Winter of Despair

by Cora Harrison

  ‘You, of course, would have no business to be out late at night,’ stated Mrs Collins.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said Sesina calmly, but her mind was working fast as she recalled the streets that she had gone through on her way to and from the house in Dorset Square. And, of course, Church Street. Could this letter have come from the canon? She thought about the canon, rapidly ran her mind over him. Fat, grey-haired, seemed like the usual clergyman. No vail, when he left, of course, but she hadn’t expected one from a clergyman and was certain that she had shown no annoyance. Why would he have it in for her? He had to have a guilty secret. Had he thought she spotted him in the picture? No, it had been later on that she had seen that possibility. And Mrs Gummidge? Well, that was different. Sesina had called attention to her daughter when everyone was gawping at the pictures, had suggested that Florence might have been a model for the girl in The Night Prowler picture. Nothing like diverting attention to another suspect, she had thought at the time. Everyone knew that the police were dead stupid. Easy to fool them.

  She’d have to watch her step, though. Didn’t want to end up in prison.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ she said aloud. ‘No, of course not, ma’am. I’d never go out at night, ma’am. Myself and Dolly are always off to our beds once we got the kitchen cleaned up.’ Not quite true, but true enough for the purpose. She didn’t want to bring Mr Wilkie into the conversation unless she really had to. Still, she would have a word with him afterwards. Tell him about the canon. Might give him some ideas. He and Mr Dickens had been talking it over, were making lists. She didn’t think that they had got anywhere, and then this morning there was all the fuss about poor Mr Charles. Still, he was taken care of now. Now she waited calmly and allowed Mrs Collins time to look back over the letter.

  ‘Late at night. Out at night!’ Mrs Collins was still stuck on that. Reading it out from the letter.

  Sesina shrugged her shoulders. This was a good house with plenty of room for the servants. She and Dolly each had their own bedroom. There was no way of proving that she hadn’t gone out in the middle of the night. She’d say nothing about the letter until she had a chance to talk with Mr Wilkie. He mightn’t mind telling his mother about how he had summoned his friend and how Mr Charles was now on a yacht. Probably had told her. It wasn’t like Mrs Collins not to be rushing off to visit her darling boy if she really believed that he was in the doctor’s house. She’d lay a bet, though, that Mr Wilkie wouldn’t want that police inspector to know anything about that letter he had sent to his friend with the yacht. And certainly not about how Mr Charles, instead of lying in his doctor’s house, dying of an overdose of prussic acid, was now, in fact, on the high seas in that very yacht. An idea came to her and she smiled a little.

  Mrs Collins looked at her suspiciously and Sesina put a hand across her mouth to half-hide the way that her smile had broadened.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am …’ She felt her throat move with a suppressed giggle. She kept it down for a few moments and then allowed it to escape. She clapped her hand in front of her mouth but allowed the sounds to last for a few seconds.

  ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ she said then. ‘I was just thinking about that morning when I came out to whiten the doorstep and this drunk man came along and said to me: “What’s a little girl like you doing out in the middle of the night by yourself?”’ She allowed another giggle to escape and then said, ‘Of course, ma’am, it was November, just like now and daylight wouldn’t come until about eight o’clock in the morning. So you see, it was dark night for him and the morning for me.’

  Mrs Collins’ frown cleared as by magic. ‘Why, of course, what a clever little thing you are, Sesina. Of course, this person must have made a mistake. Thought that it was still night, but really it was morning. Hand me my pen case and the writing pad, Sesina, and I’ll write a note about it. And I can explain to the inspector. Don’t know why he had to be involved in the first place. Strange! Still, some of those people do think they are up there with God Almighty.’

  Sesina didn’t move. ‘Don’t worry, ma’am, don’t waste your money on stamps. You know what it’s like. People don’t like to be found in the wrong. And it doesn’t matter to me, ma’am, as long as you are satisfied and as long as you mention to the inspector that it was all a mistake. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and see about breakfast for the gentlemen. I thought I heard Mr Dickens go downstairs a little while ago. The main thing is that Mr Charles is being well looked after, isn’t it, ma’am. Mr Wilkie will make sure about that. Didn’t look at all well yesterday, ma’am, did he? We were all worried about him in the kitchen.’ Say nothing about suicide to my mother; that had been Mr Wilkie’s instructions. I’m just going to tell her that he is unwell.

  ‘Oh, Sesina, poor boy, my poor, poor boy!’ Mrs Collins’ face crumpled up like she was going to burst out sobbing. She shook her head violently and sucked in a few deep breaths. No more talk about going out in the night. Sesina’s business now was to comfort her mistress and console her. Silently, she tiptoed over to the breakfast tray. Still some tea left. And the hot water. She poured out a cupful and added a generous spoon of sugar.

  ‘Drink that down, ma’am. That will do you good. And don’t you worry. Mr Wilkie and Mr Dickens will be working away at trying to sort things out and in the meantime, Mr Charles will be safe with his doctor.’ Sesina thought of the piece of paper, rescued from the wastepaper basket and now hidden in her apron pocket. She would go over that list herself. Have twice the brains of them men, she said to herself. ‘And Mr Dickens will sort out the policeman if there is any trouble, don’t you worry, ma’am,’ she continued. ‘The woman in my last place; just a housekeeper she was, but she knew what is what; and she made remarks on how the police obey Mr Dickens, just like he was the prime minister of the whole country. That’s what she said, ma’am, and she said it like she knew the truth.’ Sesina paused. What would Dolly do now for her mistress? She looked at the sobbing woman. She was trying to drink the tea but she was failing miserably. The tears were coursing down her cheeks, one drop following another like raindrops on the window glass. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed for an hour or so, ma’am?’ she said. ‘Have a little sleep. I’ll send Dolly to see to you.’

  Sesina picked up the breakfast tray. A nice amount left on it. She’d take a few bites on her way down the stairs and finish it off when Dolly was safely despatched to her mistress’s side.

  And then she would take out that list and have a good look at those names that she had glimpsed, scribbled on the piece of paper, each one of them bearing a figure after it.

  When she brought the news back to the kitchen, Dolly went flying up the stairs, in a state of mad fury that Sesina had interfered between her and her mistress, probably giving her cups of tea and comforting her, when everyone knew that Dolly was the only one that the mistress trusted.

  The cook went off into the pantry to make a list of meals in the coming week. Mrs Barnett always liked to do this well ahead of the moment when Mrs Collins, full of bright ideas, would descend the stairs into the kitchen and try to disrupt all of the arrangements already made.

  Sesina sat down at the table, popped a hot scone into her mouth, took out the list and read down through the list of the pictures and the guests’ names after them. Well, well, Mrs Molly French. And Mrs Hermione Gummidge. Mrs Collins would be glad to have her suspected of murder. That woman had got on her nerves, coming in like that and trying to upset her arrangements. And now, Sesina would take a bet on it, trying to involve the housemaid in the murder.

  And that fellow, Lord Douglas! So he was a suspect. She was pleased about that. Tried to pinch her bottom once, but didn’t do it again as Sesina had jumped in a spectacular fashion and managed to spill some hot soup down the front of his trousers. Never said a word, either, did he, just dabbed at it with his napkin. Doesn’t want to attract attention to himself, she thought afterwards and did wonder why. She would love him to be accused of the murder. She had felt l
ike murdering him that day. How did he dare! And just when she was in the middle of serving the soup.

  Well, she thought, time to see what the clever Mr Dickens was up to. Sesina picked up the few remaining scones from the table, still hot from the oven, arranged them neatly on a plate and carried them into the dining room.

  ‘Your scones, sir,’ she said politely and placed the dish in front of Mr Dickens.

  He looked a little surprised, but obligingly popped one into his mouth as he chewed upon it rapidly.

  ‘I must say that you kept your head well, there, Sesina,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Mr Charles might owe his life to you. A good job that you noticed him. And that you noticed that pill box. Say nothing for the moment, though, will you? Mum’s the word, Sesina.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said demurely. She wouldn’t tell him about the letter, either from the canon, or from Mrs Gummidge, she decided. She would think about the woman and the canon herself. Funny fellow, that canon. His name wasn’t on their list, not on the list that Mr Dickens and Mr Collins had written out, and yet most of the others were. Some crossed out, of course, but they had been thought of. But why not the canon? Could he, not Mrs Gummidge, have been the one who wrote that letter to Mrs Collins? She’d have to go and have a look at those pictures in the drawing room, volunteer to be the one to clean it today. See if she could spot the canon in one of them. She suppressed a giggle as she added more hot water to the teapot. She knew how to manage it so that she would be the one to do the drawing room, though Dolly liked to do it herself, usually. Loved dusting all those old paintings. She knew what she would say and she practised it silently. You’re too busy, Dolly, what with the mistress being unwell and taking up so much of your time.

  So why should the canon try to get her into trouble with the police? Sesina puzzled over it after she had examined the pictures as carefully as she could. No, no canon in them, she thought. Would be easy to recognize his clerical outfit.

  She hadn’t been out at midnight, or after midnight. Had he seen her the morning she went to fetch Mr Charles’s painting coat? Or had he seen her when she had gone to post a letter to Mr Piggott early yesterday morning?

  Dark, yes. The middle of the night, no. The skivvies in the clerical houses would get up at that hour, or shortly afterwards, just in the same way as they did in ordinary households. A drunk might think it was the middle of the night, but a sober churchman would have a watch or see a church tower clock.

  No, it was more likely to be Mrs Gummidge. That letter, the reporting of her name to Mrs Collins, had to be a deliberate attempt to make the police suspicious of her, to make her sound like someone who was in with a housebreaking gang. Sesina thought about the names on the list that she had picked out of the basket. She thought about Lord Douglas, about Mrs Gummidge and Molly French. And Charles Allston Collins. One of them was guilty and she was sure that it wasn’t poor Charley. His brother, ever so fond of him, couldn’t think that. Perhaps the list was meant to be a list of all those suspected by the police. And one of those people had gone to the canon and he had tried to get her into trouble.

  So who could have written that letter? Sesina thought about her route in the early hours of the morning. Unusual for anyone, except a worker, to be out at that hour of the morning. The only one she had seen was an old gentleman in ragged old clothes. Not a beggar, though he was dressed like one. Had tripped over the pavement edge and had sworn like a gentleman.

  Perhaps it could have been Mrs Gummidge who saw her, thought Sesina. Mrs Gummidge lived somewhere around there. Yes, she remembered now, Balcombe Street. Might have just looked out of the window. So she wrote the letter or else got someone else to do it. Just the type to sneak around to the canon and get him to talk to the police. Mrs Gummidge was good friends with the canon, had been deep in chat with him, had gone across to greet him when he arrived. She had been talking about her daughter to him, and about the dangers of London. And, yes, there had been something about housebreakers. And about being burned in one’s bed. Silly old cow, Sesina had said at the time, but now she did not feel like laughing. It was clever of Mrs Gummidge, and by now she was sure that it was Mrs Gummidge. And the canon was in on it, also. Yes, it would be clever of Mrs Gummidge to bring the canon into it, perhaps suggesting that an eye should be kept upon the house.

  A deliberate attempt by either the canon, or else Mrs Gummidge, to make the police suspicious of her, to make her sound like someone who was in the pay of a housebreaking gang. Sesina felt her mouth go dry. She had been in and out of courts since she was a small child and she knew well how quickly a verdict was brought against someone who had no lawyer to represent her. No one to speak up for her in court.

  Her only hope was to avoid arrest. And the only way to do that was to pin the crime onto someone else.

  The murder of Edwin Milton-Hayes was not like the murder of a dock worker or a homeless man of the street. This was a rich man. If his murderer was not found, the newspapers would start asking questions. And the police would not want that to happen. They would find a name, find someone to pin it on if one was not found for them. And that person would be taken to court, would be convicted. The judge would put on the black cap and pass sentence. And then they would be hanged by the neck until they choked to death. Sesina shuddered. She had been about ten years old when she had witnessed a woman hanged at Horsemonger Lane Gaol. She still could see the woman’s face – Maria Manning had been her name and she had worn a black silk satin dress. Sesina still had bad dreams about the howls and screams, and the laughter of the crowd as the woman swung slowly around, her face convulsed and her neck broken. Whatever happened, she had to avoid that fate.

  Sesina decided that she needed some time for thinking. Unfortunately time for thinking was difficult to come by in this busy kitchen, with Mrs Barnett and Dolly chattering at the tops of their voices and clattering dishes. Only one thing for it. Drown it all out.

  With a busy and preoccupied look, Sesina sorted out the knives from their drawer, arranging them into groups of nine. She climbed on the wooden steps, took down the Kent Knife Cleaning Drum, found the emery powder and then she inserted the first bundle into the slots on the top of the wooden drum and poured the emery powder into the centre opening. Once she had started to crank the cast-iron winch handle, there was such a din from the noise of the wooden discs with their rows of bristles scraping against the knives that no one could even think of addressing a question to her or of asking her what she was thinking about. And, while she was thinking, the emery power was polishing the steel cutlery so no one could accusing her of being idle.

  No good protesting. Even Mrs Collins, normally a fairly decent employer, would not hesitate to sacrifice a housemaid if her son could be saved. Mrs Collins didn’t know that Mr Charles was not at the doctor’s house, but hopefully now safely out on a yacht, going up towards Norfolk. If only she knew!

  Sesina nibbled her bottom lip as she tried to think about what to do.

  The first step would be to talk to Mrs Collins. In fact, a summons would be coming soon, probably as soon as the woman was dressed. Sesina took out the shiningly clean knives and slotted in another nine. While she was pouring in the second lot of emery powder, her mind was active. A bit of acting. That was what was needed. And then her own quick wits and the skills that she had perfected when she had been part of Mrs Jerrryman’s gang.

  ‘Going to be all day at them knives!’ yelled Mrs Barnett at the top of her voice and Sesina slowed down the cranking handle and looked at her innocently.

  ‘Did you want me, missus?’

  ‘Just hurry up, won’t you. Some of us have to get the lunch.’

  Well, go on, then, get it! Don’t need to gossip while you are making it, do you? Sesina turned the handle as fast as she could, making, to her satisfaction, an even greater noise. The cook and Dolly put their hands over their ears and turned their heads away, hunching up their shoulders.

  Good as a play to see them, thought Sesin
a and then got an idea. She stopped the handle abruptly.

  ‘That was the mistress’s bell,’ she said, fixing her eyes on the row of bells that hung above the range. ‘That’ll be for me, Dolly, won’t it?’ Without waiting for a reply, she went instantly towards the kitchen door, saying, over her shoulder. ‘You can finish off the knives, Dolly. I’ll be busy with the mistress.’

  Before leaving the basement, though, she slipped into the laundry. Very nice laundry place in this house, she had often thought. A wash room, a drying room and an ironing room. From the ironing room, she took a handkerchief and examined it on the way up the stairs. That was the one that she had noticed, the initials, H.G., were stitched into the corner. Mrs Collins had been Harriet Geddes before she was married and some of her handkerchiefs still had the old initials H.G. on them. Mrs Collins wasn’t a woman who was too interested in things like embroidery and certainly not in unpicking initials, she thought. When she was married she must have got a new set of handkerchiefs and underclothes that were marked with her new initials, but from time to time a few of the old ones surfaced.

  If she was challenged it would be easy enough for Sesina to pretend that she had thought the handkerchief belonged to Mrs Hermione Gummidge. But probably she wouldn’t be challenged. Mrs Collins wasn’t the sort of woman to worry too much about small things. She was busy writing the story of her life. Wanted to be a novelist like her eldest son, most like. Sesina practised her opening line before she knocked on the door.