Half the World in Winter

by Maggie Joel

  The memory was gone but the impression it left was strong. She heard Lucas climb the stairs and her heart beat a little faster. In another moment the door of his study opened and softly closed. She leant her head against the door. Ought she to go to him in his study?

  She knew she would not. He would be taking a glass of port. Did she want a glass of port? She pressed her forehead against the door and the surface was cold against her skin. She closed her eyes just for a moment. He might be fresh from his mistress. No, she did not want to see that: it was vulgar. Besides, Mrs Logan was bound to be about. Mrs Logan would, in fact, be serving him port. Mrs Logan might as well be his mistress.

  She opened her eyes. The thought made her uneasy.

  The clock in the hallway had struck two before, eventually, she slept.

  The clock had struck two and the household, at last, slept. All but Dinah, who sat on the floor of her bedroom, and bit down hard onto her bedspread so that no one would hear her sobs.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  COUSIN ROGER WAS DEAD AND a fresh snowfall covered London.

  In Regent Street the snow lay in a thick carpet and, though it had fallen only the previous night, already the wheels of a hundred carriages and the hooves of two hundred horses and the feet of a thousand Londoners had rendered it a dirty brown slush that splashed over toes and crept over the sides of boots.

  Cousin Roger was dead. Three days had passed and Dinah and Rhoda were shopping for mourning attire.

  Dinah stopped outside the window of a shop and thought, here we are again: just seven months later. (Indeed, it was the very same shop, the words ‘Dearly Departed—An Emporium for the Recently Bereaved: Est. 1805’ picked out in sympathetic gold lettering on a sign above the doorway.) Only now I am here with Rhoda and Roger is dead.

  A very elderly lady emerged from the shop on the arm of a much younger lady, her face veiled, head bowed, her ageing frame already creaking beneath yards of thick bombazine. Her companion—her daughter perhaps—dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes but otherwise appeared unaffected by whatever tragedy had beset her mother.

  Did we look like that, Dinah wondered?

  Seven months ago she had been accompanied by her Aunt Meredith. Her mother had, for many weeks, been too ill to leave her room. Rhoda had wanted to come to support her cousin and privately Dinah had thought: Rhoda wants to come because she is excited, because she has never shopped for mourning before, because it is an adventure. But Rhoda had not been allowed to accompany them. And Roger had still been alive. Now Rhoda was here and Roger was dead and it was not so very exciting, was it? It was not, in the least, an adventure. Instead it was all rather horrid.

  Beside her, Rhoda leant on her arm and at that moment her cousin seemed very slight and very alone. Dinah laid her own hand over Rhoda’s and thought, she thinks me to be the strong one, after all it is her loss, not mine. But the ground was so flimsy and insubstantial beneath her feet that she felt if she let go of her cousin’s arm she might float away. So they held on to each other very tightly and peered together through the black-draped window of the shop. The two faces reflected back at them were pale and dazed and Dinah did not recognise either of them.

  ‘Bombazine,’ whispered Rhoda, indicating the elderly lady and her daughter who were now boarding a waiting carriage. ‘I don’t think I can stand to wear bombazine.’

  ‘You don’t have to. You can wear crape. We wore crape. And after a week we took to wearing it only when we went out. No one will know. And besides, you will have all the blinds and curtains drawn.’

  ‘The servants will know,’ Rhoda replied.

  Dinah did not know what to say to this so she led the way inside.

  The shop had been established in 1805 (Trafalgar, noted Dinah. No doubt 1805 was a good year to open an emporium for the recently bereaved) and, judging by his decrepit appearance, the proprietor who now greeted them could well have been the original owner.

  ‘My dear ladies!’ he exclaimed, coming at them, his hands clasped before him and producing an expression that somehow conveyed dismay at their recent bereavement tinged with just the correct amount of joy at their decision to enter his establishment. ‘Allow me to offer my humblest condolences at this difficult time.’

  They acknowledged his humblest condolences with a slight inclination of their heads. The man wore a stiff tailcoat of charcoal-grey, a sombre waistcoat of similar hue and a crisp, snow-white cravat of a style made popular by the Prince Regent some sixty years previously. His ancient frame was so bent and diminished, the flesh so shrunken—in places it appeared almost transparent—that it seemed to be the clothes alone that held him together.

  ‘Might one inquire as to the relation of the deceased?’ he continued in a voice that sounded as though it had been locked away in a trunk under the bed for many years. ‘A dear mother, perhaps?’

  No, it was not a mother.

  ‘A father then? … No? A sibling—?’

  ‘It’s my brother,’ Rhoda announced, clearly impatient with this guessing game.

  The proprietor sighed. ‘How touching. How sad,’ he observed. ‘A sister’s grief for her brother. A riding accident?’

  ‘My brother was killed in the Transvaal in the service of Her Majesty and the Empire.’

  The proprietor almost swooned. ‘Madam, there is no more honourable a way to die,’ and launched into an elaborate bow that threatened to topple him right over, and Rhoda lifted her chin and straightened her back and acknowledged this accolade with a second inclination of her head. Dinah noticed how tiny flakes of dead skin shed from the decrepit man’s hands and onto the carpet.

  She left her cousin and walked over to the rolls of thick black material ranged against the counter. They had stood right here, herself and Aunt Meredith, seven months ago and Aunt Meredith had inspected various bolts of cloth and studied various patterns, then she had consulted various books and finally she had made various orders, and her niece had stood and mutely looked on. Roger, she remembered, had offered to accompany them.

  ‘My brother’s death was noted in today’s Times,’ Rhoda was explaining to the proprietor.

  Sofia’s death had also been noted in The Times, though the one was in a War Office list of casualties, the other a minor account of a tragic domestic accident. Did the shopkeeper remember, Dinah wondered? Was he secretly thinking, What a careless family—two losses in seven months! But here was a man who revelled in careless families, who must rub his hands together at a cholera outbreak, a high tide or a sudden winter frost, an incautious pedestrian and an impatient horse, a conflict in a distant corner of the Empire.

  Rhoda was shown to a chair and offered a tiny glass of Spanish sherry. She was provided with a velvet-covered footrest by an assistant who had been summoned specifically to perform this necessary task. Dinah stood at the window and observed the snowy scene outside. A horse had slipped on the icy road and fallen awkwardly. Two men were attempting to disengage the stricken animal from the shaft of a carriage, a third man was holding the horse’s head to prevent it from thrashing about. If they didn’t move it soon someone would shoot the poor thing.

  Are we punished, she wondered, here on Earth, for the bad things we do? and thought of herself and Roger in the garden on an afternoon in May.

  ‘Dinah, what do you think of this black? It is called Darkest Night.’

  Dinah rejoined her cousin and studied the bolt of cloth the proprietor was holding out to her.

  ‘It is very black,’ she agreed. ‘Though I wonder … Do you perhaps have anything blacker?’

  ‘Blacker?’ repeated the proprietor.

  ‘Do you think it not quite right, Dinah?’ said Rhoda anxiously and Dinah instantly relented. She was here to support her cousin, was she not?

  ‘Forgive me, now that I look again, I can see that it is indeed very black. I am certain this will do admirably.’ Chastened, she returned to her place by the window. Already the horse had been removed and the carriage was gone.
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br />   The Jarmyns had been out of mourning for just over a month. Now it was the turn of the Brightsides. We will forget what we look like in colours, thought Dinah and she observed the ladies passing outside the window. Magenta, it appeared, was popular, and Empire-blue. So too vermilion. She could not imagine herself in vermilion.

  ‘I do wish Mama were here, to make the purchases,’ said Rhoda, joining her at the window. ‘Normally Mama would make the arrangements, she would organise it all. She would have definite views about everything.’ Her cousin bit her lip, clearly a little overwhelmed at the responsibility that death had thrust upon her.

  Dinah pulled herself up and gave a little smile, reaching for her hand. ‘I am sure you will make the right decisions,’ she reassured her, though she was reasonably certain Aunt Meredith would baulk at the yards of Darkest Night her daughter had just ordered.

  But Roger lay dead in a coffin in the Transvaal and their purchases, their presence in the shop, their very existence, seemed suddenly negligible. Was his body in a coffin? If he had died on the field of battle, he may lie anywhere. He may never be found.

  She squeezed Rhoda’s hand and for a moment they stood in silence.

  ‘There! Look!’ said Rhoda pointing, and in the street outside they saw Mrs Van Der Kuyt and Isabella Van Der Kuyt hurrying past in the snow, their hands thrust deep inside fur muffs. Rhoda went quickly to the door and hurried out and, against all rules of propriety, called out to them.

  Through the window Dinah could see first Mrs Van Der Kuyt then Isabella stop and turn. Rhoda went after them and an exchange took place during which the Van Der Kuyts, evidently already in possession of Rhoda’s news, appeared to offer their condolences which Rhoda appeared to accept gracefully and with an almost serene composure. Isabella, rising to the occasion, placed a hand on her heart and made an anguished face as she spoke. Her mother placed a sympathetic hand on Rhoda’s arm. And Rhoda responded with a stony-faced stoicism befitting the daughter of a family who had just lost their only son in the service of Queen and Empire.

  ‘Will the young lady be requiring black-edged notepaper and black sealing wax?’ inquired the proprietor, approaching Dinah, clearly anxious that his customer had run from his establishment before he could conduct all the necessary transactions.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Dinah replied, not turning around. We have some, she thought to herself, indeed we have boxes of both. The Brightsides were welcome to them … But somehow she knew Aunt Meredith, and Rhoda as Aunt Meredith’s daughter, would not wish to borrow someone else’s. This was their death, after all. One would not borrow someone else’s ring to get married with, would one?

  Rhoda re-entered the shop, her cheeks pink, and a rush of cold air came in with her.

  ‘They had heard the news,’ she reported. ‘They had read it in this morning’s Times. They have already called on Mama and left their cards. Mrs Van Der Kuyt said the Fairchilds and the

  Larches were also leaving cards and two other parties whom she did not know. I think one must have been Dr and Mrs Fanning judging by their description of the carriage. Isabella said Roger is sure to get a medal. And Mrs Van Der Kuyt said that, if he does, we shall all be required to attend at the Palace to receive it on his behalf. From the Queen,’ she added just in case this was not absolutely clear.

  So, Cousin Roger’s death was not in vain: his mother, father and sister would get a trip to the Palace. They would meet the Queen.

  ‘I am sure Isabella is right,’ Dinah replied with an encouraging smile, though why Isabella Van Der Kuyt should be considered an authority on military decoration or palace protocol was not immediately clear to her. ‘Shall we continue with our purchases? I’m sure Aunt Meredith will be anxious to have you back home with her.’

  ‘Oh yes …’ agreed Rhoda vaguely, the excitement of purchasing mourning attire apparently now superseded by the thrill of the forthcoming presentation to Her Majesty.

  They made the remainder of their purchases and arranged for the items to be delivered later that day to the house in Great Portland Street.

  ‘This has been an honour, madam,’ the proprietor commented as he held the door open for them, and Dinah looked into his face and saw death, a thousand deaths stretching back over decades, and she smothered a shudder.

  The door closed behind them but Rhoda remained where she was, standing in the doorway beneath the sign with the sympathetic gold lettering, unmoving, and Dinah stood beside her but there was nothing to say.

  ‘Dinah, we received a most extraordinary communication from a woman,’ said Rhoda unexpectedly and Dinah felt a flicker of unease. She glanced about them and took her cousin’s arm and led her away from the shop.

  ‘What sort of communication?’

  ‘It was most extraordinary. It was in the second post. Roger’s death was reported in this morning’s Times, of course, so anyone could know about it. Nevertheless my father received a letter from a woman. The letter said the woman had heard from Roger.’

  Dinah looked away and nodded slowly, not wishing to hear more.

  ‘It said she had heard from him after his death. That she was a spiritualist.’

  They crossed Beak Street heading gradually south.

  ‘We had one too,’ Dinah replied. ‘In the week after Sofia’s death. Perhaps it was the same woman.’

  Rhoda stared at her. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I? Nothing. It was addressed to Father. He showed it to Bill. Then I believe Father threw it away and it was not mentioned again.’

  ‘It was the same for us—Father received and read it though he did not read it out to us. And he got angry and threw it out. But when he had gone out Mama retrieved it. She came and showed it to me. We were both greatly upset by it. But also …’ Rhoda looked down.

  ‘But also you wanted to know if it could be true?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Did you not think the same thing?’

  Dinah considered. Had she? She could not remember. If she had, she had quashed the thought at once. She knew she would not have allowed the faintest possibility to flicker even for an instant.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, in answer to Rhoda’s question.

  ‘Of course these people are all charlatans, everyone knows it. And yet—’

  They had reached Piccadilly Circus and they paused now to watch the chaos of carriages and cabs.

  Yes, everyone knew they were all charlatans. And yet.

  Roger’s memorial service was held two days later.

  The snow had turned to ice making the going treacherous for the large group of mourners who followed the elderly rector through the cemetery and towards the small marble stone that was to serve as Roger Brightside’s memorial.

  Lucas walked on one side of Travers, supporting his arm and feeling a tremble go through his brother-in-law, his fingers tighten around Lucas’s forearm.

  The ladies had remained at home. He had seen Meredith through the open front door of the house in Great Portland Street as he had arrived to take Travers to the church. He had not been able to see her face because of the veil she wore. They had boarded the carriage, himself, Travers and Bill, and travelled to the church. All three wore black armbands and black gloves and trailing bands tied around their hats. The horses had sported black ostrich plumes and the carriage was draped with black velvet. There was no casket; Roger would not be returning home.

  The chief mourner—a man all in black and supplied by the funeral company—led the way and the procession had moved through the street at an agonising pace. Heads had turned to watch as they passed, conversations halted and a number of men removed their hats. There was no disguising a funeral.

  Damn Roger for being such a fool, Lucas thought angrily. To put Meredith through this, and for what? So that some tiny outpost of humanity could be pink on the map? So that other young men in other families years from now could also lay down their lives in pointless defence of a worthless piece of land on the other side of the world? Was the Empire not big
enough, important enough, did it not cover a vast enough portion of the world, did it not yet generate enough trade and goods and wealth to satisfy even the most demanding appetites?

  He would like to give the boy a piece of his mind were he standing here now! He would like to ask Roger just what this pointless venture had achieved, what all that training, that irrevocable falling out with his father, that long sea voyage to some distant continent, what exactly had been achieved by it?

  The Times that morning had reported that the garrison at Potchefstroom could hold out for a month, no longer. Meanwhile supplies, horses, troops, whole regiments from various parts of the Empire were being bundled into ships and sent, helterskelter, to the Cape to come to their rescue. The garrison would be relieved, or it would not. What difference did it make? Roger would still be dead.

  Sketchy details of Roger’s death had been relayed to them via a letter from a fellow officer, a Lieutenant Graves, and they were details that offered little consolation to grieving parents. Roger had died within hours of disembarking, as a result of a gunshot wound to the neck. The troops had not, at that time, been engaged with the enemy; indeed they had barely completed their disembarkation and moved into the garrison’s temporary quarters. Faulty equipment was suggested as the cause of the gunshot and, reading between the lines, it appeared that either someone had accidentally shot him or, worse, Roger had accidentally shot himself.

  The boy had boasted of his prowess at marksmanship. Perhaps it was best to assume someone else had fired the fatal shot.