An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy)

by Lizzie Church

  ‘You were expecting to see Miss Owens, Mrs Staveley?’ Kathryn was somewhat taken aback. Surely Mrs William had told her aunt of the governess’ dismissal? ‘Was....is she much in the habit of coming to see you?’

  ‘Oh yes. She visits me quite often, you know. A most pleasant, unaffected, well behaved girl – quite genteel. It was Frederick’s idea. He thought we may be company for each other. We neither of us have too many friends here at – well, wherever we are.’

  Kathryn could not help but smile, despite the seriousness of the situation. So Mr Staveley and Miss Owens had not neglected each other after all. She had hoped as much. After all, Freddy had a little of Andrew about him, and Maggie a little of herself. It was only natural that they should get together, if only they could recognise it for themselves.

  ‘Is no-one else much in the habit of visiting you, then, Mrs Staveley? Only I had heard that you had found a few of your things to go missing. I was wondering whether there were any suspects in the house?’

  Mrs Staveley shook her head a little vaguely.

  ‘Missing? Oh, I suppose a few things did go missing. Trinkets really, Mrs....err – old things of my mother’s. I liked them for their sentimental value. They made me remember my youth. Poesy rings were quite the rage when I was a girl, you know. They are quite out of fashion just now.’

  ‘Poesy rings?’ Kathryn felt a shock flash right through her. ‘Was it a poesy ring that went missing, Mrs Staveley?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, I believe it was. A poesy ring and – now, whatever else was it? A poesy ring and....err....’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been a pendant – a pendant on a heavy chain, would it?’

  ‘Aye – yes, you have it. A gold pendant in the shape of a heart. It was a present from papa to mama when she first married him,’ Mrs Staveley gave a somewhat misty smile. ‘It’s a long time ago, you know, my dear. A very long time ago. I am very sorry that it seems to have gone astray. I was very fond if it, though I did not wear it very much. It was a link to my parents, I suppose. They are long since dead, of course, long since dead, but I still miss them. And now my hair pins have disappeared, too. I cannot think what on earth I have done with them. My memory is not as good as it used to be, you know. I daresay I have put them away and will find them in a drawer....’

  Chapter 32

  ‘So, Drew, what ever do you think we should do?’

  Kathryn was sitting with her husband in the nursery at Belvoir House, a sleeping Andy on her knee. Kate and Rob were playing quietly together in the corner with Sally, their nurse, and Andrew was giving his full attention to his wife. His elbow was resting on the back of the sofa, his hand propping up his head, his foot under his knee. He was looking most concerned.

  ‘Do we know when Mr Staveley is due back, Kathy? I am wondering whether he ought to be consulted on the matter.’

  Kathryn nodded.

  ‘Yes, I think he should. It is very much in his interest to get things sorted out, after all. And from what his mother told me it appears that Mr and Mrs William are effectively robbing him as well as her. After all, she had intended to leave everything to her son – she has nobody else, other than Georgiana, and I get the impression that she’s none too pleased with her. It would make a big difference to his prospects if he were to inherit some money. Mrs Staveley’s own house apparently raised over eight hundred pounds and she thought that she took an income from some investments, though she could not say how much. There will be nothing left if Georgiana has her way. Mr Wright – and hence Georgiana - has taken full control of everything. They even interrogate her before they will give her any pin money.’

  ‘And in the meantime we still have no idea where Miss Owens may have gone?’

  ‘None. Mrs Staveley did not even know that she had gone. She was most upset when I broke the news to her. She refused to believe that there was any harm in the girl at all – and, indeed, I must say I agree with her.’

  ‘So you think these new items – the pins that went missing more recently – have gone the way of the others?’

  ‘I expect so. There is nothing to point any differently anyway.’

  ‘Well.’ Andrew took a deep breath and sighed. ‘Unless anything happens to change our minds I suggest that we await Mr Staveley’s return and then discuss with him exactly what to do. In the meantime, if we get any news of Miss Owens’ whereabouts perhaps we should seek her out and offer her a roof here for a while. At least she should not starve!’

  Kathryn smiled gratefully at her ever-thoughtful husband.

  ‘Yes – thank you, Drew. It’s just what I would wish for myself. And I daresay she might want to make herself useful whilst she’s with us. I’m sure that Sally would welcome a little help, especially once the new baby has arrived.’

  She shuffled a little on the sofa and Andy opened his eyes sleepily. He saw his papa, gave him a sweet smile and a little chortle and immediately stretched out his arms towards him. Kathryn laughed ruefully.

  ‘Oh, go on, then, you little traitor,’ she said to him, handing him over reluctantly to her husband. ‘Choose him instead of me, why don’t you? But I know it’s only cupboard love, when all’s said and done - I daresay your papa provides you with far more commodious accommodation than I could hope to do!’

  Chapter 33

  Not quite knowing exactly how she had got there, the object of Mr and Mrs Berkeley’s discussion was sitting despairingly amidst the contents of a half-emptied trunk in a small, unkempt, dingy upstairs room at the rear of Maiden Street, which enjoyed the distinctive but singularly unpleasant and pungent aroma of fish. Her first reaction on being given Mrs William’s ultimatum had been – well, no reaction at all. The communication, and the contents of the communication, and the sheer vindictiveness of the way in which the communication had been delivered, had so taken her by surprise that for several minutes she was totally unable to marshal any thoughts at all. She had mounted the stairs mechanically, removed her possessions from the shelf and added them to the folded clothes that were already in her trunk. She had labelled the trunk – where should she send it? - post restant at the post office, of course – and fastened it down without putting any thought into anything that she was doing at all. And then she had gone down the stairs, opened the front door, and walked out into the drizzly street without having the faintest idea of what she was doing or where she should go to next.

  Perhaps it was the rain that had awoken her from her initial, almost dream-like state. Perhaps it was the fresh sea air that had caressed her face and set her mind to work once again. Whatever it was, Maggie had gradually become aware that she was wandering down East Street, looking at the rubbish in the roadway, not having the slightest thought in her head, and with a sick feeling which so gripped her stomach that she had thought that she should straightway faint with the pain.

  She had soon realised that the automatic nature of her activities so far, and the sick feeling which quickly followed them, were the physical manifestation of total fear. A fear that she had never felt before, unbridled and utterly intense. Fear for her future. Fear that Mrs Wright might renege on their agreement and seek to indict her anyway. Fear that she had but a couple of shillings upon her, Mrs William, quite naturally, having omitted to pay her for any of the eight months of employment that she had completed so far, and that these two shillings would have to serve as her only means of gaining sustenance until she could find some way of earning herself some more. Fear of where she might end up if she should fail to acquire a respectable occupation within the very short timescale that she knew was available to her. She had realised that she was more frightened at this very minute – more frightened as she trod the busy streets of Weymouth in the middle of market day, with normal people cheerfully going about their normal business all around her – she was more frightened at that very moment than ever she had been frightened in her life.

  Maggie’s breath had been coming in short, panicky bursts. This would never do. She had realised that
she would have to get a grip on herself in order to take some rational decisions. Things were bad – things looked bleak – but surely all had not yet been lost? Other people – other women – must surely have faced such situations before. What did one do when one suddenly became homeless, and without employment? Maggie had forced herself to think. One sought some shelter, looked at one’s assets, and planned.

  So, first for some shelter. Maggie had sniffed at herself in disdain. Was she not standing in the middle of Weymouth? And was Weymouth not a seaside town, with accommodation aimed at visitors of very limited means as well as at the very rich? Finding accommodation should be the least of her worries. It should be quite straightforward to find some.

  By the time she had thought of this she had wandered along to Maiden Street and she had soon found herself in a narrow passageway which led through to St Mary Street and the small church square beyond. Looking about her she had spotted an ill-written notice of ‘rooms to let’ in one of the house windows in the passage. Maggie had taken a deep breath as she had hesitated outside. It was not a grand building – not a grand building at all, but with the current parlous state of her finances this would surely be a very good thing. Maiden Street was respectable enough – certainly respectable enough for a young lady with scarcely a penny to her name. She had to get something and this was no time to be nice. So she had taken another deep breath, had rapped on the door, which had swung open of its own accord, and been faced with a steep set of stairs, which she had immediately forced herself to climb.

  So here she was, the agreement reached, her shillings already gone in rent, her trunk retrieved, sitting in the dingy room which was now her home, looking despairingly at her possessions and feeling very low. Until now her mind had been so occupied by practicalities that she had scarcely given a thought to anything other than survival. But now that she had secured a roof over her head and had her own things with her – things that she knew she could sell as she needed to – she found that she had leisure enough to think about her fate. And her thoughts were by no means pleasant ones. What would Mrs Staveley think when she heard that she had gone? What would Mrs William actually say to her? That it had been she – Maggie – her so-called friend - who had stolen her bits of jewellery and tried to steal five pounds? And would Mrs Staveley believe it, and feel betrayed - believe that yes, indeed, it had been the governess – the stranger in the household - who had stolen all her things? For all Maggie knew she might certainly do so. What possible reason would she have not to do so, when her own niece was telling her that it was true? And – and – and well, she had to acknowledge the question that was uppermost in her mind, the question that, above all others, was nagging away at her, robbing her of any ability to put her fate into perspective whatsoever – and what would Mr Staveley think? What would he think when he returned to find her gone? Dear, kind, thoughtful Mr Staveley. Mr Staveley whom she loved so dearly it would be more than her life was worth for him to think her a thief. Mr Staveley who had plenty of problems of his own. Would he really consider her a thief? Would he hate her and spurn her like the others? Was that likely? She really couldn’t say. After all, although Mr Staveley appeared to be a fair minded man, a man who would not just accept Mrs William’s accusation and instantly cast her aside - even though she knew this of him she also knew that he had been fully aware of her indelicate flirtation with Mr Wright – known of this and been concerned about this to such an extent that he himself had thought it necessary to warn her about it, to hint that it would not do. He did not know that she had heeded his warning. For all he knew she may have totally ignored it – resented it, even – and allowed Mr Wright the freedoms which it was perfectly evident he had so desperately wanted. Mr Wright had visited her at night. His wife was well aware of it and had reached her own conclusion. Perhaps Mrs William would tell Freddy about it? What would he think of her then? After all, Freddy was not in love with her as she was in love with him – or, if he was, he certainly hadn’t recognised it yet. Maggie herself had seen him only as a friend until that sudden realisation that he had grown so much more important to her than that. There was no reason at all for her to suppose that Mr Staveley either felt – or was aware of – such a fondness for her in return. For all she knew, he might still have hopes of Miss Brewer. So the questions were uncomfortable ones. Of all the people whose good opinion she most valued, most treasured, Mr Staveley was surely at the top of her list – no, not at the top of her list – he was on a list of his own, a list of his own up there amongst the heavens. And as she thought of this and remembered just what Mr Staveley had become to her she became aware that, of all the hardships that her sudden expulsion from Grosvenor Place was going to entail for her, they were as nothing compared to the possibility that she might lose the opportunity of gaining his affection for ever.

  Chapter 34

  Mrs John was not too long in tracking Maggie down. She had a wide acquaintance in Weymouth and the fact that a young lady had called for a trunk at the Post Office, where it had been left for a day while she secured lodgings for herself, was soon transmitted to the house on High Street and onward up the hill to Belvoir. So within two days of her flight from Grosvenor Place Maggie had the totally unexpected – and mortifyingly embarrassing – experience of welcoming Mrs Berkeley and Mrs John to her small, dingy and distinctly smelly new room at the rear of Maiden Street, and of having to invite them inside. Maggie had already raided the trunk and pawned a couple of silk handkerchiefs to tide her over and she had been sitting on the floor examining the remaining contents somewhat ruefully, calculating their likely value and estimating the length of time over which they might be able to maintain her and wishing for the hundredth time that she had Freddy there to support her, when the ladies had knocked softly on her door.

  Maggie, indeed, felt totally discomfited and humiliated when she opened the door to find her former employer’s relations in the hallway – discomfited, as she was a little uncertain as to the nature of their business with her (and feared – perhaps unreasonably – that they might have come to arrest her) and humiliated at the shabby and unkempt appearance of the room into which she was now obliged to show them.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she was saying. ‘I have only the one chair – but please be seated if you can. I regret that this apartment is not quite what you are both used to.’

  Oddly, and totally unexpectedly, both ladies looked at each other as she said this and then burst into fits of uninhibited and seemingly uncontrollable giggles which quite startled and confused her. She wondered, not for the first time, whether this was not all just a horrible dream and that she was not really there in a dingy room off Maiden Street at all. If indeed it were not a dream – if, indeed, Mrs Berkeley and Mrs John really were standing there in her dirty little room, looking about them, giggling for all they were worth – well, should she not be feeling more than a little aggrieved and angry with them for laughing at her fate?

  ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, Miss Owens.’ Mrs John was the first to recover, coughing a little. ‘We are perfectly aware of the serious situation in which you find yourself. We do not mean to demean it in any way. It is just that – well – it is all so odd, in a way. It is just that you have ended up in exactly the same room as the one that Mrs Berkeley rented after she was thrown out of her home at Sandsford House. You must know, of course, that Mr Brewer had purchased the property so that her husband could pay off his debts, and effectively threw her out with nowhere better to go, and no money to call her own. It appears that the poor little room is serving the self same purpose once again. It is most strange. You lived here for a good two months, did you not, Kathryn? - until you finally agreed to stay with me once Andrew had freed himself of Miss Brewer and asked you to marry him instead.’

  ‘I did indeed.’ Kathryn had now managed to control her giggles, at least in part. ‘And it was also this very room that my dear aunt rented when Giles had thrown her out of the house the previous year. It smelled bad even in
those days and the curtains look exactly as they did then. I have to say – it hasn’t changed a bit.’

  Despite the seriousness of her situation – a situation which had resulted in that most unpleasant sick feeling in the pit of her stomach which had resolutely refused to budge throughout the two days since Mrs William had told her to pack her trunk and leave – Maggie had to smile with them. Mrs Berkeley had already told her that she had not always been so grand. Maggie had heard the words but in some ways she had hardly believed them. After all, in her experience - which, granted, was not large - it was often those people who had suddenly risen up the social scale who were the most haughty and unapproachable. And yet Mrs Berkeley was never haughty, never unapproachable – except, perhaps, in having so sweet, so superior a disposition that ordinary mortals must surely feel unworthy of even daring to address her. She was finding it difficult to believe that she, too, had suffered from similar indignities to the ones she was experiencing for herself.

  ‘At least it provides a roof over my head, Mrs Wright. I – err – I expect you have heard of the reason I am here? I was not sure where else I could turn. I was fortunate in that the landlady took pity on me and allowed me in without a deposit. I have had to pay her rent in advance, however.’

  Mrs Berkeley, who was looking a lot less slim than previously, and a lot more tired, had taken the proffered seat. Maggie stood rather awkwardly with Mrs Wright, who was looking out of the window.