Barbara Bradford - A Woman of Substance

‘No, and she weren’t poorly yesterday either,’ intoned Murgatroyd in a woebegone voice. He looked at Emma with gravity, and for once there was no hostility in his manner towards her. ‘She tummeled down t’stairs during t’night. Broke her neck, so Dr Mac says.’

Emma gasped, and, reeling, she gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Her eyes, wide and dazed, were riveted on the butler.

Murgatroyd inclined his head in Annie’s direction. ‘Yon lass found her at five-thirty this morning, when she went up ter take t’ashes out of the grates. Stiff as a board the missis was. Lying at the bottom of the front staircase in the entrance hall. That she was, and in her nightclothes. Fair scared the living daylights out of yon Annie, who come running ter fetch me like the Divil himself was after her.’

‘It just can’t be so,’ Emma groaned, pressing her knuckles to her blanched mouth. Her eyes welled with tears.

‘Aye, horrible it was, ter see her lying there, her eyes wide and open and all starey like, and glazed. And her head dangling loose like a broken doll’s. I knows when I touched her she’d been dead for hours. Cold as marble, she was.’

Murgatroyd paused in his harrowing litany, and then went on, ‘I carried her upstairs, fair gentle like, and laid her on her bed. And she might not have been dead at all. She looked ever so beautiful, just like she always was, with all that golden hair strewn about the pillow. Except for her staring eyes. I tried ter close ’em. But they just wouldn’t shut. I had ter put two pennies on ’em, till Dr Mac got here. The poor, poor missis.’

The shaken and stupefied Emma dropped heavily into one of the chairs at the table. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she fished around in her pocket for the bit of clean rag that served as a handkerchief, and wiped her face. She hunched in the chair, so stunned and appalled she could hardly think. But gradually her composure returned, and it was then that she recognized she had grown extremely fond of Adele Fairley. She was doomed, Emma said to herself. And then she thought: I knew summat awful would happen here, in this terrible house, one day.

The silence in the sun-filled kitchen was leaden, broken only by the muffled sobs of the weeping Cook. After a few minutes, the butler emerged from his pantry and said, with sour bluntness, ‘All this ’ere weeping and wailing like a lot of banshees has ter stop, yer knows.’ He spoke to the room at large, his eyes sweeping over them all. ‘We have our duties ter attend ter. There’s the family ter consider.’

Emma looked at him alertly, thinking compassionately of Edwin and the grief he must be experiencing at the news of his mother’s untimely and shocking death. ‘The children,’ she said, through her subsiding tears, and blew her nose. ‘Do they know?’

‘Dr Mac’s talking ter Master Edwin in the library right this minute,’ Murgatroyd informed her. ‘I told Master Gerald meself, after I’d got the missis upstairs ter her room, and afore I sent Tom ter the village for the doctor. Master Gerald waited for Dr Mac, who dispatched him posthaste ter Newby Hall ter fetch the Squire home.’

‘What about Mrs Wainright?’ Emma ventured.

Murgatroyd threw her a scathing look. ‘Do yer think I’m a gormless fool, lass? I already thought of that. Dr Mac wrote out a telegram, and Master Gerald is ter send it ter her in Scotland, from t’first post office he comes ter that’s open.’ The butler cleared his throat, and went on, ‘Now, lass, let’s get a move on down ’ere. For a start, mash a pot of tea. The doctor needs a cup-’ He glanced around the room and his beady eyes settled on Mrs Turner. ‘So does Cook by the looks of it.’

Emma nodded, and hurried off to do as he had told her. Murgatroyd now addressed Cook in a louder voice. ‘Come on, Mrs Turner. Pull yourself together, woman. There’s a lot ter be done. We can’t all collapse, yer knows.’

Cook lifted her sorrowful face and regarded Murgatroyd fretfully. Her ample bosom was still heaving, but her sobbing had ceased. She pushed herself up out of the chair, nodding her head. ‘Aye, there’s the bairns ter think about, and the Squire.’ She wiped her damp and streaked face on her apron again, and then looked down at it, still shaking her head. ‘Let me change me pinny, and then I’ll start on breakfast. Not that I thinks anybody’ll want owt.’

‘Dr Mac might want a bite,’ Murgatroyd said. ‘I’m off up ter see him now. And ter draw the curtains. We must show the proper respect for the dead.’

Cook, who was changing her pinafore, said quickly, ‘Did yet send Tom ter the village ter get Mrs Stead? Ter lay the missis out? She’s the best by here for that job.’

‘Aye, I did that.’

At the mention of her mother’s name a flicker of comprehension entered Annie’s deadened eyes. ‘Yer’ve sent for me mam,’ she said slowly, rousing herself from the stupor that had enveloped her for the last few hours.

‘I did, Annie,’ Murgatroyd asserted. ‘She should be here any minute, and yer’d best look a bit more lively, afore she does arrive. She’s got enough on her hands with the laying out. She don’t needs ter be worrying about thee, lass.’

The cook shuffled over to Annie and put her arms around her, looking down into the girl’s pale face. ‘Do yer feel a bit better, luv?’ she asked solicitously.

‘Aye, I thinks so,’ Annie mumbled. ‘It gave me a right fright,’ she gasped, ‘finding the missis like that.’ Her shaky voice cracked with emotion, and finally the tears suppressed by shock flowed unchecked.

‘Have a good cry, luv. Get it out of yer system, afore yer mam gets here. Yer don’t want ter be upsetting her, now do yer, luv?’ Annie buried her head against Cook’s comforting body, sobbing softly. Mrs Turner patted her shoulder and stroked her hair, murmuring kindly to her, and with motherly concern.

Satisfied that a degree of order had been restored, Murgatroyd turned on his heels and swiftly mounted the stairs. First he would consult with Dr Mac, to see if he had any further instructions, and then he must go around the house, drawing all the curtains, shutting out the light until after the funeral, as was the custom in the North after a death in the family.

Emma made the tea and they sat drinking it in silence, all of them subdued and sorrowing. It was Annie who finally spoke first. She looked at Emma across the table and said, ‘I wish yer’d been here this weekend, Emma. Then yer’d have found the missis instead of me.’ Annie’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll never forget that look on the missis’s face. Like she’d seen summat horrible afore she fell.’

Emma stared at Annie through narrowed eyes. ‘What on earth do yer mean?’

Annie gulped. ‘It was like she’d seen-seen one of them there abominations me main says walks over t’moors at night,’ Annie said, dropping her voice.

‘Now, Annie, shut thee gob, lass. By gum, I won’t have no fanciful talk about the spirits of the dead in this ’ere house,’ Mrs Turner snapped. ‘All them silly village superstitions. Stuff and nonsense, if yer asks me.’

Emma scowled. ‘I wonder what Mrs Fairley was doing? Coming downstairs in the middle of the night. Murgatroyd said she’d been dead for hours. She must’ve been wandering around at two or three o’clock in the morning.’

Annie volunteered quietly, ‘I knows what she was doing.’

Both Mrs Turner and Emma stared at her in surprise, and with expectancy. ‘And how do yer knows, Annie Stead?’ asked Cook imperiously. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, yer were fast asleep in yer room in the attic. Or yer should’ve been.’

‘Aye, I was. But it was me that found her. And there was broken glass all around her body. From one of the best wine goblets, it was. She was still clutching part of t’stem, and there was dried blood on her hand, like rust, where she’d cut herself.’ Annie shivered at the remembrance, and whispered, ‘I bet she was coming down ter the library ter get herself a nip, ’cos I’ve sme-’