The Governess (10 page)

No, the claims of respectability would never have allowed William Thackerton to have paid his son’s expenses in keeping a mistress, however discreetly. Yet such expenses would certainly be heavy.

So Arthur Thackerton would frequently be in need of ready money. Perhaps he had taken out post-obits on his father’s life, or was being pressed by the moneylenders. It was possible, then, really possible that Mr Arthur had been the person in the library who had quarrelled with the head of the house a few minutes before Joseph had gone into the room with the Master’s whisky and seltzer.

But how to convey that to Sergeant Drewd? How could she somehow get such clear proof of it all that the Sergeant could not ignore it? She would certainly have to do no less to alter that implacable little man’s fixed conviction of her own guilt.

Then, even as she asked herself the question, an answer came ready-made into her head.

It would be necessary, Miss Unwin had thought, to find out who Mr Arthur Thackerton’s mistress was and where she was to be found. That was a task which would require first following him one evening when he left Northumberland Gardens to see where it was that he went. That was something that she could perhaps do. It would mean only leaving a little earlier than the new master of the house, securing a hansom and persuading its cabbie to follow the hansom Mr Arthur was in the habit of taking on his evening expeditions.

But it was what would have to come next that had seemed to present her with major difficulties. It would not be enough to observe, if it could be done, just which house in whatever district of London it was that Mr Arthur went to. It would be necessary to find out a great deal about who lived in that house, her name, her reputation, her circumstances.

This was something that Miss Unwin could hardly see herself accomplishing. To begin with, it would almost certainly necessitate her being away from Northumberland Gardens for a considerable period, and her duties towards little Pelham made that difficult, at the least. Then, too, it would mean putting questions to people in the neighbourhood of whatever house had been discovered, and Miss Unwin, the lady, would find it hard indeed to extract easy confidences from tradesmen and others whose affairs took them to the immediate neighbourhood of such a house, a crossing-sweeper perhaps or a policeman or the servants of the place.

But – the inspiration had come to her in an instant – there was someone, someone she could trust through and through, who would carry out such a task admirably. Vilkins. Vilkins with her ready friendliness, with her sturdy frame that could spend a long evening tramping here and there to make inquiries. Vilkins would be ideal. She was a woman of the people. She could pick up the
gossip of a neighbourhood as easily as she picked up the dirt and dust of the house at Northumberland Gardens with her pan and brush.

Yes, Vilkins was the one. She would be her substitute prying eyes, her eagerly listening ears.

But, as she went soberly up the stairs, to ask Mrs Thackerton whether she could be of any assistance to her in the business of going into mourning, Miss Unwin made herself look on the bleaker side once more. It was possible, surely, that Vilkins, however clever she was at following Mr Arthur and poking and prying in the neighbourhood, would find nothing. Mrs Arthur might be mistaken. Her husband might have no mistress. He might do no more in the evenings than visit his club.

It was a notion she felt bound to scare herself with so as to ward off any bad luck that might come after the piece of extraordinary fortune she had seemed to have when Mrs Arthur had burst out with her secret. But it was a mental precaution she need not have taken. Ill-luck was to descend on her all too soon again, and enough to weigh the scale hard down.

The bombshell burst soon after breakfast next morning, the day of the funeral. It came in the form of Vilkins’s companion housemaid, Hannah, bustling into the schoolroom where Miss Unwin had just begun Pelham’s lessons, as much to take his mind off the funeral procession due to leave the house some two hours later as to impart instruction.

‘You’re wanted in the morning-room, miss,’ the girl said with an insolent flirt of her hips. ‘Mrs Arthur, Mrs Thackerton as is, says immediate.’

Miss Unwin stood up without haste from the table where she had a reading primer –
Jack and Jill live in a house with a red door –
open between herself and Pelham.

‘Very well, Hannah. Will you sit here with Master Pelham? I dare say I shall be back directly.’

‘I don’t know as I can stay here. I got my work to attend to.’

‘Well, that will have to wait for a little. Master Pelham is not to be left on his own today of all days.’

Hannah gave her a mutinous look, but hauled back the chair and plumped herself down, legs stuck out.

‘Be a good boy, Pelham, and try to go on reading the story to yourself.’

‘Yes, Miss Unwin.’

Miss Unwin went down the stairs to the morning-room wondering only a little what it was that she had been summoned for. With the whole house in disarray it could be any one of a hundred things that Mrs Arthur considered her as being the right person to deal with.

But, entering the morning-room, dim behind its lowered blinds, she did not expect to find the new mistress of the house sitting holding a newspaper. Nor was Mrs Arthur reading it, but instead she was holding it in front of herself folded with some precision into an odd shape.

‘You wanted to see me?’ Miss Unwin asked.

‘I wanted you to see this,’ Mrs Arthur replied, banging the paper down with sudden ferocity on the small table beside her chair and sending its green chenille cloth dancing in the draught it made.

‘This?’ Miss Unwin asked, completely puzzled.

‘This newspaper, Miss Unwin, This disgraceful newspaper.’

‘I am afraid that I do not understand.’

‘No more do I. I do not understand how you can have acted in such a shameful way. Read it. Read it.’

Mrs Arthur thrust the paper out. Miss Unwin took it and saw that it had been folded into its curious shape so that one particular article was to the fore.

She began to read, straining a little in the gloom of the room.

Mysterious Death of Respected Hat Manufacturer. A Murder Without A Motive?

By Our Special Correspondent, Horatio Hopkinson
.

Hopkinson. The name alerted her.

She opened the paper more widely and saw that it was indeed the
Mercury
. An unaccountable uneasiness invaded her.

She turned back to the article to which the paper had been folded. Rapidly her eyes ran down the column, which began with a straightforward account of Mr Thackerton’s death based, it would seem from the frequent mention of Sergeant Drewd of the Criminal Investigation Department, on the Sergeant’s own
account of the case. But soon there came paragraphs more speculative.

It appears to be irrefutably proved that the murder was committed between the hours of 10p.m. and 10.30p.m. During this period only one person is known to have entered the fatal chamber. That person is the governess resident at No
3
Northumberland Gardens, a Miss Harriet Unwin. Miss Unwin was introduced into the household some three or four months ago to attend to the education of Master Pelham Thackerton, the deceased’s only grandson. Mr and Mrs Arthur Thackerton, the deceased’s son and daughter-in-law also reside in the house, and it is understood that Mr Thackerton senior took the greatest interest in the welfare of the boy, sole eventual heir to the family fortune
.

So far, surely, nothing to have aroused in Mrs Arthur quite the angry distress she had shown.

Oh, but now. The next paragraph.

In an exclusive interview with Miss Unwin I learnt –

Miss Unwin lowered the paper.

‘Mrs Thackerton, believe me, that man had no interview with me, exclusive or otherwise. I cannot understand how he can claim to have done so.’

‘Miss Unwin, that is not my information.’

‘Not your information? I do not understand.’

‘It is very simple. You were seen talking to this individual.’

‘But I –’

Miss Unwin came to a halt. She had, of course, talked to the reporter. However briefly. In whatever terms.

‘I am glad to see that you do not persist in denials.’

‘Madam, I do not. It is true that I did talk to that man. I came upon him in the hall, and …’

A sudden thought struck her. She had seen no one else in the hall at the time Hopkinson of the
Mercury
had been lurking there. So how had Mrs Arthur learnt that the two of them had exchanged those few words?

‘But who has said that I talked with that person?’ she demanded. ‘Let them face me. Let them tell you in my presence just how many or how few words I addressed to him.’

‘It was Jos – I cannot really see, Miss Unwin, that it is in any way material who it was who did his duty and informed
me that my husband’s strict orders concerning newspaper reporters had been disregarded. The fact remains that they were so disregarded.’

Miss Unwin felt her mind swing between fury and dread. Joseph. It had been Joseph who had seen her with Hopkinson and had found an opportunity to tell another tale against her. Would his malice never be satisfied? And Mrs Arthur. What steps did she mean to take over that obstinate conviction of hers that her husband’s order had been flagrantly disobeyed?

‘If you will just let me explain.’

‘No explanation or excuse will meet the case. I have made up my mind.’

There was an edge of hysteria in Mrs Arthur’s voice. The excitement of a weak will screwed up to take decisive action.

‘But you do not understand the circumstances. Believe me, I –’

‘No.’

Mrs Arthur’s interruption was almost a scream.

‘No, Miss Unwin, we cannot any longer tolerate under our roof, looking after the wellbeing of our child, a person who is spoken of in the newspapers in this manner. I do not know whether what the paper alleges about you is true. I presume there must be some doubt since Sergeant Drewd has not seen fit to proceed further. But it is intolerable to find ourselves publicly described as sheltering a person who may have committed that abominable crime.’

‘Madam, you are not sheltering that person.’

‘Miss Unwin, I must be the judge of what is or is not suitable. You will go to your room, pack your belongings and leave this house before the funeral procession sets out.’

Miss Unwin felt an iron shutter of despair descend. To have climbed inch by inch the long ladder from those depths of her earliest days. To have achieved so much progress with so much effort. And now to see it tumbled down in an instant to nothing. It was unbearable.

And she would not bear it.

At the lowest point of her misery she found in herself a small spark of determination burning still. With a little glowing residue
of acquired knowledge. Had she not discovered within a week of coming to the house over the matter of sugar-mice and Pelham’s spoiled appetite that Mrs Arthur did not really possess a strong will? Very well, put her to the test. See who was truly the stronger, for all the difference in their stations.

She drew herself up, straight as a pikestaff.

‘Mrs Thackerton, I cannot accept your decision. It is true that Sergeant Drewd appears to entertain suspicions of myself, and I suppose that this newspaper* – she slapped it against her thigh in contempt – ‘repeats the vile suspicions he seemed to hold against me. But I am not guilty of that monstrous crime any more than I am guilty of having spoken to this Mr Hopkinson, and I require you to show your belief in that. You must keep me under your roof, or face whatever consequences will come of turning me away and implying utterly unjustly that I have committed the gravest of all offences.’

Mrs Arthur was silent, stunned it seemed by the outburst. But at last she turned towards the little table at her side and adjusted the position of the pink and purple glass vase that stood on it.

‘Very well, Miss Unwin,’ she said then. ‘Since you put the matter in that light perhaps for the time being we should say no more about it.’

Miss Unwin gave her a stiff little bow, slapped the offending copy of the
Mercury
down beside the pink and purple vase and marched out of the room.

But it was all she could do, once beyond its door, to drag herself back up to the schoolroom and let Hannah resume her household tasks.

She had managed to put Mrs Arthur in the wrong and make her own continued stay in the house a point of principle. But would that state of things last very long? If Mrs Arthur told her husband what had happened, he would very likely take a much sterner line. If he called her bluff, she could not, of course, go to law against him. A lawyer’s fees would eat up her scanty savings in a day.

Then there was that article in the
Mercury
. She wished abruptly she had not made the gesture of returning the paper to Mrs Arthur with such ferocity. She had not read everything its special correspondent,
Horatio Hopkinson of the sudden false smiles and battered silk hat, had written about her. From what Mrs Arthur had said it seemed that he had gone on to make even more specific allegations about her.

The whole world would now be thinking that she had murdered her employer, a man who took ‘the greatest interest in the welfare’ of his only grandson.

She paused for a moment before entering the schoolroom and devoting herself once more to little Pelham.

Now, more than ever, she must get hold of proof, or at the very least of the strongest indication, that Mr Arthur was the person who had wielded that Italian paper-knife. If she delayed too long she could well find herself bundled unceremoniously out of the house, without any form of character reference, heading for that long downwards slope.

But there was nothing that she could do immediately. She must go to Pelham. In a very short time the first gentlemen coming to the house to follow the funeral procession would be arriving, to be shown into the library where Mellings would dispense sherry wine and cake and the undertaker would dispense his supply of black hatbands, black scarves and pairs of black gloves.