The Governess (20 page)

‘Yes, I have, Mr Brattle. I have to ask you this. Why did you give John that guinea?’

She braced herself for an attack.

But the round, determined face in front of her did not convulse in sudden murderous rage. Instead, it went a deep confused red.

‘I – What guinea?’

‘No, please, do not try to pretend with me, Mr Brattle. I will tell you exactly what I know. I was by chance within hearing when Sergeant Drewd was questioning John about your actions in the house on the night of the murder, and I heard John declare and swear that he had heard Mr Thackerton alive, and heard him coughing, after the time you had left the library. I saw the Sergeant depart then, evidently with his mind made up that he must release you at Great Scotland Yard. But there was something about young John … Well, I will tell you just what it was. All the while the Sergeant was questioning him, I found, he had been sucking a sweet. Now I happened to know that he had recently mislaid his pair of white gloves and of course he had had to pay to replace them out of his wages. So Master John had no money for sweets. I questioned him then, and in no time he confessed to me who had given him a guinea. So now, Mr Brattle, I want to know why it was that you made him that gift.’

The dark flush had gradually left Ephraim Brattle’s face while Miss Unwin had given him her long and circumstantial account. It had been replaced not with any murderous look – and that had much relieved her – but with an air of quiet steadfastness.

‘You have told all this to the Sergeant now?’ he asked.

‘I have taken steps to see that he will be informed,’ Miss Unwin lied boldly, once more measuring the distance between herself and the door. ‘But, no, I have not yet had an opportunity of talking to him directly.’

But she could not see, in her mind’s eye, Ephraim Brattle, the Ephraim Brattle she had just come to know, being so infuriated that he had seized the nearer of those two paper-knives and plunged it recklessly into his employer’s throat. She could not see it.

‘Yes,’ Ephraim Brattle said, his voice low, contained and unem-phatic. ‘Mr Thackerton refused me.’

‘And when you had seen that his refusal would be adamant you left him,’ Miss Unwin said. ‘You left him and you made your way up to bed. I heard your tread passing the schoolroom door.’

‘Was it the tread of a murderer? I ask you that.’

‘No, Mr Brattle. It was not.’

Miss Unwin stood stock still after Ephraim Brattle had left her to go in search of information about whether Mr Arthur Thackerton still wished to see him. She asked herself how it had been that she had accepted so readily the young confidential clerk’s explanation of why he had in panic given John that golden guinea bribe.

Nothing in strict reason, she told herself, made it now any less likely that Ephraim Brattle had killed William Thackerton and that later, to conceal evidence, he had murdered Simmons. Yet she had accepted his simple word, even though she had learnt that he had had even more provocation than she had hitherto believed. If Sergeant Drewd were to become aware both that he had bribed young John and that he had been refused a simple loan by the man he already had good reason to hate, then surely he would have him under arrest within minutes. But she, on the other hand, had been altogether convinced by that account of a rise in the Thackerton firm and of the effect it had had on that revengeful resolution.

Yet was it, nevertheless, her duty to inform the Sergeant of what she had learnt? Her duty as a citizen, and, more, in her own best interests? With Ephraim Brattle now no longer a suspect in the Sergeant’s mind, she must herself be the person he was determined to see on trial for William Thackerton’s murder.

An ugly thought came suddenly into her head. It brought such a cold sinking of fear that she had hastily to pull one of the tall dining-chairs away from the table and slide down on to it.

It was the abrupt recollection of the ‘bit of a tale’ the Sergeant had insisted on telling John when he had questioned him in the hall, his story of how he had deliberately put a silver cruet into the pocket of the burglar he had called Dirtyguts so as to obtain a conviction he could find no other evidence for. What if the Sergeant were to play such a trick on her now?

She could think of nothing unconcocted in the way of evidence
that could possibly make anyone believe she had been in Mrs Thackerton’s bedroom at about the time that Simmons had been killed. But she did not put it past the Sergeant to find or manufacture something to counter that untrue assertion of Mrs Thackerton’s that she had been reading to her all that while. He might, for instance, she thought, bully one of the servants to say that she had been seen coming out of the library with her hand in the pocket of her dress perhaps holding the Italian paper-knife. Joseph would very likely agree to do that for him without any bullying. Unless his spite had at last worn itself out, he would need only the slightest hint of what was expected of him.

But, no. No, she must not allow herself to be frightened with false fire like this. She was a rational woman. She must think rationally. She must behave as if this were a rational world.

She forced herself to her feet. She did more. She made herself go upstairs and see whether Pelham had woken from his nap. They should begin his afternoon lesson soon. It was to go over the Sunday Collect for church next day, for him to understand it as best he might and to learn at least some of it by heart.

She had her duties. She would carry them out.

But her duties, earnestly as she buried herself in them, came eventually to an end. Little Pelham’s head lay once more on his pillow, his long lashes rested on his soft cheeks, the nightlight on his mantelpiece burned with its tiny steady flame. Miss Unwin went back to sit in the schoolroom and wait for Vilkins to bring her up her supper.

Then there was nothing to prevent the grim thoughts from circling in her head.

For all that among them was that inspiring parallel of a story she had learnt that afternoon, Ephraim Brattle’s determined rise through the ranks of the clerks in William Thackerton’s firm, she could no longer see her own prospects in a rosy light. She had secured her governess post, something that once would have seemed far beyond her dreams, but only to find that her tenure in it was menaced from every side. Had it not been for that unexpected rescue by Mrs Thackerton it was very likely that she would not be sitting as she was at this moment looking out of the schoolroom window on to the quiet street, dusty in the exhausted
heat of a long day, but instead she would be locked in a police cell under arrest on a charge of double murder. But, even if she had so far escaped that, Sergeant Drewd was almost openly vowed to getting past the obstacle that had been put in his way. To do that he might very well begin by investigating her past, if he had not begun to do so already, and when he found out about her lowest of the low origins he was more than likely to pass that information on to Mr Arthur. And Mr Arthur would then, almost for a certainty, rid himself of her services.

Arthur Thackerton, the man who in her eyes was in all probability the murderer who had struck twice under his own roof. Yet how could she move against him now?

A little while ago, when she had first discovered his secret, she might, given a good moment and using all her wiles, have planted in Sergeant Drewd’s head the notion that Arthur Thackerton’s nocturnal activities would bear investigation. She might have led the Sergeant on to go and see that spitfire seductress in Maida Vale and that would have given him the knowledge that William Thackerton’s son had an excellent and pressing motive for his murder.

But now, when the Sergeant was doubly intent on proving that she herself had killed both William Thackerton and poor Simmons, now he was never going to listen to anything in the way of a suggestion or a hint that she might offer. So how was she to extricate herself from the dilemma? How was she?

A clatter at the door as Vilkins arrived with her supper broke the insistent circling of her thoughts.

As soon as Vilkins had come in she carefully butted the door closed again with a gawky hip.

‘Lawks, Unwin,’ she said, as she put down the tray which tonight held a piece of heated-up roasted hare instead of the usual chop, ‘I been longing to talk all the livelong day.’

Miss Unwin looked at her, recalling in an instant the many childish secrets they had poured out to one another in the days long ago when they had been Vilkins and Unwin together and no more.

‘Yes, I too have been wanting to talk,’ she said. ‘The times are as bad as any we’ve ever known, I think. There’s no getting past that.’

‘Simmons,’ Vilkins said, putting a wealth of wonder into the name. ‘Only think. I mean, keep herself to herself and never a word for the likes o’ me, but all the same to go an’ get herself murdered. In her bed.’

‘Well, not in her bed, dear Vilkins. But in Mrs Thackerton’s bedroom certainly.’

‘An’ you finding the body an’ all. Was there blood all over everywhere then?’

‘No. No, there wasn’t all that much blood. A small stain on the carpet. That was all. Poor Simmons.’

‘Well, don’t give me no poor Simmons, all the same. Sly she was, an’ sly she stays, dead an’ all.’

Miss Unwin smiled a little.

‘But we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Vilkins.’

‘I don’t see the strength o’ that, really I don’t,’ Vilkins answered. ‘I mean, she ain’t no different now she’s dead, is she? Sly an’ full of her secrets this morning, sly an’ full of her secrets now. That’s what I say.’

‘And perhaps you’re right. I seem to have got into ladylike ways, my dear, and sometimes they lead one astray.’

‘I don’t see you being led astray, Unwin. Not so very far leastways. Not for all the ladylike you get to be.’

‘Well, I hope not. I hope not. Because I mustn’t be led one inch astray over this business or I shall find myself in a police cell and up in front of a Judge at the Old Bailey.’

‘That you won’t, Unwin. That you won’t, not if Vilkins can help it.’

‘My dear, I’m afraid neither you nor anybody may be able to help it if Sergeant Drewd gets one solid piece of evidence that he thinks will undo me. He’s waiting to leap on me, I know. Waiting like a garotter in hiding.’

‘Well, but what evidence can he get? There ain’t none, is there? You didn’t never kill no one, Unwin, so he can’t never put you in no police cell.’

‘I wish I believed that as strongly as you. I wish I did indeed. But I suspect he means to dig out something, even if it’s something he knows is false.’

‘Yeh. I s’pose the likes o’ him would. I never did trust no peeler.’

‘And I had begun to trust them all,’ Miss Unwin sighed. ‘I had begun to, and how wrong I was. Let me tell you what I heard the Sergeant saying to John.’

‘Not about old Dirtyguts?’

‘Yes. How did you know about that? Did John tell you? I’m surprised if he did. I would have thought that young man would want to keep very quiet about his dealings with the Sergeant.’

‘No, it weren’t John. It were Joseph. Telling the tale, he was, an’ laughing fit to bust.’

‘Yes, I can see that that story would amuse Master Joseph. And he’ll be all the more amused, I dare say, if the Sergeant tries such a trick on me.’

‘On you, Unwin? But he couldn’t. You’re safe. There ain’t no silver cruet he could slip into your pocket, nor nothing like it.’

‘Well, I hope there isn’t. I hope so indeed. Because if he were to do that, then there would be even less chance than there is now of me being able to put him on the road to Maida Vale that you went on, Vilkins dear.’

‘ Yeh. That’s where he ought to be put, right enough. Up to see that lady there, an’ learn all about ow much she owes an’ who’s got to pay the bills.’

‘How I wish he could be persuaded to do that. How I wish he could be persuaded that he had thought of going there in the first place, because unless he feels that it’s his idea he’ll never consent to make any such move, I’m sure of that. But with the feelings he has about me now I don’t see how it’s ever to be done.’

‘I could do it,’ Vilkins said. ‘I could go up an’ tell him straight. You keep your ‘ands off of girls what’s too good for you, I’d say, an’ go up along to Maida Vale, to an addrefs what I could give you, an’ ask there what Mr High-and-Mighty Arthur Thackerton does of a night an’ ’ow much he ‘as to pay to be able to go on doing it.’

Miss Unwin tried as much as she could to keep a smile off her face as Vilkins concluded her tirade. But her friend of old knew her too well.

‘No, you’re right, Unwin,’ she said. ‘A chap like that Sergeant wouldn’t never take no heed o’ me, not however long I went on at him.’

‘I’m afraid that’s so, Vilkins dear. He won’t listen, however hard either of us tries to make him.’

‘So what we do then? What we do?’

‘Hope,’ said Miss Unwin, though she felt furious with herself to be reduced to as feeble a course forward as merely hoping.

Vilkins seemed as little impressed.

‘I don’t see as ‘ow ‘ope’ll do you much good,’ she said.

‘Well, neither do I. But it seems that all that I can do is to hope. To hope that some turn of events will make it clear to the Sergeant that he is looking in the wrong direction. But I shan’t rely on hope for ever, my dear. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I suppose nothing will happen then. But if by the end of Monday there’s been no change, then I shall do my best to tackle Sergeant Drewd, come what may.’

‘You’ll tell ‘im what I’d like to tell ‘im?’

‘Something of the sort, Vilkins dear. Something of the sort. And if he doesn’t believe me, or if I can persuade him first that he has thought of it all for himself, well, I can’t be much worse off than I am at this minute, can I?’

‘No, Unwin,’ said Vilkins sturdily. ‘That you can’t.’

But Miss Unwin could be. And she was.

It was almost at the start of that Sunday which she had confidently spoken of to Vilkins as being a day when ‘nothing will happen’.

They were going to church, Mrs Arthur, herself and Pelham, the servants having been despatched to early service. Mr Arthur had never been a churchgoer when he was simply Mr Arthur and he evidently saw no need to change his ways now that he was properly Mr Thackerton, for all that his father had appeared regularly at St Stephen’s for Matins and had taken good care to put more in the collection than any other parishioner and to make sure that the sidesman knew of it. When he had been alive the carriage was always used for the outing, rain or fine, although the church was barely five minutes’ walk from the house. But now that he was no longer there the coachman had let it be understood that it would not be convenient to get the horses round from the stables on a Sunday morning, and Mrs Arthur had not had the strength of mind to order otherwise.