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Authors: The Companion

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‘In the dark?’ I asked, appalled.
‘Yes, Lizzie, in the darkness.’
‘All alone?’
‘Quite alone.’
I thought of the little boy, younger than myself, who had been forced to sit long hours alone in the darkness underground. I tried to imagine how frightened he must have been, and how lonely. I wondered if there had been any rats down there.
‘Why did he die?’ I whispered.
My father sighed. ‘I wrote on the certificate “exhaustion”. That didn’t please Harrison.’
‘Harrison is the man with the tall hat and the pipe?’
‘Yes. He has overall charge there. He was at pains to point out to me that the work the child did was not arduous and that
“exhaustion” was, in his view, an inappropriate choice for cause of death. I pointed out to him that exhaustion comes from many sources, hunger and fear among them. Harder to prove but just as real is the loss of all hope. I believe the child died because there was no longer any reason to live. But that is my private opinion and not a medical one. I shall explain it to the coroner as lack of food and general debility.’
Suddenly he struck his clenched fist on the rail to which the reins were hitched. ‘And it should not have been! For two years now it has been unlawful to employ a boy under the age of ten – or a woman or girl of any age – to work underground! Harrison knows that full well.’
‘So,’ I asked, ‘will Mr Harrison be punished?’
‘What?’ My father sounded amused but in a curiously mirthless way. ‘No, my dear, no one will be punished. Harrison will say he was unaware the child was so young. The parents will be frightened or bribed into confirming that they lied about their son’s age. I doubt anyone will even be fined. Or if the mine owners are fined, it will be a paltry sum. But it won’t happen again. I shall see to that. I shall make such a fuss that Harrison, for all his obstinacy and lack of any moral sense, will not dare to allow another child so young down the pit!’
He untangled the reins and shook them and we moved on again. The good luck token was in my pocket. I thought I would show it to my father when a suitable moment came. That would not be for a while yet. The pony, sensing it was on its way back to its comfortable stable, trotted swiftly with ears pricked and we were soon home again.
As my father led me indoors, we were again greeted with the sounds of a woman in tears. Molly Darby sat on the stairs with her pinafore pressed to her face, and was howling her eyes out because I was not to be found and she was blamed. She was being berated energetically by Mary Newling who stood over her accusing her of being an idle sleepyhead who would be turned
out of the house by the doctor when he got back, see if she wasn’t, and without a reference. Why, Miss Elizabeth might be anywhere and never seen again by any of them! The poor innocent could have been taken away by gipsies or fallen into a drain or run down by the carrier’s cart. The driver of that was nearly always drunk, as everyone knew.
‘Why, here she is,’ said my father, pushing me forward to prove none of these calamities had befallen me.
Molly screeched and leapt up, folding me to her capacious bosom.
‘Oh, sir! Oh, Miss Elizabeth! Wherever have you been? I swear, sir, I looked in on her at seven sharp and she was gone! I never heard a sound!’
‘Take her upstairs and clean her up,’ my father said wearily. ‘Mary, be so kind as to make me some tea.’
I looked down and saw that my hands and clothes were covered in a thin layer of the coal dust which hung always in the air above the mine workings. Presumably my face was equally begrimed.
As I was hauled up the stairs by Molly, my father called out again.
‘Wait!’
We stopped. Molly said fearfully, ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Lizzie,’ said my father to me.
‘Yes, Papa?’ I sounded as nervous as Molly, afraid I was now to receive some punishment for my escapade.
‘Always remember what you saw today,’ my father said. ‘Remember, if you will, that it represents the true price of coal.’
As soon as I was able, I put my coal fern with my other childish ‘treasures’ in a battered japanned box. I knew I would never forget what I had witnessed that morning. I didn’t fully understand my father’s last remark. But after that day I never again heard Mary Newling complain about the price of sitting-room or any other coal.
 
 
My father was good man and an affectionate parent. But he had a great deal on his mind. As long as I appeared happy and in good health, he didn’t worry about me. Nevertheless, my hiding in the trap that morning must have given him food for thought. He realised I was in a fair way to grow up a complete little savage. Shortly after the episode at the mine, Molly Darby left our house to marry a farmer and was replaced by a governess, Madame Leblanc. It was typical of my father that he engaged this person chiefly because she was in desperate need of a situation and could start at once. Once again his good nature overcame his common sense.
I soon decided that there had never been a Monsieur Leblanc and the ‘Madame’ was a courtesy title. But she was really French and claimed to have come to England many years before as governess to a very good family. Unfortunately, this family had now removed itself lock, stock and barrel to India and therefore couldn’t provide her with any references.
I overheard Mary Newling tell a visitor in the kitchen. ‘Governess, my eye! That one earned her keep in the bedroom, not the schoolroom! Well, maybe she’s lost those charms, but she’s still got a silver tongue. The doctor is too good-hearted and listens to any tale of woe!’
I did mark her words though I didn’t understand them. Poor Madame Leblanc had certainly fallen on hard times and was pathetically grateful to my father for rescuing her. She was about forty-five or -six, a real sparrow of a little woman with very dark reddish hair (I overheard Mary Newling declare this was the result of henna). She had deep-set dark eyes, tiny hands and feet, and moved with quick deft movements. Unfortunately her own education had been rather sketchy. She could teach me to read and write as well in French as in English and to speak the language fluently, but that was about it, apart from some simple arithmetic. Her idea of geography was vague and the only history she knew was French. It consisted entirely of wild romantic tales of knights
and kings that I loved to hear. She was a royalist true to the
ancien regime
, who spoke with scorn of the upstart and former emperor Bonaparte and even more furiously of the rascally
Orléanistes.
When the uprising of 1848 drove Louis-Philippe from the throne he had usurped eighteen years before, her satisfaction was intense. ‘Better a republic than that traitor, Orleans,
chère
Elizabeth!’
Sadly, when news reached us that in a further upset in French politics Louis-Napoleon, nephew of the old monster Boney, had declared himself emperor of the French it was more than Madame Leblanc could bear. She consoled herself liberally with a bottle of brandy and passed out insensible on the drawing-room sofa. She was found there in the early morning, with the empty bottle alongside her, when Mary Newling went in to clear the hearth and set the fire. This lapse couldn’t be ignored and she left us. I was sorry to see her go as I had become very fond of her. I lacked friends of my own age and Madame had been more than a governess: a companion who always had time to listen.
I was now fourteen and my father decided he would take over my education himself. He never actually got round to doing this, because of his other commitments. I educated myself by reading voraciously any book I could lay my hands on.
Poor Madame; I thought about her now. Whatever had become of her after leaving our house? How similar my circumstances had become to hers, seeking a roof and employment! It was unlikely she had gone from us to another respectable situation. Perhaps she had finished up going from door to door selling little trinkets and items of stationery?
However, life went on. Mary Newling stayed with us until extreme age forced her to retire and live with a widowed sister. I became my father’s housekeeper with the help of a maid. My father’s death, when it came, was sudden but peaceful. He had said that he was tired and would go to bed early. He never awoke. His funeral was attended by almost the entire town. I was left to sort out his affairs.
They were in a terrible state. It was quickly obvious I could look forward to nothing but almost complete destitution. Many of my father’s poorer patients had never paid him and he had never pressed them. He had also helped out many of them by giving them sums of money to tide them over while they were unable to work. This meant there was none left to settle his debts. Among the record of monies he had paid out over the years was a curious reference to regularly weekly sums paid out to two women named only as Mrs Ross and Mrs Lee but there was no evidence of his having treated them for any illness. Why he had paid them over so long a period was a mystery. If Mary Newling had still been alive I could have asked her about it, but she had died a couple of years earlier. That puzzle, at least, had been solved today by Inspector Ross.
At the time I’d had no leisure to worry about it, as it was obvious I would have to sell the house, pay the debts, and find myself lodgings. So I sold up and, having settled outstanding matters, gave a small sum to the maid together with a glowing reference. I told her I was sorry I couldn’t do more for her.
She said, ‘That’s quite all right, miss!’
But I could see she thought the money very little and that I was very mean. Did she but know the truth of it, I needed every penny until I could find some means of supporting myself. In the meantime, I took a room in the house of a widowed neighbour, Mrs Neale, at a small weekly outlay, my food included. She had known me nearly all my life. I knew she had offered help partly out of her genuine concern for me and partly because it embarrassed her to think that Dr Martin’s daughter had nowhere to go.
I could well imagine the gossip my circumstances occasioned in the town, the reproaches heaped on my poor father’s head. I was sure he would not have left me in such dire straits out of thoughtlessness. He had simply been relatively young, only fifty-seven years old, and believed himself in good health. He had not
expected Death to knock so early at the door with a summons that could not be refused. He had supposed there would be time to make some provision for me – or perhaps thought I might marry – but neither of these things had happened.
Now I did not need to imagine the looks of pity and concern directed towards me by all as I passed by. No one troubled to hide them. Nor did I think kindly Mrs Neale would want me under her roof indefinitely. She was already dropping hints. I must leave here, but where should I go? Owing to Madame Leblanc’s erratic tutorial skills, I lacked all knowledge of those accomplishments reckoned necessary for young ladies. The post of governess, always a refuge for young women in my situation, was closed to me. The thought did cross my mind I might give lessons in the French language, if only there were any in our town who wanted to learn it. But enquiry soon showed me there were none.
In desperation I swallowed my pride and wrote to those few acquaintances of my father who might be in a position to help me find some employment.To my surprise and joy I received a positive response from the widow of my godfather, Josiah Parry. Mrs Parry wrote that she was sorry to hear of my father’s passing and supposed that I was now in a pretty fix, since my father had never had any head for finance. If I wished to come to London and live with her I could do so. She was in need of a companion. She was in a position to offer me a home, bed and board, and a suitable salary could be discussed when we met. She would like me to start at once.
There was no question but that I’d accept, even though I had never met the lady and only latterly dimly remembered once meeting the sad gentleman who had given me a shilling.
It was a leap into the unknown, but I had no choice.
So it had come about that only a day or two after my twenty-ninth birthday, I set out for London, purchasing a railway ticket from my meagre resources. Here in London I had quite unexpectedly met a figure from my home and from the past.
I took the shale fern from the lacquer box and wondered if in some magical way it was responsible for this unexpected reunion and if anything, good or ill, would come of it.
Ben Ross
I KNEW her as soon as I saw her. She did not know me, of course, until I told her who I was. But then she remembered the boy at the pithead. In this teeming city I had seen dreadful things and my heart had often been heavy at the thought of the wretchedness suffered by so many. Now, when my mind was occupied with the violence done to one in particular and the difficulty of the task ahead of me, to find Lizzie Martin and know she remembered a moment twenty years before had lifted my spirits in a way nothing else could have done.
But I did not like her being in that house. From there Madeleine Hexham had walked out to her death. She had been companion to the owner, Mrs Parry. Now Lizzie had stepped into Miss Hexham’s shoes. I remembered the little kid boots with the well-moulded uppers and little-worn soles. I hoped I would never hold a pair of Lizzie Martin’s boots in my hand and speculate as I had done once before on the fate of their owner.
That we believed we might be lucky enough to identify the dead woman almost at once had been a great encouragement to us; although, as Morris had early observed, someone must have missed her. Enquiries at police stations in the central London area had revealed a young female of that general description had been reported missing from home at Marylebone Police Station
by Mr Francis Carterton (whom I now knew his intimates to call Frank!). It was for Mr Carterton I was waiting in my office early that Wednesday evening. I hoped he would settle the matter of identification once and for all.
The day shift had departed and the night shift was arriving. The building was quiet. I sat at my desk and, to focus my concentration, sharpened pencils. I soon had a battalion of them set out on my desktop in a parade order but I was no further forward. Although Carterton might be able to confirm the identity of the deceased, the mystery of her unexplained disappearance had deepened. She had been reported missing some two months before. She had been dead at the most two weeks. Marylebone division had not exactly set the ground afire beneath their feet in looking for her. They had made some enquiries in the neighbourhood but no one seemed to remember her in any detail, let alone have any precise information. The superintendent of that division had noted that she would turn up sooner or later, alive or dead.
I was irritated by what appeared a casual attitude on the part of the officers concerned but I wasn’t sure I could have done any better. People choose to disappear in great cities all the time. Not all of them are men. It was, in a sense, more difficult for a young female to do so, certainly one of Miss Hexham’s background. But nevertheless they did it from time to time. The only significant detail in the police report was that she had taken no personal possessions or clothing with her. The Marylebone man’s last note read, with a sense of weary resignation, ‘Inform river police.’
Suicide. That’s what he had suspected. But in the absence of a body, he could not be sure.
We now had a body: but not that of a suicide. She had not dashed out her own brains nor contrived to hide her remains under a rotted carpet in a house scheduled for demolition in Agar Town. But could we be haring off along a false trail? Was the dead woman Madeleine or someone whose appearance resembled hers? The clothes in which our corpse had been found were very similar
to those Madeleine Hexham had been described as wearing at the time of her disappearance. Since my call in Dorset Square I had acquired some further information but instead of serving to clear the fog of incomprehension it had made it denser. There was the matter of the letter of which Mrs Parry had spoken. Had Madeleine Hexham written it herself or written it perhaps under duress? If only the letter had been kept! It might have told us so much. It began horribly to look as if I was right and the victim had been held somewhere against her will during the missing weeks. How much light Carterton would be able to shed on all of this was uncertain, if indeed he was able to shed any.
I had sent a note to the Foreign Office asking him to call at Scotland Yard. I thought he would prefer that to my calling at his place of work and arousing much curiosity. Even though I would not have been in uniform, I knew I’d be spotted as a policeman immediately, just as I had been when visiting the Agar Town site with Morris. Rich and poor, respectable and criminal, Foreign Office clerks, upper servants and navvies, all of them knew the Law when it hove into view – and none of them liked having it around.
I was curious see Frank Carterton. When he eventually strode into my office he was very much what I had expected: a smart young gentleman about town. Women would find him handsome and probably appealing. There was a cultivated boyishness about him which would endear him to the gentle sex and aroused instant hostility in me. His clothing was from the hand of expert tailors and would have cost a pretty penny. I was not aware the Foreign Office paid its junior staff so generously but possibly he had some private income. His aunt, with whom he resided, obviously had no money worries. In the long term, he would have expectations of her estate, I didn’t doubt. Murder had been committed more than once to preserve such hopes.
‘See here,’ he began, tossing down his cane and hat and seating himself uninvited. ‘This is a foul business, Inspector. There is not
the slightest doubt, I suppose, that the dead woman is Maddie Hexham?’
He and I were worried by the same doubt but came at it, if you like, from opposite directions. I feared the body might not be that of the missing companion. He feared that it was.
It is natural to hope and natural also to wish to avoid unpleasantness. I have brought similar bad news to people before and it’s odd how their reaction is so often torn between despair and apprehension. They know now they will never see the missing loved one again, at least not this side of Jordan. But they fear the notoriety that will inevitably follow the grisly discovery.
‘It is indeed a foul business,’ I agreed. ‘We are cautiously certain she is Miss Hexham.’
‘Cautiously certain? You fellows are like lawyers. You never want to put your name to any statement without having a way to wriggle out of it.’
I was interested in Carterton’s experience of lawyers. I didn’t disagree with his view but I wondered where he had gained it.
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ Carterton went on, ‘that my superiors at the Foreign Office are taking a dim view of it.’ He pushed back his dark hair and scowled down at my desk. ‘I had to tell them. It will be in every newspaper and penny sheet.’
I wondered to what degree he was distressed to know Miss Hexham murdered and how much he was worried that the speculation and the undoubted interest of the newspapers would affect his own prospects. The impression I got at the moment was that the latter concerned him more. It made it easier to ask him what was in my mind. I no longer had to worry about his feelings. I even took a perverse satisfaction in anticipating the reaction to the request I was about to make.
‘The clothing certainly tallies with hers and there is a pocket handkerchief with her initials on it. The general description fits her. We should appreciate it, however, if you could bring yourself to take a look at her, just to confirm the identification.’
He was, as I expected, horrified. He stared at me, open-mouthed and altogether aghast. ‘Look at her?’ he gasped. ‘View the – the remains?’
Yes, my fine popinjay,
I thought to myself. Aloud I expressed my regret at having to impose upon him in such an unpleasant way.
‘I cannot force you to do it, sir. But in matters like this, well, we have to be certain and anyone may have come by her gown and be of similar build. I can hardly ask her employer, Mrs Parry, to do it. The young woman appears to have had no family and, if she did, they are a long way from here. I understand her to have hailed from an area near to Durham, very far north, and to first find someone and then bring them here …’
‘Yes, yes!’ he snapped. ‘I understand your difficulty. You cannot ask such a thing of my aunt, naturally. I am the – the only man in the household. The job is mine. Is – is …’ he faltered. ‘Is she much disfigured?’
‘Somewhat, sir, I’m afraid. She has been dead perhaps two weeks, perhaps a little less.’
‘Two weeks? But she’s been missing much longer than that! Look here, are you sure this poor woman can be Hexham? It doesn’t make sense.’
His face had reddened in anger. I sympathised. If I was puzzled, so was he. His natural reaction was that we had made a mistake and he’d been hauled here needlessly. He’d been equally needlessly embarrassed at the Foreign Office. If all this turned out to be a mare’s nest, it still wouldn’t be forgotten in those hallowed halls of propriety. ‘Ah, young Carterton,’ the comment would go in years to come, ‘wasn’t there some fuss about a dead woman the police couldn’t identify?’
Perhaps, I thought ruefully, it wasn’t such an odd thing that no one like having the police appear in their lives. We muddied waters which never quite cleared again.
‘The doctor who examined the body gives two weeks as the maximum period since death,’ I said, taking refuge in a known
fact. He couldn’t argue with that. ‘We don’t yet have an explanation for that but our object is to come up with one eventually. First, though, we have to be absolutely sure we have the right woman.’
Carterton passed a hand nervously over his mouth. ‘I see. Of course, if she had been dead eight weeks or more then to look at her would be useless, to say nothing of repulsive. Even at two weeks … Is there anything to be gained by my doing this? If she is unrecognisable …’
I ignored the appeal which had entered his voice and expression. ‘Oh, I hope she is not that. I will say no more, sir. I must not influence you.’
‘Has she – has the surgeon … ?’
‘Yes, sir, but you won’t see anything of his work, just her face, sir. The rest will be covered up.’
Carterton looked away, swallowed hard and rubbed his hand over his mouth again. ‘Very well,’ he muttered. ‘When and where?’
‘At a mortuary, sir. We can go there immediately. I anticipated that a gentleman like yourself would wish to help and I asked them to expect us.’
‘Of course I want to help!’ he almost snarled at me. ‘But, oh dash it; let us be about it, then.’
He stood up and grasped his hat and cane, setting the hat on his head in a determined way, striking the crown of it with the flat of his hand.
‘That’s a fine cane, sir,’ I observed.
It was, indeed, with a silver tip emblazoned with some crest or other.
He looked at me blankly and then at the cane. ‘Oh, that, it belonged to my late father, the only thing he left me. This …’ He indicated the crest. ‘These are the arms of his regiment.’
He had given me valuable information about himself without realising it. He had not a penny of his own, only his meagre salary. He depended on his aunt’s good will, then. Only she could have
paid for the clothes, the quality boots and the linen. In such a situation he was vulnerable not only to the opinion of his Foreign Office superiors but to that of the kind relative who paid his bills.
He grew visibly more morose and nervous as we neared our destination. When we got inside, his mood turned to a mixture of belligerence which I guessed hid his fear, and an unconvincing swagger serving the same purpose.
‘Come on, then, where is she?’ He glanced around him with his mouth twisted in distaste. ‘This place has a deuced unpleasant smell to it.’
‘That will be the gas, sir,’ I murmured.
Understandably this confused and alarmed him more before I pointed to the gas flame which hissed in the background and emitted an insidious odour.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Of course, quite …’
The daylight had been fading fast and on our journey over here we had passed the lamplighter who had been making his tour of the city’s street lamps. Gaslight outdoors is a boon. Gaslight indoors, in my book, is a mixed blessing. The Parry household, I had noticed, was provided with gas jets. It was a wealthy home in the nation’s capital. My own landlady could not afford to have the gas connected and relied on lamps and candles, which suited me. I consider gas jets in the home to be unhealthy and dangerous. But then, a pitman is only too aware of the danger posed by a naked flame.
Carmichael was not here but his eerie assistant awaited us. He still wore his butcher’s apron and hovered by the sheeted body, casting malicious looks at Carterton. He avoided my eye. He knew I didn’t care for him. I took a look at my companion. He had turned as white as the porcelain slab and dabbed sweat from his brow and upper lip.
I took pity on him. ‘Now, sir, let us know when you are ready. Take a good look and if you are not sure, speak up and say so. We had rather you expressed doubt than you gave an opinion you didn’t really hold.’
He nodded and gestured at the assistant to turn back the sheet. When the man did so with deft movements of his long thin fingers, the odour of death was released, that singular sweet rottenness which even the commercial gas could not disguise. Her face only was revealed, as I had promised Carterton. The sheet covered her body to the neck and the crown of her head was swathed in a white cloth which obscured the worst of the injury to the skull. Some flaxen hair escaped from beneath it. In this framework the bruised and mottled features with sunken cheeks, half-closed eyes and lips, all with the purplish grey tinge of encroaching decomposition, did not appear quite real. It was a grotesque mask. There was no life here of any nature; the spirit had fled. It was but a fast-deteriorating husk but none the less pathetic. I asked myself whether it had been realistic thinking to bring Carterton here and expect a positive identification. I cast an apprehensive look at him.

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