The Bloody Tower

by Carola Dunn

  “You disappoint me, Sir Patrick,” said Mrs. Tebbit. “I’ve been picturing you busily polishing the diamonds every day, or at least once a week.”

  “No, no!” He laughed jovially. “Leave that sort of thing to our good Curator under the stern eye of our friend here.” He indicated the man who had come in with him.

  General Carradine introduced him. “My adjutant, Jeremy Webster. Jeremy, Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Germond.”

  Webster bowed, his solemnity scarcely lightened by a perfunctory smile. A stocky man, he wore horn-rimmed glasses with lenses so thick, Daisy thought for a moment he must be blind. He had no white stick, however, and he had entered the room without hesitation. His mouth, wide and rather thin-lipped, in repose turned downward. This, with the spectacles, a sallow complexion, and a receding hairline, gave him a froglike appearance, but the effect was melancholy rather than disagreeable. He seemed about the same age as the general, perhaps a few years younger.

  Jeremy Webster? Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher inevitably sprang to mind. Daisy would have to take care not to address him as Mr. Fisher.

  Her attempts at conversation elicited only monosyllabic responses until Miss Tebbit mentioned that he was also a writer.

  “Also?” He turned his bottle-bottom lenses on Daisy with a perceptible brightening not unmixed with scepticism.

  “I write articles for several magazines,” she said defiantly. She had met such scepticism before. Either he didn’t believe women were capable of doing, or ought to do a man’s job, or he wrote something frightfully academic and considered that nothing else counted. “Both here and in America. What do you write?”

  “I am preparing a treatise on the history of the Crown Jewels. Of interest only to scholars, I fear.”

  “Not at all. I’m interested. I’m writing about the Tower at present, and I’d be delighted to hear about your researches. I’d give you credit in the article, of course.”

  Webster gave her a suspicious glance, then reflected, frowning. “I might be able to give you one or two little-known facts,” he said at last, grudgingly. “The Yeoman Warders merely repeat parrot-fashion what is already printed in the twopenny guidebooks, were visitors sufficiently enterprising to read them.”

  “That would be very kind of you.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Daisy couldn’t see what there was to think about, but the reappearance of Brenda and Fay distracted her. Their entrance was more sedate this time, as befitted their silk frocks and powdered noses. Their hemlines raised the latest knee-high fashion to the uppermost limit.

  Close on their heels came a manservant, who announced that luncheon was served.

  As they left the drawing room, Mrs. Tebbit nudged Daisy and pointed to a door. “That room is where Lord Nithsdale was imprisoned. He escaped disguised as his wife’s maid.” She chortled. “Quite a number of prisoners have escaped from this impregnable fortress, you know. It’s to be hoped that Cousin Arthur doesn’t mislay any.”

  “Mother, there have been no prisoners in the Tower since those German spies were shot in the War!”

  Mrs. Tebbit sighed. “No, alas, but one can always hope. It would make living here still more amusing.”

  They all trooped down to the first-floor dining room.

  Daisy and Melanie were seated on either side of General Carradine. Over the soup, he and Daisy came to an amicable arrangement about her research. He was pleased at the prospect of more American visitors, who invariably bought guidebooks and tickets to all the attractions, and took every available tour.

  “Each of which costs them a gratuity,” he said with satisfaction. “Or rather, a donation to our chapel, St. Peter ad Vincula. It’ll keep my yeomen busy and happy. And best of all, the Guards won’t like it. The Hotspurs don’t care to think of themselves as garrisoning a mere tourist attraction.”

  Miss Tebbit was right, Daisy realized: There was a feud going on between the Resident Governor and the garrison. Who’d have guessed that after eight and a half centuries of grim history, the Tower still seethed with malice and resentment?

  Not that one could have guessed it from Sir Patrick’s chortles and Mrs. Tebbit’s cackles at the other end of the table. The unlikely pair were getting on like a house on fire.

  As luncheon continued, Daisy felt Jeremy Webster’s eyes—or rather, his spectacles—turned on her. The glasses made it impossible to tell if he was regarding her with earnest enquiry or stern disapproval, or some other, unguessable emotion. It made her uneasy, but she tried not to glance his way as she chatted with General Carradine and with Brenda, seated on her right.

  Brenda and her sister had recently “come from a ladies’ seminary,” like the three “little girls” in The Mikado. As with Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing, and Peep-Bo, no doubt the chief lesson learnt was how to catch a husband. The War had prevented Daisy’s being “finished” on the Continent. She asked Brenda how she had liked it.

  “It was frightful. Too, too old-fashioned, really. Would you believe, they taught us to waltz and polka, but never a word about the fox-trot, let alone the tango or shimmy.”

  “Shocking!”

  Brenda grinned. “Then there was deportment, and polite conversation. Mademoiselle D’Aubin was a dragon and Frau Horst was worse, and I don’t see why we had to learn French and Italian, let alone German. But the tennis coach was a smasher. All the girls were utterly potty about him. He was a pretty good teacher, too. Fay and I are quite keen on tennis.”

  “Can you play here at the Tower? There are courts?”

  “Oh yes, a couple of grass courts, behind the Waterloo Barracks. I’ll show you later, if you like, so that you can write about them. Do you play?”

  “Only under threat of death. No, I’m not sporty, I’m afraid.”

  “A lot of the officers play, so we can always find partners. Some of them are pretty good. Lieutenant Jardyne has a smashing backhand, only he gets mad as fire if his partner botches a shot. You can practically see steam coming out of his ears, however much he tries to hide it. He’s frightfully keen on Fay, you see, so he doesn’t want her to see him fly off the handle.”

  Though Brenda claimed to have been taught the principles of polite conversation, she didn’t seem to have absorbed the precepts. Daisy was accustomed to finding herself the involuntary recipient of confidences from the most unexpected people, but not generally in the middle of a luncheon party. What was more, she noticed that General Carradine’s conversation with Melanie was faltering. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his set face. Time to change the subject.

  She started to ask, “Did you ski in Switz—”

  “Your father’s quite right, my girl,” Mrs. Tebbit interrupted. In spite of her loquacious neighbour, she, too, had overheard Brenda, and she had no inhibitions against sticking her oar in. “Right in this, at least,” she added after a moment’s consideration: “You’re fools if you marry soldiers.”

  “I don’t see why, Aunt Alice. Both you and our mother did.”

  “And look where it got us! Gilbert was sent out to Egypt and I was widowed at twenty-three. Your mother followed Arthur to India and died young of typhoid. Unless it was typhus—I never can recall the difference.”

  “Mother!”

  “Quite right, Myrtle,” said the old lady handsomely, “not a proper topic for the luncheon table. Or any other table. Nor is your love life, young ladies.”

  “I didn’t—” protested Fay.

  “Sorry, Aunt Alice!” Brenda said, without any visible sign of repentance.

  Melanie, always rendered acutely uncomfortable by the possibility of strife, asked Fay whether they had visited other countries while on the Continent. The diversion worked. Both girls talked eagerly about the wonders of France and Italy; their father’s face smoothed, and he joined Sir Patrick in recounting anecdotes about their respective travels with the army.

  Melanie, some years older than Daisy, had been to the Continent before the War, but Daisy was the
only person present who had crossed the Atlantic. Mel urged her to tell about flying across America. No one else had even been up in an aeroplane, so they were all enthralled.

  It was the hitherto silent Webster who enquired as to why she had chosen to embark on such a perilous flight.

  Daisy hunted for a way to answer without revealing Alec’s profession. So many of even the most law-abiding people started looking at her askance when they found out she was a policeman’s wife.

  “My husband was a pilot in the War,” she hedged, “and we happened to meet another English aviator. . . .”

  “Mr. Fletcher is now a Scotland Yard detective,” Mrs. Tebbit revealed with glee.

  “Goll-ee!” breathed Fay, awed.

  “He had no official standing in America, of course, but when we saw a crime committed, he had to give chase.”

  “And he let you fly with him?” Brenda asked, wide-eyed.

  “I didn’t exactly give him any choice in the matter.”

  General Carradine gave Daisy a reproachful glance.

  Mrs. Tebbit promptly added more fuel to the flames. “Quite right, Mrs. Fletcher. Men always try to keep the best adventures to themselves. I only wish I’d insisted on going to Egypt with Gilbert. At least I would have seen the pyramids and the sphinx for myself.”

  “Oh, Mother, but you might have been killed, too, and then where would I have been?”

  The old lady gave her daughter a critical look. “Who knows, perhaps you might have blossomed without me to hold your leading strings.”

  Myrtle Tebbit seemed alarmingly likely to burst into tears. Melanie opened her mouth, no doubt with some anodyne remark prepared, but Jeremy Fisher sprang to the rescue.

  “Miss Tebbit is all that is ladylike,” he announced. Though he was refuting Mrs. Tebbit’s comment, his inscrutable stare was turned on Daisy.

  She had a vague impression that he had been watching her with particular intentness since she had revealed Alec’s profession. Was he involved in some sort of fishy business? Could his treatise on the Crown Jewels possibly be cover for preparing a plan to steal them?

  No, she was letting her imagination run away with her. Seeing crime everywhere was another hazard of being a police officer’s wife.

  Melanie, in desperation, had started to talk about the seasonable weather. Mrs. Tebbit, perhaps remorseful about her mockery of her daughter, responded by quoting “ ‘Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there.’ ”

  “ ‘When all at once I saw a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils,’ ” put in Fay.

  “ ‘Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king.’ ” That was Daisy’s contribution.

  “ ‘The year’s at the Spring, / And day’s at the morn,’ ” said Sir Patrick. General Carradine stared at him in astonishment.

  “ ‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote . . .’” Brenda began.

  “Show-off,” said Fay.

  “The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,” said Miss Tebbit. “Do you know it all by heart?”

  “Just the first line,” Brenda admitted.

  “I used to be able to recite the first eighteen lines, though I doubt if I ever pronounced it right.”

  “Won’t you give it to us?” begged Fay.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly!” Miss Tebbit faltered, in a panic. “Not in company.”

  “I should like to hear it,” said Webster solemnly.

  Miss Tebbit shot an agonized glance at her mother.

  “It’s up to you, Myrtle,” said that lady. “If you think you can remember it, I’m sure we should all be pleased to hear it. As I recall, the first bit is quite pretty. But don’t go any further. Some of the rest is decidedly racy.”

  This brought a blush to her daughter’s cheeks.

  “Do go ahead, Miss Tebbit,” Daisy encouraged her. “I couldn’t possibly quote it all by heart, let alone spell it, but I may be able to prompt if you get stuck.”

  Setting down her spoon and fork—they had moved on to apple tart and custard by this time—Miss Tebbit stood up. Hands clasped before her like a little girl repeating her lesson, she proceeded to regale them with Chaucer’s paeon to spring.

  Brenda started the applause, and Fay joined in with enthusiasm. “Spiffing, Aunt Myrtle,” she said.

  They were nice girls, Daisy decided, though their manners left something to be desired. While Mrs. Tebbit was not likely to set a good example, she wouldn’t hesitate to correct them. The rough edges would smooth away with practice, if their social horizons were widened beyond the ranks of the garrison’s officers.

  The general had sat through the recitation with a blank face. “Do you mean to tell me that’s written in English?” he asked.

  “Old English, Daddy. Even older than Shakespeare. Didn’t you read it at school?”

  “No, we were too busy cramming Latin and Greek, I suppose.”

  “A fine thing it is when a man knows more of the language of Rome and Athens than his own!” scoffed Mrs. Tebbit.

  General Carradine sighed. “ ‘I am the very model of a modern major-general,’ ” he quoted wryly.

  Another reminder of G & S. Daisy countered with “The flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra-la,” and the conversation returned to April and the weather.

  But what slipped into Daisy’s mind now was an uncharacteristically gruesome verse from The Yeomen of the Guard:

  The screw may twist and the rack may turn,

  And men may bleed and men may burn,

  O’er London town and its golden hoard

  I keep my silent watch and ward!

  Oh well, she thought, it’s far too late now to change my mind. She was committed to writing about the Tower, gory history and all.

  3

  Mrs. Tebbit led the ladies out of the dining room, leaving the gentlemen to smoke and discuss Tower business.

  At the bottom of the stairs up to the Council Chamber, Fay said, “Mrs. Fletcher, do let me show you Ralegh’s Walk, where he used to take the air when he was a prisoner in the Bloody Tower. There used to be a door through from upstairs, before the Victorians built those hideous houses on the Governor’s garden.”

  Daisy was sure to see Ralegh’s Walk on her tour, so why on earth did Fay want to show her now? She was sufficiently curious to agree. “Thank you, I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind us disappearing for a few minutes, Mrs. Tebbit.”

  “Sorry, Aunt Alice. We’ll be back by the time Daddy comes for his coffee, promise.” Down in the hall, she took a jacket from the coat tree. “Better grab your coat, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s always windy up there.”

  As Daisy followed her out past the sentry, Fay went on: “I expect I should have asked Aunt Alice before I invited you, but all that’s frightfully vieux jeu, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? I’d have called it common courtesy. But perhaps I’m old-fashioned.”

  “Oh no! You being a writer and marrying a policeman—wasn’t your father a lord?—not that that makes any difference these days, of course. But still, Brenda and I think you’re frightfully up-to-date. As a matter of fact, we’re having a bit of a time of it, trying to work things out. You see, so much of what they taught us in Switzerland was utterly pre-War, we’re never quite sure. . . .”

  “Your aunt . . . ?”

  “Aunt Christina taught us proper manners before she married the colonel, but we were younger then and things are a bit different when you’re grown-up, aren’t they? And now there are always officers in their quarters and everything is rather free and easy, if you know what I mean. Not a bit formal. I don’t suppose you’d give us a few hints, would you? As you’re going to be around here for a while?”

  “I’m perfectly willing, but I don’t know that I’m the best person to ask. You and your sister may think I’m ‘up-to-date,’ but lots of people would call me unconventional.”

  “That’s all right. We don’t want to be rude, but we don’t want to be conventional, either.”

  “Then, if I may be so
blunt, don’t go running after officers.”

  “There’s nothing else to do here. And they’re so adorable in their fancy uniforms.”

  “If you’ve read your Jane Austen,” Daisy said tartly, “you know that’s as old-fashioned as the hills.”

  “Jane Austen? I’ve heard of her, I think, but we didn’t read anything by her at school. It was mostly poetry, hence our facility at producing quotations. Novels were rather frowned on.”

  “Since, I assume, you have no need to earn your living as I did, you might try expending some of your time and energy in filling the holes in your education. No modern young woman should be content with an inferior education. Oh dear, I do sound pi!”

  “Only slightly,” Fay said with a giggle. “But we honestly do admire you, so . . .” She waved to the yeoman on guard at the Bloody Tower entrance and he saluted her with a grin. Popularity with the Hotspur officers apparently didn’t preclude popularity with the warders. “Here, it’s up these steps.”

  More steps. They climbed up onto the wall of the inner bailey. The top was wide enough for two people to walk abreast, with the upper door to the Bloody Tower at one end. The other end was closed off by a gate marked private. Beyond this, potted plants created a pleasant, if small, balcony area, with windows and a door opening onto it from the dwellings built for the warders by the despised Victorians. The shoulder-high parapet provided some protection from the wind.

  “All right,” said Daisy, “what’s this all about?”

  Fay looked guilty. “I’m dying for a gasper.” She took a silver cigarette case from the pocket of her jacket and offered it to Daisy.

  “No thanks, I don’t.”

  “You see, Aunt Alice is a game old bird, but she won’t stand for me smoking, and nor will Daddy. They’d notice the smell indoors, in spite of those foul cigars he smokes. It’s no good just stepping out of the front door, because they might see me through the window, and there’s no back door to the King’s House because of it being built against the wall.” She lit a cigarette and leaned against the parapet, smoking.