A Woman of Consequence (21 page)

… Well, here I am, Eliza, in this scene of pleasure and dissipation, Bath: and settled at the White Hart, in a comfortable and spacious dining room with a very fine view of the Pump Room’s entrance. As usual, whenever I find myself in this town, I am wishing that I had the superiority of mind to be properly disgusted with it. But shops, society and amusements do have their charms even when one is six and thirty and I am not altogether sorry that I have come, though I am by no means certain that I shall succeed in gathering the information I require.

I have met Mrs Nolan.

She is mistress of a small, but well-respected school in Gay Street, who sometimes keeps on girls as ‘parlour boarders’ when they have no settled home; but unfortunately Penelope is the only young lady occupying that position in her household at present – so there is no close companion to whom I can apply for information.

I suppose Mrs Nolan is a little over fifty years old and she has more than a hint of the North Country in her voice. She has a pale, soft, placid appearance – except for her eyes which are small and black and particularly shrewd. She wears the most remarkable hats I ever set eyes upon, with a great many ribbons and large silk flowers in surprising places. But, 
though the hats are silly, I suspect the head beneath them is sensible enough.

Yesterday I contrived a tête-à-tête and attempted to ask about Penelope’s connections – in a roundabout way. I was not at all successful! I was given to understand that ‘the poor lass has not a soul in the world to care for her but me, for I’ve had the charge of her since she was but five years old’. And, when I pressed to know who it was that had placed her at the school, I was immediately put off. ‘Nay, Miss Kent, that is a kind of information which a woman in my situation
never
discloses.’

Ah well, I suppose I should not have expected her to confide so easily; and I am sure I respect her the better for her discretion. I have not yet determined how she is to be worked upon, but I think I must make a great effort to secure her trust.

Mr Lomax is not yet arrived in Bath, and will not be here until the day after tomorrow. So I fear there will be little time for our ‘honest and open discourse’. I was amused, by the by, that you should consider the experiment we have undertaken ‘a little dangerous’. What possible danger can there be in our only talking to one another?

Silas has neuralgia; got, so Harriet says, from sitting in a draught in the carriage. He has taken laudanum and has been in his chamber all day. Harriet has taken Lucy away to the shops – where I suspect she is sedulously guarding her from the captain’s dangerous company. And I am at peace beside my window – which is very pleasant indeed after the noise and confinement of our journey. The late afternoon sun is shining down in the street, making the stone of the buildings glow. All the fashionable hats of the hurrying ladies – and the fine figures of the gentlemen loitering in the Pump Yard 
– appear to great advantage in its cheerful light. Little knots of people are gathered under the colonnade and
…

Ah, now that is very interesting, Eliza!

I have recognised one of the figures lounging under the colonnade. It is Captain Laurence! And he is in conversation with an elderly, rakish-looking man whose appearance I do not like at all! He has a fat, dissipated face, a scarred cheek, a quizzing glass – and a
very
ill-mannered interest in every young lady who walks past him
…
And the captain – yes, I am not mistaken – the captain, though he has neither the ugly countenance nor the glass, certainly shares the interest. There now! the two of them are putting their heads together and grinning insolently at a little party of schoolgirls.

How very distasteful! I wish that Lucy could see it; it might work her cure.

I confess I am increasingly puzzled by the captain. He is, I am sure, engaged in some very deep scheme. Though I suppose that his contriving to get the pool drained does rather argue against his having killed Miss Fenn – unless he is a very strange murderer indeed: one who
wishes
the world to know of his crimes.

Upon reflection, I rather think that he is not the guilty man himself; but that he knows something about the poor woman’s death. You will remember that, according to the housekeeper, he was in the habit of following Miss Fenn. Well, is it possible that he followed her upon the evening of her death? That he saw her go to the pool and afterwards suspected that she met her death there?

But why should he wish to bring the remains to light? And why should he do it now – after being content to let them lie hidden for fifteen years?

Ah! Here are Lucy, Penelope and Harriet walking up from Cheap Street towards the colonnade! In a moment they will see the captain. I pray Lucy may see enough of his behaviour to disabuse …

But no, it is not to be. Laurence has seen them first. He is pointing them out to his companion in a very insolent way and … and he is hiding from them! It is true, Eliza, the intrepid captain has fled behind a pillar and his friend is shielding him. There now, the women are passing quite unaware and turning away towards Bath Street.

How very strange. Why did he not wish …?

But now L, H and P are out of sight and the captain and his friend are visible again; they have stepped out into the sunshine – they are looking after the women. Laurence is talking fast and earnestly – explaining something to which the other man is listening very attentively indeed. Oh, I wish I could make out their words! The fat man is exceedingly well amused by what he is hearing. His red face is smiling broadly. He is clapping the captain upon the back as if in congratulation. They are sauntering away. Oh Eliza! I do not like the unkind looks upon their faces at all.

Dido laid down her pen and was on the point of stepping to the window to see where the gentlemen might be going, when the door of the dining room burst open and such an apparition appeared as put her in mind of some fellow in a play of Shakespeare’s ‘with his doublet all unbraced … Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other …’

Not that there was a doublet exactly to be ‘unbraced’, but the general effect was the same. Silas was certainly pale and exceedingly dishevelled: his black curls were
falling about his face, his shirt was open at the neck – and his knees were shaking violently as he stepped into the room, holding out a paper.

‘It is done!’ he declared in a momentous tone.

Dido could only stare, uncomprehending.

‘My poem. It is done.’ His face was bright with a kind of confidence and triumph she had never witnessed there before. He pushed the tumbling hair out of his eyes and smiled. ‘I have never known such r … remarkable
inspiration
, Miss Kent. Never!’

‘Indeed! But I thought that you were unwell …’

‘And so I was. But the laudanum … It set my b … brain on fire. It conjured up such visions!’ He crossed to the table and sat down beside her, his poem still clutched in his hand – the paper trembling slightly with his emotion. ‘I did not believe it possible! But Henry says it is always so. He says those r … romantic fellows take opium every day and are none the worse for it. Henry says there’s not a p … poet alive who can write a line without the stuff …’

‘I did not know,’ she said coolly, ‘that Mr Coulson was such a great authority upon poetry.’

‘Oh yes! He has been telling me all about it. I have talked a great deal about my poem with Henry and he has been helping me enormously.’

Dido watched him a moment, considering carefully. Then she drew a slow breath and fixed her eyes upon the window. ‘You do not think,’ she suggested lightly, with every appearance of indifference, ‘that perhaps you allow Mr Coulson to influence you a little too much? He is, after all, only a distant relation.’

‘N … No,’ stammered Silas. ‘He is the n … nearest male relation that I have and so, you know, the n … nearest thing to a b … brother that I have.’

‘Is he?’ she asked quickly, abandoning her scrutiny of the window.

But Silas was too restless and too full of his own genius to hear her. ‘The poem all came to me in a vision, you know. It was as if I was p … possessed: possessed by a higher p … power! Will you read it, Miss Kent?’ he said, pressing the paper upon her and springing to his feet. ‘I beg you will tell me honestly w … w … what …’ he began; but by now he was at the door and even his new-found confidence could not stand against her actual unfolding of the page and preparing to read. With a blush and one more nervous smile he was gone.

Dido sat for several minutes considering what had passed, before turning, rather apprehensively, to the paper in her hand.

To her relief, it contained only four verses. Clearly ‘It is finished!’ had not alluded to the whole ballad, but only to that part of it which she was to show to Penelope. For all the influence of the narcotic, the lines were written in a firm, slanting hand and the title ‘The Nun’s Farewell to her Lover’ was underscored by a thick black stroke which only faltered slightly.

She spread the page on the table and read:

Dido read the poem through several times and sat for some time staring at the page. It disturbed her – though she could not think why …

Nor could she quite determine whether there was anything to be gained from showing the work to Penelope. The veiled declaration of devotion might be very much to the purpose, but she rather doubted the poetry had the power of recommending its author … Though Penelope was not likely to be discriminating … Its brevity might count for more with her than anything else – for the
idea
of a poem would certainly appeal more than the prolonged study of one …

She looked again at the paper with its four neat black verses. And again there was a kind of a jolt: a shock almost of recognition … familiarity …

Why did the poem disturb her so much?

Still pondering she rose from the table with a heavy sigh and stepped closer to the window to gaze out upon the darkening town. The first lamps were already lit; over in Cheap Street carriages continued to rumble by, but the Pump Yard was very much quieter now as people hurried away to dress in preparation for the dinner hour. A few ladies were still gazing into the windows of shops; a chairman rested on the pole of his vehicle, smoking a short stub of a pipe; and, in the gathering shadows of the colonnade, two lovers lingered, too wrapped up in one another to heed the approaching dusk.

It was the sight of the couple which at last brought inspiration to Dido. It led her wandering mind through a very natural series of connections, from the tangled affections of her young friends to a consideration of the very great dangers of a passionate nature – and so to that other passionate and dangerous attachment of Miss Fenn to her mysterious correspondent …

She turned hurriedly from the window and seized Silas’s poem. Holding it up eagerly in the fading light of the window, she studied it closely.

Yes, that was what had disturbed her! Not the verse – but the hand in which it was written! The letters were small and black with a marked forward slant. It was not exactly the hand of Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’ – but it was very much like it.

‘Harriet,’ said Dido next day as they were walking together in the Pump Room, ‘how was your brother educated? Was he sent away to school or was he placed with a private tutor?’

‘Why ever do you ask?’ cried Harriet in surprise. ‘Upon my word, Dido, I never knew a woman like you for asking odd questions!’

‘I am only a little curious.’

‘Oh, you are always a little curious, and I tell you honestly, that it will not do. Curiosity, you know, is something that old spinsters are always laughed at about.’

‘Yes,’ said Dido, taking her arm. ‘But I am sure
you
will not laugh at me. For we are two old spinsters together are we not? We may defy the world.’ Harriet gave her most weary smile. ‘But I do not see why you should care about Silas’s education.’

‘Oh, it is just that he writes such a very … interesting hand and I rather wondered from whom he had learnt it. For, you know, we all write a little in the style of the master who taught us.’

Harriet frowned and studied her companion rather suspiciously for a moment before shrugging up her
shoulders. ‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘Silas’s poor state of health prevented his ever going away to school. He was educated chiefly at home; his only tutors were friends of the family.’ She considered a moment. ‘Mr Portinscale taught him for a little while,’ she said.

‘I see.’

Dido fell into a reverie at that and they walked on in silence. This information did not lie at all easily with everything else that had come to light. How could Mr Portinscale be the illicit lover of Elinor Fenn? How could
he
have written that cold letter ordering her to forget him? He was the man who had made love to her openly – and offered her marriage, was he not?

‘Shall we join the others,’ said Harriet, gesturing towards Captain Laurence and Penelope who were standing beside the well-head, very deep in conversation.

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Dido a little absently, and they began to make their way up the long room – their progress much impeded by the crowd.

In point of fact, the company in the Pump Room this morning was ‘thin’. Everybody had said that it was so and it had been generally agreed among them that it was too early in the season for truly fashionable people to be in Bath. Dido believed it all, and, aloud, she lamented it with as much energy as her companions; but privately she hoped that she might never have to form part of the company when it was ‘thick’.

There was quite enough crowding for her taste. There was a perpetual movement of people through the doors, and such a noise of restless feet and chattering voices as echoed about the elegant Greek pillars and high ceiling,
almost overpowering the efforts of the musicians in the gallery who seemed, sometimes, to be fingering and sawing at their instruments in vain. Outside, the sun was just breaking through after a heavy shower, and, within, the smell of wet umbrellas was mixing with that of greenhouse plants and the warm, sulphurous breath of the spring. The very floor was shaking beneath its weight of fashion and it was not until they were within an arm’s length that she was able to distinguish anything that was passing between the captain and Penelope – although, alerted by the earnestness of their manner, she was struggling hard for their words all the way along the room …

‘… And so you see, I have my orders. Tomorrow I must go up to town to make my preparations,’ the captain was saying as they drew close. ‘And within five days after that I must be aboard my ship.’ He took both Penelope’s hands. ‘At such a time,’ he continued in a low, urgent voice, ‘at such a time, Miss Lambe, a man becomes bold. It is not to be wondered at, you know, for he has need of all the courage he can command – knowing what hardships and dangers lie ahead of him.’

‘Oh yes!’ cried Penelope fervently, ‘You are all so very, very brave. I am sure the navy is such a body of men as … Well, I am
quite
sure there is no one else like them in all the world! Except perhaps,’ she added anxiously, ‘for soldiers – for I would not wish to be unfair upon them, you know. But then, though they are called upon to fight, they may stay upon the land and do not have to go to sea – which I am sure is a great deal more comfortable. So sailors you see,’ she finished with conviction, ‘
are
the bravest after all.’ She smiled serenely and, catching
sight of Dido and Harriet, turned eagerly to them for confirmation. ‘Sailors are the best and bravest men in the whole world, are they not?’

Laurence saw them now. ‘Miss Crockford, Miss Kent.’ He bowed, released Penelope’s hands and looked so very discomposed that Harriet and Dido’s suspicions were immediately raised against him.

Had he been upon the point of a
declaration
?

They stood together a few minutes: all rather ill at ease, but for Penelope who had noticed nothing at all and was now busily enumerating the hardships of naval life, through battle, storm and privateers to what must be ‘the greatest inconveniences imaginable caused by the motion of the ship. I mean the sliding about of food upon the table and the falling out of beds and so forth …’

As she chattered, Dido’s eye was drawn away to a bench beside the great clock, from which the schoolmistress, Mrs Nolan, was watching. She was sitting very straight, with her hands clasped upon the handle of her umbrella: her face sharp and watchful in the shadow of her vast white cap and the elaborate bonnet which covered it. A cluster of flowers hanging low upon the brim half-obscured her eyes and gave her rather the appearance of a small, wild creature peering through undergrowth. But it would seem that she too had noticed the captain’s ‘attentions’ – and they had made her uneasy.

And it occurred immediately to Dido that her uneasiness might provide a very useful opening for conversation. Perhaps this was the moment to try for her confidence … Declaring, rather abruptly, that she was tired and must rest, she left Harriet to chaperone
Penelope, and made her way purposefully back towards the schoolmistress.

‘My dear, Mrs Nolan,’ she cried with a smile as she approached, ‘you are looking very worried. Are you afraid of Miss Lambe’s tiring herself with walking about too much?’

‘Nay.’ Mrs Nolan shook her head and set the flowers flapping about her eyes. ‘She’s a stout lass, and I doubt a little knock on the head has turned her into an invalid. But …’ she raised her umbrella in Laurence’s direction and gave it a little shake, ‘I’m right
vexed
to see her walking about on yon fellow’s arm.’

‘Oh?’ said Dido in a tone of innocent surprise. ‘Do you not consider the captain a suitable acquaintance for the young lady?’

‘Suitable? Eeh, no!’ Mrs Nolan lowered the umbrella, folded her hands over its handle and gave Dido a doleful stare. ‘Pardon me for saying it, Miss Kent, but I’m accustomed to speaking my mind, and I tell you honestly, yon captain is such a fellow as I swear is sent to test and torment poor honest schoolteachers like myself. For I declare there ain’t no way of keeping young ladies safe from his sort.’

‘Is there not?’ said Dido, deeply interested. ‘And how …?’

‘As if the cost of candles for the schoolroom wasn’t trial enough,’ Mrs Nolan ran on, with all the appearance of a woman who is launched upon a favourite complaint and will not be easily turned aside from it. ‘And folks being so tardy over paying their fees! As if such things weren’t sufficient torment, there must be men like that one sent to make us miserable

‘Dear, dear,’ said Dido. She took a seat beside the schoolmistress, her head tilted in sympathetic attention.

‘Aye, a woman in my situation lives in terror of such fellows as that. One hears such tales, Miss Kent!’

‘Does one?’

‘Eeh yes! Ladders set up at bedroom windows in the dead of night and young lasses carried off to Gretna in the twinkling of an eye. Or worse …’ Mrs Nolan tapped at Dido’s foot with her umbrella to emphasise her point, ‘
not
carried to Gretna at all – if you gather my meaning.’

‘Oh heavens! How shocking! I confess I had heard …’ Dido bent a little closer. ‘But do such things truly happen?’

‘They do, my dear. Though …’ her face reddening. ‘
Never
in my establishment, I assure you.’

‘No, no of course not! I would not have thought it.’

‘Twenty-six years, come next Lady Day, I’ve been educating my lasses and not one has ever come to harm. And a schoolmistress’s reputation is her livelihood you know, Miss Kent. I’ve seen a school or two closed down because there’s been a breath of scandal – for the parents cannot trust then, you see.’

‘Dear, dear! What a very great worry it must be for you!’ Dido regarded her companion with great interest. But, unfortunately, the others were approaching now and Mrs Nolan was reaching out with the umbrella to tap Penelope on the arm with a ‘Well now, my dear, I think you have walked enough for today.’

And it was quite impossible to re-engage her in conversation, for a moment later Lucy and Silas also appeared and then they were all in a group talking together.

Silas had been very busy securing places at the obligatory entertainments of Bath. He had tickets for a concert in the assembly rooms that evening, and there was a theatre box taken for tomorrow. ‘A b … box which holds n … nine. So we are in hopes, Mrs Nolan that you and P … P … Miss Lambe will be kind enough to join us.’

Meanwhile Dido was considering the schoolmistress’s words – and concluding that the very best way to work upon her would be to somehow save Penelope from the captain. That would certainly create a high degree of obligation – in fact it might
just
overcome her reserve and bring her to confide who it was that paid the girl’s allowance …