Francis laughed.
‘I’m sure you’re quite right, Ballard,’ she said. ‘And the fact that Sir Montague’s lady friend had been named Ballard before her marriage is nothing more than coincidence. Yes, I’m sure you’re quite right.’
Both she and Ballard knew that it was vital to adhere to his interpretation of the facts. If Ballard was publicly recognized as a son of Sir Montague Fowler, and so the blood-brother of herself, John, and Timothy, he would be regarded as a gentleman, and therefore unsuitable to be in trade. None of the colleges would put business his way, and he would find himself dwelling in a half-world somewhere between gentility and the servant class, and accepted by neither.
‘Yes, Ballard,’ she repeated, ‘I’m sure you’re quite right, and we’ll forget what I have told you today. As you quite rightly said, the subject is not very nice. Could you come out to Makin House some time next week? We can discuss the school’s stationery requirements over a cup of tea.’
‘I should be delighted to attend on you at your convenience any time next week, Miss Frances,’ said Ballard. ‘How is Mr Timothy? I had contemplated calling on him at Makin House, but thought that he might consider me forward in doing so.’
‘Timothy is rapidly recovering from his ordeal. And he would not have considered a visit from you as something forward. You were our Father’s faithful servant and friend, and you are welcome to see us anytime.’
She saw how Ballard blushed with pleasure at her remark. They were all now safe from scandal, and Father’s disgusting fall from grace could be forgotten. He had begotten a child of wrath, and had ultimately paid a terrible price.
One week later, Frances stood in the hallway of Makin House School, recalling the frightful events of the previous two months. She had just come in from the garden at the rear of the house, where her newly-appointed gardener had wanted to discuss various matters horticultural. She had pleased him by agreeing to everything he had suggested; she liked gardens, but shied away from actually working in them.
The encaustic tiles by De Morgan glowed yellow and brown in the strong August sunlight. The polished woodwork gleamed, and the brass stair-rods shone. As always, when she stood at that particular spot, she could hear the low voices of her staff and their charges in the adjacent rooms.
She had nearly lost all this! But now it was safe, all outstanding debts paid, and an endowment fund established. That had been Miss Graves’ idea. She was proving to be an outstanding teacher. In Michaelmas Term, she would appoint her Deputy Headmistress.
Trixie, her cheerful parlour maid, came through from the kitchen passage into the hall.
‘Oh, miss,’ she said, ‘a lady has called to see you. She wouldn’t give her name. I took her upstairs to the study.’
A lady? Could it be Miss Jex-Blake? She was returning to London in a few days’ time. Perhaps she had called to make her farewells. Whatever the reason, she was more than welcome.
She opened the study door, and saw Ursula Forrest standing at the window, looking out across Port Meadow. The blood raced to her head, and she thought for a moment that she was going to faint. But it was not pleasure that caused such a reaction. Ursula Forrest’s presence in her school seemed to violate its sanctity. Ursula turned from the window, and smiled. The strong sunlight illuminated her face, and Frances could see the heavily-applied powder and rouge that were not apparent in the discreetly shaded boudoir in Old Bond Street.
‘My sweet ring-dove,’ said Ursula Forrest, ‘how delightful to see you. I knew you wouldn’t mind my coming down here to visit you. As a matter of fact, I’m very interested in one of your dear girls – perhaps you favour her yourself? Her name is Julia Trefusis. Her mother tells me that she’s eighteen, and I suggested that she could perhaps visit me unaccompanied at Old Bond Street? What do you think?’
‘Really, Ursula, I don’t think that would be wise… .’
‘No, I thought you’d counsel caution. Well, I’m not prepared to wait. The coterie lacks young members of Julia’s type. I know that she’s here, Frances, hidden away in some dreary classroom, learning Latin or Greek. Send for her, will you? I want to look her over. Why have you turned so pale? Do as I tell you!’
Ursula was wearing a beautifully cut morning suit and a hat of dark green silk adorned with dyed feathers. She looked very handsome, and very imperious. It took Frances all her courage to summon up the words of her reply.
‘I think not, Miss Forrest. While Julia is here, I am in loco parentis. London and Oxford don’t mix. I must ask you to leave at once.’
Ursula’s face flushed crimson with fury. She all but ran across the room and seized Frances by the arm.
‘You little fool!’ she hissed. ‘Do you dare bandy words with me? Send for the girl. Remember this: I have photographs of you, my ring-dove, and letters, too. Once those pictures are shown to Julia’s mother – or to the parents of any of your girls – you will be finished as a school mistress.’
Her voice suddenly lost its refinement. She renewed her grasp of Frances’s arm, and she cried out in pain.
‘You’ll be finished entirely, dearie. Remember what happened to our little mistle thrush. She tried to fly the nest, and found that the only way out was suicide. Nobody leaves the swan’s nest without the swan’s permission. You have far more to lose than she had. For the last time: fetch the girl.’
Frances crossed to the fireplace and pulled the bell three times. That would summon the porter, but Ursula didn’t know that. How had she ever allowed herself to be lured into this woman’s trap? She had yielded to her own physical impulses, and had fallen into the clutches of a procuress. Oh, God, what was she to do?
The door opened, and a grey-haired man in a porter’s uniform came into the study.
‘Johnson,’ said Frances, ‘this lady is just leaving. Please see her off the premises.’
Ursula Forrest gave her a look of implacable fury, a look which said more loudly than mere words: ‘You will regret this!’
Johnson held the door open, and Ursula Forrest swiftly left the room without looking behind her. Frances collapsed, weeping, into an armchair.
How could she free herself from this nightmare? Should she confess everything to Timothy, and ask him to intervene? No. How could she confess her wicked deeds to such a righteous man as her clergyman brother? And what, in practical terms, could he do? She dare not tell Inspector Antrobus, and watch his obvious regard for her turn to secret contempt.
John… . Yes, she would go up to London and tell John everything. Somehow, she knew that he would not judge her, but try to help her. He was a man of business, a practical man. He would do everything in his power to rid her of Ursula. Until that woman was silenced, she would never know a single minute’s peace.
16
The Well in the Spinney
‘My poor, dear Fanny! What a foolish, reckless girl you are.’
She had been lucky to find her brother alone in his fine house in a quiet square near Clarence Gate. Margaret and the children, he’d told her, were visiting the South Kensington Museum. She had flung herself at his feet in a welter of misery and despair, and had told him everything. He had not interrupted her confession, but had stroked her hair as he had done when she was a little girl.
‘John,’ she whispered, ‘I know that you will despise me as an unnatural woman, and may not wish to know me in the future.’
‘Rot! What I need to do now is to deal with this harpy, and make sure she does you no more harm. These albums, and the letters that you wrote to her – where does she keep them? And this other woman, the photographer – she will have the glass negatives.’
She remained kneeling at her brother’s feet, too ashamed to lift her eyes to his face.
‘Oh, get up, will you, Fanny!’ John exclaimed. ‘It looks as though you and me are chips off the old block. Father was no angel, from what we hear, and we are his children. Go over to that desk and write me the addresses of this Ursula and the other woman, Rosalie. Then
leave the matter to me.’
Frances looked up at her brother, and saw that his lips had set in an almost vicious line of determination. She obeyed him without speaking, and wrote the names of her tormentors on a sheet of notepaper.
‘John,’ she whispered, ‘what will you do? How can…?’
‘Never mind what I shall do. By tomorrow morning, Fanny, those albums and letters, and the photographic negatives, will all have been destroyed. And I can guarantee that you will never hear from those two women again. No, don’t say anything, dear girl. Go back to Oxford, to your school, and to your bright future there. By this time tomorrow, you will be free.’
It was long after closing time, but Ursula Forrest still lingered in her show room, admiring the newly set out display of shawls and bonnets, fresh from Milan. There was plenty there for her discerning clients to discuss, appreciate, and then buy.
It was eight o’clock on the evening of 9 August, and she had lit the shaded oil lamps that she favoured. Soon, she would retire to her private quarters.
What was that noise? The sound of heavy boots clattering up the stairs from the street entrance. They were accompanied by what sounded like howls and imprecations. She felt her heart pounding with fear. What could it mean? What…?
Crash! The door of the show room was kicked open, sending both lock and bolts flying across the room. Her scream of fear was drowned by the shouts and curses of the frightful men who had invaded her privacy. A huge giant of a man with scarred fists and a mouthful of broken teeth seized her by the throat and threw her to the floor. Behind him she saw a fierce black man, who was wielding an open razor. A third man, bent and bow-legged, began to use an iron bar to smash the glazed cabinets lining the walls.
The giant with the broken teeth began to scream at her, his heavy Irish accent making it difficult, in her terror, for her to understand what he was saying.
‘Where are the albums?’ he shrieked. ‘Where are the letters from our friend Fanny Fowler? Where are they? Give them to me!’
The bow-legged man with the iron bar heaved one of the cabinets to the floor. The black man, she saw to her horror, had begun to cut the heavy velvet curtains to ribbons with his flashing, slashing razor.
‘We’re Fanny Fowler’s friends!’ the Irishman bellowed. ‘You thought she was easy meat, didn’t you? Well, she isn’t. Give me the albums and the letters!’
The man with the razor suddenly darted across the room and held the gleaming blade to her throat. With a tremendous effort of will, Ursula Forrest got to her feet. She staggered into her private room, followed by the giant Irishman and the razor-man. The bow-legged man stayed behind in the show room, and she could hear him smashing up what displays remained with his iron bar.
She unlocked a cupboard, and with trembling hands withdrew two large photographic albums, fastened with brass clasps.
‘Here,’ she cried, ‘take them! But don’t hurt me!’
She all but collapsed in a chair. Was her heart going to burst with this endless terror?
The giant Irishman tore open the albums, glanced briefly at the contents, and then demanded the letters. The razor-man suddenly slashed the skirts of her dress, and in his turn demanded the letters. Almost fainting now, she eagerly opened a drawer, and produced a bundle of letters tied with blue tape.
‘Here! Here!’ she cried. ‘Take them! But don’t hurt me! What is that flickering light? What…?’
In the show room, the bow-legged man had lit a fire in the centre of the room, using some of her stock, and pages torn from catalogues. It was already burning fiercely, making a dark circle of destruction on the carpet. The Irishman tore the albums apart with his great, scarred hands, and threw them, with the letters, on to the fire. The room filled with pungent smoke. Once again, the big Irishman seized her by the throat, and pushed her against the wall.
‘Remember this, Ursula Forrest. We are Fanny’s friends. If you try to contact her, or persecute her in any way, we’ll be back. We’re always here, in good old London Town, and we’ll always find you. We’ve spared you this time. Next time, you’ll not be so lucky.’
The gang waited until the albums and letters had all been burned to ashes, and then left the premises as quickly as they had come. Soon, a little crowd of neighbours poured into the street. Someone had sent for the fire brigade. The neighbours carried Ursula Forrest, now in a dead faint, from the ruined salon.
Later that night, in her photographic studio above a fashionable print gallery in Regent Street, Rosalie sat on the floor among the ruins of her cameras and broken tripods, dry-eyed with shock and fear. The stone hearth lay thick with broken glass, where a big, hulking thug of an Irishman had trampled the glass negatives that he had demanded, to tiny pieces. He had screamed to her, while his accomplices had been jumping on her cameras and equipment, that he was Frances Fowler’s friend and protector, and that if she ever bothered her again, he would come back with his razor-wielding friend, and spoil her beauty for her. Well, a few hundred pounds would make good this damage. But the time had come for her to seek new friends elsewhere.
So much for Ursula. Being her friend was just not worth the candle.
John Fowler sat in the back bar of a public house near Covent Garden market, and sipped his glass of sherry. His three companions preferred beer. It was very early morning, and they were the only customers in the bar.
‘Well, gentlemen’, he said, ‘I’m very much obliged to you. And so is my sister. I’ve brought you all a little present.’
He handed each of his companions a small canvas purse.
‘There’s a hundred sovereigns for each of you. One for you, Mr O’Brian, one for you, Mr Delgado, and one for you, Mr Sime. Perhaps we can do business again in the future. I’ll bid you good day. Please give my compliments to Captain Macdonald.’
‘Mr Fowler, sir,’ said Mr O’Brian, ‘you’ve been very generous to us today. I hope you bear no ill will for past disagreements? Please give Miss Fowler our kind regards.’
‘I will indeed. As for past disagreements, let’s forget about them completely.’
The big Irishman fumbled in a pocket, and withdrew a gold watch and chain. He pushed it, rather shamefacedly, across the table.
‘I believe this is your watch, Mr Fowler, which you left with us as a pledge? I’m happy to return it to you.’
John Fowler thought to himself: it’s money that talks, and money that makes the world go round. I’ll never stop gambling, but I’ll curb my excesses at Paulet’s tables in future. I’ve had enough of debt, and the fear of visits from villains like this precious lot.
He swept watch and chain into his pocket, threw half a sovereign on the table, and stood up. ‘The drinks are on me, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I must go, now. Business calls.’
Dear, silly Fanny! She’d never see or hear from those harpies again.
Sophia Jex-Blake walked through the sunlit gardens of Lady Margaret Hall, deep in conversation with Inspector Antrobus. It was 16 August, the day before her planned return to London.
‘A remarkable business,’ she said, ‘with a remarkable out-come. Wouldn’t you agree that you and I made a very effective team?’
James Antrobus laughed. How he had enjoyed the unlikely partnership with the intrepid lady doctor! Yes, they had made a good team. Even Sergeant Maxwell had admitted as much. He would be sorry to see her leave Oxford.
Sophia opened her reticule, and after a little rummaging produced a calling-card.
‘There, Inspector,’ she said, ‘that is where you will find me should the need arise. Who knows, we might work together again, some time, if the right kind of case comes your way. Something medical, you know, where we can investigate together, and I can keep a professional eye on your health.’
The two partners shook hands.
‘I’ll bear in mind what you suggest, ma’am,’ said Antrobus, raising his hat. ‘I was going to say “goodbye”, but maybe “au revoir” is more in order.’
‘Au revoir
, Inspector,’ said Sophia Jex-Blake. She stood for a while in the sun-drenched garden of Lady Margaret Hall, shading her eyes with her hand, and watching her erstwhile colleague as he walked away swiftly along the path that would take him to the gate out into Norham Gardens.
It had not taken long for St Michael’s College to settle down once again into its summer routine. True, the Lodgings were vacant, and no Warden had been appointed. Joseph Steadman had heard from a friend in London that the Queen herself had suggested that some decent period of time should elapse before a permanent appointment was made.
Stanley Fitzmaurice came striding across the lawn in the second quad, and joined the Bursar, who was standing in the open passageway that joined the two quadrangles.
‘Well, Bursar,’ said Fitzmaurice, ‘I think St Michael’s is going to survive all the tragedy and scandal of the last few months. How do you feel about being made Regent?’
‘I suppose I’m flattered that anyone at Court thought fit to appoint me as the temporary administrator of St Michael’s until the great ones in London have made their decision. But I get no joy from it, Fitzmaurice. For me, the loss of Monty – Sir Montague Fowler – is irreparable. And if I had not stirred up the whole hornet’s nest of The Boethian Apices, Podmore would be alive today.’
‘True, but life must go on, Bursar. In a couple of months’ time the undergraduates will be back, clamouring to be taught. I very much hope that a new Warden will be appointed before Christmas.’
‘I hope so, too,’ Steadman replied. ‘I hope it may be you, Fitzmaurice. But if not, then let it be an outsider, someone who’s not yet tainted by all our squalid secrets and petty conspiracies. I’m running the college from the Bursary, not the Lodgings, and you’ll have noticed that I don’t presume to lord it over you all by sitting in the Warden’s chair.’
‘I’m flattered that you should think me eligible,’ said Fitzmaurice, ‘but what we need at St Michael’s is a new broom.’
‘Yes, a new broom,’ said Joseph Steadman. ‘And when he’s swept the place clean, I shall retire, and go to live in a house that I’ve purchased out at Headington.’
An Oxford Tragedy Page 20