A Woman of Consequence (11 page)

It was a very fine room indeed. And, as she hesitated just inside the door, Dido wondered again at its having been allotted to a governess. The most comfortable attic – or the very humblest family room – would have been a more usual choice. An idea insinuated itself into her mind: an idea she would have been ashamed to speak aloud …

It would have been the widowed Mr Harman himself who decreed where the young woman was placed; was it possible that he had chosen this room because Miss Fenn was more than a governess? Dido blushed at framing the thought – but framed it none the less: was it possible that she had been the old gentleman’s mistress?

She looked about and Miss Fenn’s few, simple possessions, thrown into sharp contrast by the room’s luxury, rebuked her for the thought. The plain hairbrush and writing desk, the text above the bed, certainly had not the appearance of belonging to an immoral woman. The black bible looked particularly humble and virtuous
on the fine polished mahogany of the bedside table – and cried aloud against the horrible idea.

She crossed the room, picked up the bible and found that it bore every indication of constant use. She turned a page or two and saw the marks of a pencil everywhere – underlinings and neat little commentaries crammed into the margins. It would seem that Miss Fenn was one of those exceedingly pious women who make notes upon the sermons they hear every Sunday.

There is something about the writing of those who are dead – it seems to promise a connection with the past. Dido moved eagerly towards the light of the window to read more closely. And, once there, she was taken with the idea of trying to discover whether there was any page which had been studied more than the others. A favoured passage might reveal much about the lady’s character.

She closed the book, placed its spine in one hand and, carefully giving way to the inclination of the pages, waited to see at what place it would, most naturally, fall open.

The attempt was more successful than she had dared to hope.

The leaves hardly fluttered before opening at one place so very decisively that there could be little doubt of the book having been held in that position for some time. She turned into the full light of the window.

The bible had opened at the third chapter of Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians and there were two verses underlined:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

And in the margin was written:
Mr Portinscale spoke 
very movingly
in his sermon today upon the second part of this commandment – the duty of tenderness which a husband owes to his wife.

Did he indeed? thought Dido. It was not a subject upon which she could imagine Madderstone’s clergyman being eloquent …

But, before she could pursue her thoughts any further, there came the sound of quick footsteps outside in the gallery. She started – as guilty as if she were about to be detected in a crime – and hurriedly closed the book. And, as she did so, something – something which had been shaken loose by her handling – fell from inside the back cover onto the floor.

She snatched it up and had just time to see that it was a letter directed to
Miss Elinor Fenn
, before a hand turned the lock of the door. And there was but half a minute to decide between satisfying honour and satisfying curiosity: between taking the letter and replacing it.

The temptation was too great; it was decided in the instant. The door opened. Mrs Harman-Foote walked into the room. Dido was laying the bible back in its place beside the bed – and the letter was hidden away in her pocket.

Dido was not in the habit of thinking of herself as a bad woman. While acknowledging her many faults, she had always believed the balance to be, overall, in favour of virtue. But she found that now, facing her friend with Miss Fenn’s letter concealed in her pocket and reminding her of its presence with a little rustling every time she moved, she could not be quite so comfortable with herself as usual. It had been theft – a kind of theft. She ought to tell Anne about it. She ought not to read it …

‘Why, Dido, I believe you
are
unwell. You still look very pale.’

‘Oh, I am quite well, thank you.’

‘Well, I am glad of it,’ cried Mrs Harman-Foote immediately. She sat down on the window seat and clasped her hands anxiously in her lap. ‘I must talk with you. I have had a dreadful shock!’

‘A shock?’ Dido sat down beside her and watched emotion working in every feature of her face. ‘Whatever has happened?’

‘The ring! It is gone!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My dear Miss Fenn’s ring. It is gone from my jewel case.’

‘But it cannot … Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes. I have searched the whole room. It is gone. It was certainly there yesterday. But just now I went up to my bedchamber to change my wet clothes – and I found that the ring is gone.’ She drew a long breath. ‘I am this minute going to my housekeeper. I shall insist that the house is searched.’

Dido smiled. For all the pretence of talking the matter over, it was clear that Anne had already determined upon her exact course of action. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You are quite right, of course. It is very important that we find it – and even more important that we find
who
has taken it. For why should anyone steal it? It is of gold, and so must have some value,’ she mused, ‘but not so very much.’

‘There were a dozen beside it in the jewel case which were of much greater value – and they were left untouched.’ Anne stood up, very eager to begin the search, for commanding activity was a great deal more to her taste than contemplation.

But Dido was still puzzling over the matter. ‘Who would have had the opportunity to take the ring?’ she asked.

‘No one except the housemaids. There is my own maid, Jones, but she is above suspicion. She has been with me for more than ten years.’

‘And you can think of no one else? What of … visitors to the house.’

‘Visitors!’ cried Anne. ‘I could never suspect my visitors of such a thing!’ And then, having paid this necessary tribute to good breeding, she considered the
matter carefully. ‘It cannot have been a visitor,’ she said at last. ‘A visitor could certainly not wander away to the bedchambers without my being aware of it. No one but a servant could have gone to my room.’

Except
, thought Dido,
your husband
…

This disappearance of the ring was intriguing, but there was nothing to be gained from staying to watch it searched for. It was, Dido knew, a matter with which Anne Harman-Foote could be safely entrusted. And the letter in her pocket was continually demanding her attention. So she left the house just as soon as the rain held off – and when the search was at its height, with Anne confidently issuing commands from the hall, like a general directing a battle.

She hurried through the gardens and into the park, busily calculating whether she must walk the full two miles to Badleigh before looking at the letter – or whether the path afforded some secluded place in which to satisfy her curiosity. She still could not quite explain to herself why she had decided so quickly to conceal her discovery in the bedroom, nor why she had continued to say nothing of it all the time she remained in the house. Perhaps it was because she was half-afraid of the contents: afraid that they would reveal something which Anne Harman-Foote would not wish to know … Something which might make her call a halt to the enquiries …

But the removal of all the other letters pointed to the significance of Miss Fenn’s correspondence … And this one letter, which had by good fortune escaped the attention of the intruder, seemed by its privileged position in the bible to be more important even than the others …

In short, the only thing she was sure of was that she could not bear to remain any longer in ignorance of its contents. And when she had left the open parkland and the church, and had followed the path into a small wood, she decided that its great oaks and hazel thickets provided secrecy enough, and a fallen log a sufficient resting place. She sat down and there, amidst the drifts of curled, bronze leaves, with the busy sound of a small stream filling the stillness, she drew the letter from her pocket.

It was rather thick – there seemed to be two sheets of paper. The direction was written in a strong, slanting hand … a man’s writing perhaps? And there was no mark of a post office on it. It had certainly been delivered by hand – which argued for its having come from no great distance. She turned it over: the broken seal was of red wax, and did not bear the imprint of any device.

She opened it and found that it was not, in fact, a single letter of two sheets, but rather one letter enclosed within another. Her interest quickened.

She smoothed the outer sheet and read, in the same firm hand as the direction:

4
^th
June 1791

Dear Madam,

I am returning under this cover your recent letter. And I beg you to send no more.

I cannot conceive that you truly intend to inflict pain upon one whom you profess to love, nor to end that security, happiness and contentment which he presently enjoys. Therefore I must remind you once again that such might be
the end of your continued protestations of affection. I beg you will leave them off.

You
must
forget what is past.

There was no signature.

She quickly picked up the inner letter, but was instantly disappointed. It bore no direction – nothing to show to whom it had been sent. She unfolded it and found, written in the same small, neat hand which she had seen in the bible:

3
^rd
June 1791

Beloved,

I must tell you how dear you are to me.

I see you, again and again, with your friends about you and I feel so lonely, my dear. You scarcely notice me and I must watch you in silence. Once I was everything to you – now I am nothing. And yet, dearest, I care more deeply for you than anyone else ever can. Believe me, no other woman will ever, can ever, love you as I love you – as I will always love you.

The pain of being apart is terrible. I can no longer endure this separation. We must be together. I see now that I was mistaken in ever thinking that I could give you up. I was wrong to ever agree to it.

Your ever loving

Elinor Fenn.

Dido stared, read the letter again to be sure she had not mistaken its contents, then let it drop into her lap.

The little noises of the forest flowed about her: the song of the stream, the rapid, broken stutter of
a woodpecker, the furtive rustling of a mouse or a blackbird in the dead leaves. But in her head she heard only the echo of those passionate words in the letter. Words which showed Miss Elinor Fenn to have been a very different creature from the quiet, religious woman her neighbours had taken her for.

…
You are, I know, Eliza, too generous to glory in your better judgement; but I must confess that you may have been right to advise against the enquiries I have lately been making. For I am now got to such a point I do not know where to turn.

The finding of these letters has taken me into very dangerous territory indeed. I know not what I ought to do next. And indecision is, I believe, of all states of mind, the most painful.

I find now that I am in possession of information about Miss Fenn which her friend would find almost as distressing as an incontrovertible proof of self-murder. For it would seem that the lady did, indeed, have a lover and, since secrecy was imperative to him, one cannot escape the conclusion that it was a guilty, clandestine attachment.

I am all amazement. I cannot make out how such a business could have carried on at Madderstone without any of her neighbours suspecting it. How were meetings contrived? How were friends deceived? For it is certain – from the way in which the neighbourhood talks about Miss Fenn – no shadow was ever cast upon her reputation.

Eliza, I certainly do not feel equal to revealing this attachment to Mrs Harman-Foote, and there would seem to 
be no reason for destroying her esteem of her governess.

Except that this lover would have had a powerful motive for murder.

The passionate nature which her letter betrays must have put him in a perpetual fear of disclosure. Here was she – just a few days before she met her death – declaring that she ‘could no longer endure’ their separation, insisting that they ‘must be together’. Did she intend some desperate action which would expose him? Did he act to prevent that exposure?

I cannot help but suspect that it was this lover with whom she had an appointment on the day of her disappearance. Nor can I forget that purse full of money and the last weeks of life, during which, by the housekeeper’s account, Miss Fenn had seemed recovered from her lowness of spirits.

These arguments against suicide, combined with the motive – and opportunity – for murder, make me fear that a terrible injustice has been done: that not only is a woman cast out needlessly from the church’s mercy, but also that a murderer is walking freely among us
…

And I do fear that he may be walking among us.

The fifteen years which have passed since the lady’s death might have produced the hope that the guilty man was already gone beyond the reach of human law to face a much surer and more terrible judgement. But the removal of the other letters – those in the writing desk – robs me of that comfort.
Someone
is acting now to obscure the truth. The disappearance of Miss Fenn’s ring must put that beyond doubt. Someone wishes to remove every remembrance of this woman: every clue to her secrets. And I cannot escape the conviction that that person was among the company collected at the dinner table when Anne promised to take me to Miss Fenn’s room.

Under these circumstances, can I, in all conscience, stand by and do nothing? Every principle of humanity and morality cries out against it
…

And yet it will be impossible – or, at least, exceedingly difficult – to proceed with my enquiries without revealing the things I have learnt to Anne Harman-Foote. And that I
cannot
face, for I would be forced not only to reveal the improper behaviour of her friend, I would also have to cast the shadow of suspicion upon her own husband.

For you see, Eliza, I am sure that Mr Harman-Foote is the guilty man … No, no, I am not
sure
at all. But the evidences against him are very strong.

That hint of tobacco smoke suggests that it was he who took the letters from the desk – that is the first, and most powerful, argument against him. He would also have had the opportunity of taking away the ring. (Which ring, by the by, Anne informs me was
not
found in her search.) Mr Harman-Foote, you will remember, has been from the very beginning quite determined that his wife should make no enquiries into her friend’s death. And he seems to have ordered the refilling of the pool – as if he wishes the matter to be forgotten as quickly as possible … And then there are the details which, while not exactly proving his guilt, certainly make it plausible. We know that he was staying at Madderstone when Miss Fenn met her death; and their both originating in Shropshire makes possible a connection between them before her coming into this country.

Eliza, what am I to do? My mind is in turmoil. For when I am not doubting the husband I find that my suspicions fall upon the father, who, for some reason, installed a governess in luxury. Though Mr Harman’s being dead does, I confess, 
rather excuse him from being the thief of the letters and the ring. I certainly do not wish to start the possibility of there being
another
ghost haunting Madderstone
…

But then there are strong evidences against the cousin, Captain Laurence, too. I am certain he knew of the existence of the body
before it was discovered
. We know that he was also staying in the house at the time of Miss Fenn’s disappearance. And, by the housekeeper’s account, he was quite in the habit of following the governess. Well, supposing he followed her upon that fateful evening, and saw something – perhaps her meeting with a lover – something which turned his boyish love to jealousy and anger
…

Of course, there is the possibility that Mr Portinscale is the guilty man! Now there is a better thought, Eliza! It would certainly be a great deal more agreeable to suspect a man unconnected with the family. Might he have been so enraged by Miss Fenn’s rejecting his offer that he persuaded her to walk to the pool with him one more time and there exacted a terrible revenge?

Well, I grant that it does seem rather extreme. Revenge for such an affront usually amounts to no more than a little coldness and formality in future meetings, and, at the very worst, a hasty marriage to someone else. Murder is not a common sequel to a rejected proposal. But perhaps there was something which made her refusal particularly objectionable … Mrs Philips spoke of him being very discomposed when he left the house – ‘A face like thunder.’ That is what she said.

Oh dear! Forgive my rambling, Eliza. I am writing down my thoughts as they arise and I doubt you will be able to make any sense of them.

I do not know what I should do next and I have come to such a pass that I am
almost
glad that Margaret makes it impossible for me to carry my enquiries any further just now. The expectation of our visitor has thrown her into a paroxysm of housekeeping and, what with washing glasses, overseeing the polishing of silver, and rehanging curtains, I am quite unable to leave the house.

And, within a few hours, Mr Lomax will be here
…

In a corner of the orchard at Badleigh Vicarage there was a moss hut. Made by a previous incumbent with a taste for rustic simplicity, it had stood for the most part unregarded by the present family – except when the little boys were home from school and had a mind to turn it into a ship or a robbers’ stronghold – until Dido discovered it.

So sheltered as to be habitable on a fine day even in October and so conveniently overrun by spiders as to deter any visit from Margaret, it formed an excellent hiding place. If she provided herself with a basket of plain sewing, Dido had found she could often sit there a whole hour undisturbed.

And she retreated to it on the morning after Mr Lomax’s arrival – meaning to sew and to think. Her plan had been to think about Miss Elinor Fenn, but, as she drew a cravat of Francis’s from her basket and held her needle to the light to thread it, it was rather more immediate matters which concerned her …

The meeting yesterday with Mr Lomax – the first meeting since that extraordinary interview in the lime walk – had been keenly anticipated, looked forward to with such dread and such pleasure as could not but
lead to a kind of disappointment. It had passed, as such meetings frequently do, quite unremarkably. He had been pleased to see her – he had said it, and he had certainly looked it; but he was too well-bred to give any hint of what had passed between them. For which she was, of course, grateful … but …

She frowned at the cravat as she began to sew its hem. She could not explain why she should feel so very restless this morning.

She had, as yet, had little opportunity for private conversation with the visitor. The talk at dinner yesterday had been only a general telling over of news. But that news had necessarily included the recent events at Madderstone. And later, when Margaret and Francis were busy at backgammon, Mr Lomax had taken the opportunity of coming to Dido and saying very quietly – with just that lifting of his brows as appeared in their imagined conversations – ‘And what is
your
opinion of the ghost in the ruins, Miss Kent?’

‘Oh,’ she replied in some confusion, ‘I do not have an opinion, for I do not believe in ghosts.’

‘No, I would not have expected it of you.’ He steepled his fingers together, rested his chin upon them and regarded her with mock gravity. ‘But I would have thought your very disbelief would give you a strong interest in the business. For if there is no ghost, then there is a
mystery
, is there not?’

‘Is there?’ she said, smiling as innocently as she knew how. ‘I assure you I had not thought about it.’

‘Indeed?’ he said disbelievingly.

Dido had turned away her face and rather wondered
at herself. Why should she attempt to hide her curiosity from him now? What did it matter if he thought ill of her? Could it be that, although she was determined not to marry him, she wanted him still to wish for it?

That, she told herself severely, was very selfish indeed.

Meanwhile he was considering – and the result of his consideration was: ‘Well, well, I suppose someone had got into the gallery. A servant perhaps. A figure appearing suddenly in the shadows might well frighten the poor young lady.’

‘Oh no!’ cried Dido immediately. ‘That is not possible. There is no door, you see, and no other stairway – and there is only a ten-foot drop at the end, guarded by a wall this high.’ She leant forward eagerly and held up her hand to indicate the size of the wall.

He began to laugh.

She froze for a moment with her hand still extended. She dropped her hand. ‘I assure you,’ she said demurely, ‘there was no one in the gallery that morning besides ourselves. But I do not see why you should be amused by it.’

‘I am not,’ he said. ‘I am only amused to find that a woman who has not even thought about the matter should be able to give such very exact information.’

As she sat at her sewing in the orchard remembering this conversation, Dido could not quite determine whether she should regret, or rejoice in it. She upbraided herself for having betrayed herself. And yet there had been a kind of pleasure in the discussion – he had not seemed so
very
disgusted by her interest in the ghost …

A heavy footstep and, ‘Ah Miss Kent! I hope I do not
intrude too grossly upon your domestic labours!’ roused her abruptly from her thoughts. Much to her surprise, Mr Portinscale was picking his way delicately through the long grass of the orchard.

‘Not at all, sir,’ she replied putting the cravat back into its basket and closing the lid. ‘I am very happy to suspend domestic duties for the pleasures of society.’ (For some reason, she found Mr Portinscale’s ponderous manner rather infectious.)

He stepped into the moss hut and looked rather warily at a particularly fine spider which was resting in a web of its own making only inches above her head.

‘I was in hopes of a private conference with you,’ he said.

She obligingly lifted her basket from the bench to make room for him. But, remembering their last ‘private conference’, she could not help asking, ‘Have I been so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure again, Mr Portinscale?’

He looked uncomfortable, attempted a laugh, took a handkerchief from his pocket and made a great to-do about dusting a few fragments of moss and dead leaves from the seat before settling himself and smiling in a way which, to Dido’s mind, could only be described as
conciliatory
.

‘Ah! No, no, not at all. Not at all!’ he assured her. ‘On the contrary.’ He attempted another laugh which sounded more like a snort. ‘On the contrary. I was, in fact, rather hoping to consult with you, Miss Kent.’

Dido raised her brows in surprise.

‘That is, I am come upon business to visit your brother.
But, finding I must wait for him … I hoped that I might – as I said –
consult
.’

‘Yes?’

‘About dear Mrs Harman-Foote.’

‘Oh?’

‘I do hope,’ he said, folding his narrow features into an expression of mournful concern, ‘I do sincerely hope that she is not so very distraught as she was – I mean, of course, in relation to the dreadful demise of her governess.’

Dido stole a glance at his face: it was red, shiny and exceedingly anxious. Was he relenting? Might he consent to a removal of the grave? ‘I do not think,’ she said carefully, ‘that it is the loss of her friend which hurts the lady so badly as the nature of Mr Wishart’s verdict – and its consequences. The death she has been long resigned to; but the disposal of the corpse is a fresh – and unexpected – blow.’

She looked steadily at him. He was sitting uncomfortably on the very edge of the bench, his ankles crossed, his thin, delicate hands clasped upon his knees. His eyes were resolutely turned from her, fixed in a study of the buttons on his gaiters.

‘Mrs Harman-Foote,’ she continued, ‘is very certain that Miss Fenn’s principles and character would have prevented her taking her own life.’ Still he would not look at her. She longed to know the emotions which kept him silent. Was there still tenderness in his memory of the dead woman? Or lingering resentment for her refusal of him? Was there perhaps even guilt?

‘And everything I have heard,’ Dido concluded, ‘would seem to support Mrs Harman-Foote’s view that
self-murder
was … unlikely. Miss Fenn was, by all accounts, a very
religious
woman.’