The Poisonous Seed (7 page)

Later that afternoon, Sarah, who had been out buying fish for supper, returned with a brown paper parcel and an expression of quiet triumph. ‘I can tell you all about Mr Keane,’ she told Frances, and they hurried to the kitchen, where the fish was unwrapped and cut in pieces to be fried. ‘Mr Keane is a gentleman of thirty-six or thereabouts, and has lived here more than ten years. By all accounts he’s quite high up at the Bayswater Bank, but when he came here he was no more than a clerk and had no fortune at all. Then he courted Miss Morgan – she’s the only daughter of Mr Morgan the fancy milliner. He’s Thomas Morgan Ltd, now, with that big shop on the Grove. He was none too happy about the match but Mr Keane was a very handsome young man, and Miss Morgan very wilful and she
would
have him, and her father was very doting, so it came off. But I’ve heard say lately that Mr Keane is indifferent to his wife on account of her having become very fat, and she was no great beauty before, and Mrs Keane is very unhappy and takes wine a little too often, and Mr Keane and Mr Morgan only speak to each other when they have to. It’s a very unhappy place, Miss, and there’s many servants won’t stop there for long. Two weeks ago, Mr and Mrs Keane had a terrible quarrel, a real upper and downer. One of the maids overheard it – she was polishing the keyhole of the study —’

‘With her ear, no doubt,’ said Frances, dryly.

‘Very likely, Miss.’ Sarah paused. ‘Miss, I hope you don’t think that
I
—’

‘Please, go on,’ said Frances.

‘Well she didn’t exactly hear what the quarrel was about, but she said that Mr Garton was mentioned a number of times.’

‘What is this maid’s name?’ asked Frances.

‘Ettie, Miss. Her brother Harry is a friend of John Scott who drives a delivery cart for Whiteleys who is the sweetheart of my cousin Mary what works on the fish counter.’

Frances decided not to try and follow these convolutions. ‘I think I should like to speak to Ettie,’ she said. ‘I wonder how that might be arranged?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that, Miss and it would need a bit of play acting which I know you won’t mind, and a cake.’

‘A cake?’

‘Yes, Miss. Ettie likes cake, and so do the other servants, only they don’t often get much in the way of leftovers as Mrs Keane is very fond of cake as well.’

Frances nodded in sudden understanding. ‘So if there’s a cake in the kitchen …’

‘Yes, Miss. They’ll all come for a slice.’

‘Then,’ said Frances, ‘it should be a large cake, and made with best butter.’

Saturday morning’s
Bayswater Chronicle
contained only a short paragraph about Percival Garton confirming that he was forty-eight years of age, had lived in Bayswater since 1870 and was the father of five children, the eldest of whom was eight. The weather remained cold, and there was a stiff breeze, with a dull sky threatening rain. Herbert was behind the counter with half his attention on the Pharmacopoeia, and Frances was trying to coax the stove into giving out a little more warmth when Tom appeared in the doorway. ‘That gentleman you want to talk to, ’e’s left the ’ouse and is walkin’ up the Grove,’ he said.

Frances gave a sudden shiver of terror. Having planned and rehearsed her role as a young reporter, she found herself giving in to a moment of weakness. She now saw that the imposture was both foolish and fraught with peril, and decided that she should not attempt it after all.

‘What gentleman is this?’ asked Herbert, suspiciously.

‘That is not something you need to know,’ said Frances, briskly dusting the stove-top.

‘If it concerns the business then I
should
know,’ he said firmly, putting the book down. ‘I
insist
you tell me at once.’

Irked by his manner, Frances found a new resolve. This might be the only chance she would ever have of interviewing Cedric Garton. She must not allow fear to stop her from doing what was necessary. Her hands shook as she folded the duster. ‘Kindly mind the shop. I will not be out long.’ Herbert looked deeply affronted at this snub to his masculine authority, but before he could reply she had put on her coat and left. He did not see her hurry to the family apartments where Sarah was waiting to transform her. The masquerade was about to begin.

T
hat morning, a passer-by on Westbourne Grove who saw a young man emerging cautiously from the private door beside William Doughty’s chemist’s shop might have thought him a queer sort of person. He first peeped out, turning his head this way and that, and then eased himself from the doorway like a butterfly squeezing from its pupal case. On the street, he again looked around him, as one familiar with the Grove who was, nevertheless, seeing it for the first time. Above middling height, he was thin, yet pleasingly broad of shoulder, with a strong jaw which would have looked out of place on a woman, but lent his masculine face an air of authority and determination. He was perhaps less than twenty, and must have grown too fast for his suit which was a little short in the leg. Setting off, he began at first with odd, short, almost girlish steps, which he lengthened to a self-conscious stride, moving up the Grove in the direction of Queen’s Road. The walk seemed to do him good. He had appeared at first to be a young man with more cares pressing upon him than was appropriate for someone of his age, but as the perambulation continued, his body straightened, his shoulders moved back, and he breathed deeply, his confidence growing with each moment. When he crossed over the road, he dodged the carriages with alacrity, and smiled as if the act of running was a pleasure in itself.

As he neared the row of Whiteleys shops, he paused and looked around him once more. He was either an idle individual who had nothing to do with his time but waste it, or else he was waiting for someone. He walked slowly up the parade, then turned and came back again. He sauntered, he strolled, he lounged, he loafed, and finally stopped and looked in one of the windows, every so often glancing out of the corner of his eye at the throng of people who also haunted the Grove. He stared for a while at a display of ladies’ mantles, then seemed to recollect himself with a start and moved to another window of gentlemen’s hats, sticks and whips. Another gentleman, tall with a boyish lick of blond hair and suntanned face, was also walking along the Grove and stopped to gaze into the same window. His elegantly tailored suit of clothes was cloaked in a heavy dark coat with a fur collar, yet he was shivering.

‘Damn me, but it’s cold!’ he exclaimed.

Frances gave a start. No one had ever addressed her in quite that way before. Having seen Cedric Garton walking towards her, she had been wondering how she might approach him, and now found that he had approached her. She swallowed and coughed to try and temper her voice. ‘Indeed,’ she said softly, still staring straight ahead.

‘You look like a knowledgeable young fellow. I don’t suppose you know somewhere hereabouts where one might go to keep warm?’

‘There are restaurants and teashops on the Grove, and Whiteleys, of course. I have heard they do a very good luncheon, if you don’t mind being bothered by the idle chatter of ladies.’ She smiled to herself at this little characterisation.

Cedric looked around to check that no one was near enough to hear his words, and leaned towards her. ‘I was hoping you might direct me to somewhere more private,’ he muttered. ‘Somewhere we might go together and become better acquainted.’

It took a moment or two for his meaning to become apparent, and when it did her heart sank. It was what Frances had dreaded, and worse. Not only had he seen through her poor disguise, he had taken her to be an immoral kind of woman.

‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Sir,’ she said, intending it to be a firm reprimand although it came out as a nervous gulp.

He moved closer still. ‘Come on, lad,’ he whispered, in what he obviously hoped was a persuasive manner. ‘I know what you’re about. I’ve been watching you. You’ve been parading the goods up and down the street for everyone to see.’ He smiled, understandingly. ‘New at the game, I expect. Don’t you worry about that; I know how to be kind to a young man if he can be kind to me.’

Frances was struck dumb, her mind in momentary confusion. Trying to understand what was happening, she suddenly recalled an incident some years ago when her brother had been sniggering at an article in the newspaper regarding the trial of a man on charges which the paper was able neither to name nor describe, but which involved another man. Her father, sensing from Frederick’s half-stifled amusement that he was reading something indecent, and seeing Frances looking over her brother’s shoulder, had snatched the paper from him. When he saw the article his face went pale with rage and he at once threw the offending item on the fire. Afterwards he had written to the editor to complain about the publication of such filth. Later, Frederick had told Frances that there were such things as ‘lady men’ but all that she could gather was that this was a class of person in whose company a lady could be confident that she would be in no danger of insult.

One thing at least was clear; by attempting to importune someone he thought was a young man, Cedric was risking arrest and imprisonment. The knowledge made her bolder. ‘I think you should know, Sir,’ she said with great dignity, ‘that you have entirely mistaken me. I was hoping to make your acquaintance, but it was for the purpose of interviewing you for the newspapers. I wished to speak to you about your late brother, but it seems to me now that I shall be writing an altogether different piece.’

She was pleased to see that this had the desired effect.’ You would not dare!’ exclaimed Cedric, recoiling in alarm.

‘If you think that, Sir, then you do not know the
Bayswater and Kensington Examiner
!’ declared Frances, which was true because no such newspaper existed. ‘We are fearless to print the truth, however shocking it may be.’

Cedric looked about him as if wondering whether to run away, but thought better of it. ‘I will deny everything,’ he said.

‘Better still, Sir,’ she said archly, ‘I might be persuaded not to write of what has just happened here.’

With a sigh of resignation Cedric reached into his pocket.

‘I did not speak of money,’ said Frances, with an offended air. ‘Grant me an interview about your late brother, and we will say no more of it.’

He groaned. ‘I can’t! Henrietta will never speak to me again!’

‘I promise that your name will nowhere be mentioned.’

There was a long pause, during which they both stared into the shop window and shivered. ‘Oh, very well,’ said Cedric, at last. ‘But let’s get out of this damned cold!’ They started to walk down the Grove together.

Frances was hoping they might find a teashop which sold the kind of pastries she regarded as a rare treat, but just then it began to rain, heavy cold drops which stung her cheeks. Cedric, brushing the offending water from his luxurious collar in alarm, said, ‘Quickly! In here!’ seized her by the arm and almost pulled her into the Redan public house that occupied the corner of the Grove and Queen’s Road. Frances had never entered this or any other public house before. It was crowded with men in the coarse working clothes of cab drivers, artisans, and labourers, and a few faded-looking women, some without bonnets, whose profession she preferred not to contemplate. A small group of men in threadbare yet better quality attire were probably artists looking for inspiration in the coarse faces around them, or in the liquor bottle, or both. They favoured unusually colourful cravats, and brought flashes of bright green, orange and purple to the otherwise gloomy interior. The air was blue-grey with tobacco smoke, but it was warm, for a hearty fire blazed in the grate, adding the tang of burning coals to the already heady atmosphere.

‘Dear God, what kind of place is this!’ exclaimed Cedric.

‘It is not the kind of establishment a respectable gentleman would frequent,’ said Frances, faintly. ‘I suggest we leave.’

Cedric glanced out of the window, where the rain was intensifying. ‘It’s got a good fire. The roof doesn’t leak. Any port in a storm, as the sailor boys say.’