My quiet life as a country governess did not last long. A scant week after my arrival in Lincolnshire, before I had another chance to study Mrs Orme, I received a note from my brother, sent by special messenger at vast expense – ‘Come home at once.’
My first reaction was that I could not leave my situation – and then I remembered that I was not a genuine governess, and this was my situation. I had to stop thinking about French verbs and Diabelli’s exercises for the pianoforte, and apply my mind to the real work in hand.
I went at once to wait upon Lady Calderstone, in that glittering Arabian Nights upstairs drawing room where she seemed to spend most of her time; I had barely seen her after our first meeting, but had worn a groove in my brain with wondering about what Mrs Craik had told me.
When I explained to her that my brother had called me back to town, she said only, ‘Oh, Mrs Rodd, you’re not to worry, Sir James has arranged everything.’ Her Ladyship’s taut, skinny frame was swamped in a flowing dressing gown of some shimmering pink material, and she was all smiles. ‘He has given me leave to take the girls away on a visit to my cousins in Yorkshire – my dearest cousins, in their dear old house – and we shall be there until at least the end of November.’
This sounded odd to me; why did she need ‘leave’ to visit her own family, like a servant?
I smiled and thanked her, rather touched by the happiness that shone in her face, sponging away the lines and making her, for a moment, look no older than Miss Blanche.
I found the two girls dancing a polka in their sitting room, whooping with excitement.
‘It’s not that we won’t miss you, Mrs Rodd.’ Miss Bessie always took pains not to hurt people’s feelings. ‘But we haven’t seen the Grahames for such ages.’
‘Our Cousin Esther was supposed to come to us last summer,’ Miss Blanche said breathlessly. ‘And then Papa suddenly put her off – you see, she’s the girl he wanted Charlie to marry, before he went and fell in love with La Belle Hélène.’
I didn’t like the pert tone of this, and would have said so if I had really been their governess. But I wanted to hear something about these Grahames, Cousin Esther in particular, and kept up my look of polite interest. ‘Did Mr Charles have feelings for Miss Grahame?’
Both girls giggled; Miss Blanche said, ‘He loves her in the same way that we all do – but not in an in-love way.’
‘Papa was dreadfully disappointed,’ Miss Bessie said. ‘He’d quite set his heart on it.’
‘She must be a very eligible match,’ I suggested.
‘Not really,’ said Blanche. ‘They’re poor as mice.’
This sharpened my curiosity; why was a worldly, ambitious man like Sir James eager to marry his son to a poor country cousin? It didn’t have a bearing on the case as far as I could judge, and I didn’t ask any further questions, but only listened with half an ear to the excited chatter of the girls, while I wondered why I had been summoned with such urgency.
‘The last letter was bad enough,’ Sir James said. ‘This one is nothing short of outrageous. All my plans – everything I have worked for – will be ruined if one word gets out. Do you understand, Mrs Rodd? It was one thing to have the business of the Orme woman tattled about – but when the name of my wife – my wife –!’ He stopped, trembling with the intense fury that is laced with fear.
‘Do I take it there has been a demand for money?’ I asked.
‘One hundred pounds in gold,’ Mr Filey put in grimly. ‘And that will merely be a beginning – unless we can find the man who wrote this.’
His veined hand rested on a sheet of paper that lay on the table between us; I saw the words: ‘Yr wife is a WHORE. How many WHORES do you want in yr family?’
‘Don’t tell me to ignore it,’ Sir James said. ‘I can’t afford to.’ His handsome, high-coloured face was haggard and pale in the pool of light thrown out by the oil-lamp.
I took a few deep breaths to clear my head. It was late in the evening and I had spent a long day travelling from Lincolnshire to Fred’s house in Highgate. Once there I’d barely had time to wash the smuts of railway soot from my face and swallow a cup of tea before a hansom cab had taken us to a great white square in the West End, choked with magnificent carriages and gold-braided footmen.
‘But this isn’t Sir James’s gaff,’ Fred had cheerfully told me. ‘It’s the London residence of a Mrs Hardy – she’s throwing a dinner party for some very important gentlemen.’
‘Gentlemen? There will be no ladies present?’
‘Without wishing to speak ill of Mrs Hardy, she’s not in any position to receive ladies. When Sir James is officially at his London residence, he mostly lives here with her.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘It’s one of those things the whole town knows, but never mentions.’
He hadn’t needed to say more. I ought to have been shocked (I was sorry for Lady Calderstone) but was mostly intensely curious; archdeacons’ widows do not often find themselves in the sinful salons of the demi-monde.
Not that I had seen more than a tantalizing glimpse of this wicked world; my brother and I had been hustled down the area steps and into the basement of the house, where we found Sir James and the faithful Mr Filey waiting for us in a chilly butler’s pantry. There was another man present, standing awkwardly with his hat in his hands; the slope of his chin and the violent colour of his sparse hair revealed him as Mr Joe Bentley, to whom I had given the task of finding out about the first letter. We exchanged smiles; he bobbed his head in a half-bow. He was ill-at-ease in his thick coat and leather gaiters.
‘I apologize for the cloak-and-dagger manner of our meeting,’ Mr Filey said. ‘When the second letter came, I thought it important to act at once. And there has been a development – Bentley here has a very interesting story to tell.’
We all looked at Mr Joe, who fiddled with his hat, stared down at his boots and mumbled, ‘Mrs Rodd wanted me to find out if anyone had borrowed a greatcoat in the livery of the Cross Keys. So I asked around, bought a few drinks, and sure enough someone did.’
‘You found him?’ Sir James snapped. ‘Give me his name!’
Mr Joe clammed up, startled by his sudden violence.
‘Please.’ Mr Filey laid a gentle hand upon Sir James’s sleeve. ‘Let him speak.’
‘Who was it, Mr Joe?’ I asked.
He looked at me and visibly relaxed a little; I wasn’t nearly such a forbidding figure as the three gentlemen in their starched white evening shirts. ‘It was one of the fellows who hangs around the yards a-looking for a bit of casual work, ma’am. You let ’em muck out the stalls and suchlike, and then they take their wages straight to the nearest tavern. This fellow was rough-spoke and rough-looking, with a beard up to his eyes and his clothes all shiny with dirt. One of the men I spoke to at the Cross Keys said this particular party had given him five shillings to borrow his greatcoat – half a crown down, half a crown on return.’
‘And?’ Sir James was in an anguish of impatience.
Once again, Mr Filey touched his arm to restrain him. ‘And you spoke with this man who borrowed the coat?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Joe said. ‘He wasn’t averse to talking in exchange for rum. Said his name was Arrowsmith.’
‘Arrowsmith?’ Sir James was bewildered. ‘That means nothing to me.’
Mr Joe’s lips twitched. ‘It weren’t his real name, sir. He swore all manner of oaths that he’d never sent anyone any letters or borrowed any coats. But he did let slip that he had been in prison. And in them days his name was Savile.’
‘By God – I knew it!’ Sir James shouted, bringing his fist down on the table with a force that nearly knocked over the lamp. ‘All roads lead back to that damned woman!’
The door opened; a soft female voice murmured, ‘James?’
He attempted to pull himself together. ‘Go back upstairs, my love; I’ll join you in a minute.’
In the patchy light I had a brief vision of dark hair and eyes, of glittering diamonds and lustrous lengths of creamy silk, before the door was swiftly closed. Fred and I glanced at each other; no explanation was necessary here. The ‘my love’ that had slipped out of Sir James said it all.
There was a silence, during which Sir James breathed heavily and Mr Joe’s boots creaked.
‘Well done, Bentley,’ Fred said. ‘Did you manage to find out anything else about this man?’
‘Was he ever married?’ Sir James asked eagerly. ‘Did he mention a wife?’
‘Well, yes sir,’ Mr Joe said. ‘He mentioned two or three, but I don’t think he was properly married to any of them.’
‘Did he mention a lady by the name of Helen Orme?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Are you quite certain?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Joe said. ‘It’s a name I would’ve remembered, and I don’t remember it.’ All the Bentleys had a stubborn way of sticking to a story that made them ideal witnesses.
‘Why was he in prison?’ my brother asked.
‘Thieving,’ Mr Joe said. ‘He worked as a manservant, in the service of several young gentlemen. He was locked up for whacking one of ’em on the head and making off with his watch-and-chain.’
‘Thank you, Bentley,’ Mr Filey said. ‘You’ve done excellent work; my clerk is waiting outside the door and will show you out.’
Mr Joe – looking relieved – bowed to us all, and left this shadowy room as fast as possible.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ Fred said, ‘you may show us this letter.’
Without a word, Mr Filey pushed the grubby sheet of paper across the table.
Yr wife is a WHORE. How many WHORES do you want in yr family?
I was in Vevey and saw everything. Now I collect or I talk. Bring one hundred pounds IN GOLD to the Goat in Boots in Salt Lane by Wapping Old Stairs. The Prince is at home between the hours of eight and eleven in the evening, until the end of this week. Ask for him at the bar.
Come ALONE.
Fred, reading over my shoulder, chuckled. ‘Quite an artist, this Mr Savile. The Prince, indeed! I’m acquainted with the Goat in Boots – it’s where the fences hang out, and it’s positively swarming with thieves and cut-throats.’ His tone was cheerful, almost affectionate. ‘The landlady’s an old gorgon, but she’s very fond of me – I got her off a charge of receiving stolen goods.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked (I had no idea myself what should be done; blackmail leaves its victims with no choices; you’re damned either way).
‘It’s quite obvious what should be done,’ Fred said. ‘Take the money but fill the area with spies and then catch him red-handed; I have some very good connections around there.’
‘No!’ Mr Filey snapped. ‘Out of the question!’
‘Or call the police –’
Both Sir James and his lawyer paled at this suggestion.
‘Heaven forbid!’ Sir James said. ‘My name must not be seen anywhere near this business.’
‘Oh, you’ve decided to pay him, have you?’ Fred smiled and shrugged. ‘Personally I wouldn’t advise it.’
‘Sir James,’ I said, ‘if we are to help you in this matter, I think you should explain to us what happened at Vevey.’
The word made his face twitch painfully. ‘I – I hoped I wouldn’t need to tell you.’ He shot a desperate, drowning-man look at me and Fred. ‘This must never get out – but the place has very unhappy links with – with my family. With my wife.’ He uttered the last word as if it choked him. ‘She became involved with a certain man. He took her away from me.’
So that was it; the trip to Switzerland had been to fetch his straying wife home and cover up a potentially ruinous scandal.
‘His name was Villiers – that’s what he called himself, anyway. He was rich, with the manner and bearing of a gentleman – his true name quite respectable for all one knew – one of those fellows who goes slumming it on the Continent under a false identity – then disappears before anyone can make him face the consequences.’ Sir James’s voice was soaked with bitterness and anger. ‘Naturally, he deserted her as such men do. There was a child born dead. My wife’s servant saved her life and contacted me.’
‘Mademoiselle Thérèse,’ I said; now it was only too obvious why he had to employ the woman.
He nodded miserably. ‘I told the children she’d gone away for her health. They must never know that their mother is a –’ The colour deepened in his handsome face. ‘Nobody else knew the truth, and so I was able to protect my family name. Or so I thought until that damned letter.’
His mouth puckered with distaste; the word he had not said was ‘whore’ but we all heard it in our minds. I found that I pitied Lady Calderstone. Poor creature, she had given her heart to a blackguard and lost her baby. And by the look of her husband, she would be paying for her ‘crime’ for the rest of her life. He had officially ‘forgiven’ her, but this was not forgiveness as it is known in Heaven.
‘Mrs Rodd,’ Mr Filey said, ‘this blackmailer is connected to Helen Orme. Get down to Suffolk as soon as you can.’
‘At once,’ Sir James said. ‘Do it immediately. I want to know everything about Helen Orme, and exactly who she was before she persuaded some fool of a consumptive clergyman to marry her. In the meantime this vile scoundrel – her true husband, for all we know – must be silenced.’
Mr Filey drew from his pocket a small leather purse, tight and heavy like a clenched fist. ‘One hundred pounds in gold.’ He placed it on the table. ‘We need someone to deliver it; someone we can trust absolutely.’