A Gentleman of Fortune (28 page)

‘It looks very pretty, does it not?’ said Flora as they hurried up the steps. ‘Maria has been at a great deal of trouble, I am sure.’

‘Yes.’ Dido paused, looking up at the handsome Tudor house brought to life with light and music, and judging it no bad representation of the marriage which had lately taken place here: of the bright, pretty young wife come to adorn the life of a solid, ageing widower. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that her cares will not be thrown away.’ Then another thought seized her. ‘Flora,’ she said, taking hold of her cousin’s arm. ‘Do you know if Mr Lansdale is to be here this evening?’

‘No,’ said Flora. ‘I do not believe he was invited. Maria did not seem to want…’

‘That is well,’ cried Dido. ‘I am glad he is not here. That at least is one thing she need not worry over.’

Flora demanded to know what she meant, but Dido only smiled and hurried on up the steps and into the house.

Within, everything was very brightly lighted up and the warm air was sweet with the scents of rosewater and of beeswax polish and of hot-house lilies in great arrangements covering every table. Extra chairs had been set out in the oak-panelled drawing room and it was thronged with an elegant company of maybe twenty ladies and gentlemen, all listening to the harp; others had spilt out of the open door into the hall to work away vigorously with their fans and chat while politely inclining one ear in the direction of the music; and, in the library, a little party of gentlemen, who did not even pretend to musical taste, were comfortably settled with wine and cards.

It took several minutes for Dido to discern her host through the crowd but, at last, she saw him standing by the fireplace in the drawing room. His hands were clasped behind his back and his face confirmed all her apprehensions. His eyes were fixed upon the musician as they ought to be, but his cheeks were dark red and his brows drawn up into such a scowl as showed him to be as dissatisfied with everything around him as his poor wife had feared.

Flora saw him too and she was just beginning upon a whispered remark when their hostess came hurrying into the hall to greet them.

Lady Carrisbrook was lovelier than ever in white and green silk with emeralds glinting in her ears; and she was quite delighted that they were come – it was just exactly what she had wished for to make her own pleasure in the evening complete. Come, she would find them seats close to the musicians. No, no, they must not say another word about being late – that did not signify at all! And as for the note which had said they would not come – well, the disappointment it had caused only made her present pleasure the greater, did it not?

There was no resisting such delightful manners in so very pretty a woman. In spite of everything, Dido felt flattered and at ease with herself. And she could only wonder more at the husband who, just now catching his wife’s eye, scowled at her so darkly, the poor woman’s smile faltered.

‘Lady Carrisbrook,’ she said quietly, laying a hand upon her arm. ‘I wonder if I might speak with you a moment – alone.’

Her ladyship looked troubled. ‘I regret that I am rather occupied with my guests, Miss Kent…’

‘I wish,’ Dido whispered, ‘to return something which I believe belongs to you.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘I have something which I believe you have lost.’ As she spoke, Dido raised one finger and just touched her own throat.

The effect upon the lady was immediate. Her hand also flew to her own throat – which was quite bare of jewels. ‘I see,’ she stammered and looked about her anxiously to be sure no one had overheard. ‘That is very…kind of you, Miss Kent. Will you perhaps come this way with me.’ She linked arms with Dido and, with a hurried apology to Flora, was just turning away to the screen passage at the back of the hall when another figure appeared at the door of the drawing room.

Mr William Lomax was making his bow and smiling as he greeted them. Never before had he looked more kindly – or more handsome. And never before had Dido been so very sorry to see him!

‘Miss Kent,’ he cried, ‘it is a particular pleasure to see you here. For, something Lady Carrisbrook said made me fear that you had too much business on hand to spare time for your friends! I am very glad to discover that that is not the case after all.’ And he really did seem remarkably well pleased. Flora’s note had, no doubt, alerted him to the fact that she was still pursuing her mystery; but now, seeing her at Brooke, he believed that she had abandoned it – that she had complied with his wishes. There was something very particular in his manner – both Flora and Maria Carrisbrook were regarding him and Dido with smiling suspicion.

‘Will you allow me to show you and your cousin to your seats?’ he said, bowing again with mock formality and holding out an arm to each.

Her cheeks burnt. A part of her quite longed to take his arm; to walk with him into the drawing room – and let Flora smile as much as she pleased! But Lady Carrisbrook was waiting for her; and Mr Lansdale’s package was still in her reticule, and if she did not act now she might never know the whole solution of her mystery. And besides…

If she went with him now; if she allowed him to pay her such very public attentions, then what could she do but deceive him as to her behaviour of the last two days? And she did not think that she could bear to do that. It would be lying where she most wished to confide: replacing trust and honesty with dissembling and pretence…

‘I am sorry, Mr Lomax,’ she said, ‘but it is, in part, business which has brought me to Brooke this evening. I pray you will excuse me – if you and Flora will just go on ahead – I must consult with Lady Carrisbrook for a moment or two.’ She smiled sadly at him as she walked off, and she felt his eyes following her, until a turn in the passage took her beyond his reach.

She was led quickly down three steps, around another corner, up two more steps and into a cool, pretty little room where there was a wide bowl of dried rose-petals standing on a gate-legged table, and a casement window standing open upon a herb garden. Here the harp music was no more than a faint echo, like the playing of a ghost.

‘Now, Miss Kent,’ said Lady Carrisbrook, leading her to the deep, old-fashioned window-seat. ‘Please tell me what you mean.’ Her face was alive with curiosity – and hope. ‘What is it that you wish to return to me?’

As she was speaking, Dido was drawing the package from her reticule. Now, taking care to watch her companion’s face, she unwrapped it and revealed the emerald necklace. The little cry – the eager look of pleasure and relief as it appeared confirmed all her ideas.

‘It is yours, is it not?’ she said holding it out.

Maria nodded, took the jewels and fastened them about her neck. And if there had been any doubt remaining in Dido’s mind it must have been done away in that moment, for there could be no doubting that the necklace had been chosen to match the green and white silk gown – and the emerald earrings. It was as if, until that moment, the toilette had been incomplete.

‘Now, I think your husband will be more inclined to smile!’

Maria bent her head. ‘Miss Kent,’ she said very seriously. ‘How did you know that the jewels were mine?’

Dido turned away from her: gazed out into the darkening herb garden and listened a moment to the faint, rippling of the music. ‘It was not so very difficult to discover,’ she said, ‘though I confess that at first I was rather stupid about it.’

‘Please, you must tell me everything.’

‘Well, you see, I made enquiries at Gray’s about an emerald necklace and I discovered that someone – another lady – had applied to them to have a replacement made for just such a piece as this. A rather tall, brown-haired, poorly dressed lady.’

Maria was not altogether pleased by the description. ‘And you guessed that it was me?’ she said.

‘No, not at first, for I was blinded by the “poorly dressed” and was foolish enough to suppose that it might be Miss Neville.’ She shook her head. ‘So very stupid of me! For, if one does not wish to be recognised, it is easy enough to put on a shabby gown, is it not? But beauty and charm, they are not so easily put on and off.’ She smiled. ‘I do not think that even when she was one and twenty poor Miss Neville had the power to throw a tradesman into such confusion – to make him blush and stammer – or to make him so very anxious about her welfare. You see, all the time the shop-boy was talking to me I had felt there was something he was telling me which I was not understanding. Today when I spoke to him he confirmed my suspicion – the one thing that he had not previously put into words, but which his whole manner had declared, was that his mysterious customer was extremely beautiful!’

Maria seemed better pleased. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And… And you guessed that the necklace was a gift from my husband?’

‘Yes. You have been very anxious about this evening as the date approached. I guessed that there was some particular difficulty facing you. And of course, this was the first occasion since your marriage when he would most certainly expect you to wear the necklace. And the fact that you had not come forward – with some kind of story – to claim it, made it certain that Sir Joshua did not know that it was lost.’

Maria was watching her keenly. ‘With some kind of story?’ she repeated, raising her brows.

‘Oh yes. You would have had to manufacture some tale. You could not, of course, have told Mr Lansdale the truth about how your emeralds came to be in his drawing room.’

‘No,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I could not.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to make up her mind: to determine to know the worst. ‘Miss Kent,’ she said firmly. ‘How much do you know? How much do you know about me – about my life before I was married?’

Dido did not answer for several minutes. She rested her warm cheek against the cool stone of the old window embrasure and gazed into the darkening herb garden where the dark shapes of bats were beginning to skitter out from under the eaves of the roof. The harp had ceased and, after a moment or two, it was replaced by the notes of the pianoforte.

‘I know,’ Dido began cautiously, ‘that you were Miss Henderson before you were married.’ She kept her eyes upon the garden, not turning to look at her companion. ‘And I know that your…family occupied Knaresborough House for several months, without the permission – or knowledge – of the agents responsible for its letting.’

‘I see. And do you know why…I mean, do you know what our purpose was in occupying that house?’

Dido leant out into the dusk and took a long breath, as if intent upon enjoying the scents of mint and thyme. ‘Such a house,’ she said carefully, ‘such a very respectable, solid house, would make a very advantageous setting for three beautiful, unmarried girls. It would do a great deal to disguise their poverty – and desperation.’ She stopped and turned her eyes slowly upon the woman beside her. For a moment neither of them spoke. But the memory of her guilt coloured Maria’s cheeks. Far away in the drawing room the sweet voices of glee singers were joined to the music of the pianoforte. ‘For you, Lady Carrisbrook, I believe the undertaking answered rather well. Sir Joshua’s visits to that house ended in him making you an offer of marriage.’

‘Yes, they did.’

‘But,’ said Dido with a smile, ‘there was something rather strange about that offer. By my reckoning, it cannot have been made until after the Lansdale’s came to Knaresborough House. For when, at Flora’s picnic, Sir Joshua told us – so happily – of his engagement, he spoke of it as having just been formed – within the last week. But by then, of course, Mrs Lansdale and her nephew had been resident at Knaresborough for a month.’

Maria smiled briefly. ‘He had,’ she said, ‘very nearly come to the point when we were obliged to leave the house. I was sure – absolutely sure – that one more visit would settle the matter.’

‘And so you decided that for one evening, your household must be reformed? Sir Joshua must be deceived into paying one more call upon the charming Miss Henderson – deceived into entering another man’s home without his knowledge.’

‘But how do you know this?’ cried Maria. ‘How can you possibly know so much. We were so very careful.’

‘I am sure you were, Lady Carrisbrook. But I have a strange habit of noticing small things which when added together… Well, you see what is achieved when they are added together.’

‘But what kind of small things did you notice?’

‘Oh, things like the music that you had left behind on the pianoforte. Your handwriting, you know is singular – particularly your Ss and Ws. I recognised the hand immediately when I saw the note which you had sent to my cousin.’

Maria’s eyes widened.

‘And I noticed that Sir Joshua wears hair powder – like the man who was entertained in Mr Lansdale’s drawing room that evening.’ She hesitated: dissatisfied with herself. ‘I was rather foolish about that,’ she admitted. ‘I had not paid enough attention to Sir Joshua’s hair. After all, one rather expects a man of his age to have greying hair. It was not until his hair powder was washed away in the thunderstorm that I realised the natural colour of his hair is black.’

Maria shook her head wonderingly. ‘And was there anything else?’ she said.

‘Well, there was your anxiety to keep Mr Lansdale away from Brooke. It must have been a great worry to you to discover that he was acquainted with your husband. For of course you did not wish Sir Joshua to discover that his friend occupied the very house he had visited. And then of course,’ she continued, ‘there was the beggar.’

‘The beggar?’ cried Maria, ‘Do you even know about the beggar, Miss Kent?’

‘Oh yes! He stood by the gate all evening – I imagine that he was paid to do so. To be exact – for I consulted with Miss Prentice most particularly over this – he stood upon the left hand side of the gate. With him standing just there, of course, it would be impossible for anyone arriving at the house to read the name-plate which young Sam fixed there a few weeks ago. It would not have done to have Sir Joshua knowing the name of the house at which he was being entertained!’

Maria was beginning to look fearfully at Dido. ‘It seems,’ she said anxiously, ‘impossible to keep a secret from you, Miss Kent.’