The China Governess

Albert Campion #17

by Margery Allingham

Truth that kills
Adopted heir Timothy Kinnit refuses to marry his beloved Julia until he learns the truth about his parentage. But when Albert Campion traces the roots of young Timothy’s family tree, he finds them buried in a century-old scandal involving a jilted nanny and a rather nasty murder. When another tragic death occurs, a sinister Victorian blood legacy suddenly threatens the lives of the two young lovers... and Campion’s to boot!

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Detective, Golden Age Mystery, Classics

265 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Aka Maxwell March.

Margery Louise Allingham was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a family of writers. Her father, Herbert John Allingham, was editor of The Christian Globe and The New London Journal, while her mother wrote stories for women's magazines as Emmie Allingham. Margery's aunt, Maud Hughes, also ran a magazine. Margery earned her first fee at the age of eight, for a story printed in her aunt's magazine.

Soon after Margery's birth, the family left London for Essex. She returned to London in 1920 to attend the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), and met her future husband, Philip Youngman Carter. They married in 1928. He was her collaborator and designed the cover jackets for many of her books.

Margery's breakthrough came 1929 with the publication of her second novel, The Crime at Black Dudley . The novel introduced Albert Campion, although only as a minor character. After pressure from her American publishers, Margery brought Campion back for Mystery Mile and continued to use Campion as a character throughout her career.

After a battle with breast cancer, Margery died in 1966. Her husband finished her last novel, A Cargo of Eagles at her request, and published it in 1968.

Also wrote as: Maxwell March

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Marjory Allingham's Campion books - but even so, I have to say this is probably one to avoid, unless, like me, you want to have read the entire canon. One of Allingham's late contributions, written in the 1960s four decades after the first Campion books, it lacks the joie de vivre of the earlier titles. It's over-long, and very slow - in fact it verges on the dull in places.

That's not to say it's entirely without interest, but what interest there is remains specialist. It's a sociological museum, with its stiff, emotionally retarded upper-middle class characters, who we are supposed to sympathise with, but who mostly repel. By today's standards it is also horribly un-PC about 'mental defectives'. Some readers will, I suspect, be outraged - but you do have to see this as a fascinating uncovering of just how things were in the early 60s. We tend to look back and think of the sixties as being all hippies and free love and rebellion, but we have to remember this was less than 20 years after the end of the Second World War, and the whole point of what happened in the 60s was a reaction to this establishment stiffness.

Perhaps most fascinating is the reaction of older family members to a historical black sheep in their family. Where in the current TV show Who Do You Think You Are there is a kind of horrified delight at, say, finding a murderer in the family's past, here it causes genuine pain and anger. The family's way of dealing with unpleasant things is to pretend they don't exist. Sadly, though Campion does act as a kind of operational fairy godmother to make things happen (eventually), we see very little opportunity for his usual skills - and Lugg is sadly extremely underused.

So, definitely not a book to read as an introduction to Campion - only worth going for if you do want to see just how uptight and sad the upper-middle class was in the early 1960s.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that I have found this a very frustrating, and inconsistent, series. One of the things I liked most about the books was Campion himself, but he seems to have virtually vanished in later books and hardly appears in this, the seventeenth in the series.

The storyline, as so many with Allingham, is convoluted and confusing. Christie is sometimes accused of being somewhat mundane as a writer, but she could plot better than any other GA crime writer and - if she did sometimes resort to stereotypes (any actress in an Agatha Christie novel is likely to come to a sticky end) - she never left her readers behind in the way Allingham often leaves me completely bemused as to who is up to what.

This mystery begins with Tim and Julia, a young couple about to elope. Tim is the adopted son of Eustace Kinnit, while Julia is the daughter of a self-made tycoon. When Julia's father questions Tim's background, the hunt is on to discover Tim's real background. For he was one of a number of evacuees who were housed with the Kinnit's during the war and finally taken into the household. So we have a tale of inheritance, class and resentment.

There are a whole host of bizarre characters; including Tim's old nanny, a - presumably - Labour councillor, a jealous drunk and various relatives. Refusing to be defeated, I managed to keep track of who was who, but I would have preferred more Albert Campion. Still, I will now read on to the end, as it would be a shame to give up now Campion has encountered the Sixties; even if they are not yet swinging.

[Susan in NC · Rating 2 out of 5]

This will be my last Allingham mystery, I’ve tried several books with the Reading the Detectives group, and I just don’t like her style. She has some lovely writing, but it’s far too dense or something for my taste. Agatha Christie is my gold standard for a golden age mystery, and I’ve enjoyed other authors of the period; I kept trying these because I bought several paperbacks years ago, after I enjoyed Peter Davidson playing Campion on PBS Masterpiece Mystery, and thought I’d enjoy the books. I enjoyed the early mysteries, but these later ones are full of dialogue I can’t fathom and overly written scenes I can’t follow. I don’t know if it’s references to English life at the time of writing, or what, but her characters and dialogue just don’t work for me.

I often can’t even tell exactly how the case is resolved - the characters are babbling on, and I’m not exactly sure what they mean, especially Inspector Charles Luke. I listened to the audiobook for most of this rambling mystery, which basically is about a rich young man trying to figure out who he is. He’s in love and wants to marry, but there are rumors flying about his parentage; I believe in the devastation of the London Blitz and evacuation of the East End, he was taken out of the city along with many others. The area was heavily bombed, records disappeared, etc. I’m not sure if the author was trying to make the nanny, Mrs. Broome, look like a charming eccentric or a loon! I often feel that when reading her characters - I’m not sure what she’s trying to say, or how she’s trying to present the characters - are we supposed to believe in them, trust them, suspect them? I don’t know, and I often find her writing frustrating. I feel her books are more novels then mysteries - and I prefer a more straightforward, “just the facts” approach!

[Wendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give Margery Allingham 5 stars for writing her name

A sweet young couple on the verge of marrying are stymied when the young lady's father learns that the young man's antecedants are a total mystery. Everyone assumed he was related to the adoptive family, but he isn't.
Worried about the possibility of hereditary insanity or similar gremlins, father and suitor decide the responsible thing to do is for young Tim to discover his parentage.
But it's more complicated than that, of course. There are family mysteries about a governess who killed a tutor 100 years ago, a crime spree that seems to follow in Tim's wake, a collection of eccentric and sometimes troublesome family members and attachments, and Charlie Luke and Campion (who is more of a background figure) unravel and tidybthe strands in the end.

What I liked most here were Allingham's writing, her flair for moralityvtale that is the mystery genre, her insights into human nature and the postwar psychology.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I was a bit worried about the reviews I read. However, I enjoyed this old fashioned story about Tim about to marry an heiress and discovering he is adopted. Well in the 1960s it meant something with the possibility he might be a bastard. The backstory is he as a baby arrived from London during the blitz and his apparent mother disappeared. The wealthy owner of the mansion the refugees were sent to decides to adopt him.

Eustace Kinnit the man who adopted him has a secret over a 100 years in the past where a governess apparently murdered a music tutor. Madness is a key part of the story. Tim trying to discover his parentage a relative of the Kinnit family staying with the family and the eccentric Nanny Broome.

Campion plays a minor role in the story and hardly features.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Basil the drunken cousin is towards the end almost murdered by the South African relative. Her plan to implicate Tim and ingratiate herself into the family and be first in line for the future inheritance. Tim finds out his parents were married and his father is a Councilman who mistakenly believes another boy is his son who is mentally unstable. His mother was the one who abandoned Tim, then had a baby shortly afterwards and used Tim’s birth certificate for her son. No DNA back then.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Murder doesn't hush."

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

What defines a Margery Allingham mystery for me is originality. Nothing is written to formula; she rarely repeats herself.

Sometimes being surprising requires her to get pretty weird, and The China Governess may be one of her weirder stories. Right from the start she launches us into the bizarre and uncomfortable: the police are called to a new apartment building, built over an old slum, where the home of an elderly couple has been torn apart with chilling thoroughness. The wife is so shocked that she has a seizure and dies, sitting at her own kitchen table; their tenant runs away. Then in a dizzying shift, we move to a young couple, well-mannered and “nice” in a classic British mold, planning their elopement. How do these two scenes have anything to do with each other?

It takes a good long while and many complications, but eventually they do come together, though that is far from the end of this twisty tale. As usual, it is populated with characters as unusual as their settings, eccentric to the point of creepiness—which makes it hard to spot the villain. I did get a sense of who might commit real evil about halfway through and was correct, but there was so much going on I never minded guessing where we were headed.

Fans of Campion and Lugg will be sad to know that, as with most of her later mysteries, they play a very small role, with Charlie Luke the detective most in evidence. In fact, it is the young couple who do much of the figuring out here, and most of the barriers to clarity lie only in the quirks of the other characters, against which the couple come off as a bit bland. There is a distinctive early ’60s feel to the story, which makes Campion feel like an anachronism—but that’s because as far as I can tell, Allingham’s brain never lost its alertness. There was some ugliness in this story that made it less than fun to read, but this author always richly earns my respect.

[Andrea]

Tim Kinnit, an adopted child, is about to get married when his belief about his past (that he was a by-blow of the wealthy family who adopted him) is overturned, and the need to know who he is overwhelms romantic interest. [I note, though, that he was perfectly fine not knowing anything about his real mother, but discovering that he wasn't related to the man who he thought was his father knocks him for six.]

This is a story about class. Is Tim from the gutter? Are the Kinnits too impossibly condescending? Does nature overcome nurture? Does it matter what your blood is, or your personality?

Allingham doesn't really answer these questions, merely pokes them a little. It's a good mystery, but I don't really like this story, particularly because of something related to Charlie Luke, but also because I really disliked the older Kinnits, along with Tim (for the manly keeping the girl out of it act).

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing mystery where the shadow of a Victorian murder hangs over the Kinnit family. The adopted son of the family, Timothy Kinnit, is searching for his true origins but finds his path blocked. Meanwhile, mysterious robbery and arson events seem to be connected to Timothy’s search, and Mr Campion is engaged to sort out the truth from the myths.

I really enjoyed this story, the 17th Campion mystery. By this stage, I have become attuned to Allingham’s quirky and allusive style, spotting the key hints and clues and the emotional undercurrents that affect the dysfunctional families that she loves to depict. Albert Campion and Superintendent Luke make a good partnership, complementing each other physically and temperamentally.

I loved the combination of family secrets and contemporary crime in this novel, and feel that this series gets stronger as it progresses.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

As Allingham got older, her ambitions and writing style got more baroque, by which I mean that she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) simply narrate: every action and word had to be interpreted by another character or invested with meaning by the narrator. It gets in the way of an interesting mystery and some fun characters. I still like this one, but it feels gummed up.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

All of Margery Allingham's Campion books suffer from a surfeit of coincidences, inexplicable encounters and incomprehensible motivations, and this one is no exception. At the heart of the matter is a bizarre story of a newborn baby being whisked away from a London hospital during the Blitz to the relative safety of a country home, where he ends up being adopted by the local gentry. Fast forward twenty-five or so years later, and the adoptive family realizes belatedly that, with the Tim's marriage to a beautiful heiress coming up soon, they'd perhaps better find out where he really comes from. A hornet's nest is stirred up, leading to systemic vandalization of an innocent couple's home, arson and murder. Oh, no, oops, the murders have nothing to do with Tim's search for his parentage but everything with the family's cursed history with governesses, going back 100 years. It's all very confusing and I felt cheated as a reader. Another weakness is that the book, which is set in London in the late 50s or very early 60s, feels oddly disjointed from the time and place of its setting. Apart from some remarks about "this generation", the book could have been set in the period between the two world wars. There are nursery maids, governesses, old maids engaged in charitable works, prim art collectors and plenty of cups of tea. There is nothing to suggest that the sixties are about to break out and shake that world to its foundation. This may contribute to its value as escapist literature for Anglophiles, but I found that it gave the book a flat, unconvincing tone.

As for the strengths of the book, well, there is plenty of athmosphere. Evocations of old slums, of the chaos of the evacuation of London during WWII, of old houses full of antiques, are provided plentifully. Some of the secondary characters are interesting, like the City Councilor Cornish, or the sentimental-but-cunning Nanny Mrs. Broome.

And a final note for Campion-lovers and connoisseurs : his wife, Amanda, is missing from the book. Not even mentioned once!

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good fluffy sort of read for a day when I didn't want to think. Why does a young heiress' father suddenly object to her previously accepted fiancé? It's all to do with war babies, heredity, and mistaken identities. Once again, Campion is really more background than protagonist, though personally I would prefer him to play a larger role.

There's a mysterious "medicinal" well in the cellar of the family home, a motif Allingham has used before if I'm not mistaken, but then repetition seems to plague this particular installment of the Campion series. For some odd reason, she dresses all of the "elegant" (ie rich) or intelligent characters in grey. The nanny, a bustling, not too bright busybody, is dressed in strong colours, such as her purple coat. Allingham has said nanny constantly "waggling her bottom", though there's no real purpose to it--unless the authoress is obsessed with bottoms? Her male characters keep saying disparagingly of her and others of the females, "She's a type" without qualification--as if it were some sort of social designation. I was also annoyed at the tendency for someone to make a pronouncement, such as "The police are downstairs and wish to speak to you, sir"--and then turn the page, and Pop! another place, another moment in time, and we never hear what the police (or whoever) had to say!

But having said that, I read it straight through in a few hours and it held my attention throughout. It's as stylised and mannered a period piece as a lively country dance.

[Gregory · Rating 2 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed the early Albert Campion novels, which were entertaining on a number of levels. However, some of the later books are primarily novels without a strong mystery component. That is, there IS a mystery, but precious little sleuthing. The China Governess is more of a soap opera/romantic novel that is limited in that regard by the lack of sympathy readers are likely to have with the main characters. I kept wondering, “Where is Lugg?” He makes only a very brief appearance, brightening the landscape considerably when he does. Even Campion is little seen and is not a strong character in the context of the story.

Perhaps Allingham had gotten tired of her hero and wanted to write more about other characters. However, the book is too much of a pot-boiler with little intrinsic interest to survive the relative absence of the detectives. Towards the end, I found that I did want to know the answer to the mystery, so I guess it was successful in that regard. But I didn’t much enjoy the journey to find out the answer.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of Margery Allingham's later books are dark and violent. This one is more of a cozy, which was more comfortable reading. Timothy Kinnit, adopted son of well-off family, wants to get married. But his fiancee's father wants to know about Timothy's true background first.

Campion is in the book, but more as a supporting character. Amanda is not there at all which seemed rather odd.

[Gillian Kevern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not realise this was written in the 60s when I read it. There's no real description of clothes or anything that would date it, except references to the war and aging of certain characters, which I managed to misinterpret. From the devoted attitude of the nurse to her employers, I assumed it was set in the inter-war years.

[Michele bookloverforever · Rating 3 out of 5]

re-read today. a bit dated. a young man finds out he's not who he thought he was. interferes with his engagement. searches for truth. Mr Campion is involved.

[Laurence Giliotti]

Difficult to maintain interest in Allingham after this one. This winter, when at a loss for what to read, I'll probably pluck Traitor's Purse from the far end of my shelf and try again.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one had not enough of Campion and WAY too much of “Nanny Broome”, on and on and on.....

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually I enjoy Allingham's Campion mysteries but wow, this one was pretty bad. There's not a traditional crime that is being solved. It's all about finding the biological parents of a guy who was adopted into a wealthy family. When he finds out he is adopted, he "can't" marry his fiancee because - gasp - what if his bio family have mental illness!? The horror! Everyone thinks this reason perfectly logical.

Campion and Lugg are barely in the book and don't really do much to solve the very lame mystery that is being presented. What a disappointing read.

[ShanDizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘I must exist. I can’t float about unattached and meaningless. I’m a component part. I’m the continuation of an existing story, as is everybody else. I thought I knew my story, but I don’t. I have been misinformed in a very thorough way. I’ve got to go on and find out who I am or I’m unrecognisable even to myself.’

I enjoyed this last (for me) Campion novel. In reading the reviews of people that I respect, I have opted not to read the next stories to finish out the series since the reviews were not very good. I am fine with ending my Campion on this note.

[Merrilee Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, one of the first things to notice and savor about Allingham books are the titles. They are so evocative. The China Governess. Images arose in my head. Was this going to be about an exotic tutor from China--Oriental intrigue, puzzles, and far away places? Well, no--I soon learned this is a figurine made out of china--a pottery governess, if you will. There is a old and quite dark history connected with this rare object, and the threads of the story seem to become entangled, somehow, early on with the principal story we are met with. We meet a lot of people who seem to be keeping secrets--some old, others newer. Who is telling the truth? Who is not?

Governesses become a recurring theme. Besides the figurine, there is at least one rather enigmatic character employed as a governess. And then there is the unforgettable Nanny Broome. What is her role here, really? She seems to be one of the good guys. Isn’t she?

Following the plot, I felt I had been given the end of a very long, cunningly wrought and intricately-knotted cord that wove in and out of stories and objects in ways that were perplexing and not entirely comfortable. There is an edginess to this story that persists all the way through.

The basic premise is simplicity itself--a beautiful, wealthy young women and a brilliant, rich young man fall in love and plan to marry. Oh, but what was it that Shakespeare said about the course of true love?

Albert Campion is present, to be sure, but he seems determined to be nearly invisible while quietly undoing the knots and setting things on the right course for our hero and heroine. Charles Luke is also here, complementing Campion’s low-key facade with his own darkly solid presence. It is an uncommonly tangled web, but you might imagine that Campion will get it right in the end.

My thanks to Camilla of the Margery Allingham Estate for providing a copy of this book to read and review.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, this is one of the last books of the Campion series; I'm going to really miss these books when I've finished. Sigh. Oh well, I suppose that's why I keep these things forever so that someday I can go back and reread them.

In the prologue, a council flat is vandalized to such an extent that it gives one of its occupants a fatal stroke upon her discovery of the damage. Then on to the main part of the novel: Timothy Kinnit and Julia Laurell are a young couple engaged to be married. Both are from upper class families, and are happy as can be. However, Julia's father decides that the marriage will not happen, due to rumors that are being passed along about Tim's parentage. Although Julia does not care, Tim is determined to seek the truth about his identity, but as he investigates he runs up against several obstacles -- and needs the help of Albert Campion.

Once again we find Campion in the background, not as active as in the earlier part of the series -- here lending his cool-headedness and deductive prowess. However, the story was quite good, but then at the end I got a bit confused and had to backtrack to figure out what it was I missed. I love these books, but sometimes they can get bogged down with dialogue that detracts from the main part of the story.

I'd recommend it to classic mystery fans, those who like British mysteries and those who are considering the series. However, to the latter I say do NOT start with this one, but go back and start with the first one so you can watch the development of Campion's character. Personally, I liked him better in the older books.

Overall ... not one of her best, but okay.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve never found a book quite so difficult to categorize. The copy I read is 275 pages and really doesn’t seem to start until about page 150. Part of the problem for me was the pacing. The book starts out with an elderly couple’s apartment being ransacked and their tenant running off. The next chapter focuses on a young couple running away to elope with no seeming connection. Characters are abruptly introduced and done away with and you come away with no sense as to whether they’re important to the story or not. The book says this is the 17th Albert Campion mystery and as such I’d expect him to have as big a role as say Poirot or Miss Marple in an Agatha Christie or Philip Marlowe in a Raymond Chandler story. Instead, he’s hardly a character at all and never in any of the major scenes, hardly even the denouement where everyone had forgotten he was even there. And all he serves to do there is introduce the one damning piece of evidence in the shape of a telegram from overseas that points to the real person responsible for terrorizing the young man who is the main character. And that without anyone suspecting he’d really ever done anything to help the plot along for the entire book. It doesn’t work. And yet, the whole thing is oddly readable! After slogging through the first disjointed half and not being able to make any sense of the book I really wanted to know the ending. It’s that kind of book. Still it’s not a satisfying conclusion or book overall. I wouldn’t seek out anything by this author again.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars .Very good novel but if approached as a detective or mystery novel it's a slow one.But as usual with Allingham the writing is beautiful and each sentence holds it's own.The character of Nanny Broome holds center stage and is fascinating. All in all a very pleasant read for who like Allingham or who are used to reading novels,but not a book to be picked up by someone to sample Alingham for the first time.

Mr. Campion , Mr. Lugg and Charlie Luke all feature in this book but they are not the central characters as we spend most time with Julia,Tim and Nanny Broome.Mr. Campion however does help solve the case.The body count in this book is only one in true sense and still that's not very apparent until the end of the book.However primary point of interest is finding the relation between Tim's origins and the vandalism,arson etc.
One thing that is unusual in this book is that unlike the others in the series it's not very apparent when the story is taking place from the interaction between characters.TV is mentioned once and the London Red double-decker as well but the people may have been from 1940 if the language is any indication.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there were more Campion and Lugg (and any Amanda!) in this book but I relished what there was, and we got to visit Campion's old digs above the police station. Charlie Luke has really developed into a well rounded character.

It took awhile before the various plot threads tied together but I was intrigued from the start. I wasn't entirely sympathetic to the main character's quest, and his quick temper didn't warm me to him. His old nurse stole the show.

I enjoyed the story, the writing, the setting and the characters. I will miss Campion when I finish the series.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read anything else from the Albert Campion series so I don't know how this stands with the others but I definitely enjoyed this. It does feel very rushed at the end, with everything wrapping up in a chapter (and a lot still feels unfinished). The dramatic twist that the back of the book describes barely even features in the actual story, and Albert Campion himself is a rather inconsequential character overall. I did really like Tim and Julia, and I was pretty invested in their story. Could have been done better, but was fun overall.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the fact that Albert Campion was just a supporting player I greatly enjoyed this mystery. As with all of Allingham's books it's not the mystery that hooks you, it's the delightfully batty and whimsical characters that draw you in. This won't be for everyone, but if you're an Anglophile looking for some period escapism I highly recommend it.

[Mysteryfan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reread of a book I read in college. It didn't age well. It's post-WW2 and Campion plays a secondary role (strike one). The condescending tone to women was annoying (strike two). The preoccupation with class is peculiarly British and just not that interesting. The earlier books in the series are much more fun.

[David C Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did Allingham start disliking/getting tired of Campion as the series got long? (Christie apparently grew to hate Poirot) A lot of the post war books don’t feature him. Anyway, Luke is a compelling character but the romance/elopement/family story was tiring - the initial set up at the castle with the loyal servant went on forever. 2.5 stars.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might have been good in the 60s but showing its age now.