A Woman of Consequence (30 page)

And then, at last, Harriet bowed her head. ‘He had no choice,’ she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. ‘It all started in kindness to my mother, you see. She was
dying – the only thing she wished to hear was that she had borne a son. She asked … He could not hurt her. He told her that the baby was a boy … And after that …’ She broke down, shaking her head helplessly.

‘And after that,’ Dido continued for her, ‘it occurred to him that the deception might be carried on. He told the whole world that his third child was a son. And, for the first few years nothing more was needed to perpetuate the lie than a nursemaid utterly devoted to the family – and that he had ready to hand.’

Harriet nodded, her eyes still staring down upon the candle. ‘No one else knew the child was a girl.’

‘Except for you?’

‘Yes. I found out when Silas … when the child was but a few months old. I was twelve, you know and very anxious to help care for the new baby …’

‘But you told no one the truth?’

Harriet’s head jerked upward. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Papa told me not to.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Dido listened a moment to the slight drumming of feet which now accompanied the reel. ‘But I suppose he always knew that after a few years he would need to take some other action.’

‘He had business interests in Great Farleigh – we have a mill there,’ explained Harriet matter-of-factly. ‘I believe that is how he discovered Mrs Pinker’s establishment.’

‘And so he was lucky enough to encounter Miss Fenn – a woman who needed a daughter as badly as he needed a son.’

‘Yes. The exchange was made when the children were five. And all would have been well. All was well for two
years. No one suspected anything. And then,’ said Harriet plaintively, ‘she attempted to go back upon her word.’

‘She could not bear to see the boy growing up without knowing her.’

Harriet nodded.

There was one question which Dido knew she must ask, though she dreaded hearing the answer. ‘Did you know?’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, did you know fifteen years ago that your father had killed Miss Fenn?’

‘No …’ Harriet stared down at the candle flame, her face working in shifting expressions of misery. In the silence voices and laughter echoed up from the hall below – the company was going in to supper. ‘Yes …’ whispered Harriet. ‘That is, I do not know whether I knew or not. I never knew for sure. I knew that he was gone to meet her that evening. I knew that she was never seen again …’ She drew a long shuddering breath. ‘But …’ she spread her hands and looked up at her friend. ‘Is it possible to know something and not to know it at the same time?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I believe it is.’

‘And what,’ whispered Harriet, ‘do you mean to do now?’

‘I mean,’ said Dido firmly, ‘to lay the ghosts of Madderstone to rest for once and for all.’ She stooped down and blew out the candle on the hearth. Then she took Harriet’s hand. ‘Come,’ she said, drawing her to her feet and leading her across to the window.

With the candle extinguished the moonlight was gaining power in the room. Showing up rich embroidery and well-polished mahogany – and the shabby bible and
the severe text above the bed,
Thou God seest me.

Dido had a strong sense of being in the presence, not only of her God, but also a ghost. In this room of outward luxury, a woman had lived out a simple life: a life of renunciation. For Lady Congreve had withdrawn from the world as surely as any old-time nun – even taking a new name, as nuns did.

‘“I was wrong to ever agree to this pretence,”’ said Dido quietly as they came to the window and looked out together into the moonlit grounds. ‘That is what she wrote, you know. And I think it was not only her longing for her son which made her say it. Harriet, I believe she had determined upon ending the deception – and that is why she had become happier in the last few weeks of her life. She was no longer struggling against her conscience. She had acknowledged to herself the deep injustice of the arrangement she had made with your father.’

‘Injustice? Dido, what exactly are you talking of?’

‘I am talking of the one person you and I have not yet mentioned. I am talking of Penelope; the little girl who was sent away from her family, because she was not the son that everyone wished her to be.’

‘Oh!’ Harriet tried to snatch away her hand but Dido held it firmly.

‘This is the price you must pay for my silence, Harriet. If you wish me to hold my tongue – if your father’s name is to go untarnished – then you must let your sister come home.’

By next morning the fog was entirely cleared away. The sun shone as Dido and Mr Lomax walked beside the lower pool, and the trees blazed forth gloriously against a cloudless blue sky. The pool was almost returned now to its old level; an enterprising pair of ducks had already taken possession of it and scores of curled, bronze oak leaves drifted across its ruffled surface, driven by a brisk, cold wind.

They stood upon the bank in silence for a while: her hand just resting on his arm.

‘Will you tell me the end of the story?’ he asked quietly at last. ‘Your countenance this morning seems to say that the “business” which took you from the ballroom yesterday was successfully completed.’

‘Yes, it was.’ She looked up into his brooding face. His eyes were fixed upon the peacefully sculling ducks, his jaw set in obstinate disapproval. ‘But if I tell you about it, it will be the cause of another quarrel between us. I fear,’ she said quietly, ‘that we must give up free and open discussion, for it will always end in my arguing like a woman – and your being displeased.’

He sighed heavily. ‘To quarrel when there is no possibility of changing one another’s mind is a fruitless
indulgence. If you are so kind as to honour me with an account of last night’s events, I will undertake – I will
endeavour
– not to express opinions of which you are already aware.’

She searched his cheek for that restless little muscle, which always betrayed him when he reigned in his anger; but she could discern no sign of it. However she did notice that the sunlight was once more bringing forward the dark flecks in his eyes. She hastily turned her own gaze upon the pool and the ducks, and began her account.

Soon, she knew, she must tell him of the conclusion she had come to in the journey from Bath. But, for now she would indulge herself with talking freely to him – perhaps it would be the last time that such intercourse was possible.

As she talked they walked on about the edge of the pool and climbed the steps at its end. From time to time she stole a look at his impassive face. There was an occasional shake of the head; but, in view of his undertaking, she interpreted these as expressing wonder rather than disapproval.

She finished her tale as they arrived at the spoilt lawn and came to a standstill upon the once-smooth turf which was now deeply gouged by horses’ hooves and cartwheels. They stood for a moment, looking towards the irregular outline of the ruins, the blue sky showing brightly through ivy-clad arches and the great stone rose of the east window.

‘And so,’ he said meditatively as they walked on, ‘you knew that it would be Miss Crockford who came to retrieve the letter?’

‘Oh! No.’ She hesitated a moment. Like Harriet, she had known – and yet not known. ‘Perhaps …’ she confessed – for she was quite determined that, come what may, there must still be complete honesty between them. ‘Perhaps I should have been more certain if I had not wished with all my heart for it to be untrue. Until the very last moment I was hoping it would be Mr Coulson who came.’

‘I see.’ He looked very thoughtful, and Dido began to understand him. There was certainly disapproval – powerful disapproval. But there was interest too. He would not admit to it, but he was almost as fascinated by the subject as she was herself.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I can understand your
suspecting
Mr Coulson of being Harry Fenn. But why should you settle so very decisively upon him alone? That I cannot understand. He is, after all, not the only young man in the neighbourhood of a suitable age and unknown parentage.’

‘You are thinking perhaps of Mr Paynter.’

‘I am. The surgeon has been at Madderstone Abbey a great deal of late. Harman-Foote himself has wondered at his constant attendance. Paynter would certainly have had opportunity to take the letters – and the ring. And yet, I think you have been prejudiced so strongly against Mr Coulson you have quite overlooked the possibility of
his
guilt. Your reasoning was not sound.’

‘Upon my word!’ cried Dido. ‘You do not approve of my making enquiries, and yet you would instruct me how to carry them out.’

‘I disapprove of the use to which you put your powers
of reason,’ he countered, ‘I do not disapprove of reason itself and I am always very sorry to see it overpowered by prejudice.’

‘But, as it happens, you need have no fear in this case; I was not prejudiced. For a while I was very much inclined to suspect Mr Paynter. There were other circumstances which rather suggested him, you see – such as the roses which he laid upon Miss Fenn’s grave. But I soon came to see that there was an entirely different explanation for those – and for his frequent visits to the abbey.’

‘There was?’

‘Oh yes. It is all in the sitting of a gentleman’s hat, you know, Mr Lomax!’

‘His hat?’

‘Yes, have you not noticed that Mr Paynter wears his hat upon the very back of his head?’ She laughed at his confusion and he took a firmer hold of her arm to assist her past a great patch of mud where a noble chestnut had fallen. Its wood was all carried away now, leaving only a mass of yellow leaves and spiked green fruit trodden into the dirt. ‘Mr Paynter is in love,’ she explained, picking her way with care. ‘He is in love with Harriet. It is she that has brought him so often to the abbey. He was, in fact, on his way to see Harriet when I met him in the churchyard, and the roses were a gift for her; but he was confused when he met me – he feared, you see, that I might guess his secret.’

Mr Lomax nodded understanding.

‘Of course, a country surgeon ought not to be paying attentions to Miss Crockford of Ashfield!’ said Dido, ‘and so he pretended the flowers were for the grave.’ She
smiled. ‘The poor man was then obliged to return home to gather more before coming on to the house.’

‘You are sure of this?’

‘Oh yes, I saw pink roses in the sick-chamber on my next visit.’

‘No, no, I meant, are you sure of his being in love?’

‘Yes, very sure – and I am sure too that she returns his affection. The only point of doubt is whether she will allow herself to be happy with a man she knows her father would not approve.’

Lomax shook his head gravely. ‘I fear there would be disapproval on all sides. The whole neighbourhood would cry out against such a match.’

‘Oh, I think Harriet might defy the neighbourhood! But Dear Papa is a much stronger influence. He always has been,’ she added sadly.

‘His plan to evade the entail was – extraordinary,’ said Lomax.

‘An entail itself is a very extraordinary – a very cruel – thing,’ said Dido feelingly. ‘It takes away a woman’s home and gives it into the hands of strangers! Mr Crockford’s crime was monstrous – but some portion of blame must fall upon those inhuman circumstances which prompted him to it.’

He stopped walking and when she looked up she saw that his face was grave, the muscle in full play. She closed her eyes a moment, knowing very well what must follow. Their shared interest in the mystery had brought them thus far in comparative harmony, but the chasm dividing masculine and feminine worlds, that great inescapable divide, was upon the point of opening between them.

‘And is Mr Crockford’s crime to succeed?’ he asked in a restrained voice. ‘Is the entail to be evaded? I must ask you, Miss Kent, because it would seem that you have become the arbiter of right and wrong, the sole judge in this case.’

Dido withdrew her hand from his arm. ‘If you mean will I publish the facts which I have discovered, then the answer is no, I most certainly will not. If the men of authority wish to posses such information, then let them find it out for themselves! I will not rob my friends and give their home into the hands of such a man as Henry Coulson!’

‘Mr Coulson’s being weak and foolish does not alter the fact that he is the rightful possessor of Ashfield.’

Dido only clasped her arms about her and looked stubborn.

‘Do you mean to do nothing to bring justice about?’ he demanded.

But she would not answer him. Still she sought to put off that moment when they must confront the differences which yawned between them. ‘Come,’ she said hurrying towards the ruins. ‘I wish to show you the ghost!’

‘The ghost?’

‘Yes, for I think I have found out just what it was that Penelope saw upon the gallery.’ She began to run away from him through the stunted bushes and fallen masonry. Three crows clattered up from the fallen pillars of the chancel.

He shook his head helplessly and followed her more slowly, looking still very disapproving – but intrigued nonetheless.

‘I thought,’ he called after her, his voice echoing against the high walls, ‘that you had failed to find any clues at all when you came here to search.’

‘I thought I had failed,’ she said, stopping and turning back as she reached the foot of the night stair. ‘But, in point of fact, I had found one very important clue.’

She started to climb and he hurried forward, urging her to take care.

The wind grew stronger as he followed her upward and, by the time they reached the gallery, she was once more holding hard to her bonnet, which was blown onto the very back of her head. She turned back to him, her cheeks glowing, her hair all swept away from her face, her eyes bright with exercise and discovery. ‘What do you feel, here just at the top of the stairs?’

‘Cold!’ he said as he joined her in the gallery. ‘Nothing but cold.’

‘Exactly so!’ she cried with great satisfaction and stepped a little further on – out of the wind.

‘But why should you think that significant?’ he said. He also moved away from the draught, further into the gallery, where the sun was shining greenish through the curtains of creeper which hung about the arches.

‘Does not a feeling of cold always accompany the appearance of a ghost?’ she asked, leaning against the old stones and the thick, twisting stems of ivy.

‘Why, you do not mean to say that you believe in such things?’ he objected. ‘What of reason, Miss Kent? What of that rational view of the world which I know you hold as dear as I do myself?’

‘But I am being perfectly rational.’ She looked up at
him, her head on one side, intent upon teasing away some of his gravity. ‘There is reason enough for that coldness at the head of the stairs! It is the draught of air which blows just there. And you know,’ she added, ‘now that I consider the matter, I rather wonder whether a great deal of what Lucy would call an “unearthly feeling” and “an atmosphere of evil” might not be explained away by an unpleasant draught of air.’

‘I will not,’ he said firmly, ‘believe that Miss Lambe was frightened into falling by a cold draught!’

‘Oh but she was! For it is extremely strong. And you must remember that the day of Penelope’s accident was even windier than today. I remember, when I looked back from the bottom of the stairs, the wind was so strong just there at the end of the gallery that Harriet’s bonnet was almost blowing away, and her cap too.’

‘And the draught called a ghost into being?’ he said, raising his brows.

‘It did indeed! I did not realise it at first, because, you see,
I
knew of no reason why Penelope
should
see a ghost at Madderstone. But Captain Laurence rather expected that she would – and that is why he also came here to the gallery after the accident. He was particularly anxious to figure out just what she had seen.’

‘And why was James Laurence so very interested in a ghost?’

‘Well, you must remember that Captain Laurence suspected Penelope was the daughter of Miss Fenn. But he could find no confirmation of it. And so he had introduced her to the Crockfords – and caused her to come to Madderstone – in the hope that she would
encounter ghosts. In short, he hoped that her being here would cause her to remember something of her earliest years.’

‘Because such a memory would confirm his theories?’ Despite himself, he was beginning to look less severe – and more interested.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And, of course, within a few days of being here, Penelope fell from the gallery – in very mysterious circumstances: causing the good captain to wonder whether her fall had anything to do with her history.’

‘And was there any such connection?’

‘Oh yes, there was. But he and I were both rather stupid about finding it out. You see, we both noticed that the lake – the place in which the bones rested – is visible from this gallery.’

‘No, no,’ he objected quickly, ‘she could not have seen the bones from such a distance.’

‘Of course she could not. That is precisely my point! Look!’ she gestured to the view beyond the arches of the gallery: the looming walls and broken outline of the great window; a glimpse of the pool; red-, yellow- and copper-coloured trees; an expanse of blue sky with an arrow-shaped formation of wild geese rippling across it. ‘We are too high up here to see any details,’ she said. ‘Penelope certainly could not have seen anything of significance in the grounds. But both Captain Laurence and I wasted a great deal of time in wondering whether she had. And that prevented us from examining the simple facts of the matter.’

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘and what are these simple facts?’

‘There are – I see now – only two facts to consider. First of all, there are Penelope’s words “I saw her”. And, secondly, there is the absolute certainty that there was no one in the gallery – except
Harriet
. Put those two facts together – with no superstitious nonsense about grey nuns, or theories about skeletons – and you are brought to one conclusion. It was simply Harriet that Penelope saw. And the sight shocked her so much, she stepped backward – and fell.’

He stared, pressed the tips of his fingers together. ‘You believe that Miss Lambe recognised her sister at that moment?’

‘I am quite sure that she did.’

‘But why? For it would seem she had never recognised Miss Crockford – or any other member of her family before.’

‘It was because of that draught of air. As I explained, it was blowing away Harriet’s cap and bonnet. And, as I have often observed myself, without them she looks positively
young
.’

He rested his chin upon the tips of his fingers – thinking deeply, but saying nothing.