The Governess (9 page)

No, if there was justice in the end, William Thackerton was hardly now in heaven. But his little grandson was here, in this vale of tears.

‘Yes, Pelham,’ she answered at last. ‘We must all believe Grandpapa is in heaven now.’

‘Then that’s all right.’

Yet, though Miss Unwin had expected a difficult day, some of its complications she found yet more daunting than she had been prepared for. She had known that the whole household would have to go into mourning clothes. But what that involved altogether surprised her expectations. The appropriate garments for everyone in the house were ordered by telegraph from Messrs Peter Robinson in Oxford Street, to be delivered within twenty-four hours at the latest. For the wife of the deceased and his daughter-in-law there had to be dresses in unrelieved black made of that dullest of materials, stuff. For herself and all the maids there had to be new dresses in half-mourning made out of the same napless, unshiny stuff, lavender-coloured for the servants, a dark-grey for herself. Even little Pelham’s sailor-suit had to be put away in favour of proper black.

The blinds at every window had, of course, been lowered and would stay so until after the funeral. This was no less than Miss Unwin had expected. But she had never before been inside a house where the custom had had to be kept, and she found the physical gloom everywhere added heavily to the lowness of spirits she felt, especially when her duties allowed her a moment or two to consider her own position.

At about the time she would, in the ordinary way, have been reading to Mrs Thackerton in her stuffy, overheated sitting-room she had yet more cause to think about how she stood. It was when the inquest was held.

To her considerable surprise she had been informed by Mr Arthur at luncheon that this was to take place that very afternoon.

‘I am naturally much concerned that the terrible event of last night should be referred to as little as possible outside,’ he had said
stiffly. ‘Happily my father was well acquainted with the Coroner and he has been most helpful. The hour has been fixed for three o’clock. It will be held here in the house.’

Miss Unwin had felt more than a little disconcerted. But she had said nothing.

She was yet more surprised when she realised that the jury of respectable tradesmen in the neighbourhood – she recognised the local corn-chandler from whom the family bought supplies for the horses kept in the nearby mews – were to hear only three witnesses, Mr Arthur who would state formally that the dead man was his father, Sergeant Drewd to say what inquiries the police were making and herself to detail the circumstances of her discovery of the body.

Told of this by Mr Arthur only when she had presented herself outside the dining-room where the proceedings were to take place, her first thought was that she ought to say, firmly as she could, that she had not been the person to have discovered the dead man. That had been Joseph.

But a moment’s caution made her stop. If she made that claim, Joseph could do nothing other than repeat his assertion of the night before, and his claim would be backed as it had been before by Sergeant Drewd. She decided to see what happened when the Coroner put his questions to her. If she could answer them truthfully without mentioning Joseph she would do so. After all, she could certainly describe the wound in Mr Thackerton’s throat and the position of his body in his chair as well as anybody.

‘Very well,’ Mr Arthur said. ‘Shall we go in? I believe they are ready to begin.’

He stood aside for her to enter, the gentleman according proper courtesy to the lady.

Or, Miss Unwin thought with a sudden flutter of panic, the murderer pretending to accord courtesy to the person, only doubtfully a lady, who was most likely to be accused eventually of the murder. Perhaps even accused in a very short time by that jury of solemn-faced tradesmen gathered in front of the blinds-shaded windows, looking not unlike the servants waiting for Morning Prayers.

She did her best not to regard the short figure of Sergeant
Drewd, his vivid brown suit looking screamingly out of place in the gloom, standing in a far corner, his head moving to and fro incessantly as he darted his glances around.

No sooner had the two of them entered than the Coroner opened the proceedings. Three or four short sentences sufficed and then Mr Arthur was asked to take his place at the foot of the table to give his evidence.

One question and one answer was apparently enough.

‘Mr Thackerton, you have seen the body on which this inquest is being held: will you tell us whose it is?’

‘It is that of my father, Mr William Thackerton, of this address.’

‘Thank you.’

The Coroner gave a dry little cough.

‘Miss Harriet Unwin,’ he said.

Miss Unwin went to the place at the foot of the table where Mr Arthur had stood.

In a quiet, precise voice the Coroner began putting questions to her. Her name. Her position in the house.

Before she knew it she was answering yes or no to questions about her discovery in the library. Once she attempted to expand on a reply. The Coroner cut her short.

It has all been arranged, she thought. The Coroner has been told exactly what to expect. He is asking me questions that will bring out those circumstances thought fit to be brought to light and nothing else.

Should I try to say something more?

‘Thank you, Miss Unwin. I do not think we need to trouble you further.’

‘But –’

‘Thank you, Miss Unwin. You may step down.’

She moved back from the table. She had thought she would have to stay in the room until the jury had pronounced a verdict. She had prepared herself even to hear the foreman of that collection of glum-looking tradesmen solemnly bring in not ‘Murder by A Person or Persons Unknown’ but a verdict naming herself. But, as soon as she had stepped away from the table, Mr Arthur indicated to her with a single sparse gesture that she should leave the room. She went to the door, opened it and went out.

Then, bewildered by the unexpectedness of everything, she stood trying to gather her thoughts in the hall in the deeper gloom by the stairs next to the loudly ticking long-case clock. In a very short time, hardly ten minutes later, the door of the dining-room was opened once more and the jurymen came filing out, only just daring to give subdued, curious glances round about them.

They were followed by Mr Arthur and the Coroner. She just heard the Coroner murmur ‘Person or Persons Unknown, we could have hoped for nothing less scandalous, I’m afraid’. Then Mr Arthur suggested a glass of madeira and they went off in the direction of the drawing-room.

The last to leave the scene was Sergeant Drewd. He gave her, for all that she was almost hidden in the darkness beside the stairs, one of his sharp glances and she felt she could almost hear the words
Motive? What motive, I should like to know
being uttered in his head. But a moment later a similar darting glance shot towards Henry, standing holding the front door open for the departing jury, and Henry was provenly out of accounts.

She shook her head vigorously. She must not let herself fall prey to fancies. For one thing, she was not simply the woman Sergeant Drewd had all but arrested. She was, first of all, little Pelham’s governess. She had duties towards him. And towards herself. If she was not as good a governess for Pelham as it was possible to be, she would not deserve one day to be rewarded with a more demanding post and to move on from that to yet higher and yet more demanding things.

She turned and hurried up the broad, carpeted staircase to the schoolroom where Pelham had been left in the temporary care of Mary, alias Vilkins. And until Pelham’s head was lying on his pillow that evening, his long lashes safely resting on his delicate cheeks, she let nothing else but his needs occupy her.

But, once Pelham was soundly asleep, she decided that it would be expected of her to offer what help she could in the business of putting the house and family into a proper state of mourning. Perhaps there would still be black-bordered envelopes to address for the many thick, black-edged mourning cards that had been ordered that morning and had arrived, elaborately printed, during
the afternoon. Or there might be tasks for her needle in addition to the work of the busy-fingered seamstresses at Messrs Peter Robinson’s.

As she reached the hall on her way to find Mrs Arthur, there, standing close against the wall just beside the loud-ticking long-case clock, was a man, a stranger. He was dressed in much-worn black and carried, clasped to his stomach, a tall silk hat that looked as if it was battered down to one side.

The undertaker.

That was her first thought. The funeral was to be next day, and what could be more likely than that the undertaker would need to visit the house, even at this comparatively late hour?

But something in the way the man had first, at the sound of her feet on the stairs, shrunk hastily back even closer to the wall and had then stepped forward and directed up towards her a look of brazen confidence made her abruptly less sure of his occupation.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘Have the servants left you standing here? I am afraid they are not as they should be after the sad event that has taken place. What can I do for you?’

The man smiled at her then. A sudden smile, suddenly cut off.

‘And who might I be addressing, madam?’ he asked, giving a little bob of a bow as he spoke, like a wooden toy.

‘I am Miss Un–’

Miss Unwin checked herself. The man had evaded replying to her own direct question, and he could have had little straightforward reason for doing so.

‘No, sir,’ she countered. ‘Who are you?’

The man gave quick looks to left and right, as if perhaps he was hoping that some intervention would save him the necessity of answering. But none came.

He licked his pale lips.

‘Hopkinson,’ he said, with another quick-come, quick-go smile. ‘Hopkinson, of the
Mercury.’

‘A newspaper reporter? And were you let into the house by one of the servants? Yes or no, sir?’

Reporters had gathered outside from as early as the middle of the morning. But Mr Arthur had at once given orders that none
was on any account to be admitted and that no one was to speak with them.

Hopkinson of the
Mercury
dipped out another of his little bobs of a bow.

‘No need for the peremptory,’ he said. ‘No need at all. If not welcome, ready at once to retire from the scene. Always ready to do the correct.’

‘Then, sir, I suggest you leave directly.’

‘Yes, yes.’

Hopkinson moved his silk hat towards his head – it was very much down at one side – thought better of it, turned, made for the front door at a sharp pace, fumbled lengthily with its lock, got it open at last, sidled out and walked, with ever increasing speed, down the path to the gate.

Miss Unwin watched him from the threshold until he had reached the pavement and then closed the heavy door behind him.

Good riddance, she thought. And thought no more.

But this was not the last unexpected event of that long and wearisome day.

No sooner had she entered the drawing-room to ask Mrs Arthur what help she could give her than she found herself confronted with a new turn of events. It was a situation that, having first somewhat embarrassed her, soon occupied her mind in no uncertain way.

Mrs Arthur, already wearing her deep black mourning, her fingers playing now not with the heavy amber necklace she generally wore but with a newly arrived one in glittering jet, seemed not to have heard the polite inquiry she had made.

She repeated it.

‘Mrs Thackerton, is there anything you wish me to do?’

Then Mrs Arthur – Mrs Thackerton now – raised her head with a look of unmistakable fury on her usually languid features.

‘Do?’ she said. ‘Do? Why should any of us do anything when the head of the house cannot stay within doors but must go to that person? Why should I care about my duties? Does he? Does he?’

Miss Unwin felt, first, simply shocked by this revelation of marital discord, hitherto scrupulously avoided. She had an impulse to cross the furniture-crowded room and put an arm round Mrs
Arthur’s shoulders. But at once she realised that the gesture would not be welcomed. Mrs Arthur, no sooner had those impulsive and angry words been spoken, would wish that they could be treated as if they had never been uttered.

‘Perhaps,’ Miss Unwin said hastily, ‘Mrs Thackerton senior will find me useful.’

She turned and left, quickly and discreetly.

But, standing with her back to the closed drawing-room door, she let the thoughts which that single outburst had given rise to run pell-mell in her head.

When the head of the house cannot stay within doors but must go to that person
. So Mr Arthur’s frequent absences from the family dinner table were explained. By
that person
. That person, surely, must be a mistress. So, Mr Arthur had a mistress, and one to whom he was so violently attached that he could sink all considerations of propriety and go to her on the evening after his father’s death.

Did not this, suddenly, provide him with a real motive for having himself taken his father’s life? Until this moment she had thought that
Cui bono?
could be the only reason for his having committed the appalling deed, and it had hardly seemed a sufficient one. Mr Arthur had appeared to have had from his father all the money he could possibly want. His clothes alone spoke of that.

But would a father pay happily for his son to keep a mistress? More to the point, would Mr William Thackerton have paid for that? No, most certainly he would not have done. Conscious as he was at every hour of his position in society, of where he had come from and where he plainly hoped to get to, respectability had always been at the forefront of everything he said.

Why, even little Pelham had not escaped that law. In her earliest days with the family she had been sharply reprimanded for allowing Pelham to join in play in Kensington Gardens with a youngster of his own age who, it had turned out, was not of the same social standing as the Thackertons. The two had been seen together by one of the visitors to the house and Mrs Arthur had been instructed to visit Mr Thackerton’s wrath on her head. After that she had had, afternoon after afternoon, to steer Pelham away from this playmate until the other boy’s nursemaid had taken the hint.