Читать книгу The China Governess - Margery Allingham - Страница 5

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A remarkably ill-tempered-looking old man, as aggressively pink and clean as a baby, wheeled a new barrow slowly across the gravel drive.

As Julia looked down on him from the window of the small sitting room on the ground floor, the hot midday sun winked off the bright paint of the bodywork and she grinned.

This was Broome himself and his unmistakable resemblance to a Walt Disney dwarf could hardly be entirely unintentional. She wondered if he knew.

Now that she was rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terra-cotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet. She sat on the edge of the table, her small hands, blue-veined at the wrists, folded in her lap. She was very much in love, her mind quite made up.

The morning paper which had been brought to her in triumph with her meal had been folded back by Nanny Broome into a harlequin’s wand so that no other news of war or peace should detract from the main story. There was a snapshot of Sir Anthony Laurell across two news columns. He was shown descending from a plane and smiling all over his face, above the caption: “Tired But On Top; Flying Chairman Settles Strike Threat Yet Again.” The story was a purely industrial one concerning labour disputes in Northern Ireland but it finished with a brief report of the little incident which was all that had mattered to Nanny Broome. “As he paused to pose for reporters, weary but well satisfied and smiling hugely, one daring correspondent asked Sir Anthony if he knew where his daughter was. This was a reference to the rumour that the engagement expected between Julia Laurell, Sir Anthony’s only child, and twenty-two-year-old Timothy Kinnit, heir to the famous Kinnit’s Salerooms in Dover Street, will not now be announced. Gossips are blaming Sir Anthony for the broken romance and are predicting much heart-burning from the young people. In reply to the question last night Sir Anthony’s smile broadened. ‘Safe in her bed, I hope to goodness,’ he said heartily and strode off to his car.”

Julia had explained the significance of the report in some detail as soon as her hostess returned to collect the tray, but without any noticeable success. She was not very surprised therefore when there was a series of furtive little knocks at the door and the good lady arrived in a flurry.

“I told you you were wrong,” she said, her pebble eyes showing white all the way round but her irrepressible smile escaping through the drama. “They’re here!”

Julia slid off the table and took a step towards the window.

“Who?”

“Newspapers, like I told you and you said was so unlikely. Oh, not out there.” Mrs. Broome appeared to resent so literal an interpretation. “Amy Beadle has just telephoned from the Goat and Boot—she’s the licencee in her own right and a great friend of mine—she says two different London papers rang up to ask if you or Mr. Timothy had been seen in the village. She told them ‘no’ and then she wondered if I knew anything.”

“What did you tell her?” Julia was developing a very firm way of speaking coupled with unusually clear enunciation when talking to Mrs. Broome.

“Oh, I was very careful.” An unexpected shrewdness appeared in the shining face. “I know Amy. If something isn’t there she’ll make it up. There’s only one thing to do with Amy and that’s to look her straight in the face and lie. I said I didn’t know why in the world they should want to ring her, and if it was anybody’s place to know a thing like that it would be mine. I hadn’t heard a whisper from London, I said—our exchange is automatic you see, so there wouldn’t be a leak there—and I was on the qui vive to hear something, but I expected Mr. Tim would take you to Scotland or, if they’ve stopped Gretna Green, to Paris or somewhere like that.”

Julia looked very young again. “You were very thorough.”

“You have to be with Amy. Which reminds me, miss, if you should see anybody arriving in the drive—I don’t suppose you will but you never know—nip straight down this passage here on the left and go into the big door at the end. It looks like an ordinary lock but it isn’t quite, there’s a little brass catch underneath. Pull that sideways and you’ll get into the big drawing room. I call it the Treasure Room. That’s where all the valuables are kept and that’s the room I never take strangers into when they call, as they do to see the old-historic-building and so on. The lock closes behind you and there’s the same arrangement inside so you can always get out. It’s just a safety precaution. You know the room, it’s the one the dance was held in at Christmas.” She paused for breath and was silent for a moment thinking. Presently she took a step forward, laid a shining red hand on the girl’s shoulder and spoke with a seriousness all the more impressive because it came from so far beneath the surface.

“I’ve been thinking about you all the time I’ve been working about the house this morning, and I do hope you’ll understand what I’m going to say,” she began. “It’s very easy to take offence at such times I know, but miss, why don’t you have a betrothal? I know Mr. Timmy and I think I’m beginning to know you. You’d both be much happier. You want to be happy on a performance like this because there’s a lot of little things to worry about.”

There was no doubt at all about what she meant or the genuineness of her concern.

“Mr. Lingley, the parson, the Rev-Ben they call him, has known Mr. Timmy for fifteen years and I know he’d like to help.”

Julia was sitting on the table again, her black eyes narrowed and her intelligent face looking so young that its defencelessness was a responsibility.

“I don’t quite know what you mean by ‘a betrothal,’ ” she said at last. “It sounds perfect but what is it? Some sort of ceremony?”

“Oh, I think so, miss. You’d have to leave all that to the parson, of course, but you read about it in all the stories, don’t you? There’s an exchange of rings I know. You’ve got your engagement ring and I can find one for Timmy. There’s a lovely big one in the cabinet in the drawing-room—it came from Pompeii I believe.” It was only the faint upward note, on the final word, an infinitesimal lack of decision in the enthusiastic rush, which conveyed to Julia that there was no real guarantee that Mrs. Broome had any clear idea what she was talking about. In many ways it was a pathetic situation, the treasures at stake priceless and delicate and both women aware of all the facts without comprehending them.

Mrs. Broome was hovering, her eyes hopeful and enquiring.

“I think it’s done in church and it’s just a prayer and a promise, but the papers aren’t signed because you have to have a licence if they are and you’re under age, aren’t you, miss? What I feel is that it would be a good thing to do because, although it wouldn’t be legally binding in a court of law, it would be to you two, you being the kind of children you are, and that would make you both much more comfortable. Let me ring up Mr. Lingley and ask him if he’d slip round. I won’t tell him why but I know he’ll come. He’s a very good man. Very kind and conscientious.” She was within a hair’s breadth of being convincing in her nursery authority, but at her next step the thin ice cracked. “Long, long ago the man knelt praying before a sword all night and nowadays they just call it a wedding rehearsal in the newspapers,” she said devastatingly.

Julia caught her breath and laughed until the tears in her eyes were reasonable.

“You’re thinking of a vigil,” she said. “I’m afraid that’s something quite different. No I don’t think I’ll talk to Mr. Lingley. Thank you for thinking of it.”

“But he’s a good man, miss. A homely practical chap too, even if he does wear a cassock all day. He’d help if he could.”

“I’m sure he would. I did meet him you know, at Christmas. No, let’s leave it to Timothy. I’ll tell him what you suggest.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Broome. “Now I know you’ll make Timmy a good wife because he’s very proud and headstrong and has to be led. I shall hold you to that, miss. You tell him. I’ll have a nice supper for him and then you tell him to telephone the Rev-Ben and I’ll be bridesmaid.” A sizzling noise from the gravel outside silenced her in mid-stream and they both looked out of the window. A Jaguar had just driven through the arch on to the drive and two men were dismounting almost under the window in front of them.

Nanny Broome took one look at the shorter and darker of the two and flushed scarlet with vexation.

“Oh heck!” she said unexpectedly and managed to make the absurd word shocking. “Mr. Basil! That’s torn it. He would come rolling in just when nobody wants him! It’s Mr. Basil Toberman. I expect you’ve heard of him. He’s the other side of the business, the black sheep if you ask me. He drinks like a sponge and thinks he’s something an angel’s brought in. I don’t know who that is he’s got with him.”

“I do.” Julia was looking apprehensively at a tall, thin man who was climbing out of the passenger seat. “That’s Albert Campion. I don’t think he could be looking for me already, but I think I’d better get out of the way.”

“What is he? A lawyer?” Nanny Broome had drawn the girl back but was still craning her own neck.

“I don’t think so. People tell you all sorts of things about him, what he is and what he isn’t. You call him in when you’re in a flap. Go and head them off while I get under cover.”