3-Book Victorian Crime Collection: Death at Dawn, Death of a Dancer, A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock
hotel foyer and it had been dark at our second near-meeting on the deck of the steam packet. The question was whether Celia had said anything to him about seeing me at Calais. I glanced towards her, hoping for some signal, but caught Lady Mandeville’s eye instead. She nodded at me to come over to her.
‘Miss Lock, may I introduce my son Stephen. Stephen, Miss Lock, our new governess.’
It was graceful in her, to introduce us properly. Her son’s response was equally graceful, a touch of the hand, a slight movement of the upper body that was an indication of a bow, though not as pronounced as it would have been to a lady. The dark eyes that met mine gave no indication that he remembered seeing me before. Celia glanced up from her sewing.
‘Miss Lock, do you sketch? Should you mind if I consulted you sometimes about my attempts?’
Her anxious eyes answered my question. She hadn’t told her brother. I should be delighted, I said. Soon after that they went in to dinner and we were free to escape to the nursery quarters.
The next day, Saturday, followed much the same pattern in the schoolroom. On Sunday we all went to church, the children travelling with their parents in the family carriage a mile across the park to the little Gothic church by the back gates, the rest of us walking in the sunshine. The family sat in their own screened pew up by the altar, at right angles to the rest of the congregation, so I had only a glimpse of Celia, solemn and dutiful in an oyster-coloured bonnet, and Sir Herbert looking stern, as if he were only there to make sure that God and the clergyman did their duty.
After church, once the family had driven away in the carriage, there was a rare chance for the servants to linger in the sun and gossip. I strolled among the gravestones and round the old yew trees, catching the occasional scrap of conversation. There were quite a few complaints about being worked too hard, not only the usual burden, but something more.
‘… all the bedrooms opened and cleaned, even the ones they haven’t used for years …’
‘… bringing waiters in from London, just for the weekend. Where they’re going to put them all …’
‘So I said I didn’t think it was very respectful having a ball, with the poor old king not even buried yet.’
‘Well, he will be by then, won’t he?’
‘I think they’re going to announce an engagement for Miss Celia.’
‘They’d never go to all that trouble, would they?’
I tried to hear more, but the women who were talking saw me and lowered their voices. I wandered away to look more closely at some of the gravestones. The oldest of them went back two hundred years or more and although they looked higgledy-piggledy, leaning at angles among the long grass and moon daisies, there was an order about them. Ordinary folk were on the outside, nearest the old stone wall that divided the churchyard from the grazing cattle, then upper servants at Mandeville Hall, still defined even in death by their service to the family, forty years a keeper, thirty years a faithful steward. Nearest the church, protected by a grove of yew trees, were the big table tombs of the Mandeville family themselves. I was reading the florid description of the virtues of the fifth baronet, as distinguished in his Piety and Familial Duty as in the high service of his Country, when I heard footsteps on the dry ground behind me.
‘He really was the worst villain of the lot of them,’ a man’s voice said over my shoulder. ‘Made a fortune selling bad meat to the army.’
I turned round and saw Stephen Mandeville standing there smiling in grey cutaway jacket and white stock with a plain gold pin, tall hat in hand. I dare say my mouth dropped open. I’d assumed he’d gone back in the carriage with the rest of the family. He came and stood beside me.
‘I’m sorry. Did I startle you?’
I tried to compose myself and answer him in the same light tone.
‘Not in the least. I suppose he had some good qualities.’
‘Not that I’ve heard of.’
The irreverence for the family surprised me, until I remembered that they weren’t his ancestors. He strolled on to the next tomb and in politeness I had to follow him.
‘The carving on this one is thought to be quite fine, if you have a taste for cherubim.’
To anyone watching – and I was quite sure that some of the servants would be watching – the son of the house was simply being polite and showing some of the family history to the new governess. I knew there was more to it than that.
‘I am glad that you’re here, Miss Lock. My sister needs a friend.’
He said it simply in a quiet voice, unlike his bantering tone when he’d been talking about the tombs. I glanced up at him.
‘I’m sure Miss Mandeville has many friends.’
‘Not as many as you might think. She leads a very quiet life here and we don’t visit much in the neighbourhood, owing to my mother’s health.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help Miss Mandeville, naturally I will, but …’
‘There’ve been other governesses, of course, but they wouldn’t quite do. You seem to be around the same age as she is, if you’ll permit me to be personal, and I think she’s taken a liking to you already.’
‘Has she said so?’
From the lift of his eyebrow I could see he hadn’t expected a direct question, but I wanted very much to know if they’d talked about me.
‘She doesn’t have to say it. I can read my sister like a book. So, you’ll be a friend to her?’
‘If I can, of course I will.’
‘Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and join them.’
He smiled, gave a little nod and strode away.
I walked back across the park with Betty and her friend Sally, a cheerful and plump woman with flour from all that bread-making so deeply engrained in the creases of her knuckles that it had even survived a Sunday-best scrubbing. Naturally they wanted to know what Mr Stephen had been saying to me. Talking about the tombs, I said. Betty seemed worried.
‘I don’t blame you, Miss Lock, but he should be more careful.’
‘Careful of what?’
‘The governess and the son. It’s not my place to say it, but people do talk so.’
‘I assure you, it was nothing like that.’
I felt myself blushing and was on the verge of defending myself by telling them about his concern for his sister. Betty looked hurt by my sharpness and for some time the three of us walked in silence. I broke it by going back to the talk I’d overheard.
‘There’s to be a ball then?’
‘Two weeks on,’ Sally said. ‘A hundred people invited and a dinner the day before.’
I have reason to believe they will be holding a reception or a ball in the next few weeks… So Blackstone had been right. But how did he know and what in the world did it matter to him? He did not seem the kind of man to take a close interest in the social calendar.
‘Is it to celebrate anything in particular?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Lock,’ Betty said. ‘We shan’t have much to do with it, except keeping the children looking nice when they’re wanted.’
‘Her ladyship looks worn out with worry about it already,’ Sally said.
Betty gave her a look that said some things should not be discussed in front of new arrivals and turned the conversation to a bodice she was trimming for Sally. The rest of our walk back was taken up with details of cotton lace, tucks and smocking, leaving me with plenty of time to wonder why Miss Mandeville