The Right Sort of Man

by Allison Montclair

  “She liked to shop, but she didn’t like to spend ’er own money,” he said, chuckling quietly.

  “She said she worked in a dress shop, too,” said Gwen. “Was that right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tolbert’s, over on Martha Street. ’E’s probably broken up over it. Thought the world of ’er.”

  “Sweet on her, was he?”

  “Well, no thinking that,” said Des. “Old Tolbert ’as to be sixty if ’e’s a day, and ’e ain’t been a day in many a day.”

  “She must have been a good worker, then.”

  “I expect,” said Des. “You coming to the funeral?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Gwen. “I had to beg them to let me off early to make this. Where is she to be buried?”

  His eyebrows raised at the phrasing.

  “She is to be buried at Bow,” he said. “She is to be transported by one of them Daimlers out front, with us walking be’ind. She would’ve wanted the old ’orse-drawn ’earse with the black feathers and the crape in the tails and Old Grimble leadin’ the way with the top ’at and the big wand, but ’orses cost more.”

  “Sounds like that would have been grand,” said Gwen.

  “Yeah, well, waste of money on brown bread, innit?”

  “I wish I could come.”

  “There’s gonna be a bit of an ’ale and ’earty after if you can make it,” he said.

  “Where?” she asked, her mind scrambling to figure out what that meant.

  “Merle’s. That’s over on Wapping High Street. Come raise a glass to ’er.”

  “I’ll be there,” she promised. “Thanks for the hanky.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said, tucking it away.

  She saw Iris rising and shaking hands with Elsie and Fanny. She went over to join them.

  “You don’t ’alf waste any time, do you?” said Fanny.

  “Yeah, it’s the quiet ones what they like,” added Elsie. “If I could keep me mouth shut, I’d ’ave better luck.”

  “If wishes were ’orses,” sighed Fanny. “Been setting me sights on that one for ages.”

  “I wasn’t trying—” Gwen began.

  “We know,” said Elsie. “Ones like you don’t ’ave to try, love. Makes it ’arder for the rest of us, picking through the leavings.”

  “Nice meeting you,” said Fanny. “See you tomorrer at Merle’s, then?”

  “Count on it,” said Iris. “Come on, Sophie. Let’s ’oof it back to the station before it gets dark.”

  “Ta ta,” said Gwen.

  They walked out.

  “Ale and arty?” asked Gwen as soon as they were safely out of earshot.

  “Put the h’s back in,” said Iris. “Then think of a rhyme that makes sense.”

  “Hale and hearty. Oh! A party?”

  “Well done.”

  “Context is all,” said Gwen. “I needed you to interpret.”

  “You needed me to chaperone,” teased Iris.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was in a chapel of rest, for goodness’ sake! With the poor girl lying not twenty feet away!”

  “Never stopped any red-blooded man from approaching a fair maid.”

  “I am no fair maid to be approached.”

  “Fair matron, then.”

  “Low blow.”

  “They’re the only kind I can land on you,” said Iris. “Learn anything useful?”

  “I got the name of the shop she worked in. Tolbert’s on Martha Street.”

  “Martha Street, Martha Street,” mused Iris. “I think that’s just north of the railway. Might be worth a little shopping expedition.”

  “How about your new friends? Anything more about Roger?”

  “Oh, you heard that? Yes, that was interesting. Poor Tillie came to us on the tail of being dumped.”

  “I wonder if we could find out more about him. His last name might prove useful.”

  “My thought as well. Hence the hale and hearty. Or ’ence the ’ale and ’earty, I should say.”

  “Two late nights in a row. Oh, God!” exclaimed Gwen. “I completely forgot!”

  “Forgot what?”

  “Lady Carolyne. I was supposed to have a talk with her after work. She’ll be furious.”

  “A talk about what?”

  “I don’t know. Her talks are never about anything I want to hear. And now I’ve given her the advantage by being late.”

  “Want me there?”

  “No,” said Gwen. “I have to deal with this myself.”

  “Then I shall lend my shoulder for you to cry on in the morning.”

  “I’ll have to lean down considerably.”

  “And volley returned. That’s my girl.”

  “So, Captain, what is our next move?”

  “We can try Tolbert’s tomorrow afternoon. Then head on to Merle’s, if you fancy a drink with your new suitor.”

  “What about the Right Sort?”

  “I don’t expect business to be booming tomorrow,” said Iris gloomily.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was past seven thirty when Gwen reached Kensington Court. At the last second, she remembered to replace her wedding ring. She slipped inside the house as quietly as she could, wondering if dinner was already over. They ate earlier now that Little Ronnie was joining them at the table. She had no time to change. She’d have to go with her workday suit, which would surely arouse some comment on Lady Carolyne’s part.

  To her dismay, Percival, the butler, was standing in the front hallway when she came through the door.

  “Good evening, Madam,” he said. “I trust that your day was satisfactory.”

  “Thank you, Percival,” she said, unpinning her hat. “I hope that you haven’t been waiting here just for me.”

  A faint grimace flickered over his face, then disappeared.

  “Lady Carolyne is expecting you,” he said.

  “I am aware.”

  “She has been expecting you for some time. She is in the library. Please follow me.”

  He turned to lead her.

  “There’s no need for you to—” she began.

  “Please follow me, Madam,” he repeated without looking back.

  He led her the short distance down the main hallway and knocked lightly on the second door to the right. There was a muffled bark from within. He opened the door.

  “Mrs. Bainbridge has arrived,” he announced.

  The formality of the moment did not bode well, she thought. She gathered herself up and walked passed Percival into the room.

  The library at the house held a collection of antique volumes bound in leather, with titles in Latin, German, and English embossed in gold leaf. The oldest, most priceless members of the collection were locked in a glass-doored mahogany cabinet perched on a quartet of elaborately carved legs. The rest of the books, merely valuable, ran across two sides of the room. There was a reading nook at one end with a tea table next to it, and a fireplace at the other with a marble mantelpiece, over which a painting of the current Lord Bainbridge glared down on everyone and everything, maintaining vigilance while his model in life was off inspecting their holdings in East Africa.

  In all the years that Gwen had lived in this house, she had never seen anyone reading any of the books mouldering on the shelves. Ronnie, when he had first shown her around the place, shuddered with mock revulsion when she asked if he liked to read in there.

  “God, no!” he had exclaimed. “With the Pater glowering down like that? I’d be terrified of leaving the slightest nick in the most unread tome in the place. He’d find it like a shot, and out comes the belt. No, I was happiest curled up in my secret hidey-hole in the attic with Ashenden or Hornblower.”

  Lady Carolyne sat in one of a pair of matching armchairs by the fireplace. She did not deign to look in Gwen’s direction when she entered. There was a decanter of sherry and one glass on a small table between the two chairs.

  There was no fire.


  Gwen hesitated, then went to take the chair opposite Lady Carolyne. She sank deep into the cushions. The arms felt like they were trying to pinion her down.

  “Good evening, Lady Carolyne,” she said.

  “You’re late.”

  “I telephoned. There was a funeral.”

  “A funeral?” responded Lady Carolyne, jerking her head towards Gwen. “Whose?”

  “One of our clients,” said Gwen. “It was unexpected.”

  “And you went to solicit the bereaved for business?”

  “To pay our respects, of course,” said Gwen. “Anything else would have been inappropriate.”

  For example, pursuing a highly speculative murder investigation, she thought with a pang of guilt.

  “An engagement party in the morning, a funeral in the evening,” said Lady Carolyne. “A true panoply of human existence in one short day. It’s too bad that you couldn’t pick up a christening during tea.”

  “I—”

  “Yet no actual weddings, which I understood to be the point of your vacuous little enterprise,” continued Lady Carolyne. “An unprofitable day overall, I would say.”

  “Some are better than others,” said Gwen. “Is this the matter which you wished to discuss with me?”

  “No,” said Lady Carolyne. “It concerns your son.”

  “Ronnie? Is anything wrong?”

  “Not a thing,” said Lady Carolyne. “However, Lord Harold and I have been discussing his schooling.”

  “Yes?”

  “I received a letter from Lord Harold confirming our plans. We have decided to send Ronnie to St. Frideswide’s School. It was where his father went, where Lord Harold went, indeed, where Bainbridge men have gone for generations.”

  “But that means sending him away,” protested Gwen. “You can’t do that. He’s only six.”

  “As to what we can or cannot do, let me remind you that we are his guardians, not you,” said Lady Carolyne. “The manner of his education falls to us. Being tutored at home is too limiting. He must receive proper instruction if he is to take his rightful place in the world.”

  “I don’t disagree, but St. Frideswide’s—it’s terribly far. There are many fine schools right here in London—”

  “There is a tradition to be upheld,” said Lady Carolyne. “You, like myself, have entered into this family from the outside, and by doing so, you have agreed to be bound by the family traditions.”

  “I by no means agreed to have my only son sent two hundred miles away when he’s only six years old. What mother could possibly agree to anything so cruel?”

  She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Lady Carolyne looked at her with cold fury in her eyes.

  “So, I am cruel now,” she snapped. “I am a villainous woman because I allowed my son to be given the benefits of one of the finest schools in England, one which turned him into the superb man that he was. I must disagree with your assessment of my maternal skills. And if you were so concerned with your child’s upbringing, then you would scarcely be playing at this silly business venture. You would be at home, helping to raise him—”

  “Which you won’t let me do!” shouted Gwen, rising to her feet.

  “Which you are incapable of doing,” said Lady Carolyne. “If you think for a moment that we would entrust our grandson, the only child of our only child, to the care of a woman whose emotional instability—”

  “My husband was killed. His loss destroyed me.”

  “You did not see us overreact to his death like that,” said Lady Carolyne. “We grieved, yes. We mourned, certainly. Then we carried on, and it was fortunate for you that we did. Who would have taken care of your child if it hadn’t been for us?”

  “Lady Carolyne, I can never repay you for what you did,” said Gwen. “But I am past that episode—”

  “Are you?” scoffed Lady Carolyne. “I doubt that anyone would view your current behaviour as that of a respectable widow and mother. Certainly not anyone in a court of law.”

  “He is my child,” said Gwen. “You’ve already taken away my rights as his mother. Please, Lady Carolyne, he is all I have left of Ronnie. If you send him away, there will be nothing for me here.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Lady Carolyne. “The family traditions will be upheld. When Ronnie takes his place as a Bainbridge man, it will be with a St. Frideswide education.”

  “You don’t care about his happiness,” said Gwen. “All you care about is turning him into another figurehead for the family holdings.”

  “He is the heir now that my son is dead,” said Lady Carolyne. “It should not have fallen to him so early. It should have been Ronnie. My Ronnie. I never thought life would be like this, but we must make the best of what it provides.”

  “This is not—”

  “There will be no more discussion on this matter.”

  “When?” asked Gwen in despair. “When does he leave us?”

  “The autumn term,” said Lady Carolyne. “I am done. Good night.”

  Gwen walked slowly to the door, nearly blinded by her tears.

  She staggered upstairs in search of her son. He was in his playroom, drawing on his pad with crayons.

  “Mummy!” he cried when he saw her standing at the doorway. “You missed dinner. We had mutton.”

  She knelt, and he flew into her embrace.

  “I’m sorry, my precious darling,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “Mummy had to work late tonight.”

  “Did anyone get married today?”

  “Not today,” she said, releasing him. “But soon, I hope. What are you drawing?”

  “I’m making a story,” he said excitedly.

  “Show me.”

  He held up a picture of a yellowish fish, with a long nose. No, more of a tusk.

  “Is that—is that a narwhal?” she said.

  “Yes!” he said proudly. “That is Sir Oswald the Narwhal. He swims in the Arctic Ocean, saving the world and fighting the Nazis.”

  “He sounds like a very brave and noble fish,” said Gwen.

  “He’s not a fish,” said Ronnie impatiently. “He’s a mammal.”

  “Is he really?”

  “He’s a type of whale. That’s what the second part of his name means.”

  “Whal means whale? I must say, that makes sense. I never knew that. Then what does nar mean?”

  “It means corpse,” said Ronnie.

  “What?” exclaimed Gwen, stiffening involuntarily. “Goodness gracious, why?”

  “The colour,” said Ronnie. “The sailors thought it looked like a floating dead thing. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Very strange,” said Gwen, stifling the dread that this innocent drawing was now creating in her. “Well, you must tell me all about Sir Oswald’s adventures. How did he become knighted?”

  “It happened when he was very young,” said Ronnie. “They live a long time, narwhals do. They stay with their mummies because they have to nurse, like baby cows. Did I nurse when I was a baby, Mummy?”

  “Of course,” said Gwen. “I took very good care of you. We were out in the country then.”

  “Are we going back there this summer?”

  The question caught her by surprise. She had been so wrapped up in the Right Sort that she had not thought about any summer plans. And now that Ronnie was going to be leaving in the fall, this would be their last time together until the holidays.

  “I’m not sure, darling,” she said. “I’m working now, so I might not be able to go, or at least, not for very long. I will discuss it with your grandmother.”

  “It’s all right if we don’t go,” he said, turning to his drawing.

  “You don’t mind me working, do you?”

  “Why would I mind?”

  “Because it’s the first time I’ve done that since—well, really the first time ever.”

  “All the other people here work, don’t they? Except for Grandmother, of course.”

  “Yes, I sup
pose that’s true.”

  “Only you don’t work for Grandmother.”

  “No,” said Gwen. “I don’t.”

  “We should tell Grandmother to get a job,” said Ronnie.

  Gwen gave an involuntary snort at the thought, then hugged him.

  “You are a marvelous boy,” she said. “Now, tell me more about Sir Oswald.”

  “I think he needs a helmet,” said Ronnie, studying the picture critically.

  “I think you’re right,” said Gwen.

  * * *

  Andrew was stretched out on the divan in the sitting room when Iris returned to her flat, his stockinged feet up on a cushion, his boots standing at attention on the carpet beside him. He looked up from the book he was reading.

  “I didn’t know you were coming in tonight,” she said, dropping her handbag on the table.

  “Wanted to finish this,” he said, holding up the Campion. “Still don’t believe a word, but it’s entertaining enough. You’re getting in later than usual.”

  “I was out investigating.”

  “So you’ve turned detective after all. Good for you. What changed your mind?”

  “A visit from the press,” she said, sitting on the edge of the divan next to him and kicking off her shoes. “Move over and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  He listened intently as she recounted her visit from Pontefract.

  “You should have called me,” he said. “We could have tried to quash the story.”

  “No, that would have made matters worse,” she said. “Once the terrier has seized the rat in its teeth, it won’t cease worrying it.”

  “What are you going to do when the paper comes out?”

  “Weather the storm the best we can. Maybe the free publicity will help in the long run.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said glumly.

  “Still, I wish I could have seen you buffeting that fellow about,” he said. “His pride must be below his ankles now.”

  “It was surprisingly satisfying,” she agreed. “Less so when Mike Kinsey showed up later.”

  “Did he? Why?”