A Christmas Hope: A Novel Read online

  She walked across the yard to the mews and then into the stable. She looked around for the groom or the coachman and did not see them. Thankful not to have to explain herself, in case either man should feel obliged to tell Wallace about the stranger, out of a sense of duty, she went into the hayloft.

  “I have your breakfast,” she said quietly. “If you would like it, please come and take it.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then a man appeared and climbed slowly down the ladder. Claudine’s eyes widened in shock. It was Dai Tregarron. He was still in his dark suit from the previous evening but now had dust and pieces of hay sticking to him and poking out of his wild, dark hair. He was conspicuously unshaven.

  “Thank you,” he said gravely, taking the sandwich and the eggs from her. He bit into them hungrily, perhaps for fear she would remove them again now that she knew her fugitive was he.

  “How did you get away from the party?” she asked after a beat. She ought to have fled back to the house, she supposed, but she was rather curious. “The police were looking for you. That girl was very badly hurt, you know.”

  A moment’s grief touched his face; he looked tired, and older than she had previously judged him to be. There was an air of desperation about him, and for an instant she felt a brush of physical fear for her safety. What was she doing standing here alone in the stable with a man who had beaten a street woman half to death, simply because he had lost his temper? Claudine was a tall woman, and fairly strong. But if three hardy young men hadn’t been able to stop Tregarron, she doubted she would be able to defend herself against him. If he attacked her, he would be long gone before anyone came to help her. Ada wouldn’t think to interrupt right away, and the groom did not know either of them were here.

  “What are you doing here, and how did you get here?” she repeated more sharply, taking a step backward, away from him.

  “In the dark I looked enough like a footman to ride as such on the back of your coach,” he replied with his mouth full. “Don’t blame your coachman. He’s a gentle soul who didn’t know the police were looking for me. Thought he was just giving some poor devil a lift.”

  She was confused. He had beaten Winnie and fled from the scene without even waiting to see if she was still alive, and yet he was asking her not to be harsh on the coachman. Her confusion made her angry, though. She resented the emotions he aroused in her.

  “The girl is in hospital,” she retorted. “She was still unconscious when we left.”

  His eyes widened: great dark pools of misery, depths beneath depths.

  “I didn’t do that to her, Olwen! Are you too innocent to see the darkness in three elegant young men with their scrubbed-clean privilege and their drunkenness of the soul?” He touched the darkening bruise on his face, which was half hidden by his black hair. For the first time she noticed the blood on him. “That’s their work,” he went on. “The blood is from trying to defend her from them, not hers to defend herself from me.”

  She wanted to believe him, but it seemed such an obvious thing to say. Why should he admit to beating her, even if it were true? And why would rich, comfortable, and responsible young men at a Christmas party with their parents have anything to do with a street woman?

  Yet she wanted to believe Tregarron. It was perverse of her. Did she like him simply because he had flattered her, and because he, too, was an outsider, excluded in a way that matched her own sense of isolation?

  “You’d better leave,” she said, as if it were a decision she had suddenly reached. “I’ll send the groom on an errand, so you can be sure he doesn’t know you were here, or which way you went. The police will still be looking for you.”

  “What about your maid?” he asked. “Don’t get the girl into trouble by lying for me.”

  “Do you think I’m going to tell her who you are?” she demanded. “To her, you’re just a tramp, someone she was sorry for, because she’s a kindhearted girl. Give me five minutes, then go.”

  “And yourself?” he asked, still without moving. “Or are you above the law, Olwen?”

  She felt the warm color wash up her cheeks. “Are you going to stand there arguing and asking stupid questions or get whatever coat you have and get away while you can?” she snapped.

  “I’ll go … thank you.” He said it with a bow so slight she was not sure whether she had seen it or imagined it.

  Without speaking again she turned on her heel and went to look for the groom. She would find some errand that would keep him away from the mews for at least a quarter of an hour.

  It was close to mid-morning when the police arrived. It was Sergeant Green again. Claudine recognized him from the previous evening, although he somehow looked different in the hard winter sunlight. He had with him a constable.

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” she said politely when the maid showed him into the sitting room. “Have you any news of the poor girl who was injured last night?”

  “Not yet, ma’am,” he replied. “She was in a bad way. I’m here because we’re still looking for Mr. Tregarron. I don’t suppose you would know where he might be?”

  She did not have to feign surprise at being asked so directly.

  “No. I’ve no idea.”

  “You see, one of the other guests said you appeared to know him,” he explained. “A Mrs. Crostwick. Said you were in quite close conversation with him.”

  Eppy Crostwick! Her jealous and troublemaking tongue.

  “It was a party,” Claudine explained. “As far as I knew, he was another guest. It is part of the function of such gatherings that one should make pleasant conversation with people, whoever they are. It is good manners and a courtesy toward one’s host to assure that whoever else they invite should be made welcome. Certainly I had never met Mr. Tregarron before.”

  Sergeant Green regarded her a little skeptically. “Mrs. Crostwick said you seemed to know him quite well,” he insisted.

  Claudine kept her irritation in control. She was lying to the police about a man suspected of a very ugly crime. She could not afford to let emotion overtake her judgment. She forced herself to smile at the policeman in front of her.

  “It was an agreeable conversation,” she explained. “About beautiful and inspiring things. Such discussions cause me to smile. Perhaps she mistook that for a greater acquaintance than was the case.”

  “You met him on the terrace,” he pointed out. “Alone.”

  “Good heavens! I know Eppy Crostwick is an inveterate gossip, but that implication is ridiculous. I went outside into the air for a few moments because the music and the crowded atmosphere were making my head ache. I have no idea why Mr. Tregarron was there, and I didn’t ask him. We spoke for a few minutes, and then I came inside again.” Deliberately she turned the barb against herself. “Look at me, Sergeant. Do I look like the kind of woman Dai Tregarron seeks out for an assignation on the terrace?”

  Sergeant Green was clearly caught on the wrong foot. That was not the sort of response he had foreseen. He decided to retreat with what grace he could.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Mrs. Crostwick is a bit unfortunate in her suggestions. I should have known better. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “On the contrary, you flatter me,” she said with a faint smile. “I’m afraid I have no idea where Mr. Tregarron is. But please feel free to look anywhere you wish, to be certain. Just don’t alarm my staff and make them imagine they are in any danger.”

  “No … of course not. Thank you, ma’am.”

  She went with both of them, showing them the entire house, from the servants’ quarters in the attic to the wine and the coal cellars beneath ground level. She caught Ada’s eye once, smiled at her, and moved on.

  When he was satisfied, Claudine thanked Sergeant Green and his constable for their courtesy and for assuring that the household was indeed quite clear of intruders of any sort, either a fugitive from justice or a casual burglar. She bade them good-bye and watched them leave with a sigh of relief.


  She sat down to a light luncheon with a feeling of peculiar exhaustion, as if she had spent the morning in some dangerous and highly energetic work. Dai Tregarron must have made good his escape, but she knew he was still in very considerable danger. Apart from Wallace—who she hoped would never know about the day’s adventure—Tregarron also had against him the Foxleys, the Halversgates, the Crostwicks, and the Giffords. All of them would feel equally aggrieved by his intrusion into their world, even though someone had presumably invited him to the party in the first place. Whatever it was that had actually happened to Winnie Briggs, none of them would wish to be tarred by it, and they had the collective power to make sure that they were not.

  What could Claudine do? Tregarron was free for the moment, but the police would catch him eventually. Maybe one of the young men from the party would tell the truth—or even poor Winnie, were she to regain consciousness and have any memory of the night! Of course Claudine assumed that the police would visit Winnie and ask her all the appropriate questions. However, if Winnie was the kind of woman everyone was assuming her to be, then the police were, on many levels, her natural enemy. Claudine, with her work in the clinic, would be a friend. If she wanted to know the truth, then the obvious thing was for her to speak with Winnie herself. Quite apart from that, ordinary humanity dictated that she go and see the girl, who, if conscious, was probably alone and feeling both frightened and in considerable pain. If she had friends they might well not know where she was. Or if they did, but were of her same circumstances, they might fear any kind of authority, enough to keep them from visiting her.

  She put money in her purse, in case any purchases were needed—food or clothes, perhaps some small luxury that would ease her distress—then set out for the hospital.

  As she arrived at the large gray building with its long corridors and its permanent smell of carbolic and sounds of echoing footsteps, she wondered who might have been here before her to question Winnie. Would Winnie even remember what had happened? Sometimes a hard blow to the head and a spell of unconsciousness destroyed the memory. Or, if Tregarron was telling the truth, what if Creighton Foxley or one of the other young men had already been here? Would they have persuaded her that it was not any of them who had hurt her? Might they have helped jog her memory with their own accounts and perhaps words of warning as to how difficult life could be for her if she chose to make an unwise testimony to the police?

  Or, of course, there was the more humane but equally effective path of a monetary inducement to recall a few events just a trifle differently. Even something like ten guineas would be a windfall to a girl on the street fighting for every penny. Why would she forfeit such a chance?

  And then there was the other possibility, the coldest and most realistic of all: that it really had been Dai Tregarron, blind drunk and fragile tempered, who had struck her, possibly not even knowing what he was doing at the time. To say that might not be a lie, just an accurate description of his drunken state, hovering between physical reality and the intoxicated worlds of the imagination, or the darkness where nightmares and vision collide.

  Claudine reported to the nurse in charge, who viewed her coldly until she mentioned the clinic and Hester Monk’s name. Then the response was quite different: a sudden flash of warmth. She was taken by a more junior nurse, who was hurried and overbusy, to where Winnie Briggs lay motionless on a narrow cot, one in a row of many others just like it. The ward was horribly impersonal, but it was both clean and reasonably airy, a legacy of Florence Nightingale’s unceasing battle for improved hospital conditions.

  Even so, Claudine was horrified when she saw the young woman lying under the stiff sheets. She was still unconscious, breathing shallowly. Her face was even more swollen now, and the bruises were black-and-blue. The blood had been washed away, but that made the extent of her injuries more obvious. One eye was closed, and—until the flesh resumed its normal proportions—it would be impossible to see out of it. There were also bruises on her slender neck and across her shoulders. One could not judge her age, except that it must be between fifteen and thirty.

  Claudine had seen many beaten women before. In the clinic it was a common occurrence: prostitutes punished by their pimps for laziness, theft, or simply lack of earnings; or beaten by dissatisfied customers who hated them, hated the world, or despised themselves for what they had become.

  “Has she stirred at all?” she asked the nurse.

  The nurse shook her head fractionally. “Not so far as I know, ma’am.”

  “Has anyone been to see her?” she pressed.

  “Doctor’s been to see her, but there in’t nothing much he can do.”

  “I meant visitors. Police, friends, anyone at all?”

  “I don’t know. People come and go. I don’t know as she’s done anything wrong. Why would the police want to see her?”

  Claudine knew the woman was tired, overworked, and probably underappreciated, but the question seemed stupid. She controlled her anger with an effort.

  “Because someone beat her senseless,” she replied. “That’s a crime, no matter who she is.”

  The nurse shook her head. “That happens all the time,” she said quietly, as if it were Claudine, not she, who was the ignorant one.

  “I’m sorry,” Claudine responded. “I know that. I work in a clinic myself. This was different. It happened at a party given by wealthy people, and a man is being hunted by the police for having done this. It’s important that they get the right man.”

  The nurse looked surprised then sad. “Poor thing. Well, she hasn’t said a word. Never opened her eyes, so far. I’m … not sure as she’s going to.”

  Claudine looked back at the figure on the bed, and a coldness grew inside her.

  “I brought a few things for her: soap and a small bottle of lavender water and a clean comb for her hair. If there is anything else she needs, or that would ease her pain, perhaps you would purchase it for her if I give you the money?” She pulled out the bag she had brought and passed it over.

  “ ’Course I will,” the nurse said with surprise. “Who shall I say left it for her?”

  “She doesn’t know me. I was there last night and tried to help her a bit, that’s all. I’ll wait a little while, just in case she stirs. Can you bring me a chair to sit on?”

  “Yeah … if you want.” The nurse still seemed somewhat doubtful of her.

  “I do. Thank you,” Claudine said firmly.

  Less than an hour later, while Claudine was still there sitting, half in a dream, Winnie suddenly began to breathe in a more labored way. She was almost gasping, as if she struggled to fill her lungs.

  Claudine sat forward and touched the girl’s white hand on the sheets. It was listless.

  Within seconds the struggle became more desperate. Claudine got to her feet and ran to the main door of the ward, calling for a doctor, even though she already feared there was little he could do.

  As soon as someone took notice of her and ran for help, Claudine returned to the bedside. Winnie was worse, her face as white as the sheets, her eyes still closed. Her breathing was shallower. Every now and then she gasped, stopped, then gasped again, as if the pain were overwhelming.

  Claudine held her hand more tightly and touched her face as much as she dared, in between the dark, terrible bruises. She spoke to her, just saying her name over and over. She had no idea whether the girl could hear anything at all, or was even aware that anyone was with her, but she had to try to comfort her.

  The doctor came, a thin man with gray hair and a weary face. There was nothing he could do, and within seconds they both knew it. He looked at Claudine, looked at the quality of her clothes and the pain in her face. He did not ask her who she was. At this point it hardly mattered.

  In less than ten minutes it was over, and Winnie Briggs slipped into the endless future of eternity.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said quietly as they stepped into the corridor. “I’m afraid there was never anything we could
have done. She was too advanced in tuberculosis, and the beating on top of that was more than she could survive. But if it’s any comfort, she would not have lasted a great deal longer anyway. A month or two, at best three.”

  “It wasn’t the beating that killed her?” Claudine asked. She was surprised to find her throat tight and aching. She was on the edge of weeping.

  “Yes, it was,” the doctor sighed. “But it only hastened the inevitable. Did you know her well?”

  “No, actually. I suppose I didn’t know her at all. I only ever saw her last night, after she was … beaten. I tried to help, for whatever that was worth.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again quietly. “You don’t know if she has any family?”

  “I’ve no idea. Probably not, or she wouldn’t have been on the street. But the police will find out, I expect. If … if there’s no one to claim her, I’d like to see that she’s buried properly.” She said it rashly, without stopping to think of how she would find the money, or what difference it would make to anyone. After all, the God she believed in cared for every soul, and what happened to the body left behind mattered not at all. But she said it as a gesture to the world that Winnie Briggs had mattered, just like anyone else, just like the people at the party so much more concerned about their own welfare than anyone else’s.

  The doctor nodded. “I believe you left a few things for her. I’ll see they are returned to you, Mrs.…?”

  “Burroughs. But, please, give them to anyone else who might find them useful. Heaven knows, they’re small enough.”

  “Mrs. Burroughs. Thank you. If you leave your full name and address, I’ll see that you are informed … if no one else claims … Winnie Briggs.” He sighed. “Now, I suppose I have to inform the police that she cannot testify as to who did this to her. What a mess. I’m so sorry.”