A Stroke of Bad Luck

by Diane Janes

  Yours sincerely

  Florence Ellison Morton

  His Majesty’s Prison, Armley, Leeds

  10 January 1934

  Dear Miss Morton,

  Regarding the request made in your letter of 6th inst., the Home Secretary wishes me to point out to you that since the child may have inherited her mother’s blood group, and that we are unaware to which blood group your brother, the late Mr Frederick Morton belonged, conducting such a test would not necessarily establish paternity and would therefore not be in the public interest.

  Yours sincerely

  Thomas Docherty

  Governor of His Majesty’s Prison, Armley.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tuesday 16 January 1934

  Martin’s Nest, Holywell Green, Yorkshire

  A tap on the dining room door preceded Hilda’s entry, but she stopped short on the threshold when she saw that both the master and Miss Florence were still seated at the breakfast table. ‘Sorry, sir, sorry mum, I thought you was finished.’

  ‘That’s all right, Hilda. We’ll only be another few minutes and then you can clear away.’

  Hilda retreated and Florence wondered afresh what it was about the girl that she could not take to. There was nothing to complain of in her manner, or the way in which she carried out her duties. ‘If she makes you feel uncomfortable,’ Aunt Phoebe had said, ‘just give her a good character and send her on her way.’

  But it wasn’t as simple as that, Florence thought. She didn’t feel that she could give a servant notice, just because she didn’t like her. It seemed unfair and besides which, though she officially ran the house now that her mother was dead, she still deferred to her father in the matter of hiring and firing staff, and that would mean giving him a reason when there really wasn’t one.

  Aunt Phoebe – who seemed to imagine that they were all still living in an era when good house parlour maids were simply queuing up to work for one – had no such qualms. ‘Get rid of her if you don’t like her,’ she said. ‘It’s your home Florence, you don’t need a better reason than that – and anyway, one’s instincts never lie. She’s probably stealing or something. Have you accounted for all the teaspoons, dear?’

  Florence was abruptly recalled to the present by her father’s voice, which emerged from behind his newspaper. ‘Brown’s appeal has failed.’

  ‘He will hang then.’ She was careful to keep her voice neutral. By the time she’d arrived at the breakfast table, her father had already commandeered the morning paper, as was his accustomed habit, folding it in on itself, so that she could not see the front page. She had not interrupted his reading, merely exchanging a “Good morning” when she entered the room and then maintaining their usual silence during the meal, since her father had never liked idle chatter over breakfast.

  She had guessed of course, that the result of Brown’s appeal would be in the morning paper, but her dilemma over Hilda had made her temporarily forget about it. This surprised her, even came as a shock, because it had certainly been the uppermost question in her mind when she came downstairs that morning, and she had continued to think about it throughout the time it had taken her to butter a slice of toast, then coat it thinly with home-made marmalade, before forcing her mouth to nibble at the slice until it was all gone. Sometimes it felt as if she had thought of nothing else but Freddie’s death, the circumstances of it and the arrest and trial of the groom, ever since the news about poor Freddie had been telephoned through to them, on that Wednesday morning back in September, when they had been sitting down to breakfast, just as they were today. Yet now, almost four long months later, with the crucial news from London expected, the whole thing had completely slipped from her mind. The appeal had failed and Ernest Brown would hang.

  It was not just her father’s general dislike of breakfast time conversation which had held her back from enquiring whether Brown was to be spared. She knew that her father’s wounds were still raw, and that any conversation touching upon the loss of his son exacerbated the pain, but since it was he who had raised the news, she decided to risk pursuing the issue.

  ‘I hear there is a substantial petition,’ she ventured. ‘His family must hope even now for a reprieve.’

  ‘There’s always a petition in these cases.’ The newspaper remained in place. ‘A reprieve is most unlikely.’

  ‘I should like to visit him again.’

  ‘My dear Flossie, what on earth good do you think that would do?’ The newspaper descended at last and her father faced her across the table. ‘He’ll not change his story now.’

  ‘I can’t believe that it can just be left at this,’ her voice rose in spite of her best intentions. ‘It must have been obvious, even to a child, that the whole truth had not been told.’

  ‘It isn’t the job of the court to bring out the whole truth,’ her father said. ‘Establishing guilt or innocence is enough for them.’

  ‘I heard some women talking in a tea shop in town. They’re saying that it’s common knowledge in Huddersfield that some important evidence was not heard. Evidence which would have helped Ernest Brown.’

  ‘I don’t believe there’s anything to be gained from listening to a lot of loose talk and gossip in town.’ He twitched the paper back into place and turned a page.

  Florence was tempted to retort that she did not think there was anything to be gained from hiding away in one’s study, with a whiskey decanter for company every night, but she had never spoken to her father in such a fashion and thought it unlikely that she ever would.

  ‘But surely, Daddy, you aren’t satisfied that the whole truth came out?’

  ‘You know that I’m not. Any more than the public were. I won’t forget in a hurry that baying mob, waiting outside the Town Hall for Dorothy and that silly young thing who supported her, after the verdict had been announced. The police tried to take them out of the back door, but the mob second guessed them and split up – one pack taking the front of the building, with the others posted round at the rear. In the end, they had to get a line of policemen to link arms, but it was as much as they could do to keep the crowd back, when they hustled those two women down to the car, with two big burly peelers, one on either side of each of them. Even then the crowd tried to press round the car. The man who was driving ran the car straight at the crowd to make them get out of the way – fellow might easily have run someone down.’

  ‘There you are. Those people knew that Dorothy wasn’t telling all.’

  ‘Perhaps they just didn’t like the kind of woman that Dorothy is.’

  There were certain words that her father would not use in front of her, Florence thought. Words which would sum up very succinctly, the kind of woman Dorothy was. They had, of course, discussed the possibility that Freddie had not been the father of Dorothy’s child, but it had been an awkward little conversation, laced with euphemisms, which had skirted around the main issue, taking care not to touch on any improprieties. With her father’s agreement, she had written to the Home Office, asking about a blood test, but the negative response had left them in an ambivalent position. Poor Daddy had initially been so proud of the little girl he had called his grandchild, whereas now he seriously doubted that she was of his blood at all. It seemed perfectly likely that Ernest Brown, or even some other man, could have been little Diana’s father. The child which had initially appeared to represent their one tangible link with Freddie, had become almost a source of embarrassment; a cuckoo in the nest.

  When she had asked Brown himself the question, during her first visit to the jail: ‘Is there any chance that you, rather than Freddie, are the little girl’s father?’ He had replied, ‘Well Dolly says that I am.’

  Perhaps, she thought, he has reconsidered his position, since I visited him last. At that time Brown had still hoped to have his conviction overturned, but surely now that the appeal had been rejected, he had nothing to g
ain from withholding the full story? Her father had not signified his approval for a second visit, but neither had he forbidden it. She was of age, of course, but that was a technicality – she would not have gone against him, if he had made an outright refusal. Since he had not, she decided that she would write to the prison authorities again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wednesday 17 January 1934

  His Majesty’s Prison, Armley, Yorkshire

  ‘Then the chap says, “I don’t like your attitude” and the other fellow says “It’s not my hat he chewed, it’s your hat he chewed.”’ Entwhistle finished his joke with a great guffaw of laughter, and Albert Henshaw joined in.

  ‘Aye,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’s a good ’un.’

  He had heard the joke before, but he was happy enough to humour Will Entwhistle, who might not have been the shiniest penny in the purse, but was a big, bruiser of a fellow and always a good man to have at your back if there was any sign of trouble. Entwhistle stretched out his long legs under the table and reached for his newly-made mug of tea. Albert took out his handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. There were a lot of colds and coughs going about and he hoped that he wasn’t going down with one. Both men looked up as Joe Fazackerley entered the mess room.

  ‘There’s a brew just made,’ Entwhistle called out, the echoes of laughter still present in his voice. ‘And how is your charge taking things, now that yon appeal’s been turned down?’

  ‘I can’t say as I’ve noticed any change.’ Fazackerley did not turn his head, no doubt concentrating on the management of the huge enamel teapot, which he had lifted from the hotplate in order to help himself to a mug of thick brown tea. He still seems to think that he’ll get off in the end.’

  Entwhistle shook his head. ‘No confession yet then?’

  ‘He says he’s innocent.’

  ‘Well tell me something new.’ Entwhistle paused to take a gulp of his steaming tea, but withdrew his lips hastily, exclaiming, ‘By heck, that’s still scalding, that is!’ before reverting to his original mocking tone and adding: ‘Whole bloody place is full of innocent men, as we all well know.’

  Albert watched in silence, as Fazackerley began to stir some lump sugar into his brew, chinking the spoon around and around the thick pottery mug, while the stuff took forever to dissolve. He could tell from the stiffness of Fazackerley’s shoulders that Entwhistle was getting on his nerves. Always a bit of a bull in a china shop, was Will Entwhistle.

  ‘Happen this one is innocent.’ Fazackerley’s tone, unlike Entwhistle’s, was completely devoid of merriment or sarcasm.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Entwhistle asked. ‘Jury found him guilty. That’s the beginning and end of it, so far as we’re concerned in here.’

  Albert looked from one man to the other, conscious of mounting tension in the air. The Prison Service was very much like it had been in the army. They were all a band of brothers in here and it did not do to break ranks. Prisoners were on one side and they were on the other and while there was no harm in treating the other side with a degree of respect, you couldn’t ever afford to forget on which side of the divide you stood.

  ‘The padre thinks he’s innocent,’ Fazackerley said quietly. ‘And for all that he’s a man of God, he’s nobody’s fool.’

  ‘Then he’ll get a shock when t’bloke confesses, the night before they take him on his last walk down to the Topping Shed.’ Entwhistle blew on his mug, before taking another slug of his tea.

  Fazackerley was still working the spoon in a circular motion, chinking it repeatedly against the sides of his mug, almost as if he had forgotten what he was doing. ‘He won’t confess – not this one.’

  ‘Get away… they all confess in the end. That’s why the padre keeps popping in on them, trying to convince them that the only hope of saving their immortal souls is to spill the beans, at the last minute – though personally, I reckon such as him will be going straight to hell. A confession won’t bring that young feller what he shot back to life, will it?’

  ‘Why don’t you give it a rest, Entwhistle?’ Albert broke in. ‘And for Christ’s sake, Joe, quit stirring that blooming tea around. You’ll wear out the cup, never mind dissolve the ruddy sugar.’

  After a moment or two of silence, Entwhiste said: ‘It was a poor do in the cup on Saturday. Fancy Leeds losing to Preston North End – and them only in the second division. Mind you, I reckon they could get promoted, this season. I see Stoke City beat Bradford Park Avenue 3-0. I reckon they could be the dark horses this year. I’m putting a bob on them for the Cup.’

  ‘Get away. They’ll not be at Wembley, any more than Leeds United.’ Albert was not much of a man for football, much preferring the cricket himself, but he was grateful for Entwhistle’s efforts to divert them away from what had had the makings of an awkward confrontation. Small wonder that old Entwhistle – a good enough bloke to have on your side as a general rule – was taken aback by Joe’s attitude toward the prisoner, which ran dead against everything they were trained to think. And yet there was something rum about this Brown business, he reflected. Something which made people lose their heads. He thought about the unruly mob which had gathered outside the court in the wake of the verdict. And what was it which had made an otherwise respectable young woman like that Miss Morton come trotting along to visit the man who had been convicted of murdering her own brother? Whatever it was, it had also affected the padre and now the contagion had even spread to an old hand like Joe Fazackerley, who had never been known to espouse a prisoner’s innocence before.

  ‘Bit of a surprise when Huddersfield only drew,’ Fazackerley said, apparently also glad to seize upon an alternative topic. ‘It’s the replay at Leeds Road tonight.’

  ‘Plymouth Argyle isn’t it?’ Entwhistle nodded. ‘Long way to come for a thrashing.’

  ‘I reckon so.’

  ‘Where the heck is Plymouth, anyway?’ Entwhistle slugged down another gulp of tea, before taking off his cap and giving his close-shorn head a good scratch.

  ‘It’s down on the south coast,’ Albert said. ‘Beyond Bristol and Exeter.’

  ‘Right.’ Entwhistle nodded. ‘Never got down that way myself. They’ll have no chance against Huddersfield. Not that Huddersfield’s the side it was, with Bomber Brown gone and Billy Smith getting to the end of the road. Mind you, they’ve set records that will never be broken. Three league titles in a row! There won’t be another club what does that in a hurry.’

  ‘It was Herbert Chapman that brought them success,’ Fazackerley said. ‘It was a big surprise, seeing in the papers that he’d died. Only fifty five and all.’

  Albert remained silent, content to let the football talk wash over him. Then it occurred to him that Fazackerley was not a Huddersfield man, nor even so far as he knew, all that much interested in football. He wondered if it had been Brown who had drawn his attention to the results, and the unexpected death of the old team manager. Brown was Huddersfield born and bred and in Albert’s experience Huddersfield folk had a particular affinity to their team. He thought of Ernest Brown, following the progress of his team in a cup competition whose outcome he was not destined to know. They wouldn’t be playing the fourth round until towards the end of February and by that time…

  Albert pulled himself up short. It would be a good thing when the whole business was behind them. The jail was always unsettled by an execution. The last one had been a good eighteen months ago – a double hanging, Riley and Roberts, both despatched on the same day. This Brown business had been dragging on since last September and now there was another prisoner awaiting trial and bound to go the same way. Open and shut case, was Louis Hamilton’s. Cut his wife’s throat on Boxing Day, of all things. Only in their twenties, the pair of them. No mystery about that sort of case and no chance of the poor young woman’s relatives dropping in to pay him a visit neither.

  Chapter Eighteenr />
  Thursday 18 January 1934

  Martin’s Nest, Holywell Green, Yorkshire

  Florence smuggled The Empire News into the house as if it were contraband. She had made up her mind to read it in full herself, before she decided whether or not to draw it to her father’s notice. He was probably unaware of their advertising. He was not noted for his powers of observation and could easily have missed the words scrawled on the boards outside the newsagents’ doorways, when he had driven himself into town the day before. Florence herself would not have been aware of the Empire News’s scoop, if she had not happened to overhear Hilda talking with Cook about it, in the kitchen that morning: a little bit of inadvertent eavesdropping which had immediately set her inventing an errand which necessitated taking the motor car into Huddersfield, with the intention of buying a copy of the newspaper in question.

  It had not been a good day for driving and the car had all but gone into a skid on the top bend of the lane, but she had made it back home safely and with all the doors and windows firmly closed against the winter chill, she thought there was every chance that her arrival had gone unobserved. She let herself in and closed the front door very slowly and quietly. Daddy would be still at the works, and the staff would be busy in the rear of the house at this time of day. She rested the folded newspaper on the hallstand while she slipped off her coat and hung it up, then carefully unlaced her damp-soled, outdoor shoes and left them neatly paired on the polished floor. Her stocking feet made no sound at all on the thick Turkey carpet which ran all the way up the stairs and then in a broad strip along the landing, flanked by yet more polished floorboards – a shiny margin which she and Freddie had once upon a time pretended was water to be jumped across. The imaginary, shiny brook which separated the edge of the nursery rug from the bridge provided by the hall runner had seemed an almost insurmountable distance to them then. How wonderful to have nothing but lessons with Fraulein Schmidt, then half the day to inhabit a world of make believe games, in which floorboards became rivers, the nursery toy chest a pirate galleon, while a hall cupboard was the lair of a terrible dragon which breathed real fire. How unappreciative they had been of it all, how little they had valued those precious, precious times.