by Carol Hedges
Such, however, are not the experiences of Frederick Undercroft, lawyer, and Georgiana Undercroft, lawyer’s wife. The fleeting domestic bliss they once experienced has fleeted away, leaving only sullenness and mutual resentment.
Here they are, seated on opposite sides of the sitting-room, awaiting the arrival of Detective Inspector Stride. He is still in his lawyer’s garb, she wears something dark and shapeless that hides her figure and does not flatter her pale and lined face.
Undercroft regards her sourly, recalling that he could have spent his evening in the arms of the buxom Hectorina Rose, who always wears a smile in his company, enjoys his anecdotes, and laughs uproariously at his little puns and witticisms.
He is an amusing chap. He is considered excellent company by his fellow-man. He is well-read. He is admired by many in his profession, loved by many outside his profession. Only here, in the arid bosom of the woman he mistakenly chose to be his wife, is he unappreciated.
Silence drips into the icy chasm between them.
“Are you going to inquire about my day?” he says.
She does not glance up from the small lace handkerchief that she is rolling and unrolling between her fingers.
“Why? Do you want me to?”
He does not reply. His thoughts are like a shower of red-hot glowing needles in his head; the pain is almost unbearable.
“Perhaps you would care to ask me about my day instead?” she says, after a few unpleasant seconds have slunk silently by.
He does not pursue the subject further.
She returns to picking the lace edging of her handkerchief.
They wait in uncompanionable silence until the front door bell rings, and Detective Inspector Stride and Detective Sergeant Cully are shown into the room.
Stride has often complained to Cully about difficult people – a category which, according to his definition, includes almost everyone. Although he did his best to minimise contact with them, as he told Cully on numerous occasions, one could never avoid them altogether.
For Stride, difficult people were like eels; you tried to keep hold of them but they wriggled free from your grasp. Another similarity in his mind was that eels came out at night. Not that difficult people only inhabited the hours of darkness, he hastened to assure Cully. Their darkness was of a different order.
It was a darkness they carried inside. They seemed totally oblivious to the problems they caused to other people by their actions, nor to the effect they produced on those around them.
Now, as Cully stands with his back to the Undercrofts’ fireplace, listening to Stride outlining the various investigations of their case and the conclusion he has reached, these musings about difficult people come unbidden to his mind.
Frederick Undercroft, lawyer, has never told them about his extramarital relationships. His wife has not told them that she confronted one of the women involved. Eels. Slippery, and difficult to hold on to.
As Stride speaks, Cully studies their faces closely. Neither betrays a smidgeon of emotion, either to the news being broken to them, nor to each other. When Stride finishes speaking, Undercroft waits a couple of seconds, then raises his head and looks Stride directly in the face.
“So, am I correct in thinking,” he asks coldly, “that upon the balance of probability, you have now decided to cease the investigation of this matter?”
“We have no further leads. You are unable to supply us with any more helpful details. Apart from the unfortunate footman at the Osborne household, and your own servant, nobody else has suffered any ill effects. It is just possible, therefore, that it may have been a case of mistaken identity to begin with.”
“Two cases of mistaken identity,” Undercroft corrects him sharply.
“Indeed so.”
“You have spoken to the Osbornes? What do they say?”
“A couple of detectives have relayed the news to them. They feel that, as no further parcels of cakes have arrived, and in the light of no untoward symptoms occurring from anything they or their servants have eaten subsequently, that our surmise may be the correct one.”
Stride has clearly rehearsed this statement, Cully thinks. It contains words he has never heard him use in everyday conversation.
“Have you suffered any further ill effects, sir?” he asks.
Undercroft’s mouth tightens. Cully notices a little pulse come and go in his temple.
“My health is not currently good. Whether that is because of the distress caused by the events leading up to the death of our maid, or some other external factor, I cannot say.”
“But neither of you has been taken ill from anything eaten in this house?”
“I have not,” Mrs Undercroft says in a low voice, her eyes on her lap.
“I rarely eat at home,” Undercroft says.
Stride shrugs his shoulders.
“I am prepared to leave the case open, if that is what you want. Should either of you,” he pauses, letting his eyes travel slowly from one face to the other, “wish to discuss anything further, you have my card. Good day to you both.”
Stride’s face betrays no emotion as the servant shows the two detectives out. Only when they are back on Downshire Hill does he give vent to his feelings.
“Two innocent young people have died, horrifically and in terrible agony, Jack. And these Undercrofts sit there in their nice suburban drawing room as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, and they couldn’t give a tuppenny damn. And I know, I just know, that if they wanted to, they could tell me what has been going on behind the scenes, because sure as eggs are eggs, something has. I felt it from the moment I crossed their threshold. But short of arresting them both for being cold unfeeling brutes, there is nothing we can do except hope that justice of some sort catches up with them eventually.”
He stares back at the house, where the blinds have already been drawn, shutting out the world.
“Come on, Jack, there has to be a public house around here somewhere. I need something to wash away the foul taste of middle-class respectability.”
***
It was once believed that sleep came in two parts. A first part that begins when one goes to bed, and then a second instalment just before one wakes up in the morning. In between the two is an interval of an hour or so, a ‘watch’.
Emily Cully sits by the dying embers of the fire. She listens to the sounds of the night-time world: church bells chiming the quarter-hour, the rattle of wheels on cobbles as a wagon passes by. She hears a drunk raising his voice in a wordless tuneless lament for something. Two women start a high-pitched argument, which quickly subsides when a constable intervenes. Someone walks past in noisy shoes, sobbing.
Everybody in the world is lonely at some time of their lives, Emily thinks. She stirs the embers with the poker and recalls the miserable small tenement room she used to rent, and Violet, her best friend, who died at the hands of a brutal murderer before she had even begun to live.
Today she was so overwhelmed with fatigue that she almost lay down on the filthy pavement and fell asleep. She thinks about the pain in her lower back, and how her body seems to be made out of rocks and china.
Emily knows she will have to tell Jack about it soon. She thinks about what he will say when she tells him. She sits, very still and very quiet, in a silence embroidered by the beating of her heart and the noise of her neighbours returning to their beds. This is her watch.
***
Marianne Corvid is also awake. She is perusing a small book of poems by her favourite poet, Lord George Byron. She bends forward, straining her eyes in the flickering candlelight, and reads:
“When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years.”
Marianne Corvid is a great fan of the Romantic poets, especially Byron. In his emotionally fervid sentiments, she finds the consolation she does not find in the world around her.
Reading Byron by candlelight in the dead of night
is her illicit pleasure. One of her illicit pleasures. The other one is to stand in the shadow of a doorway and watch who enters the chambers of her former lover and seducer – she likes to think of him in these terms. They are suitably Byronic.
This afternoon she had seen a young woman enter the chambers. She was dressed in widow’s weeds, her face hidden under a thick veil. Marianne had stared hard at her pliant figure, feeling the itch of pain, the familiar wasp-stab of jealousy. The reminder of desire, ordinary and dangerous.
This is how it begins. The sympathetic smile, the air of fatherly concern which in time led to … and now …
She turns a page:
“So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.”
She’d waited in the shadows until the door opened and the woman had reappeared. She’d watched her walk away, biting back the temptation to run after her, to ask if he had arranged to see her again upon some minor legal pretext, to warn her not to allow herself to think of him in any other way than as a lawyer.
Later that day Marianne had visited her husband’s grave, as if trying to atone for what she had felt, what she had done. ‘Forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me.’ But she did not forgive, so how could God possibly forgive her? Not for her, then:
“A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent!”
She closes the book, tucking it under her pillow. Words are precious as wishes. She lies back. Rain smatters against the windowpane. Her hands are ice-cold. She places them between her thighs to warm them up.
She must not go wandering through the labyrinth of the past any more. But even as she tells herself this, she knows it is a lie. She will return. There is one more visit that she has to make. And then she will be done with the whole rotten affair forever.
***
Affairs, and their progression or regression, are also the hot topic of conversation at the Bulstrode tea-table. Much to Belinda Kite’s astonishment, it appears that the master of the house has returned from the north with a possible romantic attachment.
Not towards her, thank goodness, though he continues to treat her with a creaky sort of flirtatiousness based on her ‘French’ origins. Belinda first becomes aware of Josiah’s amorous addition when a letter arrives the day after his return.
Since beginning her secret trysts with dashing though slightly unreliable Mark Hawksley, letters have become very important to Belinda. Thus, she has taken to finding an excuse to be near the front door whenever a postal delivery is expected.
Thus, it is Belinda who retrieves the letter addressed to Joseph in very large curly writing, which, when delivered makes him puff and go rather red in the face.
“Is it from …?” Sissy asks, raising her eyebrows archly.
Josiah clears his throat, goes even redder and fans the letter back and forth in front of his face, while Belinda stirs her tea, crooks her little finger and watches with mild amusement.
“My brother is not used to receiving letters from ladies,” Sissy tells her.
“Now then, Sissy! I’m sure Miss Evangelina Lumpton merely writes to ask after our health and whether we returned to London safely.”
He folds the letter and places it in his pocket.
“Miss Keet, your plate is empty. Some more fruit cake?”
Belinda dimples her thanks.
“I am surprised that you have not heard from our friend Mr Hawksley though, Sissy,” Josiah continues, his mouth full of food. “And him so attentive to you. I was sure you had caught yourself a nice beau at last.”
Belinda almost chokes on her slice of cake.
“He did say he had business matters to attend to and might be absent for some time,” Sissy says hesitantly.
“I expect it is the diamond mine,” her brother nods. “I shall write to him though, to advertise him of our return. I am sure he will not be long in leaving his card once he knows we are back in London.”
Later, alone in her room, Belinda Kite opens the little jewellery box. The diamonds lie on their velvet bed. She thinks of Hawksley’s face as she pirouetted in front of his mirror, naked except for a sparkling jewel in each ear, and she wonders whether this is what she has been looking for ever since she came up to London.
She shuts her eyes, sees the curve of his jaw, feels his arms holding her, his mouth warm on her cheek. She sees his dark eyes winding her in to their curve. There is a black hole at the middle of each. It is their still centre.
She remembers looking into his eyes, and feeling giddy, as if she might fall into them. She recalls his strength, and her heart goes falling away inside her, because she is young, and she has never felt love before, and nobody has ever bought her presents and desired her.
She goes to the casement and looks out over rooftops and trees to a clear black sky studded with diamond stars. This is how it feels, she thinks. There is nothing she would change now, nor tomorrow, nor the tomorrow after that.
***
Sadly, Georgiana Undercroft could not be said to share Belinda Kite’s philosophical outlook. Not for her the optimistic belief that tout va mieux dans le meilleur des mondes.
But then, Georgiana Undercroft is no longer young, and that period of life when all seems sunshine and roses has long passed. Here she is now, venturing forth into the foggy morn of a lacklustre day.
Georgiana has agreed to meet Regina Osborne. Reluctantly. Given the choice, she would much prefer to cut that lady completely, but her husband and Regina’s husband have dined at their club, and the subject of the little froideur between the two ladies has been discussed.
Annoyingly, it is Georgiana who has been blamed by both men for the cessation of the friendship, so she has been forced into writing a short polite note suggesting the two ladies meet at a suitably neutral venue in town, for of course she will never allow Regina to darken her threshold again. She does not include this last sentiment in the note.
A cab drops Georgiana Undercroft outside one of the big department stores. She has arrived early, so she stands looking at the sumptuous window display of silks and velvets and other inviting delicacies, all artfully displayed in rich and glittering profusion, while all around her the streams of people pour on and on, jostling with one another and hurrying forward without appearing to notice the riches that surround them on all sides.
Eventually she hears her name being called. She turns to face the woman who was once, many years ago, her best friend and confidante, but whom she now meets as almost a stranger.
There is an awkward silence, during which both ladies assess each other for levels of hostility. Then Regina gestures towards the shop window and says, “I see they have brought out some new bonnets.”
And Georgiana replies, “I find I have very little need for any more bonnets.”
And Regina states, “No, one can become a slave to the latest fashions.”
And Georgiana suggests, “One can become a slave to anything, if one chooses.”
And Regina asserts, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
And Georgiana retorts, “Oh, I think you understand me very well.”
And Regina’s mouth tightens.
And Georgiana tosses her head.
And after another silence, which actually speaks enough volumes to fill Mudie’s Circulating Library, both ladies walk off in totally opposite directions.
***
The offices of Undercroft & Cumming are located in a gloomy little street close to Smithfield. The air has a mournful chill to it, as if it has absorbed over the years all the disappointment of those arriving to peruse the Wills of their nearest relatives.
It is early afternoon, and a woman in black waits in the outer office.
The clerk, who is new, has told her that Mr Undercroft is lunching at his club and he does not know when (or indeed if) he will return. The woman h
as indicated that she will wait. And so she does, sitting very still, almost unnaturally so, in one of the cliental chairs fetched from the inner office.
After a while the clerk forgets that she is there, and so when Undercroft re-enters from the street and asks if there is anything demanding his immediate attention, the clerk shakes his head.
At which point, the woman rises.
“I demand your attention,” she says.
Undercroft turns to face her. His expression instantly hardens into something impenetrable.
“I think we have no further business to enact, Mrs Corvid,” he says coldly. “I believe I have carried out your late husband’s wishes exactly as he instructed.”
“But what about MY wishes?” the woman bursts out passionately.
The clerk raises his head from his copying desk. There is the tiny sound of a pen being carefully set down.
Undercroft glances at him, then says abruptly, “Very well, Mrs Corvid. I can spare you five minutes in my office. That is all.”
He leads the way, closing the door firmly behind them. The clerk listens hopefully for a minute, then dips his pen into the inkwell and continues writing.
On the other side of the door, Undercroft and Marianne Corvid face each other across his rosewood desk. Undercroft folds his arms and regards her woodenly.
“I thought I had given instructions that you were not to enter my office.”
“But I am not one of your clerks, to be ordered around,” she counters.
“Sadly, you are not. For if you were, you would know your place.”
“And what is my ‘place’ as you call it, Frederick?” she exclaims, two spots of bright colour lighting up her pallid cheek.
“Your place is certainly not here, disturbing my chambers with your emotional outbursts,” he declares pompously. “Know once and for all, Marianne, that I will not tolerate your strange behaviour any longer. Whatever we once were, we are no longer. Besides, I am a married man.”