A Woman of Consequence (27 page)

There were stronger lights now shining into the
carriage and showing Harriet’s face staring in half-smiling disbelief, as the wheels began to rattle loudly into the yard of the inn at which they were to stop for the night, shaking their companions awake.

They all climbed out into the welcoming lamp-and firelight that poured out of the open door onto the cobbles, stamping their numb feet and attempting to rub a little warmth into their hands. The others hurried indoors, but Harriet hung back and caught at Dido’s arm. ‘Are you sure of this?’ she asked.

They paused a moment in the encroaching dusk of the yard, where the edge of the year’s first frost cut through the smells of horses and wood-smoke.

‘Oh yes,’ said Dido with great conviction, ‘Mr Coulson has certainly been assisting the poachers – and, I don’t doubt, making “a mint of money” from the business. The carts carrying the felled trees to the sawmills at Great Farleigh have also been carrying away Mr Harman-Foote’s woodcock and partridges. And the ruins have made a very convenient place in which to hide the birds till they can be removed. Mr Harman-Foote is known to be lenient towards poachers, but I do not believe even he would countenance his kinsman abusing his hospitality in such a way.’

‘Oh this is wonderful news!’ cried Harriet joyfully, ‘I shall take the first opportunity of speaking to Mr Coulson!’

She hurried away indoors, but Dido stood a moment longer in the aching cold. ‘Now,’ she said quietly to herself, ‘the question is whether I have finished with Mr Henry Coulson, or whether he has yet another, more dangerous, role to play in these mysteries.’

My Dear Eliza,

‘Strange things I have in head that will to hand!’ Someone says that in one of Shakespeare’s plays I believe, and tonight I find myself in accord with the poor fellow. And so I shall begin upon a letter which it may be I shall never send. For my head is full of strange things which must be expressed before they can be understood and, since I have no one to whom I may speak them, I needs must write them down. Yet I do not know that even your patient affection can bear with the outlandish ideas which torment me tonight.

I have the parlour fire to myself now – which is a very great luxury. Although it is only nine o’clock, Margaret is gone away to bed with a headache. Francis is engaged upon a sermon; at least, he is in his study, deep in the perusal of a large book – though since it seems to be the writings of some old Greek philosopher that he is reading, I doubt the parishioners of Badleigh will gain much from it. So, I have been left to myself, with a precious handful of coals still in the box on the hearth – and a whole three inches of candle! It is a cold night – and very foggy. The fog was gathering with the dusk as I walked home from Madderstone four hours ago.

My business there was to look again at those pieces of gold and silver which were discovered with Miss Fenn’s body. And I regret to say that I found among them something which I had been sincerely hoping
not
to find …

Dido hesitated. She was approaching now those outlandish ideas of which she had warned her sister. She bit the end of her pen and gazed down into the red cave of hot coals as she wondered how best to express her darkest suspicions; suspicions which were all built out of such very tiny details as seemed of no importance on their own – details which anyone else might have passed over entirely, but which clung to her brain like burrs and briars on a gun-dog’s coat after a day’s rough shooting.

If you have been attending as you should to all my accounts, Eliza, you will by now be aware of some very great problems and discrepancies in the account of Miss Fenn which I have so far pieced together. To borrow a phrase from dear Harriet: it will not do at all. And the most incongruous fact is still the letters in the bible. I have, as yet, said nothing to Anne about them – nor about the true identity of ‘Miss Fenn’; but the time draws near when I
must
decide what she is to know and not to know – as well as determining how Mr Portinscale is to be persuaded that there was no suicide …

The letters seem to prove that there was a lover: a man who lived close at hand (the evidence for his proximity is, you will recall, the absence of a post office mark on the letter’s cover and Miss Fenn’s reference to seeing him 
‘again and again’). But this accords so
very
ill with the neighbourhood’s opinion of the woman that I find myself going over the words of the letters, in the hope that I might yet discover some other meaning concealed within them.

And then there is that very jarring fact which has preyed upon my mind since my visit to Mrs Nolan: her assertion that
she had never seen Miss Elinor Fenn
.

This is inexplicable, Eliza. How could it be that Miss Fenn had never called upon her daughter in Bath? When the child was with Mrs Pinker, she had visited her every week without fail, going to the considerable inconvenience of driving herself fourteen miles in a pony carriage in order to do so. This argues a very natural and amiable maternal attachment, does it not? And yet this attachment was done away entirely when Penelope came into Mrs Nolan’s care! Why?

Dido set her pen aside with a restless motion, chafed together her hands, then dropped a coal or two more onto the dying fire. She crept closer to the hearth until her feet were resting upon the fender and her face warm, even though the cold night air continued to chill her back. Her tired eyes watched the coals gently pulsing from black to red and her thoughts were so very strange she could not help but wonder whether she was like dear Mr Cowper when he looked into his fire – ‘myself creating what I saw’. But there was a kind of sense and pattern to her ideas – a way of fitting together all the pieces to make a complete map – even though it was one with a very surprising geography indeed.

She picked up her pen, determined upon writing down her incredible tale, even if, when it was finished, she had not the courage to publish it.

You see, Eliza, when I began to look for the cause of this change, I was reminded of one other very slight discrepancy in the accounts I have heard of Penelope’s going to Mrs Nolan’s school. Lucy told me that Penelope had been in Bath since she was five years old – and Mrs Nolan herself confirmed that account in my first interview with her. But, Mrs Pinker’s maid told me that girls were not sent from the house in Great Farleigh until they were
seven
.

Is not this rather strange? It alerted me to a possibility which can make comprehensible a great many of the mysteries which surround me. The possibility which has been tormenting me these past two days. Eliza, I do not believe that the child Mrs Pinker cared for was Penelope at all. I believe there was a switch made at the time of the removal to Bath, and, while her own child was hidden somewhere close to Madderstone, Miss Fenn
pretended
that Penelope was her daughter …

Small flames began to lick at the coals, brightening the room, lighting up the noble black profile of old Mr Kent in his frame, and sending shadows dancing across the ceiling. Out in the foggy night a fox barked sharply. Dido brushed her pen against her lips as she thought. Were her suspicions too fantastic? She had tried to ground each new idea in fact – that was a principle which her brother Edward had taught her. And Edward had once won a medal for debating at Cambridge. But he had never told her what one was to do when facts led to monstrous
suspicions against the most innocent-seeming people. The great logicians of the university seemed to be entirely silent upon that point.

She sighed. What else could one do but follow the trail of reason relentlessly to its end?

Of course the next question must be: why was the exchange made? And I think that the reason lies in Miss Fenn’s remarkable determination to keep a particular secret from her husband.

As I told Mr Lomax at Bath, I believe Miss Fenn was an exceptionally clever and resourceful woman. (And I apologise, by the by, for my continued use of that name. I know that I ought to write instead of Lady Congreve, but I have known her too long as Miss Fenn to be comfortable with any other name.) Now, although the abominable laws of our land decree that a woman fleeing her husband’s ill-usage may take nothing with her, I believe that this remarkable lady contrived to steal one thing which he valued very highly indeed – and, having taken it, she was forced to do all that she could to keep it concealed. Even the friends who had helped her knew nothing of it. Because if Lord Congreve had known, he would never have rested until he had got back his property.

You see, Eliza, the key to it all lies in another little detail: a piece of information I got from Mrs Pinker’s maid, but the significance of which I have only just begun to suspect. As I have said, girls did not leave Great Farleigh until they were seven years old. It was
boys
who left that establishment at five.

Dido bent eagerly over her writing desk, her pen scratching rapidly in the red firelight, her eyes bright, one small foot tapping rapidly upon the brass fender: impatient now to get it all told.

Miss Fenn had contrived, in fact, to steal from Lord Congreve his son: the heir to his title and estates. That is what he had always been uncertain of: the sex of the child she had borne. He feared she had robbed him of the next Lord Congreve and he could not rest until he had discovered the truth. That, you see, is why Captain Laurence began his investigations. But, of course, he found only what Miss Fenn had intended her husband should find if he searched: a daughter. The ‘little miss’ about whom His Lordship cared so little he did not even trouble to protect her from the captain’s own selfish schemes!

Well, I think I begin at last to understand Miss Fenn (and upon further reflection I am quite determined to continue with that name – she deserves to have a title quite different from that of her brutish husband!). She was, in fact, the religious, upright woman that her neighbours believed her to be. And when I next see Mr Lomax I shall be sure to tell him that my ‘great idea’ has been vindicated entirely …

She paused, a smile softening her anxious face; but a moment later she had recollected herself and her pen was driving fast across the page.

The poor woman was quite determined to protect her son from the influence and example of such a vicious father. Titles and fortune were of no importance to her beside virtue and she set about hiding her son so effectively he would be protected even after her death. The web of deceit which she
wove cost her her life in the end, Eliza – and I cannot bear to think that she might have died in vain. Lord Congreve shall
not
find his son if I can prevent it.

And so, of course, you will now understand the urgency – the absolute necessity – of my finding those lost letters. For, if Captain Laurence gets to them first, I fear he will discover his mistake – and Lord Congreve himself will descend upon Madderstone to retrieve his stolen heir.

I cannot yet be sure exactly what the missing letters are about, nor who wrote them. But I think they may reveal the whereabouts of the boy – and
that
I believe is the reason for their removal. Somewhere here in the neighbourhood of Madderstone or Badleigh is the true son of Elinor Fenn, and I cannot help but wonder whether it is not he who has, from the very beginning, been working against me and trying to prevent my discovering the truth about his mother’s death.

Well, tomorrow is All Hallows and, at the ball, I intend to lay a trap for the culprit. I hope I shall learn the final truth behind Miss Fenn’s death – and the haunting of Madderstone Abbey.

But first I must speak to Mr Portinscale and persuade him that the grave must be moved …

The next morning was still, and thick with fog; hundreds of spider’s webs festooned the bright hawthorn hedges. The air was cold and damp on Dido’s face as she made her way along the lane to Madderstone church, and the sheep that bleated and coughed about her were all but invisible in blank white fields.

She was come in search of Mr Portinscale, but, near the vicarage, she caught up with young Georgie who was dawdling homeward along the narrow muddy lane with his ragged Latin grammar under one arm and pausing from time to time to stuff his pockets with the glistening brown fruits that had fallen from the horse chestnut trees. The sight of him reminded Dido of another little matter which she wished to resolve.

‘Well, Georgie,’ she said politely as she fell into step beside him. ‘Did you have a pleasant lesson with Mr Portinscale?’

‘No.’ He turned up his fat pale face – the nose slightly pink with cold, the tassel of his cap falling into one eye. She noticed that the bruise was healed now. ‘I don’t like Latin,’ he said sulkily.

‘But you like cake, do you not?’

‘What?’ He stopped under the dripping yellow leaves
of one of the chestnuts and looked up at her in great surprise. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, of course, that you like the cake which Mr Portinscale gives you. Though I think, Georgie, you had better eat a little less of it, if it makes you bilious.’

‘How do you know about that?’ he demanded, his face reddening, his small eyes shifting about suspiciously above his plump cheeks.

‘Oh! I just know,’ said Dido brightly and walked on along the lane so that he was forced to trot to catch up with her. ‘It is, you see, something which happens to ladies if they remain unmarried. When they reach a certain age they begin to know everything about everyone else’s business.’

‘Do they?’ His eyes widened. He bit his lip, considered the unmarried ladies of his acquaintance – and seemed to find proof of her assertion. ‘What else do you know, Miss Kent?’ he asked with cautious respect.

‘Well, let me see. I know that Mr Portinscale gives you cake to prevent your telling your mother that he once … lost his temper with you.’ She gave a little wink and touched her finger to her cheek.

‘Oh!’

‘And there is one other thing that I know, Georgie.’ She stopped walking for they had come now to the lychgate and she could see the thin black figure of the parson disappearing among the mist-shrouded gravestones.

‘What else is it you know, miss?’ asked Georgie anxiously.

‘I know that you are being very unwise.’ She looked down at the fat, indulged little face: the pale eyes blinking
rapidly with worry. ‘You had better make your peace with Mr Portinscale,’ she said gently. ‘I do not think he will strike you again.’

‘He won’t!’ the boy cried indignantly. ‘For if he does …’

‘No, Georgie,’ she said with a shake of the head, ‘you must not tell your mother of what happened. For, you see, if she thinks your present teacher is unsuitable then she will certainly send you away to school.’

The soft little mouth fell open in horror.

‘You would not like school at all, Georgie. My brothers have told me all about it. You see, in schools, teachers strike their pupils whenever they wish.’

Mr Portinscale was standing on the north side of the foggy churchyard. One hand rested upon a low bough of the ancient yew tree, his hat was pulled low over his eyes, his angular figure bent over in contemplation of the suicide’s grave.

Dido stopped as she first caught sight of him – though she had come there to find him. She had spent several hours of the past night devising and rehearsing the case she must put to him – and was rather well pleased with the argument she had prepared. But there was something private in his attitude: something of the attitude of prayer in his earnest gazing upon the raw little mound of earth among the dead yellow grass and broken dock stems. She was on the point of turning away when he looked up and saw her.

He turned to her and swept off his hat with a bow and a courteous greeting. But when she stepped forward and mentioned a particular reason for seeking him out
– a subject upon which she wished to talk – he frowned sternly.

‘I would by no means wish you to think me unwilling to converse with you Miss Kent,’ he said solemnly, turning his hat about in his hands, ‘but I hope that you are not intending to revive the very unpleasant discussion of …’

‘Miss Fenn’s death,’ she finished briskly, with a glance at the grave. ‘Yes, Mr Portinscale, I am afraid that I must. You see, I have learnt something – during my visit to Bath – something which I think you ought to know about that lady.’

‘Indeed! Have you?’ His voice attempted indifference, but his face was all interest.

And Dido, sure that this was all the invitation he would allow himself to give, made only a hasty plea for his complete secrecy before entering upon an account of the governess’s true identity and the cause of her sojourn in Madderstone – suppressing only the existence of the child. She did not look at him as she spoke, fixing her eyes upon anything rather than his face – the brown decaying petals of Mr Paynter’s roses on the grave, the mossy stones of the wall, an old gravestone half-sunk down into the ground and lying aslant in the fog, the round arch of the church window with a candle glowing within.

Before she had been speaking for two minutes, his hand was once more upon the bough of the tree, his hat beating gently against his knee. His long sombre face, framed in clerical white, was fixed upon her, his eyes scarcely blinking. When she finished and finally looked up at him, he swallowed hard. ‘I cannot believe …’ He
began in a voice of great emotion. But he was unable to continue.

‘It is all true, I assure you, Mr Portinscale.’

He looked hastily away. He beat the hat harder upon his knees. ‘It is extraordinary,’ he said in a struggling, uneven voice. ‘But of course,’ he said with a great effort to give his voice the certainty of the pulpit, ‘I cannot allow this information to change my decision. The Lord God judges us not by our titles and birth. The sin of self-murder is as heinous in the highest in the land as it is in the lowliest of mortals.’

‘I do not doubt it,’ said Dido earnestly. Her voice was low and, in the fog and the stillness of the graveyard, it had a close sound – as if they were within doors. ‘But, Mr Portinscale, I believe you must reconsider your decision. For I do not argue about rank – but only
character
.’

‘Character?’

‘Yes. Do you not see, that you have grounded your understanding of the lady’s character upon a false belief?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Forgive me,’ she said very quietly, ‘for alluding to those very
personal
matters which you were so kind as to confide in me. But you have believed for fifteen years that an illicit attachment was the cause of her refusing your offer of marriage, have you not?’

‘Yes, but …’ He stopped. The hat stilled in his hand; his face became very thoughtful indeed.

‘But,’ said Dido, ‘I beg you to recollect her words now in the light of your new understanding of her situation. She spoke of an attachment, she said that you would
never witness her marriage to another man.’

She stopped and waited for him to consider. A crow settled on the slanting gravestone and set up a hoarse cry. She stole a look at the clergyman’s face and saw there amazement and dawning understanding – the beginnings of a revolution in his ideas, which was slowly doing away the resentment of fifteen years’ standing.

‘Her words were true, Mr Portinscale. She was attached, very unhappily attached, to a cruel, unworthy husband …’

He did not speak; but he did not need to. She could gather everything she wished to know from his face. There was dawning upon it a gentler look than any she had ever seen there before. All those lines which seemed to drag down upon his face were easing; his thin lips moving in the uncertain beginnings of a smile. There, beside that wretched grave, the woman he had loved, the woman who had been dead for fifteen years, was restored to him, her virtue unspotted – her character as perfect as he had once believed it to be.

There was, Dido was sure, only one thing wanting to secure Miss Fenn’s place here upon the holy side of the churchyard wall.

‘It was of course impossible for her to marry you,’ she said quietly. ‘But I am very sure that she wished it. That is why, when she was forced to refuse your offer, she tried to convey to you something of her reasons.’ She watched the tentative smile gain power on his thin, severe face. ‘Having discovered a good, religious man, so very different from her vicious husband, I make no doubt she wished very much that she might give him
her affection and spend her life with him.’

Mr Portinscale was silent for a long while and then said only, ‘Thank you. Thank you, Miss Kent, for telling me this.’ Dido doubted it were possible for him to say more. But he took her hand and shook it warmly.

Then he excused himself and turned purposefully towards his church. As he walked away he put on his hat. And he put it on the very back of his head – with a sort of a tilt to it …