A Woman of Consequence (2 page)

Dido did not believe in ghosts. No, she quite definitely did not believe in them … But what had Penelope meant when she said, ‘I saw her …’?

There was such an air of mystery about the whole affair as could not help but inspire the dullest of imaginations – and Dido’s imagination was certainly not one of the dullest.

She had written so long her candle was burning low and the eerie light of the moon was throwing long shadows from the bedposts and the washstand across the bare floorboards. The wind was whining softly under the eaves and the clock upon the landing was striking the half-hour after midnight … At such a time, in such a place, it was only natural that the fancy should wander …

She could not prevent it, though she did not like to confess it in her letter – and she could not help but wonder what a certain Mr William Lomax might say if he knew about it.

‘A
ghost
, Miss Kent?’ She could imagine the look of wonder, the lifting of the eyebrows, the half-smile. ‘You cannot truly believe that your friend saw a ghost upon the gallery?’

‘No, no,’ she said aloud, ‘I do not say that there
certainly was a ghost – only that there was something –
something
which shocked her and made her fall.’

She smiled at herself and shook her head. Disputing with the absent Mr Lomax was become quite a habit with her. It was, perhaps, because there was so little rational conversation to be had in the vicarage; but she did not like it; it spoke of too great a dependence upon his opinions. And besides, he was too much inclined to win their disagreements, even when he was not present and she had all the trouble of devising his share of the conversation as well as her own – which did not seem quite fair.

But she would certainly not wish him – or anyone else – to think that she believed in such things as moaning, hand-wringing grey nuns. In point of fact, she had no patience at all with ghosts. They were so very
useless
.

There might for example be some purpose in this dead nun appearing, as she was reputed to do whenever disaster threatened the folk of Madderstone, if only she could be prevailed upon to disclose the nature of that disaster or advise how it might be averted. But, from all that Dido could gather, she had never performed such a service.

And, while they continued to be so very unobliging, she was determined not to put herself to the trouble of believing in ghosts.

It was an opinion which she might have expressed yesterday at Madderstone – if there had been an opportunity. For, no sooner had Captain Laurence carried the insensible Penelope into the hall of the great house, than Lucy had broken out with: ‘She saw the Grey Nun
on the gallery! And the fright made her fall. It is true. She
said
that she had seen the ghost.’

Dido had tried to intervene at this point with a suggestion that it was not certain that it was the nun she had seen. That she had not exactly named her …

But reasoned argument was quite out of the question just then, for all the while Lucy was talking, Mr
Harman-Foote
was booming out orders for a man to ride to the village for the surgeon, and his wife was giving very exact directions as to how Penelope must be carried up the stairs. And all the little Harman-Footes, who had, unluckily, been in the drawing room when news of the accident burst upon the household, were loitering about in the hall and adding their own noise to the uproar, despite their mama’s pleas to the nursery-maid to remove them from the distressing scene. Two imperious little girls were clinging to the lady’s gown and screaming to be noticed, while young Georgie – a stout-looking boy of eight or nine – was regarding Penelope levelly and demanding to know, ‘Is she dead?’ with very little sign of distress, but with a great deal of interest.

It was not until some hours later that Dido was at liberty to give her own account of the accident. By then the house was more at peace. Mr Paynter, the surgeon, had come and shaken his head and drawn in his breath, and finally declared that Penelope had a contusion to the head. However, he did not despair. Rest and careful nursing would probably set her to right – though they must not hope for a very rapid recovery.

The invalid was made comfortable in one of the abbey’s best bedchambers and Harriet appointed herself her only
nurse, sending away all the others. ‘I know what I am about,’ she said, flapping her hands at Dido. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth, you know.’

‘But you cannot take all the trouble upon yourself,’ Dido protested, still holding her place beside the bed, and gazing down at the pale face, sunk deep into the pillow, and the closed eyes which had not opened again since that strange moment in the cloisters. ‘You must allow me to help.’

Harriet stepped back from the bed for a moment, and drew in a long, weary breath. Turning into the light which was coming through the half-closed curtains, she pushed up her large, ugly cap – and, without it shadowing her face, she looked positively young. Harriet was certainly the prettier of the two Crockford sisters – there could not be two opinions upon that point. She had a smooth white brow from which the hair grew in a delicate peak, small regular features, and an elegant figure; but her dress and air were those of an aging woman. Harriet Crockford had given up youth many years ago – or perhaps she had never embraced it.

‘My trouble is of no consequence,’ she said, now frowning seriously, ‘and I cannot allow you to stay, for if you do, Lucy will demand it as a right that she stay too.’

‘And why should she not? It is only fair that she should join with you in nursing.’

‘Oh no, it will not do. She cannot look at Penelope without weeping. The greatest kindness you can do me is to take care of
her
and see her safely home. It would not do at all to have Lucy fixed here at Madderstone.’

Dido raised an eyebrow. ‘You would not have her
living in the same house as Captain Laurence?’ she asked curiously.

Harriet avoided her gaze. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that young girls should not fix themselves too soon. They should make hay while the sun shines.’

When Harriet could not express the thoughts of ‘Dear Papa’ it was her habit to fall back on maxims and received wisdom. It gave all her conversation a threadbare,
made-over
feeling – and rendered her real opinions difficult to comprehend.

‘Lucy is three and twenty,’ Dido observed. ‘Time enough, I would have thought, to become
fixed
.’

‘Oh Dido! Why must you always argue?’ cried Harriet impatiently, her face reddening. ‘When all’s said and done, nursing must always belong to women like you and me – women who are too old for love.’

Fortunately Harriet turned away just then to gather up Penelope’s clothes with efficient, angry little movements. She did not see her friend’s blush and involuntary start. There was a short silence before Dido returned to the attack.

‘But on this occasion I
must
argue. You cannot be the only one attending on Penelope,’ she insisted. ‘You need an assistant. And if I am indeed another aging crone who, by your account, is suited only to serve in the sickroom then I had better stay – my life is otherwise a dull blank!’

‘Now,’ said Harriet, folding her arms and frowning, ‘you are being satirical – and you know that I particularly dislike your being satirical. Can you wonder at my not wanting such an argumentative companion?’

‘But …’

Just then the patient began to stir and both women turned to look at her. Harriet went to her side immediately. ‘Please, Dido, just do as I ask and take Lucy home. And … as for an assistant …’ She paused and watched the face upon the pillow thoughtfully for a moment. ‘If they can do without old Nanny at home, then tell them to send her. She is used to nursing … Yes, Nanny will do very well indeed.’ She gave a weary smile. ‘Now go please,’ she urged. ‘Our talking is making her restless.’

Dido left the sickroom and walked slowly down the elegant sweep of Madderstone Abbey’s great staircase, pausing for a moment to gaze over the curve of the banister to the pattern of coloured marble on the hall floor below. She could not help but wonder why Harriet should be so very determined to keep Lucy away from the captain …

It was an odd little mystery and one which, she decided, she must get to the bottom of soon – but, meanwhile, there was something else troubling her: Harriet’s theory that an unmarried woman of more than thirty should devote herself to being useful and give up all thoughts of love. It was – like most of Harriet’s utterances – common cant. An unmarried woman over thirty was considered of no importance to anyone. She must make herself as useful as she might.

And, of course, Harriet knew nothing of Dido’s true situation. No one but Eliza knew that, within the last half-year, she had been solicited – and solicited by a very agreeable, handsome man – to change her name.

The affair between herself and Mr Lomax was a cause of very real anxiety to Dido; she suffered all the
anguish which strong affection, combined with profound doubts as to the wisdom of a marriage, can produce in a sensitive, intelligent mind. But, nevertheless, she found it rather provoking that she should have to suffer all the pain of indecision over his offer, while enjoying none of that consequence which a proposal of marriage usually bestows upon a woman!

Smiling at her own vanity, she continued down the stairs, but stopped again upon seeing below her in the hall the sleek black head of Harris Paynter, the young surgeon. There was something furtive in his movement: a looking-about to see whether or not he was observed. Dido could not help herself; she immediately stood very still – and observed him.

He was now standing irresolute, holding a folded paper in his hand. He appeared to be upon the point of delivering a note. In half a minute his mind was made up: he stepped to a small table where lay several letters – just brought from the post office. He slipped his note in among them, turned and hurried away towards the back of the house.

Dido waited until the sound of his steps died away and then slowly continued down into the hall. Propriety demanded that she walk directly to the drawing room door – curiosity argued for a detour towards the table … She stopped. The folded note could be clearly seen among the sealed letters. She took one step closer. There was a name written upon the note:
Mrs Harman-Foote
…

Now why, she wondered, was a humble surgeon writing messages to the lady of the house – and delivering them with such evident caution?

Her friends were all gathered in the drawing room – an elegant, modern apartment with pink sofas, and a harp beside the pianoforte, a triple mirror above the chimney piece, some very pretty portraits, an abundance of small tables, and windows cut down to the ground – which ought to have opened upon lawns and trees, but which presently showed a view only of mud and toppled trunks.

The little girls, she found, had been tempted away to the nursery with toys and treats, but young Georgie still held his ground among the grown-ups, playing a rough, noisy game with a doll his sisters had left behind, and quite determined not to miss anything of interest which might be carrying on.

Lucy was seated upon one of the pink sofas, recovering from her distressing visit to the sickroom with the help of aromatic vinegar and the attentions of Captain Laurence – who was telling her a tale of a young seaman under his command who had once taken just such a fall as her friend and who ‘was climbing up the mainmast within a se’night’.

The carriage was already ordered to take them back to Badleigh. As Dido entered the room Mr Harman-Foote
stepped forward from his post beside the hearth to assure her of this. ‘Best have you both home as soon as we can!’ he declared. ‘You must be feeling pretty well done-up. Damned bad business this!’

She thanked him, honouring his kindness even as she shrank from the loudness of his voice, which, she always fancied, was better suited to the Shropshire ironworks that had made his fortune than it was to the confines of a drawing room.

A large, red-faced man of forty or so, he was much addicted to the smoking of tobacco, and fragments of the ‘blessed leaf’ habitually festooned the straining buttons of his waistcoat. Mr Harman-Foote had the reputation among other men of being capable of great anger. There was even a – rather admiring – tale current in Badleigh and Madderstone of his having fought a duel and ‘marked his man’ when he was much younger. But his manner towards women was unfailingly courteous, and one could not help but like him.

However, he was now regarding Dido rather anxiously. ‘What says the surgeon?’ he asked. ‘Must the young lady stay here long? Can she not be moved?’

She was rather surprised by the lack of hospitality which the question implied and, as she hesitated over an answer, Mrs Harman-Foote appeared at her side.

‘Why, of course Miss Lambe must remain here, my dear,’ she said firmly. ‘We cannot think of moving her.’ She took Dido’s arm and led her off into one of the deep bay windows. ‘An invalid must be disturbed as little as possible,’ she declared firmly. ‘There must always be complete calm in a sickroom, you see. Complete calm.
It is a principle of mine. Miss Crockford should ensure there is no noise and as little light as possible …’

She continued to talk for some time, settling Harriet’s duties to her own satisfaction, the comfortable authority of her voice only a little impaired by its having to rise continually above the dreadful noise which her son was making.

The doll was now being made to climb the back of a chair in lively imitation of Penelope mounting the gallery steps. As it reached the top, it cried out (in Master Georgie’s stentorian tones): ‘Ah! There’s a ghost!’ There followed a scream so loud it interrupted the conversations of everyone in the room, and the unfortunate thing was dashed down violently onto the floor. There was an ominous cracking sound from its china head.

‘Poor Georgie,’ murmured his affectionate mother. ‘He has been excessively upset by this terrible accident. He must be comforted and reassured.’

Dido could not quite think that it was comfort or reassurance which the child required just now. As she watched him begin once more upon the game and steeled herself for a repetition of the scream, she had some rather different ideas …

‘It is of the first importance,’ continued Mrs
Harman-Foote
, ‘that he should be brought to believe that there was no ghost upon the gallery.’

‘Yes …’ said Dido doubtingly, ‘but, in the meantime, do you not think …’ She was prevented from continuing by a scream even louder than the first and an even more ominous crashing and cracking of china.

‘Oh! Poor child!’ grieved the mother and turned
confidingly to Dido. ‘He is so easily upset. And by no means so strong as he looks – as I always tell his father when he argues for his going away to school.’

‘Indeed!’ said Dido, who, though not having a very high opinion in general of public education, was beginning to wonder whether, in certain circumstances, it might be of some utility.

‘Now, Miss Kent,’ continued Mrs Harman-Foote briskly. ‘Is it true that Miss Lambe saw …
believed
that she saw the Grey Nun in the ruins?’

‘Well,’ said Dido cautiously, ‘I would not put it down for a certainty. Though Lucy seems quite convinced of it.’

‘I should very much value
your
opinion. Was it shock at seeing something frightening which made her fall?’ A very earnest look accompanied the question. ‘It is of great consequence. As you see, poor Georgie is so very distressed; he must not be frightened by this talk of ghosts.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Dido, glancing at the poor sensitive child who was now absentmindedly beating the doll’s head against the leg of a chair. ‘But I do not see how he is to be protected. Lucy is so very sure that the ghost appeared, and I daresay that by now half your household is talking about it.’

‘And, if they are, they must be stopped,’ Mrs
Harman-Foote
said firmly, and watched with a look of tender concern as her son began to wrench the limbs from the broken doll.

Anne Harman-Foote was a tall woman with features which were too well marked for beauty and she lacked
that grace which makes height becoming. Her smile was not unpleasant; but there was such a forbidding air of knowing always that she was right, as made her seem older than her eight and twenty years – and her belief in her children’s talents and virtues was unassailable. The consciousness of being Madderstone’s heiress was very deeply ingrained: she was a woman who had not even surrendered her surname on marriage, but had merely added her husband’s name to hers – as the substantial Foote fortune had been added to the even more substantial acres of the Harmans.

‘Miss Kent,’ she continued earnestly, ‘you have not yet told me what your opinion is of this sad accident. I know I can rely upon
you
to speak good sense and not be carried away by fancies.’

‘My opinion …’ Dido hesitated, for she found that she must consider the events again before she could give an answer deserving of the compliment. Everything that had intervened: the bringing of Penelope to the house, the terrible suspense they had all been in while they awaited the surgeon’s pronouncement, the writing of a hurried note to be sent express to Mrs Nolan, Penelope’s guardian; all these things were already confusing and weakening her recollection of the terrible moments in the abbey ruins.

‘I was not very close to Penelope when she fell,’ she began carefully. ‘I was at the bottom of the steps. But I saw her … She started to come down. She turned – when she was on the second step …’ Dido remembered the hesitation, one little hand clutching at the wall. ‘She seemed to be about to say something to Harriet and she
was looking up at her – and into the gallery. And suddenly she looked so shocked …’

‘As if she had seen something frightening on the gallery?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Dido with reluctance. ‘That is how it appeared. Or, at least, if it was not a look of positive fright, it was one of very great surprise …’ She struggled to remember, and to speak, exactly. ‘As if she had seen something which ought not to be there. There was a kind of involuntary recoil. I am sure that step backward – which was the cause of her fall – was made quite unconsciously.’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Harman-Foote with a dismissive wave of the hand, ‘there was no ghost. But what was it that Miss Lambe saw?’

‘It is a great puzzle,’ acknowledged Dido. ‘But I daresay we shall only be in suspense for a day or two. For then Penelope will be sufficiently recovered to tell us all about it.’

‘But I have spoken to Mr Paynter on the subject,’ said Mrs Harman-Foote anxiously, ‘and it his opinion that, after such an injury, it may be several weeks before the patient is well enough to recall the exact circumstances of her accident. Indeed, he tells me that he has known cases where these memories are lost for ever and that even after a perfect recovery, the time of the accident remains a kind of blank in the brain.’

‘Oh dear!’ cried Dido. ‘How very inconvenient!’

Mrs Harman-Foote laid a hand upon her arm and gazed tenderly across the room to Georgie who had now abandoned the doll and was standing between Lucy and
Laurence, teasing them with questions. ‘It is a great deal more than inconvenient,’ she said, ‘for here is my poor Georgie – and his sisters too – wanting so very much to know the whole story. And children must
always
be told the truth. It is a principle of mine. I must have a rational account to give them. I cannot allow their heads to be filled with stories of ghosts.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Dido anxiously. She might care little about young Georgie’s delicate sensibilities, but she cared a great deal about unsolved conundrums. ‘There must be something we can do to come at the truth,’ she said eagerly. ‘It cannot be so very obscure. Perhaps if I were to return to the ruins and look into the gallery again …’

‘Yes. That is precisely what is needed. So you will enquire into the matter and find out the truth?’

‘Well, I shall try, but …’

‘It is extremely kind of you Miss Kent. I am very grateful indeed.’

‘But I cannot promise …’

The protest went unheard. The carriage was announced and everyone was on the move.

And, as she watched Lucy cross the hall still flushed with heightened imagination, Dido could not help but think that a cool sensible explanation of events might benefit her as much as Georgie. In fact, the sooner the spectre of the Grey Nun was laid to rest, the better it would be for all concerned.