A Woman of Consequence (16 page)

But the maid – mindful perhaps of ‘the rule’ – was now edging the door closed again.

Dido thanked her and turned back along the cinder path wondering who the ‘young gentleman’, can have been. And why had he been asking questions?

And where had she heard the name of Nolan before?

She was almost back to Great Farleigh when the answer to this last question occurred – and the memory brought her to a standstill in the lane between the hawthorn hedges and the cottage gardens, her eyes staring, her hands pressed to her mouth.

Mrs Nolan was the keeper of a school in Bath. She was, in fact, Penelope’s guardian … 

…
And so you see, Eliza, my two mysteries, Penelope’s accident and the skeleton in the pool, are now joined together!

I knew all along that they must somehow be connected!

But the discovery has thrown all my ideas into a great muddle and, if you are not so indulgent as to allow me to share my perplexities with you, I believe I shall run mad!

You see, I have made the necessary calculations and – unless my arithmetic deceives me – it can certainly be made to fit. I mean
it is possible that Penelope is Miss Fenn’s child
. There was gratification in this discovery for a mind such as mine which delights in patterns and connections and the complete absence of coincidences.

But I soon began to see that there is little cause for rejoicing.

For, supposing Penelope is indeed Miss Fenn’s daughter – what kind of sense does this make of recent events? What force has brought her back to the very place at which her mother met her death – and at the very time at which that death is discovered? And what am I – as a determinedly rational woman – to make of the ghost which Penelope saw? Was it somehow conjured into being by the discovery – or rather the proximity – of her mother’s remains?

Now, you see, I am got into a morass of coincidence and supernatural happenings which does not suit me at all!

But I intend to confine myself entirely to reason. I shall not allow my fancy to get the better of me. The only sensible course of action is to make some quiet enquiries into Miss Lambe’s background with a view to determining whether she is indeed the child that Miss Fenn placed in Mrs Pinker’s care.

You would laugh if you could see me just now, Eliza, for I am writing this from the kitchen. My writing desk stands upon the table here between the knife box and a great dish of curds, and I am in perpetual danger of mistaking the salt pot for my sand shaker. Rebecca is abed, suffering from a sudden and rather surprising attack of the asthma, and her assistant is gone out upon errands. So I am deputed to keep the spit wound up and to watch over the rising of the bread. I only hope I may acquit myself well. At least I have a warm and quiet place in which to think.

And my thoughts are rioting!

I have spent a
great deal
of time wondering about the mysterious ‘young gentleman’ who lately visited Mrs Pinker. I do wish that I had had an opportunity to ask the maid about his looks. For I am sure his identity is of the utmost importance.

Who is he? Why is he making the same enquiries that I am making? And is he the person who has stolen the letters and the ring? His being described as a
young
man, makes it almost impossible he can be Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’.

Maybe he is Captain Laurence. The captain might, I suppose, be considered young – at least by a woman as elderly as Mrs Pinker’s maid – and I cannot escape the idea that he is deeply involved in this business …

I have just had a little interval in which I wound up the 
spit and removed the cat from the curds. And, while I was about it, I began to consider Mr Coulson.

Perhaps Mr Coulson is the mysterious inquirer. I know he is a visitor to Great Farleigh. And I keep remembering his words to me on the gallery: his implied contempt for Mr Paynter. Why should he wish the surgeon’s testimony to be distrusted? Is he, also, attempting to prove that Miss Fenn was murdered? Is that why he would discredit the surgeon? For, after all, it is largely upon Mr Paynter’s evidence that the inquest verdict rests.

Yesterday, I fell in with Mr Paynter himself – I found him here in the kitchen consulting with Rebecca – and I took the opportunity of enquiring whether he is at all acquainted with Mr Coulson. He considered the question carefully as he always does and replied that he was ‘only very
slightly
acquainted with the young gentleman’. But there was certainly that in his manner which hinted at disapproval: a suggestion that he would not wish the degree of acquaintance to be any greater. So I rather suspect that Mr Coulson’s criticisms have been general and sustained enough to reach his ears.

But I cannot think of a reason why Mr Coulson should interest himself in the business of Miss Fenn’s death, any more than I can imagine what he might have been conveying in his malodorous box.

No, I cannot make it out at all.

But at least I can now see my way forward. I must make enquiries into Penelope’s history. It cannot be impossible to find out just who she is. After all,
someone
maintains her at Mrs Nolan’s school. The great object must be to discover who it is that pays her allowance.

Dido soon began upon her enquires into Penelope’s birth, but it would seem that there was not a great deal to know upon the subject.

Lucy Crockford, though assuring Dido that she knew
everything
about dear Pen, that they were like sisters and would not for the world keep secrets from one another, could only say that Penelope had been at Mrs Nolan’s school since she was five years old; that she had been raised to the status of parlour boarder several years ago; and that she was certainly the natural daughter of
somebody
. Although Lucy, being such an extraordinarily sensitive and generous woman, had never found the circumstances of birth a barrier to friendship. She was much too tender-hearted to blame the child for the faults of the parents …

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Dido. ‘But how did you become acquainted with Miss Lambe? Have you known her long?’

‘Oh! No, I would not say I have known her
long
. But I have often observed that time alone does not determine intimacy. It is rather a matter of disposition, you know. And Pen and I are so remarkably well suited that I believe we were intimate within seven days. And she is so
very
happy to be with us you know, and I am sure …’

‘But, in point of fact, when did you meet her?’

‘About six weeks ago – when Harriet and I were last in Bath. Captain Laurence introduced us.’

‘Did he indeed?’ said Dido with great interest. And, as she spoke, she was able to glance across the room at the gentleman in question, for the conversation was taking place in the drawing room of Madderstone Abbey,
where a large party was collected for the evening.

Just now, the captain was standing with his back to a roaring fire telling a story which involved a great deal of energy and expression, ‘alarms’, ‘overwhelming odds’, and ‘French privateers’. Margaret, Silas and Harriet sat before him listening attentively and Lucy was wanting to join them. She began to rise from her seat, but Dido placed a delaying hand upon her arm. She could not allow the opportunity for conversation to pass. Soon the whist table at which Mr and Mrs Harman-Foote, Francis and Mr Lomax were all engaged, would be breaking up – the company dispersing …

‘And how did Captain Laurence become acquainted with Miss Lambe?’ she asked.

‘I do not know,’ said Lucy carelessly, ‘I have never asked.’

Dido sighed. Sometimes she found the lack of curiosity in others very hard to forgive.

‘But,’ continued Lucy in a thrilled whisper, ‘he was quite determined that we should become friends, you know. For he said that he esteemed us all so much he must have us love one another!’

‘Indeed!’ Dido looked across again to the captain as he smiled broadly in the ruddy light of the fire, his strong white teeth very prominent in his weather-beaten face. There was a great deal too much self-congratulation in the smile for her taste.

At tea he had devoted himself to Penelope, who had made a brief appearance in company that evening – her first since her accident. Now she had returned to rest in her bedchamber, but while she had remained below the
captain had been so very solicitous for her comfort and welfare that Dido had wondered how Lucy could look on with every appearance of goodwill and complaisance …

She realised suddenly that the captain had ceased talking – that he was now returning her gaze. His smile broadened.

She turned back to Lucy quickly. ‘And Penelope knows no more about her own history?’ she asked.

‘Oh no! Though of course she remembers her mother quite distinctly!’

‘Does she?’ cried Dido in surprise – but then distrusted. ‘And what, exactly, does she remember?’

‘She remembers the sweetest, most beautiful face in the world bending over her cradle – a voice, angelic in its softness, singing her to sleep … All that kind of thing, you know – for it is quite impossible to ever forget a mother’s love.’

‘I see.’ Dido detected more of romance than memory in all this. ‘But she has never asked Mrs Nolan …?’

She stopped, aware that her companion was no longer attending. Captain Laurence himself was now approaching and Lucy was happily making room for him to sit between them on the sofa.

‘You are talking of Miss Lambe?’ he asked as he sat down and arranged his bristling brows and side-whiskers into a look of compassionate concern. ‘I was,’ he said turning to Lucy with a very particular look, ‘very glad indeed to see her so much recovered. For I know, Miss Lucy, how very, very anxious you have been about her.’

Lucy smirked and exclaimed.

Dido watched and listened with great interest as the
captain talked on in a low insinuating voice. She could not help but admire the way in which every concern for, every attention to, Penelope was now explained away by his overwhelming anxiety for Lucy’s peace of mind.

‘… And so you see, Miss Lambe has told me that she is experiencing no great pain in her head; so you
must
, I
beg
you, cease to distress yourself by imagining any such thing. Come now, will you
promise
me that you will not lie awake at night any more worrying about it …?’

It was all so very cleverly done! And no doubt Lucy – predisposed as she was to believe whatever suited her – had cause enough to think him ‘attached’.

Dido glanced about the room to see whether anyone else was taking note of the very particular attention he was paying. But it would seem that she was their only audience. On one side Silas, overheated by Mr Harman-Foote’s enormous fire, was beginning to wheeze and cough, and Harriet was entirely taken up with chiding him and placing a screen to protect him, for all the world as if he were a delicate girl. And on the other side, the whist players were intent upon their cards and a conversation on the perennial subject of poachers.

‘It’s a mystery to me, Lomax, where the devil the birds are all going,’ boomed Mr Harman-Foote. ‘They can’t be eating them all – they must be getting ’em off to sell in town somehow, but I’m damned if I know how they’re doing it, for the keepers have been out looking at every cart that leaves the village. Why, I rather take my hat off to ’em. Clever devils ain’t they …?’

‘… And I am particularly grateful to you, Miss Kent …’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Dido turned back hastily to find that the captain was now regarding her with a look of great feeling.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘that you have been doing the poor invalid the greatest of services – I refer of course to your efforts at discovering the cause of her fall. Such an explanation would’ – a solicitous glance here at Lucy – ‘help to put all our minds at rest. And I am sure there is no one better qualified for the undertaking.’

‘I hardly know about that,’ Dido replied. ‘For I am not at all certain what qualities the task might require. But if overweening curiosity and a frivolous mind which cannot allow the smallest detail to pass unnoticed are called for – then perhaps I may make some claim.’

‘You are too modest!’ he cried with habitual gallantry. ‘But I cannot allow you to escape the compliment so easily, for I hear too much about your intelligence and quickness of understanding to doubt you are capable of solving any manner of perplexity.’

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, rather wishing he would not lean so close, nor speak in such a softened tone. It was, she knew, no more than his manner – the duty of charming all women which his vanity imposed upon him. But, beyond his shoulder, she could see Lucy becoming very annoyed at having to share his attention.

‘I should be very grateful if you would tell me what you have discovered in your search. And’ – he leant closer still, sinking his voice so that only she could hear – ‘there is the other matter – the mysterious disappearance of Miss Fenn’s letters. My cousin tells me that you are making enquiries into that too …’

Dido drew back, shocked that he should know of the letters, and offended by the familiarity of his manner. She opened her mouth to protest; but her words were drowned in an exclamation from the card table. ‘Mr Lomax! Are you forgetting that spades are
trumps
?’

She looked across to see the unfortunate Mr Lomax stammering an apology as he frowned distractedly at the game. And she was wondering whether her imagination was flattering her in suggesting that his eyes had been only just withdrawn from her corner of the room, when all other considerations were driven out by such a scream from above their heads as seemed to shake the very walls of the house.

There was a moment of complete stillness in the drawing room as the echoes died away along the stairs and hallways of the old abbey. Everybody seemed to be staring at somebody else.

And then everybody was moving and talking at once.

Silas Crockford’s voice rang out, with unusual clarity, above the rest. ‘It was Penelope!’

Lucy was taken with hysterics, and Captain Laurence was forced to attend her. Silas, Francis and Mr Lomax were running into the hall, but Harriet was ahead of them all, crying out, ‘It is of no consequence. Do not worry, please. I will go to her.’

And Dido, neatly avoiding Lucy’s clutching hands, was running after her friend immediately. She slipped past the gentlemen who were all come to an uncertain standstill at the foot of the stairs – very eager to encounter any danger, and yet unable to pursue it into a lady’s bedchamber.

She caught up with Harriet on the turn of the stairs. ‘Is Penelope alone?’