The China Governess Read online

  She picked up Julia’s suitcase and turned a smiling face towards her.

  ‘You’d better get some sleep,’ she said. ‘You won’t get much once you’re on the run from the reporters. They’ll be on to you like ravening wolves, your father appealing for you on the telly like he did last night.’

  It took a moment or so for the astonishing statement to register on Julia.

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ she said at last. ‘He doesn’t know.’

  ‘Oh yes, he does.’ Mrs. Broome was remarkably cheerful about it. ‘Parents always know a lot more than children think. They’ve got an instinct you know, here’ – she patted her lean chest delicately. ‘Anyway I know it’s true because I saw it myself when I was sitting up waiting for you. Just after the last news they caught him getting on to an aeroplane to go and look for you. “I wish she was safe at home in bed,” he said, and his poor old face was all wizened with worry. I was quite sorry for him even if he has taken a silly dislike to Timmy. (??? check m/s p.32)’‘You’ve made a rod for your back and you’ll suffer for it”, I said to him and I switched him off.’

  The girl rose slowly to her feet. ‘My father was coming home on an aeroplane last night from a business trip to Ireland . . .’ she began.

  ‘Oh, that may have been it.’ Mrs. Broome made it clear that she did not care. ‘I know I thought that he could go flying to Gretna Green in Scotland, but he wouldn’t find you and Timmy because you’d be here, safe in the Bride’s Room. Come along, miss, it’s quite a way, up on the nursery floor, but it’s this side of the turrets.’

  She led the way out of the service quarter into the vast house itself. Julia followed her, struck again as she had been on her first visit by the enormous size of the corridors, the endless acres of dark oak ply-wood panelling all looking perfectly new, and the stone staircases which spiralled from floor to floor. Only the windows, whose glazing bars were as finely carved and delicate as if they had been in wood, seemed to belong to the palace which she had seen from the summer-house.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have made a lovely school?’ said Nanny Broome, only the least bit breathless as they arrived at last in a gallery as long as a skittle alley and looked at the line of mahogany doors all splendidly furnished with brass and cut glass.

  ‘I always call this the Nursery Suite, and there was one time when Timmy was about six and very noisy that we used it for that, but it was always a long way up and lonely. We’ve never been able to get proper help here, you see, not in my time. It must have been wonderful in Mr. Eustace’s grandfather’s day. Twenty-three people in the servants’ hall and then they thought they were understaffed, or so Broome says. He can just remember the old gentleman. “Like God in tweeds, he was.” Broome always says that, though I shouldn’t repeat it. Well, this is the room, my dear. We always used to call it the Bride’s Room, Timmy and me. We had our own names for all the rooms, but the others were nearly always kept empty except when they were needed to show off a great suite of furniture or some tapestries or something. We had his things brought up to the room at the end there but they were all taken back when Timmy went to school. However, the Bride’s Room was always here and kept like this under dust sheets. I’ve got it all out and pressed all the covers; they’re not even yellow, they’ve kept so well.’

  Her hand was on the door knob when she glanced at the visitor. Julia was standing in the long, empty corridor, the clear morning light falling on her from the high windows. There was something about her which was peculiarly lonely and which reduced the cosy chatter to the status of an old wives’ tale. A scared look passed over Mrs. Broome’s face as she glimpsed reality’s fleeting skirt but her resilience was indefatigable and in a moment she was talking away again as happy as a child uncovering a surprise. She opened the door and stood back to let the visitor pass.

  ‘Look, miss!’

  There was a long pause as they stood together surveying the scene. ‘You can see why we gave it its name? Yet it was made, I believe, for one of Queen Victoria’s daughters who didn’t get married – or perhaps Mr. Eustace was joking when he told me that. He says some silly things: you never know how to take him. Anyway it’s a princess’s set of furniture all right, isn’t it?’

  Julia was silent. The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.

  The half-dozen pieces, all of which were very large indeed, were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise. The bed was the most extravagant piece. Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar. A magnificent spread of fine Irish crochet over a blue lining completed a picture of chill grandeur, chaste to the point of being suspect.

  ‘Bridal and pure and oh, I hope you’ll be so happy!’ Nanny Broome spoke straight from a heart which was coy and warm and unaware of the dismay she was producing. Even when she turned and caught sight of the frozen young face staring from the monstrous edifice in front of her to the horrific intimacy of the double washstand with the green marble top and the waterlily shaped toiletware, she did not comprehend.

  ‘Oh, miss! Don’t you like it?’ There was reproach as well as astonishment in the question.

  ‘It’s very beautiful. Thank you very much for taking so much trouble but the whole room makes me feel rather cold. I don’t think I’ll stay here now if you don’t mind. Is there somewhere else I could change and lie down for an hour or so?’

  Julia sounded as if she was aware of being ungracious but had decided she could not help it. Mrs. Broome remained disappointed and deeply mystified. ‘It’s not the room, you know, miss,’ she said suddenly. ‘This isn’t the one the tale is about. That one is on the other floor and right the other side of the house, and even that is not the true one either, because it happened in another house. I wouldn’t give you that, even though I’d take my dying oath it’s never been haunted. There’s no ghosts anywhere in the Keep, thank God.’ She spoke with tremendous fervency but the chill remained and her round eyes were watchful. ‘You’ve heard all about it, I suppose?’

  ‘No.’ Julia was already turning towards the door and the nurse made a move as if to intercept her. Her expression was fearful yet naughty, disapproving yet dying to tell.

  ‘Do you know about Miss Thyrza’s chair?’ She made the murmured phrase sound comically sinister, like a child trying out a suspectedly wicked word.

  Julia heard her but without interest. She had reached the doorway and was almost running towards the stairhead. On reaching it, however, she paused and turned back, re-entering the room just as Mrs. Broome was coming out. Hurrying across the blue carpet, she climbed on to the stone sill and threw open the window pushing back the casements until they were at their widest so that the morning air poured into the room.

  ‘Why, Miss, whatever are you doing? There’ll be leaves from the tree-tops, birds and I don’t know what flying in. That spread alone is worth a small fortune.’

  ‘Very likely.’ There was unexpected firmness in the young voice. ‘But I don’t think we’ll worry about that. Please leave the room like this to air. I may come back here later but just now I should like to lie down somewhere else.’

  Mrs. Broome opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. She was trained to recognize authority when she met it and presently she led the way downstairs again, for the first time looking a little dubious.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dangerous Lady

  A REMARKABLY ILL-TEMPERED-LOOKING old man, as aggressively pink and clean as a baby, wheeled a new b
arrow slowly across the gravel drive.

  As Julia looked down on him from the window of the small sitting-room on the ground floor, the hot midday sun winked off the bright paint of the bodywork and she grinned.

  This was Broome himself and his unmistakable resemblance to a Walt Disney dwarf could hardly be entirely unintentional. She wondered if he knew.

  Now that she was rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet. She sat on the edge of the table, her small hands, blue-veined at the wrists, folded in her lap. She was very much in love, her mind quite made up.

  The morning paper which had been brought to her in triumph with her meal had been folded back by Nanny Broome into a harlequin’s wand so that no other news of war or peace should detract from the main story. There was a snapshot of Sir Anthony Laurell across two news columns. He was shown descending from a plane and smiling all over his face, above the caption: ‘Tired but On Top; Flying Chairman Settles Strike Threat Yet Again.’ The story was a purely industrial one concerning labour disputes in Northern Ireland but it finished with a brief report of the little incident which was all that had mattered to Nanny Broome. ‘As he paused to pose for reporters, weary but well satisfied and smiling hugely, one daring correspondent asked Sir Anthony if he knew where his daughter was. This was a reference to the rumour that the engagement expected between Julia Laurell, Sir Anthony’s only child, and twenty-two-year-old Timothy Kinnit, heir to the famous Kinnit’s Salerooms in Dover Street, will not now be announced. Gossips are blaming Sir Anthony for the broken romance and are predicting much heart-burning from the young people. In reply to the question last night Sir Anthony’s smile broadened. “Safe in her bed, I hope to goodness,” he said heartily and strode off to his car.’

  Julia had explained the significance of the report in some detail as soon as her hostess returned to collect the tray, but without any noticeable success. She was not very surprised therefore when there was a series of furtive little knocks at the door and the good lady arrived in a flurry.

  ‘I told you you were wrong,’ she said, her pebble eyes showing white all the way round but her irrepressible smile escaping through the drama. ‘They’re here!’

  Julia slid off the table and took a step towards the window.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Newspapers, like I told you and you said was so unlikely. Oh, not out there.’ Mrs. Broome appeared to resent so literal an interpretation. ‘Amy Beadle has just telephoned from the Goat and Boot – she’s the licensee in her own right and a great friend of mine – she says two different London papers rang up to ask if you or Mr. Timothy had been seen in the village. She told them “no” and then she wondered if I knew anything.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Julia was developing a very firm way of speaking, coupled with unusually clear enunciation when talking to Mrs. Broome.

  ‘Oh, I was very careful.’ An unexpected shrewdness appeared in the shining face. ‘I know Amy. If something isn’t there she’ll make it up. There’s only one thing to do with with Amy and that’s to look her straight in the face and lie. I said I didn’t know why in the world they should want to ring her, and if it was anybody’s place to know a thing like that it would be mine. I hadn’t heard a whisper from London, I said – our exchange is automatic you see, so there wouldn’t be a leak there – and I was on the qui vive to hear something, but I expected Mr. Tim would take you to Scotland or if they’ve stopped Gretna Green, to Paris or somewhere like that.’

  Julia looked very young again. ‘You were very thorough.’

  ‘You have to be with Amy. Which reminds me, miss, if you should see anybody arriving in the drive – I don’t suppose you will but you never know – nip straight down this passage here on the left and go into the big door at the end. It looks like an ordinary lock but it isn’t quite, there’s a little brass catch underneath. Pull that sideways and you’ll get into the big drawing-room. I call it the Treasure Room. That’s where all the valuables are kept and that’s the room I never take strangers into when they call, as they do to see the old historic building and so on. The lock closes behind you and there’s the same arrangement inside so you can always get out. It’s just a safety precaution. You know the room, it’s the one the dance was held in at Christmas.’ She paused for breath and was silent for a moment thinking. Presently she took a step forward, laid a shining red hand on the girl’s shoulder and spoke with a seriousness all the more impressive because it came from so far beneath the surface.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you all the time I’ve been working about the house this morning, and I do hope you’ll understand what I’m going to say,’ she began. ‘It’s very easy to take offence at such time I know, but, miss, why don’t you have a betrothal? I know Mr. Timmy and I think I’m beginning to know you. You’d both be much happier. You want to be happy on a performance like this because there’s a lot of little things to worry about.’

  There was no doubt at all about what she meant or the genuineness of her concern.

  ‘Mr. Lingley, the parson, the Rev-Ben they call him, has known Mr. Timmy for fifteen years and I know he’d like to help.’

  Julia was sitting on the table again, her black eyes narrowed and her intelligent face looking so young that its defencelessness was a responsibility.

  ‘I don’t quite know what you mean by “a betrothal”,’ she said. at last. ‘It sounds perfect but what is it? Some sort of ceremony?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, miss. You’d have to leave all that to the parson, of course, but you read about it in all the stories don’t you? There’s an exchange of rings I know. You’ve got your engagement ring and I can find one for Timmy. There’s a lovely big one in the cabinet in the drawing-room – it came from Pompeii, I believe.’ It was only the faint upward note, on the final word, an infinitesimal lack of decision in the enthusiastic rush, which conveyed to Julia that there was no real guarantee that Mrs. Broome had any clear idea what she was talking about. In many ways it was a pathetic situation, the treasures at stake priceless and delicate and both women aware of all the facts without comprehending them.

  Mrs. Broome was hovering, her eyes hopeful and inquiring.

  ‘I think it’s done in church and it’s just a prayer and a promise, but the papers aren’t signed because you have to have a licence if they are and you’re under age, aren’t you, miss? What I feel is that it would be a good thing to do because, although it wouldn’t be legally binding in a court of law, it would be to you two, you being the kind of children you are, and that would make you both much more comfortable. Let me ring up Mr. Lingley and ask him if he’d slip round. I won’t tell him why but I know he’ll come. He’s a very good man. Very kind and conscientious.’ She was within a hair’s breadth of being convincing in her nursery authority, but at her next step the thin ice cracked. ‘Long, long ago the man knelt praying before a sword all night and nowadays they just call it a wedding rehearsal in the newspapers,’ she said devastatingly.

  Julia caught her breath and laughed until the tears in her eyes were reasonable.

  ‘You’re thinking of a vigil,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid that’s something quite different. No I don’t think I’ll talk to Mr. Lingley. Thank you for thinking of it.’

  ‘But he’s a good man, miss. A homely practical chap too, even if he does wear a cassock all day. He’d help if he could.’

  ‘I’m sure he would. I did meet him you know, at Christmas. No, let’s leave it to Timothy. I’ll tell him what you suggest.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Broome. ‘Now I know you’ll make Timmy a good wife because he’s very proud and headstrong and has to be led. I shall hold you to that, miss. You tell him. I’ll have a nice supper for him and then you tell him to telephone the Rev-Ben and I’ll be bridesmaid.’ A sizzling noise from the gravel outside silenced her in mid-stream and they both
looked out of the window. A Jaguar had just driven through the arch on to the drive and two men were dismounting almost under the window in front of them.

  Nanny Broome took one look at the shorter and darker of the two and flushed scarlet with vexation.

  ‘Oh heck!’ she said unexpectedly and managed to make the absurd word shocking. ‘Mr. Basil! That’s torn it. He would come rolling in just when nobody wants him! It’s Mr. Basil Toberman. I expect you’ve heard of him. He’s the other side of the business, the black sheep if you ask me. He drinks like a sponge and thinks he’s something an angel’s brought in. I don’t know who that is he’s got with him.’

  ‘I do.’ Julia was looking apprehensively at a tall thin man who was climbing out of the passenger seat. ‘That’s Albert Campion. I don’t think he could be looking for me already, but I think I’d better get out of the way.’

  ‘What is he? A lawyer?’ Nanny Broome had drawn the girl back but was still craning her own neck.

  ‘I don’t think so. People tell you all sorts of things about him, what he is and what he isn’t. You call him in when you’re in a flap. Go and head them off while I get under cover.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Miss Thyrza’s Chair

  THE BRASS LOCK on the drawing-room door was easy enough to negotiate once one knew its secret and Julia had the satisfaction of hearing the catch spring home as she closed it behind her and entered an immensely tall, gracious room with a polished wood floor dotted with fine, well-worn rugs.