A Woman of Consequence Read online

  Dido sighed and echoed the sentiment internally. Indeed, matters were pretty bad: if Laurence was corresponding with Penelope, then there could be no doubt of his having reached an ‘understanding’ with her too – nothing less could authorise it. She gazed up helplessly at the carving on the sunny church wall above their heads and wished that the stone angels there who laboured perpetually up Jacob’s ladder might carry with them a prayer for assistance; for she was beginning to fear that this tangle was beyond mortal ingenuity.

  ‘I doubt Penelope will heed you,’ said Harriet to Mrs Nolan as they all walked on together. ‘Her notions are all romantic, you know.’

  It was a point upon which three such sensible women could not but agree and they continued in rather gloomy silence along the shady north side of the church and past the Lower Rooms. Dido was turning over in her mind the evidences for Captain Laurence’s plans of seduction and considering the ingenuity with which it was all carrying on.

  ‘But what I cannot quite understand,’ she confessed as they came to the road beside the river and paused to allow the passing of a smart curricle, ‘one point which still rather puzzles me is this: how was Captain Laurence’s acquaintance with Miss Lambe begun? I can imagine a handsome, plausible man going on very well once he has a fair opportunity. But how does he begin? How does he get an introduction?’

  ‘Lord! My dear Miss Kent, young fellows these days scarcely need an introduction! Not in public places such as this.’ And Mrs Nolan scowled about her as they hurried through the dirt of the road – as if the very streets of Bath were her personal enemies. ‘They begin by watching, you see – you may be sure I had noticed the captain and his fat friend watching the poor girl a week or more before he acted. And then he played his trick … and it was such an old, worn-out trick as only an innocent like Miss Lambe could be taken in by.’

  ‘Oh?’ Both Harriet and Dido looked at her with interest.

  ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘for it was nought but the old game of picking up a lady’s dropped handkerchief. In the Pump Room one morning, not six weeks past! That’s how he forced himself upon the poor lass’s attention.’

  ‘I see.’ Dido knew the trick well. In her youth she had dropped a handkerchief or two herself, though she had always found it a rather unsatisfactory stratagem, since they had invariably been retrieved by the wrong gentleman.

  ‘But,’ protested Harriet with a frown, ‘that’s a game two must play, is it not? For, when all’s said and done, the handkerchief must be dropped before it can be returned.’

  ‘Oh Lord!’ exclaimed Mrs Nolan. ‘You are nigh as innocent as Miss Lambe herself! In Bath these days fellows such as yon captain carry a ready supply of ladies’ handkerchiefs in their pockets – aye, and fans too. And then it is all, “I beg your pardon, but I was sure it fell from your hand. In this crowd it is so difficult to determine …” And very clever it is, for, of course, the less the lass believes it, the more flattered she is.’

  ‘How very … unpleasant,’ said Dido.

  ‘Aye. But the difficulty,’ she confided, ‘lies in ensuring that it does not become anything worse than “unpleasant”, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Dido and Harriet. And they all stopped, as if by common consent, looking down upon the sluggish river flowing from beneath Pulteney Bridge and at the gulls which wheeled above it, crying out as harshly as the men in the crowding boats. For a moment they were all lost in the awful contemplation of that great chasm of ‘worse than unpleasant’ which gapes just beneath the intercourse of the respectable world and threatens always to swallow up incautious members of the fair sex.

  But, all at once, Dido’s considerations took an entirely different turn …

  ‘Pardon me, Mrs Nolan,’ she cried, ‘but did you say that Captain Laurence has been acquainted with Miss Lambe for only six weeks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that is very odd – very odd indeed.’ She frowned thoughtfully and turned to Harriet. ‘I understood from Lucy,’ she said as they all walked on to the bridge, ‘that it was about then that he introduced Penelope to you.’

  ‘It was,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Aye, that’s right,’ confirmed Mrs Nolan, ‘I remember it perfectly well. It was no more than two days after he had so kindly “picked up her handkerchief”.’

  ‘How very strange.’ Dido fell into a reverie.

  They turned onto the bridge and made their way as best they could between the carriages passing on the busy road and the people loitering about to look in the windows of the little shops.

  ‘Why …’ said Dido slowly at last, ‘…was he in such a very great hurry to make that introduction?’

  ‘Why,’ said Mrs Nolan, glancing a little uneasily at Harriet, ‘to get her invited to the country, I suppose, so that he might carry on his attentions there.’

  But Dido shook her head. ‘No,’ she said with emphasis, ‘I do not think so. I am sure that cannot have been his motive. It is very stupid of me not to have thought of this before! I am quite sure he could have pursued her more conveniently here, where, as you say, the public places allow a great deal more license than is ever possible in private parties.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Mrs Nolan slowly, ‘I suppose that is true enough.’

  ‘And,’ continued Dido eagerly, warming to her theme, ‘since the good captain seems also to be in pursuit of Lucy, his schemes must have been made more dangerous by the introduction.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘I confess,’ she said, ‘I had wondered …’

  ‘I am sure,’ cried Dido, ‘that he had another reason for wishing Penelope to be at Badleigh – or else …’ she added, her mind firmly fixed upon that tantalising possibility of Penelope being Miss Fenn’s daughter, ‘or else he wished her to go to Madderstone Abbey!’

  ‘But why should he wish her to go to Madderstone?’ asked Harriet in a puzzled voice. And Dido was struggling for a plausible answer when she became aware that Mrs Nolan had stopped walking.

  She turned back and saw that the schoolmistress was staring intently into the window of one of the bridge’s little shops – though, since it offered The Finest Gentlemen’s Tailoring, it did not seem to provide much interest for a widowed lady. The flowers and foliage of her bonnet, the wide expanse of white cap below it, almost obscured her face, but, upon the little bit of pale cheek which could be seen, muscles were working fitfully – as if something in the conversation had struck a chord.

  ‘Mrs Nolan?’ said Dido, stepping back to her. ‘Do you agree with me that there was something strange in the introduction?’

  ‘Oh dear! I hardly know I’m sure, Miss Kent!’ She left the window and hurried on so fast that Dido and Harriet could scarcely keep pace with her.

  They found Penelope and Lucy in Sydney Gardens, amid the arching beauty of ornamental trees, standing upon one of the pretty little iron bridges which span the new canal, with all the reflected red and gold of turning leaves shimmering upon the water below. Though their arms were linked, they were not talking but seemed rather to be engaged upon private reveries, for, while Lucy’s head was thrown back in soulful contemplation of the autumnal scene, Penelope’s attention was smilingly turned upon a little child who was clinging to the hand of his nursemaid and taking unsteady steps across the grass nearby.

  Harriet hurried forward immediately with a greeting, but Mrs Nolan held back. Beneath the nodding flowers, her soft white face puckered into a frown. And Dido hesitated at her side, feeling that she understood precisely the apprehension she was experiencing.

  For the moment of handing the letter to Lucy was upon her – and she still knew not how to prevent disaster … She looked again towards the two girls standing on the bridge in their fluttering white muslins. Something must be done – and done quickly – to bring them both to disillusion … And yet she dared not offer a word of advice … She dared not even tell Harriet the truth …

  Mrs Nolan had drawn out her letter and was reading the direction of
it – as if she hoped that somehow it might have changed. Her eyes were narrowed against the sharp sunlight and shadows which were shifting across the paper; she held it closer to her eyes to make out the writing …

  And all at once Dido saw, in that one simple movement, the answer to all their difficulties!

  She touched her companion gently on the arm. ‘I too have something to deliver,’ she said quietly and, taking the letter from her own pocket, she held it out for Mrs Nolan’s inspection.

  ‘Eeh dear me!’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Dido hurriedly, ‘whether you might permit me to deliver both letters.’

  Mrs Nolan looked a little uncertain, but relinquished her letter and Dido stood for a moment looking down at the two pieces of paper with their black sprawling directions: so innocent looking, so very dangerous – and so very, very alike …

  ‘It is,’ she remarked, ‘extremely difficult to make out the writing in this light, is it not?’ She swapped the letters about in her hands and smiled.

  There was a moment of puzzlement on the schoolmistress’s face – and then a dawning of understanding. ‘Eeh! Miss Kent! You would not!’

  But Dido did not reply. She was already running along the path towards the bridge. Lucy and Penelope were walking towards her, their faces flushed with sun and exercise, their bonnet-strings streaming behind them in the breeze.

  She looked down just once more at the letters, frowning with all the appearance of a woman dazzled. She held out a hand to each of the girls.

  They each took a letter and their faces showed immediate recognition of the hand-writing. They turned aside preparing to break the seals – their movements mirroring one another so exactly they might have been engaged in a country dance.

  They stopped, back to back. Dido held her breath.

  They seemed to stand frozen for an eternity of seconds in the sunlight as people sauntered past. The child on the grass stumbled and began to cry.

  Slowly the girls turned back to face one another. The wind flung back a bonnet string, cracking it like a whip. Lucy’s face burnt red with fury; Penelope’s was pale and trembling, a tear creeping slowly from one eye.

  ‘Miss Lambe, I believe this letter is directed to you.’

  ‘And this, I think is yours.’

  Stiffly they made the exchange. A moment later the glorious sound of tearing paper reached Dido’s ears, bringing with it the very comfortable conviction that Captain Laurence’s schemes were defeated.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Dido was very well pleased with her solution of this problem. Her triumph made her rather confident of succeeding at last in all her other undertakings and she had an appearance of great satisfaction and self-congratulation when she entered the theatre the following evening. Mr Lomax noticed it as they met in the lobby and, as they were all taking their seats, he remarked that the air – and the company – of Bath seemed to agree with her.

  As he spoke, he cast a meaningful look at Captain Laurence, who had now rejoined their party and was being very attentive to Dido – no doubt as a consequence of the cold looks he was receiving from Lucy and Penelope.

  Dido only smiled and acknowledged that the air suited her very well. There was no time for further explanation just then, for everyone must look about them and admire Bath’s grand new theatre.

  The bright fresh paintings upon the ceiling and the rows of boxes rising up on their bronze pillars, glorious with scarlet linings and gilt lattices, were a fine sight to behold. The audience (though it was, by common consent, as ‘thin’ as the company in the Pump Room) was aglitter with jewels and feathers and silks. And upon the stage there were all manner of gaily painted scenes and clever tricks with lights and machinery to be admired.

  Indeed, amid all this opulence, there was but one dull thing – and that, unfortunately, was the wit of the playwright.

  The play itself proved to be a poor old threadbare thing, and throughout the first act Dido’s attention was perpetually wandering from it. She soon found a great deal more to interest her in Captain Laurence’s wanderings about the building than she did in the worn out maxims and jokes of the actors.

  The captain seemed to be no better amused by the play than she was herself. He left their box before the first scene was over and, thereafter, he was forever appearing first in one part of the theatre and then in another. She could not help but wonder what he was about and it became a kind of game with her to guess in which box she would detect him next.

  ‘Do you know,’ she whispered eagerly to Mr Lomax as the first act ended, ‘who the man is that Captain Laurence is talking to now?’

  Lomax followed the direction of her eyes to a box almost opposite their own where the captain had now joined the elderly rake of the colonnade, and his well-painted lady. ‘That,’ he replied rather stiffly, ‘is Lord Congreve: the man who owns half the land in Shropshire, and has a great deal of influence at the Admiralty besides – which is no doubt the reason for Laurence courting his favour.’

  ‘I see!’ cried Dido her interest deepening. ‘But I think you do not like His Lordship?’ she added as she noticed a look of marked distaste spreading across her companion’s face.

  ‘I have no opinion of him at all,’ he said with great dignity. ‘It is you who are so very occupied with James Laurence and his acquaintances that you cannot keep your eyes upon the stage.’

  Dido suppressed a smile – and continued to look at the captain’s acquaintances. The fat lord was listening intently, as Laurence – with one hand resting familiarly on the noble shoulder – talked earnestly into his ear. As he listened he stroked the old scar on his cheek very thoughtfully – and looked in their direction.

  Whatever was Laurence communicating? His plan for Lucy and Penelope’s ruin was at an end; yet he seemed still to be scheming …

  ‘I w … wonder at Laurence being seen in c … company with that fellow,’ whispered Silas from his seat behind. ‘I’ll w … warrant the friendship’s not known about at Madderstone!’

  The expression upon his face suggested he knew something in particular to the disadvantage of ‘that fellow’, and Dido was about to ask what exactly he meant; but the play was beginning again and his attention was returning to the stage.

  So she fell instead to examining Lord Congreve’s companion again. And that little painted face set in motion such a very interesting train of thought that soon ‘the two hours’ traffic of our stage’ was passing by quite unregarded. Dido recalled all the things which she knew about His Lordship – and an idea began slowly to form in her head: an idea far stranger than the fiction acting out before her. And yet, she assured herself, it was an idea based entirely upon reason, facts and observation. It certainly allowed for no shadow of coincidence or superstition – perhaps even the ghost itself might be rationally explained by it …

  As they all came out upon the stairs at the end of the play, the very great pressure of the crowd bore Dido and Mr Lomax away from their companions and authorised her to cling rather tightly to his arm. Indeed it was only by pressing herself against him that she could save herself from being carried away by a careless troop of passing gentlemen. She seized upon this moment of jostling intimacy.

  ‘Are you familiar at all with the lady accompanying Lord Congreve?’ she asked urgently. ‘Is she his wife?’

  He looked surprised by the sudden application. ‘No,’ he said, gravely disapproving, ‘she is not. His marriage ended unhappily some years ago. The young lady with him tonight is his mistress.’ He turned away as he spoke and held out a hand to guard her as a drunken man staggered by.

  ‘You call her young,’ said Dido. ‘About what age do you suppose her to be?’

  ‘What a very strange question!’

  ‘But I think it is a rather important one. Please? Do you know her age?’

  He sighed and shook his head. ‘She is reported to be barely sixteen,’ he said reluctantly. ‘His Lordship has the reputation of … associating with very young
women.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dido remembering the peer’s behaviour under the colonnade. ‘I rather suspected it.’

  She lapsed into a very thoughtful silence and they were carried forward down the stairs on a hot tide of coloured headdresses, dark evening coats and bare white shoulders. The memory of that white powdered face was still intriguing her. ‘It is a puzzle,’ she said as they came to rest upon the last landing. ‘A very great puzzle. Why should such a young woman paint her face so very thickly?’

  Lomax looked down at her laughing: brows raised over questioning eyes. ‘Miss Kent!’ he cried. ‘I would never have expected to find you so much interested in appearance and cosmetic!’

  ‘Oh, but on this occasion, I am, Mr Lomax! I really believe …’

  ‘What is it?’ he said, matching her seriousness immediately. ‘What is it you believe?’

  ‘I believe that that lady’s face paint might be a key to Madderstone’s mysteries.’

  He looked bewildered – and rather irritated; he particularly disliked her speaking in riddles. Struggling hard for patience he began, ‘I am afraid I do not quite …’

  But she was not listening. Her attention was fixed upon the hallway just a few steps below, where a discourteous footman was now making way for a disdainful Lord Congreve and his companion.

  Then, all at once, she was on the move, weaving rapidly through the crowd on the stairs and slipping off the loop of ribbon which secured her fan to her wrist. She reached the bottom of the steps just as the manservant succeeding in clearing a passage for his master; she turned in apparent confusion and nearly ran against His Lordship – there was an ill-bred oath. She stepped back in confusion – and somehow contrived to drop her fan. It slid most satisfactorily across the floor and came to rest just in front of the couple. She bent to retrieve it – and so was able to look full into the face of the young woman as she stood up and apologised for inconveniencing her …

  And it was just as she had thought: the startled white little face was extremely youthful: almost a child’s face – but so thickly coated in grease and powder that tiny cracks were evident about the mouth and eyes.