3-Book Victorian Crime Collection: Death at Dawn, Death of a Dancer, A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock
quite sympathetic to them, but the London boys as usual were taking the opportunity to shy stones or bits of vegetable at anything that moved. Then, above the chanting, a shrill cry from one of the lads: ‘The Peelers are coming.’ A line of about a dozen Metropolitan Police came pushing past me at a run in their top hats and tail coats with double rows of gleaming brass buttons. They carried stout sticks and their treatment of political demonstrations over recent years had shown they weren’t slow to use them. Ordinarily, I’d have stayed to see what happened, but now I couldn’t afford to be caught up in a riot, so I pushed my way back through the crowd, dodged among carriage wheels and got safely into St Giles High Street. From there it was an easy journey to Covent Garden.
I reached the theatre, as I’d hoped, just before the interval. Carriages were waiting at the front of the house for fashionable people who’d decided that one act of an opera was quite enough. I went round to the stage door, confident that it would only be a matter of minutes before I met somebody I knew by sight. There was not a theatre orchestra in London without a friend of my father in it, and on such a warm night some of them would surely come out to take the air. The first were three men I didn’t recognise, making at some speed for an inn across the road, brass players, by their hot red faces. Long minutes passed and more musicians came out, but none I knew. I worried that the interval would soon be over and wondered if I dared go inside on my own. Then a group of men came out slowly, talking together. I recognised one of them and stepped in front of him, trying to drag a name up from my mind.
‘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