When Last I Died Read online

  Miss Hodge was the old servant who had inherited the house from Miss Bella's Aunt Flora, who had died (or, if one accepted Miss Peeple's warped view, thought Mrs. Bradley, had been murdered) in it. Miss Hodge was a woman of nearly seventy, and Mrs. Bradley and Derek both liked her.

  "Well, we'd better look at this book of-yours," said Mrs. Bradley, "and then we can judge whether Miss Hodge would be likely to let us have it."

  Her grandson led the way upstairs. The book, produced most carefully for her inspection, proved to be one of those large, thick, stiff-covered diaries which are produced, judging from the letterpress, for the use of business men in South Africa. About a quarter of it, or rather less, had been used. The rest was blank. The diary was six years out of date.

  "It doesn't look very important," said Mrs. Bradley. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll call on Miss Hodge on the way to the village shop, and take the book with us, and see what she has to say."

  George had hoped for an undisturbed morning during which he proposed to re-read and to psycho-analyse Nietzsche (for he was an unobtrusive but indefatigable student of Mrs. Bradley's methods, and had attended all her public lectures in England), but he put the book down and rose to his feet when his employer and her grandson entered the kitchen.

  "George, I want a brush for pasting my scraps, and Gran wants to ask Miss Hodge about the book in her bedroom," said the little boy. "So we shall have to go to the village, if you don't mind."

  "Very good, sir," said George.

  "And, George, I shall have to ask your advice about the brush."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "And, George——"

  "Sir?"

  "Do you think I shall win the prize?"

  "I sincerely hope so, sir. But kissing goes by favour, as they say."

  "Is that what you say to yourself when you don't get what you want, George?"

  "No, sir. I merely say Aliud alia dicunt. That comforts me a good deal, sir."

  Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  The cottage in which Miss Hodge lived whilst her house was let was about three-quarters of a mile from the sea and on the outskirts of the village. There was no pavement to walk on, but on either side of the front door flowers flourished in their season, as they did in front of all the cottages on that side of the village inn. The front door led directly into the parlour, and was opened to the visitors almost before they had finished knocking.

  Miss Hodge, a thin, upright, fresh-faced, pleasant, elderly woman, had come directly from the kitchen, wafted towards the visitors upon an odour of cooking. She wiped her hands on her apron.

  "Good morning, madam," she said. "Good morning, Master Derek. A nasty morning! Will you come in? Nothing wrong, I hope?"

  "Nothing at all. It is just a question of a book which Derek has found," said Mrs. Bradley.

  "You see, Miss Hodge, it would make an awfully nice scrap-book, and I have to give in a scrap-book, as my holiday task, to Miss Winter at school. Now, I've got the scraps—I think you would like to see them ..."

  "I'm sure, Master Derek."

  "... and all I want, you see, is the book." He produced it. Miss Hodge gave her hands an extra rub on the apron, and then took up the diary, but did no more than glance at the beginning of it.

  "Dear me, Master Derek! Now what can you have got hold of here, I wonder?" she said mildly. "This isn't the mistress's writing. I don't seem to know this hand." She looked at Mrs. Bradley. "He can have the empty pages and welcome, Madam, if that would do, but I'd better p'raps just see what it is, as it seems to be wrote out so neat. Now, where did I put my glasses?"

  Derek, assisting in the search, discovered them. Miss Hodge, in the laboured manner of an unaccustomed reader, perused a page or two slowly, and then looked over the top of her spectacles.

  "It seems as if Miss Bella wrote it. I never knew she could write so nice. It's very like Mr. Tom's hand, now I call his letters to mind. But it's certainly all about Miss Bella, and partly about her aunt, my poor mistress, by the look of it. Ah, I remember now. Mrs. Muriel sent it after Miss Bella died."

  "Oh, we can get hold of another book," said Mrs. Bradley quickly. "I am sure you wouldn't want us to have this one."

  "Oh, Gran!" said the little boy.

  "If Master Derek fancies this one, he shall have it, bless him! Only, I can't quite fancy throwing away Miss Bella's own words, her having such a sad end and so much trouble," said Miss Hodge, "although they found her 'Not Guilty.' Not that it did her any good, poor soul. I wonder if I could take out these pages that's wrote on without hurting the rest of the book?"

  "Dear me," said Mrs. Bradley." Well, if you're quite sure he can have the book, Miss Hodge, I'll undertake to remove the written pages without spoiling them, and I'll get them bound for you, unless you'd like to take them out yourself. You see, the diary is very well put together in these sections. We should merely need to cut through the strings here and here ..."

  "I'd much rather you did it, madam, than I. I'm sure you know more about it. And perhaps you'd care to have a read of it, madam. It was quite a celebrated case in its way, poor Miss Bella's case was...."

  Mrs. Bradley, perceiving that Miss Hodge proposed to unfold a tale, sent Derek out to find George.

  "Yes, Miss Bella had a sad life of it, poor thing," continued Miss Hodge, when Derek and George had gone off to the village shop. "She worked hard at that Home for dreadful boys until her aunt died, and then, when she might have been happy and independent, her gentleman cousin, Mr. Tom, fell out of a window, in what was said to be a haunted house, and then, of all things, if she wasn't arrested for murdering him, if ever you heard anything so wicked!"

  "Why did they think she had murdered him?" asked Mrs. Bradley, interested not only in the story itself but in the persistent idea of a haunted house which seemed to run through it.

  "Oh, I don't know. There was a whole lot of wicked, lying stories getting spread about after the poor mistress's death, and I believe someone wrote some ugly letters. And then, when Mr. Tom died so very shortly afterwards, it seemed that somebody thought themselves clever enough to put two and two together, and so she was arrested, and tried, poor thing. They had to let her off, of course, because nothing was proved against her, but it preyed so on her mind that she killed herself, and the money all went to Miss Tessa, the other niece."

  "How long ago was this?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

  "Six years ago this month she was tried and let off," said Miss Hodge. "I remember it by when the mistress died and left me the house and the money."

  "I expect I was in America then," said Mrs. Bradley. "I suppose I missed the whole thing. It must have been very dreadful for the people who knew her. I'd like to read the diary, if I may, and I'll bring it back to you the moment I've finished with it and bound the pages, shall I?"

  "No hurry, madam. Keep it as long as you like if it interests you. I just don't care to destroy it. That's all it is. I don't suppose I should ever read it myself, not all that writing. Just the little bits about the mistress."

  "I ought to pay you for the pages I'm going to use, Miss Hodge," said Derek, when he returned from the village shop. "I have my own money, you know."

  "Good gracious me, Master Derek! I'm sure you're more than welcome," said the old servant. "Especially," she added, with the sentimentality of her class and generation, "if you'd give me a nice kiss for it, now."

  "With pleasure," said Derek gravely, putting his arms round her neck. Mrs. Bradley cackled at this display of social tact by her grandson, and her eyes were bright as a bird's as she looked at the manuscript in her hand.

  The diary, as Miss Hodge had indicated, was neatly and legibly written with a fine pen, and some attempt had been made at literary style, as though the diarist, consciously or unconsciously, had hoped that eyes other than her own would read the manuscript. Later on, Mrs. Bradley obtained permission to make an exact copy of it. This ran as follows :

  January 17

  I dreamt Aunt Flora was dead. T
hey say the wish is father to the thought, so perhaps to the dream as well. It is not that I wish the poor old woman any ill, but there is no doubt that at ninety she is too long-lived. It is no joke for me to be earning my living at the age of forty-seven when I have had expectations (as they say) of two thousand pounds a year since I was twenty.

  The chaplain's wife said yesterday that some people (meaning me) had much to be thankful for. A good salary, she remarked, no encumbrances (they have six children and the chaplain's mother to provide for) and a good appetite (I shall never go there to tea again !) are gifts of good fortune which fall to the lot of only one or two. She knows of nobody else, she added, quite so fortunately placed as I am. Detestable woman. I should regard myself as fortunately placed if I had my two thousand a year, and should be thankful—very thankful—for it, but I see nothing else in life to merit or justify my thanks. I responded to the chaplain's wife that a good husband and six olive branches were surely excellent reasons for thanks. Her reply, although phrased in the conventional terms, was extremely wintry.

  January 18

  I asked Vera, the kitchenmaid, to-day, what she thought any of us had to be thankful for. She said good health, which I believe she enjoys. But I have rheumatism always here, because of these stone floors, and I catch cold easily. The worst of it is that I get no sympathy from anybody. The others are never seedy or off-colour. Besides, I think they dislike me. Aunt Flora does not care much about me, either. Although she is ninety she retains all her faculties, as they say, and I believe she enjoys teasing me about the money. She asked me this Christmas-time what I intended to do with the two thousand when I got it, so I said I should start a restaurant. I should not dream of doing anything of the sort. I am not going to do any work at all when I get that money, and I am going to make quite sure that I spend the whole of the two thousand every year. I cannot touch the capital, of course. That remains for Tessa, and I imagine that her brat will get the income when I am gone unless cousin Tom comes next. As I have not seen the will, I do not know anything about this, but imagine that he is left out.

  January 19

  The chaplain preached to the boys to-day on Hosea, who seems to have had a sad life caused chiefly by a bad wife. I do not know what lesson there was for the boys in this. What hideous little faces they all have. It is nonsense to say, as William does in staff meetings sometimes when he thinks we all need a pep talk, that criminals are made and not born. These boys are predestined to crime, and no psychologist or educationist is going to persuade me otherwise. As for wives—a lot they are going to know about them! Most of these will be in prison a year after we let them out of here.

  Denny has a poison bottle in which he places butterflies, moths, and other creatures for his collection. His ' smelling salts' the boys call it. How they love to watch the creatures die! And what a good thing it would be if this institution were one gigantic bottle into which we could drop the boys, one by one, as they came into our charge. A little struggling and choking, a fluttering of helpless limbs, and then—a perfect specimen of young criminal ready to be preserved, dissected, lectured upon and buried, according to his uses as an anatomical, biological or psychological specimen.

  January 20

  I wish now that I had followed my original intention, and kept this diary from New Year's Day instead of waiting until the beginning of the term. One is lazy in the holidays, I suppose.

  It was good of Tom and Muriel to invite me to stay with them for the last few days before I returned to the Institution, especially as they have moved recently. I think Tom is overdoing this psychical research business, and Muriel looks a wreck. I am sure that ghost-hunting does not improve her nerves. A nice little modern house at the seaside would be far better for her—and for me, too. I should very much enjoy spending a rent-free weekend or two at Bournemouth, say, or Ilfracombe, during the summer.

  Muriel makes a good wife, though, and Tom is so keen on his work that I suppose she feels she must help him all she can. But this dodging from one reputedly haunted house to another must be past a joke, especially as they find out nothing exciting enough for Tom to make into a best-seller. What he wants is a house like Borley Rectory. I often wonder why he never rented it. Can it be that he doesn't really want to find an authentic ghost?

  Well, anyhow, apart from the nervous strain, I must say Muriel seems to keep pretty well. A pity they don't have children, but I suppose it must be rather hard on children to have a ghost-hunter for a father, so possibly all is for the best.

  January 21

  Talking of wives, it appears that unbeknown to everybody except Ronald who acted as best man, Denny was married during the Christmas holidays and has brought his wife to live in a house about half a mile from the front gates of the Institution. I think William is a little worried. He has to give married instructors permission to live out, as that is in the regulations. On the other hand, we can't have too many people living out, otherwise there are not enough left here to look after the boys at night. Therefore the next instructor who wants to get married will have to resign, as already we are what William calls (without mincing matters) dangerously understaffed at nights with Denny off the premises.

  This is, of course, an overstatement. Nobody, least of all a man in William's position, is justified in accepting the responsibility of our being dangerously understaffed here at any time or under any circumstances, but we all know what he means and are sufficiently uncomfortable about it. Once, before my time, when two-thirds of the indoor staff were down with influenza, the boys made a mass attack on the food stores and the instructors' private rooms, and ten boys got away and were at liberty for three days, during which time they robbed hen-roosts, half-murdered an old woman and held up a village post-office.

  January 22

  Denny's wife seems a nice enough little thing. I was invited to tea there. I wonder sometimes what kind of wife I should have made, and whether it would have been better if I had married in 1916 when he wanted it. I wonder whether he really was killed, or whether, after he was reported missing, he ever turned up again, a case of lost memory or shell-shock. For all I know (or am ever likely to know) he is in a mental hospital. There was insanity in his family, and these things persist. There was no one but myself to wonder what had happened, and sometimes I wonder also whether I really cared, for I certainly don't care now. It is a very strange thing, when one thinks about it, to be forty-seven years old, and to be quite certain that not a soul on earth cares whether one is alive or dead. I suppose if I left the Institution, or died, the staff here would feel compelled to subscribe either to a gift or a wreath. As it would come to about half-a-crown each in either case, it would not matter to them, I suppose, whether I were going to a new post or to the grave.

  January 23

  A new post! Sometimes I used to think that, if only I could hit upon the right place, I might enjoy my job. Nowadays, of course, I know that I should be a failure anywhere; not a spectacular failure, like poor Justin, who was almost kicked to death by the boys before he was dismissed by the managers, but the sort of failure that rubs along somehow without ever being quite bad enough to get the sack.

  "Hangs on by her eyebrows, poor devil," I heard Colin say in the staff-room the other day; and I am certain he was talking about me. It was kind of him to call me a poor devil. Most of them hate me like poison because, when I take my sick-leave, they are put to a good deal of inconvenience. But I know I could not manage a whole year right through, even with the holidays. I should die without my little bits of ill-health.

  January 24

  Two boys, Piggy and Alec, escaped last night and appear to have got clean away from the Institution. Both were serious cases. Piggy is in for killing his little sister by pushing her off a bedroom window-sill, and Alec was a thieves' boy, and used to get through larder windows which were too small for the cracksmen. They are nice boys and I hope they will not be caught. Piggy's little sister was a horrid child, he says. We are not supposed to disc
uss with the boys the reasons for their having been sent here, but when I am superintending the washing-up and the other household tasks they do as fatigues when the better-behaved (that means the cleverer) ones are at football, I hear a good many things which I am not supposed to know.