Dressing was sufficiently an automatic process to leave her with the power to feel her unhappiness acutely, although not as acutely as it might have been because she was also a little puzzled over Ted’s most unexpected distress and thought about that as well. Then, once she was dressed, a mother’s routine engulfed her and she had no time to feel unhappy for a space. There was breakfast to be prepared, and she had to supervise Derrick’s dressing – Derrick did his best to dress himself, but he always put his socks on with the heel to the front and this morning he contrived most ingeniously to put on his trousers upside down. Marjorie had to fry the bacon and lay the table and make some sort of replies to Derrick’s insistent chatter and see that Anne washed behind the ears and have hot water ready for Ted to shave with. It was always an exacting, if not a very strenuous, three quarters of an hour before she got them safely seated at the table in the kitchen with their food before them.
There was comfort to be found in the fact that neither of the children asked questions about Auntie Dot – they had slept through all the noises of the night and took it for granted that, as often before, she had gone home after their bedtime when relived by the arrival of one of their parents. Yet on the other hand, even in the midst of the rush and bustle Marjorie found herself thinking with horror that she was giving the children food in the room where Dot had killed herself only twelve hours before, food cooked, moreover, on the very oven with which she had killed herself. She allowed Derrick’s milk to boil over at that thought, and the gas flame beneath the saucepan was extinguished, and before Marjorie could turn off the tap she caught a whiff of gas which made her turn sick and faint, so that she sat down suddenly at the table just as Ted came in with his shoes in his hand.
He was pale, too. Marjorie thought they must look like a pair of ghosts; she was glad neither of the children noticed it.
‘I’d better go to the office until they want me,’ said Ted.
‘Yes,’ said Marjorie.
‘Who wants you, Daddy?’ asked Anne – all her life it had been impressed upon her that nothing in the world equalled in importance Daddy’s punctual arrival at the office. Ted ignored the question.
‘And what about Anne going to school?’ asked Ted.
‘Oh, of course she must go,’ said Marjorie. She could not bear the thought of having Anne tagging after her all the morning.
‘What are you talking about, Daddy?’ asked Anne. ‘Why shouldn’t I go to school? Daddy! Mummy! What’s happened?’
‘Be quiet, Anne!’ snapped Marjorie – and Marjorie was generally inclined to be specially gentle with Anne since she had realized that it was Derrick who had won her heart. Anne sat abashed, her lips trembling. It was sufficiently rare for her adored mother to speak sharply to her for the event to bring tears. She was just going to cry when a sharp rat-tat-tat on the side door distracted her attention, Grannie came in from the side entrance, and Anne could never remember before Grannie arriving at breakfast time. Marjorie cried out gladly at the sight of her.
‘Come and have a cup of tea, Mother,’ she said, and rose automatically and began to prepare a place for her.
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Mrs Clair. She was the same trim, quiet, efficient little woman she always was, and spoke in the same soft voice. Marjorie felt a great wave of relief at her coming.
‘Good morning, Ted,’ said Mrs Clair.
‘Morning, Mother,’ said Ted. He did not look at her.
‘Nothing happened yet?’ asked Mrs Clair.
‘No,’ said Marjorie.
‘What is going to happen?’ asked Anne.
‘Hold your row,’ growled Ted, and the two women exchanged glances which Ted did not see because his eyes were on the floor.
Ted scraped back his chair.
‘Well, I’m off,’ he said. ‘Ring me up at the office if you want me.’
He still did not meet their eyes as he went off.
‘What will you want Daddy for Mummy?,’ asked Anne. She remembered an incident two years old, when Mummy had been severely lectured by Daddy for daring to telephone him at his office.
‘I don’t expect Mummy will want him at all,’ interposed Mrs Clair. ‘And I like that pretty frock of yours more every time I see it.’
That was quite sufficient to satisfy Anne. She put on her hat and allowed herself to be seen off to school without another question.
It was only then that the two women could settle themselves to fresh cups of tea and, turning deaf ears to Derrick’s chatter, could talk about the events of last night.
‘Ted’s upset properly, Mother,’ said Marjorie.
‘Anyone can see that. What about you, my dear? Did you sleep last night?’
‘Not a single minute. Did you, Mother?’
‘No, of course not. I was thinking too much. Marjorie, what made her do it?’
‘I don’t know, Mother. She’d always seemed so jolly to me. She didn’t have a care in the world, I used to think.’
‘She’s been quieter than usual the last month or two, I thought,’ said Mrs Clair.
But it was impossible to have a continuous conversation. Interruptions began immediately. Mrs Taylor from next door, having seen off her husband to work, came knocking at the side door to hear the latest development. Mrs Posket from five doors down, with whom Marjorie had only the barest nodding acquaintance, but who was the notorious gossip of Harrison Way, came five minutes later, just as Marjorie had anticipated. She had awakened too late last night, by bad luck, only arousing herself just in time to see the ambulance drive off. She listened with envy to Mrs Taylor’s breathless account of how Mrs Grainger’s knocking had brought her down from bed, and of how she had come into the house, into this very kitchen, and had actually seen the dead girl lying with her head in the oven.
‘Ooh!’ said Mrs Posket. It was heartrending to think of what she had missed.
‘Dreadful, it was,’ said Mrs Taylor. ‘I shan’t forget it to my dying day.’
‘All twisted up, was she?’ asked Mrs Posket.
‘No,’ said Mrs Taylor reluctantly. ‘Just lying as if she was asleep with her face on her arm.’
‘I should have thought if she’d been suffocated she’d have all been twisted up,’ said Mrs Posket, suspiciously. ‘What did she do it for?’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Mrs Taylor. ‘I was just asking Mrs Grainger when you came.’
‘P’raps the inquest’ll tell us,’ said Mrs Posket. She exchanged significant glances with Mrs Taylor. Not until that very moment had it occurred to the dead woman’s mother and sister that she might possibly have been pregnant – it took Mrs Posket’s presence to wake that suspicion. Mrs Clair caught sight of Marjorie’s white face.
‘Here, Marjorie,’ she said, briskly. ‘Inquest or no inquest, the housework’s got to be done. If you go upstairs and do the beds, I’ll get these crocks washed up and answer the door.’
But even then there were certain interruptions which demanded Marjorie’s personal attention. A policeman came with a thunderous rat-tat, and he had a letter for Mrs Grainger which he had to give into her hands – Mrs Clair would not do.
‘I’ve got one here for your husband, Mrs Grainger,’ said the constable.
‘He’s at his office,’ replied Marjorie.
‘The Gas Company’s showrooms in the High Street?’ asked the constable, studying his papers.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll deliver it to him there. Let me see. I’ve given your mother hers. That will be all, then. Thank you, madam.’
The envelope contained a command, backed up by hints of the severe consequences which would follow disobedience, to attend upon the inquest of Dorothy Evelyn Clair to be held at the coroner’s court at eleven o’clock a.m. on the twentieth of June – tomorrow. In her dazed state of mind Marjorie only guessed at the meaning of the summons by intuition – its slightly archaic wording made but a small impr
ession on her.
She had hardly returned upstairs to continue the weekly turning out of the big bedroom when there came another interruption. Derrick had managed to cut his finger, and he would not trust even his beloved Grannie to tie it up for him; no one would do except Mummy. Marjorie found a strip of rag and bandaged the nasty cut.
‘How did you do this, sonny?’ asked Marjorie.
Derrick only hung his head in silence, his howls suddenly stilled – a sure sign that he had been doing something he should not. His grandmother answered for him.
‘That’s what happens when naughty little boys open the dustbin,’ she said, and continued, explanatorily. ‘He’d been in the garden as good as gold for the last twenty minutes. He must have got to the dustbin the minute I was out of the kitchen. It was those broken bottles which cut him.’
‘Broken bottles?’ echoed Marjorie. As the only person who ever put anything in the dustbin she ought to know what was there, and she had no recollection at all of putting bottles, broken or unbroken, in the dustbin for months back.
‘You look and see,’ said Mrs Clair.
In the dustbin were the black fragments of two wine bottles – she could see there had been two because the necks and bottoms were still distinguishable. Marjorie guessed what they had contained; the highly alcoholic coarse red wine which had recently made its appearance in the local shops. Ted had brought a bottle home a few weeks back. Fermented and fortified in England, it saved the consumer a few pence in duty on every bottle, and was now, as Ted had pointed out, the cheapest drink (if speedy intoxication were the drinker’s sole aim) obtainable. A man could get drunk on it for at least a shilling less than he could do on whisky. But what two bottles – broken ones at that – were doing in her dustbin she could not guess at all. Ted could not have put them there, because he did not come home last night after leaving the showrooms and going to his billiards match. It was one of those mysteries which her brain was too weary to deal with.
And then, a few minutes after twelve o’clock, Anne came running in from school.
‘Mummy! Mummy! It isn’t true about Auntie Dot, is it?’
Marjorie felt that she ought to have guessed that the news of a suicide would in twelve hours have penetrated even among the children at school.
‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, Anne,’ she said ‘but I expect it’s true.’
Anne’s face distorted itself ready to cry while at the same moment her mouth opened to say what she head heard, but with a quick gesture Mrs Clair called her attention to Derrick’s presence, and with a shake of her head and a finger to her lip impressed upon her the need for silence so as not to upset the child. Anne was pleased with having in this fashion her immense superiority in age over Derrick acknowledged, at joining in a conspiracy of silence composed of three women.
Derrick, of course, had heard the words he ought not to have heard.
‘Auntie Dot!’ he said. ‘Auntie Dot! I like Auntie Dot. I hope she comes again soon.’
The silence with which his remarks were received he took as indicating what a profound impression they were making. He started again.
‘Auntie Dot! Auntie Dot!’
Ted had come in by now, and sat at the table waiting for his dinner.
‘Shut up!’ he blazed out suddenly at Derrick, and naturally Derrick howled again, and Anne cried in sympathy, and the meal was disordered and muddled. In the middle of the confusion Ted rose from the table and hurried out again – his lunch time interval was only three quarters of an hour, and he had in that time to walk up from the High Street and back – and left to the women the task of pacifying the children. When that was done Mrs Clair turned to her daughter.
‘You’re done up,’ she said. ‘You go straight upstairs and lie down. I’ll see Anne off to school and then I’ll take Derrick out in the park.’
Not more than once a month did Marjorie lie down in the afternoon, but today, a soon as her attention was called to her weariness, she found that she was yearning inexpressibly for rest. She hesitated a moment.
‘What about you, Mother?’ she asked. ‘You’re as tired as I am.’
‘Oh no I’m not,’ retorted Mrs Clair. ‘We don’t feel tired at my age. Off you go.’
Marjorie dragged herself upstairs, to the bedroom where the hot afternoon sun was beginning to find its way through the windows. She found she was too tired even to take off her dress; she sank onto the bed, turned on her side, and slept almost at once. Yet in her heavy sleep she dreamed tumultuously. Some of the dreams were disturbing, although silly – dreams about black fragments of wine bottles lying in a dustbin.
3
On Friday morning as Marjorie, with Derrick holding her hand, was walking along the High Street to do her shopping, the poster of the Weekly Advertiser caught her eye.
‘City Typist’s Rash Act’, she read, ‘Inquest full report.’
The city typist was Dot, she knew, and her rash act was her suicide. Marjorie rarely spent twopence upon the local paper, but she did so today. More extravagant still, she went into Mountain’s, the High Street café, where the rich women went, and she bought Derrick’s silence for a space by a fourpenny ice cream and a moment’s peace for herself in which to read the paper by her order for a fourpenny cup of coffee.
She found the column she was looking for quickly enough – a good juicy local suicide was bound to have prominent position in the local paper.
‘Mr Harley Brown, the Deputy Coroner, sitting without a jury, found a verdict of “Suicide while Temporarily Insane”, after inquiring into the death of Dorothy Evelyn Clair, shorthand typist, aged twenty-eight, of 16, Dewsbury Road, on the 18 th of June last. Doctor Aloysius Montgomery, in his evidence, said that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning as the result of inhaling coal gas. Deceased had eaten a meal and had drunk a perceptible amount of alcohol shortly before death. It was not unusual for persons contemplating suicide to drink freely in order to stimulate their courage. It was rarer for them to eat food, but he could not say that it was remarkable. He had known many cases. Deceased was three months pregnant.
‘Sergeant Hale, of the Metropolitan Police, gave evidence that he came to 77, Harrison Way, in reply to a telephone call, and found the girl there dead on the floor with her head inside the gas oven. He found no letters or any other indication of any motive for the act.
‘Marjorie Grainger, married, sister of the deceased, described how her sister came to look after the house at 77, Harrison Way during the evening while her husband and she were out. On returning home shortly before midnight she had smelt gas and on entering the kitchen had found the deceased as described. The kitchen was full of gas from the oven tap, and after turning out the gas and opening the window she telephoned for the police. She knew of no reason why her sister would be unhappy; she had always been bright and cheerful. She knew of one or two little flirtations on her sister’s part, but of no serious affair, certainly none in the last two years. Edward Grainger, her husband, corroborated.
‘Martha Clair, widow, mother of the deceased, said that her daughter had lived with her all her life at 16, Dewsbury Road. She was always a bright and cheerful girl, although she thought she had noticed a change in her during the last few weeks. Deceased had known very few men, and if there had been a serious affair she was sure she would have known about it.
‘Mabel Somerset, charity organizer, said the deceased had been in her employ as shorthand typist for the last four years. She had always found her diligent, cheerful and active. The course of her employment would bring her into contact with very few men. She knew of no reason why the girl should take her life. Her affairs were all in order.
‘Mr Harley Brown, in returning the verdict as above, said there was no doubt that this unfortunate girl had been betrayed by an unscrupulous man who did not have the courage to come forward and confess. He wished he knew who he was, although the publicity would not
be sufficient punishment for him.’
Marjorie dropped the newspaper on her lap when she had finished the column. The short, bald sentences, mangled by the reporter’s painful rendering of them into oratio obliqua, gave no clear impression of the scene in the court. Certainly it gave a wrong impression of the way she had given her evidence – of her stupid tears, and of the kindly questioning by the bald-headed Deputy Coroner which had coaxed her evidence from her; just as it gave no real picture of the Deputy Coroner’s righteous indignation, which had made him go all pink in the face, when he spoke of Dot’s betrayal – just as that cold, wicked word ‘deceased’ summoned up no picture of Dot, pretty and lighthearted and gay.
But there were two little passages in that report which stood out as though written in letters of fire. ‘Deceased was three months pregnant.’ Marjorie had known nothing of it – she had not even known while she was giving her evidence, as they had kept her out of court while the doctor was testifying. She had thought that the coroner’s kindly questions were directed to finding out if Dot had had an unfortunate love affair. Marjorie could not guess at all who was responsible, who it was who had been blessed with the free gift of Dot’s sweetness and virginity. There was no one she knew who was worthy of it. And surely if Dot had loved anyone dearly enough to do that, she would have told her about it. There had never been secrets between Dot and her.
‘Deceased had drunk a perceptible amount of alcohol.’ That was unlike Dot, too. Wine at weddings and a glass of Invalid Port on Christmas Day was all she had ever known Dot drink. It was hard to imagine Dot sitting down to drink herself drunk, even if she were so desperate as to be going to kill herself. A vision danced before her eyes suddenly – a vision of black fragments of broken wine bottles lying in the dustbin. But she could not picture Dot smashing wine bottles. It was puzzling, and made her head swim.