3-Book Victorian Crime Collection: Death at Dawn, Death of a Dancer, A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock
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been kinder than I deserved, getting the children up and dressed, taking them for their walk before breakfast. I’d almost bumped into them on my way back from the flower garden where I’d put a clove carnation on the rustic seat for Celia to find. I’d had to hide behind the beech hedge then rush up the back stairs to wash and tidy myself. By the time they came back to the schoolroom, I was tolerably neat in my blue-and-white print dress and muslin tucker, reading from the Gallic Wars.
‘She’s wearing rose-water,’ Henrietta said, sniffing.
Observant little beast. The maids had taken most of the water as usual, and there had only been enough left for a superficial wash, not enough to abolish the lingering smell of stables.
‘It smells just like my rose-water.’
It was. Desperate, I’d gone into her room and sprayed myself from the bottle on her white-and-gilt dressing table. What do nine-year-old girls need with rose-water in any case? It marked the start of a difficult day in the schoolroom. The children were short of sleep and sullen, still shaken by their father’s anger the evening before. I could hardly keep my eyes open, let alone summon up any interest in Julius Caesar or multiplication in pounds, shillings and pence. Towards the end of the morning, when we’d moved on to French conversation, Mrs Beedle paid us a visit of inspection. She sat listening for a while, very stern and upright, but from the thoughtful way she looked at her grandchildren I guessed she was trying to tell if they were affected by what had happened. What was more alarming was that I caught her looking at me with a puzzled frown, nostrils flaring. She’d certainly noticed the rose-water and probably guessed where it came from, but had she caught a whiff of horse as well?
‘Miss Lock, I am concerned …’ she said, and paused.
‘Concerned, ma’am?’
‘… that you are teaching Henrietta the wrong kind of French.’
I tried not to show my relief.
‘I hope not, ma’am. Her accent has improved quite remarkably in a few days.’
It was my one pedagogic achievement. The child had a good ear and I had coached her to utter some sentences of politeness in a way that would not have caused pain in Paris.
‘Please do not contradict me. I couldn’t understand a word she was gabbling. I shall examine her again next week and expect her to be speaking French like an English gentlewoman.’
The children slept in the afternoon and so did I, so deeply unconscious on my attic bed that I woke thinking I was back at my aunt’s house, until the clash of saucepans from the kitchens below reminded me. I cried for a while, then dressed and tidied my hair and went down. Betty was laying out Henrietta’s white muslin frock with the blue sash.
‘We’re surely not taking them down tonight,’ I said. ‘Not after what happened.’
‘If they’re sent for, they’ll have to go.’
At first, James flatly refused to change into his best clothes. He wanted to see his mother but his fear of his father was greater.
‘Your papa is a very important man,’ Betty told him. ‘He’s angry sometimes because he works hard, that’s all.’
But her eyes, meeting mine over his bowed head, told a different story. Henrietta was impatient with her brother.
‘Don’t be silly. Papa didn’t mean to hurt me.’
I looked at the blue bruise on her jaw and thought there was a kind of courage in her. James let himself be dressed at last, but began crying when the bell rang for us and clung tightly to my hand as we went down the staircase to the grand hall. There were servants at work, dusting and polishing. This was a surprise because normally cleaning was done early in the morning, before the family were up and about. The reason seemed to be a re-arrangement of the pictures. There were dozens of them round the hall, some of be-wigged Mandeville ancestors and their white-bosomed ladies, others of great moments from British history. Julius Caesar confronting the Druids had been one of the most prominent, next to the door to the larger of the two drawing rooms. Now it had been taken down and propped against the wall and a portrait was being put up in its place. Sir Herbert himself was supervising, with Mrs Beedle, the butler, Mrs Quivering and two footmen in attendance. Since all this was barring the way to the drawing room, we could only stand there with the children and wait. When they’d fixed it in place at last, and Sir Herbert had nodded his grudging approval, the painting seemed a poor substitute for noble Caesar. The portrait was a comparatively modern one of a pleasant though somewhat pop-eyed young woman, dressed simply in white silk with a blue sash, arms bare and hair piled in curls on top of her head, surrounded with a wreath of roses, all in the easy Empire style of our parents’ time. To my surprise, I recognised her from other portraits I’d seen, and when James tugged at my hand and whispered, ‘Who is she?’ I was able to whisper back.
‘That’s poor Princess Charlotte.’
My father had not encouraged concern about the doings of royalty, but even a republican’s daughter may be interested in princesses, especially young ones who ended sadly. So although I was no more than a baby when Princess Charlotte died, I knew a little about her. She was a grand-daughter of mad King George III, the only legitimate child of his son George IV and his unruly and hated Queen, Caroline. Her lack of brothers and sisters was accounted for by the fact that her father, on first being introduced to his arranged bride, had turned pale and called for a glass of brandy. They spent just one night together in the royal matrimonial bed and Princess Charlotte was the result.
Charlotte showed signs of being one of the best of the Hanoverian bunch, which to be sure is not saying a great deal. She was, by most accounts, more amiable than her father and more sensible than her mother. They married her before she was twenty to one of those German princelings who are in such constant supply, and she became pregnant with a child who would have succeeded her and become king of England – only she died in childbirth and her baby boy died too. Which was why we were about to celebrate the coronation of a different grand-daughter of mad King George, Charlotte’s cousin, little Vicky. In the circumtances, going to such trouble to commemorate Charlotte seemed another of Sir Herbert’s eccentricities.
‘Is she the new queen?’ James whispered to me.
‘No. I’m afraid she died.’
Sir Herbert stood staring at the picture. None of us could move before he did. James fidgeted and gripped my hand even more tightly. He probably needed to piss.
‘What did she die of?’
An awkward question. I could hardly explain death in childbirth to the boy, especially in such public circumstances. I began, in a whisper, that she had caught a fever, but a higher voice came from my other side.
‘She was poisoned.’
Henrietta, in that terribly carrying tone of hers, determined to be the centre of attention. There was a moment of shocked silence, then her father’s head swung round, slow and heavy like a bull’s, from the picture to where we were standing. After his violence the night before, I was terrified of what he might say or do to the child. I was scared for myself too, certain that I should be blamed for Henrietta’s lapse both in manners and historical knowledge. The child’s lurid imagination and over-dramatic nature would be no excuse. I forced myself to look Sir Herbert in the eye, determined on dignity at least, and the expression under his black brow so disconcerted me that I fear my mouth gaped open. The man was smiling – a phenomenon I’d never before witnessed. He took a few heavy steps towards us, then, amazingly, bent down until his eyes were level with Henrietta’s, gently tweaked one of her ringlets and put a finger to his lips.
‘Shhh,’ he said to her.
I think everybody there was as amazed as I was, not believing him capable of such a kindly and humorous rebuke. Henrietta was wriggling and simpering, having achieved exactly what she wanted. He touched her hair again, straightened up and said a few more words, equally surprising.
‘It is a pity you are not ten years older.’
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