Fear for Frances

by Veronica Heley

  Half-way down the stairs, she was met by one of the footmen. She was wanted in the gun-room, immediately.

  Her mind leaped to the telegram which had come from Bath and she knew, or rather she feared, that this summons related to her past life. Why had she not gone straight to Mrs Broome that morning and confessed all?

  Hugo was alone in the gun-room. He was smoking a cigar as usual, and in his hand he held not one, but several telegraph forms. He did not ask her to sit, as he would have done if the interview were to be pleasant.

  ‘A tiresome matter,’ said Hugo, looking not at her but at the point of his cigar. ‘You are the same Miss Chard who was until recently employed by a Mrs Palfrey of Gloucestershire?’ She bowed her head. ‘You left your place there without a reference, under suspicious circumstances, and yet you did not see fit to tell my aunt of it?’

  ‘Yes, I acted wrongly. I ought to have spoken of the affair to Mrs Broome, but the subject was still so painful that I shrank from doing so. May I tell you what happened?’

  ‘I have the gist of the affair, I believe. This man — Walter Donne — Mrs Palfrey writes that he has turned out very badly, and has since been cast off by his aunt; that he is reported to be keeping bad company in Town. You still hear from him?’

  ‘No, indeed. I am sorry, for he had many good qualities, and I believed him to be fond of his aunt. No, I have neither seen nor heard anything of him since I left Mrs Palfrey’s.’

  ‘But you have his current address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am informed he has taken lodgings in Bayswater.’

  ‘I know nothing of that.’

  ‘I can check with the servants, to see if you have received any letters from him.’

  ‘Do so. You will find nothing.’

  ‘You are almost convincing, Miss Chard.’

  ‘Mr Broome, I am and was innocent of anything but imprudence in allowing Mr Donne to single me out and pay court to me, and even for that I am most heartily sorry.’

  He dropped the telegraph forms into the fire. ‘I am satisfied. I have not told Mrs Broome about this, and I shall not do so. In view of the services which you are rendering the family, and the heavy responsibility you have undertaken, I think I may safely promise that you have heard the last of this matter. You understand me, I suppose?’

  ‘I am not sure that I do.’

  ‘Come now; you are a clever girl, Miss Chard. I think you understand me very well. Originally the doctors said he wouldn’t last the week out. Well, he did and he survived the operation against all odds. But I hear he has now lapsed into a coma. How long do you think he will last?’

  ‘I am not trained to judge. You must ask the doctor. Indeed, I cannot help you.’

  ‘Oh, but I think you must!’

  Maud Broome entered the room, without knocking. She looked annoyed to find the despised governess alone with her cousin. She went to Hugo, and linked her arm with his as Frances bobbed a curtsey and left the room.

  Spilkins was passing by. ‘Where is Mr Manning?’ she asked him.

  ‘He’s out visiting in the landau with Miss Seld and Mrs Broome. They’ve gone over to the Armstrongs for a while, but I don’t know whether they will be bringing Miss Agnes back with them or not. It depends. Wonderful recoveries Mrs Broome makes when there’s a chance of her seeing company.’

  ‘Spilkins, I am in trouble. His lordship is so ill, and the locks on the bedroom doors are faulty. Can you arrange for them to be changed?’

  He looked doubtful, but said he would have a message sent down to the smith in the village, who might be able to do something.

  Frances sought out Lady Amelia, who was crouched over the fire in the Great Hall, playing patience. Frances felt that she must tell someone — anyone in authority — immediately, everything that she knew and suspected about the goings-on in the sick-room. Also, it was of paramount importance that Benson be rescued from jail. If Mr Manning were not available, then she must try Lady Amelia.

  But Lady Amelia was too old and had been too battered by life to be the sort of ally Frances was seeking. She was full of rheumatism and peevish. The wind had moved round so that this chimney smoked, as well. Frances begged the favour of a few minutes’ speech. Lady Amelia asked if it couldn’t wait till Mrs Broome returned. Frances said no, it couldn’t wait, and plunged into her narrative, re-living in her mind every incident as it had occurred. It was some time before she realised that Lady Amelia was regarding her with horrified fascination and disbelief, and then she heard a sarcastic laugh behind her, and her heart sank. Maud and Hugo had come into the hall, and overheard her.

  ‘Really, Miss Chard!’ said Maud. ‘It is plain that your hours of watching over my cousin have damaged your health.’

  ‘Could any of it be true?’ quavered Lady Amelia, but she asked Hugo and not Frances, and Hugo’s answer was foreseeable. He gave Frances a look which indicated that he no longer regarded her as a friend, and told her to withdraw to her quarters. She thought: So I am to be dismissed.

  She did not attempt to argue, but withdrew. She had tried, and she had failed, and she knew that by the time she reached Mr Manning he would be well primed with the story of her “fantasies”. Trust Hugo for that!

  She returned to the sick-room, not knowing where else to go. The vicar had gone, but Abel and Polly were sitting, both on the same chair, by the window. Frances asked them to wait outside. She could see at a glance that his lordship had not moved since she left.

  When she was alone, she put chairs under the knobs of the doors to ensure privacy. If he was to die, and she to be dismissed, she would at least have one hour with him, quite alone, to remember in the lonely years to come. She climbed on to the bed, and drew him into her arms. He lay limply against her. She put his maimed hand to her lips. Her tears wet his fingers, and tasted salt as she kissed them away. She did not attempt to control them. Had she not cause to cry? When Mrs Broome came back from the Armstrongs, Hugo would see that Frances was dismissed, at once, without a reference. And she would be turned out, and tonight, or perhaps some time late this evening, the “monk” would creep back into the room with a pillow in his hands, and the pillow would be placed over the face of the sleeping man, lying there defenceless, with his batman in jail ... and there would be an end of Gavin Broome.

  And what could she do about it? Discredited, twice dismissed without a reference, she would be laughed to scorn if she attempted to take her story to the police. And even if she were bold enough to do so, by the time she reached Lewes and had told her story there, it would be too late for Gavin Broome. It does not take long to smother a helpless invalid. Five minutes, say. Why, it could be done within half an hour of her leaving the house ... or even while she was packing her things to go! She clutched him to her, and began to kiss him.

  ‘Wake up! Oh, my darling ... wake up!’

  Did he sigh? Had he moved his head a little, to look at her? His eyes glittered. Had they changed direction? She pushed the hair out of his eyes, and kissed him again, but this time gently. She willed him to awaken. She prayed for him to do so. He sighed. Yes, this time there was no doubt of it. He had lowered his eyelids. He must not slip away from her. She must attract his attention at all costs.

  ‘Benson!’ she said, speaking slowly and distinctly. ‘He needs your help. He is in jail. I don’t know whether they will have put him in irons or not, but at the very least he will be in a cold, damp cell, with a straw pallet to sleep on, which is probably infested. They won’t handle him with care, will they? To them, he is a murderer and a thief, scum from nowhere.’

  She thought she had his attention. The line between his eyebrows deepened.

  ‘He saved your life,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember it, but he did. It was the first day I came to see you. He thought you were dead, and he cried. And now they say he tried to kill you, and they’ve locked him away in jail, and will hang him in due course. Won’t you try to help him?’

  His lips moved.
Had he tried to speak Benson’s name? She went on talking, telling him of what Benson had done for him, and of the things he had said to her. Presently he put his good hand over his eyelids and pressed them. He shook his head sharply, as if trying to clear it.

  ‘Nightmares.’ His voice was a mere thread. ‘So many nightmares. What was real? Richard …’ He shook with a nervous chill. She pressed his face to her shoulder and held him, comforting him as she would a child. Presently he was still. He lay back on his pillows, let her wash his face and hands, and took a drink of water.

  ‘Richard,’ he said. ‘Tell me about him. I didn’t dream that, did I? How did they murder him?’

  ‘He wasn’t murdered. It was an accident. He took a hedge at the wrong angle, when he was out hunting. I saw the place afterwards. Agnes wanted to see, so we walked up there. He jumped a hedge into Long Acre Field, at a place between two beeches. He came down on a boulder, and it killed him.’

  ‘A boulder in Long Acre Field?’ He didn’t seem able to absorb the information. ‘There are no boulders in Long Acre Field.’

  ‘We saw it. A great big stone, about nine inches across. Not really a boulder, I suppose, but big enough to kill him. It was just a week before he was due to marry Miss Broome. They brought him back, but he didn’t recover consciousness. He’s buried in the family vault. Listen: about Benson. He was arrested some time yesterday, and is in Lewes jail. They think he attacked and robbed you in the train and stole your money. Someone denounced him in an anonymous letter, and they found some money on him, in a body belt. I seem to remember Benson’s saying something about handling money for you, but ...’

  ‘I remember, now.’ His hand trembled as he pressed it to his eyelids again. ‘Lewes station. He got me a paper. Yes, of course, he was carrying my money because of the weight, and my being so helpless, one-handed. Twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven sovereigns. I have a memorandum in the breast pocket of the jacket I was wearing, if you can find it. I was in the carriage, waiting for the train to start. They’d said I ought to go to London as soon as I landed to get my arm seen to, but I wanted to get home first. I was uneasy because I hadn’t had any letters from home for months, and I ... a man got into the carriage. No, two men. I didn’t look up, but I saw their legs under the newspaper ... devilish difficult to read The Times when you’ve got one arm in a sling ... then nothing. Nothing until much later. But I thought that was all a nightmare, born out of fever. Was it real? A big woman, who breathed through her mouth and stank of gin. Pain, in my head and my arm. Being pulled about by that fool Kimpton and another man I didn’t recognise. My arm! Then I was so thirsty. I would have sold my soul for a drink of water, but when I got it, it made me vomit. And I was hungry, too. That couldn’t have been real, could it? Was I so ill that everything tasted bad?’

  ‘The nurse doctored your food and drink.’

  ‘Why should she do that?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ wailed Frances. ‘Someone wants you dead, but I don’t know who it is. I can’t believe Lee is responsible for everything, even if he is the “monk”.’

  His lordship was still trying to remember. ‘The nurse ... something at the back of my mind ... I can’t remember properly, but it must have been real, because you came into it, and you are real. I was asleep, I think. Then I woke up. I couldn’t breathe. I straggled. I remember falling and then my arm ...! Then I heard your voice. I knew it. I don’t know how or why, but I recognised it. And everything changed. There was food and drink and the air smelled fresh and I was warm and clean again. Oh, the smell of good soap and fresh sheets and linen. And you. Did you sing to me? It wasn’t just a dream, was it? Did you really kiss me? I thought I ought not to ask, in case you had regretted it, since. Only now I don’t know what was real and what was not, and I need to know. Did you kiss me?’

  ‘I... yes.’

  ‘And just now, too?’

  Frances went scarlet. She got off the bed and tidied her hair. ‘If I did, it was because you seemed like a child to me.’

  ‘Brazen creature,’ said his lordship, with an echo of his old raillery. He settled himself more comfortably on his pillows and looked around him. ‘We’ll need pen, ink and paper. There won’t be any in this room. I’ll dictate what I want to say to the police, and sign it, but you’ll have to act as witness to my signature.’

  ‘Why? Isn’t your word good enough?’

  ‘My handwriting isn’t. My signature isn’t what it used to be, and I’ve no signet ring. Richard had one, but I expect it was buried with him.’ His right hand clenched, and then relaxed. ‘Benson must be cursing me for leaving him in that place. And what about some food? I’m hungry. And the fire has burned low. Where the devil is everyone? And what was that you said about someone other than Lee trying to kill me?’

  *

  Although Frances had more than half-expected to be called from the sick-room to receive notice of her dismissal, the rest of the day and that night passed without incident. No member of the family bothered to do more than enquire at the sick-room door how his lordship was doing, and the fiction was preserved that the injured man was sinking fast. This was Lord Broome’s doing. He needed time, he said; also he wanted to talk privately to Arling and to his Uncle Manning before he was ready to receive his family. All Frances’ protests were overruled. As she had guessed, Lord Broome was too set on having his own way to listen to reason.

  Theo arrived to see his patient before Frances had finished telling her tale, and it was he who witnessed Lord Broome’s straggling signature and took the statement, with the pocket-book which proved Benson had a right to carry his master’s money, away with him. He proposed to leave his practice to take care of itself while he journeyed to Lewes to fetch Benson. It was not thought wise to let this move be widely known in the household, but Lord Broome took Abel and Polly into his confidence and was rewarded by their fervent assurances of support.

  Arling was another man Lord Broome took into his confidence. He was with Lord Broome for nearly an hour, and what was said between the two men caused Frances to tremble more than ever for her patient’s life. Where would this wickedness end? But she had to confess that she felt happier when Arling sent up a stalwart groom to sit outside the sick-room door; ostensibly he was there so that Frances could send a message to the doctor at any hour of the day and night, but in reality he was acting as a bodyguard. Arling himself took the early night watch, and it was hoped that Benson would be back before midnight.

  In the event, neither Theo nor Benson reappeared that night. Lord Broome wondered whether to get out his pistols to put under his pillow, but Arling talked him out of it. Instead, a second burly groom appeared to relieve the man on duty outside the door, and Frances slept soundly.

  It was raining hard when she woke next morning. And still there was no sign of Benson, or of Theo. His lordship staggered to the chair in the window when Frances was in the dressing-room, and laughed in her face when she scolded him. Extra food was smuggled into the sick-room by Polly, and the agency nurse, whom Frances could not trust to hold her tongue about the improvement in his lordship’s condition, was told that her services were no longer required. To make sure that she spoke to no one in the household, Arling himself drove her to the station and put her on a train back to Lewes.

  An uneasy gaiety ruled the sick-room. His lordship taught Frances the basic moves of chess, and she mended a rent in his dressing-gown. The Court was hushed. Everyone was waiting for something to happen. Agnes was returned by the Armstrongs at tea-time, but her noisy laughter seemed shockingly inapt in the silence that had fallen over the Court. And still it rained, and still there was no sign of Theo or of Benson.

  Frances’ nerves were getting frayed. Lord Broome demanded a cigar and some wine with his supper. She refused to let him have either, on medical grounds.

  ‘Now let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘If I want a cigar, or wine, then I shall have it, and you will not treat me as if I were seven years old any longer. Likewise n
o one — not even you — is to offer to do anything for me, however clumsy I am, unless I actually ask for help. Is that understood?’

  Frances nodded.

  His lordship relented. ‘You would never have made a nurse. You are far too soft-hearted.’

  He sent Polly to fetch his uncle, with instructions to speak to Mr Manning when that gentleman was alone and the summons might go unremarked in the household. Polly managed this very well. Frances was sent to walk in the Gallery while Mr Manning was with Lord Broome. She thought she knew why, and the knowledge oppressed her. Was everyone at the Court evil?

  Meakins, the ladies’ maid, came into the Gallery.

  ‘Have you anything to report, Miss Chard?’

  Frances shook her head. She knew what the woman meant. It was plain that she was in Hugo’s pay. It was a great comfort to know that no one could get into the sick-room past Arling’s man.

  Theo and Benson turned up just as she was settling his lordship down for the night. The batman was filthy, and unshaven. He had lost one of his shoes and his clothes were torn.

  ‘Stupid fool to get yourself arrested,’ was his master’s greeting.

  Benson grinned and said he’d be all right once he’d had a crack at whoever it was that had framed him.

  ‘When you’ve had a bath, you mean. And eaten, and changed. You may sleep next door when you’ve made yourself presentable. And I mean sleep, not watch. All that’s been taken care of. As for the matter of revenge, you may leave that to me.’

  ‘Pleasure, Major,’ said Benson, and went off to horrify the staff in the servants’ hall.

  *

  Agnes danced into Frances’ room next morning while she was dressing. Agnes was anxious to tell her governess everything that she had seen and done while she had been away. She said she had a “big secret” to tell her governess, but before she could do so, Polly knocked on the door to say that Miss Chard was required in the sick-room straight away. Agnes pulled a face, Miss Chard kissed the child, and promised to have a long talk with her later on that day.