The Judge's Daughter

by Ruth Hamilton

  On the bus ride to Harwood, she wondered why she was doing this. Perhaps the discovery of the truth would injure Helen even further. Perhaps all this should be left to time and chance, because it was no one’s business. Yet Helen was frail. It would do no harm for someone to be around when the memory came back. That someone should know as many of the facts as she could. That someone was going to be Agnes.

  Denis’s spine stiffened.

  ‘So, you’ve given up your job? How on earth will you manage with no library books to stamp?’ The judge’s voice crashed through an open window. ‘For God’s sake, woman.’

  Helen must have responded and the judge was quick to shout again. ‘Louisa doesn’t need you. If she required nursing, I’d hire somebody with nursing skills, not a woman who knows how to catalogue the reference section or find a stupid romantic novel for some elderly spinster. What will you do all day? James Taylor has left Bolton after your ill-treatment of him, so you won’t be wasting his time any longer. He should sue for slander, as should I.’

  A door crashed home. Denis tried to relax, but fury made his muscles taut. Now that the silly business was over, Denis considered Helen to be a friend, and a friend of his wife, too. That mean-minded and lily-livered Spencer needed his eye wiped, and Agnes was doing her best. There was something radically wrong in this household. Denis had begun to agree with Agnes that an event in Helen’s childhood had shaped her and almost finished her. He shivered. Zachary Spencer was a fish cold enough to have perpetrated the worst of crimes; he was also sufficiently intelligent to clean up after himself. A bad but clever man was a dangerous enemy.

  Oscar arrived and began to claw at a flower bed. Denis grinned. While Louisa was still suffering the nausea experienced by Agnes for just a few weeks, the dog had sought refuge with him. ‘Leave the lobelia alone,’ Denis advised, ‘or I’ll clobber you with my rake.’ He wouldn’t, though. Unlike Judge Spencer, he was incapable of damaging other people or animals.

  Oscar fetched a stick and Denis threw it. Every job took twice as long these days, yet Denis would not have parted with the daft pup for all the tea in Asia. The dog returned, dropped his prize and panted hopefully.

  Helen arrived and took over the job of throwing.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Denis asked. ‘I heard.’

  She shook her head. ‘I keep telling myself that he can’t hurt me any more, that I’m an adult and capable of answering back. Sometimes, I do answer back. Today I’m not up to it.’ She fastened a lead to Oscar’s collar. ‘I’ll walk him,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, we’ll be throwing sticks and balls all day.’

  Denis knew her probable destination. ‘Here’s my key. If Agnes is out, let yourself in and make a brew. There’s a bone in the kitchen for Oscar.’ He watched as she stumbled away behind Oscar, who dictated the pace of mobility. ‘Find something, Agnes,’ he begged inwardly. Somebody had to help Miss Helen Spencer, and that somebody could not be a member of her own family. Saddened, he returned to his weeding. The lobelia was safe. Were Helen and Agnes safe?

  Agnes emerged almost unsatisfied from the Longsight house in Harwood. She could see the couple now, eyes darting away from her face, each looking at the other, a damped-down terror weakening their voices. They knew something. The judge had been a fair but firm boss, there had never been any trouble, the first Mrs Spencer had been a nice, pretty sort of woman. Helen was a difficult child sometimes, but she had improved with age. Yes, everyone had been sad when Mrs Spencer died; yes, Miss Helen had been upset for quite a long time and yes, there had been a big funeral.

  The last hope sat in Agnes’s handbag, a scrap of paper on which was written a name. This person was the one who had cared for Miss Helen during her early years. She was retired now and lived in a Blackpool rest home. Blackpool. It might as well have been the moon, because the chances of Agnes’s getting to Blackpool were remote. She was pregnant, she suffered from the heat and Denis had little time for day trips and no money to afford such luxuries.

  On the way home, she called in on Pop and Eva. The latter was making tea for ‘them two’. ‘Them two’ were Fred Grimshaw and Albert Moores, who now held the grand position of superannuated apprentice. Agnes carried mugs to the shed.

  ‘It’s not seasoned,’ Fred was yelling.

  ‘Course it is. I got it from Jackson’s Lumber and Jackson said it’s well seasoned. Shall I fetch salt and pepper then you can give it another go?’

  Agnes grinned. Had Pop met his Waterloo? Oh, how she hoped he had.

  ‘Don’t talk so daft.’ Fred grabbed his tea. ‘Hello, love.’ Without pausing, he continued, ‘I know seasoned wood like I know the back of my hand. This isn’t for a doll’s house – it’s for a kiddies’ play house. It’ll likely be out in all weathers.’

  Albert also knew his wood and he said so.

  ‘My name has been built on things that don’t fall to bits,’ yelled Fred.

  Agnes smiled. ‘But his first chimneys were crooked.’

  Fred glared at his granddaughter. ‘That was deliberate,’ he insisted. ‘It was for that poem thingy – crooked man, crooked mile.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ she said sweetly.

  Fred sank onto one of the work benches. ‘Nearest and dearest?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘I know what I’m talking about, but I can’t get sense and I can’t get good wood. Albert?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who’s the boss?’

  ‘You are, master.’

  ‘Then take that bloody wood back and get summat as’ll stand up to rain for a week or three. Then get down to the ironmongers in Bromley Cross and buy me a new drill – this one couldn’t get through butter.’

  ‘Yes, master.’ Albert stalked out of the shed.

  Agnes sat next to her grandfather. ‘Go easy on him, Pop. He’s a good man and a good worker.’

  ‘I know. Worth his weight in gold – and he can take a joke.’ He looked at her face. ‘You’re hot again. Any luck?’

  She told him of the morning’s events.

  ‘Then you go to Blackpool.’

  ‘How? When?’

  Fred tapped the side of his nose. ‘Leave all that to me,’ he said darkly. ‘I have ways of making things happen. Now, get you gone. Miss Spencer’s in your house with yon daft dog. If you don’t shape, he’ll have eaten the sofa by the time you reach home.’

  Agnes kissed him. ‘You’re a terrible man, but I love you.’

  Eva arrived, a school bell in her hands. ‘Oh,’ she muttered.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Agnes pointed to the instrument.

  ‘It’s for the end of the round,’ replied Eva. ‘When they get too loud, I send them back to their corners for a rub down with a wet cloth. Without this here bell, the authorities would be evacuating Skirlaugh Fall.’

  Agnes went home with the distinct feeling that there was more to Eva than met the eye. As there was already quite a lot of Eva, this new version promised to be a remarkable phenomenon.

  Helen was dozing in a chair, while Oscar, in his element, was crunching bone to reach the marrow. As soon as he saw Agnes, he dropped his prize and went to greet her.

  Helen woke to joyous yapping. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t get much sleep these days.’ The truth was that she was afraid of sleeping, because sleep brought dreams she could never piece together once she woke. ‘Shall I make tea?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Agnes reunited puppy and bone. ‘Stay,’ she ordered, though she expected little or no obedience from the young Alsatian. He needed training, and his owner was not well enough to spend time with him. She listened to sounds from the kitchen, the clatter of cup in saucer, the rattle of the spoon in the caddy, the decanting of milk from bottle to jug. This was what Helen needed – the ordinary, everyday things in life.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ Helen asked when she returned with the tray.

  ‘Please. I’m hot.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Oh – here and there – visiting, looking at shops.’


  ‘You bought nothing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m trying to train him to walk to heel.’ With a look of hopelessness on her face, Helen waved a hand at Oscar. ‘He’s going to be too big soon. We can’t have a huge, frisky dog. Louisa loves him dearly, but he tires her and, like you, she is in no condition to be directing a determined self-guiding missile. He drags me from pillar to post.’

  Oscar, tongue lolling, smiled at his womenfolk. They were talking about him and they wanted to slow him down, but the world was so exciting – all those sights and sounds, the wonderful smells, the inbuilt knowledge that he was born to annoy smaller creatures. He wagged hopefully, depending on his charm. Soon he would chase rabbits again.

  ‘Any more dreams?’ Agnes kept her tone in everyday mode.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t catch them.’

  ‘Still no idea of what it might be?’

  Helen shook her head. There was noise, a high-pitched sound followed by several crashes. After the crashes, she invariably woke and reached for pen and paper. But there was never anything to write, because she could not grasp the centre of the dream.

  ‘Still writing?’ asked Agnes.

  ‘Yes. It seems to be a circular effort, since I appear to have begun in the middle. I suppose once I have written the middle, I should know the beginning.’

  ‘And the end?’

  The end was like the dream, full of noise and fear. The end might come after the middle, or after the beginning – Helen wasn’t sure. ‘I thought I’d lived the dull life until I started to write about school. I expect most authors’ early books lean towards personal experience. All of Austen’s did, and she had a life as narrow as the ribbons she applied to her dresses when she needed something to look new. I think writing helps. Even if it’s never published, it will be out of me. It’s therapy.’

  Agnes understood perfectly. For Helen, the writing was like going to confession or seeing a doctor. It was balm for the soul; it was also a search for truth, and Helen had to walk through a minefield to reach even the edge of that commodity.

  ‘Like Austen, I write what I know. I didn’t realize how much I had absorbed, because I have always kept it to myself.’

  ‘You’re a people-watcher.’

  ‘Probably.’

  Having said goodbye to Agnes, Helen left, the daft dog pulling her at considerable speed in the direction of Skirlaugh Rise. She tried to rein him in, failed, found herself chuckling as she was dragged along the lane.

  ‘I am glad you have something to laugh about.’

  Helen’s flesh seemed to crawl. She looked through a gap in the hedge, saw her father’s unwelcome sneer. ‘The dog is silly,’ she replied defensively.

  ‘It’ll have to go once the child’s born.’ He stared hard at her. What was she up to? Her attitudes ranged from the compliant to the argumentative with no visible warning of any impending change.

  ‘I shall keep him in my apartment,’ she replied. Father would not get rid of Oscar. She would not allow that. The power she owned was connected to . . . it was connected to . . . To what? The end of the book, the end of the dream? He was afraid of her. Why should he fear his own daughter?

  ‘Keep the damned thing away from me,’ he ordered before storming off in the direction of the house.

  As soon as she was on home ground, Helen released Oscar and he dashed into the copse to annoy wildlife. She followed and leaned against the very tree behind which Glenys Timpson had concealed herself. ‘Did I love Denis?’ she asked herself in a whisper. ‘Or was I merely imagining that I might have found someone who could take me away from here?’

  Dappled light caressed the ground. A few leaves had followed the norm and were beginning to carpet the ground. It was a lazy day. She sat on damp moss, breathed the scent of earth, watched the pup as he leapt insanely from tree to tree. He was dragging a bough through a gap, was growling and panting as he fought to move the heavy object.

  The world changed. Something in the sound made by the large branch cut into her head like a warm knife through butter. She was elsewhere. There was not much light, but there was noise and movement. Someone panted. Was that a scream? ‘Come away.’ The voice was female. There was not enough light. Backwards. She was pulled backwards into . . . Into the copse.

  The dog, head leaning to the left, one ear cocked and the other remaining in Alsatian puppy mode, was panting in her face. His breath stank of marrowbone. ‘I was dragged backwards,’ she told him. ‘There wasn’t much light. Someone pulled me away from . . .’

  Oscar grinned broadly before turning to display his huge find. He could not carry the whole piece home, so he began the business of stripping branches from the main stem. A happy woodsman, he became absorbed in the task.

  Where? When? Who had said the words? She remembered half-light, a hefty tug, dragging, that panting sound. Had she been pulled away from something? Was she the something that was dragged? Quickly, she grabbed the dog and fastened lead to collar. She had to get home; there was the writing to be done.

  Agnes picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me – Lucy. Your granddad wants me to drive you to Blackpool. Will this Sunday do? Denis doesn’t work Sundays, does he?’

  ‘Erm – not usually, no.’ Agnes feared that Lucy would not be happy if she knew the reason for the trip. ‘I have to visit a nursing home,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I may have a lead on something I’ve been researching.’

  There followed a short silence before Lucy spoke again. ‘Mags tells me you’ve been trying to find out about Helen Spencer’s childhood. May I ask why?’

  ‘You can ask, but I don’t know the answer.’

  A long sigh preceded the words, ‘Can’t she do her own research?’

  ‘No. She can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  How to explain that Miss Spencer was not crazy? How might Agnes convey her own feelings about this matter?

  ‘The woman’s had all the good things in life—’

  ‘She’s had no mother, Lucy. And her father is terrible to her. There’s something she needs to remember, but I want to filter it and tell her gently. She’s delicate.’

  ‘She’s crackers.’

  ‘That isn’t true. Lucy, don’t bother yourself – we’ll get a lift from someone eventually.’

  ‘We’ll do it. I’m sorry, Agnes, but you are on a hiding to nothing. George thinks the whole Spencer family is crazy.’

  ‘Hmm. All two of them? Three if you count the new wife, I suppose. Why are you so much against Helen Spencer?’

  Lucy sniffed. ‘Madness frightens me.’

  ‘Then don’t drive us to Blackpool.’

  ‘We are driving you to Blackpool and you are driving me mad.’

  ‘Then you’ll be in good company – sanity has never appealed to me. Much better to be happily mad than sanely unhappy.’

  At last, Lucy giggled. ‘How about unhappily mad? See you about ten on Sunday morning. ’Bye.’

  Agnes sat down, a duster in her right hand. Absently, she cleaned the top of a small table as she thought about Sunday. Mabel Turnbull, the lady in the nursing home, was the last chance. According to the Longsights, she had been Helen’s nanny, so she might be in a position to clarify some of the goings-on. A day out would do everyone good, she told herself. George and Lucy need not come into the nursing home – they could return to the Golden Mile for half an hour. Denis would be there. As long as Denis was there, Agnes could manage just about anything.

  The man in question entered the house. He was laughing.

  ‘What’s funny?’ she asked.

  ‘That bloody dog dragging Helen all over my lawn.’

  ‘The judge won’t be pleased.’

  Denis shook his head. ‘He’s never pleased unless he’s punishing some poor bugger. You stay where you are – I’ll brew up and see to the cooking.’

  Agnes had always known that she had been lucky in love. During this
seemingly eternal pregnancy, she had indeed been blessed. Her man thought nothing of doing a full day’s work, only to come home and start all over again. His excuse was simple and beautiful – he hated a woman with swollen ankles. The truth remained that he loved and respected his wife. It was a pity that more men did not put family first.

  ‘Are we having this liver?’ he called.

  ‘You are and Nuisance is. I am a mere third party – I just have to process the nasty stuff.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘Never mind, I’ll get my own back when he’s born.’

  She hadn’t realized that she could write, yet once she started her fingers flew over typewriter keys in a vain attempt to keep up with the speed of her thoughts. Sometimes, her poor typing skills were a good thing, as they slowed her down and made her consider what she was creating. There was an urgency in her, as if she believed her time to be limited, though there was no binding deadline to the unsolicited script.

  Helen Spencer forced herself to stop. She leaned back in her chair and stared through the window at gathering dusk. Days were growing shorter. Autumn and winter would be bearable, she reminded herself, because the dog could be her excuse to leave Lambert House several times a day. Should she have kept the job in the library?

  He was out a lot these days. Summer recess stretched across several weeks and, unless there was a massive crime, Father could be around whenever he pleased. However, he seemed to prefer his Manchester club, often staying there for several nights in succession. Lodge meetings took up more of his time, and he played chess or bridge in town once a week.

  Helen and Louisa were coping well with his neglect. They needed only each other, and both enjoyed being apart for a few hours each day. A rhythm developed and life became good as long as the head of the household was absent. The two women read, Helen wrote, Louisa was having a stab at tapestry work. The house hiccuped along under the watchful eye of Kate Moores, who supervised the comings and goings of three newly hired dailies. It was not a bad life. Helen knew that she ought to have been grateful, yet she continued to simmer and to suffer spells during which she was mentally removed from her environment. It was the dream. It was all tied up in that nightmare.