A Woman of Consequence mdk-3 Page 6

  Chapter Eight

  Dido walked on slowly to Madderstone Abbey, her mind full of Mr Paynter’s tribute of roses – and those six and twenty days during which Miss Fenn had, quite contrary to her habit, sought no help from her physician.

  In order to establish whether or not this was a case of self-murder, it would be necessary to discover how the lady had appeared during those six and twenty days. Was she happier than usual – or sadder? Was it possible that, after fifteen years, anyone would be able to remember such a detail?

  She passed through the park gate and came into the spoilt gardens. The sun was sinking low, casting long shadows from the fallen trees and turning the many puddles a deep, bloody red. The path from the gate ran above the bank of the old pool – and was particularly difficult to negotiate for a woman determined upon keeping her petticoat clean. But at the end of it there were four stone steps which led down to the pool, and it had been Dido’s intention to descend these steps to look at the place from which Miss Fenn’s body had been taken.

  However, when she was only halfway along the path – and balancing precariously on a stone beside a deep patch of mud – she heard footsteps and the booming voice of Mr Harman-Foote down by the pool. ‘Well it must be put to rights at once, d’you understand?’ he was saying in a tone of grave displeasure.

  She paused, swaying dangerously on her stone. Another, quieter voice was murmuring an apology. She looked down the bank and saw Mr Coulson, the landscape gardener, scratching anxiously at his head as he spoke.

  ‘Well, well,’ cried Mr Harman-Foote, a little mollified, ‘I daresay you meant no harm; but you’ve caused a great deal of trouble. You should not have …’

  Unfortunately he never finished his speech, for just as he reached this most interesting point, Dido overbalanced and gave a little cry as she trod deep into the mud. Mr Harman-Foote stopped speaking immediately; both gentlemen turned in the direction of the sound and bowed when they saw her. She was obliged to call a greeting and hurry on – doomed never to hear what it was that Mr Coulson should not have done.

  Which was very provoking, for she was almost sure he was about to be upbraided for draining the pool. At least, that is what she thought at first. But, by the time she reached the ruined cloister, she had begun to revise her opinion. For, she reasoned, the draining of the pool could not have taken the owner of the grounds by surprise. He must have seen that it was to happen when plans for the improvements were first drawn up; and if he had not wanted it done, he would certainly have vetoed it immediately …

  She was shaken from this engrossing reverie by the sight of other dinner guests. Ahead of her on the gravel sweep, Silas Crockford was handing Lucy out of his chaise. And just rounding the corner of the cloister was Mr Portinscale, walking up from his vicarage.

  ‘Ah Miss Kent!’ he began immediately upon seeing her, and bowed with great formality. ‘This is indeed a heaven-sent opportunity! I had been very much hoping that I might, in the course of the day, avail myself of the pleasure of a few minutes private conversation with you.’

  ‘Indeed?’ she smiled up at him politely. He was a tall, very solemn man who had, no doubt, been rather handsome in his youth; but his youth was almost twenty years distant now and in those years he had grown thin and dry. And when he removed his hat, it was clear that his hair – though still tolerably black – was so thin atop as no amount of brushing about was quite able to disguise.

  ‘Yes, I fear,’ he clasped his hands in the small of his back and rocked himself forward on his toes – very much as if he were about to preach a sermon, ‘I fear that you have been suborned.’

  ‘Suborned? Oh dear! I hope that I have not, for it sounds very disagreeable.’

  ‘It is, my dear,’ he continued seriously as they walked on. ‘Very disagreeable indeed. It appears that your good nature has allowed you to be imposed upon. You have been led into error, Miss Kent, and, as a clergyman, I feel it incumbent upon me to set you right.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I am aware,’ he said, sinking his voice almost to a whisper to prevent it being heard by the Crockfords – or by Mrs Harman-Foote who was now come out onto the steps to meet them. ‘I am aware of the service which your friend,’ a glance here towards the steps, ‘has asked you to perform – I mean, of course, with regard to her dead governess. But you do wrong to interfere. Suicide is a grievous sin.’

  ‘It is indeed, Mr Portinscale,’ said Dido, matching his solemnity, ‘and no one should be accused of it falsely.’

  He shook his head and a little colour tinged his thin cheeks. ‘These matters should be left in the hands of God, my dear.’

  ‘But they are not in the hands of God,’ Dido pointed out gravely, ‘they are in the hands of the coroner.’

  ‘Who would not be suffered to remain in authority if God did not will it,’ he answered quickly. Then he seemed to recollect himself and spoke more calmly. ‘We must trust in the Lord,’ he insisted. ‘We must not meddle with what He has ordained.’

  ‘No! That is nonsense!’ The words burst from Dido involuntarily as the weakness of his position struck her. The colour in his cheeks deepened with displeasure. She forced herself to speak less violently. ‘This philosophy, sir, would argue against all good works and make inertia the greatest of all virtues. I cannot believe but that we are sometimes required to exert ourselves in the cause of charity.’ She drew a long breath. ‘I do not doubt Mr Wishart’s good intentions. But his verdict may be mistaken. An injustice may have been done. I cannot believe it wrong to try to discover the truth.’

  He was about to reply, but he was prevented by the approach of their hostess.

  They all walked on into the house together and it was not until some time later that Dido was calm enough to wonder just why Mr Portinscale should interest himself so much in the business. Why should he care so very much that the coroner’s verdict remain unchallenged?

  * * *

  … Well, Eliza, there were nine of us at dinner, for besides the Crockfords and Mr Portinscale there was Henry Coulson, the landscape gardener, and of course Captain Laurence, who is staying once more with his cousins at Madderstone. (By the by, I do not know whether Captain Laurence has a home of his own when he is not aboard ship, but, if he has, I fancy it is not so comfortable as Madderstone Abbey.)

  Well, as you may imagine, Mrs Harman-Foote’s duties as hostess did not allow for any conversation between us while we remained in the dining room, beyond an assurance, almost shouted along the table, of her intention of taking me to see Miss Fenn’s bedchamber as soon as she should be at leisure.

  Indeed it was hardly possible for female voices to be heard at all. For Mr H-F himself pays his compliments, talks about poachers and tells his jokes so loud that, if you do but listen carefully, you may hear the glass drops on the chandelier tinkling in answer to his speeches.

  And then there was Mr Coulson braying down his nose and shouting ‘Quite so!’ and ‘Very good, sir!’ whenever the master of the house might be deemed to have said anything clever. Mr Coulson, by the by, is an addition to our society since your going to London, so I had better introduce him. He is a very young man – a relation, I believe, of both the Harmans and the Crockfords and the ward of old Mr Harman at whose expense he has been educated. He is not long finished at Oxford and intends to make his mark upon the world. He fancies himself very clever in the landscape gardening line and, once he has demonstrated his skill at Madderstone, he means ‘to make a mint of money at it in no time at all’.

  It would seem that at one time or another Mr Coulson has considered devoting his talents to every profession from the navy to the church, and does not doubt that he could have, ‘made a pretty fine show’ at anything he set his mind to. But – as he gave the whole table to understand – it is in medicine that his genius might have had full rein. And he would have done a great deal more good than that ‘dunderheaded sawbones Paynter’, who is ‘as dull-witted as any medical fellow he ever met’.

>   I rather wondered why he should wish to speak so slightingly of poor Mr Paynter – a gentleman he can hardly know – but I had no opportunity to enquire. For meanwhile Mr Portinscale was busy denouncing the iniquities of the entire world, with all the force of the pulpit; and Harriet and Lucy were making a great to-do because poor Silas was attempting to eat a ragout which they were sure was too rich for his constitution. And all the time our old friend James Laurence was talking to me incessantly about the navy.

  I cannot like Captain Laurence. He is too much inclined to pressgang the conversation and carry it away aboard ship. And once he has got it there, what can his listener do? One has nothing at all to say and can only exclaim upon the captain’s bravery and hardihood – which becomes excessively dull after the first five minutes. But Lucy, I fancy, would have been exceedingly happy to do the exclaiming and was rather aggrieved that it fell to my lot rather than hers.

  Well, so much for dinner. But I wish particularly to tell you about what happened afterwards. And the first thing is that Anne Harman-Foote and I had the drawing room to ourselves for a little while before tea. Harriet returned to Penelope straight after dinner and Lucy, I think, went with her. The men, I believe, were occupied in the billiard room, for I could hear the clatter of cue and balls all the time that we were talking. Anyway, Anne (you see how our intimacy is increased! I have been authorised to use the name) and I were left alone in the drawing room and I took the opportunity of finding out as much as I might about Miss Fenn.

  My first business was to discover all that I could about her family and connections – but there I more or less drew a blank. Miss Fenn, it seems, was a woman of ‘very respectable’ family, but poor; she was a neighbour of old Mrs Foote in Shropshire and she came to Madderstone upon her recommendation. Mrs Foote, by the by, seems to have been a great recommender of maids, governesses and companions; she was generally regarded as being very ‘sensible and straightforward’ in these matters and it was quite the accepted practice to apply to her when any such appointment was to be made.

  I asked next about Miss Fenn’s life at Madderstone. What were her pursuits? Her friends? And – that all-important question for every governess – how much did she ‘mix in the family’.

  Well, if she had any friends in the neighbourhood, her pupil knew nothing of them; and her pursuits seem to have been only attending church and visiting the poor. And as to mixing in the family – Anne was puzzled by the question.

  ‘Why, she was with us as much as she chose to be!’

  ‘And when there was company?’ I pressed. ‘Dinners? Balls?’

  ‘She generally dined with us,’ said Anne, ‘but she did not attend balls – except, of course, the All Hallows ball. That she always attended.’

  And I thought that point rather telling, Eliza. That she should be present for Madderstone’s famous All Hallows dance when the greater tenants and the half-gentry of the place are invited but absent herself from the later, grander balls of the winter, speaks to me of a woman with a delicate sense of her own place. A woman with scruples, determined not to impose too far upon her employer’s goodwill.

  And, finally, I asked about the day of her disappearance.

  It was, it seems, the sixth of June 1791 – a Monday, and a very warm day. There was a large party staying in the house: all the Laurence cousins were there and Mr Harman-Foote – plain Mr Foote as he was then – had arrived that morning with his mother. It had been too hot to take much exercise during the day but the evening was a little cooler and Miss Fenn left the abbey quite soon after dinner, saying that she had an appointment to keep.

  I asked, of course, what this appointment was, and I wondered for a moment if Anne might know more of it than she was telling. But when I pressed her she only said she supposed it to be a charitable errand – that was the usual cause of Miss Fenn visiting the village.

  And did her manner seem at all unusual? I asked. Was there anything to mark this day as different from any other?

  Oh no, Anne assured me, nothing at all. Absolutely nothing at all. It had been a day just exactly like any other and she had expected Miss Fenn to return before tea – it had been agreed that they should all drink tea in the summer house.

  Well, I rather fear that if there was anything unusual about the day it may now be irretrievable. Anne is either unable or unwilling to recall it.

  So I turned my attention to the coins and the ring which were recovered from the lake. There is perhaps five or six pounds in money: the gold still remarkably fresh-looking – the silver coins very much tarnished and one or two of them positively misshapen with decay. As for the ring – it is rather a plain thing. Which, I am told, is entirely in keeping with the lady’s taste. It seems she had quite a horror of finery. There is nothing to this ring but a narrow gold band and a simple setting holding a curl of fine hair. The curl is dark, almost black; but, upon reflection, I am not at all sure that that is its natural hue. I think it may have been darkened by lying so long in the water.

  ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘whose hair is in the ring?’

  But she said she did not and, when I pressed to know whether she had ever asked about it, she smiled. ‘I did once,’ she said, ‘and was rebuked for impertinence – I never asked again.’

  I looked more closely and saw that, within the gold band, there is engraved a single word: ‘Beloved’.

  Dido laid down her pen and blew upon her chilled fingers to warm them. The rain was beating hard at her attic window, the wind moaning under the roof like a lost soul and the landing clock had long since struck midnight. She was determined to finish her letter before sleeping, but was unsure how to go on.

  The ring had raised so many speculations in her mind, she was ashamed to reveal half of them to her sister. Had there been a secret lover? Had he played a part in the woman’s death?

  Of course Miss Fenn’s character and reputation argued against it. And it was entirely possible that the ring was a remembrance of a father or mother, a brother or a sister; but if that were so, why had she not acknowledged it?

  The fact was that, in this case, investigation seemed to breed suspicion. And the visit to Miss Fenn’s bedchamber had aroused even more questions in Dido’s mind …

  Chapter Nine

  There had been no time to visit Miss Fenn’s chamber before tea, and when tea was over the card tables were placed immediately. So it was not until Mr Portinscale, Silas and Lucy had all gone home that Dido was able to go to the room with her hostess.

  All was quiet within the house as they set off from the drawing room, candle in hand; but outside, the wind was rising, driving handfuls of rain hard against the windows with a sound like thrown gravel. Mr Harman-Foote had been for some time shut up in the library talking with Captain Laurence, but as the two women crossed to the stairs he came out of the library door, pipe in hand, looking rather displeased and breathing port wine and tobacco smoke. Dido could not quite escape the idea that he had been listening and waiting for their leaving the drawing room.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ he bellowed across the echoing hall, ‘what are you troubling poor Miss Kent with now?’

  His wife coloured a little but named their errand calmly enough.

  ‘It is very late,’ he said, drawing out his watch. ‘Very late indeed. Do you not think I had better order the carriage and have it take our guest home. I am sure she is very tired.’

  ‘We shall not be ten minutes,’ said his wife.

  He looked as if he might protest again, but Dido declared that she was not at all fatigued and he knew his manners well enough not to hold out against her. ‘Well, well, have it your own way! Have it your own way! Ought to know better than to try to change a lady’s mind! But I shall ring for Thomas immediately and have the carriage at the door in ten minutes.’ There was another look at his watch. ‘There’s a storm coming on. You had better not delay any longer than that, Miss Kent.’

  ‘He thinks,’ said Mrs Harman-Foote as they climbed the stairs,
‘that I would be less distressed if I left matters alone. He thinks I should forget all about my poor friend. He means well, I don’t doubt, but he does not understand my feelings. So I shall tell him as little of our investigations as I can.’

  At the top of the stairs they turned along a broad, carpeted passageway, into the east wing – where the best rooms were – and Mrs Harman-Foote threw open the door of a chamber close to the one which had been given over to Penelope. It was a fine, large room – a room such as a woman of consequence might be given on a visit – a room such as Dido had never been offered in any country house. There were mahogany wardrobes, a large mirror, tall sash windows, very pretty wallpaper and bed-hangings embroidered with fabulous Chinese birds.

  The room had the musty smell of a place seldom entered; but there was also a faint scent from old lavender laid in the bed and closets … And there was something else too, very faint, another sweet scent which was familiar, but so very out of place that it was a moment or two before Dido could identify it – as tobacco smoke …

  ‘It is a pretty room, is it not?’ said Anne as she set her candle down upon the toilette table.

  ‘Oh yes! Your father must have held Miss Fenn in high regard, to have placed her in such a room.’

  ‘He held her in the highest regard possible. She was quite part of our family.’

  They were both conscious of the ordered carriage and began to look about them as quickly as they might. Dido could not help but feel the strangeness of entering the domain of a woman so long dead, and the few plain possessions – the wooden-backed hairbrush on the toilette table, the simple writing desk upon a window seat and the black bible and prayer book lying on a table beside the bed – all had the air of things but just laid aside, whose owner might return at any moment.

  She walked about touching things here and there, keenly aware of the character which seemed still to inhabit the room – austere in the midst of luxury. Above the bed there was a text worked in faded cottons. Thou God seest me …