The China Governess (29 page)

‘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 Toberman, 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.'

THE KITCHEN SMELLED
warm and airless and the only light came from the small glowing rope across the bright shield of the electric heater which Mrs. Broome had put in the mock fireplace to make it look “like home” for the sweethearts.

The door into the house opened cautiously and Tim put his head in. ‘Julia?'

‘I'm here in the chair.' They were both whispering and he came round the table, feeling his way cautiously.

‘Is he quiet now?' she murmured as he bent over the chair.

‘I think so. He keeps dropping off, snoring like a donkey-engine and waking himself up again. Then he thinks he'll go and find a short one for his dry throat! However, forget him. I think he's about had it tonight. Where are you? Oh my God, my darling, where are you?'

‘Here. Come on, there's plenty of room.'