A Gentleman of Fortune Read online

  Miss Bevan smiled and began upon a gentle greeting, but her words were immediately lost in the loud throwing open of the door behind them and the bustling entrance of her guardian. Nearly everyone in the room turned to see who it was.

  ‘There you are Mary! I wondered where you were got to! And Miss Kent too, I believe,’ peering through the gloom. ‘Very pleased to see you, I’m sure Miss Kent.’

  Mrs Midgely was a large woman of about fifty years old, dressed in yellow patterned muslin with a great many curls on her head and a great deal of colour in her broad cheeks. ‘Such a delightful exploring party yesterday,’ she continued. ‘I am sure we are all very much obliged to dear Mrs Beaumont for inviting us. You may tell her that she will soon receive a letter of particular thanks from me.’

  Dido began upon a civil reply, but was not suffered to continue long. Mrs Midgely was just come from the haberdasher’s and so was full of news and delighted to have chanced so soon upon someone to whom she could tell it.

  ‘Well, Miss Kent,’ she burst out, ‘it seems it was the Black Drop that did the damage. Mrs Pickthorne says that Mr Vane says it was the Black Drop for sure.’

  ‘The Black Drop?’ repeated Dido.

  Mrs Midgely smiled broadly and comfortably: sure of having her attention. ‘It was,’ she said loudly, ‘the Black Drop which killed Mrs Lansdale.’

  There seemed to be a little quietness around them in the post office: a sense of listening. Dido noticed that poor Mary Bevan’s eyes were turned upon the floor and a blush of shame was creeping up her cheek. It seemed that years of experience had not inured the girl to the behaviour of her guardian.

  ‘And what,’ asked Dido, as quietly as she might, ‘what is the Black Drop?’

  ‘It is,’ announced Mrs Midgely, ‘a barbarous medicine, made in the north country, which Mrs Lansdale had got into the habit of using. The Kendal Black Drop it is called.’

  ‘Kendal?’

  ‘Kendal,’ said Miss Bevan quickly, ‘is a town in Westmorland – near Mrs Lansdale’s home – quite near to the Lake Country I believe. I wonder, Miss Kent, if you ever happened to read Mr West’s delightful Guide to the Lakes?’

  It was a valiant attempt to turn the conversation but the poor girl might as well have held up her hand to halt a raging bull. There was no stopping her guardian from telling her news.

  ‘The Kendal Black Drop,’ she reiterated with great weight – and cast a withering look at poor Mary. ‘It is a stuff four times stronger than laudanum and it seems that poor Mrs Lansdale was quite addicted to its use.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And dear Mr Vane is sure that if she had but taken his advice and given it up, he could, in the end, have cured her of all her illnesses. For, you know, Miss Kent, he is a very clever man…’

  ‘And so, Mr Vane believes that it was her use of this medicine which brought on Mrs Lansdale’s seizure?’ said Dido more loudly. ‘What a very unfortunate accident.’

  She attempted to step away to deal with her business at the counter, where there was now a vacancy. But so eager was Mrs Midgely to finish her tale that she laid a hand upon her arm.

  ‘Well,’ she continued in the same inconveniently loud voice. ‘It was the Black Drop killed her for sure. But a great deal of it. He is quite sure that she had drunk four times as much of the stuff as she should have done.’

  ‘Four times?’ echoed Dido. Internally she could not but admit it was a very large amount. But she only said, ‘how…regrettable.’

  ‘Well, what Mr Vane cannot understand is this: how did she come to drink so much all at once?’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Miss Bevan firmly, ‘that with so powerful and dangerous a medicine, an accident, though very sad, is hardly to be wondered at.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Dido, hastily putting aside her own doubts.

  ‘Accident indeed!’ cried Mrs Midgely. But she had said all she wished to say and seemed well satisfied with the looks of interest she was receiving from the people around her. She allowed Dido to escape to the counter. ‘And did you get any letters?’ she asked Mary.

  ‘No, Ma’am, none at all.’

  Dido turned back at the sound of the lie – and saw that it had brought another, brighter, blush to Mary’s cheeks.

  Chapter Three

  Next morning Dido accompanied Flora upon a visit of condolence to Henry Lansdale. She was very eager to meet him; reasoning that a man who could earn such affection from his friends and such malice from his neighbours, could not fail to be interesting.

  It was another exceedingly hot day with not a cloud to be seen in the sky. Down beyond the river the hay was being cut and the scent of it carried right into the town. The two women walked slowly along the tree-shaded street.

  ‘I do not doubt,’ said Dido after walking for some time in silence, ‘from everything I have observed, that Mrs Midgely is a very malicious woman. But what I cannot yet quite determine is why her malice should be particularly directed against Mr Lansdale. Do you know of any reason why she should be his enemy?’

  ‘No, I do not!’ Flora Beaumont frowned prettily in the deep shade of her bonnet, her soft white nose wrinkling in a way which always put Dido in mind of a rabbit. ‘He is such a very delightful man. Why, I cannot conceive that he could have an enemy in the whole world! And besides, Mrs Midgely does not know him.’ Her lips puckered in a childish pout. ‘The Lansdales have been here but a month and Mrs Midgely is not even upon visiting terms with them, you know.’

  ‘Then perhaps she had heard something ill of him.’

  ‘But I have told you, there is nothing ill to hear! Nothing at all!’

  ‘There were, I understand, quarrels between aunt and nephew.’

  ‘Oh, but they were nothing! It was just her way.’ Flora paused in the shade of a tree, twisting one finger daintily in the long ribbon of her bonnet. ‘I rather fancy she liked to quarrel sometimes, you know. There was always a great making up afterwards.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Dido suggested, trying her best not to injure her cousin’s sensitive feelings, ‘perhaps it is jealousy which turns Mrs M against him. He is after all so very fortunate – a poor young man taken in by his aunt, and now inheriting a great estate in Westmorland…’

  ‘Dido! Do not talk so! I cannot bear it. You sound so horribly suspicious.’

  ‘No, no,’ Dido assured her hastily. ‘I am not at all suspicious. I am only trying to understand why other people might be suspicious.’

  ‘Well!’ cried Flora, clapping her hands together. ‘I can tell you why such a woman as Mrs Midgely is suspicious. It is because she is spiteful and cruel…and horrid. And we must find a way to silence her. You must find a way, Dido. You are the clever one. The whole world is forever saying how very clever you are.’

  ‘I am sure I am very much obliged to the world for its good opinion. And I certainly intend to silence Mrs Midgely if I can. But…’

  She stopped suddenly because they had come now through the gates of Knaresborough House and, as they started up the sweep, she had caught sight of something rather strange.

  A young boy in a gardener’s smock was digging a hole beneath the great boughs of the cedar tree which stood close by the gate. As Dido and Flora watched, he thrust his spade into the pile of excavated earth, picked up a bundle wrapped in sacking and dropped it into the hole.

  ‘Oh dear!’ cried Dido, almost without thinking, ‘is that a grave you are making?’ Impelled by overwhelming curiosity, she hurried towards him, leaving Flora frowning upon the gravel.

  The boy looked up, pushing damp hair out of his eyes. He was about twelve years old with fair, almost white hair and a drift of freckles across his cheeks and nose. ‘It is Sam, is it not?’ said Dido. ‘We met when you came to dig the new flower-bed in Mrs Beaumont’s garden. Do you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, miss,’ he said with a smile. ‘I remember. You was very kind about that wasp sting.’

  ‘And today you are working for Mr Lansdale?’ Dido looked inq
uiringly towards the hole.

  ‘Yes miss,’ he said. ‘I’m burying Mrs Lansdale’s little dog.’

  ‘Oh? Indeed!’ said Dido with great interest.

  ‘Been dead nearly a week, miss. I’d not come any closer if I were you.’

  She took a step back, for there was indeed a very unpleasant odour mixing with the scent of lilac and the dark smell of the cedar. ‘Nearly a week?’ She glanced anxiously back at Flora and calculated rapidly. ‘Then the dog died about the same time as Mrs Lansdale?’

  Sam nodded. ‘They say he went missing the very night the old lady died. But they only found him this morning – dead and hidden in among the laurel bushes.’

  ‘I see. How strange.’ How very strange. She gazed thoughtfully at the gaping hole in the ground. Why should the dog die at the same time as his mistress? It seemed a remarkable coincidence – indeed it seemed a great deal more than a coincidence… ‘But,’ she said carefully, ‘they do say, do they not, that a dog will sometimes pine away when the person to whom he has been devoted dies?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, miss,’ said Sam. He too looked down at the open grave and rubbed the side of his nose, smearing dirt into the freckles. ‘It may be a dog’d pine away,’ he said slowly. ‘But I can’t see how any dog would be so heart-broke it’d crawl away into a bush and cut its own throat.’

  ‘Oh no, no indeed,’ said Dido as she turned away, ‘you are quite right. Quite right.’

  ‘I do not see,’ said Flora irritably, ‘why you should be so concerned about the death of a dog.’

  ‘But my dear cousin, it is of the greatest importance. For it would seem the dog died at the hand of man, and that must mean…’ She stopped herself. There was something so remarkably innocent about Flora’s childlike face – the wide blue eyes gazing at her in such a puzzled, unsuspecting way…

  Dido shrugged up her shoulders and merely said, ‘Well it is very strange, is it not?’

  But her thoughts were working rapidly. The dog had been killed. Why? Why should the animal meet its death at the very same time as its mistress…? Unless there had been dark forces at work here at Knaresborough House.

  The great question must be: had the death of the lady been as unnatural as her pet’s? Dido found herself remembering the apothecary’s account of the large amount of opium mixture Mrs Lansdale had drunk. She could not help it; she was beginning to wonder whether there could be some truth in the rumours. Perhaps there was some agency at work here worse than the malice of gossip.

  She approached the respectable red-brick front of Knaresborough House with increased interest – and more than a little suspicion.

  A remarkably young and inexperienced maid opened the door to them. She was very unsure of herself. She was unsure of how many curtsies she should make; unsure of whether Flora was to be addressed as ‘Miss’ or ‘Madam’; unsure whether her master was at home. And then, having ascertained that he was at home, and that he would be ‘down directly’, she was very unsure indeed about which room the visitors should be shown into.

  She stood for several moments in the spacious, white-painted entrance hall, looking anxiously from one closed door to another, her hands twisting clumsily in her apron. No superior servant appeared to advise her and Dido observed the scene with great interest, wondering how it came about that such a fine house should be so ill-served. She had expected a manservant to open the door – a fellow with a bit of dignity about him: and a footman perhaps in attendance too.

  ‘It had better be the drawing room, I think,’ said the girl at last, throwing open a door, ‘though it’s not been used or put to rights since the day before the mistress died and I hope you’ll excuse it not being aired.’

  They walked into the room and Dido looked about her with great interest.

  It was very gloomy from the blinds still being half-drawn, and the furnishings were as impersonal as those of any house that is offered to be let by the month – though very rich and substantial, as befitted one advertised as a spacious residence suitable to a gentleman of fortune. There was a wealth of solid mahogany furniture and silver candlesticks, a magnificent, steadily ticking wall clock, and sumptuous, over-long curtains of cream brocade which lay in folds upon the Axminster carpet; but there was little that spoke the character of the present occupants – except, perhaps, some pretty red shades which had been fitted over the candles by the hearth.

  ‘I believe,’ said Dido, turning to her cousin, ‘that, in general, it is possible to learn a great deal about our acquaintances from looking at their drawing rooms.’

  ‘Is it?’ Flora looked startled. It was not an idea that had ever come into her head before.

  ‘Though,’ Dido admitted as she began to walk about the room, ‘on the present occasion, I do not know that I can deduce much beyond the fact that Mrs Lansdale was a rather vain woman.’

  ‘Why do you say so?’

  ‘What other purpose is there in a red light but to flatter a woman’s face? And,’ she said, turning to the open pianoforte, ‘I see that she was a musical lady. And on the evening that she died she had been playing – or listening to…’ She took the sheet of music from the stand, ‘…Robin Adair.’

  ‘Oh no! You are quite wrong, you know,’ said Flora, following her across the room. ‘I have never in my whole life known such a very unmusical woman. She never played herself, and she quite hated to hear anyone else play.’

  ‘Did she? That is strange. But perhaps that is why there is no other music here. And yet,’ Dido added thoughtfully, ‘it seems someone has been playing: for here is the instrument open and the music set ready upon the stand…’

  She picked up the sheet of music and studied it more closely. It was the usual kind of thing – to be found on music stands everywhere: paper bought from the stationers with the lines already ruled, but with notes and words filled in afterwards by hand. In this case certainly by a woman’s hand… Yes, most certainly a woman’s hand. The notes were drawn very neat and black and clear and the words were written in a pretty, flowing hand which put a great many twists and turns upon the letters – particularly upon the Ss and the Ws.

  She put it down and crossed to the hearth, where her eye was caught by a mark upon the back of a chair. She touched it and found it to be sticky. She put her fingers to her nose and smelt pomade and powder.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I would guess one thing about Mr Lansdale. I would guess that he puts powder in his hair.’

  ‘Indeed he does not!’ cried Flora, shocked at the suggestion. ‘Such a nasty, old-fashioned habit! My dear cousin, no gentleman under forty puts powder in his hair now!’

  ‘Well then, if you are quite sure, I think we may say that, on the evening of his aunt’s death, Mr Lansdale was visited by an ageing and unfashionable man…Or rather,’ she said, looking across at the chair on the opposite side of the hearth, and seeing a similar stain, ‘by two ageing and unfashionable men – one of whom was considerably taller than the other.’

  ‘Dido, now I am sure that you are making things up! How can you possibly know how tall the gentlemen were?’

  ‘By the places at which their heads rested upon the chairs. Look. Do you not see that one of the powder stains is much higher than the other?’

  ‘Oh yes! Why it is true, you are clever!’

  ‘Thank you.’ Dido turned aside knowing that she ought not to take so very much pleasure in the compliment.

  As she turned, her eye fell upon the mantel shelf. There was a white and gold china shepherdess, thinly coated in dust, and a very fine pair of branching silver candlesticks – and, propped behind one of the candlesticks, there was a little bit of pasteboard. With a quick glance at the door to be sure they were not overlooked, she picked it up and read what was written on it…

  She stared. Read it again. And then again a third time as if she could not quite believe what she had seen.

  ‘Flora,’ she said. ‘Mrs Midgely claims that she is unacquainted with the Lansdales – is tha
t not so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She says she does not know them at all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then she is lying.’ She held out the piece of pasteboard. ‘Look, here is her calling card.’

  Flora’s little mouth dropped open in surprise. But before she could speak, there was a sound of heavy footsteps behind them.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said a very deep voice. The two women turned rather guiltily and saw, standing in the doorway, precisely the kind of manservant Dido had expected to find in this house: a very tall man – not many inches short of six feet in height – with a high-domed, bald head, an air of extreme dignity and a voice so low that it seemed to echo somewhere deep inside her.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘there has been a mistake. Young Sarah should not have brought you into this room.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Dido cheerfully. ‘Do not worry about us. We are quite comfortable here.’

  ‘I am very glad to hear it, miss.’ The man regarded her with solemn disapproval. ‘But it is not Mr Lansdale’s wish that this room should be used. If you will just step across into the breakfast room…’ he said.

  And there was nothing for it but to put aside all thoughts and suspicions of Mrs Midgely for the moment and follow the manservant across the entrance hall into a smaller, sunnier apartment where they were soon joined by Mr Lansdale – and Miss Neville, the lady who had been Mrs Lansdale’s companion.

  Henry Lansdale, she discovered, was a very handsome young man indeed. And as charming as Flora had made him out to be. He had lively blue eyes, a fine bearing, and a pleasant, unreserved manner. During the first ten minutes of the visit he behaved exactly as he ought upon receiving a visit of condolence. He ran through an account of his aunt’s death; explaining that she had retired to bed early on her last evening. She had been tired, he said, but they had had no reason to think she was at all in danger – until the housemaid discovered her dead in her bed next morning.