The Royal Governess

by Wendy Holden

  Annoyingly, Ethel seemed to have the same view of her. “Not got married, then?” She was staring at Marion’s naked ring finger.

  I want a career, not a man and a ring! Marion wanted to shout. Instead she said, patiently, “I’m studying. At Moray House in Edinburgh. It’s a teacher training college.”

  “Going to be a teacher, then?” Ethel deduced brilliantly.

  “That’s right.”

  “At an expensive one, like that you just mentioned?”

  “Eton?” Marion suppressed a snort. “Not exactly. I’m intending to work in the slums, as it happens.”

  “The slums!” As expected, Ethel looked staggered. She made her excuses, and hurried off.

  Grinning to herself, Marion walked on. She passed the end of a street in which a group of young men had gathered. They were shouting and laughing and were, she realized, kicking something on the ground. Or someone. Was that not a person in the middle of all the black-trousered legs and shining boots? They were kicking with all their might. They would kill him.

  She didn’t stop to think. She raced down the alley, whose floor was thick with scattered newspapers. She could see, between the thrusting legs, a young man curled in the fetal position. He looked dead already.

  The nearest thug whirled round and saw her. His oiled hair was smoothed to his scalp and center-parted above a cruel, handsome face. His eyes were sharp, with a dead, metal glint. “It’s not the police,” he said, scornfully. “It’s just a woman.”

  Any urge to stand her feminist ground faded as Marion now found herself closed in by black-clothed men with sinister expressions. Tall though she was, they seemed taller.

  “Look what we’ve got here,” one said, mockingly.

  As she tried to back away, something shot out and grabbed her. A hand in a black leather glove. It gleamed malevolently against the innocent pink of her dress sleeve.

  “What’s the hurry, love?”

  “Fancy a drink?”

  “Come on!”

  Terror pounded in her temples. “Let go of me!” She tried to shake off the leather gauntlet, which now moved to her breast.

  “Want to go home to your boyfriend?” The man was fleshy and brutish. She could smell his meaty breath. His nose, with its spots and pores, was almost pressing against hers. His hand twisted her breast, and pain shot through her. “I’ll be your boyfriend. Give us a kiss!”

  Marion was revolted, but also terrified. She glanced round. She was right down the entry, in its darkest part. No one passing would see. They could push her down, do what they wanted. With a colossal effort of will, she summoned a steady voice. “Let go of me!”

  There was laughter at this, and some contemptuous imitations. The meaty-breathed one now released her and another of the men took charge. “Come on.” He touched her lips with a leather-gloved finger. “Pick one of us.” The finger traced the line of her jaw. The metallic eyes glittered. “Or we’ll pick for you.”

  Instinct took over. She raised her knee hard and suddenly and watched his eyes widen with pain and fury. He reeled away, cursing and roaring. The meaty-breathed one now gripped her harder. He lifted his other fist, and Marion saw the knuckle-duster glitter in the overhead light. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the sickening impact of hard metal on soft flesh and delicate bone.

  It never came. There were sudden shouts at the end of the passage and the sharp blast of police whistles. The men in black disappeared in an instant, into the shadows at the bottom of the alley. She heard, as if from a great distance, boots in steel toecaps clattering up what might have been fire escapes. On the dirty brick floor, the young man lay still, dark-haired, his white shirt stained with blood. There was something familiar about him.

  “You’re brave, Maid Marion,” said Valentine.

  “Stupid, you mean,” she muttered.

  Half an hour after the frightening skirmish found them sitting in the pub nearest to the alley entrance. It was a rough place, but that was an advantage; no one batted an eyelid when she half carried, half dragged Valentine in and bought him a glass of whisky, for shock. She had bought herself one too.

  He was in much better shape than had first seemed humanly possible. She had come, it seemed, at precisely the right time, before the beating had gotten properly underway. The blood covering his front had turned out to be his red scarf. “The trick is to make like the hedgehog,” he said. “Curl into as tight a ball as possible. So they can’t kick your head.”

  His head had survived quite well, it seemed to her. He had a black eye, split lip and swollen cheek, but his teeth had survived. His smile remained wide and sunny. “You sound like you’re used to it,” she said.

  “Occupational hazard, in my line of work.” He cocked his head at the newspapers. She followed his gaze. She had gathered up the clean ones from the dirty floor of the alley and shoved them in the bag she had found at the foot of the wall. “Not everyone’s a fan of Communism. The fans of Mussolini especially. Know who he is?”

  His slightly patronizing tone stung, especially after what she had just done for him. “I do read the papers,” she snapped. “He’s the leader of Italy’s Fascists.”

  He grinned. “Very good. He’s also the inspiration for our own dear Mr. Mosley, who’s just founded his own British Union of Fascists in tribute. It was from their friendly embrace that you just plucked me, in fact.”

  Marion was curious. “Why don’t Fascists like Communists?”

  She expected a long, fluent explanation, but Valentine hesitated. “It’s about the state, basically,” he said, after a pause.

  “The state?”

  “With Communism the state runs everything.”

  “I see. And Fascism?”

  “Well, that puts the state first. Basically, that’s the difference.”

  Marion frowned. “Is that a difference?”

  Valentine drew hard on his cigarette and let the smoke fall out of his mouth. The effect was curiously erotic. He rubbed his forehead. “Look, normally I’d be all over this. But my head, you know?”

  She felt guilty. He’d been injured. Embarking on ideological debate probably wasn’t very fair, given the circumstances.

  He was looking at his empty glass. “Another drink? It’s really helping with the pain. I’ll go to the bar. Er, lend me a couple of shillings?”

  Waiting, she leafed through the Daily Worker. He returned with two glasses of whisky in each palm. “Thought I’d save myself the trouble of going back,” he said, sliding the four tumblers rather carelessly onto the table. Shooting out a hand to steady them, Marion tried not to dwell on the fact that they represented the last of her money. She had been rather counting on the change.

  “Do you sell many of these?” she asked, gesturing at the Daily Worker as Valentine knocked back his first glass in one.

  “That’s better! Sorry, what did you say?”

  She repeated the question, adding, “It doesn’t look very interesting.”

  “If by that you mean there’s none of the corruption and entertainment of the popular press, that’s deliberate.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “So as not to distract the masses from the struggle, of course.”

  “But what if they want to be distracted?” She turned the pages, bemused. “There are no cartoons here, no fashion. You don’t even have any racing tips.”

  “Racing tips won’t pull down the citadels of the bourgeoisie,” Valentine said sternly. “Or fashion, for that matter.”

  She closed the paper. “Well, the revolution doesn’t sound like much fun to me.”

  He shrugged and held up his second whisky glass. “Workers of the world, unite!”

  She put the first of hers to her lips. The merest sip sent a coarse and fiery path down her gullet. He had clearly gone for quantity over quality. “What work do you do?”
she asked, suddenly aware she had no idea.

  “I’m a student,” he said, slightly defensively.

  “So you’ve never actually worked? Never had a job?” A smile tugged the corners of her mouth.

  He shrugged. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He reached over. “It means I’ll have your spare whisky if you don’t want it. Down with the bourgeoisie!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  She had expected her mother to be in bed. But as she hurried up the little street, a crack of light divided the front-room curtains. She slid her key into the lock and entered the cramped hall.

  “Marion?”

  She went to the threshold of the tiny sitting room. The bright rays of a table lamp outlined the comfortable figure of her mother, sitting sewing in her chair by the fire. She felt a wash of deep affection at the familiar scene. “Hello, Mother. Sorry I’m late.”

  Mrs. Crawford’s plump, homely face was not, as usual, smiling. It was drawn with worry and bright with indignation. “You’re terribly late! We couldn’t imagine where you were!”

  “We?”

  “Well, Peter was here. Or had you forgotten he was coming?”

  Peter! Her friend from the year above at teaching college. They had been going to attend a concert together, The Mikado. She sank down in the opposite chair, covered her face and groaned.

  “He waited right up until the last minute,” Mrs. Crawford went on. “He only left because he thought you might have gone to the concert to meet him there.”

  Marion pictured Peter’s head on its long neck switching anxiously about in the foyer crowds, his pale, myopic eyes squinting through his spectacles. “Really, Marion. How can you treat him like this? He’s such a nice boy. And devoted to you, of course.”

  “No, he isn’t, Mother. We’re just friends.” She was fond of Peter, but that was all. It was her mother who loved him. Earnest, polite, hardworking and trustworthy, he was perfect son-in-law material. But the thought of marrying him, of sharing his bed, no!

  Her mother gave a shuddering, horrified gasp. “What’s happened to your dress? I’ve only just made it for you. Is that blood?”

  “Well, yes. There was a fight, you see, and—”

  “Fight?” interjected Mrs. Crawford, in a yelp.

  “Not me. I was just helping someone who was hurt.” She bent over and hugged her seated mother. “Just think of it as a good deed,” she urged, smiling. “Marion the Good Samaritan.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” said Mrs. Crawford, but fondly, to Marion’s relief. Her mother rarely, if ever, got angry. Since the death of her father the two of them had been everything to each other. But the encounter in the alley had been terrifying and probably a sign that seeing Valentine again was a bad idea. She had only just met him, and already he had caused her nothing but trouble.

  * * *

  • • •

  NEXT DAY, THE world seemed somehow brighter and sharper. She felt a lightness in her heart that was almost a giddiness. This faded as she realized she now had to face Peter and apologize.

  He would be wonderful about it, of course. The fact that he was wholly good and kind made it all even worse. If only she could love him as she knew he loved her. They were, as her mother never tired of pointing out, unusually well-matched.

  They had met during the first term, two years ago. As well as their teaching interests, they shared a love of walking and of music, literature and art. They came from similar humble backgrounds: Marion’s father, now dead, had worked on the railways, while Peter’s was a postman. His aim was to be the first postman’s son to go to Eton, albeit in a professional capacity. He was determined to teach at the Great Public Schools, as he called them, from which poverty had barred him as a boy. Marion admired his ambition, but not his aspiration. Certainly not after the Glenlorne experience.

  She headed into the college, hurrying along the green-tiled corridors with their herringbone wooden floors. She found Peter in the library, harmless in his pale blue pullover, frowning earnestly over his books. He looked delighted to see her, increasing her guilt a thousandfold.

  “I’m so sorry about last night,” she began.

  “Shhh!” said the librarian.

  “Yes, it was a shame,” Peter whispered mildly. “You missed the most marvelous Nanki-Poo.”

  “Shhhhhhh!”

  “Another time,” said Marion, not wanting to linger. Miss Golspie’s class on Dr. Froebel was about to start.

  “Actually, are you free later? I have something to tell you.” Through his very clean round spectacles Peter’s pale eyes blazed with uncharacteristic excitement. “Let’s go to Jenners for tea,” he added, with equally uncharacteristic impulsiveness.

  Jenners was Edinburgh’s smartest department store, with restaurant prices to match. The something he had to tell must be important.

  Round the corner of the book stack the librarian loomed. “Do you mind?”

  * * *

  • • •

  MARION WAS PACKING up her books at the end of the Froebel class when Miss Golspie dipped by. “Enjoy that? You looked as if you did. Your hand was a blur throughout, making notes.”

  Marion smiled at her teacher. “What an amazing man. I had no idea he invented the kindergarten. And believed that every child has an inner life, which careful nurturing brings out.” Her words were tumbling over one another in her enthusiasm. “I particularly loved his conviction that childhood is a proper, precious state in itself, not just a preparation for adulthood.” She had thought about Annie during that section of the lecture, and burned with indignation and pity for her. Annie’s childhood was already over, if it had ever happened at all.

  “Froebel’s my favorite, I have to say.” Miss Golspie tossed an aquamarine scarf over the shoulder of a red velvet pinafore. “It’s all so unlikely, a German chap from the early nineteenth century having all those ideas about the importance of play, and learning through nature. There are men now, a hundred years later, who still have no idea about that.”

  Their eyes met. There was no doubt as to whom she was referencing, but Marion carefully did not react. She was not to be drawn down that road again.

  Miss Golspie smiled. “Could you come and see me later, in my office?” Her tone was casual. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Marion watched the brightly clad figure leave and wondered at the coincidence. Peter too had something to tell her. Two people on the same day.

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER, MARION ENTERED the principal’s oak-paneled realm. The scent of Lapsang souchong filled the air. “Sit down, do. Tea?” Miss Golspie waved a cup.

  “No thank you. I’m going to tea at Jenners after this, as it happens.”

  “At Jenners! I’d better get straight to the point, then.” Miss Golspie looked at her through a pair of outsized lime-green reading glasses. She had many artist friends, one of whom had presumably made these. Perhaps the same one who had made the new cushion shaped like a pair of red lips. Marion stared at it as she settled into the squashy depths of the orange sofa.

  “Lady Rose Leveson-Gower has written to me,” Miss Golspie announced. “Her husband is the commanding admiral at Rosyth.”

  Rosyth was the Royal Navy base in Edinburgh. Marion nodded in understanding of this eminence, but failed to see what it had to do with her.

  “She wanted me to recommend someone to teach her daughter, Lady Mary, over the summer. I thought of you.”

  “Me?” Marion stared at her. “But you know how I feel about teaching aristocrats.”

  Miss Golspie did not, as her pupil half feared, display any anger or impatience at this. “Quite so,” she said briskly. “You made it perfectly clear. And it is, of course, entirely up to y
ou whether you take the job or not. I am merely the messenger. Lady Rose asked for my best pupil, which you undoubtedly are, and I thought the money would come in useful.”

  Realizing she was being ungracious, Marion reddened. It was, she could see, a huge compliment. The best pupil, when she was not even in the final year! And the money most definitely would be welcome, there was no question about that. But she didn’t want to do it, even so. She looked up, intending to say so.

  Miss Golspie was watching her over the lime-green glasses, her expression one of calm interest. “So you’ll think about it?”

  Marion, about to deliver a categoric “no,” found herself reluctantly nodding instead. “I’ll think about it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER, AT JENNERS, she and Peter sat amid silver teapots, groaning cake stands and potted palms. A little orchestra played waltzes. The evening was hot, and above the tinkle of china and conversation, teak ceiling fans stirred the soupy air. All you needed was a couple of elephants, Marion thought as she fanned herself with her napkin. She grinned as, right on cue, two broad-beamed Edinburgh matrons paraded past in stately pachyderm fashion.

  Peter was pink with the heat. His pale hair stuck to his forehead. He reached for an egg sandwich. “I’ve been offered a job,” he announced. “A permanent teaching job.”

  “That’s wonderful, Peter!”

  He took a bite and eyed her. “It is rather good, isn’t it?”

  “Where? Eton?”

  He shook his head. He was to be a junior classics master somewhere near Inverness. “But it’s a start.”

  “Congratulations,” Marion said warmly, wondering why he was staring at her. He seemed anxious, for some reason.

  “I wondered . . .” he said. “That is to say, I wanted to ask . . .”

  “What?” she urged. He had altered position, and the potted fern behind him now seemed to protrude from his head. It was hard not to laugh. “Out with it, Peter! You’re making me nervous.”