The Daughters of Gentlemen: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries)

by Stratmann, Linda

  Frances could easily see that Mr Mellifloe had good reason to be upset at this item, but, not having read the work in question, was unable to judge whether Aquila was correct. Fortunately there was amongst her father’s small library a handbook of business law, from which she learned that an expression of opinion as opposed to a statement of fact was unlikely to result in a successful prosecution for libel. As to discovering the identity of Aquila, Frances could see that if Mr Miggs was to do so, another kind of criminal charge might be the result. She wrote a letter advising him that she was too busy to take the case, and suggesting that he approach Aquila through the medium of the newspaper in question, perhaps with a polite suggestion that the review might be published again in modified form.

  The morning and afternoon were spent meeting her new clients. The lady with suspicions of her servant arrived by carriage and was more than pleased to accept the services of Sarah as a general house cleaner, which would permit her free access to all parts of the property. She looked with some apprehension at Sarah’s large hands, all but obscuring the piece of needlework she was engaged in, and said, though she hardly liked to mention it, that once the culprit was discovered, the matter should be dealt with as peaceably as possible.

  Frances next met the lady whose daughter was being pursued by an ardent suitor, a gentleman who had declared his romantic attachment within days of the first meeting and was even now pressing for a wedding date to be set. She extracted sufficient details to supply Chas and Barstie with what they required, and wrote them a letter.

  The two ladies whose husbands were mysteriously absent for part of the week were both small and plump and well-dressed and liked the colour mauve. They wore identical lockets, had the same sad expression and provided Frances with portraits of the same man. Frances promised them that the matter would be settled without delay.

  She was not expecting another visitor that day so was surprised when Mrs Embleton came up and said that a lady had called and wished to speak to her. The lady’s name was Mrs Fiske. Frances asked for her to be shown up immediately and refreshments brought.

  ‘Miss Doughty,’ said Mrs Fiske, ‘it is to my regret that we have been unable to make each other’s acquaintance sooner.’

  ‘I, too, have greatly looked forward to meeting you,’ said Frances. ‘May I introduce my associate Miss Smith.‘ She ushered the visitor to a seat. ‘How may I assist you?’

  ‘You are perhaps too young to fully appreciate a mother’s anxiety for her daughters,’ said Mrs Fiske, ‘but it is that which brings me here. You have met Charlotte and Sophia, and I think you will have observed that they are quite different in character. Charlotte is a gentle, timid, tractable girl, while Sophia, although two years her junior, has the stronger will and a better mind.’

  ‘Both girls have merit,’ said Frances diplomatically.

  ‘They speak very highly of your chemistry lesson. Sophia has said that when she is older she would like to become a chemist or even enter the medical profession. I have not yet broken this news to her father.’ She paused, and it was a very particular kind of pause which always preceded a query of some delicacy. ‘I have come to ask if you have discovered the origins of the pamphlets that were distributed at the school.’

  ‘I am continuing my enquiries,’ said Frances, ‘and I have made some progress, but I have not yet identified the person who arranged for them to be placed there or the motive behind the action.’

  ‘May I ask, since you are now teaching at the school, whether you have had cause to observe anything of … an unfortunate nature – anything you would consider inappropriate, or that gives you any reason to believe that the girls may be in danger of any kind? I have been to the school and spoken to Mrs Venn and I have not observed anything untoward, but you, an independent person working within its walls – you may have another view.’

  ‘You surprise me by that suggestion,’ said Frances. ‘In my brief acquaintance with Mrs Venn I have judged her always to have the best interests of the girls at heart. She protects them as she would do if they were her own.’

  Mrs Fiske looked somewhat relieved. ‘I am glad to hear it. You are aware, of course, that only Charlotte of all the girls actually read the pamphlet, and she claims to recall or at least to understand nothing of what she read, and I hope that may be the case, but I think sometimes she has bad dreams and talks in her sleep. Sophia has heard things she ought not to have heard and has made some remarks to me about the school, which if true …‘ she shook her head. ‘I have tried to question her but she is more difficult to manage than her sister, and now she has become silent on the subject as she knows I mean to pursue it, and she will not be moved. I have spoken to Mrs Venn and Miss Baverstock who tell me that they perused little more than the title, and none of the other teachers saw it at all. If I could only find a copy then I could satisfy myself as to its contents.’

  ‘But how would that assist you?’ asked Frances. ‘The words of a person who places anonymous and unsuitable literature in the desks of schoolgirls can hardly be trustworthy. They may have been motivated by malice, jealousy, business rivalry or even a disturbance of the mind, and are therefore to be dismissed.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Mrs Fiske, ‘but a mother will always worry about her babes. Her mind is full of terrible fears of things that will probably never happen but it is her duty as a mother to anticipate them and take steps to prevent any possibility that they might occur.’

  ‘Can you tell me what it is that Sophia has said?’ asked Frances.

  ‘Things that should never pass the lips of any young girl, let alone one of just twelve,’ said Mrs Fiske grimly. ‘She said that a wicked man lives in the school, behind a locked door, and there he does wicked things. He is a bad husband and makes his wife very unhappy. She asked me the meaning of the word ‘dissipation’. I hardly knew what to say.’

  Frances thought carefully. Sophia’s knowledge was rather more detailed than might have been learned from Charlotte talking in her sleep, but the girls’ desks were too far apart in the class for Sophia to have been able to read Charlotte’s copy of the pamphlet. She suspected that Sophia, the more intelligent and manipulative of the two, had simply prised the information from her sister. Mrs Fiske probably thought so too, but had preferred to suggest otherwise.

  ‘There is no man living at the school, of that I can assure you,’ said Frances. ‘There is a single gentleman who teaches art, but he lives elsewhere and has no room of his own on the premises. I believe the only man ever to live in the school was Professor Venn, and he died several years ago. Neither is there any locked door. Please reassure Sophia that she has nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘Oh, Sophia is not afraid,’ said Mrs Fiske, ‘but Miss Bell overheard her telling these tales to the younger girls, to put them in their place, and some of them are afraid. I am sorry to have to say it but Sophia will sometimes “Queen” it over the younger girls and even a few of the older ones and they are quite used to doing her bidding. Miss Bell told me that about two weeks ago Sophia played a game with them, marching them round and round and saying she was taking them to see the “Friend to Women” who lives in Soho. I wish I knew what she meant by it.’

  ‘Two weeks ago?’ said Frances. ‘Surely not!’

  ‘Why, what does it matter? It was the same day that the girls performed a dance display – that I do remember. About a week before Charlotte found that dreadful pamphlet.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Frances, ‘now I understand.’

  As she indeed did – she understood that a great deal of her efforts of the last eight days had been wasted, and she needed to re-think the events that had taken place in the school for perhaps as long as the last month.

  The next morning Frances returned to the school and this time there were two people she especially wanted to see, Miss Baverstock and Mlle Girard. She now knew exactly what it was that had troubled her when she had spoken to the French mistress, that tiny feeling of almost ticklish discom
fort at the back of her mind that somewhere there was a small but possibly crucial gap of time unaccounted for. She had initially received the impression that on the morning that Charlotte had found the pamphlet, all the girls had been under continuous supervision and therefore unable to consult with each other about what story they would tell, a circumstance which had made their agreement convincing. This, she now discovered, had not been the case. Miss Baverstock, pinned down relentlessly and made to recount events in detail as they had happened moment by moment, told Frances that her first reaction on finding the pamphlet had been to take Charlotte to Mrs Venn and she had been making for the door when it had occurred to her that the other girls’ desks should be searched. She had told the rest of the class to go up to the common room, where she believed Mlle Girard was marking compositions. She then followed them up the stairs, taking Charlotte to Mrs Venn’s study, when she heard a sound behind her, and, believing it was one of the girls lagging behind, turned around and saw Mlle Girard leave the art and music room. She quickly requested Mlle Girard to remain there for a conference, took Charlotte into Mrs Venn’s study, and explained what had occurred. She then returned to the hallway, where she discussed the situation with Mlle Girard and asked her to sit with the class in the common room, which she did. The girls had therefore been unsupervised for at least two or three minutes, which was, Frances thought, ample time for a domineering child such as Sophia to tell them all what to do.

  Frances next demanded to question Charlotte again. Told by Miss Baverstock that Charlotte was in a reading class she asked for Charlotte to be removed from the class. Told that this was not possible, she replied that it was entirely possible and not only that but she could prove it by going into the classroom and removing Charlotte herself. Miss Baverstock went to fetch Charlotte.

  Behind the closed doors of the art room, garlanded by the sickly scent of too many dried flowers, Frances bluntly advised the cowering girl that she knew what had happened. ‘I think that while Miss Baverstock was looking at the pamphlet that fell from your desk, Sophia ordered you by some signal to say nothing. Then, when she came home after school, she told you that the girls had agreed that they would all say that they had never seen the pamphlets before. Everyone had to stand by that story, because none of you wanted anyone to know that when the pamphlets were found you had all had them in your possession for at least a week, and you had all read them. Isn’t that true?’

  Charlotte burst into tears.

  ‘I will take your response to imply the answer “yes”,’ said Frances. ‘And now I must start from the beginning and find out exactly when the pamphlets were put in your desks, so I may learn who put them there. You cannot avoid answering my questions by crying. I will wait all day for you to stop if I have to.’ Charlotte sniffled and gulped and stopped. ‘When you first found the pamphlets, were they tucked away securely in a book or was that something you did yourselves to hide them?’

  ‘We hid them later,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘When we found them they were just thrown on top of the books.’

  ‘So, placing them in the desks was the work of perhaps a minute at most,’ Frances surmised. ‘And on what day did you first find them?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Charlotte, looking as if she was about to cry again.

  Frances was merciless. ‘You can and you will,’ she demanded. ‘Do you know how much time I have wasted because not one single one of you could tell the truth? You are the daughters of gentlemen, and this is not the kind of behaviour your parents expect of you.’

  Charlotte dissolved into fresh sobs and all that Frances could extract from her was that she had found the pamphlet on the morning after the dance display. A consultation with Mrs Venn and Miss Baverstock, both of whom were deeply shocked by her revelations, soon provided the answer. On Tuesday the 17th of February the girls had had spent the first class of the morning arranging displays of their work in the schoolrooms. They had then taken part in a final rehearsal of the dance display, something which had required them to express the spirit of flowers, fans and ribbons. After luncheon the visitors had arrived and the girls had conducted them about the school. A light tea had been served in the music and art room and the dance display had been performed to universal acclaim. Sometime between the evening of Monday the 16th and nine o’clock on Wednesday the 18th, for part of which time the school had been entertaining visitors, someone had spent no more than a minute dropping the pamphlets into the girls’ desks. Since there had been some displays of embroidery in the classroom, anyone found in there could easily have accounted for their presence.

  Frances could do no more than ask all the members of staff to try and recall as much as they could about the time in question and make a list of the visitors they had seen and to whom they had spoken. She returned home in a mood of despondency to find that two new letters had arrived.

  One was a note from Chas and Barstie advising her that the suitor whose intentions they had investigated was an earnest individual who made a habit of paying violent court to pretty young women with whom he had persuaded himself he was in love, only to take to his heels when the wedding day arrived. He was, however, the heir to a fortune, and if the anxious mother could only prevent his escape, they thought he might make a fair prospect.

  The second letter was more controversial.

  Dear Miss Doughty

  Forgive me for thus writing to you. I most earnestly entreat that you do everything in your power to prevent a terrible crime. The wedding of Mr Roderick Matthews to the Duchess of Kenworth must not take place. Mr Matthews, who masquerades as a widower and single man, has a wife living, but is ashamed of his humble connection and does not make it known.

  The wedding took place on 6th October 1874 at the church of St Mary’s Havenhill, near Mr Matthews’ country estate. The bride was his ward, Caroline Clare, and the witnesses were a housemaid, Mary Ann Dunn, and Mr Matthews’ farm manager, Joshua Jenkins. Mrs Matthews was an unhappy lady and soon left her husband and now resides abroad.

  I am,

  Very respectfully

  A friend of the family

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Frances stared at the letter for a while, then examined the envelope but it was quite plain, with no stamp, no post office cancellation and no clue as to the sender. There was not even an address, just her own name. She consulted Mrs Embleton, who was able to advise her only that it had been brought to the door by a messenger boy.

  Frances wondered why the writer had sought her out, as it would have been the easiest thing to obtain a certificate of the marriage and send it to the proper authorities. It was possible, however, that the writer was unfamiliar, as she herself had been not so long ago, with the method of obtaining a certificate. She was obliged to wonder if there was any possible connection between this letter and events at the school. Matthews took little interest in the affairs of the school, never went there and used it only as a convenient and respectable place for the education of his daughters and wards, so any wrongdoing of his could not, she thought, affect the school in any way. The principal result, if the letter was accurate and the contents became known, would be the collapse of the planned marriage, the loss to both Matthews and his friend Paskall of the funds that depended upon it, and quite possibly also the end of Paskall’s parliamentary ambitions. It was a development Frances could not afford to ignore.

  She could go to Somerset House on Monday and order the certificate, but realised that since she knew the exact date and location of the wedding, a quicker way to resolve the matter was to go to Havenhill church and ask to see the registers. She examined her timetable of trains from Paddington and found that there was a train to Havenhill the next morning, a journey of only thirty minutes, which would enable her to attend the Sunday service.

  Sarah was anxious to accompany her, but as the new apprentice detective was making good progress in her own enquiries, Frances reassured her that she would be perfectly safe going to visit a church alone, and as
the journey was not a long one, promised faithfully to be home by tea time at the latest. The only other thing she needed to do that day was write to her new client, the lady with the Hyde Park romance, to arrange a meeting, warning her to make no changes to her circumstances until the investigation was complete. She was sure that a ‘Friend to Women’ would approve of her caution. If, reflected Frances, she turned out to be not so much a detective as a preventer of bad marriages that would be a highly commendable thing.

  Havenhill had once been a small farming village, little more than a row of cottages on either side of a cart track, with narrower paths carving their way up across the fields. The steam-belching monsters of the Great Western Railway had raced uncaringly past the modest hamlet, since the transport amenities of horse and cart and the Grand Union Canal had been more than adequate for its requirements. In the last thirty years, however, the transformation of Bayswater from a quiet semi-rural backwater to the thriving western outpost of fashionable London had created an urgent demand for fresh produce in abundance. The result had been a rapidly spreading patchwork of market gardens streaked with rows of hothouses, and elegant country homes with their own kitchen gardens, where a tradesman might retire when his week’s work was done and imagine himself a gentleman. Trains began to call at Havenhill, and a station was newly minted, smiling with tubs of spring flowers, like colourful corsages on the gown of a debutante.