The Murderess

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘Hello?’ I demanded sharply, annoyed that she had caught me daydreaming. ‘I hope this is important, because I’m in the middle of preparations for a party.’ I stepped back and pointed to the eggs and flour sat on the kitchen table, only then realising they showed that the preparations were barely begun.

  But the girl didn’t seem to notice. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Violet. I—’

  ‘I know who you are,’ I said, quickly, but I did not let on that her name was news to me.

  She seemed to hesitate and I worried that I had spoken too harshly but then she continued. ‘My mother is suffering all terrible from this heat, she wonders if she might launder this for when her baby is born.’ She held up a baby’s crochet bonnet. ‘She hopes you won’t mind but we found it in the cottage.’

  I took the bonnet from her. The once-white wool was yellowed with age and it bore a hole that had been repaired at some point in the past but now gaped open once more, the old stitching just loose strands. I rubbed it between my fingers, fearing that it might not survive a soak in the tub and a pounding with the dolly peg.

  ‘I don’t think…’ I began, but Violet’s face was expectant as if the bonnet was of great importance and I felt for the poor baby that would come into the world with little more than this old bonnet and suddenly the chipped paint on the window frame and the stains on the plaster did not seem so bad.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘I will throw it in with the whites.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss.’

  ‘How is…’ But as I began to speak, I realised the name had deserted me.

  ‘My mother’s name is Emma,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, but now there was no point trying to hide my ignorance. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh my mother is fine when I can stop her from worrying, she does fret about it all. She is almost forty and has lost one before. I just wish she had someone to talk to, someone who knows what she has been through.’

  ‘Does Aunt Audrey not call?’ I said. ‘I thought they had been friends.’

  ‘They were once, but have not been since the thing…’ She hesitated and I fancied that she felt the words she wanted to say could not be spoken in this house. ‘…The thing what brought us here.’ Then she held up the bonnet by way of explanation. ‘Mrs Lawson says it is all she can do to have us at the Grange. Her husband doesn’t approve of us being here, so she won’t stretch to any more charity.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘No need, Miss. You know what Mrs Lawson is like.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I do,’ I said. There was something about what she said and the way she said it that made me think that the things Violet spoke of – the things that had brought her here – had changed her, perhaps in the same way that the trauma I suffered at her age must have changed me. I vowed to know her better or at least extend her family more kindness. ‘I will see if I can mend the hole too,’ I said. ‘Emma seems to have enough to worry about.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss.’

  ‘My name is Kate,’ I said, glad that it was my turn to correct her.

  She turned to go and I saw that her dress had grass stains on the back and I remembered watching her reading with Emma on the grass, just as I had done with my mother all those years ago.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I saw you and your mother on the Long Lawn, you were reading a book together, may I ask what you were reading?’

  She looked at the floor, the skin around the mottled cheek colouring. ‘It is just nursery rhymes, Miss Kate, I never got much chance to go to school.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It was a stupid question, you see, I half thought that you might have been reading…’ But then I hesitated. I had been thinking of the book that I used to read with my own mother, but now I realised that, although Violet and I had both had hard childhoods, they had still been very different. ‘Never mind,’ I said, but now my mind was wondering again, and I saw the dapple of light on the flagstones by Violet’s feet and felt a warm gust of air and the scent of lilac and I remembered my old copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland lying open on the grass of the walled garden, my mother’s broken necklace lying next to it.

  ‘Please will you do something for me?’ I said.

  She nodded and I unclasped the jade pendant from around my neck and handed it to her.

  She looked at the stones. ‘It’s pretty.’

  ‘Will you take a look at the back for me,’ I said, then remembering Mr Crozier’s words, added, ‘Your young eyes will be better than mine.’

  She took it to the back door and put it under the shaft of sunlight.

  ‘Um. I’m not sure, Miss Kate, like I said, I missed a lot of school and the letters are ever so fancy.’

  I stood beside her and bent down to her level, squinting at the inscription. ‘Does it say “Milly”?’ I asked after a while.

  ‘No, not that,’ she said. ‘The second letter is an ‘e’.’ She brought it close to her face. ‘M-e-’ Then she stopped squinting and handed the necklace back to me. ‘Mercy,’ she said, the flicker of a triumphant smile on her lips. ‘It says “Mercy”.’

  ‘Mercy!’ I echoed. It was obvious now, the word inscribed on the necklace was ‘Mercy’. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered as she put the necklace back into my hand.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’

  And I was left standing, gazing at the inscription, once again alone with my thoughts.

  Chapter 15

  August 1940

  It was a celebration of sorts, although I could not agree with the reason for it.

  Every surface in the drawing room had been polished or dusted, and every picture frame and pelmet straightened. Audrey had rearranged the furniture and positioned rugs over the threadbare patches of carpet. She had fixed up the old gramophone trumpet and dusted the oil painting of the Irish wolfhound, displaying it proudly over the mantelpiece. She had covered everything that did not meet her approval with lace doilies until the room looked as if it had suffered a shower of snow. Jemima sat alone, swaddled in a tight velvet dress, her hair shiny with lacquer. She nodded and smiled as guests walked past, as if commanded, scared to move lest her sheen would crack.

  I walked from guest to guest, offering cake that was cut into pieces so small that it would seem rude to take enough for a mouthful. Just as Audrey had hoped, the drawing room welcomed the cream of Missensham society and, as I moved among them, I remembered their connections to Jemima – the vicar who had christened her and the doctor who lanced the boil on her foot, the old woman from the Sunday school and Walter, her father, but only on high days and holidays. They were all a testament to Jemima’s short life in Missensham, now gathered like mourners at her funeral.

  The guests mingled happily, their bodies swaying in the light from the window, teacups juggled with saucers of cake crumbs and cigarettes. There was a gentle chatter in the room, but as usual it was Audrey’s voice that rose above it all.

  ‘Well of course I am sorry that Jemima will not enrol at Missensham School, Miss Potter, and I’m sure that you would have taught her to the best of your abilities, but Missensham School simply does not have the facilities of private school nor the means for a young lady of Jemima’s class to make the connections that she will need in life. So she will follow in the footsteps of her older siblings and go to private school.’

  I placed the plate of cakes on the coffee table and sat down on the one free seat in the room, the old chair between Dad and the woman that Audrey was addressing.

  The woman bristled and peered over her spectacles as if Audrey was a naughty child who had just spoken out of turn: ‘So which schools, may I ask, do your older children attend if not Missensham?’

  Audrey seemed as if she had been waiting excitedly for the question and I wondered if she had steered the whole conversation towards her next response. ‘Well Alan is at Harrow,’ she said loudly. She knew for once that she did not need to elaborate, she had chosen Harrow mere
ly to show off and it seemed to have done the trick as Miss Potter and a large part of the room fell silent.

  ‘…And your girls?’ Miss Potter persisted. ‘Ethel and now little Jemima? Surely you can’t afford Harrow fees as well as Roedean or Cheltenham Ladies’ College.’

  ‘Well of course we considered Roedean for the girls,’ said Audrey quickly. ‘But it was not a matter of cost but the fact that I am an old Tower Vale girl and would like Ethel and Jemima to follow in the family tradition.’

  ‘Tower Vale?’ Miss Potter said the words slowly as if spelling them out to a child. ‘I don’t believe I have heard of it!’

  ‘Oh I would not expect the likes of Missensham folk to have heard of it, you would not have had cause to,’ Audrey spat. ‘Tower Vale prides itself on elitism and remoteness. In fact the building is an old castle in the middle of the Chilterns. It takes the safety of its girls very seriously and is reputed to be quite impenetrable. At Tower Vale, my girls will not learn a thing about the war nor any of the silly politics that we have to suffer with it.’

  Miss Potter raised an eyebrow.

  Audrey seemed to sense that she had said something wrong but had little idea what, so she quickly added: ‘Besides, it is close to the university.’

  ‘Oxford University?’ said Miss Potter. ‘So you must be hoping that Jemima has inherited the brains from her father’s side of the family?’

  Audrey nearly choked on her slice of fruit cake. ‘Tower Vale might not have got me into Oxford, Miss Potter, but I will have you know that I was head girl at Tower Vale and that school equipped me with a very many skills, such as how to be civil in polite society and’ – she looked Miss Potter up and down – ‘how to dress appropriately for a social occasion and to know my place when I am spoken to. If you do not think these are valuable skills, Miss Potter, then I will point out that they are skills which made a doctor, an Oxford alumnus nonetheless, want to marry me. These are skills that allow my daughters to be living, not in some squalid little provincial schoolhouse, but in a Kensington townhouse and a country estate with…’ But her voice seemed to weaken as her eyes moved to the window and the view across the Long Lawn.

  A man and woman were walking across the grass, hand in hand, a girl following behind. They stopped in the middle of the lawn and sat down on a blanket, shading their eyes from the sun and taking swigs from a bottle of beer. The girl’s body was thin and stunted and the skin on one cheek was reddened. The man was large and clumsy, his overalls stained and muddied. The woman wore finery, but it was now faded, her large stomach pushing out beyond her girdle. It was the family from the gardener’s cottage, or Emma, Peter and Violet as I had come to know them, although Audrey would never have admitted such familiarity with them as she sat entertaining her guests with china tea and slithers of fruit cake.

  Audrey’s eyes narrowed; an expression that suggested that she had forgotten her one-time friendship and her only concern was that her guests would glance out the window and see what she did - the scraggy disfigured girl, the surly labourer and the fallen woman.

  ‘Ooh!’ Audrey shrieked. ‘Undesirables! Get them off the lawn, Walter! Go now!’

  But the last part of the command was unnecessary as Walter was already halfway out the door, glad of an escape, I thought.

  ‘I must apologise,’ Audrey spluttered. ‘It is so difficult to get staff with a war upon us again.’

  ‘Staff?’ said Miss Potter. ‘I thought you said they were undesirables?’

  ‘Yes, yes, although I imagine hiring good staff is never a problem that you would have to face,’ said Audrey, although her voice now lacked its previous venom.

  ‘Isn’t that Emma Marks?’ said Miss Potter, shading her eyes as she peered out on to the lawn. ‘She used to be married to old Doctor Marks and live on the Sunningdale Estate. In fact, didn’t she have an affair with a labourer and then try to move her lover in with her? It must be that man there. Doctor Marks sold the house and moved away from the shame, they say. And now, well, who knew she was pregnant! She seems to be in the later stages too.’

  Audrey was gasping for breath, fanning herself with a napkin. ‘Well I… it is nothing to do with… just a case of charity…’ But at last she found her voice, folded the napkin in her lap and addressed the teacher directly: ‘Emma Marks is one of your old girls isn’t she, Miss Potter? From Missensham School? And it is exactly those kinds of morals that I do not want to instil in Ethel and Jemima – it makes me glad that Jemima will go to Tower Vale.’

  Audrey had had the last word and we were all silent, sat in stillness watching the far happier scene on the lawn in our stuffy, starched outfits. Audrey raised her head in anticipation when Walter arrived on the lawn but, when he sat down next to Peter and took a swig of beer, she stared, unblinking, as if her glare would carry her disapproval through the glass and all the way across the garden.

  As I watched them through the window, I felt that I could almost hear their voices and their laughter. It was a sound that I had longed to hear in this house for so long, yet it remained silent and far away.

  Miss Potter put a hand on my knee and I jumped slightly. ‘Which school did you attend, Kate? I don’t recall you from the village school.’

  ‘No’ I said. ‘Back in those days we could afford to live in the Grange, upstairs I mean. My mother had no need to work and was very anxious about me leaving the house alone so she taught me how to read and the like.’

  She nodded and I felt as if I needed to explain some more.

  ‘There were plans for me to go to Tower Vale when I was fifteen but, unfortunately, on the day that I was due to go, well Mother and I got to the station and that was when—’

  ‘Kate!’ Audrey snapped. ‘Miss Potter does not want to know your life story. With your carry-on, it is quite obvious to all in this room that you must not have attended Tower Vale!’ But her spirit had not recovered from the earlier put-down and the words sounded flat.

  Miss Potter ignored her. ‘You have been here all this time and I never knew it, your mother must have held you captive!’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said quietly.

  Miss Potter smiled kindly. ‘I am sorry, I meant no offence. This must have been a wonderful house for a child to grow up in. It feels like a castle with all this grey stone and tall windows, and you could get lost in all these old rooms, it is like a warren! It is a shame that your aunt feels the need to send her babies away from here. The place will seem empty without children.’

  ‘Of course there are other babies soon to be coming to the Grange—’ said Dad eagerly.

  Audrey glared at him, frustrated that it was only now that he had chosen to speak.

  ‘That dear family sat on our lawn is due to get bigger soon,’ he added.

  ‘Oh that,’ Audrey waved the thought away as if it was a fly bothering her. ‘A bastard!’ she whispered loudly. ‘No, those people’ – she pointed towards the window – ‘are not married. It is only due to my charity that they do not starve. In fact the girl, what’s she called? I—’

  ‘Violet?’ I said.

  ‘Oh what a pretty name!’ said Miss Potter quickly.

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Audrey at last, glad of a change in the conversation. ‘I think it sounds old-fashioned in this day and age, that and all those other flowery names. It seems as if those dreary moralising Victorian names are coming back into fashion too, you know – Constance, Hope, Faith.’

  ‘Or Mercy,’ I added quickly.

  Dad’s teacup halted on the way to his mouth, but he pursed his lips and drank with some effort.

  ‘That must be one of the worst of them, so twee!’ shrieked Audrey. ‘Pious Victorian drivel.’

  ‘Will you excuse me, ladies?’ said Dad, standing shakily and adjusting the knees on his trousers. ‘I must go back to the kitchen, I think this pot has gone quite cold.’

  ‘I will help—’ I began.

  But Audrey leant forward and clamped my knee to the chair. ‘No, Kate, I n
eed you to get the gramophone started, I found an old BBC concert recording that should be suitable for children.’ She narrowed her eyes at Miss Potter. ‘That at least should brighten things up!’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Audrey,’ I said wearily, but I did not get up immediately as I was still watching the scene on the lawn – the happy family.

  *

  When I made it down to the kitchen, Dad was sat in his armchair reading the paper, the teapot that he had supposedly escaped to refresh, still cold on the draining board.

  I unfastened my mother’s jade necklace and held it over the pages.

  ‘Read it!’ I demanded. ‘Tell me what it says.’

  ‘Mercy,’ he said flatly, without looking up. ‘It says “Mercy”.’

  ‘Mercy is what the tramp said to mother,’ I replied. ‘It made her want to kill him and, with everything that I have learnt over this past few weeks, I am starting to believe that she would have been capable.’

  He said nothing more and the silence was filled by the jingle of the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ floating down the stairs and the thud of small dancing feet.

  ‘It’s too much of a coincidence,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Mercy is your mother,’ he said at last. ‘It is her name.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Her name is Millicent.’

  ‘Millicent is her middle name,’ he said, rubbing his face into his hand. ‘But she liked it better. I suppose it was more suited to her ways and grandeur. But Mercy is her given name. It is what her family used to call her and she would sometimes use it before the Great War.’

  I looked out over the Long Lawn. The man had gone but mother and daughter remained, the book was open again and they were reading together. As I watched them, I no longer felt the relaxed, happy memories I had felt when I had watched them just a few months ago. I realised that those memories were gone and now I had come to trust nothing.

  ‘The tramp was not begging for mercy,’ I said. ‘He was just calling my mother by her name. He knew who she was.’

  ‘Maybe he did,’ he said but then he raised the newspaper again and I knew that he would say nothing more.