Fear for Frances

by Veronica Heley

  Dismissed her place at Mrs Palfrey’s without a reference, under threat of prosecution for a theft of which she was innocent, she had returned to the school which her aunt ran just outside Bath, to work there as a teacher until she obtained the post at Furze Court. Frances’ father had been the younger son of a well-known Somersetshire family, but he had been cast off by his family for marrying the gentle girl who died in giving birth to Frances. Colonel Chard had been killed in India five years later, and his only child left penniless. She had been brought up by her mother’s sister, a hard woman, who thought to keep Frances on as unpaid teacher in her school. When Frances was eighteen she left her aunt to seek her first position as a governess, and she had only been back to Bath at rare intervals since.

  When asked for references by Mrs Broome, Miss Chard had given her aunt’s name, and had also referred to the lady for whom she had worked before she went to Mrs Palfrey’s. Frances had explained the time lapse between the date of leaving that post and the date of her application to Mrs Broome by saying that she had subsequently been employed at her aunt’s. It had been Frances’ aim to make herself indispensable at the Court before her secret was discovered. She had little doubt that it would be, eventually. Some day someone who had known her in Gloucestershire would meet someone who knew the Broome family, and the story would come out. She had hoped that sometime she would have courage enough to confess everything to Mrs Broome, but she had not yet done so.

  She had, she thought, been discretion itself until chance had thrown her in the way of Lord Broome. He reminded her very strongly of Walter. It was not that the men were so very alike except in colouring, but she had recognised in Lord Broome that same fascination for women which had been her own undoing where Walter had been concerned. She had not really been surprised to hear Lord Broome’s name connected with that of a woman. The man had charm, and if he chose to smile in a certain way at a woman, then that woman had better look out for herself.

  Frances longed to be released from the company, but when the time came for her to depart, her footsteps dragged. She was tired and discouraged and oppressed by the feeling that she was being talked about by the family now that she had left them. She was almost at the foot of the stairs when the door of the State Bedroom opened, and Benson called her back.

  ‘Miss Chard. I was listening for you. Do you happen to know where the key to the door might be?’

  ‘The housekeeper would know, I suppose.’

  ‘I asked her, and she said there should be a bunch of keys hanging up in her room, but it isn’t there, and she doesn’t know where it’s got to. The catch on this door doesn’t hold properly, and what with people wandering in and out of these rooms in the middle of the night, I want to lock this door to give us both a good night’s rest.’

  ‘Have you tried the dressing-room door? There may be a key in the lock there which would fit.’

  ‘I knew you’d think of something.’ He beckoned to her. ‘Come and see the Major. Sleeping like a baby with half my supper inside him, as well as some broth and an egg custard which they sent up for him earlier. They can’t find his yellow powder anywhere, and all I can say is, I hope that Nurse Moon took it with her, because he can do without it.’ He had donned a collar and jacket, but was still without shoes. He disappeared into the sick-room, still talking, and Frances followed him, knowing that she was foolish to expose herself once more to the sight of a man who reminded her so much of Walter, and yet unable to resist doing so.

  The room had been cleaned, and was now warm. An oil lamp threw shadows across the bed, and these shadows tussled with the ones thrown by the fire in the grate.

  ‘You have done well, Benson,’ said Frances, as he held back the bed curtains so that she could see the sick man. Lord Broome stirred. He opened his eyes and looked up at her, frowning either with pain or the effort to remember who she might be. She thought: He is not at all like Walter ... how could I have thought that he was? Her hand went out, as if of its own volition, to push the hair back from his brow.

  She said, ‘You are not going to die.’

  He moved his head so that her hand lay along his cheek. She withdrew her hand and put it over her heart. She felt she must leave the room at once, before it was too late.

  ‘The Major always did sleep lightly,’ said Benson, nudging her arm with a glass containing a dose of medicine. ‘He knows me now. Can’t say my name properly yet, but he knows I’m here to help him and not to harm him. He goes by voices since he was hit on the head. Maybe his sight’s not clear yet. I’ve known that happen. He knows my voice, and he knows yours. He didn’t like the nurses, either of them. Nor the older doctors. He thinks the young doctor’s all right, but he’s hardly ever here. Now if you’ll just give the Major this sleeping draught which the young doctor left for him ...? He’ll take food and drink from me, but he won’t take any medicine.’

  Frances drew back. ‘No. I don’t want to ...’

  ‘You must. He fell on his bad arm, see? He can’t seem to sleep for long without it troubling him. That young doctor seems to know more about such things than his uncle, and I could see he was worried about his arm, same as I am. It’s only laudanum, Miss.’

  ‘Mrs Peach ... get her to do it.’

  ‘She’s asleep on my bed next door. I’m to rouse her at twelve, when she’ll sit with him until morning. The young doctor said I was to get a good night’s rest for once and I’ll admit I could drop off right now, but I daren’t leave him like this, with his arm hurting and that dratted door unlocked so that anybody could walk in and murder him.’

  As if to lend weight to his argument, at that very moment voices were to be heard approaching the bedroom door. Frances was alarmed. She had no wish to be found in the sick-room twice in one day. Telling Benson that she would see if there were a key in the dressing-room door, she went through the communicating door, leaving it ajar behind her. The dressing-room was small. On a cot bed Mrs Peach, the midwife, slept. Large wooden cupboards lined the walls. There was a marble-topped washstand, and a hip bath. A full-length pier-glass hung on a mahogany stand. This glass was so placed — presumably by Benson — that anyone lying on the bed would have a view through the doorway into the sick-room beyond. A night-light burned on the washstand.

  Frances had not left the sick-room a moment too early, for as she bent over the lock of the door which led out of the dressing-room back on to the Gallery, she heard Lady Amelia telling Benson that he might wait outside the sick-room. The door from the dressing-room on to the Gallery was locked, and there was no key in sight. She could not escape that way. What was she to do? It would be embarrassing to be found there, as if she were in hiding. She put up a hand to smooth her back hair. She decided to wait in the dressing-room until Lady Amelia had gone. Then she heard the old lady say, ‘Come here, Isabella.’ So Miss Seld was there, as well? Frances bit her lip. It was most unfortunate that she had left the door between dressing-room and sick-room ajar. She had no wish to eavesdrop, but she was going to be able to hear every word spoken next door. Ought she not to make her presence known?

  ‘I’d prefer to wait outside, if you are going to pray over him.’ That was Isabella’s voice, and she sounded sullen.

  ‘I want you to look at him. There! Doesn’t the sight of him, lying there so thin and worn, move you at all? Remember what he meant to you, only a few months ago? Remember that he has left you all his money! If you cannot love him, at least you can show your gratitude by helping to look after him now he is dying. His aunt is too weakly, Maud too interested in her own concerns to nurse him; but you ... you could, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I remember only too well what he was to me. He took advantage of me, because I was young and knew no better, while all the time he was leading a double life with that whore!’

  ‘Servants’ tattle. He denied it, and I believed him. And so ought you. If you had only stood by him, my girl, no one would have believed there was anything in the story. Breaking off your engagement l
ike that was the most damaging thing you could have done to him. It confirmed everyone’s suspicions ...’

  ‘The woman was pregnant, remember?’

  Someone sighed. There was a swirl of silk, and the door on to the Gallery banged. A moment of silence, and then the other woman also swept out, closing the door more gently as she went.

  Frances found herself standing at Lord Broome’s bedside without knowing how she got there. His eyes were open, his head was turned to the door, and there was an expression of puzzlement and pain on his face. It seemed that he had heard and understood enough of what had been said to disturb him.

  ‘Oh, hush!’ said Frances. It was an absurd thing to say, for he had not spoken. She took his sound hand in hers and began to stroke it, trying to think of words which might comfort him. ‘You must not let her upset you. There are other girls, with warmer hearts, who would stand by you in a time of trouble. I don’t know what it was that you did, but I’m sure it can’t have been anything very terrible.’

  She slipped her arm under his shoulders and raised him so that his head rested in the angle between her neck and shoulder. She was very conscious of her own strength, and of his weakness. She willed him to rest and to sleep. He was very tense. Remembering that Benson had said the sick man had enjoyed hearing her sing, she began to hum a lullaby. He began to relax against her. She set the sleeping draught to his lips. He refused it. She told him to behave himself. He drank it. She was pleased with him, and told him so. His eyes closed, and he breathed lightly but easily. Her shawl was still around his shoulders. She tucked it round him more closely and laid him back on the pillows; and then, absent-mindedly, almost in passing, as if she were settling a sick child down for the night, she kissed his forehead.

  Only, he had not been quite asleep. His eyelids flickered. He smiled. Then turned his head slightly away from her, and fell asleep.

  She put her hands over her hot cheeks. Had she really kissed him, a grown man? Why? Because he had reminded her of Walter? No, because he was not really like Walter. He was more like Agnes, and that might have been why ...

  A movement at her side increased her embarrassment. Benson had observed what she had done. ‘I’ll not blab, Miss. It was like a blessing. I only hope that when my time comes, someone will do the same for me. I shouldn’t wonder if it didn’t do him more good than a dozen sleeping draughts. And he never did it, Miss. You can take my word for that.’

  ‘You were listening at the door? Yes, of course. You would.’

  ‘I wanted to be sure they didn’t harm him.’

  ‘But what was it that he did?’

  ‘What was it that he didn’t do, you mean? Murder, Miss. And if you haven’t found the key for the door, I’ll set a chair under the knob when you’ve gone, to keep us safe for the night.’

  *

  Murder! The word echoed in Frances’ dreams, and kept time with her footsteps as she walked across the park to church next morning. Mur ... der ... Mur ... der …

  Snow clouds pressed low on the trees, but the wind had dropped. Only the occasional snowflake fell slowly to the earth. Attendance at church was obligatory for everyone at Furze Court. Most of the family had gone in the carriage, driving the winding mile through the park, past the lodge gates and out on to the road which led through the village to the church. Agnes and Miss Seld had chosen to walk through the shrubbery, across the rickety wooden footbridge over the sullen river, and then to the door in the wall of the park, which led into the churchyard. Agnes had something on her mind, and chose not to reply when Frances spoke to her. Frances felt that this was just as well, for she had slept badly, hearing the word ‘murder’ in her dreams.

  At first Isabella was equally silent, but on the return journey she slipped her arm through that of the governess, and begged the favour of a word with her. Agnes had run on ahead. Frances said that she ought to keep her charge in sight, especially crossing the bridge, which looked most unsafe to her.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Isabella, and shivered. Once across the bridge, however, Isabella was not to be put off. She began by saying that she had seen Frances reflected in the pier-glass in the dressing-room, the night before.

  Frances started, and would have given an explanation of her presence there, but Isabella was not interested in other people’s concerns — only in her own.

  ‘You were not at the Court last year, Miss Chard. I do wish you had been. I can see that you are the sort of person who can understand and sympathise. My trouble is that I have no one, absolutely no one, to talk to. Well, Gran is marvellous for her age, of course, but she can’t really remember what it is like to be young and pretty. And Maud is so ...’ She did not specify exactly what she thought of Maud, but Frances nodded. ‘There you are — I was sure you would understand and be able to advise me. It’s about Gavin ... Lord Broome ... of course. I was so young, only seventeen, and everyone urged me to take him, and of course he had a lot of money and was very charming and although he hadn’t got a house of his own, he had plans to build one; it was very flattering that he should pay court to me when he must have known that he could have had almost anyone; Maud has been after him for years, I know, and Susan Armstrong, and ... well, lots of girls. And I did think it would be nice to be married and rent a house in Town for the Season and he never said or did anything to indicate that underneath ... in fact, at first I couldn’t believe it, but Maud said ... and then, of course, it all came out at the inquest and I couldn’t marry him after that, could I?’

  ‘I’m afraid I know nothing about it.’

  ‘He’d been carrying on with the wife of the lodge-keeper here. His name is Jervis. You must have seen him around. A big, dark man. He was very cut up about it, because it had been going on under his nose for months, and he only found out when she got pregnant. There was a row and he turned her out of the house. She came straight up to the Court and was with Gavin — quite openly — for hours. I remember that because we had been going to go riding together and he put me off. Then when she came out of the gun-room, after seeing Gavin, she told the butler that she was going to live in Lewes and be a lady, and so, of course, they all guessed what had been going on, although nobody told me about it for ages. Only she didn’t stay in Lewes. Perhaps if she had, if it had only been a passing thing, and someone had told me later on, after we were married, I could have forgiven him, although I could never have understood it, for she was quite impossible, you know. Her father was a gypsy.’

  ‘You mean you could have forgiven him for a passing infatuation?’

  ‘Y-yes. Although I must say that I was beginning to have doubts about him even before Lilien died. Lilien was her name. You see, Gavin would say something and I could never be sure whether he was laughing at me or not, and he was forever going up to London on what he called business, but as I told him, if he really was in love with me, he wouldn’t always be wanting to leave me here by myself with no one to talk to.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’ asked Miss Chard, who had formed the uncharitable opinion that Isabella was one of the silliest creatures she had ever come across. She was not at all surprised that an intelligent, well-read man like Gavin Broome had been amusing himself with another woman on the side.

  ‘Oh, he tried to talk to me about politics, and investments and Uncle Manning’s charities, and all that sort of boring thing. It makes me shudder,’ continued Miss Seld, unconscious of the disapproval she had aroused, ‘to think how nearly I married him. There was even talk of my going back to South Africa with him when his leave was up. Then Lilien gave him away. She came back to meet him in the park by the footbridge. Gavin said she slipped and fell into the river and drowned accidentally, but there was a bruise on her forehead as big as a pigeon’s egg, and, of course, everyone knew that Jervis wasn’t the father of the child she was carrying. The verdict at the inquest was misadventure, but afterwards, when they buried her, Lilien’s father swore that he’d be revenged on the House of Broome. I didn’t go to the funeral, of c
ourse, but I was told about it. So I wrote Gavin a note and said that I thought I was too young to commit myself in marriage just yet. And he came to see me, and tried to make me change my mind, and Gran said ... and I cried and cried, but I couldn’t! I just couldn’t!’

  ‘He denied it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. He would, wouldn’t he? But he looked so red and so ... as if he knew all about it really. I pretended to believe him, because I can’t bear people shouting at me, but he could see I didn’t really believe him. He went all stiff and stem and said he thought I was probably right about our not marrying straight away. He said he would go up to London on some business matter or other the next day, so that I needn’t think of cutting short my visit to the Court on his account. And that was the last I saw of him.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Frances.

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ said Isabella, laughing to distract attention from an embarrassing blush. ‘It’s not about that I wanted to speak to you. Or only indirectly. You see, the thing is — ought I to accept Gavin’s money, seeing that it comes from a tainted source? He made a Will just before he went away, leaving everything to me apart from a small legacy to Benson and, of course, something in trust for Richard. I quite expected him to change his Will after I broke off our engagement, but he didn’t. Gran thought that he had left the Will as it was, hoping that I might forget about Lilien while he was away, and that we might make up the match again on his return. We don’t have any money of our own, you see, and most of the year we spend visiting in other people’s houses, and it’s not a very nice life. I can see Gran’s point of view; she wants to see me settled. Only I’ve grown up quite a lot since last summer. I’m eighteen now and have seen more of the world and been to several parties although, of course, Gran can’t afford to give me a Season in Town. I’ve learned to appreciate men who are prepared to devote their lives to the service of God.’