Place of Confinement (30 page)

‘Well then, I feel that I should just mention that your aunt is unhappy about your behaviour. Yesterday, when you were so very long in returning from Charcombe, she complained to me of your absence. Naturally I attempted to soothe her. I represented to her how much more pleasant it must be for you to walk out – to mix in society – suggested that you were perhaps a little weary of being confined to attendance upon an invalid.’

‘It was very kind of you to draw those little matters to her attention, I am sure.’

‘But I regret to say,’ continued Mrs Bailey, pursing up her lips, ‘that she did not seem soothed at all.’

‘Did she not? How very … remarkable.’

Mrs Bailey drew her cloak about her shoulders with an air of satisfaction. ‘If your … preoccupation should continue, Miss Kent, if you should continue to pursue Letitia’s case and neglect poor Mrs Manners, I fear it may become quite difficult for me not to draw these matters to her attention.’ Mrs Bailey smiled and, to be quite sure that her refined little threat had found its mark, she added, ‘It would be a great shame, would it not, if the dear lady was so displeased as to settle her fortune away from your family? But dear me, I cannot promise to hold my tongue! It is in my nature to say what I think. “Let me have no lying”, as the Great Bard says, “it becomes none but tradesmen”.’

For several minutes Dido was too angry for speech and – since they had now come to a place where the sea ran in across the sands, almost to their feet – she stopped walking, withdrew her arm, and stood looking down upon the white curve of foaming water. Retaliation was, she felt, beneath her; but it was a great temptation and she certainly had the means of a very powerful counter-attack. Mr Mountjoy’s words in the inn yard yesterday had confirmed a little suspicion which had been growing upon her for some days …

She watched the lacy foam dissolve into the sand as the wave drew back.

Yes, she decided, retaliation was in fact
necessary.
Her investigations must continue. She certainly could not allow herself to be bullied into inaction.

She looked about to be sure their companions were not near. But Miss Fenstanton was stooping down to search for fossils higher up the beach, and Miss Gibbs was a long way back, almost under the cliffs.

‘But curiosity is in
my
nature,’ she began in a light conversational tone. ‘I thank you for your concern, Mrs Bailey; but you had better cease worrying about my enquiries. I am as I am, and…’ she turned her eyes upon her companion ‘… as the Great Bard says, “Things without all remedy, should be without regard”.’

Mrs Bailey coloured suddenly, and one hand twisted rapidly in her scarlet shawl.

But, before the hand was quite hidden, Dido noted with satisfaction that its fingers were crossed. She bent down and dug out a shell from the hard, damp sand. ‘In point of fact,’ she said, brushing sand from the shell and running her finger thoughtfully along its curving ridges, ‘although I have not yet solved the entire mystery of Miss Verney’s disappearance, I am satisfied that I already understand one or two very material points.’

‘Upon my word,’ cried Mrs Bailey with a brittle laugh.
‘Vous est trop
…’ she faltered, flapped her hand about a little ‘…
inquisiteeve,’
she finished hopefully.

‘Yes, I daresay I am. And one of the points I now understand is why you do not wish Miss Verney to be found.’

Mrs Bailey said nothing.

But a sideways look proved to Dido that her companion was biting anxiously at her lip. ‘You do not wish me to pursue my enquiries,’ she continued, ‘because you believe that the young lady might not wish to return to Charcombe Manor; you fear that she would be angry if she were brought back against her will; and her anger might be turned against you. You cannot countenance an angry Miss Verney, can you, Mrs Bailey? She would be too dangerous to you.’

‘Dangerous? Why this is just too ridiculous for words!’ trilled Mrs Bailey valiantly. ‘I am sure I do not know what you are talking of. Why ever should you suppose I fear my ward?’

‘I suppose it because you have, of late, become quite incapable of checking her behaviour,’ continued Dido seriously. ‘It seems you can deny her nothing. You did not wish her to remain at the manor to meet Mr Lomax on the day she disappeared – but you could not prevail upon her. You do not approve her friendship with Miss Gibbs, but you cannot prevent it.’

‘This is nonsense! Why do you suppose Letitia is so very terrible to me? Why must I always give way to her?’

‘That is a point which puzzled me for some time. But then I remembered that your acquiescence originated in the visit to Worcestershire last autumn. And I considered Miss Gibbs’ account of that business – the circumstances under which the matter was decided.’

It was Mrs Bailey’s turn to look about to be sure they were not overheard. Her yellow curls bobbed about her red cheeks as she turned this way and that.

Dido obligingly lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I recalled that your consent to the Worcestershire visit was given after an evening at a
theatre.
’

Mrs Bailey said nothing, but insensibly pressed together her hands as if pleading silently.

The gesture assured Dido that she was coming at the truth. ‘And it occurred to me,’ she said, ‘that there is something of the theatre about you, Mrs Bailey. It is in your manner – your gestures. And then you know so much of the
Great Bard’s
work. You frequently quote his words.’

‘A lady ought to be well read, I’m sure!’

‘But I have noticed something else. There are some extracts from Shakespeare which you do not like to hear. Miss Fenstanton’s remark that the sleeping and the dead are like pictures was not at all to your taste. Nor was the line which I quoted just now.’ She smiled and tossed the shell out into the sea. ‘And those lines, I have discovered, come from
Macbeth
– a play which is generally held to be unlucky – by
actresses.
’ She turned a look of great meaning upon her companion.

Mrs Bailey let out a kind of yelp at the word. She laid an anxious hand on Dido’s arm. ‘You will not say anything, will you?’

‘No. We shall trust one another to be discreet, shall we not? I shall not mention that you earned your living upon the stage before your marriage, and you will say nothing about my behaviour to my aunt.’

‘Oh yes.’

Dido smiled in triumph – and then pressed a little further. ‘But I hope you will oblige me by explaining just one little detail.’

‘What do you wish to know?’

‘Well, I can understand that Miss Verney may have discovered your past that evening at the theatre … Perhaps you met with an old theatrical acquaintance?’

‘It was Isaac,’ Mrs Bailey explained hastily. ‘Isaac Mountjoy. Letitia overheard him talking to me. Isaac wishes me to return to his company.’

‘And I understand that with such power over you, Miss Verney would be able to do pretty well as she wished. But…’

‘What is it?’ Mrs Bailey’s voice was sharp with worry – Miss Fenstanton was now making her way towards them across the sands.

‘When Mr Mountjoy spoke to you in the inn yard,’ said Dido, ‘I heard him say that “a friend” had told him where to find you. And I cannot help but wonder whether that “friend” was Letitia.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Mrs Bailey quickly. ‘It seems that after she ran away, Letitia sent a note to Isaac – at the theatre in town. To spite me.’

‘And do you know of any reason why Miss Verney should particularly wish to make trouble for you just now? Had there been a disagreement between you just before she left Charcombe Manor?’

‘No, there had not.’ Mrs Bailey’s brow contracted so that there was a great danger of the paint cracking. ‘I was surprised to find that she had gone away in such anger against me. Since that time in town I am sure I have done my utmost to accommodate the ungrateful girl.’

‘And yet it must have been something very particular which prompted her to take such an action as sending Mr Mountjoy here to cause you embarrassment before your acquaintances,’ mused Dido. But Miss Fenstanton was within earshot now and she was obliged to abandon the enquiry.

Mrs Bailey gratefully seized her opportunity of escape, claimed Emma’s arm, and walked off.

Dido could not look upon her stout figure hurrying away across the sands – pink bonnet ribbons and red shawl fluttering – without feeling a little triumph at her discomfort. But she earnestly wished that she might have had a moment longer to pursue her success.

Well, enquiries in that direction must now wait. And, in the meantime, she could not afford to stand idly by here on the sand watching the long waves roll ashore their burdens of foam and weed. At the top of the beach Miss Gibbs was still loitering alone beside the cliffs. This was undoubtedly the best chance of persuading that young lady into a confidence; here, upon the open beach, even the most suspicious mind need have no fear of eavesdroppers.

She hurried up the hard wet sand and made her way towards the cliffs.

*   *   *

As Dido approached it seemed that Martha was also in search of the fossils for which Charcombe’s shore is famed; she was walking slowly with her eyes downcast among the rocks and pebbles which had fallen from the cliff face.

However, as Dido came closer, she saw that it was misery rather than geology which was bowing down the poor girl’s head. There were fresh tears upon her cheeks; she was twisting one hand in the chain of her locket and crying quietly.

Dido stopped, reluctant to intrude upon such patent distress. Should she attempt to force a confidence? Would it be too unkind?

Martha had come to a standstill now in the shadow of the cliffs. The dark rocks looming over her figure gave her a small, vulnerable appearance.

As Dido hesitated, a single pebble rattled down the cliff and two seagulls started noisily into the air; their movement drew her eyes up the face of crumbling rock to the gorse that grew atop …

And there she saw a brown horse with its rider standing beside it – so close to the cliff’s edge that he seemed to be actually
in
the gorse bush. She had only time to note that he was standing immediately above Miss Gibbs, before the rocks began to fall.

Chapter Thirty-Two

At first it was no more than a few pebbles that fell – rolling and bouncing in little clouds of dry earth, mingled with tufts of grass. But in a moment there were larger pieces of rock falling, rolling down the cliffs with a terrible noise which echoed and re-echoed. Martha looked up and seemed to watch them for a moment without comprehending her danger. Then she screamed and began to run. And there was a horrible appearance of the stones being alive and wilfully pursuing her. They bounded down the cliff and out across the beach, moving with alarming speed through a rising cloud of dust. For a while there was nothing but noise and dust and fear.

Dido found herself foolishly holding out her hands and urging haste as if the tumbling rocks themselves were not encouragement enough to the terrified girl. Then, just as it seemed Martha had outrun the landslide, she stumbled, half fell, put one hand to her ankle. Dido started forward, seized her arm, and dragged her clear.

And, as she did so, through the cloud of dust and the grit in her eyes, she saw the man up on the cliff remount his horse and ride rapidly away across the downs.

Martha clung to Dido’s arm with both hands, her fingers rigid, her whole body shaking. The dirt was in their eyes, their noses, their mouths; it had settled in their hair. A few last stones rattled down the cliff and came to rest at their feet. Their companions were running towards them.

‘There was a man,’ Dido whispered hastily, brushing the dust from her lips. ‘He was on the cliff top. He made the rocks fall.’

‘Where?’ Martha looked about fearfully, her eyes appearing very white in her dusty face. ‘I can see nobody on the cliffs. There is nobody there.’

‘He is gone now – but I swear to you he
was
there. Who is he? Why did he do it?’

‘I can’t!’ Tears were making clean streaks through the dust now. ‘I just can’t tell you … You mustn’t say a word about it.’

Martha broke away and joined the others in exclaiming upon the terrible accident. They were all agreed that it was a very terrible accident indeed and no one could find words adequate to describe how they had felt upon first seeing the rocks falling. But it was a mercy that Miss Gibbs had looked up when she did, was it not? If she had not, the accident might have been a great deal worse …

Martha was consoled, her face cleaned with a handkerchief; her ankle was discovered to be only twisted, not broken; Emma undertook to hurry on to the inn and send word for the carriage to be brought – and Mrs Bailey offered a great deal of advice.

And still no objection was raised against the word ‘accident’. Martha did not contradict it and, after a little consideration, neither did Dido. She needed to think a little about it all before she could determine what to say or do.

As the others began to move away she loitered behind on the deserted beach, looking at the debris spread across the damp, hard-packed sand: earth and pebbles and grass, bushes torn up by their roots, and the clean fractured rock from the heart of the cliff – angular fragments veined with grey and red. There was even the ragged remains of a bird’s nest with one pale egg lying within, miraculously unbroken by the fall.

Cautiously Dido picked her way back towards the cliff through the smell of damp rock and disturbed earth. The voices of her companions were fading into the distance, Mrs Bailey still declaring that she had never, never been so frightened in her life. For she was not easily frightened; her friends frequently remarked upon her steady nerves. But, upon her word, she could not describe how she had felt when she first turned and saw those great stones tumbling down …

The dramatic tones trailed away and were replaced by the cries of returning gulls, the crash and sigh of distant waves.

Dido gazed up the cliff, with its raw red scar, loose pebbles and hanging tufts of grass, to the place where the man had stood. Half of the gorse bush was now fallen away. The ground up there was certainly unsafe; the cliffs seemed to be formed of crumbling rock and soft red earth. From his position, the watching man could have easily set the slide in motion by kicking away at the edge.