The China Governess

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Basil? He didn’t mean it. He’s not worth hanging for. He’s just a silly old drunk.’ Timothy was uninterested rather than unconvinced. ‘He may have let something out. It’s a pity he saw you but he wouldn’t have the essential drive to become an informer.’

  ‘But Tim . . .’ Her voice broke. ‘I’ve been so afraid of something like this happening. I’ll get into the car at once and come to London. I think I’ll suffocate unless I see you soon. It’s looking forward to you so much, I suppose.’

  ‘Be quiet, darling.’

  ‘Why, for Heaven’s sake? It’s only to be expected. All the books warn one about that.’

  ‘Sweetie! Be quiet. I can’t bear it. Be quiet and listen to me. I’ve something to tell you that’s important to me. I’ve learnt something today which has shattered me. If I know you, you won’t care about it one way or the other but I do.’

  She could not help interrupting his shaking voice. The snapping fire, the dreaming light streaming in through the window, and the reckless outpouring from the birds, had created an atmosphere which was overpowering.

  ‘You should be here! You should be talking here!’

  ‘I can’t! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This thing makes a hell of a difference. You’ve got to try to understand me, Julia.’

  ‘Are you talking about you being brought here as a baby by some evacuees?’ The statement was out before she realized its danger and she went on, clumsily cruel in her helplessness. ‘Because if so you’re being idiotic. Suppose it was true. What would it matter or what difference could it make to anybody? And if it isn’t —’

  ‘Where did you hear this?’

  The entirely new note in his voice threw her into panic. She was crying as she answered obediently.

  ‘Basil Toberman was telling Mr. Campion and they didn’t know I was listening. He seems to have been telling everybody because the penny only just appears to have dropped with him. He’s jealous of you marrying someone who might inherit some money. But you mustn’t let it matter, you mustn’t let anything matter. It’s you and me, Tim, tonight and always. You and me.’

  ‘Old Basil! So that’s where it’s coming from! Your father says he got it from his club a week ago. He wrote Alison and she replied. That’s how it happened.’ For a moment Timothy had forgotten Julia. The practical mechanism of the betrayal absorbed his attention until dismay overcame him once more. ‘I can’t believe it of Basil. If he knew, why didn’t he tell me years and years ago? We’ve known each other always.’ There was a pause and then he said briefly: ‘I’m sorry you should have heard it from him.’

  ‘I didn’t exactly.’ She was trying to save him. ‘It was Nanny Broome who supplied the actual information.’

  ‘Oh God!’ The cry came over the telephone. ‘It really is true then.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. It happened twenty years ago at least.’

  ‘Does she say it is so?’

  ‘Well, she isn’t very clear. She never is, is she? But it’s obvious.’ Julia took hold of herself and began to think again but it was too late. The chemistry by which love kept waiting is distilled to acid had produced its poison on her tongue and touched him. She heard his sigh.

  ‘It was never obvious to me. I just thought I was a bastard.’ He spoke lightly and the words were as brittle as icicles.

  ‘Oh don’t. Don’t. I didn’t mean it like that. If I could only see you and hold you. This is like talking to you out of a window. I’ll come to London now. Where shall I find you? Tell me, tell me quickly.’

  Julia was trying to smother him into warmth again. She was speaking on a single note and the tears were hot in her eyes. ‘Wait for me.’

  ‘No. Stay where you are.’

  In spite of the discouraging words she was comforted. At least there was contact between them again.

  ‘Are you coming down here tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  There was silence. ‘All right,’ she said at last.

  ‘Look darling.’ She could hear that he had moved closer to the instrument. ‘Julia. Understand darling. Try. It isn’t that I’ve given my word to your father or let him come between us or anything like that, but I’ve had a hell of a shock and for my own sake I can’t make any move, or do anything – anything irrevocable until I’ve found out. It’s breaking my heart but I can’t, can I? You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Found out what?’ She was appalled to find herself so lonely and out of touch.

  ‘Who I am.’ He seemed to find her stupidity extraordinary. ‘Isn’t it natural? I’ve been thinking I’m a Kinnit ever since I’ve thought at all and now suddenly I find I’m not. Naturally I want to know who I am?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Fortunately she was too choked to say the words aloud. When she could articulate she said pathetically: ‘To me you’re only you.’

  ‘Bless you!’ His laugh was unsteady. ‘It may take a little time, I’m afraid, but your father and dear old Eustace, who is reproaching himself like someone out of the Old Testament, are joining forces and helping me to get the thing cleared up once and for all. We’re all three completely in the picture and they’re both on our side. They want us to be happy.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘I’m certain of it.’ She could hear from his brisk confidence that the thing she had dreaded without recognizing it had happened, and that the energy which she had been promised and for which she was living that night had been diverted from her to meet this new demand.

  ‘And that’s why,’ he went on quickly, ‘I shouldn’t mention Basil Toberman to either of them until you’re sure he meant it.’

  ‘But I am sure. I heard him. He hates you. He wants to do you harm. He’s spreading the story about, hoping it’ll get in the newspapers.’

  ‘That just can’t be true.’

  ‘He said so. I heard him.’

  There was a long pause before Timothy said. ‘Well, I’d hate Eustace to know that at this moment. He can’t imagine why or how the story has got about suddenly like this. He’s fond of Basil and doesn’t realize what a drunk he is, and if he found out he was spreading it it would hurt him like anything. He’d be ashamed for him too. Leave Basil to me.’

  ‘Very well.’ She spoke softly. ‘Timothy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Look, I’m beginning to understand why this matters so much to you but I don’t see why my father took the line he did. After all, as everybody knows, he came of pretty homely stock himself and even when mother was alive with all her grand relations he never tried to hide it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not the homeliness! I never met a more democratic man in all my life. He’s a great chap. I hope I can have him for an in-law . . .’

  ‘But there’s no doubt of that. I’ll be of age eventually. Then we can marry anyway.’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Oh, Tim . . .’ She was panic-stricken. ‘But we love each other! Separated we’d be different people. It means all my life. All my life.’

  ‘I know.’ He sounded as though he did. ‘Mine too. There’s no question about that. Your father knows it as well as we do but I see his point of view. While you’re in his care he’s got to be reassured about essentials. After that it’s up to me to be reassured. He told me about his sister.’

  ‘Aunt Meg’s husband was a nut.’

  ‘He was a hysteric. It wasn’t apparent until he was over thirty, but his father and grandfather had finished under restraint. Meanwhile the wretched woman was made miserable until she died.’

  ‘But that couldn’t be true of you!’

  ‘Couldn’t it?’

  ‘No, it couldn’t. Don’t be absurd. You don’t believe it for a moment.’

  ‘Naturally I don’t, but I don’t expect your uncle did either when he was my age. That isn’t the only thing. There are other diseases one doesn’t want in a parent. Hideous things that only come out in the kids. And there’s other things as well. Tendencies, weaknesses. They may none of them
matter, but golly! One wants to know what they are. You do agree to that? You do see, darling, don’t you?’

  ‘I see that between them all they’ve implanted a great doubt in your mind.’ she said bitterly. ‘I see you’ve got to know now. That’s what Basil Toberman’s done for you.’

  ‘That’s what poor old Eustace thinks he has done for me out of sheer kindliness and romanticism, and it’s driving him round the bend. You’ve got to help, Julia. We’ve got to keep apart until the chatter’s died down and the papers lose interest. Your father is insistent on that and he’s right. I see he’s right. You do too, don’t you?’

  The appeal produced sudden physical pain in her chest and she gulped like a child.

  ‘Tim. Tim, listen. This may strike you as being absolutely crazy but it’s an idea Nanny Broome had when . . . when she thought we were going to spend the night here. I know it’s ridiculous and naïve and all that but it would comfort me now. I’d like it. She suggested we went to the old Rev-Ben and got betrothed – more than engaged, somehow. It wouldn’t mean anything except to us. Then I’d know that we really were going to marry some day.’

  ‘Oh darling!’ His exasperation came over the wire more vividly than any other emotion. ‘You haven’t understood a word I’ve said. That’s the whole point. Something may emerge which may prevent me from marrying you or anybody. The chances are remote but I’ve got to be sure.’

  ‘But whatever you discover, if I still want you —?’

  ‘Then it will be up to me to decide whether I can let you take the risk. We’ll have to wait until we get there. We owe that to everybody concerned.’

  ‘Everybody concerned!’ Her physical disappointment lent her tone savagery. ‘You’re thinking of everybody. Your silly uncle and my father and even Mr. Toberman, but you’re not thinking about me. You’re forgetting me!’

  ‘My God, girl, don’t you see I’m trying to!’ His cry was as old as civilization. ‘You may have been disappointed but what the hell do you think it’s been like for me? Don’t be silly, darling. And for God’s sake shut up and stay away until I’m human again.’

  Julia hung up involuntarily. The movement was as spontaneous as if she had merely turned her back. The sudden breaking of the link between them was so violent that around her the room sang and tingled with shock.

  She took off the receiver at once but only the continuous throb of the empty wire greeted her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Off the Record

  ‘THIS PLACE IS yet another example of modern jokesmanship,’ Mr. Campion remarked as he steered Julia across the splendid marble floor to the dining-room of Harper’s Club in Davies Street.

  ‘It’s rather like a beautiful Inverness cloak one has inherited. Much too good to hide away, so one wears it instead of an overcoat and pretends it’s an amusing new fashion.’ He pushed open the mellow mahogany door and they entered a vast Georgian room with a cornice like a wedding cake. ‘This was the late Lord Boat’s town house,’ he went on. ‘He had a butler called Harper who was with him for forty years. When old Boat died the title became extinct and Alf Pianissimo, the caterer, bought up the property and rights in Harper. He pensioned him and even had the old man about the place for a while until he drove the waiters up the wall and got Alf in trouble with the Union. At the moment it’s very pleasant and quiet and as good a place for luncheon as anywhere. I chose it today because Charles Luke likes it and I particularly wanted to get him here so that he meets you and gets interested in our problem.’

  His pleasant voice flowed on as he conducted her to an alcove on the far side of the room where a round table was set for three.

  ‘A superintendent C.I.D. of the Metropolitan Police can find out almost anything on earth if he wants to,’ he went on, stowing his long legs under the table and smiling at her, ‘but he’s hemmed in by protocol. If we go to him officially he has to proceed officially and we don’t really want that, do we? – so I thought we might tap discreetly on the back door.’

  He was watching her while he spoke and it went through his mind that she was genuinely beautiful with her black silk hair and eyes like blue glass, and that, more rarely still, she was elegant in a puppyish way, naturally graceful and packed with promise. She was uncomfortably young, of course. Still at that most alarming stage when sophistication and naïveté appeared to take turns so that there was no telling what might offend her unbearably or what else, much more difficult, she might take in her stride. He noticed her pretty blue-veined hands. Their short nails were innocent of varnish and she was wearing a ring on her engagement finger. It was a small signet, a schoolgirl’s ring. He could see the habitual impression of it on another finger on the other hand. The naïve hopefulness of such a move touched him and reminded him for some reason of something he ought to tell her about Luke.

  ‘He’s a rather recent widower, by the way,’ he observed. ‘It’s one of those dreadful stories. His wife made a complete fiasco of having a child. She didn’t call for help, and died. The baby girl lived and is being cared for by his old mother who looks after him too. I mention it because it’s as well to know these things in case one drops bricks.’

  ‘Of course.’ She was looking at him in horror. ‘What an extraordinary woman. She was old, I suppose.’

  ‘Prunella? Oh no, not old at all.’ Campion was frowning as if he was visualizing someone who had worried him. ‘She was in the twenties. The last of the Scroop-Dory’s. She had that family’s face: high round forehead and hooded eyes like something in a gothic cathedral. I can’t imagine how she could have been both so idiotic and so stoic. She didn’t want to be a nuisance I suppose, and there was no one there to tell her not to be so silly.’

  Julia’s youthful eyes were faintly amused by his exasperation.

  ‘Poor girl, anyway,’ she said gently. ‘Not an awfully suitable wife for a policeman.’

  ‘We all thought not.’ Mr. Campion was trying to be non-commital and sounding like every disapproving family friend who had ever existed. ‘Charles was in love with her, though. Her death hit him like a bullet.’

  There was silence for a moment and the girl shivered suddenly.

  Mr. Campion was contrite and he began to chatter.

  ‘You’ll like him,’ he said. ‘He talks like a dynamo and does a sort of hand-jive all the time by way of added emphasis, but he’s tremendously sound. He’s a great natural judge of quality in anything, too. That seems to be a gift all on its own.’

  ‘Oh I know,’ she said quickly, grateful for the change of subject. ‘Timothy’s Uncle Eustace is like that. He’s a connoisseur of eighteenth-century pictures, books and silver, but he also seems to know by instinct, or so Timothy says, about modern stuff which isn’t really in his province at all and which one might expect he’d rather hate. Do you know him?’

  ‘Not very well. We’ve met.’

  ‘Have you been to the Well House where they all live?’ There was colour in her voice when she spoke about Timothy Kinnit, even remotely. ‘It’s in Scribbenfields, just not quite in the City. I suppose it was one of the first of the London suburbs and it’s frightfully ancient. You’d never expect to find a lovely old dwelling like that in the midst of all those warehouses. I believe there was a medicinal well there once and the head is bricked over in one of the cellars.’

  Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.

  ‘It was very good of you to agree to help me,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘My dear girl, let’s only hope I can!’ he interpolated hastily. ‘Scribbenfields? Yes indeed. The whole place was a noted spa at one time. Jacobean citizens used to ride out the two or three miles from Whitehall to drink the waters and I fancy people still have a vague idea that it’s a healthy district. I had a demented client once, I remember, who actually paid a deposit on a small Epsom Salts mine situated, as he believed, under a dis
used tram terminus in Sheepen Road. An error, it emerged, which was how I came into it! Tell me. When you say “they all live there” whom do you mean? Alison Kinnit, her brother Eustace, young Timothy and sometimes Basil Toberman? Is there a resident staff?’

  ‘No. Not as a rule. Several people come in daily but just at the moment Nanny Broome has had to be sent for from the country to cope. There’s a niece of the Kinnits and a help, all staying. They’re from South Africa and tremendously wealthy. A child is ill in hospital and they’ve come to London to see doctors. You remember Mrs. Broome, do you?’

  ‘The woman who wept? Shall I ever forget her?’ Mr. Campion fervently. ‘It was the first time I ever saw the Picasso painting actually appearing in the very flesh before my bulging eyes. My goodness she was furious with Toberman!’

  ‘Nearly as angry as I was! A beastly, beastly man!’

  The loathing in the young voice was savage and Charles Luke, coming up behind her at that moment, caught the full flavour of it.

  ‘Not me, I hope?’ he said laughing, as Campion performed the introductions. ‘Some other poor fellow.’

  Julia regarded him with quick interest. She had expected the size and the heartiness and a certain masculine splendour, but Luke’s own peculiar personality, which was catlike, was a surprise to her. He was a proud, lonely animal for all his force and liveliness.

  A waiter brought his aperitif, which was a small scotch and soda, and as he sipped it gratefully he sighed.

  ‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ He described a floating motion with his long hands. ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that’s what it reminds me of.’ He was entirely unselfconscious and his dark face glowed with energy and pleasure at the picture. It was suddenly understandable how a man with such an unlikely job should take it into his head to marry into the Scroop-Dorys, or indeed any other family on earth if the fever took him.