by Maggie Joel
‘What do we know of the fatalities?’ Freebody inquired. ‘And the injured?’
‘Very little of the injured,’ said Lucas. ‘The two deceased employees were …’ he peered at the page on the table before him ‘… driver Proctor and fireman Evans. Both employees of the company for a number of years. One leaves a widow and two small children, the other was himself recently widowed and leaves no dependants.’
‘Well, that’s a saving,’ observed Kemp.
‘The other fatality was a nine-year-old girl travelling with her father. The man sustained only minor injuries, I understand.’ Sinclair nodded slowly. ‘As chairman, I had better attend the two employee funerals, speak to the widow, that sort of thing. And the father—what sort of man is he? Likely to kick up a fuss?’
‘I doubt any man would take such a loss without a fuss, Sinclair,’ said Lucas, and he felt the other men in the room shift uncomfortably. ‘But if you are asking whether the man has the resources and education to take out an action against us, I am afraid I am not in a position to judge.’
‘And the cause of the accident?’
Kemp made an impatient sound. ‘We have gone over this, Sinclair. What is the point in trying to pre-empt the inquiry?’
‘Inquiry or no inquiry, there seems little room for doubt: it was frozen signals,’ said Freebody.
‘I say again, what is the point in pre-empting the inquiry?’
‘It is early December, Kemp,’ replied Freebody slowly and distinctly. ‘We are at the start of winter. There have already been frosts. How likely is it, do you think, that the signals will freeze again before spring? Before the Board publishes its inquiry?’
But for once Kemp did not seem inclined to offer an opinion.
The sun was still discernible through the clouds, though intermittently. The park’s formal municipal flowerbeds were bare but for a scattering of decaying leaves and splitting conkers, and the fallen chestnut leaves crunched underfoot, crisp with the final vestiges of this morning’s frost.
‘Such a relief to be out of that horrid room,’ observed Miss Parson, giving a little skip and kicking playfully at a pile of leaves that lay in their path, which was disconcerting in a woman over seventy and Dinah was faintly scandalised.
They sat down on a park bench and watched as a cluster of small boys attempted, with much commotion but little success, to launch a kite.
It was a relief to be out, it was invigorating! And yet Dinah’s thoughts returned, unbidden, to that morning: she had gone up to her room after breakfast but not before she had seen her mother emerge from the drawing room and announce to her father, almost as a challenge, ‘Had you forgotten what day it is?’
Had he forgotten? Dinah had paused on the stairway wishing she had not overheard, wishing she had not seen his response. For the occasion of throwing off mourning should herald a new start, should it not? At the very least it ought to mean a return to how things had been before. Yet the opposite had happened: her mother’s words had evoked a look from her father that contained all the chill of a winter, deep and without end.
The kite had failed to launch, was being dragged faster and faster through the fallen leaves until it snagged on a branch and stuck fast. The boy who held the string yanked and yanked and his cohorts shouted and shouted until the paper tore and the balsa wood frame split and the game was ended.
Her father’s coldness made no sense. He could hardly blame their mother for what happened. If there was anyone to blame—
Dinah reached down and snatched up a handful of leaves in her fist, crushing them and releasing a damp, earthy odour. She dropped the crushed leaves and wiped her hand on her cloak.
‘You must think me very selfish,’ she remarked, realising as she said this that she did not care if Miss Parson thought her selfish or not.
‘Oh, my dear Miss Jarmyn.’ Miss Parson patted her hand, a little sadly it seemed. ‘I am an old woman—though I take pains to deny it—and I have seen and experienced a great many things in my lifetime. Why, would you believe, I can remember the bells ringing out over the city and dear Papa coming home to tell us Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo?’
This did make her very old indeed though the relevance of it was not immediately clear to Dinah.
‘Such a different time! So very, very long ago. So many, many people gone, so much changed. Such a safer world we live in now, a rational world, a world of Industry and Science and Good Works. Sometimes it feels as though we have come as far as we might, that man has reached his zenith.’
Dinah nodded though she did not believe man had reached his zenith; was not entirely sure what a zenith was.
‘But we must guard against complacency, Miss Jarmyn. For, mark my words, there is still much to be done. So much, indeed, that at times it feels almost daunting.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Sometimes our ways must seem tediously laboured to you, perhaps even ineffectual. I have often thought it myself. But there is good work being done. Little by little, step by step, we make a difference. And there are other committees to join. The work, I fear, will never dry up.’
The work will never dry up. Dinah gazed ahead of her and these words came to her as though from very far away. She watched a squirrel dart across the grass, pick up a fallen acorn, pause, listening, then scamper up the nearest tree and away.
Winter was here.
‘What will you do?’
Dinah cast about for a reply. What would she do? She could scarcely begin to think.
‘There is so much to do …’ she began but found she could not complete her sentence.
‘That’s the spirit! I think we understand each other,’ said Miss Parson, patting Dinah’s hand with a kind smile, and Dinah returned the smile and realised they did not understand each other at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
London and the North
MR JARMYN WAS GOING AWAY. He was catching the morning train from Euston, changing at Birmingham onto the NWMR and travelling on to Wolverhampton. Though he had not said so specifically to her, Mrs Logan understood that he was to visit the accident site and to attend the inquest. He would be away some days.
Mrs Logan considered the items she had packed for him and wondered if she had included enough freshly laundered shirts. He had not said how many days he would be away so it was difficult to decide. In the end she placed one additional shirt in his valise and closed it. It would be colder up there. She had noticed the difference in climate herself, coming down from the North to London, though Mr Jarmyn did not feel the cold. She opened the valise and placed a thick wool scarf inside and closed it again.
He had been out for his early morning walk. Now she heard his footsteps below on the front steps and a moment later the front door opened so she picked up his luggage and proceeded downstairs. He was knocking mud from his boots and reaching for the silver tray in the hallway to see what the first post had brought as she came down the stairs. He looked up and as usual she could not read his expression.
‘Mrs Logan,’ he said. And he smiled. ‘Ah, you have my overnight things?’
‘Yes, Mr Jarmyn. Will you be leaving before lunch?’
‘Yes. I’ll eat at Birmingham. Please inform Mrs Jarmyn that I will send a telegram when I am in a position to know how long I shall be staying. Is she risen yet?’
‘Not yet. She is to go out later this morning with Mrs Brightside, I understand.’
He nodded and for once she felt that she could read his expression and it was one of relief.
‘Then I shall detain you no more. No, don’t bother,’ he said as she went to the door to hail him a cab. ‘I’ve a cab waiting for me.’
He took the valise and she held the door open. There was something on his mind, she saw, for he passed her with a frown, his head slightly bowed, and she almost said something to him. What, she did not afterwards know, but a moment later Mr Jarmyn had boarded the waiting cab and was gone and she had said nothing.
She closed the front door and for a while did
not move. He would be catching one of his own trains from Birmingham though he would not be travelling on the stretch of line where the accident had occurred. Did that concern him? But of course it would not: he was a director of the railway. And how likely was a second accident so soon after the first?
She had ridden on Mr Jarmyn’s railway herself once, three years ago, in the weeks following that other great crash, a much worse crash, the one at Wombourne. At that time, in the immediate aftermath of that dreadful accident, she had not even considered the danger of travelling on a train, of passing the very place where so many souls had just perished. What, then, had she been thinking, a recently bereaved widow journeying south with only a trunk and a portmanteau containing all she owned, travelling alone to a grand house belonging to a grand gentleman in the grandest, the greatest, the most frightening city in the world? Surely she must have been anxious and filled with trepidation? But she could not recall. She had an idea she had not been anxious, or not at first.
She had arrived at the grand house in the narrow, silent mews off the elegant, tree-lined square late on a Thursday afternoon in the first week of January to find her telegram had arrived only an hour before her and Mr Jarmyn himself, still at the crash site, had not troubled to inform the rest of the household of her arrival. A flustered maid had taken her to a ground-floor reception room and left her there. A cab had drawn up in the street outside and eventually Mrs Jarmyn had swept into the room and declared, ‘I am afraid there has been some kind of an error.’ Those had been her exact words, no greeting, no introduction, and in her hand Mrs Jarmyn had held the telegram which had arrived that morning and which she now handed to the new arrival as though it were a summons from the court.
She had been dismayed. In his interview with her Mr Jarmyn had explained his household, briefly, in the manner of one who had much on his mind at present, and the household had included a Mrs Jarmyn, naturally, and five children. Mrs Logan had imagined, therefore, a lady who was grave like her husband. She had imagined a lady who was serene and composed, perhaps austere, certainly stately. She had not expected this person barely five years her senior, a woman of startling beauty and a high colour with furious grey eyes and a telegram in her hand which she brandished like a weapon. A woman who walked into a room and said, ‘I am afraid there has been some kind of an error.’
Inside Mrs Logan had faltered. Outside she had stood firm.
‘I am Mrs Logan. Am I to understand you were not expecting me, madam? This is very odd as Mr Jarmyn himself offered me the post of housekeeper—’
‘I hardly think that likely. We have no need of a housekeeper, Mrs … ? We are not Clarence House or Balmoral. We are, as you see, a modest household in Bloomsbury. We have two maids and a cook. Why would we have need of a housekeeper? I am afraid you are in error, Mrs … ?’
‘Logan. And yet Mr Jarmyn offered me a position and I accepted and here I am.’
And she had left her home and everything that she knew to come south and she would not flinch. What direction the discussion might have taken had not a second telegram arrived at that moment, Mrs Logan was saved from finding out. This second telegram, sent, somewhat tardily, by Mr Jarmyn himself appeared to settle the matter, for Mrs Jarmyn had read it and swept from the room without another word. A maid had been sent to escort the new arrival to a vacant upstairs room where she had unpacked and remained until, a day later, a cab had driven up to the front steps and Mr Jarmyn himself had arrived home.
Exactly what had transpired between husband and wife upon his return she never found out but immediately afterwards Mrs Jarmyn had boarded a cab and departed on a visit to a relative in Cheltenham where she had remained for a fortnight.
With Mrs Jarmyn gone Mrs Logan had been presented with the keys to the cellars and to the pantry and to the drawers where the various household accounts and ledgers were stored. She had been given custody of the accounts and ledgers with the understanding that once Mrs Jarmyn returned they would oversee these tasks together. Yet after a fortnight Mr Jarmyn, taking valuable time away from the accident inquiry to journey to Cheltenham himself, had returned with his wife and Mrs Jarmyn had shown not the slightest interest in sharing these tasks with the new housekeeper; indeed she appeared to wash her hands of the whole thing, maintaining an aloofness towards her housekeeper that had not thawed in the intervening years.
Mrs Logan had wasted little time. She had sorted and rearranged. She had dismissed suppliers and sourced new ones. She had overseen tasks that had gone unsupervised for years and she had reorganised rosters and duties that were badly in need of reorganisation. She had, in short, discovered a talent for housekeeping. She had also found herself lonelier than she could have believed possible.
That had been three years ago and she had not travelled on a train since that day and could not, now, imagine herself travelling north again. Something very bad would have to happen first.
She went slowly back upstairs.
She had been instructed to oversee the redecoration of the drawing room and, though it had not been said out loud, she understood that this was to be done discreetly and tactfully, and preferably when none of the family were around to witness it. Consequently, an appointment with a man from Whiteleys had been arranged for this morning and would, it was hoped, be concluded before Mrs Jarmyn returned from her shopping expedition. The work itself would need to be done at carefully arranged times over the next two to three days; that is, before Mr Jarmyn’s return from the North.
At eleven o’clock she opened up the drawing room and showed the man in. He was the salesman type: showily rather than tastefully dressed and armed with a bag of samples. She had not explained the reason for the redecoration as it was not the man’s business, but she stood on the threshold of the room and found she was hesitant, even now, to enter.
‘Funny smell in here,’ the man remarked and Mrs Logan went into the room rather than reply to this observation. And perhaps it did not require a reply as the man was already kneeling down to examine the carpet, peering at the wallpaper, holding up the material of the curtains to the daylight. ‘Old fashioned,’ was his conclusion. ‘Crimson. You don’t want crimson any more. It’s all mauve and magenta and dove-grey. Softer shades. And café au lait if you want to be considered very daring.’
‘I feel fairly certain the family do not wish to be considered “very daring”,’ replied Mrs Logan. ‘I suggest we go with softer shades. Only the carpet and the curtains require replacing, not the wallpaper.’
‘Sticking with the crimson flock?’ said the man from Whiteleys, clearly unconvinced. ‘Well, that limits your choice. What goes with crimson flock?’ He pulled out his samples and explained the various merits of each, which appeared to come down to which important houses and families had which type of material.
Mrs Logan was unswayed by what type of curtain material the Duke of Westminster preferred and instead allowed her choice to be made solely on the basis of what might look right. The man from Whiteleys seemed to find this a novel way to make a decision but he duly recorded her orders.
‘What else?’ he went on, keen to conduct further transactions. ‘Chairs need re-upholstering? A new mirror? Light-fittings?’
Mrs Logan hesitated. Should the fireplace be bricked up? The thought had crossed her mind earlier but it was a big step and not one she was prepared to make without authorisation. Was this what Mr Jarmyn would want? Or would it be merely a constant reminder? But wasn’t everything a constant reminder?
‘No, that will be all,’ she decided.
‘Right-oh. We’ll be round first thing, then.’
‘No, not first thing. After ten o’clock and only until noon. You may do as much as you can during that time. Then, if need be, you shall return at the same time the following day. That is imperative. And when you leave, if you have to return, there is to be no evidence that you were here. Do you understand?’
‘Surprise, is it?’ nodded the man from Whiteleys. ‘Lovely,’ he add
ed unenthusiastically.
When he had gone Mrs Logan returned to the drawing room. There was a smell, it still lingered, but now it was muted, you had to seek it out. The man from Whiteleys had noticed it at once which perhaps meant he had a good nose. Or did it mean she had got used to it? Could you get used to the smell of burnt flesh?
‘Your notepaper needs to say: “We have suffered a loss but we are now out of first mourning. We are still very much distressed but we are looking forward cautiously, though with no loss of faith, to the future.”’
Less than a mile away in Bond Street Aurora Jarmyn looked at her sister-in-law blankly. Meredith Brightside was her husband’s only sister, younger than him by a year, and with the same long face, blunt jawline and narrow nose, the same grey-green eyes that peered at you unblinking if you said something stupid or surprising. Yet where Lucas had an unwavering belief in his place in the world Meredith wore a look of vague but persistent disappointment—as well she might, Aurora reflected, being married to Travers.
‘Can my notepaper say so much?’ she replied.
‘It can and it shall! Come!’ And Meredith took Aurora’s arm and led the way through the door of the stationer’s shop outside of which they had been standing for some minutes amidst the midday bustle of Bond Street shoppers. ‘It is all in the depth of one’s black-edged border,’ Meredith added, speaking in lower tones now that they were inside the shop.
‘My notepaper has black-edged borders and has done so since June,’ retorted Aurora, surprised to find herself feeling quite indignant. ‘And what’s more,’ she went on, ‘my black-edged border is of a standard depth. I have it on good authority from my printer.’
Meredith stopped in her tracks, clearly scandalised. ‘My dear sister-in-law, I am very much afraid you have been duped. What is this “standard depth” to which you—and your printer—allude?’
‘Half an inch, I believe.’ Really, Meredith was quite the stickler on occasion.