The Murderess

by Jennifer Wells

  I put my hand over his trembling fingers and said the word that I had dared not utter in a whole week: ‘Dad’, and when it left my lips it did not sound strange.

  ‘Kate!’ he said, looking up as if seeing me for the first time. ‘I can hear them again, I can hear the screams.’

  ‘It is just the air raid siren, Dad,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember, the warden came round to tell us they would be testing it this afternoon?’

  But he did not seem to hear me. ‘They are still running,’ he said. ‘Running from the big gun.’

  ‘You are in Missensham now, Dad,’ I said, ‘not Tibet. That was all very long ago. Nobody will be hurt here.’

  ‘Where’s Milly?’ he said. ‘Where’s your mother?’

  I swallowed hard, for that was something not so easily explained. ‘You’re just having another one of your funny turns, Dad,’ I said. ‘That’s all, you remember like before. Like back when…’ But to finish the sentence would not have helped. I tried to hide my tears but made a bad job of it.

  ‘Don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve,’ he said. ‘You know that your mother would scold you if she was here.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said as if a child once more. ‘I am sorry, Dad.’

  He crawled from under the table and sat on the floor next to me.

  ‘Go to bed,’ I said. ‘I will bring you tea and a hot-water bottle.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but when he did not move I took his arm and walked him to his bedroom and pushed him down onto the bed, swinging his legs up onto the mattress and pulling off his shoes as the bed frame rattled.

  ‘I should go for the doctor,’ I said, but I did not want to leave him and Audrey had not returned from settling Jemima in at Tower Vale, leaving the house empty.

  He seemed to read my thoughts. ‘It’s just us,’ he said. ‘Like it was for so long. Me and my girl.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Father and daughter.’

  He seemed to calm a little at this but the shaking did not stop.

  ‘I think I need a little something…’ he said, his words faltering as if he did not know how to finish the sentence that he had started, ‘something to soften it all, make none of it matter.’

  ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘if I were to go to the green I would not be back for…’ Then I remembered the medicine that the chemist had sold him in the aftermath of my mother’s trial; chlorodyne. Back then the medicine had worked too well and Dad had turned into a zombie, barely leaving his armchair and, in the end, I had to collect up all the half-empty bottles and hide them from him. But now things were different and I had little choice; he needed the medicine again. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait just a minute.’

  I ran upstairs to the bathroom and flung open the medicine cabinet then, when I found nothing, I stopped, lay on the floor and put my hand behind a loose tile, my fingers grasping cold angular glass. There was still one that I had hidden there – a little blue bottle. It must have been years old, but it was all that I had, I shook it hard as I ran back downstairs. I propped Dad up with pillows and spooned it into his mouth.

  *

  Dad slept for the rest of the afternoon. I sat with him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Without his spectacles his face looked naked, and I fancied that it was the first time that I had seen his face properly and really had time to look at the contours of his features and imagine what he would have looked like when his skin was firm and tanned and his hair was darker. I had always thought that I had inherited his hooked nose, I knew now that could not be possible, but somehow I still believed it. He was not my father but he was the man that had always cared for me and I took some comfort in the familiar shudder of his snores and the odour of his favourite coal tar soap.

  He did not wake when rain spattered the window so hard that it might have been gravel nor when the air-raid siren started to wail again and, when the light from the little window faded and the clouds started to bruise and swell into one another, I knew that nothing would rouse him and he would have a long and peaceful night.

  Then there was a thud at the kitchen door, not a rap of knuckles but the dull thump of a fist beating on the wood. I looked at Dad but he had not stirred so I pulled the blanket up to his neck and hurried into the kitchen, flinging the door open.

  ‘Miss Bewsey. Miss Bewsey!’ It was Violet, her hair flattened with rain and her reddened cheek flaring like a wound against her rain-chilled skin. Emma was with her, groaning and hunched with pain. ‘We need help,’ panted Violet, taking Emma’s arm and hauling her over the step. ‘But I don’t want to leave her alone, not like this.’

  ‘Come in,’ I said, quickly. ‘You can’t possibly stay in the gardener’s cottage like this, you have no hot water.’

  I ushered them upstairs and into the drawing room, where Emma collapsed on to Audrey’s fine velvet settee.

  ‘Wait there,’ I said. ‘I will go into town and telephone for a midwife.’

  ‘No,’ said Violet. ‘It has to be my grandma; she’s a midwife but she ain’t on the phone. I’ll have to run for her.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘I can rouse the doctor at the surgery on the green, it is closer than the phone box and most of the houses in town.’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. Then she looked at me desperately. ‘They ain’t married.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But please be quick.’

  But she was already gone.

  Emma, who had been quiet since landing on the settee, now doubled up and groaned. I stepped towards her but then stopped, realising that I did not know what to do.

  ‘I’ll get some clean towels and hot water,’ I said, although I was just repeating what I had heard people say, I had no idea what they were for.

  ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘Don’t leave me!’

  So I sat down next to her and held her hand and she seemed to relax again as if the pain had subsided.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s happening too early and I’ve lost one before.’

  ‘You have Violet,’ I said. ‘You didn’t lose her.’

  ‘She is my child,’ she said, ‘but I did not bear her.’ She sucked in the last word and held her breath, her hand shaking and tears squeezing from her eyes.

  I was not sure what she meant but somehow it seemed to make sense; Emma’s clothes had once been fine and there had been a time when she moved in Audrey’s social circle, yet Violet was poorly schooled and her manners were sometimes crude. I could not guess as what had brought them together, but now was not the time to ask. ‘Oh,’ I whispered, for I did not know what else to say.

  Then Emma screamed, a kind of terrifying, animalistic noise as if appealing to nature itself to cease its cruelty. Then as soon as the pain had started, it was over again and she collapsed panting on to the cushions. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  I didn’t know what she was apologising for as I thought her helpless at the mercy of her body and what it was doing.

  ‘Where’s your hus—’ I began, but then I remembered what Violet had said.

  She answered quickly: ‘Peter has taken the cart to the market in Oxworth, he won’t be back until tomorrow and—’ Then she stopped suddenly and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ again.

  ‘You don’t need to keep apologising,’ I said, ‘there is no need.’ Then I saw that she was looking towards her middle and I looked down where a pool of dampness was starting to soak through her skirts and on to the settee cushions.

  I thought of Audrey’s love for the settee she claimed as her inheritance and of the wetness now seeping through the velvet. Then I thought about Audrey’s one-time friendship with Emma and about how quickly she had turned her back on her, calling her an ‘undesirable’ and hiding her away from visitors. I thought about the settee again and smiled.

  ‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ I said.

  *

  I sat with Emma for what felt like hours, although I could not move so far from her side as to even glance at a clock. She would seem at ease fo
r periods of several minutes – apologising for the settee, the inconvenience, the antisocial hour of the night and the extra laundry I would face, but suddenly she would become possessed by pain, her whole body contorting under the huge lump of her belly until her groans became screams and she would thrash about in desperation. I wracked my brains to think of anything to relieve the pain; I offered aspirin, chlorodyne, gin and hot-water bottles, but she would not have me abandon her for the medicine cabinet and I realised that her fear of pain did not compare to her fear of abandonment and I thought of the child she had lost.

  I was unable to offer much solace, I had never given birth nor seen it and I sat rigidly, holding her hand and looking away when she screamed. Then at last, I realised that I could hear a thudding at the front door and, ignoring all Emma’s pleas, I jumped to my feet and ran to the hallway.

  The door flew open as soon as I unlocked it and a stocky midwife barged past me and hurried off in the direction of Emma’s screams. Violet, soaked with rain, followed her in timidly and I was left standing alone in the hallway.

  I walked slowly to the drawing room and peered through the doorway, hoping to make my excuses and retire for the night.

  The midwife knelt in front of the settee, one hand on Emma’s wrist. When I knocked, she spun round: ‘Why isn’t she in bed?’ she barked. ‘Where are the towels?’

  I opened my mouth.

  ‘Oh I suppose it is too late now – out, girl, out! Let us deal with this!’

  I shut the door behind me and went slowly downstairs.

  I sat in the kitchen. I made a full pot of tea, in case anyone upstairs wanted any but I was too scared to go and ask. I picked up the newspaper but couldn’t concentrate; I just saw the fear in Emma’s eyes.

  Then I heard the front door again, the rattle of the lock and footsteps in the hallway then Aunt Audrey’s voice. ‘What’s going on? Let me see her, she’s my best friend! I am a psychiatrist’s wife after all!’

  The screams continued as I sat by the stove, watching the hands of the clock, knowing that I could neither sleep not concentrate on a book. Then came the thud of hurried footsteps overhead, and a shout followed by silence. And, at last, the cry of a baby.

  It was then that the sounds changed; the footsteps were less hurried and the voices softer and slower and it suddenly seemed like the air around me itself had changed to something softer and easier to breathe.

  The familiar creak of the drawing room door sounded followed by a heavy tread on the stairs and the midwife appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Get that kettle boiling for me, won’t you?’ She plonked herself down on one of the dining chairs and rubbed her eyes, but her voice did not lose its urgency. ‘Do you have a basin? The water needs to be tepid to the touch, test it with your elbow.’

  I was shocked and, when I did not move, she looked up.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It is a little girl, fine and healthy.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said automatically and then felt foolish.

  But she nodded appreciatively and I remembered that congratulations were indeed due to her as she was the newborn’s grandmother.

  ‘Go on, then, girl,’ she said more softly.

  I got up and filled the kettle and lit the burner under it. Then perched back at the table.

  ‘Is there any left?’ she pointed at the teapot.

  ‘All of it,’ I said, ‘but it’s cold, and stewed.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ she said. ‘I have been a midwife for forty years, I am used to that, and in fact I have come to like it that way.’ She leant over the tea tray and filled one of the cups, then she angled her chair towards mine. ‘I get a little rest for a while, before I get to go back, I’ve been on my feet all this time you’ve been sat here.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t much help.’ Then I rummaged in my pocket and brought out the little white bonnet that Violet had asked me to wash. ‘I managed to fix this though,’ I said, ‘and I added a little Dolly Blue to bring back its original colour.’ I held the bonnet out to her but then realised how stupid I sounded, as if I was proud of this tiny white thing dangling from my hand when the midwife had just brought a new life into the world.

  She took the bonnet from me with not so much as a thank you. ‘I don’t suppose you get to see much of life holed up in a place like this,’ she said. ‘Not things like this, mind.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘My family is small…’ But I was tired and found that I hadn’t the energy to explain.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Families are funny things,’ and then I realised that she was talking about the people upstairs, her family – the well-bred Emma and her coarse lover and the child who lodged in penury.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  She took a sip of the tea and it seemed to relax her as soon as it hit her lips. Now that the frantic energy had left her, I saw that she was an old woman with a round, plump face, her uniform bulging with the spread of her age, and white wisps escaping from her cap. She leant back in the chair and looked round the room, then grunted and nodded to the ceiling. ‘That lightshade…’ she said.

  I turned to look. ‘What about it?’

  ‘And that Welsh dresser… No this isn’t the first baby I have delivered in this house. It comes back to me now. No, there was another. Must have been about a quarter of a century ago. I don’t remember them all, of course, but I remember some better than others, especially the early ones, that one must have been one of my first—’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you must be mistaken. My family have always lived in this house…’ Then I stopped. ‘It was me!’ I said. ‘It must have been.’

  ‘Well, well!’

  She stood up and I did too, then she took my hand in hers. It seemed an odd thing to do to mark such a moment, but then it was an odd moment and needed marking with something.

  ‘Well just look at you now, who’d have thought it!’ She looked me up and down, a look of surprise on her round face. ‘Who’d have thought that it would have turned out all right in the end!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Oh well that was a bit of a to-do as well, wasn’t it? All shameful in the night, not unlike what happened tonight.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice, I had hoped for a story of my mother in happier times. I already knew the end to the story of my mother and I – the memory had played in my head so many times – but I had never known how the story began. I had imagined that this woman could have made it complete, but it was too long ago and I fancied that she had become confused.

  ‘Yes, there was just your mother and another woman, who came for me – a reluctant helper, just like you were. Just like it was tonight, yes I remember.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said flatly, not wishing to encourage a story that could be anyone’s, or everyone’s, or just ramblings born of an overcrowded memory. ‘It must have had a lot in common with tonight.’

  ‘Well not really,’ she said. ‘Things were worse then.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked around the room I was so ashamed of – the mould on the window frame and the cracked plaster – and struggled to imagine it in any worse state.

  ‘And well, the women were a funny pairing, but you rely on who you can, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  She leant forward. ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘She is well,’ I said shortly. It was a rehearsed response I was used to giving, especially when I was unsure if the person asking really knew who my mother was.

  ‘Ah good to hear it.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Yes, I remember the big grey, draughty house, the mother, the maid, pretty names, Millicent…’

  ‘Yes!’ I said brightening,

  ‘…And Rosalie.’

  ‘My mother was with a woman called Rosalie?’ I cried.

  She blinked, screwing up her eyes slowly as if faced with a tricky question.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.
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  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It would appear that my memory is not as good as I thought after all.’

  ‘But you remember Rosalie,’ I said. ‘You must remember something about her. There must be something you can tell me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve been doing this too long. Maybe I don’t always get it right. Will you get that kettle, it’s drilling in my head?’

  I jumped up, I had not heard the whistle of the kettle but steam was shooting from the spout and it was shuddering over the flame. I turned off the burner and the whistle settled to a hiss. I poured the water into the basin and swirled it with cold from the tap. I tested it with my elbow as the midwife had instructed but found that I had no sensation in my arms.

  She took it and flicked her fingers into it. ‘Perfect’ she said. Then she became the professional again and her lips puckered into a disapproving little grimace that told me our chatter had ended. ‘I had better take it up to them before it cools.’ She walked slowly to the doorway. ‘My regards to your mother,’ she said, but she did not look back.

  Chapter 26

  September 1940

  Her name was Rosalie. She was the woman in her prime, dressed smartly in a mauve tweed suit with silver buttons and an expensive bag. She had worked in some sort of office, was unmarried and probably supported herself. And then, one day, this woman had decided to take the train to Missensham.

  But this was the end of her life and I knew little of what had gone before, except that she had been around at the time of my birth – I had never known her, but for a short while, no matter how brief, she had known me.

  She had been a maid at Missensham Grange, working for Mr and Mrs Hugh Paxton. She had stood at the sink and scrubbed pans, just the way I did. She had swept the floors and dusted the cobwebs and probably, in her boredom, gazed endlessly over the garden, watching the rabbits as they ran over the Long Lawn. Maybe she had even done the laundry in the room where I now slept and stared at the same cracks in the wall until they became rivers and roads – maps of distant places she would never see.