The China Governess

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Basil! Be quiet! Stop him somebody. Eustace, make him be quiet.’ An unexpectedly passionate protest from Alison wiped away any possible doubt of the truth of the story.

  Evidently the ancient tale was taken very seriously by the present-day Kinnits. Eustace was shaking with anger, every trace of his normal urbanity gone. Alison was on the verge of tears and for once even Geraldine Telpher seemed startled out of her natural calm. Her face was grey and rigid.

  Toberman was enjoying himself.

  ‘Now I can understand why old Terence Kinnit made such a business of hushing up the crime. Why he bought the Staffordshire moulds and moved house and all the rest of it,’ he said happily. ‘If his daughter was the murderess the whole thing hangs together and holds water. They’d driven the poor governess to suicide, you see, between them. I don’t suppose that worried them. They’d done her a service by taking her in without references, hadn’t they? So it was her duty to repay them with her life if necessary. That would be their attitude.’

  ‘Will you hold your tongue, sir?’ Eustace when angry was quietly formidable and some of it got through. Toberman began to complain.

  ‘I don’t see why you should victimize me,’ he grumbled. ‘It all came out in a book; Paulfrey told me so. At the turn of the century a book was published which blew the whole gaff. He told me its name. I’ve forgotten it but it’ll come back. Ten Trials of Yester Year I think he said. Something corny like that. You’d know, Eustace.’

  ‘Toberman, you’re drunk! Oblige me by going to bed immediately.’

  ‘Don’t you dare to talk to me like that, old man. Your great grandfather did mine a favour but you haven’t bought us body and soul! We’re not lackeys!’

  ‘Good Heavens, boy! What utter nonsense. You must be out of your mind. Pull yourself together.’

  ‘I am perfectly sober and I am talking to Timothy. Professor Paulfrey told me that this book which he remembered well was written by a parson who had known Miss Haidée when she was an old woman. When she died she left him a letter confessing the whole thing. He didn’t do anything about it but put it in a book when he was pretty ancient himself. He was a damn dull writer and nobody was very interested in Miss Thyrza at that time, but somebody bought up most of the copies of the only edition. I wonder who that was. Your father, Eustace?’

  ‘That will do!’

  ‘Anyway, no one appears to have read the book but a few kids, one of whom was Paulfrey, and the publication passed without comment in the press.’ Basil leant back in his chair and began to laugh.

  ‘There’s no question that it’s true, is there?’ he jeered, addressing Miss Aicheson and the two young people. ‘Look at them all. Kinnits we have loved. We’re all in the same boat, you and me. We’re all lame ducks taken in and enslaved by Kinnits because we were cheap. And we all hang about ready to take the buck when it’s passed to us.’

  Miss Aicheson put a large hand over Alison’s slender wrist. ‘I shall go up now, dear,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’

  At the same moment Eustace turned to Tim. The old man was very white and there was a helplessness about him which was embarrassing. ‘It’s not true,’ he said but without conviction.

  ‘Of course it isn’t!’ Tim’s response, which was furious, swept the accusation into perspective. ‘It’s half true, like all Basil’s lies. He’s a silly inferior ass and he’s tight as a tick. Come on, Basil. Come to bed, you ape. No more damn nonsense. Up you get. Come along.’

  He left the arm of the basket chair which creaked protestingly, strode across the room and picked up Toberman in a fireman’s lift. The green strength of his body emerged as an unexpected deliverer and Toberman made no attempt to resist. They caught a glimpse of his puffy face and round stupid eyes, solemn and owlish with his head hanging upside-down, as he was borne away through the doorway.

  The abrupt departure left a tingling silence behind it. Miss Aicheson settled down again but did not release Alison’s arm. ‘I shall wait for a moment or two until he’s got him settled,’ she murmured.

  ‘Very sensible, Aich.’ Eustace smiled at her vaguely and taking out his handkerchief passed it over his forehead.

  ‘What a silly fellow,’ he said. ‘How tiring. An asinine line to take.’ He glanced towards his sister who was looking down at her plate, her delicate face pale and expressionless. Opposite him Geraldine Telpher was in much the same mood. She had withdrawn into herself and appeared preoccupied. The light was unkind to her. Beyond her he suddenly saw Julia sitting quiet in the basket chair, and a frown flickered over his face.

  ‘My dear child,’ he said. ‘I’d quite forgotten you were here. I’m so sorry you should have had to listen to all this unpleasant nonsense. Tim will be down in a moment and he shall take you home.’

  Julia was young enough to blush scarlet. ‘I’m staying, I think.’

  ‘Really?’ Eustace was the last person to be impolite but he was irritated and surprised. ‘Alison? I thought we promised – I mean I thought that there was an understanding with Julia’s father that the youngsters shouldn’t meet just now?’

  Alison lifted her head and looked at him blankly. She had been roused out of deep thought and took some time to surface. ‘Perhaps there was,’ she said vaguely. ‘Don’t fuss, Eustace.’ She turned to Julia. ‘Do you know where your room is?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I don’t.’ Julia was uncomfortable and the situation was saved by the unexpected appearance of Nanny Broome, pink and pleased with herself and still wrapped in her purple coat. She came dancing in, smiling at them all and talking as usual.

  ‘I just got in the door when the phone went,’ she announced, addressing them collectively. ‘It was my nice policeman asking if I’d got home safely! I think he felt a little bit guilty that he hadn’t minded his manners and sent someone with me if he couldn’t bring me himself. Oh, they’re terribly busy those two. Talking nineteen to the dozen when I left. Well now, have you all had some nice supper? Where’s Mr. Timmy?’ She was stripping off her thin leather gloves as she spoke and paused to pull them out and straighten them before she stowed them away carefully in the side compartment of her good handbag.

  Eustace scowled at her.

  ‘Miss Alison tells me that Miss Laurell is proposing to stay here tonight . . . ?’ he was beginning when Mrs. Broome sailed in to the rescue like a hen defending her chick.

  ‘Miss Julia’s been asked to stay here sir,’ she said firmly. ‘Her father’s away and it’s a big house right across London, so Miss Alison and I put our heads together – didn’t we madam?’ The interpolation was a warning. ‘And we decided the best thing for her to do was to have the little room beyond Miss Aicheson’s. It’s all aired and ready and I’ll just slip a bottle in the bed and she won’t know she isn’t at home.’

  ‘But I thought we’d promised Anthony Laurell —’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know about that,’ Mrs. Broome interrupted him shamelessly. ‘All I know is that if Sir Anthony is a proper father, as I’m sure he is or he wouldn’t be fussing so, he couldn’t care for his daughter to go home through a neighbourhood like this at night. I’m an old woman and I’m nothing to look at –’ she seemed a little hurt to hear no cries of protest and her tone became a trifle sharper – ‘but even I had quite a little run for it outside here tonight. There are a lot of dark shadows and people coming out of dark corners where there aren’t any lamp-posts and pushing against one and whispering things.’

  ‘What things? You silly woman, what are you talking about?’ Eustace was testy and exasperated. ‘You do talk a lot of rubbish!’

  ‘Ah, but I make you all very comfortable. There’s a nip in the air tonight. What about a nice hot toddy?’

  ‘No. We’ve had quite enough alcohol in this room this evening.’

  ‘Really? I thought I smelled it. Mister Basil I suppose?’ She was uncovering the situation with the speed of light. ‘Mr. Tim’s putting him to bed, no doubt? It’s very bad for him, all
this drinking. He’ll go just like his father, bang, one day. Well, we’ll all have some nice malted milk. Would you like that, madam?’ She addressed Alison, who shook her head without speaking, but Geraldine Telpher looked up.

  ‘I would like a Scotch and soda,’ she said. ‘May I get myself one out of the dining-room as I go up, Eustace?’

  ‘My dear girl, I’ll come and see to it. I’m so sorry. You’re so much one of us that I forget you don’t know all about our little difficulties. You must have found Basil very upsetting.’ Eustace was still flustered and Mrs. Telpher waved him back into his seat.

  ‘I’m sure I can manage,’ she said with her faintly commiserating smile. ‘He didn’t worry me at all. In my life my trials have been rather more specific and he isn’t my affair. Poor man, if it’s inherited we should be sorry for him I suppose. Goodnight, everybody.’

  ‘Goodnight, Geraldine.’ Eustace waited until the door had closed and the murmured blessings ended before he turned on Mrs. Broome.

  ‘You really mustn’t say things like that,’ he began testily. ‘Poor old Ben Toberman may have enjoyed his glass at the end of his days but in his time he was a most intelligent, sensitive, perhaps over-sensitive person.’

  Mrs. Broome behaved as she always did when reproved by authority. Her eyes opened very wide and she looked a picture of amazed innocence.

  ‘I didn’t know. I always understood he drank like a fishie,’ she said earnestly. ‘Delirium tremens and everything and everybody talking. Of course I didn’t know him at all well. You didn’t like him coming down to the country, did you?’

  Alison roused herself. ‘That’ll do, Mrs. Broome. Take Miss Laurell up to her room please. We’ll make your excuses to Tim when he comes down, Julia. He may be rather a long time. It’s sometimes very hard to get Basil to settle. He’s one of those excitable alcoholics. He just won’t lie down and go to sleep. Such a bore and so tiring. I’m so sorry this should have happened, my dear.’

  It was the most ruthless dismissal a guest could have received. Miss Aicheson tried to soften it with a smile which would not quite come and Eustace held out both his hands in a gesture which was more like an appeal for help than a reassurance of goodwill.

  Nanny Broome slipped an arm round Julia’s waist and drew her firmly and swiftly out of the doorway so that she was still saying ‘good night’ as the wood closed behind them.

  ‘Mr. Basil always gets them in a state when he does this.’ Mrs. Broome made the confidence as they walked up the broad stairs together to the hall. ‘He’s so rude and open and that’s the thing they can’t put up with. They’re very civilized sort of people, very covered up.’

  It was not the easiest statement on which to comment and Julia did not try. Her own brand of politeness was of the rare long-suffering kind which is at least one parent of serenity. Instead she said simply, ‘I don’t think I shall want a hot-water bottle. It’s very good of you to think of it but I never have one at home.’

  ‘Very well, you can kick it out but you won’t go to bed yet, surely?’ Nanny Broome paused at the foot of the main flight to look at her in astonishment. ‘Poor Mr. Tim hasn’t had a chance to see you at all. What with Mrs. Telpher and the ladies he can’t have had you to himself for a second, poor boy.’

  Julia laughed. ‘What had you in mind?’ she inquired.

  ‘Eh? Oh, don’t you worry about the oldsters.’ Mrs. Broome clearly considered herself an evergreen. ‘We all have to jolly them along because when they get excited they get tired, and when they get tired they feel poorly and that makes them cross. So I tell you what we’ll do.’ She broke off abruptly and stood aside to permit Mrs. Telpher, who had emerged from the dining-room, to pass them. She was carrying a glass and smiled at them before she went her placid way up the stairs.

  ‘I shall get you some milky-drink,’ said Nanny Broome loudly to her protégée, adding more softly, ‘you sip it in your room and brush your hair, and then when they’ve all gone to bed, which won’t be very long, you and Mr. Tim can have half an hour in the kitchen in the warm.’

  ‘If you think it’s all right,’ Julia was beginning, but Mrs. Broome was not listening to her. She was looking up the staircase, a thoughtful expression upon her face.

  ‘That was a very dark whisky, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Did you see it? I suppose it couldn’t have been neat? It was over half a tumblerful. I wonder now?’ She shook her head and answered her own question. ‘No, I don’t think so. I should have said she’s too much one of them to do anything like that. Perhaps she doesn’t pour it out herself as a rule and has just overdone it. Yet of course you never can tell. Well, come along miss. I’ll lead the way, shall I?’

  For the first time she turned her back on the guest and put out her hand to take the baluster rail. The folds of the good purple coat rearranged themselves and the girl stared at them and put out her hand to touch.

  ‘You’ve torn your coat.’

  ‘I can’t have done, it’s perfectly new. Where is it?’ She turned her head to look over her shoulder and swept her skirts round her, craning her neck to find the damage.

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Julia sounded frightened. ‘Look. Take it off.’

  She lifted the soft woollen garment off Mrs. Broome’s shoulders and swung it round to face her. The featherweight velour which looked brown in the subdued artificial light had been scored like the crackling on a joint of roast pork. Five two-inch-wide slashes had been made from between the shoulderblades to the hips and the cloth hung like ribbons, showing the silk lining beneath.

  Nanny Broome stared at the damage and for once in her life words deserted her. Her face, which was never in repose in the ordinary way, was frozen into a weatherbeaten mask on which her discreet powdering stood out distinctly. The silence in the house was noticeable and the warm family atmosphere had chilled.

  ‘You said some one pushed against you as you came home. Is that where you felt it? On the back, here?’ Julia was wide-eyed but still very practical. ‘You said some one whispered? What was it? Did you hear?’

  ‘Not really. I thought it was a swear word so I didn’t listen. It was a sort of hiss, that’s all. Oh miss! This’ll upset everybody. We shan’t get them to sleep tonight.’

  ‘All the same, we ought to tell the police.’

  ‘Not tonight. I wouldn’t go out there again for a fortune. And I wouldn’t like anyone else to. My poor best coat! I bought it in Ipswich, I don’t know what Mr. Broome’s going to say.’

  Julia was persistent. ‘There’s no need to go out to the police station. We’ll telephone.’

  ‘Not tonight.’ There was an unfamiliar undertone in Mrs. Broome’s voice which Julia recognized. The woman was deeply frightened and not particularly by the physical attack. She had perceived that the true danger came from something more serious still, an unclean shadow falling across her bright nursery world.

  ‘I’ll telephone tomorrow when it’s light,’ she said earnestly. ‘Tonight we’ll just say our prayers and go to sleep. If we get hold of the police now they’ll only come round thumping about and upsetting the whole house, which is edgy enough as it is with Mr. Basil drunk. He’s still saying awful things about Mr. Tim, I expect.’ She glanced round the dark raftered hall and lowered her voice in confidence. ‘Tim really didn’t touch Miss Saxon, you know, miss. I was there. She died of a sort of fit. I saw her afterwards and I thought “You look as if you’ve suffocated, you poor old girlie.” The blood rushed to her head and smothered her. That’s what I’m always frightened of with Mr. Eustace. He looked terrible tonight, I thought. Mr. Basil ought to be muzzled.’

  ‘I could ring Mr. Campion.’

  ‘Do it tomorrow. He’d only tell my nice Superintendent and he’d have the place upside down. I know his sort. No one better when you feel like it, but very tiring when you want to go to bed. Oh, my goodness! Now what?’

  They both started violently as a commotion occurred suddenly at the top of the stairs.

  Basil T
oberman, bare-footed and in pyjamas, had appeared on the landing with Tim, looking grey and furious, behind him.

  ‘I am going to get myself a snifter. Go away, Wonderboy. I want a drink. Don’t I make myself plain?’ Below the bogus authority there was the thin high note of delirium which rings a danger signal in every human ear. Tim seized him and began to heave him back to his room.

  ‘You’re not going to drink any more tonight.’ His voice, breathless with exertion and lowered in an attempt not to disturb the house, floated down to them in the warm air. ‘Oh, for holy Moses sake, man, come back to your bed like a good little bloke. You’ll start seeing things if you don’t look out. Have a heart, Basil. You’re driving me round the bend.’

  Another scuffle followed and then a door slammed. Mrs. Broome sighed.

  ‘Poor Mr. Tim! It is a shame just when he particularly wants to get him quiet so that he can come down to talk to you. Mr. Basil is bad tonight. Just like his papa whatever Mr. Eustace says. He couldn’t have meant all that, you know. He just likes to hear himself saying generous things. That’s all that is.’

  ‘How long will it take Tim to get the man to sleep?’

  ‘Oh, until Mr. Basil’s exhausted, I’m afraid.’ Mrs. Broome made the pronouncement casually. ‘He’s had a very long day so he may drop off presently, but I have known him play up for a couple of hours wearing everybody clean out. It’s a very long-suffering family you’re marrying into, miss.’

  ‘Why on earth do they put up with him?’

  Mrs. Broome laughed. ‘Oh, it’s not only with him, my dear. They put up with the most extraordinary people. They gather them. It’s only because they like to be tolerant. I never heard that the older generations were like it but the way Mr. Eustace and Miss Alison go on you’d think they were trying to work off some sort of sin they’d committed.’

  The thought flitted out of her head and she gave the little self-conscious wriggle which was so characteristic of her.

  ‘Now I’m not like that at all,’ she said happily. ‘If I love somebody I’ll forgive them, but if I don’t I certainly won’t. If you put up with people who are awful and you don’t even love them then you’re encouraging awfulness and nothing more. Well, I mean to say, aren’t you? Never mind. Come along and I’ll tell you all about my Mr. Luke. He was ever so interested in Mr. Tim and it will be nicer thinking of that than crying out over my poor mauve coatie.’