by June Thomson
It was large, probably the main bedchamber in the house, and, although lit by two lamps, was nevertheless full of shadows, so I could only make out a few features of the room. Like the hall, it had suffered from the spoils of time, the carpet shabby, the curtains faded, the pattern of the wallpaper discoloured and dim.
But it was the bed and the figure lying in it that captured my attention. It was an old-fashioned half-tester with draperies hanging on either side of the headboard so that they framed the woman lying on it, propped up on pillows, leaving just her face and shoulder visible, as if in a portrait, and two frail hands that rested side by side on the quilt. The rest of her body was hidden under a black shawl or robe.
I realised at once that there was nothing I could do for her. Not all the pills or potions in the world could have saved her. She was in the throes of death. The signs were obvious. In my medical career, I had witnessed them many times: the faint, hardly audible breath, the sealed eyelids, the flaccid muscles.
I lifted one of her hands and took it into mine where it lay like a dead leaf on my palm as I reached for her pulse. But I could feel nothing more than a tremor under the skin, like a flutter of a butterfly’s wing, and that was all and I gently lowered her hand so that it rested with the other on the coverlet.
She must have been a strikingly attractive woman when young. The features were strongly moulded, in particular the brow and the chin which looked as if they were finely sculptured. The mouth also had the same gentle curve to it. But, like the house, their beauty had faded over time, leaving behind a mere shadow of what it had once been, her dark hair now flecked with grey, the lips no longer relaxing into a smile, the brightness of her eyes quenched.
My action in feeling for her pulse had been noticed by the Neaves who were standing together in the doorway, Bill Neave’s arm around his wife’s shoulders as if protecting her and, as I replaced the woman’s hand, something in my gesture must have warned them that she was dying. They both came towards me, hand in hand now to join me at the bedside where Neave stood as if at attention while his wife fell to her knees, crying out, ‘Oh, Miss Eleanor!’ in a voice thick with tears.
Holmes, who had remained silent a few paces on the far side, glanced across at me and gave a small nod of his head, a simple enough gesture but one which was complex in its unspoken intimations for it acknowledged the woman’s imminent death, his own sadness at her passing and also his recognition of the significance of her name. The last piece of the puzzle had been found, it said, and the mystery of the Lady in Black’s identity finally solved.
She died shortly afterwards, the last flicker of life extinguished. I felt it expire under my fingers as the faint tremor of her pulse ceased.
For a few moments, I could do nothing except stand there, holding her wrist between my fingers and gazing down at her as it dawned on me for the first time that I was looking into the face of Eleanor Sutton, Hetty and George Sutton’s daughter, granddaughter of Henry Trevalyan and that other Eleanor, the one she had been named for: Eleanor Lockhart of Abbot’s farm.
And the Lady in Black.
Mary Neave was asking, ‘She’s dead, isn’t she, doctor?’ to which there was no reply except, ‘I am afraid so.’
‘Then,’ Mrs Neave continued, rising to her feet, her tears staunched and her lips firm, ‘we must lay her out properly. That’s the last thing I can do for my poor darling.’
It was Holmes who stepped in at this point.
‘Wait!’ he told her. ‘You can’t manage it on your own. You must have help.’ Turning to her husband, he continued, ‘Come downstairs with me, Mr Neave. We must arrange for someone to come and assist her.’
I was relieved by Holmes’ positiveness in taking charge of the situation and followed meekly as, a lamp in hand, he led the way out of the room and down the stairs, Bill Neave falling into step behind us.
At Holmes’ instigation, we entered a room on the left of the hall that I assumed after a brief inspection was probably the breakfast room in those far-off days when the house was inhabited and living people had occupied the place. Discarded and empty apart from a few chairs and a table, it had the same melancholy air of the rest of the house we had already entered, abandoned and forlorn.
But Holmes was not in the least discouraged by the setting. Pulling forward three of the chairs to form a semicircle, he sat down, indicating to Neave and myself to do the same. As I did so, I noticed we were facing a pair of French windows that overlooked the cove and, as I took my place, I could see through the dusty glass in the faint light of the moon not only the beach and the wooden steps that led down to it but that stone armchair where the Lady in Black had once sat, looking out to sea.
If Holmes was aware of the poignancy of the view, he made no sign of it.
‘Now,’ he said, addressing both Neave and myself, ‘we must arrange matters so that not too much is expected of Mrs Neave. I suggest therefore that we appoint another woman to help her.’
‘Mrs B?’ I interposed as his gaze fell on me and Neave seemed too distressed to offer any advice. Although I was not at all sure that she was the right choice, I could think of no other woman in our limited female circle.
Holmes’ reaction was immediate.
‘Great heavens no, Watson! She is the last person to ask. I was thinking of the landlady at the Fisherman’s Arms. She is a sensible, cheerful woman. And I further suggest that I ask her myself. She knows me and I can better explain the situation to her.’
‘I’ll drive you there,’ I offered, half-rising to my feet.
‘No, Watson. It’s only a five-minute walk. Stay here. You may be needed.’
As he said it, he glanced towards Neave who was sitting like a man who has only just regained consciousness, his head hanging low and his elbows resting on his knees, and I gave a small nod of agreement.
‘I shan’t be long.’ Holmes promised and, on this occasion, he meant it, returning in less than a quarter of an hour accompanied by Mrs Berry, a capable woman whom I had seen in the Fisherman’s Arms, serving behind the bar. I noticed she was carrying bed linen and towels folded over her arm.
At her arrival, Neave immediately brightened up, lifting his head and showing signs of eagerness to go upstairs with her to join his wife. This time it was I who dissuaded him from leaving the room. I knew from my own experience that what was happening up there was a ritual, like birth, that was exclusively for women only.
To my relief, Neave made no protest but remained seated, his eyes swivelling from Holmes to myself as if seeking solace or an answer to an unanswerable question.
It was Holmes who spoke first in the voice of an old family friend.
‘I am so sorry, Mr Neave,’ he said. ‘Had you known her for long?’
It was only a small, gentle prompt but it opened up Neave’s heart as if it had unlocked a whole reservoir of dammed-up memories and emotions which came gushing out in a flood.
‘Oh, Mr Holmes!’ he cried. ‘What’s me and Mary going to do? She meant the world to us! Such a lovely child! And now she’s left us!’
‘When did you first meet her?’ Holmes asked.
‘Oh years ago, sir! It was when her mother was married to Mr Sutton who was still alive at the time. They had the baby, Eleanor, by then and Mrs Sutton took us on as extra help, me in the garden and seeing to the car – they’d not long got rid of the horses and the carriages and I could drive, you see – and my wife to help the nanny with the baby. Me and Mary was very young at the time – we hadn’t been married all that long – so we were over the moon when Mrs Sutton took us on. Her husband was well known. Men would take their caps off when they passed him in the street. So it was a great honour to work for him and his wife.
‘Then bit by bit, we went up in the world. The nanny retired and Mary became the nursemaid and me the chauffeur. Their little girl was only a toddler at the time.’
‘So you knew her quite well?’ Holmes asked. ‘What was she like?’
‘Little
Eleanor? Oh, a beautiful child. As pretty as a picture. A right little sweetheart.’
‘And her mother, Mrs Sutton?’
‘Once she got over the shock of her husband’s death, she was a lovely lady. Although after he died, she was never quite the same again. Very sad. And the little girl as well. But all the same, we couldn’t have asked for a better person to work for.’
‘Did you ever meet any of Mrs Sutton’s family?’ Holmes continued.
‘Mr and Mrs Trevalyan you mean, sir? Yes, we did after Mr Trevalyan’s death that is. I think there’d been some trouble between him and his daughter in the past and they’d never met since. Not much was said about him but, reading between the lines so to say, I got the impression he was a very difficult man, liked to have his own way. Anyway, after he died, we used to drive down to their house in Fulworth, me and Mary and little Eleanor so that she could meet her grandmother. Her name was Eleanor as well. I think Miss Eleanor was named after her.’
‘What about the visits to Fulworth? Did she play on the beach?’ Holmes asked in an easy tone, not giving any special emphasis to the question and Neave seemed to accept it as part of the ongoing conversation.
‘Oh, the beach!’ he exclaimed. ‘She loved the beach. Mrs Trevalyan had the steps specially built so we could get down to the beach from the garden. Mrs Trevalyan would come as well until she got too old to manage the climb. And I took her several times to visit other relations she had living in a big farmhouse down in Barton. Little Eleanor used to feed the chickens and have a go on the swing they had in the orchard. She loved that, too!’
So another piece of the puzzle had dropped into place, I thought, with the reference to the cove at Fulworth even though Holmes had laid no special emphasis on it.
He was saying in the same easy, relaxed manner, ‘It sounds as if she had a wonderful childhood.’
‘Oh, she did, sir. She certainly did,’ Neave agreed. ‘And we loved it, too. You see me and Mary had no children so she was like a daughter to us.’
‘And then?’ Holmes asked.
Neave hesitated and I wondered if we had lost him. He would clam up and that would be that. But, undaunted, Holmes cocked his head, inviting further enlightenment.
‘What about Roger Sinclair?’ he asked, in the same easy tone of voice.
Neave’s uncertainty lasted for several long moments in which he locked his hands together and stared down at his feet. I was sure Holmes had gone too far and Neave would confide in us no further, leaving gaps in the Lady in Black story.
In the long silence, Holmes and I gazed down on the top of Neave’s head, willing him to speak; at least, I was willing him and so too, I imagined, was Holmes for he sat perfectly motionless, his eyes on Neave while the atmosphere grew thicker by the second. But it could not be maintained; it had to break and it was Neave who finally broke it.
Without lifting his head, he spoke at last, his voice flat and exhausted as if the spirit had been knocked out of him.
‘He was a wicked man, Mr Holmes. Wicked. There’s no other word for it. It’s him to blame for everything that’s happened to Miss Eleanor and her mother.’
‘How did they meet?’ Holmes asked, gently.
Neave raised his face towards Holmes, his expression haggard, and, when he spoke, it was in short broken sentences.
‘He was someone from London, one of Mrs Sutton’s friends who brought him along one evening. After that he kept turning up. Then Mr Sutton died but he still kept coming, brought flowers, sat with her to cheer Miss Eleanor up, or so he said. Me and Mary didn’t take to him from the start – he was worming his way in, we thought – turning on the charm; not that Mrs Sutton could see it.’
His voice broke at this point and the tears that had gathered in his eyes began to spill over his cheeks.
‘Sorry, sir. Sorry,’ he muttered, wiping them away on the sleeve of his coat. ‘It upsets me when I think of it.’
I saw his face begin to crumple up as if he had lost control of the muscles, a symptom I had seen in the features of two of my patients before they suffered a complete breakdown and I realised we must stop questioning him. So, glancing across at Holmes, I shook my head briefly, before leaning forward to touch the man’s hand.
‘It’s all right, Mr Neave,’ I assured him. ‘There’s no need to explain. We know what happened.’
To my astonishment, Neave seized my hand, grasping it as a drowning man might clutch at a broken branch or a handful of grass.
‘He took everything she owned!’ he cried out. ‘Everything! And left her with nothing! Oh, the poor woman! By that time, her mother had died as well. “I have no one!” she kept crying out. “No one!” It broke her heart. I hope to God he rots in hell!’
‘I hope so too,’ I interjected.
Holmes, however, managed to preserve his impassive attitude to the situation, untouched, it seemed, by any emotional response – that insensitivity of his that in the past I had regarded as cold-blooded and unfeeling. This reaction on my part also disturbed me deeply for I thought I had come to terms with this side of Holmes’ nature and had accepted it without question.
But it seemed, thank God, that I had misjudged him for, leaning forward, he took Bill Neave’s other hand in his and so we sat, hand in hand, each of us in our own way mourning the tragedy that had overwhelmed its participants.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The silence was broken ten minutes later by the arrival of Mary Neave, carrying a lamp, who tapped on the door before entering to announce, ‘Mrs Berry and me have finished upstairs, Dr Watson. I don’t know if you want to see her for yourselves? If you do, everything’s ready.’
‘Thank you. I’d like to,’ I said adding, ‘what about Mrs Berry? Should one of us take her home?’
‘She’s already left, sir. She’ll be all right. Her husband Reg is waiting up for her. So if you’d like to follow me. You, too, Mr Holmes if you wish.’
I turned to Bill Neave, who still sat, head bowed.
‘Will you come as well?’ I asked him, thinking he would be better off in bed, with a glass of brandy.
To my relief, he shook his head.
‘He’ll be all right,’ Mary Neave assured us. ‘I’ll see to him later.’
So Holmes and I left him there and followed the diminutive figure of Mary Neave out of the room in silence, broken only when we reached the upper landing at the head of the stairs. It was here Mary Neave halted outside the door that led into the bedroom where the Lady in Black was lying, and turned to face us.
Because of her height it was the first time I had studied her features in any detail, considering her to be of less significance than her husband, and what I saw, surprised me. Despite her lack of inches, she carried herself proudly and her expression was direct and confident.
‘You must excuse my husband,’ she told us. ‘He’s taken the whole business very badly. But he’ll be all right. I’ll see to him later. In the meantime, if you care to come with me …’
Opening the bedroom door, she stood aside to let us enter.
What we saw as we passed her and stepped inside was astonishing. The room had been transformed, the solitary oil lamp replaced by an array of silver candlesticks, at least half a dozen of them, displayed along the dressing table, the mirror reflecting each of their individual flames and doubling them so that they lit up the room with a radiance that seemed unearthly. More candles burnt on either side of the bed, drawing our attention to the bed itself and the figure that lay on it.
It was our Lady in Black, but transformed as if by some enchanted metamorphosis. Dressed in white this time, in a high-necked, old-fashioned nightdress with lace at the neck and wrists, her hair brushed out and lying in loose braids against the pillows, her features were now completely relaxed, all creases smoothed away; she was at last at rest.
There were four chairs drawn up by the bed, two on each side: their positioning a deliberate arrangement, making it clear that this was no informal gathering. The women h
ad decided it was to be a wake.
Holmes shot a glance at me, surprised but not derisive in any way, simply accepting the situation as he sat down. I took the chair opposite his so that we were facing one another, while Mary Neave seated herself beside me.
I had sat next to the dead before, including my first wife, but had never attended so formal a gathering before and I looked across at Mary Neave, wondering what we were supposed to do. Pray? Give a eulogy? Remain silent?
It was Holmes who spoke up.
‘I am so sorry, Mrs Neave,’ he began.
‘Oh, don’t be,’ she replied in a perfectly natural tone of voice, brisk and to the point, no sign of tears or distress. ‘She’s better off where she is, poor love. We’ll miss her though, Bill and me. She was a wonderful lady who deserved better.’
I realised that nothing more was expected of us, thank God, than a normal conversation.
‘She had a hard time, I understand,’ I remarked.
‘Indeed she did,’ Mary Neave replied. ‘And she deserved none of it.’
Holmes shifted about restlessly in his chair and I knew from the expression on his face that he could not maintain this exchange of commiserations about the dead woman however heartfelt they might be. He wanted something stronger than that, more positive and factual.
Throwing back his head, as if to break some unseen thread that bound us all together, he said in a clear, hard voice, ‘What about the silverware Mrs Neave? Why was that taken?’
I found his response disturbing under the circumstances. Could he not show more sympathy and understanding than this? I had not experienced that cold, almost callous side to his nature since our old days in Baker Street. But before I could protest, Mary Neave herself had spoken up.
Looking directly across the bed at him, she said, ‘You mean the stuff we stole from Melchett Manor?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Holmes replied, having the grace to look, at least, taken aback by her directness.