Death at Dawn

by Caro Peacock

  ‘Good evening, Mr … Kennedy.’

  He stopped, obviously racking his brains, then said, in a soft Irish accent, ‘Well, it’s Jacques Lane’s daughter. How are you and how is he?’

  Foolishly, it hadn’t occurred to me that I should have to break the news. Because it filled my heart, I was sure the whole world knew it.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ I said.

  His face went blank with shock. He asked how and I told him that my father was supposed to have been shot in a duel, only I didn’t believe it. There were a lot more questions he wanted to ask, but already sounds of instruments re-tuning were coming from inside.

  ‘I’m hoping to send a message to Daniel Suter,’ I said. ‘He was in Paris, and I think he’s still there.’

  ‘I knew he was going to Paris,’ Kennedy said. ‘He disagreed with the conductor here about the tempo of the overture to The Barber and took himself off in a huff. He should be back soon though.’

  ‘Yes, Daniel never huffs for long, and then only about music.’

  ‘Will you ever come in and wait, if I find you a seat? We can talk afterwards.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I must go. When you see Daniel, or anybody who knows him, could you please ask him to write to me urgently at … at Mandeville Hall, near Ascot, Berkshire.’

  The other men were going inside. The brass players came back, wiping their mouths.

  ‘You must go too,’ I said. ‘But you will ask him, if you can, won’t you?’

  Kennedy’s hand went to his pocket.

  ‘Are you all right for …?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Friends of yours, these people at Ascot?’

  I nodded. The truth was too complicated, and somebody was calling from inside for the damned fiddles to hurry up. He squeezed my hand and departed, still looking shocked. I headed back at a fast walk, calculating how long it would take Miss Bodenham to get back from Clerkenwell. Luckily, Oxford Street was clear. All that remained of the unemployed men’s procession was a broken drum, trampled placards and two men squatting beside a country lad in the gutter, binding up a leg that looked as if it might be broken. Back at Store Street, I just had time to take off my bonnet and wipe the dust from my shoes before I heard Miss Bodenham’s footsteps coming wearily up the stairs.

  Although my interview with Lady Mandeville was not until eleven o’clock on Wednesday morning, we were up at dawn for more coaching.

  ‘Where were you educated?’

  ‘Nearly everywhere. We kept moving quite frequently, you see, so …’

  ‘Lady Mandeville will not wish to know that. You should say you were educated at home by your father, a country clergyman.’

  ‘Another lie, then.’

  ‘That’s for your conscience. Do you want this position or not?’

  Several times, bored and rebellious, I came close to shouting, No, I did not! and walking out. If it had been simply a matter of my bread and butter I should have done just that, but I was not so rich in clues that I could afford to throw this chance away.

  ‘Where did you learn French?’

  ‘In Geneva, with the family who employed me. Some German, too. Should I mention Spanish?’

  ‘Only if asked, and I don’t suppose you will be. And don’t speak so loudly. You’re a governess, not an actress. Also, you should look down more, at your hands or at the floor. If you try to stare out Lady Mandeville like that, you’ll seem impudent and opinionated.’

  ‘These Mandevilles – have you ever met them?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘But you know something about them?’

  ‘A little, yes.’

  ‘How?’

  She hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision.

  ‘I am acquainted with a young woman who was formerly a governess with them.’

  ‘You mean I am taking the place of a friend of yours?’

  I wondered if she had been my predecessor as Mr Blackstone’s spy.

  ‘She was dismissed last year. I believe there has been another since then.’

  ‘Two in a year. Are they ogres who eat governesses?’

  Another fleeting twist of her lips.

  ‘Sir Herbert Mandeville has a black temper, and his mother-in-law, Mrs Beedle, has strict standards.’

  Just as well, I thought, that Mr Blackstone only expected me to stay for a few weeks.

  ‘I might be wrong in telling you this,’ she said, ‘but you do not seem to me a person easily dismayed.’

  I guessed that she was going beyond the limits set for her by Mr Blackstone and even offering me a kind of wary friendship.

  ‘How many children shall I be teaching?’

  ‘He has three from this marriage, two boys and a girl. The elder boy, the heir, is twelve.’

  ‘So there were other marriages?’

  ‘One. Sir Herbert’s first wife had several miscarriages and died in childbirth. He married his present wife, Lucasta, thirteen years ago. She was then a young widow with two children of her own, a boy and a girl. They are now both of age, live in the Mandeville household, and have taken his name.’

  ‘And this Lucasta, Lady Mandeville, she will be the one who decides whether to hire me?’

  ‘It’s possible that Mrs Beedle will decide. Her daughter relies heavily on her opinion.’

  ‘Why? Surely as the mistress of the house she may engage a governess for herself?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Was she rich when Sir Herbert married her?’

  ‘No, but she was regarded as a great beauty in her time. He needed to father a son to inherit the property and title.’

  ‘And she’d proved she could bear a son. How like an aristocrat, to choose a wife by the same principles as a brood mare.’

  ‘That is a most inappropriate sentiment for a governess.’

  Later, we turned our attention to my appearance, which caused her more anxiety. She discovered my particular curse, that my hair is naturally crinkly and no amount of water or brushing will make it lie smoothly or stop it popping out of pins. In the end, we managed to trap it under my bonnet with the strings tied so tightly under my chin that I could hardly speak.

  ‘Good,’ Miss Bodenham said. ‘It will keep you quiet.’

  We had decided that my lavender dress, worn with the white muslin tucker at the neck, was the more suitable one, though she insisted I must remove the bunch of silk flowers from the waist. My shoes were scratched from scrambling around at Calais, but would have to do, so I must tuck them away under my skirt as far as possible.

  ‘You can’t wear those stockings.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I was pulling them on carefully. They were my only good pair.

  ‘Governesses don’t wear silk stockings.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll wear my blue thread ones.’

  ‘Blue stockings are even worse. They suggest unorthodox opinions. You’ll have to borrow a pair of mine.’

  White cotton gone yellowish from much washing, darned knubbily around toes and heels. I had to garter them tightly to take out the wrinkles and what with that and the bonnet strings felt as thoroughly trussed as a Christmas goose. Miss Bodenham looked at me critically.

  ‘It will have to do. Be careful of stepping in gutters on the way and make sure you arrive ten minutes early.’ Then she added, unexpectedly, ‘Good luck.’

  The house in St James’s Square had the elegant proportions of old King George’s time, an iron arch over the bottom of the steps with a candle-snuffer beside it, stone pots of blue hydrangeas with a thin maid watering them. She couldn’t have been much more than twelve years old and stepped aside to let me up the steps as if she expected to be kicked. As instructed, I was precisely ten minutes early. A footman – the same one who had resented the doorstep in Store Street – opened the door to me and led me to a small drawing room overlooking the square, where I was to wait until summoned. If I had been, as I pretended, a timid applicant for a much-needed po
st, it would have unnerved me thoroughly. In truth, it almost did. I got back some of my self-possession by reminding myself that I was a spy and that this family, this very house perhaps, could tell me something about my father’s death. I must keep my mouth shut, my eyes and ears more wide open than they’d ever been.

  The drawing room told me nothing that I didn’t know already – that the Mandevilles were rich and proud of their ancestry. For evidence of wealth, the room bulged and writhed with marquetry, carving, inlaid work and gilding as if the sight of a plain piece of wood were an offence against society. Swags of golden flowers and fruit, probably the work of Chippendale, surrounded a great oval mirror over the fireplace. Golden, goat-footed satyrs gambolled up the edges of two matching cabinets in oyster veneer with veined red marble tops supporting a pair of large porcelain parrots in purple and green. The chairs, gilt-framed and needlepoint embroidered, looked as comfortable as thorn hedges for sitting on, so I stood and stared back at the Mandeville family portraits that encrusted the silk-covered walls. Hatchet-like noses and smug pursed mouths seemed to be the distinguishing features of the men. There was the first baronet, with his full wig and little soft hands, and his lady who, from her expanse of white bosom and complaisant expression, was probably the reason King Charles gave the family their title. An eighteenth-century baronet stared at the world from between white marble pillars with palm trees to the side, presumably the Mandeville West Indian plantations. One portrait near the door clearly belonged to the present century and seemed more amiable than the rest. It showed the head and shoulders of a beautiful golden-haired woman in a blue muslin dress, hair twined with blue ribbons and ropes of pearls. She was young and smiling, eyes on something just out of the picture. The lightness of her dress suggested the fashion of twenty years or so ago. Puzzlingly, she seemed familiar, but I couldn’t think why. I was still staring at her when the door opened and the footman told me to follow him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Two women sat facing me, side by side in gilt-framed armchairs, their backs to a window draped with heavy curtains in peacock-blue brocade. The older woman, in her late sixties, wore a ruffled black silk dress and a white lace cap with lappets framing a sharp little face. The other was the girl from the portrait, twenty years older. The realisation of that, and the feeling that I’d seen her before, made me forget Miss Bodenham’s tuition and stare at her. She was handsome still, but the twenty years had not been good to her. Even with her back to the light, her complexion was sallow, with unmistakeable circles of rouge on the cheekbones. Her eyes met mine and looked away.

  ‘Please sit down, Miss Lock,’ the older woman said.

  A plain chair had been placed facing them. I took a few steps across the Turkey carpet and sat down, aware that every move I made was reflected in large mirrors on the walls to left and right. Behind me as well, for all I knew. It made me feel like a specimen in a scientist’s bell jar. The younger woman – Lady Mandeville, presumably – had a dainty pie-crust table at her elbow with my letter of application and character reference on it.

  ‘I see you have worked abroad.’

  Her voice sounded tired. She picked up the character reference and stared at it, as if having trouble in focusing. It trembled in her hand.

  ‘It all seems … satisfactory enough, I should say.’

  The older woman, whom I assumed to be Mrs Beedle, fired a question at me.

  ‘What’s nine times thirteen?’

  ‘One hundred and seventeen, ma’am.’

  She nodded. It was Lady Mandeville’s turn, but she seemed to find it difficult to gather her thoughts.

  ‘You are accustomed to teaching boys?’

  An edge of uneasiness in her voice, as if playing a part she had not learned entirely. But why should she be uneasy, mistress in her own grand house?

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I had charge of Master Fitzgeorge from six to nine years old.’

  ‘What is the Fifth Commandment?’ Mrs Beedle again.

  ‘Honour thy father and thy mother, ma’am.’

  We went on like that for some time; Lady Mandeville, with that same distracted air, asking questions about my past that I found it easy enough to deal with after Miss Bodenham’s coaching. Her mother was another matter. It wasn’t so much the questions themselves, although they covered everything from the Old Testament prophets to the rivers of America. Her eyes were what made me uneasy. They were dark and shrewd and took in every detail of my appearance from bonnet ribbon to scuffed shoes. When I was answering Lady Mandeville’s questions, I was aware of those eyes on me, as if Mrs Beedle saw through me for the impostor I was.

  ‘Did your previous employer expect you to darn the children’s stockings?’

  Something amiss there. The harmless domestic question came from Mrs Beedle, when I’d expected something more scholastic. With those eyes on me, I faltered for the first time in the interview. Miss Bodenham hadn’t foreseen this and I didn’t know what the answer should be.

  ‘I … I always tried to do whatever …’

  ‘Did Mrs McAlison expect you to darn their stockings?’

  She’d even remembered the name of my fictitious employer. I felt my face turning red.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  Mrs Beedle nodded, though whether in approval or because her suspicions had been confirmed, I had no notion. Lady Mandeville murmured something about Betty always seeing to that sort of thing. The two women looked at each other.

  ‘Well?’ said Lady Mandeville, fingers pressed to either side of her forehead, as if for an aching head.

  ‘Wait outside, please,’ Mrs Beedle said to me.

  I went into the corridor leading to the front door, staying just far enough away to prove I wasn’t eavesdropping. A door opened at the far end of the corridor. It must have led to the servants’ quarters because the footman appeared and held it open for a maid with an armful of dust covers. The two of them were whispering and giggling together, obviously good friends. I caught what the maid was saying.

  ‘Just wish they’d make up their blooming minds, that’s all. Get it all uncovered, then have to cover it up again. When are they off back down there?’

  ‘First thing tomorrow she is, and the old lady. Supposed to be the day after, only a letter came from over the water this morning and her ladyship was running around like a hen with its head cut off. New curtains, complete set of new silverware, six dozen of champagne, all to go down in the old coach after them.’

  They noticed me in the corridor and went quiet, casting curious looks at me as they passed by on their way to the front drawing room. Soon after that a bell tinkled from Lady Mandeville’s room, which I took as my signal to go back inside. My legs were shaking. I was half-expecting to be denounced as a fraud and handed over to the constabulary. This time they didn’t invite me to sit down. Lady Mandeville was making a visible effort to be businesslike.

  ‘I understand from your letter that you are free to take up your duties immediately. We are living in the country at present.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Your wages will be forty pounds a year …’

  ‘Payable six monthly in arrears,’ Mrs Beedle added sharply.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You will please make your own way to Windsor. You will be met at the White Hart, near the Castle, at two o’clock tomorrow. Have you any questions, Miss Lock?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  So I found myself going down the steps, engaged as a governess, within half an hour of entering the house. I’d known women take longer to choose a pair of gloves. And what, if anything, had I discovered in that half-hour? One, that Lady Mandeville was unhappy. Two, that her mother, Mrs Beedle, was a woman to be treated warily. Three, the household was confused and on edge because of changes of plan. Four, and probably most important, her footman attributed the latest change of plan to a letter from over the water. When people said ‘over the water’ they usually meant the Channel. Therefore it was possible at leas
t that the letter had come from France and … Yes, you see where I am headed and are no doubt saying to yourself that hundreds of letters come to England from France every day and there is no logical connection at all with the fact that my father died there. Bear in mind, though, that Blackstone had said that my post as spy in the household was somehow connected with his death. Still no logical connection? Very well, I admit it. But then, logic is a plodding horse and now and then you need one which will take a leap.

  As I turned the corner into Store Street I added a fifth fact to my list: judging by the silverware and the champagne, the Mandevilles were preparing their country home for entertainment on a grand scale. Presumably this was the ball or reception that interested the black one. How had he known? Perhaps I was only the latest filament in a whole web of spies, but if so, what made Sir Herbert Mandeville and his household so interesting to Blackstone? No point in asking Miss Bodenham. She’d made it clear that I’d get no information from her. Indeed, she hardly looked up from her copying when I climbed the stairs and told her I’d gained the position.

  I spent the afternoon booking a seat on the first stagecoach I could find leaving for Windsor next morning and shopping for necessities. Of the money that Blackstone had given me, I had three pounds, two shillings and a few odd pence left after paying my coach fare. By the end of the day my purse contained only two shillings, three pennies, a halfpenny and a farthing. My battered bag was plumper by a plain green cotton dress, a pair of black shoes that were serviceable but unlovely, two white collars, a white muslin chemise, two pairs each of cotton pantaloons and white thread stockings. It went to my heart to spend the last of my money on clothes so dull.

  My farewells to Miss Bodenham early on Thursday morning did not take long. I shook her hand and thanked her and she said, ‘You have nothing to thank me for.’ By the time I’d pushed my bag through the door, she’d gone back to her copying.