A Woman of Consequence (14 page)

‘But how can you know?’

‘By the writing. He and I correspond from time to time on matters of business. This is certainly
not
his hand.’ He bowed with great formality and hurried away: too angry to remain with her a moment longer.

My Dear Eliza,

I congratulate you. I had no idea of your possessing the gift of premonition! It is quite remarkable.

When I returned home from Madderstone this afternoon there was awaiting me your letter, written three days ago and cautioning me against ‘provoking poor Mr Lomax unnecessarily when he arrives at Badleigh’. Now, how could you know – without supernatural power – that I would do such a thing? I am quite sure that you have never detected in my extremely docile and accommodating nature anything which might be suspected of deliberately provoking a gentleman.

But I regret to inform you that you are doomed – like Cassandra of old – to have your wise warnings disregarded. You may consider Mr Lomax
most thoroughly
provoked. He has not spoken one word to me since a little meeting between us which occurred this morning. He has spent all evening at piquet with Margaret: which I consider to be a very bad sign indeed, for I am sure only a very strong desire of avoiding conversation could overcome his abhorrence of cards.

Dido, sitting rather stiffly upon her narrow bed, paused and leant her head against the sloping ceiling. The rain was once more pattering upon her dark window and the
house becoming quiet as the family retired. Rebecca’s weary feet had already tramped past her door and now there was only the ticking of the clock on the landing and the occasional creak of settling floorboards.

But she could not sleep. Now that she was alone, fragments of her conversation with Mr Lomax would recur, and Eliza’s letter was also oddly disquieting. It was not in Eliza’s nature to detect faults in anyone, least of all her beloved sister, and yet there had been in this morning’s letter a rare hint of criticism. After anticipating Mr Lomax’s provocation, she had continued:

…
I wonder sometimes, whether your quick wits do not make you just a little outspoken. Please do not misunderstand me, Dearest, I know that you never express an opinion which is not sound, and very clever, but I fear that sometimes gentlemen may misunderstand you.

Dido, do you remember the Reverend Mr Clarke who came to stay with the Fordwicks when we were one and twenty? He was a very pleasant gentleman, with three good livings – and so very much in love with you! I was quite sure he would make you an offer. But you would argue so with him!

Dido could not help but feel it was a little unfair of her sister to mention the Reverend Mr Clarke. For she had not exactly
argued
with him … She had done no more than tell him she disapproved of pluralism in the clergy – and light-coloured morning coats. And those were opinions which were better expressed immediately, for a wife could certainly not have kept them to herself
after
marriage – not if she were married to a man such as Mr
Clarke, who was possessed of three livings – and a rather pale morning coat …

No, she assured herself, she was not argumentative … only honest. She bent her head once more over her page.

However, Eliza, I do not quite agree that Mr Lomax’s being provoked was
unnecessary
. For if the poor misguided man will persist in expecting me to be what I am not, then I must conclude that his disappointment is inevitable. He has no reason to suppose me reformed since our last meeting in Richmond; no cause at all to suppose me less curious or more inclined to rest contented with half truths when a little effort might uncover the whole.

Well, I suppose he is now congratulating himself upon his happy escape; for this morning’s little discussion must have proved to him how very unquiet his domestic life would have been had I accepted his offer of marriage.

She stopped. To her very great surprise a tear was splashing down upon the letter. And now a fit of sobbing seized her, shaking her whole frame – and even the frame of the bed. It was quite unaccountable: she had never in her life indulged in such an excess of sensibility – had always supposed herself quite incapable of it. But the pen was slipping from her hand, smearing the counterpane with ink, and the writing desk was clattering to the floor. She was curling up upon the bed.

Astonishing – impossible – though it seemed, Miss Dido Kent, that most composed and determinedly rational of creatures, was giving way to a fit of hysterics.

This outburst was all the more remarkable for following on a day of the most rational and useful pursuits. The little disagreement with Mr Lomax had not overset her at the time. Indeed, she had been rather pleased with her own composure in the face of his anger and, although she had rested about a quarter of an hour upon the bridge after he left her, at least seven and a half of those fifteen minutes had been spent in considering, not his displeasure, but his information.

It was
that
, she had rapidly decided, which must concern her. His ill temper was his own affair. She would not give it another thought … But his certainty that Mr Harman-Foote had not written the letter was of the first importance. It not only disproved her strongest suspicion, it also pointed a way forward for her investigations.

And, upon this subject, she had even had the grace to admit that Mr Lomax’s impatience was well-founded. It had, of course, been very stupid of her not to think before of comparing the handwriting, for such an undertaking might serve not only to discount the innocent, but also to uncover the guilty man.

Tapping her fingers on the rail of the bridge, she counted out the objects of her suspicion – the men whose handwriting she must try to get a sight of.

There was Mr Portinscale – though how she might gain a look at his writing she could not yet determine; and there was old Mr Harman – some correspondence of his might survive in his daughter’s possession, or in the library at Madderstone; and there was Captain Laurence … She stopped. But, of course, she knew the captain’s writing already! She recalled the looped characters of the message
written to Penelope on the
Navy List
– and hurriedly unfolded the letter she was holding …

No. She was quite sure that there was no likeness at all. The writing of Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’ had no loops upon it. It was strong and straightforward with a vigorous forward slant.

Dido was on the point of putting up the letter when, quite suddenly, it flashed into her mind that the hand was not entirely unfamiliar to her. Spreading out the page in the dappled sunshine of the wood, she became quite certain that there was something about it which she recognised. She had seen a hand rather like it – and seen it recently. But where? The actual details eluded her – but the suspicion was extremely useful in dispelling any lingering solicitude over Mr Lomax’s behaviour.

She folded the papers away and turned resolutely towards Madderstone. She would busy herself about her mystery: she must begin to look about her for examples of handwriting – and she must also discover whether Miss Fenn had had any confidante who could be applied to for information concerning Mr Portinscale’s offer of marriage.

She certainly had no time to waste upon idle regrets.

Dido found Mrs Philips busily watering plants in Madderstone Abbey’s great hothouse and lost no time in bringing forward a question about Miss Fenn’s friends and acquaintances.

‘No, miss,’ said Mrs Philips, setting down her pail and pressing a hand to her back as she straightened up, ‘I don’t reckon there was anyone hereabouts that Miss Fenn was what you might call
intimate
with – though she always had a pleasant word for everyone, I’m sure.’

‘There was no one she visited?’

The housekeeper frowned thoughtfully and Dido waited with the sun shining through the glass and warming the back of her head.

‘No.’ Mrs Philips pinched a dead leaf from a myrtle bush. ‘At least,’ she said, ‘she’d not paid many visits since she stopped going to call on that Mrs Pinker.’

‘Mrs Pinker?’

‘Yes, she used to visit
her
; but she wasn’t from round here. Lived over Great Farleigh way I believe.’

‘And did Miss Fenn visit her often?’

The shadows of clustering vine leaves shifted across Mrs Philips’ face as she struggled to remember. ‘She used to go to her once a week … on a Thursday afternoon,’
she said. ‘That is, she used to go the first few years she was here. Used to drive herself over there in the pony carriage. But she’d left off going lately – I mean a year or two before she disappeared.’

‘I see.’ Dido was very disappointed to find that the friendship had lapsed before Mr Portinscale’s courtship began. But the information might be of use. If Mrs Harman-Foote could be persuaded to make her carriage available, a visit to Great Farleigh ought to be made. Mrs Pinker might not know how the clergyman’s advances had been received but she might be able to tell something of Miss Fenn’s character and connections. Yes, she thought, she would call upon Mrs Pinker at the earliest opportunity. It was at least something to be doing. Activity, and having something to think about, seemed to be of the first importance with her just now …

Meanwhile, her companion was dusting a little earth from her hands and looking anxious. ‘Miss Kent,’ she began, ‘I wonder whether I might make so bold as to ask how you are going on with finding out about the ghost?’ As she spoke she looked out through the vine’s crowding foliage to the ruins, just visible beyond the despoiled lawns. ‘Have you found out what might be carrying on over there? Pardon me for asking about it, but Mrs Harman-Foote told me you’d been kind enough to say you would … look into it.’

Dido was forced to confess that, as yet, she had no notion of what might be ‘carrying on over there’.

‘Ah dear,’ said Mrs Philips. ‘I was in hopes you might be able to talk a little sense into the housemaids. They’re all full of it and now Mary-Ann says she’s so scared of the
ghost she means to leave at Christmas. I declare, miss, I’d be very glad if you could get to the bottom of all this business of lights and haunting.’

‘Lights?’ repeated Dido rather puzzled – and then she remembered Lucy Crockford mentioning lights being seen in the gallery.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Philips, looking very troubled. ‘There certainly
are
lights, miss. At first I paid no attention to what was being said – I thought it was all in the girls’ heads. But then Mrs Jones came to me and said
she
had seen a light in the old ruins – when she was coming back late from her afternoon off. “Dear me!” I thought. “We are in a sorry state if such a steady old thing as Mrs Jones is taking fancies into her head!” So the next night – close on midnight – out I go myself. And, sure enough, there was a light! Just a faint one – and darting about a bit.’

‘Like a ghost?’

The housekeeper looked at her shrewdly, her brows raised. ‘Well, miss,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t know about that on account of never having seen a ghost. But I’ve seen a lantern being swung about as it’s carried – and that’s what it looked like to me.’

‘Did it, indeed?’ Dido stepped past the pots of marjoram and myrtle and pressed her face to the warm, steamy glass so that she could see the jagged walls and broken arches of the abbey more clearly. But the great nave of the abbey church presented only a blank wall. The gallery faced out across the parkland and no light upon it would be visible from the house. ‘Now who would be carrying a lantern about up there so late at night?’ she mused.

‘Someone up to no good,’ said the housekeeper with great conviction.

Someone up to no good upon the gallery. For some reason the description brought Captain Laurence immediately to Dido’s mind. A memory struck her with such force that she reached out to hold the gnarled trunk of the vine. The damp, peaty heat of the glasshouse seemed to be choking her.

She was remembering how the captain had come to inspect the gallery on the day that the bones were discovered. He had been so very interested in the place. His manner had been so secretive … And he had seemed to be searching for something …

Was it possible that Captain Laurence had returned to the ruins to continue his search – at night, when he might do so unobserved?

‘You are quite right to remind me, Mrs Philips,’ she said with sudden determination – and very pleased indeed to have a fresh cause of activity. ‘I believe I should be paying much more attention to what is “carrying on” over in the ruins.’

The housekeeper’s words had not exactly reminded Dido of the ghost in the ruins, for she had certainly not forgotten it; but they had served to recall her to its possible significance.

For she now remembered that the captain had behaved rather strangely when he visited the scene of the accident. She recalled how very thoughtful he had been – and how interested he had been to discover that Penelope could see the pool at the moment when she fell.

At the time, this circumstance had passed almost unnoticed. But now – now that she knew him to have had some foreknowledge of the skeleton’s presence in the pool – it took on a great deal more significance …

Was it possible that he been considering a connection between Penelope’s fall and the murdered woman?

At the beginning of this business – at the time of the inquest – Dido had herself suspected such a connection. But lately she had been drawn away by other matters and had rather overlooked the haunting … Perhaps that had been a mistake. Perhaps in pursuing the ghost she might discover something about Miss Fenn’s death. She should visit the ruins again to see whether this late-night visitor, this carrier of a lantern, had left behind any evidences.

She bade a rather abrupt farewell to the housekeeper, left the house and hurried busily along the gravel path towards the ruins, the air of the autumn morning raw and cold against her face after the clinging heat of the hothouse. Over on the lawns among the felled trees, a wagon was being loaded with great logs and a pair of big, placid workhorses were dragging away tree stumps, the rattling of chains and the shouts of their driver carrying clearly in the stillness. A raven rose from the abbey walls, crying harshly as she approached.

She walked meditatively across the cloisters, where little stunted hawthorns had broken through the stone flags worn smooth by the feet of long-dead nuns, and passed through a fallen wall into the remains of the nave. And, as she did so, she heard a sound from the gallery above – slight though it was, it echoed about the high, damp walls. She held her breath and listened intently.
The sound came again – a slow, heavy footfall.

She crept very carefully across the broken pavement, and peered up into the gallery. There was a man up there: a dark figure against pale grey sky, framed by an arch of stone. For a moment the power of her expectations caused her to see Captain Laurence; but then there was a slight movement and the shape resolved itself into Henry Coulson.

Without hesitating to think what she was about, she gathered up her skirts and quietly climbed the steps.

Mr Coulson had his back turned towards her. He was walking slowly along the gallery, studying the floor as he went. About halfway along he stopped, bent down, picked something up, then looked about and picked up one, two, three more things before tucking them all away inside his coat. Dido was upon the tips of her toes, her fingers clutching tightly at the ivy for support as she endeavoured to see what he was gathering so carefully; but the bulk of his body obscured her view and, try as she might, she could not make it out …

He straightened up – and turned around.

‘Miss Kent!’ he cried. His face became very red; he laughed nervously. ‘You quite surprised me!’ He hurried towards her. ‘I was … just looking about me, you know.’ He insisted upon taking her hand and shaking it, whether she would or not. ‘I declare I am monstrous glad to see you, Miss Kent!’ he cried. ‘For, d’you know, you are the very person I have been thinking I must talk to?’

‘Indeed?’ said Dido, stepping into the gallery’s dank atmosphere and looking up at him with some surprise. He was a thickset young man with a decided air of
fashion, untidy fair hair and rather weak, pale eyes which were blinking and peering in the shadows of the gallery. Now that the first shock of being observed was over, he was regaining his usual air of easy familiarity.

‘Yes indeed! I’ll warrant you are just the woman to help me! As soon as I set eyes upon you, I said to myself, now there’s a remarkably clever woman and I’ll wager fifty pounds she’s the very person to advise me.’

‘I am sure I should be very glad to be of service to you, Mr Coulson, but I do not know …’ Dido was now attempting to peer beyond him, without seeming to do so. She was particularly anxious to see whether there was anything still lying upon the flagstones.

‘And good-natured too,’ he cried, ‘which is just as I thought. Now then,’ he said leaning easily against a pillar, ‘what do you think of this surgeon fellow – Paynter? For I expect you’ve known him for ever.’

‘Mr Paynter,’ said Dido very much astonished at the question, ‘is a very respectable man: very knowledgeable, and exceedingly well regarded in his profession.’

Mr Coulson’s small eyes narrowed above his rather snubbed nose. ‘Is he now?’ he said keenly. But then he laughed. ‘Well, I daresay he does well enough. But I’ll warrant his patients die a great deal, do they not? Come, they do, don’t they?’

Dido stared. ‘I am sure,’ she began rather warmly, ‘that they die a great deal less …’ She stopped, realising that she too was now talking nonsense. ‘I am sure,’ she said with careful precision, ‘that Mr Paynter’s patients are a great deal less likely to die for consulting with him.’ ‘Yes, but he is just a country fellow. Why, I’ll wager a
thousand pounds he scarcely knows Galen and Harvey and has never heard of Edward Jenner!’

‘As to that,’ said Dido doubtingly, ‘I hardly know.’ She could see beyond him now – and was quite sure that there was nothing lying on the floor of the gallery – nothing but one or two green and brown feathers. ‘I never heard Mr Paynter speak of those gentlemen,’ she said, ‘but, really, I know nothing about his acquaintances.’

‘Excellent!’ he cried, very well pleased. ‘That is just as I thought! An ignorant country fellow!’

Dido was uneasy: she did not quite like him being so well satisfied with her information. ‘Why do you think so badly of Mr Paynter?’ she asked.

‘Oh, it is nothing. Merely that I went to the inquest, you know, and there was this bumbling fellow talking – and the whole room listening and saying how much he was to be trusted on account of him being “a very clever medical man”, which, you see, I could not help laughing at!’

Dido looked up at him sharply. ‘You mistrust Mr Paynter’s testimony?’

He smiled knowingly and tapped the side of his nose. ‘I think he knows nothing at all and had better be disregarded,’ he said.

Dido’s last visit of the day was to the front of the house – in search of Mrs Harman-Foote. She wished to solicit the use of the carriage – and also to make a few more enquiries about Miss Fenn’s acquaintances. For a little reflection upon the matter had brought her to suspect that Anne Harman-Foote might know more than she was
telling about ‘the woman who had brought her up’.

She was fortunate enough to arrive in the drawing room just after the children had quitted it for the nursery dinner. The room – and the mother – had a rather fagged, weary appearance. There were toys and books everywhere: a wooden doll lolled against the elegant gilded leg of a chair with a decidedly wine-flown appearance; spillikins sticks, toy soldiers and a ragged Latin grammar covered the sofas. Anne had her hair pulled down about one ear and the imprint of a small hand upon the pale grey silk of her gown in what appeared to be plum jam.

Dido brought forward the name of Mrs Pinker, but Anne immediately shook her head. No, she was quite sure she had never heard of the woman.

Might she have forgotten?

Oh, no. She never forgot a name. And, as for the carriage, of course it would be at Dido’s disposal whenever she wished. ‘But,’ Anne added anxiously, ‘I doubt I shall be able to accompany you. My poor Georgie is suffering from the most distressing bilious attack and I cannot leave him alone so long as it would take to travel there. It is a principle of mine
never
to leave my children when they are sick.’

Dido readily assured her that her help would not be necessary in the search for Mrs Pinker – for it would, in point of fact, suit her rather well to go to Great Farleigh alone.

But Anne continued with an account of poor dear Georgie’s symptoms, which was a great deal more detailed than it had any cause to be. To distract herself from it Dido formed a representation of the Battle of Blenheim
with the soldiers upon the sofa, then picked up the Latin grammar and began idly to look it over – discovering stale cake crumbs adhering to several of its battered pages …

‘But, now,’ continued Anne in a dangerously businesslike voice, ‘we must talk about Mr Lomax. When he called here this morning I was most particular in bringing the conversation around to you.’

‘Oh!’ Dido put down the grammar. ‘I do not think you had better trouble yourself with recommending me to Mr Lomax after all,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘He and I have argued – you see he does not approve of my interesting myself in Miss Fenn’s death.’