The China Governess by Margery Allingham

 

The China Governess by Margery Allingham

published 1962

 

 

She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.

Vivat Vintage (tumblr.com)

& Pierre Cardin 1960

 

I read this one recently – for the first time in many many years – because of the Jane Stevenson book London Bridges, blogpost earlier this week here – but read the next para before you click through, SPOILER WARNING. Jane S says she was inspired to write her book by wondering what happened to a child from The China Governess – one who only appears very briefly. Hattie is the child of Allingham’s series character Inspector Charlie Luke, and the blessed Prunella, a very endearing character (‘a sweeter woman never drew breath’) - see this long-ago blog entry on Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady.

Now, if an event occurs off-stage in a series of books, between books, and you are just told about it later, is it a spoiler to mention it? If you want to know another key fact about Hatty Luke’s background, look at that blogpost now (it’s #SpoilerNotSpoiler time).

It is mentioned very early in China Governess (hinted at on p7), which we will now move on to. This is the synopsis on The Margery Allingham Archive

Young Timothy Kinnit appears to have everything: he is heir to the great family fortune of his adoptive guardians, and he is to marry his beautiful fiancée Julia Laurell. All seems to be perfect...until Timothy decides that it is time to trace his real parentage. Abandoned as a baby at the beginning of the Blitz, it appears that the environs of his parentage, the rough and unhealthy Turk Street in Ebbfield, held a number of secrets, including the key to his identity. However, as he begins to search for clues in a twenty years old mystery, he finds that there are some secrets which the past would prefer not to yield. With the aid of Mr Albert Campion, Timothy Kinnit probes not only his beginnings, but the truth behind a century-old mystery, which could have terrible implications for both he and his adoptive family.

Very fair summing up. Having mentioned this book a couple of times online (in relation to London Bridges), I know from the responses that I am not the only one who read it years ago and  has absolutely no memory of a single thing about it. (Apart from the cover: and I can't find online the one I had on my library copy...) But, it was well worth a reread. 

**And you can find a review of it here from regular blog reader callmemadam

She was such a good writer. I liked this passing comment:

‘Poor Campion,’ he said. ‘Eustace has frozen on to him as if he was the only spar in an angry sea'

But where Allingham really excelled was in describing corners of London such as the sinister Turk St Mile, mentioned above. This is Luke:

Superintendent Charles Luke was… very tall but his back and shoulder muscles were so heavy that he appeared shorter and there was a hint of the traditional gangster in his appearance, especially now as he stood with his hands in his trousers pockets, the skirts of his light tweed overcoat bunched behind him and his soft hat pulled down over his dark face.

And now Luke’s description of the area:

When you turned into The Mile from this end the first thing you saw was the biggest pawnshop you ever clapped eyes on and opposite, all convenient, was the Scimitar. That was a huge gin palace, built on what you might call oriental lines. The street stalls ran down both sides of the way to the hill and every other one of them sported a strictly illegal crown-and-anchor board. The locals played all day. Early in the morning and late at night by naptha flares. Farther on, round the dip, was the residential quarter. I don’t know if that’s the term. People lived in caves. There’s no other word for them.

To me this is great writing, wonderful descriptions.

(Crown-and-anchor is a simple dice game, used for gambling, very popular amongst sailors)

A weird family house plays a key role, and the strangeness of the house and one of the rooms in particular – and they do rather make your blood run cold – are worthy of a horror film, or a Gladys Mitchell book. Not helped by the presence of Timothy’s old Nanny, Nanny Broome. She is one of Allingham’s parade of grotesques, an awful woman but very real, very complete, telling her interminable stories ‘Well, this lady – I always call people that because it’s more polite –‘ and on and on.

The book is full of considerations of what exactly would make the potential marriage of the two young people a mistake, what secrets or uncovered problems there are.  Frankly none of that matters, but the thought of Nanny Broome bringing up Timothy is what should make Julia run a mile.

I used this picture for her, because I first used it for an entry on Tiger in the Smoke in the very early days of the blog. It actually shows a Swedish lady in the 1930s, and is from the Swedish Heritage Board. (The full picture, which shows a couple, is very charming and well worth a look. One of my Swedish readers may be able to tell us more… )

To be honest, I probably won’t remember much about the plot of this in another 10 years, it’s not the best of Allingham’s books in that regard. But I will remember her glorious descriptions of London. The picture is obviously much later, see the Gherkin, but I liked it.

A Thames sunset panorama from Wikimedia Commons, "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0"

And this is more of what I liked in this book – Luke again:

He stepped out to be confronted by a prospect of his beloved city which he had never seen before. He stood transfixed before the unaccustomed view of London at night time, a vast panorama which reminded him not so much of the aerial photographs of today but rather of some wood engravings far off and magical, in a printshop in his childhood. They dated from the previous century and were coarsely printed on tinted paper, with tinsel outlining the design. They had been intended as backcloths for toy theatres and were wildly ambitious…

Now to Luke’s amazed delight he saw the same glorious jumble of grandeur and mystery spread out below him. He saw the chains and whorls of the street lamps, the ragged silver sash of the river and all the spires and domes and chimney-pots, outlined with a sorcerer’s red fire, smudging against the misty sky. It made his heart move in his side.

Me too.