A Gentleman of Fortune (25 page)

‘Dido?’ said Flora, snatching away her hands and beginning to look uneasy. ‘What are you saying? You seem to be suggesting that he is guilty after all…guilty of something.’

But, before Dido could make a reply, the door opened and the maid announced that their visitors were come.

Dido had sought this meeting with Mr Lansdale and Miss Neville – she had asked Flora to send the invitation – in order that she might explain the things which she had discovered. But, for the first half-hour of their being in the house, she had very little opportunity to speak at all. For she had done little more than prepare the guests for the discussion of serious subjects, before Flora, very full of everything she had just heard and anxious to have it all confirmed, cried out, ‘Well, Mr Lansdale! Now we know everything. We have found out your secret!’ and began upon her own, rambling account of the meditated elopement.

However, it suited Dido rather well to be silent a while and to give all her attention to watching the listeners. And Miss Neville, she was soon assured, had known nothing of such a plan until now. She sat very straight and still, looking a little dark and shabby, in Flora’s pale, elegant drawing room. Lacking her usual needlework, she folded her hands very neatly in her lap and listened like a child attending to an engrossing tale: her eyes widening as the matter was unfolded and the astonishment in her face increasing every moment.

But Mr Lansdale’s emotions were a great deal more complicated and much less easy to read. There was concern and certainly a very quick understanding; for, no matter how Flora muddled up the account, the penetrating looks which he threw from time to time in Dido’s direction assured her that he knew where the credit for these discoveries lay. There seemed to be no wish of denying the tale, but there was a great deal of rapid thought apparent in the frowning lines gathering on his handsome brow. And there was, occasionally, a lifting of the lips which hinted at amusement.

‘You are right, Mrs Beaumont,’ he said, when Flora was finished. ‘Elopement was my plan and I truly believe that it would have succeeded. And, if it had not been entirely successful… Well, I would at least have secured that prize which I valued most.’

‘And,’ said Dido immediately, before Flora could speak again, ‘and it was on the very evening of your aunt’s death that you were to get the marriage licence was it not?’

He looked a little more wary. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘it was. But how do you know about that?’

‘Well, it had to be a matter of some importance that made you insist upon leaving the house against your aunt’s wishes. And Mr Vane overheard you saying that you had business with Mr Morgan. I suspect that getting the licence was a matter of some urgency.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘It was. For we were to be gone the very next day. I dared not delay lest Mrs Midgely return and spoil everything by telling my aunt that we were engaged. Everything was prepared. I had friends at Oxford waiting to receive us – even the priest was engaged. But I had to fetch the licence from Jem that evening. There had been a delay over procuring it, and, of course, nothing could be done without it.’

Dido leapt up restlessly, longing for the air and freedom of the veranda; but the windows were firmly closed now and all that remained of the outdoors was a trapped moth blundering against the glass. She began instead to walk about the room.

‘It must,’ she said, sedulously avoiding the anxious looks which Flora was throwing in her direction, ‘have been very…inconvenient that evening when Mrs Lansdale began to complain of ill-usage. To have her forbid you go: to have her argue with you on the very eve of your elopement must have been quite contrary to everything which you had planned. You had hoped, no doubt, to leave her feeling as affectionate towards you as possible.’

Henry Lansdale threw back his head and regarded her with a mixture of defiance and interest. ‘Yes,’ he said smilingly. ‘It was very inconvenient. Now, Miss Kent, do your worst. Make what accusations against me that you will!’

‘No, no,’ cried Flora miserably. ‘I am sure she has no accusations to make. You have not, have you, Dido?’

Dido did not answer her. She stood instead behind the sofa, her hands clasping the wood of its back. She met his gaze without flinching. ‘I have heard,’ she said quietly, ‘that there was an argument between you and your aunt that evening, but I have not heard how the argument was resolved. And it must have been resolved somehow, Mr Lansdale. It would have been too dangerous to your plan to leave matters in such a state. I cannot believe that you went away to town while she was still railing against you.’

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I did not.’

‘And what did you do? What did you do to calm her?’

There was a little gasp from Miss Neville’s corner of the room, but Flora only stared. In the silence the moth battered loudly at the window, desperate for escape. Mr Lansdale continued to regard her levelly for several minutes, emotion working in every feature of his face.

At last he looked down at his hands. ‘It was,’ he said very quietly, ‘but a few drops. No more, I swear.’

There was a protest from Flora: a kind of yelp from Miss Neville. Dido held tighter to the sofa. ‘Let us be sure there is no mistake here, Mr Lansdale,’ she said quietly. ‘It is a few drops of the opium mixture to which you refer, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ he replied calmly. ‘She was so very distressed: shouting and sobbing to such a degree that I began to be worried for her health as much as for my own plans. I feared a nervous seizure. I did the only thing I could think of: I put a little of the medicine into her chocolate and persuaded her to drink some. But, Miss Kent, I give you my word – I swear to you upon my honour – that it was no more than enough to make her easy and to help her to sleep. No more than she was in the habit of taking.’

‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘And I will not ask why you have not admitted as much before; for, with such accusations flying about, it was not to be expected that a partial confession would fail to be exaggerated and turned into a darker admission of guilt. I quite understand that you have felt you played no part in your aunt’s death: that you were unaware of how dangerous your actions were.’

‘Dangerous?’ he repeated. ‘You say that my actions were dangerous?’

‘Oh yes, they certainly were. For you see, what you did not know was that, when you introduced those drops, the chocolate was already adulterated.’ She paused and then turned about abruptly. ‘I am right, am I not, Miss Neville?’ The attention of them all settled upon Miss Neville who was sitting now with both hands held to her mouth, her face very red and her figure trembling. ‘There was already opium in the drink when you handed it to Mr Lansdale at the dressing room door, was there not?’

The poor woman tried to reply, but the sounds that she produced were so strange – so very unlike English words – that she soon pressed her hands back over her lips to prevent any more escaping.

Dido judged it kindest to speak for her. ‘I have perhaps been hard upon you, Miss Neville,’ she said, ‘for, from the very beginning, I have suspected the things that you told me. I have felt that there was something incongruous about your statements and I sought an explanation of that incongruity in the wrong place entirely. It had, of course, nothing to do with your mother, nor with Jenny White who was no more than your mother’s attendant. The contradiction which I was but half-aware of was a much simpler matter. Will you allow me to explain it to our friends?’

Miss Neville’s eyes widened until they seemed to occupy almost half her face; she nodded without daring to uncover her mouth.

‘You see,’ said Dido, turning to the others, ‘Miss Neville had talked to me very candidly about the…difficulties of performing the duties of a companion. She had told me how Mrs Lansdale had been in the habit of calling upon her at any time of the day or night if she felt herself at all unwell. And she had also told me that, sometimes, her cousin would forbid her to absent herself from the house on Tuesday evenings.’ As she spoke these last words her eyes had come to rest upon Flora and there was a question in her look.

‘Do you not recall, Flora, what Mrs Neville told us when we visited her? She said that her daughter always went to her on a Tuesday. And indeed, you, Miss Neville, had told me the same thing in the garden at Brooke. But I had been too stupid to understand its importance. It was not until today, when I began to consider how Mr Lansdale had got away from the house that evening, that I began to wonder how you had contrived to go.

‘I had been deceived, you see, by the simple statement you made at Brooke. You told me that when Mrs Lansdale retired you had gone out. But of course, when I thought carefully about it, I saw that that would not do at all. For supposing she had awoken and felt unwell and called for you – as, by your admission, she was likely to do. Then she would have discovered your disobedience. So how was it that you contrived to absent yourself on this Tuesday and others upon which the lady had refused her permission? In short, I cannot but believe that you had fallen into the habit of ensuring that she slept soundly on Tuesday evenings.’

At last Clara Neville lowered her shaking hands from her lips. ‘It was,’ she said in a faltering voice, ‘no more than the usual dose that I gave her that evening – enough to make her sleep soundly. Miss Kent, you know how I was placed – how I had to be with my mother when the maid was absent. I did not know…I could not know that…’ She stopped and her hands flew back to her face as her eyes came to rest upon Mr Lansdale’s countenance.

For the first time since he entered the room the gentleman was looking shocked. As well he might, for these two truths – these two halves of one picture – which had now been revealed, combined to form such an image of shared guilt as neither he nor his cousin had dreamt of until this moment. Each, seeing only their own story and unaware of the other’s, had persuaded themselves of their entire innocence.

No one spoke. Three members of the company were beyond words, lost in the contemplation of everything that these revelations might mean. And Dido was entirely occupied in watching Henry Lansdale. His face was pale, his brow clouded with an intensity of thought which she longed to understand. For she had decided that everything was to depend upon how he conducted himself now. She was almost sure that he was an honourable man: too good a man to be delivered up to the chances of the law, if she could save him. But she was not absolutely certain. Now was the moment in which he must prove himself worthy of her assistance.

She walked slowly about the sofa and sat herself down where she might still have an uninterrupted view of his face. ‘It is to be hoped,’ she began very quietly, ‘that the magistrates – when all the facts are laid before them – will be lenient: that they will believe a mistake only took place and that no malice was intended – by either of you.’

There was no reply. Flora was staring at nothing in particular and wringing her hands in her lap. Miss Neville was holding a shaking handkerchief to her eyes. Henry Lansdale was still deep in thought: his brow contracted into a deep frown.

Dido began to doubt him.

‘I fear, Mr Lansdale, that the jurymen will be more likely to blame you,’ she said a little more loudly, ‘because you have gained so much from your aunt’s death. But perhaps Miss Neville’s confession of the part she played may do something to excuse you.’

His response to that was immediate.

He was on his feet in a moment and striding to Miss Neville’s side. With one hand upon the back of her chair, he turned to face Dido, pale now, not only with shock but also with anger. ‘Miss Kent, do you suppose for one moment, that I would permit a lady to stand before a public court, for no other reason than to excuse me?’ He fought for control of his emotions and then continued in a calmer voice. ‘It is, of course, all nonsense. Everything which we have been talking about this last half-hour is quite wrong and had better be forgotten. For the fact of the matter is that it was no hand but mine which put opium into my aunt’s drink. I must have been mistaken in the measuring – no doubt my hand shook as I poured – I was unaccustomed to dispensing it. That is how it happened and I will swear it before any judge in the land.’

Dido was satisfied. He was deserving of her help. ‘Mr Lansdale,’ she said quietly, ‘I hope that it may yet prove unnecessary for you to face any judge.’

She had the attention of the entire room. For it seemed that even the moth upon the window was still and listening. The fading light of the summer evening showed three faces turned towards her: Miss Neville’s red with tears, and Flora’s pale with hope – and Mr Lansdale’s frowning and thoughtful – as if he feared she might suggest some other stratagem which his honour could not countenance.

‘Although there can be no denying that your actions – and those of Miss Neville – played a part in the death of your aunt,’ she continued, ‘I cannot believe that we have uncovered the whole story. You see, Mr Lansdale, I believe that there were other events carrying on in your house that night – events about which you knew nothing. If only we could discover what those events were then we might prove that it was not your actions alone which determined poor Mrs Lansdale’s fate.’

‘I do not understand,’ he said. ‘What do you believe happened?’

Dido could only shake her head and admit, with very great reluctance, that she had, as yet, no clear idea of what might have occurred. It was still all a muddle to her of a dog that had had to be silenced, and gentlemen with hair powder; some music upon the stand of a pianoforte and red-shaded candles. ‘But,’ she continued, with determination, ‘I will do my utmost to discover what happened. There are yet four days left before the trial and in that time I will do all that I can to come at the truth, no matter…’ she hesitated, but finished firmly, ‘no matter who tells me to give it up.’