by Diane Allen
‘Aye, I will. Don’t worry, sir, I’ll tell you.’ The landlord quickly slipped the sixpence in his trouser pocket as Percy made his way out of the Talbot’s doorway.
‘Psssh! Sir, sir, I can tell you summat.’
The spit lad from the Talbot Arms appeared from the cellar doorway, standing on the cobbled street shoeless and filthy, beckoning with his hands and obviously wanting to give the inspector some information.
‘What, lad, what do you want to tell me?’ Percy took him to one side of the busy street and looked at the thin waif. ‘Tell me what you know and I’ll give you thruppence.’ He fumbled in his pocket and produced threepence, which he held in front of the lad’s wide eyes.
‘The posh fella from up at the mill had the other fella by the scruff of the neck. They were shouting and arguing, on the night they met up in the Talbot. The little fella threatened to tell everything about his wife, if he didn’t give him some brass. I heard him whisper “thirty guineas”, and then Mr Dawson told him to crawl back to Accrington and leave him alone. I think he called him Simmons or Simon, or something like that!’ The spit boy concentrated on the threepence that still shone in front of him.
‘Anything else, boy, think! Any more names?’ Percy played with the coin, enticing more words from the youngster’s mouth.
‘Um, he said, “How’s your sister?” and that he knew her to be with Mr Dawson.’ The lad gazed at the coin. ‘That’s all I heard, and then the little man went.’
‘Mmm. Well, that’s good. I’ve got a name and a town. You were worth your thruppence, lad.’ Percy ruffled the urchin’s hair and thrust the coin in his hand. ‘If you think of owt else, you let me know.’
‘Yes, sir. I will, sir.’ The lad grinned and then ran barefoot back into the inn.
Hmm . . . Accrington, Simmons and a sister. A few things to follow up, but he’d get the bastard yet.
21
‘Oh, Lottie! I don’t know who’s the worse off. What a mess!’ Archie sat in the parlour of Windfell and looked across at Charlotte, who was crying on the plush sofa across from him. ‘I don’t know what I can do for you.’
‘You can’t do anything. There’s nothing anybody can do. Inspector Proctor is trying to track down Joseph now. He even came here yesterday to ask about Dora Dodgson, and what I knew about her. I don’t know what she’s got to do with all this. And Crummock is standing empty, with Arthur holding the fort, because until Joseph shows his face, there’s nothing I can do with it. Anyway, enough of my worries. How is Daniel? Growing up quickly, I bet?’ Charlotte sniffed and looked across at her best friend.
‘He’s driving Rosie’s parents mad. They do love him, but it’s such a small place that we live in and Rosie’s father blames me for her death, which doesn’t help. How are you feeling? You will take care, won’t you?’ Archie put his teacup and saucer down and looked across at a worried Charlotte. He remembered the time when Rosie was heavily pregnant, just as Lottie was now, and the memories of that stricken day when he lost her flooded back to him.
‘I’m fine. Not too long to go now. Dr Burrows says everything looks normal, and that he will be with me as soon as I need him, and I’m not to worry. It’s just that all this with Joseph . . . I don’t know if I can cope.’ She looked across at Archie and started to sob again.
Archie jumped up from his seat and sat down next to her, placing his arm around her quivering body. ‘Don’t cry, Lottie. I know I’m not much good, but I’m here: you can count on me. I’ll do whatever you want; you’ve always been there for me, through thick and thin. I’ve not got a penny to my name, but my heart’s true.’ Archie squeezed her tightly.
‘Money’s not everything. Look at us – both married, and our young with just one parent. Mine will never even see its father, unless Joseph returns like a bad penny, and he’s hardly going to do that, with the hangman’s noose waiting.’ Charlotte sobbed and looked into Archie’s eyes.
‘Nay, he’ll not land back. He’s a bad man, Lottie, and you can do without him. The things I’ve heard about him would make your flesh crawl. Settle’s full of gossip. I try not to listen, but you can’t help it. I knew that you were married to a bastard, but there was nothing I could do. You were his, and Rosie was mine, and we’d both made our own decisions, no matter how wrong we both were.’ He held Charlotte tight.
‘Just what are the gossips saying? Is it so bad?’ She wiped her eyes and looked at Archie.
‘Aye, it is, lass. Nobody’s saying a bad word about you, though. They know that you are from good stock and are trying your best to hold everything together. But if they could get hold of Joseph, that’s a different matter. He’d be minus two of his assets, straight away. Archie looked at Charlotte’s tear-stained face and watched her eyes brim with tears again, and decided not to say much more about local feeling towards her husband.
‘I didn’t know anything at all about the man I married – or should I say “the monster” I married. I’m just sorry, Archie, that I didn’t realize how I felt about you, and Joseph turned my head with his flash ways.’ Charlotte ran her hand down the ruff of Archie’s shirt and felt a flutter in her heart as she looked into his blue eyes.
‘Charlotte, don’t. You are still married and I’m still missing Rosie – it isn’t right. It’s only three months since I buried her.’ Archie had missed Charlotte’s sweet kisses and winning smiles. He’d made a mistake in marrying Rosie, but he’d grown to love her, and now his heart was still tender from the loss of their baby.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, and you are right.’ Charlotte sat up straight. ‘Of course you must go back to your home at Mewith and, once my baby is born, I’ll be busy running the mill. The civil war in America can’t go on forever. Besides, I’ve a delivery of cotton due any day, which will get us through this year. I can manage without a man in my life.’ Charlotte felt rejected by both Archie and Joseph, but wasn’t going to look vulnerable and lost; that had got her nowhere in the past. ‘I’m fine. Sorry, Archie. You are a true friend, stopping me from making a fool of myself. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.’
‘It was a nice position to be in, Charlotte, but too early for both of us. Let us see what comes next, before jumping in with both feet.’ He bent over and kissed Charlotte on her brow, before rising and putting his cap on. ‘I’d better get back, before that lad of mine has driven everyone mad. Besides, I need to tend to my sheep before nightfall.’
‘Thank you, Archie, thank you for being a good friend.’ Charlotte clung to his hand.
‘I’m only a few miles away, don’t you forget. And if you need me, you send someone to get me.’ He smiled and let go of her hand before walking out of the parlour. Poor Charlotte. She was more alone than he would ever be. He only hoped that her baby would arrive safely.
Archie sat behind the drystone wall and looked down upon the flock grazing contentedly in the pasture below. The sun was slowly setting, but its warmth could still be felt in the limestone rocks at his back, and in the last lingering rays that warmed his face. He breathed in and thought about Charlotte. She’d looked unwell, and for once she had not been playing games with him, like she had before she married. He couldn’t help but think that life had dealt them both a hard hand, but at least he wouldn’t be remembered for marrying a murderer. Poor Charlotte! He had thought she was going to kiss him, when she leaned over and fingered the ruff on his shirt, which would have been wrong for both of them.
‘Aye up, lass.’ Archie patted his sheepdog’s head as she nudged his leg, impatiently wanting to move on to the next field and view the stock with her master. She panted with her mouth open in the heat, and stared faithfully into his eyes with a look of adoration for her young shepherd. ‘I know, lass, you are wanting to be off. But bide with me a bit longer while I take in the day. You don’t get many evenings like this.’
Archie looked around him: the cotton grass was in full bloom on the rough fell land and the white feathery heads flittered in the slight e
vening breeze. Above him skylarks sang and the smell of peat filled his nostrils.
‘Aye, lass, I wish my Rosie was still with me. She’d know what to do for Lottie. She’s in a bit of a mess. And I don’t know what to do for her, except make the best of what I’ve got.’ The dog nudged his leg again and barked sharply. ‘Alright, alright, you win. Let’s be away. I’ll have to see that baby of mine before his bed anyway, but nowt beats a grand evening like this, with nobbut myself and thee for company.’ Archie leaned on his crook and laughed as the dog barked and rushed back and forth around his legs. ‘Alright, alright, I’m coming. I think I’m half-simple anyway, talking to a bloody dog. Folk have been locked up for less.’
He had a final look around him, across the wide valley and over the outstretched fields and fells towards the sea, which was just visible in the distance. No fancy manor or big house could outdo the vista at his feet. Lottie should have stayed at home and married him, and then everything would have been fine. ‘I don’t know, lass, do I want to get caught up with Lottie again?’ He stomped his stick down into the sphagnum moss and looked down at his boots. ‘We’ll see, eh? Let’s just take it steady.’
Charlotte lay in her bed and thought about Archie, her childhood sweetheart. She should have replied with her love for him, the morning of her grandfather’s death, when Archie had declared his love for her. She wouldn’t have had all this heartache and worry. She looked around her plush bedroom and rubbed her extended stomach. How she hated being pregnant, feeling huge and cumbersome. Thank heavens her time was nearly up, for she had so much to sort out and do. None of which anybody would take seriously, with a baby yet to be born. Damn Joseph Dawson, let his soul burn in hell, she thought, as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
22
‘Push, Charlotte, we are nearly there.’ Dr Burrows stood by the edge of the bed and watched as the offspring of the most talked-about local murderer was born. Beside him was Mrs Briggs, a woman well known for her skill at bringing babies in the district safely into the world. She was issuing instructions to the straining woman.
‘There now, just look what we’ve got. A finer baby girl I’ve yet to see.’ Josephine Briggs quickly wrapped the squawking bundle in a blanket and placed her in Charlotte’s arms, after Dr Burrows had supervised the cutting of the cord.
‘There was no reason for me to be present at this birth. Mrs Briggs managed well, and I knew it was a perfect pregnancy. You have a beautiful baby girl, Charlotte. You must be proud of her.’ Dr Burrows stood back and closed his bag, looking at mother and daughter over the edge of his spectacles.
Charlotte looked down on the dark-haired, red and wrinkly squirming baby who had come into her life that morning, after a night disturbed with birthing pains.
‘I don’t know. I’m so tired. Nobody told me how much it would hurt, and how long it would take.’ Charlotte looked at Mrs Briggs, who held her hands out for the newborn.
‘It took no time at all. Believe me, I’ve known some women go into labour for days, so you were lucky. Now give her to me and we’ll give the lil’ thing a quick wash, and then I’ll see to you, once you’ve lost your afterbirth.’ Mrs Briggs lifted the newborn from Charlotte and carefully unwrapped her, slowly lowering her into the basin of warm water on the marble washstand next to the bed. She carefully washed the birth membrane off the head of the baby, who smiled as she clenched her fingers and toes in reaction to the warm water.
‘I’m going to leave now, Charlotte. Mrs Briggs will see to you, and it is no place for a man to be. Doctor or not, childbirth is a woman’s job. You’ll be fine. The baby looks healthy and you are healthy, so I can see no problems. But if there are, you know where I am.’ Dr Burrows opened the bedroom door and looked back at the woman he’d known both as a girl and as a woman. ‘Your father would be proud of his new granddaughter, you can be sure of that. Good day.’ He smiled as he closed the door behind him, but in the back of his mind was the thought of Betsy Foster and the baby that never had the chance to live.
‘Has she had the baby, Doctor? We thought we heard one crying.’ Mrs Batty, Mazy, Lily and Yates looked rather sheepish in front of the doctor, waiting at the bottom of the stairs in anticipation of the announcement of a new presence in the manor.
‘She has. You’ll be glad to know that both mother and baby are doing well. And, as you’ve heard, the baby’s got a good pair of lungs on her.’ Dr Burrows smiled. ‘Your mistress will need some hot water in her room, and I dare say a drink of tea would not go amiss.’
‘I’ll take it right away. I want to be the first to see this new soul. I wonder what she’s going to be called?’ Mrs Batty scurried off to the kitchen, followed quickly by Mazy and Lily, who were arguing between themselves over who would be first to see the new baby.
Yates remained silent as he walked with the doctor to the main entrance of the manor to open the door for him.
‘You’re still here then, Yates. Dawson didn’t sack you for nearly killing his wife?’ Dr Burrows took his top hat out of the butler’s hands, as he picked it up from the hallway stand.
‘I’d no hand in that night, Dr Burrows – it was his doing. He slapped her and then, near as damn it, threw her down the stairs. There was no loose stair rod when she climbed those stairs, and I was never asked to fix one. Betsy Foster might not have been the first person Joseph Dawson killed, if you had not been here so fast, and if I hadn’t seen what he did that night.’ Yates looked at the doctor as he put on his hat and passed him his Gladstone bag from the hall floor.
‘It’s a bad do, is all this, Yates. I feel I’m partly to blame, because I thought it was none of my business when I saw the mark on Mrs Dawson’s face, although I did make light of it to the dratted fellow. Perhaps I should mention it to the police – what do you think?’ Dr Burrows looked at Yates, who hesitated as he opened the door for the doctor to leave.
‘If you do, Dr Burrows, mention that there was more to his old housekeeper, Dora Dodgson, than meets the eye. He treated her different to the rest of us, and she was the one who made up the lie over the stair rod being loose. Aye, and she threatened me, if I said any different. Now why would an everyday housekeeper do something like that? She came with him from Accrington, did you know that? She knew his every move better than that good woman upstairs.’ Yates opened up with everything that had been sitting heavily on his mind for the last few weeks. The truth was that it was a relief to do so.
‘I will. I’ll go and have a word with Inspector Proctor. That cad Dawson could do just the same thing to another woman. He needs to feel the noose around that neck of his, from what I’ve just heard.’ Dr Burrows tipped his hat and turned for a second in the open doorway. ‘And, Yates, please accept my apologies. I realize now that my words were hasty. The bounder had us all fooled.’
‘Apologies accepted.’ Yates smiled and closed the door behind him. Dora Dodgson – or, as she was now known, the newly-wed Mrs Bloomenber – was going to be receiving visitors, and not before time. She was a nasty, evil woman and he hoped a visit from the police would shake her up.
‘Oh, ma’am, she’s beautiful.’ Lily, Mazy and Mrs Batty stood at the bottom of the bed and looked at the perfect picture of mother and baby, content and smiling.
‘She is. Just look at her. Can you believe how small her fingers are? And look at her mop of hair, now that she has had her first bath.’ Charlotte put her finger in the tiny outstretched hand and smiled as her baby grasped it firmly.
‘What are you going to call her, ma’am? Have you thought of a name?’ Lily stood closer and looked down at the round face of the newborn.
‘I’m going to call her Isabelle, after my mother. I never knew my mother. She died when I was just a baby, but I know my father loved her dearly. There wasn’t a day went by that he didn’t mention her name. So I think it’s fitting that I carry on her name in the family.’
‘It is, ma’am. Isabelle will suit her perfectly.’ Lily smiled.
‘Isabelle Vic
toria, to be precise. I thought I’d call her after the Queen as well, because she’s going to be queen of all she surveys when she grows up.’ Charlotte smiled and then yawned. She was tired.
‘Here, ma’am; give baby Isabelle here. I’ll put her in her cot and you can have some sleep. You’ll be no good to anyone if you don’t get your rest.’ Lily leaned over and gently picked up Isabelle. Mazy pulled back the covers of the cot and Isabelle was tucked up safe and sound at the side of her mother’s bed.
‘Thank you, everyone. I’m grateful for your support in these changing times.’ Charlotte looked at her concerned servants.
‘Yates says you’ve to take care of yourself as well,’ Mrs Batty added.
‘Tell him “Thank you”.’ Charlotte watched as her servants walked quietly out of her bedroom, then she slid under her bedclothes. She was on her own in the world. Even if Joseph did return, he’d be arrested for the death of Betsy. She lay on her side and looked at her new daughter, whispering quietly, ‘I’m frightened, Isabelle Victoria. Can I raise you on my own? It was different for my father. He was a man and had the security of his farm and his own father. I’ve nobody, and I’m supposed to run a cotton mill that I only know the bare minimum about.’ She sighed. She had a real responsibility now: a daughter who was totally dependent on her, and her alone. ‘Please help me, Father,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘If you can hear me, give me some of your strength.’ She turned over again in bed, hugging her pillow, and cried herself to sleep.
‘The baby’s the spit of her father. That black hair – you couldn’t mistake that for anybody else but Joseph Dawson’s.’ Mrs Batty was peeling the potatoes for supper.
‘Aye, that one’s his, just like poor Betsy Foster’s was. He’s a lot to answer for, has that one.’ Lily sighed.
‘And so will the so-called “Mrs Bloomenber” before too long. Dr Burrows is going to the police to tell them about the night Mr Dawson pushed Mrs Dawson down the stairs. I told the doctor that she covered things up for Dawson. No normal housekeeper would do that. Thick as thieves, those two were. The more I think about it, the more I think something weren’t right there.’ Yates sat back.