Britannia Mews Read online

  The wicker of the chair creaked as the Sow settled herself more easily. In her dull eyes flickered a gleam of pleasure; why should she not be pleased? She had just been given the substance of a month’s trading. But still she did not speak, and her silence was disconcerting. Adelaide moved towards the door.

  “Indeed, I’ll leave you in possession,” she said, “while I go for a cab. All I’m taking is that one trunk, and the handbag. Everything else—”

  “Come ’ere,” said the Sow.

  She did not even turn her head. She gave the order; Adelaide, however, thought it best not to show offence.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mounsey, I’ve very little time if I’m to catch my train, and as I’ve got to go at once—”

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” said the Sow. “You’re stayin’ ’ere.”

  2

  Again they faced each other in silence, Adelaide with her hand on the door, the Sow at ease in Henry Lambert’s chair. She had been in the room five minutes, and looked as though she had been there always.

  Adelaide gave a high, artificial laugh.

  “Stay here? I don’t know what you mean!”

  “I’ve took a fancy to yer,” said the Sow.

  “Indeed that’s very kind of you—”

  “A real fancy.” The Sow paused, with the air of one examining and condoning an amiable weakness. She said, “Not but what you knows already … fer if I ’adn’t took such a fancy to yer, would I ’a said what I done in the box?”

  Adelaide closed the door and came slowly back into the room. She was not entirely unprepared; from the moment of the Sow’s entry she had feared, if not foreseen, mischance. She had made propitiatory gifts. Now it was time to fight. Without any pretence at misunderstanding she said coldly:—

  “If you mean what I think you do, you’re accusing yourself of perjury. Do you know the penalty for that?”

  “Term o’ imprisonment,” said the Sow, unblinking. “Better’n bein’ ’anged by the neck till yer dead. You let perjury alone, an’ take it I done you a good turn.”

  “You simply told the truth.”

  The Sow moved her head ponderously on her thick neck.

  “If I’d told the truth, dearie, you wouldn’t be ’ere now. You’d be in the Tench awaitin’ trial. If I’d told ’ow I seen you push yer pore ’usband to ’is death—”

  “My husband fell. Everyone knows it.”

  “Because I told ’em,” agreed the Sow. “Though if they’d took the Old ’Un first, the Crowner mightn’t ’a bin so believin’.” She swayed her head again, this time in a gesture of impatience. “But what’s the use talkin’? You knows, and I knows, you killed yer ’usband. You knows, and I knows, you ’ad good cause. Motive, they calls it: you ’ad good motive. Every night almost ’e went with that red-’eaded slut.… But so long as you be’ave sensible, you don’t ’ave to fear. I’ll look arter yer.”

  Adelaide steadied herself against the table. Her knees were suddenly shaking, but she would not sit; she felt she could fight better on her feet. But now she was on the defensive, her weapon of attack had failed, she was in deadly peril … and all at once, as the soft threatening voice ceased, Adelaide heard another voice, her own, speaking out of the past: “Promise me, Henry, you’ll never give her any money!” She remembered feeling contempt for the blackmailed wretches who crept to the Sow’s door.… Well, now she was one of them. She knew, as they had known, that there was no alternative. She said:—

  “How much?”

  “Ten bob a week.”

  The smallness of the sum brought so great a relief that for a moment Adelaide could not speak. Ten shillings a week—twenty-five pounds a year—was easily within her means; as the price of what it bought it was ludicrous. “Why, the woman’s a fool!” thought Adelaide sharply; and as sharply checked herself. Mrs. Mounsey was no fool: but she bought a man’s coat for eightpence, and sold it for one and three: ten shillings a week was wealth to her. Adelaide said cunningly:—

  “Eight.”

  “Ten,” said the Sow.

  With returning confidence, a sense of power almost, Adelaide allowed herself to hesitate.

  “Very well,” she said at last. “But not because I believe you. Because I’m grateful for your—your kindness, I’ll send you ten shillings a week.”

  “Not send, give it. ’Ere.”

  Adelaide looked patient. It might have been a pension they were discussing, a pension to an ex-housemaid.

  “My dear Mrs. Mounsey, I can’t possibly come to London every week to pay you ten shillings—”

  “You’ll ’ave no call to. I told you, you ain’t leavin’!”

  A slow smile creased the folds of Mrs. Mounsey’s cheeks, her bosom heaved with enjoyment as from the depths of her shawls she fumbled out a dirty scrap. It was the upper half of a sheet of note-paper: Adelaide recognized at once the Platt’s End address, and below a line of her mother’s writing: My dear daughter … She remembered how she had torn that letter across and thrown it with other rubbish for the dust-cart; throwing her life into the Sow’s hands.

  “I never was a one fer travelling;” said the Sow, “but I can find me way. ’Oo knows, if yer set on the place, I might set up a little business there; you recommending me ter yer nice friends. But ’ere or there, we’ll not be parted; jus’ you say, dearie, which it’s to be.”

  3

  Adelaide’s thoughts were under control no longer: they raced desperately—as she had once seen a dog race, long ago in Kensington Gardens, running desperately and hopelessly from inescapable terror. The dog whimpered as it ran; and she knew that if she spoke her voice would break on a whimper like a dog’s. Twist and turn, plead and whimper as she might, there was no escape. To go back to Farnham with the Sow as her familiar would defeat the whole purpose of her return; would undermine not her own prosperity alone, but that of all the Culvers together. Them at least she could protect—only at the thought of the price, the true price, Adelaide’s mind swung away sickened, as her body swayed and sickened, so that she clung with both hands to the table’s edge. To stay there, in the Mews, all her life, with no hope of release but by the Sow’s death …

  Her thoughts steadied again. She turned away her head, so that the Sow should not see her eyes. But there was no evil thought of hers the Sow could not anticipate.

  “Not twice you couldn’t,” said the Sow, almost kindly. “Not with the same Crowner.… Made up yer mind yet?”

  “I’ll stay,” said Adelaide.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER I

  1

  It was Sunday afternoon: Alice and her mother, surrounded by their families, sat under the big cedar on the Hambros’ lawn.

  By 1890, two years after Henry Lambert’s death, of which they did not know, the Hambros at the Cedars and the Bakers in Oakley Road had been domiciled in Surbiton almost three years: they had made many friends, and indeed become popular in the neighbourhood, but no new ties affected their family attachment. Alice saw her mother almost daily: Mr. Hambro and Freddy Baker travelled up to London on the same train, and frequently travelled back with the twins. To make quite sure they shouldn’t miss each other, however, there was a standing engagement for tea on Sunday at the Hambros’; every Sunday afternoon the Bakers walked round—at first Alice and Freddy, then Alice and Freddy with Archy in the pram, then Alice and Freddy with Raymond in the pram and Archy alongside in the go-cart—all in their best clothes, all beaming with expectation. In summer tea was on the lawn: the infants sprawled on rugs, in charge of their juvenile and enthusiastic aunts, the twins were allowed to bring out books (of travel only, in deference to the Sabbath) and while the men smoked Alice and her mother peacefully reviewed the events of the week. If Alice had any sister-in-law staying with her, as frequently happened, they came too. After tea they all played croquet. Strangers glimpsing the party through the hedge often received the impression that some sort of reunion was going on—possibly a Silver Wedding; and it was a reunion
, only it happened every week.

  “Really, Mamma,” said Alice, “whatever did we do without a garden?”

  It was a remark she made regularly, because it regularly occurred to her, and no Hambro ever refrained from saying anything merely because he had said it before. Mrs. Hambro made her usual reply.

  “I’m sure I don’t know, dear. Of course, there weren’t the babies.”

  “But it’s so nice to sit outside without one’s hat.” Alice leaned back luxuriously against the cushions of her basket-chair. “And it’s such good exercise for Freddy and Papa to cut the grass.”

  “Your father hasn’t cut the grass once.”

  Alice laughed.

  “Freddy doesn’t often either.… He did last month, though.”

  They relapsed into silence. The twins, lying on their stomachs, were reading the same book: they reached the bottom of the page at precisely the same moment, and Johnny turned it as unthinkingly as if he were alone. Raymond slept in a sort of nest made for him by the bodies of his two young aunts: Archy had wandered as far as the herbaceous border, where he stood lost in contemplation of a lupine. It was the moment of peace and repletion, when tea was over, and before they started to play croquet.

  “We ought to cut the lavender,” said Mrs. Hambro drowsily.

  “There isn’t much, Mamma. That’s the one thing I envy at Platt’s End … that gorgeous hedge.”

  “It’s an older garden …”

  Alice’s eyes, which had been closing, suddenly opened.

  “Mamma.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Do you know if they ever hear from Adelaide?”

  For a moment Mrs. Hambro, sunk in a delicious coma, pretended not to hear. But Alice repeated her question more vigorously and forced an answer.

  “No, dear. They only know she’s left the Mews.”

  “How do they know, if they don’t hear from her?”

  “Your aunt went to see her.”

  “I thought so!” Alice sat up, letting her cushions slip to the ground. “I thought that was what you were talking about, last time we were over there! You might have told me.”

  “There wasn’t anything to tell. Your Aunt Bertha went up to town last month, meaning to see Adelaide, but Adelaide wasn’t there. A neighbour told her they’d gone a year ago, without leaving any address. It’s not surprising.”

  Alice reflected.

  “If they’ve left Britannia Mews, it must mean Mr. Lambert’s doing better.”

  “I’m sure I hope he is.”

  “He was rather fascinating, you know. You know, Mamma,” said Alice, in a lower tone, “I could have forgiven Addie anything, if only she’d confided in me. But I remember one afternoon, when I was telling her about Freddy, before we were engaged, she had such a queer superior manner; and I suppose now it was going on all the time.”

  “You may be thankful she didn’t confide in you,” said Mrs. Hambro practically. “You’d have been in a most unpleasant position.”

  “She wasn’t even at my wedding, and I wasn’t at hers. Oh, dear, the boys want to play croquet.”

  Alice jumped up. At the same moment the infant Raymond woke, stretching soft pink fists and toes into the delighted faces of his aunts; and with all her kind heart Alice regretted that Adelaide was not there to share the delicious spectacle. She didn’t often think of her cousin; her life was too full of immediate, absorbing detail, her mind too preoccupied with intimate family concerns; she was also honest enough to admit that if Adelaide should suddenly reappear she might prove rather an awkward customer. Would she fit in? To “fit in” was one of Alice’s pet phrases, and covered a good deal of moral ground: it implied the complete acceptance of her own view of life, the practice of all her own cheerful virtues, the absence of anything disturbing, unkind, or even out of the way. Adelaide was hardly unkind, but she was certainly disturbing, and she didn’t seem to accept anything.… Selecting her own particular mallet, the one with the blue band, Alice unconsciously shook her head. Despite these moments of regret, and sharp as they were, she no longer felt any impulse to seek Adelaide out.

  2

  In describing her abortive visit to Britannia Mews, Mrs. Culver had given her sister only the barest outline, and the latter would have been surprised to know that neither Mr. Culver nor Treff had been told any more. “Adelaide has been gone a year,” said Mrs. Culver, on her return to Platt’s End. “There’s no address. I did what I could, Will, I enquired of a neighbour; that’s all they know”—and then she went upstairs and lay down. Later that evening Mr. Culver said abruptly, “I suppose we don’t want to go to the police?” and his wife shook her head. She had in fact had a very unpleasant experience: though there were several people about when she entered the Mews, no one came forward to answer her question but one grossly fat old woman, who indeed replied civilly enough; but when Mrs. Culver turned to go this creature followed, jostling her in the archway to Albion Alley, demanding money. Mrs. Culver opened her bag. She did not give to beggars as a rule, but the Alley was deserted and the Mews behind ominously quiet. Mrs. Culver opened her bag—and suddenly a heavy, foul-smelling arm thrust against her breast, she was pushed back against the wall, and a filthy hand closed over her sovereign-purse. For almost the first time in her life Mrs. Culver felt physical fear; it lent her strength to jerk herself free; and she actually ran as far as the corner of Chester Street. Her lungs cramped by her corset, her feet cramped in her pointed shoes, her heavy petticoats twisted between her knees, Mrs. Culver ran. A horrid, an undignified, experience! She did not tell a policeman, she did not tell her husband; she wished neither to think nor to speak of Britannia Mews.

  The move to Farnham had been an unqualified success. Platt’s End received them kindly: Mrs. Culver had known at once that she would like the house, and she grew to like it more and more. Her drawing-room in particular was a pleasure to her: all through the summer she kept the bow-window full of flowers, arranged on tiers of bamboo stands—“My flower show,” she called it—and it had become quite a feature of her At Home Days. These Days were well attended, for she had managed to bring with her a certain urban consequence; upon the quiet ladies of the neighbourhood Mrs. Culver’s London talk made an impression; they were also flattered by her preference for Farnham. “Never again,” exclaimed Mrs. Culver, “would I live in town!”—and Mrs. Hume and Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Howard, whose experience of London was confined to a day’s shopping, all agreed that the bustle and rush there had become quite unendurable. Their daughters sometimes looked blank; for they all had daughters, among whom Treff moved with rather the air of a jeune premier.

  Treff, a detached young man, was extremely popular, and improved his tennis on every court in the neighbourhood; he had just come down from Cambridge. Mothers fished a little now and again, trying to find out what his profession was to be, and, particularly, if it was a profession which would soon support a wife; on this subject Mrs. Culver was very discreet, for the good reason that she did not know, herself. Charming, good-tempered, without vices, Treff was still, from a professional point of view, an unknown quantity. He had read History, and his father thought he might become a schoolmaster. Treff promised to think it over, and continued to play tennis.

  Platt’s End, however, and the houses like it, did not form all of Farnham’s society. There was an upper crust, with which the Culvers mingled more rarely, though still on equal terms; a retired admiral, a retired judge, a dowager viscountess, added lustre to the neighbourhood. Mr. Vaneck, at Bishop’s Lodge, untitled but wealthy, played almost the part of a squire in his patronage of cricket clubs, flower shows, and the Cottage Hospital. Without a wife to entertain for him, he still entertained more than anyone else, and always on a large, almost impersonal scale. No one dropped in on him. The Vicar’s wife, calling on a charitable errand, and with no fear of being refused, sent round a note in advance. There was a ceremoniousness in all his dealings which made him undoubtedly impressive, and Mrs. Culver was more fl
attered than she liked to admit when he called at Platt’s End. He came at the proper time, though not on her Day, accepted tea, inspected the garden, gave advice on the management of the green-house, and paid his next call exactly a year later. No one expected more from Mr. Vaneck.

  In these pleasant surroundings the years passed swiftly. Mr. Culver’s heart gave no trouble, though Dr. Howard very properly warned him against over-exertion; he took to gardening, and achieved a mild local reputation with his phloxes. He never spoke of Adelaide, nor did Treff. Mrs. Culver occasionally mentioned her in public, being too wise a woman to suppress altogether a married daughter; but she gave the impression that Adelaide lived abroad—so successfully that a new-comer introduced by Mrs. Blake made conversation by observing that she knew a gentleman in the Consular Service, like Mrs. Culver’s son-in-law. Mrs. Culver replied that it was a most interesting career, only it took one out of England. But apart from such politenesses no one showed any interest in Adelaide; no one ever was interested, as Mrs. Culver well knew, in other people’s absent female relations.

  CHAPTER II

  1

  In the summer heat Britannia Mews sweltered and smelt: Adelaide Lambert propped her door open all day long, and sent Mrs. Mounsey for beer instead of gin.

  So, after two years, had their relationship established itself, and not without a great moral danger to Adelaide. For she had not long accepted her fate passively, and the ensuing struggle drove her more and more to use the Sow’s weapons: as their wills met and locked Adelaide found she could draw strength only from the worse part of her nature, from pride, bitterness, and hate; finding these qualities serviceable, she cultivated them. Anger, too: since it was her first movement of anger that gave her the clue to the Sow’s one weak point. This happened on the fourth day after Henry Lambert’s funeral: the first three Adelaide had passed cowering in her room like a wounded animal, lying fully dressed on her bed, moving only to fetch bread and water—for there was a loaf thrust within the door each morning, placed there indeed by Mrs. Mounsey, who had no intention of letting her victim starve. But on the fourth day stupor gave place to restlessness, and Adelaide got up, and bathed her face, and went slowly down to the coach-house below.