A Woman of Consequence Page 19

  But the signs are not good for my being allowed to go. The subject is now under perpetual discussion here at the vicarage, and Margaret has a great deal to say upon the subject of ‘expense’ and ‘not imposing upon the goodwill of the Crockfords’ and even of ‘there being nothing to be achieved from such a visit at six and thirty’ – by which I suppose she means that I am unlikely to return with a new name on my tickets.

  At times I am sorely tempted to disclose my true situation …

  And of course I have another reason, besides this enquiry into the science of human nature, for wishing to go to Bath. I am very anxious indeed to find out just who Penelope is. This second haunting must increase the suspicion that she is the daughter of the dead woman.

  But, at present, I have no chance of even getting back to the abbey to pursue my enquiries – much less travelling to Bath. For Rebecca is still gasping and sneezing in her bed, young Mary is busy with the marketing, and Margaret has had Francis get horses for the carriage and gone to pay a call upon Mrs Harman-Foote. So I am once more in charge of the bread, the spit, the curds and the cat.

  And, by the by, it is to the latter that you must attribute the smudged writing of this letter: it is no fault of mine. Puss has been walking about the table and trying to put herself between me and the page this last quarter of an hour. She is now settled upon my lap and purring a kind of counterpoint to the spit’s ticking.

  Monday night’s ‘haunting’ has disturbed me greatly. I want very much to be doing something. But I am neither able to get out of this kitchen, nor am I even certain what it is that I ought to be doing.

  Even my scheme to help Silas is not prospering. He declares himself heartbroken at the prospect of Penelope’s going, but I have not yet seen a single line of his poem. Harriet informs me that most of his time is now spent in shooting and lounging about with Mr Coulson – and very angry she is about it too! The effects upon his health are, I believe …

  She broke off as a loud knocking sounded on the kitchen door. The cat leapt up with such a look as seemed to suggest the noise was Dido’s fault and stalked away.

  She opened the door to find Harris Paynter on the step, a thin mizzling rain silvering his dark coat. He was come, he said, to visit Rebecca.

  ‘For I hear,’ he said, coming in and shaking moisture from his hat, ‘that she has been sick some days.’

  ‘She has indeed and I sincerely hope that you can cure her.’ Dido stepped to the fireside and began to turn the key of the spit, for it was all but unwound. ‘We are in a great muddle without her.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ He shook his hat again, sending drops of water hissing against the range. ‘I am sorry … I did not know.’ He hesitated a moment, looking very disconcerted, then excused himself and hurried away to make the examination.

  Dido stood for several minutes upon the hearth rug, staring after him and wondering very much why he should feel it necessary to apologise for the sickness of his patient. It seemed to be yet another conundrum which she could not answer – one of many surrounding her at present.

  She had basted the meat and put the bread into the oven when the surgeon reappeared, crossed immediately to the range and threw a handful of something onto the hot coals. ‘I am sure Rebecca will be quite well by tomorrow,’ he said, turning to the door and putting on his hat.

  She tried to delay him with a question, but he seemed determined upon going and, pleading another case which urgently required his attendance, hurried off into the rain.

  ‘How very strange,’ she said as the door closed behind him. ‘Did it seem to you, Puss, that the good surgeon was anxious and guilty about something?’

  The cat expressed no opinion upon this subject; she was entirely taken up with watching the sparks which were now flying from the range, her nose twitching delicately at the strong odour accompanying them.

  Burning feathers! It was a horribly familiar smell to Dido, for it had been her grandmother’s favoured restorative (in Grandmama’s opinion, the pleasanter scents of lavender and aromatic vinegar only encouraged silly girls to swoon). She crossed to the fire and saw that a bundle of brown hens’ feathers was being rapidly consumed in the heart of the embers.

  How very odd. Why was Mr Paynter disposing of feathers? She stared down into the glowing red cave of the fire, her mind moving rapidly as she recalled his plucking of the chicken at Madderstone. And then other ideas began to occur …

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  … Feathers, Eliza! Feathers! Have you noticed how very many feathers there have been blowing about in this mystery?

  And yet I had not thought to consider them until now.

  Well, I have made up the deficiency: the last hour of my time has been devoted entirely to the consideration of feathers. I have visited poor Rebecca (who is now most miraculously recovered) – and learnt a great deal. Her information has answered one or two troubling questions – and started half a dozen more.

  There was, at first, a certain reluctance to talk. For ‘the mistress’ would be very angry if she knew what had been carrying on. Though she (Rebecca) had not known that she would be so ‘poorly’ and throw the whole house into a muddle …

  At last, however, upon an assurance that I would not speak a word to the dreaded ‘mistress’, the story all came out.

  It would seem, Eliza, that Rebecca has been the subject – or rather, the victim – of one of Mr Paynter’s ‘experiments’. You see, the surgeon has been investigating ‘what it is that makes folk like poor Mr Crockford wheeze so much.’ And, noticing that ‘rich folk wheeze more than ordinary ones’, he was taken with the notion that it might be the result of what Rebecca calls ‘a bad masma’ coming out of the feathers in their beds. And so he decided to subject some ‘ordinary folk’ – people that had not feather beds – to this poisonous miasma in order to see whether it made them ill.

  Surely only Mr Paynter could have embarked upon such an odd undertaking!

  He has supplied bundles of feathers to villagers in Madderstone and Badleigh, and paid them sixpence apiece to place them beneath their pillows. And the result? I confess my own curiosity made me quite impatient to know it. But it would seem that Rebecca has been the only one to produce so much as a single wheeze – though I am assured that ‘old Jonas Wells reckons the feathers charmed his warts away. And Mary Ann, what’s kitchen maid up at the abbey, is sure they made her dream about the man she’s going to marry.’

  To Rebecca’s great astonishment however, Mr Paynter is interested in neither wart charms nor lovers; but she tells me that he has not entirely given up his idea of feathers causing asthma. He now believes that, while most people have the constitution to withstand the noxious vapour arising from them, some – like Rebecca and Silas – have a weakness to it and so become ill.

  It seems to me to be a rather wild idea. For, I ask you, Eliza, if feathers are a cause of sickness, why do birds appear so very healthy? But I don’t doubt poor Silas will now be denied the comfort of a feather bed as well as port wine and rich food … Ah well, if he is saved from another bad attack of the asthma, I suppose the sacrifice will be well made. For the last one very nearly killed him.

  And it was in fact that consideration which started an entirely new train of thought and led me back to my mystery. For, you see, I believe this experiment, besides explaining Mr Paynter’s plucking of Mrs Philips’ chicken, may also throw some light upon the haunting of Penelope’s bedchamber …

  But as yet this is only surmise; there is nothing decided, nothing fixed; and I will not expose myself by claiming a solution which I may later be obliged to retract. I must give the matter a great deal more thought. There is one very important question which I must ask – and I must ask it in such a way as not to betray my interest.

  I have been walking about the house this last half-hour endeavouring to find a situation in which I may think all these things over in peace; for the rain continues steadily and the moss hut is unattainable. I am now at the table in the parl
our, but I cannot hope to remain undisturbed for long. Margaret will soon return … Ah, I hear footsteps approaching already. I had better hide my letter or there will be impertinent questions. Oh, Eliza, the comfort of being sometimes alone!

  The parlour door opened and Dido found that she must hastily put away her look of discontent, for the intruder was not Margaret, but Mr Lomax.

  ‘Miss Kent,’ he exclaimed, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room with a look of great confusion, ‘I have had the most alarming letter …’ He stopped as he saw the anxiety on her face and held out a reassuring hand. ‘Forgive me – I should not have been so violent. There is nothing to distress yourself about. No bad news from any of our friends. I only meant that I have received a letter which has puzzled me very much. I cannot make out what it means.’

  ‘Indeed?’ She invited him to a seat and for a moment they faced one another in silence across the green baize tablecloth. Rain pattered on the window beside them. He looked as if he did not know how to go on. ‘May I ask who this letter is from?’ she prompted.

  ‘It is from my friend, George Lockhart,’ he replied, then, seeing her blank look, he added, ‘George lives in Shropshire – very close to old Mrs Foote.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ cried Dido with rising interest. ‘I recall – it was to him you were to apply for information about Miss Fenn’s family?’

  ‘It was.’

  He pressed together the tips of his fingers – causing her to ask: ‘And what has he told you that is making you think so very deeply, Mr Lomax?’

  ‘He has told me that there is no family of the name of Fenn living in that neighbourhood.’

  ‘Is he quite sure?’

  ‘Oh yes. He is certain that there is no family called Fenn residing within thirty miles of Mrs Foote’s home.’

  ‘How very strange,’ she cried. ‘I was sure that Miss Fenn had come from that county. I thought that her family were neighbours of Mrs Foote and that is how she came to be recommended to the Harmans. But perhaps,’ she said, considering, ‘I may have mistaken Anne’s information … Perhaps it was an acquaintance Mrs Foote formed in town … But no,’ she added, ‘no, all the gossiping ladies of Badleigh and Madderstone are quite sure that Miss Fenn came from Shropshire …’ She stopped.

  He was frowning over his linked fingers and she understood his looks well enough to know that he was far from comfortable. There was something else to tell – something which he was reluctant to broach.

  ‘My friend George is a … singular fellow,’ he began slowly. ‘He is very persistent. Once he is presented with a puzzle he cannot rest until it is solved.’ He smiled. ‘In fact, I know of only one person who can equal him for finding things out – and that is yourself.’

  ‘Then Mr Lockhart must be a remarkably capable and intelligent man!’

  ‘I shall not, of course, contradict you,’ he said with a gracious inclination of his head. ‘But I confess that, in the present case, he has been a great deal more … diligent than I asked him to be.’

  Dido found herself rather warming to the unknown Mr Lockhart. ‘And what has he discovered?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘He has discovered Elinor Fenn. He has discovered that, until twenty two years ago, Elinor Fenn was living in Mrs Foote’s own house.’

  ‘Oh! But I thought you said that there was no one of that name in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Ah no,’ he said gravely. ‘I said that there was no family of that name.’

  ‘You are too precise!’

  ‘Not at all. The science of disputation requires precision. Besides …’ He could not suppress a smile. ‘Are you not always reminding me of the importance of noticing details?’

  She opened her mouth to argue, but could find nothing to say, and he continued with insufferable self-complacency.

  ‘Elinor Fenn did indeed reside in Shropshire. She was, in point of fact …’ He stopped – his uneasiness was returned now. ‘She was a maid in Mrs Foote’s household.’

  ‘A maid!’ cried Dido – her resentment all forgotten in the shock. ‘Elinor Fenn was a maid before coming to Madderstone?’

  ‘It would seem that she was.’ He looked down at his linked fingers. ‘You must understand,’ he said, after a moment’s struggle, ‘that I did not ask George to pursue the topic so far … but he saw fit to make enquiries through … tavern talk, the gossip of stable yards … I know not what.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ cried Dido whose regard for Mr Lockhart was increasing rapidly. ‘How very shocking! And what did this gossip reveal?’

  He frowned at her severely, but continued. ‘It revealed that the young woman disappeared from her employer’s home …’

  ‘Twenty-two years ago?’

  ‘Yes. And it is supposed – as it generally is in such cases – that the reason for her sudden removal was—’

  ‘She was with child!’

  He inclined his head reluctantly and Dido sat for several minutes eagerly considering his information. ‘And do the men of the taverns and stables have anything to say about who the father of her child might be?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said with a reproving frown. ‘They do not. And,’ he added hastily, ‘before you suggest it, no, I shall not ask George to make any further enquiries. In my opinion, the matter has been carried quite far enough.’

  There was something about the set of his jaw as he spoke which determined her against pressing him. Instead she considered the information which Mr Lockhart had supplied.

  ‘I suppose,’ she mused, ‘that Miss Fenn’s simple possessions – the coarse hairbrush, the old bible – might suggest poverty.’

  ‘She lived in comfort at Madderstone,’ he remarked, the note of distaste and disapproval very strong in his voice. ‘It would seem that her sin was rather well rewarded.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘But?’ He regarded her questioningly.

  ‘It is so very strange,’ she mused. ‘That her history should be so … dishonourable.’ She hesitated to go on with the subject; she sensed his discomfort at its indelicacy – and yet, she was too puzzled, too intrigued to stop. ‘Miss Fenn appeared to her neighbours to be such a virtuous woman.’

  ‘Then it would seem her neighbours were deceived.’

  ‘That is just what Mr Portinscale says. But I find it very hard to believe.’ She frowned out of the streaming window at a dripping strand of climbing rose, which scraped to and fro across the glass. ‘You see, Mr Lomax, I have always had a great idea that we cannot hide our true selves from our neighbours. At least,’ she added, turning back to him with a smiling shrug of the shoulders, ‘those of us who live in the country cannot. In the hurry and busyness of a town it may be different. But here in the country – where we lack other diversions – I believe we will always find out the true nature of our neighbours.’

  ‘I grant,’ he said, ‘that in the country a great deal of time is devoted to knowing our neighbours’ business.’

  ‘And yet, here was Miss Fenn, residing in a country village and so surrounded by a hundred voluntary spies, but she contrived to keep her character completely hidden. Do you not think it quite extraordinary?’

  ‘It is, perhaps, unusual,’ he admitted. ‘But I believe that, in this case, you must give up your “great idea” to proof and reason. The evidences are all against you.’

  Yet she could not give it up, and his urging only made her more determined upon defence. She thought of the simple possessions; the notes written upon sermons; the text above the bed. She began, with great determination, to look around for proofs and reasons of her own. ‘Perhaps she was not guilty …’

  ‘Her guilt is proved. There is the child – and this sudden removal from her employer’s house.’

  ‘And yet,’ she pursued, ‘perhaps it is possible that she was innocent … It might be,’ she said, leaning eagerly across the green baize as a new thought occurred, ‘it might be that the sin was not mutual.’

  He looked startled as her meaning s
truck home. ‘I do not think you had better go on,’ he said with grave disapproval.

  But there was no preventing Dido now, for she had seen the salvation of her ‘great idea’ – it lay in the ancient wrongs of her sex. ‘Her being with child might be the result of a man’s sin only,’ she cried. ‘Everyone knows of the … nuisances which young maids sometimes suffer in great houses. The crime might not be mutual. After all, a man is stronger than a woman – perhaps her consent was not given …’

  She stopped. There was a look of disgust upon his face. She comprehended at last the very great impropriety of describing such a scene to a gentleman – and looked hastily away from him. But there was no recalling her words; they seemed to echo about Margaret’s grim parlour.

  Mr Lomax stood up. ‘I think our conversation had better end, Miss Kent, if we are got onto such subjects.’ But he stopped with his hands clenched on the back of a chair. ‘Does this not demonstrate to you,’ he said with quiet control, ‘the very great danger of conducting these arguments – when they lead you into contemplation of scenes which no lady should allow to intrude upon her thoughts?’

  Dido turned to the window, and met the faint reflection of her own red face on the dark streaming glass. The very ticking of the clock on the mantle had a shocked sound to her ears; and her own father’s silhouette seemed to be regarding her with a look of displeasure which the original had rarely turned upon her.

  But her nature was one in which embarrassment was always more inclined to produce justification than remorse …

  ‘Mr Lomax,’ she protested, ‘I thought I was to be allowed to disagree with you.’

  ‘It is not your disagreement which troubles me. But …’ He put a hand to his brow, ‘But I must blame myself when I allow the pleasure of conversing with you to draw you into unsuitable subjects.’