Place of Confinement (11 page)

What did he know – what did he suspect – of how matters stood between her and his father?

She could not bear that he should know – and laugh. The vulgar sneer seemed to pollute what was most dear to her. But was she also doubting herself? Did some part of her pain spring from the suspicion that he had guessed aright?

Dido stood for several fugitive minutes in the shadow of the wagon – whose gaily painted sides declared it to belong to the travelling theatre company of one Mr Isaac Mountjoy. And, in the shelter Mr Mountjoy provided, she forced herself to face her own schemes – to name them to herself. What was it, exactly, that she had planned as she sat beside her aunt’s bed?

To find Miss Verney, and so get herself to Belsfield. And once there she hoped to … reach an understanding with Mr Lomax? To achieve an engagement public enough to relieve her of Doctor Prowdlee’s attentions?

Yes, she confessed it to herself, that
was
her plan.

But there was no denying that it would be a long engagement. No marriage could take place until the debts which Mr Lomax had assumed for his son’s sake were all paid. Two or three wretched, interminable years must be waited through. Two or three years spent as a ‘visitor’ in Margaret’s house, becoming every day more contemptible in the eyes of the world.

Tom’s marriage to a wealthy woman would certainly be to her advantage. But she was not quite so unprincipled as to sacrifice another woman’s happiness in the cause of her own.

At least, she hoped that she was not. And, after all, she told herself, once she was returned to her family, it would be for Miss Letitia herself to decide whom she married, would it not? In searching for Miss Verney, Dido was by no means directly promoting her marriage to Tom.

Chapter Eleven

‘Ah! Fair damsel, what is it that troubles you?’

Dido looked up in alarm as the voice boomed over her head, and saw a man as large as his voice hurrying down the steps from the colonnaded front of the rooms. He was wearing a canary-yellow waistcoat and had a slightly familiar look.

‘Ah me!’ he cried, pressing his hands to his brilliant breast, ‘I would give the world to ease the sorrow from your lovely countenance!’

Dido stared.

He came to a standstill on the step beside her, and bowed deeply. ‘Isaac Mountjoy at your service, madam. May I be of any assistance to you?’

‘You are very kind, sir,’ she replied, and at the same moment remembered where she had seen him before: it was in the churchyard. He had been talking to Mrs Bailey. ‘But I have only stopped to catch my breath. I am in no need of assistance … Unless you could direct me to the house of Mr Sutherland.’

‘Indeed I may, for I am familiar with the physician of that name. If you will but step this way, madam.’ He beckoned her out of the wagon’s shelter and pointed along the street to a substantial house which stood alone near the end of town, and close beside the path leading down to the beach. There was – as yet – only one building beyond it and that was the town’s inn, standing very new and fine and white-fronted where the ground began to rise up to the downs.

Dido thanked the gentleman for his help. He bowed again more extravagantly than ever and intimated that his day – perhaps his whole existence – had been rendered meaningful by the privilege of being allowed to be of use to her.

As she fled from his compliments, Dido wondered a little that such a man as this should be a member of Mrs Augusta Bailey’s wide circle of acquaintances … Or perhaps he was one of those ‘second rate’ persons who sought continually to connect himself to the unfortunate woman …

*   *   *

The physician’s house was so new built that the little plot before it was still choked with stones and shavings of wood, and Dido was obliged to employ her knuckle upon the door for it yet lacked a bell. But a fine new board above the door informed her that the premises were occupied by Doctor Angus Sutherland, ‘qualified and experienced practitioner in all modern systems of medicine’; which modern systems included ‘the methods of Electricity, Animal Magnetism and the Medicinal Application of Mud’.

As she noted this information in compliance with her aunt’s instructions to find out all she could about the town’s medical advisor, Dido fervently hoped that with all his modern systems Doctor Sutherland was also conversant with the mysteries of old-fashioned brown medicine; for she was more anxious than ever to complete her errand and escape the town. Even now, from the very corner of her eye, she could see, far back along the straight terrace, the figure of Tom Lomax; he appeared to be watching her and she wished very much to get beyond his reach.

The house door opened, letting out a fine scent of broiling chops and sausage, and revealing an elderly, indeterminate female in black who might have been a rather grand housekeeper, or a slightly shabby relative. She shook her head sadly. She was very sorry, but Mr Sutherland was not here. He had been called away from his breakfast more than two hours ago to a gentleman who’d been took sudden up at the inn. Dido might step into the parlour and wait if she wished, but she did not know how long the doctor would be, because there was no knowing, was there, when folk were took sudden?

No, Dido agreed regretfully, there was no knowing; and she said that she would walk up to the inn to search for the elusive Mr Sutherland.

But, just as she turned away from the house door, she saw Tom again. He had taken a seat upon one of the benches and, with his long legs stretched across the pavement and his hands folded upon the head of his cane, he had every appearance of sitting it out until she was obliged to pass him again.

‘I wonder,’ she said quickly, before the woman could close the door, ‘whether there might be another way back to Charcombe Manor – rather than the road through Old Charcombe.’

‘Why? Are you from the manor?’ The tone was more genteel than that of the fishwives – but there was the same air of impertinent curiosity. The doctor’s relative (surely a relative, or she would not presume so far) peered at Dido with weak blue eyes as if wondering whether she had seen her before.

‘Yes,’ said Dido, ‘I am come on a visit.’

‘Oh!’ It was a long drawn-out exclamation. ‘Well he don’t go there, you know.’

‘I am sorry, I do not quite understand you.’

‘My brother, Mr Sutherland, he’s not been to the manor for thirty years. Not since Miss Francine Fenstanton died. So it will be no good you asking him to visit, because he won’t.’

‘I see, but … why?’

‘The why is his business not mine,’ was the brisk answer. ‘I am just telling you he don’t go there. Now, if you want another way home, that’s easy enough.’ She stepped out into the dusty little garden and pointed. ‘If you just go up behind the inn there you’ll find a track that will lead you straight over the downs to the manor and that’ll take a good half mile off your walk.’

‘Thank you. That will be a great help to me. But is there some trouble between Mr Sutherland and Mr Fenstanton?’

‘No.’ The woman retreated within her door. ‘No trouble. Angus just don’t go there.’

The door closed abruptly.

Dido walked on slowly up the slope, feeling Tom’s gaze upon her back at every step – and wondering about this remarkable doctor who contrived to know of Miss Verney’s disappearance although he had not set foot in the manor for thirty years …

As she approached the new hotel she noticed a little bustle about the place – one or two folk hurrying about, exchanging eager words and meaningful looks; but the daily coach from Plymouth was drawn up on the gravel before the door and she supposed it all to be no more than the usual business of arrival.

She mounted the steps and, under the pillared porch, met the little pockmarked lad she had seen in the churchyard, with such a very long white apron tied about him that he seemed in momentary danger of tripping over it. Her enquiry after Mr Sutherland produced a round-eyed stare. ‘Is he still engaged with his patient?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, he’s done with poor Mr Brodie. He’s in the parlour now – if you’d like to come with me, miss, I’ll take you to him.’

‘Mr Brodie? Is that the name of the gentleman Mr Sutherland has been attending upon?’

But the boy was off and Dido had no choice but to hurry after his retreating back into a sunny apartment which was very different from the usual sort of inn parlour – for it had not an inch of dark panelling in it, nor even a low beam. In fact it was so new it smelt still of plaster; Venetian windows cut almost to the ground displayed a view of the sea to great advantage; all was light and airy and, though the tables and chairs were a little sturdier than those required for family use, they would not have appeared entirely out of place in a gentleman’s drawing room.

Three ladies – coach passengers perhaps – were gathered about the fireplace drinking a hasty dish of tea. And, standing close beside them, was a tall, lean man with a shock of white hair, who could be no other than the town’s medical man, for he was gently haranguing one of the ladies upon the subject of her health, as he bent over the hearth with a poker in his hand.

‘… Aye, madam,’ he was saying in the warm, comfortable growl of a Scotch man, ‘I can cure you. I can cure you. If you will but remain with us here in Charcombe for a month or two – and submit yourself to my
infallible
system of cure – I will guarantee to rid you of all your nervous complaints. The sea air, a little bathing, combined with my new system…’ He straightened himself as he saw the boy approaching and laid down the poker with great care, as if it were particularly important that it should lie exactly in parallel with the fender.

‘If you please, Mr Sutherland,’ ventured the pot boy, ‘there’s a lady here wishes to speak with you.’

‘Is there, is there?’ Mr Sutherland turned to Dido – revealing the narrow, bony face of a robust man of sixty or more, thick black eyebrows which were rather startling beneath a white head of hair, and a pair of sharp blue eyes which were even more alarming. ‘And how may I be of service to
you,
madam?’ he asked, bowing attentively and contriving somehow to suggest an invisible queue of applicants for his attention.

Dido hastily introduced herself and brought forward the subject of brown medicine, describing its usual effects and the symptoms it relieved. ‘My aunt, Mrs Manners, is most anxious—’

‘Mrs Manners?’ The doctor’s black brows gathered like storm clouds over the sharp blue eyes. ‘Mr George Fenstanton’s sister? She is here in Charcombe?’

‘Yes – she has come on a visit to the manor.’

‘Och! Has she indeed!’ The man turned away and began fastidiously to sweep up a tiny amount of ash which his recent attentions had shaken from the fire. Recalling his sister’s objections, Dido suspected reluctance. He seemed about to refuse his help.

But in a moment he laid down the hearth brush in exact parallel with the poker, and straightened himself smiling broadly.

‘Your aunt,’ he said, ‘is an old acquaintance and I believe I had better wait upon her directly.’

‘Oh no,’ cried Dido much surprised and rather alarmed, for she doubted Mrs Manners would welcome an unsolicited visit. She pressed instead for the immediate supply of medicine and succeeded at last in carrying her point.

He agreed that she should return with him to his house where he could provide the physic; but he hoped she would have the goodness to carry his card to her aunt, to give her his compliments – his
warmest
compliments – and impress upon her the extreme desirability of having
proper medical attendance
during her stay at Charcombe.

When the matter was thus far settled, and the tea-drinking lady had also been supplied with a card, the pot boy was dispatched to fetch Mr Sutherland’s bag and hat. And, as they left the inn together, Dido felt entitled to turn her mind to Mr Brodie.

‘May I ask if the gentleman you have been attending is recovered?’ she said as they stepped out of the inn porch into the sunshine and salt breeze. ‘For I know that Mr Fenstanton is expecting to see him at the manor today – and perhaps, if he is to be delayed, I might carry a message for him.’

Mr Sutherland stopped upon the steps, his black brows gathering again over the brilliant eyes. ‘Mr Brodie was to visit Mr Lancelot Fenstanton? Do you know why?’

‘No … That is…’ Dido recollected herself and continued more cautiously. ‘I do not know. I only know that Mr Brodie had written to announce his arrival. It was a matter of business, I suppose.’

‘What manner of business?’

‘I do not know.’

The doctor looked troubled for a moment. Then: ‘Och! Well,’ he cried, ‘it’s business that won’t be transacted now!’

‘Oh?’ said Dido, stopping short as she detected in the finality of his tone a whole new meaning of
taken sudden.
‘Do you mean…? That is, I hope poor Mr Brodie is not … dead?’

‘Aye, lassie, he’s dead. For that’s generally the case, you know, when the illness is a bullet through the heart.’

Dido looked so alarmed that Mr Sutherland immediately detected nervousness and opened his bag in search of a restorative (a new and particularly efficacious concoction of his own). ‘Mr Brodie was murdered?’ she cried. ‘But how? Why? Was he set upon by robbers?’

‘No, no. There were certainly no robbers, for there were banknotes and a watch still in his pockets when he was found.’

‘Then how was he killed? And when?’

‘Well, it would seem to have happened last night,’ said Sutherland, still peering into his bag. ‘Sometime after eleven o’clock, for certain, for I was with Mr Brodie myself until about that time. I was here in the parlour playing cards with him and another gentleman.’

‘Oh! And do you know how he might…?’

Mr Sutherland sighed as he continued to search systematically for his remedy among the neat rows of phials and bottles in his bag. ‘I regret it is all too clear, what happened, Miss Kent. The folk here at the inn say that my two companions continued with the game after I left – and a disagreement started. The two gentlemen left the inn together about midnight, and…’ he shrugged up his shoulders ‘… Mr Brodie never returned.’