked through. In a second, she was through the door and running fast down the passageway. Didn’t care how much noise she made. No time to knock. She burst through the door, flung back the curtains and shouted in his ear.

  ‘Oh, Mr Wilkie, come quickly, Mr Charles ’as poisoned ’imself.’

  He was awake in a moment. Out of bed. Pulling on a dressing gown. Grabbing his glasses. Blind as a bat without them. Out the door in his bare feet. She stopped to grab his slippers from under the bed and went after him as he went faster than she had ever seen him move, down to his brother’s room. Hadn’t exclaimed or questioned her, or even looked astonished.

  He might have been expecting something like that.

  She was right beside Mr Wilkie as soon as he reached the bed. He didn’t touch his brother, didn’t try to stop the bleeding; just stood looking down at him. Silently she handed him the empty pill box and he sniffed at it.

  ‘What’s he taken?’

  ‘Prussic acid, I think. I hope. Get me some salt from the kitchen. Quick.’

  She flew. Urgent. She knew that. You didn’t have much time if someone took poison. Make them sick it up straight away. She was back with the salt and a large kitchen mug in seconds and she held the basin as he made his brother vomit. Still breathing badly, but the red colour under the white skin was fading a bit.

  ‘More,’ he said. And she filled the mug with a steady hand. Now it was only the water that was coming back up. And he did look a little better. Not breathing so badly now. She washed his face tenderly with a damp sponge. Still unconscious, poor fellow. Mr Wilkie had left him and was scribbling a note.

  ‘Here you are, Sesina. Take this to Dr Beard. Go as fast as you can. Here’s half a crown. Take a cab if you need to, but you may be as quick on foot. Go now. Quick!’

  Sesina fled down the stairs. She would go as she was. Going to the basement would be dangerous. Cook and Dolly would be up by now and there would be questions to be answered and delays. If she ran fast she wouldn’t be cold.

  She had just reached the hall when the front door knocker sounded, softly, as though the visitor knew that it was a most unreasonable hour for a morning call.

  She opened it impatiently. A young man, quite brown-skinned, blond hair.

  ‘Mr Wilkie Collins in?’ he enquired. ‘I’m an old friend and he is expecting me. My name is Pigott. He wrote to me and I met the postman. Wonders of our mail service, don’t you think? I’ll go up. I know Wilkie. Even if you had the house on fire you wouldn’t get him out of bed before eleven o’clock in the morning. Top floor. First bedroom, right-hand side. Don’t worry. I’ll find my way.’

  He was gone before she could say a word and she shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t worried about him. She had more important things to think of.

  ELEVEN

  Wilkie Collins, Hide and Seek, 1854:

  It is useless now to write about what I suffered from this fresh blow, or to speak of the awful time I passed by his bed-side in London. Let it be enough to say, that he escaped out of the very jaws of death; and that it was the end of February before he was well enough to be taken home.

  As soon as Sesina had gone, I began to feel that I had done the wrong thing by sending her out. I should have rung the bell and summoned Dolly and sent her for the doctor. Dolly knew his address and she knew Frank Beard very well. The physician had been one of two who had tended to my father in his last days. Dolly would have known exactly where to have gone and how to convince the doctor of the urgency of the case.

  And, also, Sesina had been a practical support to me during the moments when we had worked together over my brother’s unconscious body. We had encouraged each other and I had found comfort from her swiftness of thought and of movement and her words of encouragement. I missed her when I was left alone in the room. My brother was now very pale. I supposed that was better than the strange
bright red of his face previously, but he seemed lethargic, unable to keep his eyes open and every breath he took seemed to be drawn with intense difficulty, almost as if each inhalation might prove to be his last.

  ‘Charley,’ I said urgently. ‘Wake up, Charley. How are you, my dear fellow?’ I put my two arms around him and tried to pull him up to a sitting position, but he flopped like a heavy sack and I was forced to let him lie down again. I did not like the sound of that breathing at all. Sesina had lit the fire and the room was beginning to warm. I chafed his cold hands and then berated myself for a useless gesture. Air. He needed air. I went to the window and threw up the sash. The damp fog streamed into the room and Charley coughed. Was that good? Or not? I didn’t know. My hands were shaking, my forehead wet with sweat and time after time I had to remove my spectacles to wipe the damp from them. I looked around the room frantically and then grabbed a few overstuffed cushions from the sofa. Clumsily, I pulled him up and pushed the cushions behind his shoulders. And still his breath came in loud gasps, slow and painful. I rubbed his back between his shoulder blades, feeling the harsh rattle beneath my fingertips.

  And then a sound from outside. Not Sesina or Dolly. They wore felt-soled shoes. This was a man’s footfall, treading cautiously, but with a man’s weight behind each step. It couldn’t be Frank Beard already, could it? Impossible. A glance at the mantelpiece clock showed that. Barely five minutes since Sesina had left.

  And then a cough. An artificially loud cough. I knew that cough. And a whisper, piercing enough to carry on a foggy stretch of seawater.