A Woman of Consequence (4 page)

‘Yes, quite so,’ said Dido quickly as she turned away and continued to pace the old flagstones. She was impatient of his habit of bringing everything around to a discussion of the navy, but she could not help but admit he was right. There was no way in which anyone could have got into the gallery. There could have been no one standing behind Harriet when Penelope turned back.

‘The only way into this gallery is up those steps,’ said the captain.

‘And Harriet and I were standing at the top of the steps all the time our party remained here,’ she said firmly. ‘No one could have come past but we would have seen them.’

She had now come back to the head of the stairs and she found that she was rather cold. She pulled her pelisse closer about her and descended the first two steps – to the
place from which Penelope had fallen. She turned and saw that her companion was now lounging against the nearest pillar, watching her thoughtfully.

‘From here one can see clear along the gallery,’ she remarked.

‘And nothing else?’ he asked.

‘No … Except through the great window I can see a little of the grounds … But very little; from here I can see only trees – and the drained pool.’

‘The pool?’ Captain Laurence straightened up abruptly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said, puzzled by his sudden interest. ‘Perhaps you would like to look for yourself.’ She returned to the gallery and he hurried to take her place on the steps.

As he passed, his long overcoat stirred something very small which was lying on the stones. She stooped down – but found only a little brown and green feather which seemed to have blown in from somewhere. However, as she was standing up again, she caught sight of something much more sinister.

A foot or so away lay the pool which, on first entering the gallery, she had taken for a puddle of rainwater. But, now that she was so close, it was possible to see that it was too dark for water. She took off her glove and touched the gleaming surface with the tip of a finger; it was thick and sticky. She examined her finger – and saw blood …

‘Good God!’ cried the captain. She turned to him thinking that he had seen the red stain. But he was still on the step, and he was staring, not at her, but at something behind her. A frown was gathering his black brows into one thick, bristling line above his nose.

She stood up and looked about to see what had alarmed him. The gallery was empty and, for a moment, she feared he had glimpsed some fleeting apparition … But then, through the east window, she saw the cause of his surprise.

Down beside the drained pool there was a scene of consternation.

Two workmen were shouting and pointing down at the dried mud, while a stout young man in gaiters – whom Dido recognised as Henry Coulson, the landscape gardener responsible for the present deplorable state of Madderstone’s grounds – was standing with his hat in his hand and rubbing at his thatch of fair hair.

Laurence came to stand beside her. ‘There is something amiss,’ he said with keen interest. ‘They have found something.’

Dido had already turned towards the steps, but the captain took her hand. ‘Miss Kent, I think you had better wait here,’ he said earnestly. ‘I will go to see what it is and return to tell you.’ He bowed and was gone, running down the steps, through the fallen stones and out into the cloister.

Dido, who had a rather better opinion of her own nerves than Captain Laurence, felt equal to any surprise which the pool might supply and began, almost immediately, to make her way towards the men.

The captain was perhaps fifty yards ahead of her. Mr Coulson had now left the side of the pool and was hurrying past the fallen trees and through the lengthening shadows towards him. They met upon the lawn and an eager conference ensued with the smaller man waving his arms
about a great deal while Laurence listened attentively.

As Dido came close enough to distinguish words, Mr Coulson seemed to be cursing and saying something like, ‘I don’t understand.’ He laid his hand upon the captain’s arm, ‘Damn it, Laurence,’ he said urgently, ‘we need to talk about this.’

But Laurence shook him off. ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘I must go up to the house and tell them the news. You go back and set the men to … getting it out of there.’

He turned to Dido with an upheld hand. ‘Miss Kent,’ he cried, ‘I would not advise you to go any closer. The men have found something … rather unpleasant at the bottom of the pool.’

‘Indeed?’ she said with keen interest. ‘What precise nature does the unpleasantness take?’

‘I am afraid it is a skeleton.’ He paused, but Dido showed no sign of fainting away. ‘A
human
skeleton,’ he added.

…
Well, Eliza, as you may imagine, there is not another topic on anyone’s lips but the skeleton in the pool. As Rebecca solemnly assures me, ‘the whole place is alive with this dead body, miss
.’

And it is, of course, the mortal remains of the Grey Nun. Lucy is quite sure that it
must be.

That the bones of a woman who died four hundred years ago should have been preserved so long and should, furthermore, be accompanied, as these were, by a quantity of sovereigns, many of which bear the likeness of our present king, does not seem to astonish her at all. It is undoubtedly the Grey Nun.

However, the coroner, Mr Wishart, when he held his court at the Red Lion this morning, failed entirely to identify her correctly. You know how it is on such occasions. These fellows in authority are all too inclined to be blinded by commonplace evidence and probability and so are quite insensible to all the thrilling possibilities of what
must be.

Lucy is sorely disappointed.

The other great cause of his failing to recognise the nun, was a ring which was upon her finger. It seems that just such a ring belonged to a Miss Elinor Fenn – a governess who disappeared from Madderstone Abbey some fifteen years ago.

So the coroner has declared that the remains are those of this Miss Fenn. A verdict with which Lucy is most displeased. And I very much pity poor Silas for having to report it to her.

For she would have Silas attend the inquest so that she might have the earliest intelligence, though I believe he has as little liking for frequenting public houses as any young man of one and twenty can have. And the viewing of bones would be a great deal less to his taste than his sister’s. However, the customs governing such occasions protect only the sensibilities of women, not sensitive younger brothers, and since Lucy had no other gentleman to attend on her behalf poor Silas must go. And he is so accustomed to doing just as both his sisters command, that I doubt he raised half a word in protest.

But he looked quite unwell when he returned
…

I happened to be at Ashfield when he came in. I would not have you believe that I was at all anxious to hear Mr Wishart’s verdict; for, of course, being of such a remarkably incurious disposition, it was a matter of complete indifference to me
…

But it did just so happen that I was with Lucy when Silas returned – and I have never seen him look so ill. He is but just recovered from his last great attack of asthma and should not, in my opinion, have risked his health in a public assembly. He was exceedingly white and shaken
.

You may imagine him, Eliza, sitting on the old sofa by the window in the breakfast parlour, with Lucy upon one side and me upon the other, stammering out his account.

‘Miss Fenn?’ repeated Lucy again and again. ‘Miss Elinor Fenn? But who is she?’ For she seemed to feel that, if the coroner could not oblige her with a romantic nun, then he 
might at least furnish a name with which she is familiar.

And then, in the next moment, she was tugging at the poor boy’s arm and demanding to know how the woman had died. And I quite lost patience with her, for she should know that such treatment, besides making him nervous and risking another attack of the asthma, will always make his stammer worse. When it came to pronouncing the cause of the woman’s death, he could only stare from one to the other of us with a trembling lip.

‘Does Mr Wishart believe that she fell into the pool by accident?’ I suggested by way of helping him out.

He shook his head. ‘N … no,’ he managed at last. ‘It was not thought possible. The sides of the pool slope so gently, you know. So, n … no, not an accident.
’

‘Murder!’ Lucy reached for her lavender water and I was in fear of the hysterics. But, luckily, the delay caused by his stammering prevented it. She could not very well give way to hysterics while she must wait and coax him into an answer.

At last he managed to explain that the verdict was not murder but, ‘s … s … su … In short, it seems that Miss Fenn took her own life.
’

‘Self
-murder!
’

There was a silence while Lucy considered this – and I began to hope that she might after all forgive poor Mr Wishart his shortcomings, since his opinion at least furnished her with a great deal to feed her imagination.

While she was lost in thought, I questioned Silas about the reasons for this verdict; and it seems that Mr Harris Paynter could prove that the young woman was much troubled with melancholy in the months before her death. Of course, this Mr Paynter is not more than one or two and twenty and so 
the death occurred before he was surgeon here. But his uncle, Mr Arthur Paynter, was Badleigh’s medical man before him: and, by Silas’s account, he (that is, the uncle) kept a journal of his patients. It was this journal which was presented as evidence in the court today.

‘Well,’ said Lucy at last, ‘one thing is quite certain. It was this dreadful discovery which the Grey Nun came to warn us of.
’

And I was on the point of arguing against her … But I found that I must pause and think a little more carefully about the matter. For, though I certainly do not believe that there was a ghostly warning, yet
…

Yet I must confess to being puzzled, Eliza. It does seem so very strange, does it not, that two such unusual events – first Penelope’s fall, and now this discovery in the pool – should occur within the course of only a few days? And within a few hundred yards of one another. It seems so very improbable that they should be random occurrences coming together only by chance. But I cannot come at any explanation which might join the two together.

Nor can I escape the feeling that there was something wrong – no, not wrong exactly, perhaps I should rather say
strange
– about the discovery of the bones. I keep remembering that moment when the captain and I first saw the commotion down beside the lake and I feel as if there was something decidedly odd
…

A knocking on the house door stilled Dido’s pen. She waited, fervently hoping that the visitor would not be admitted to disturb her precious hour of solitude. Margaret was gone to pay calls in the village and she had been quite determined to finish this letter while she was alone.

But, after a minute or two, there were the usual sounds of approach, the parlour door was opened and the round red face of Rebecca, the vicarage’s upper maid, appeared.

‘It’s Mrs Harman-Foote, miss. I told her the mistress was gone out, but she says she most particularly wishes to speak with
you
.’

‘Then you had better show her in, Rebecca,’ said Dido with a sigh. And she put the letter away in her writing desk, wishing very much that she had some success to report concerning her enquiries after the ghost.

But, meanwhile, the maid was hesitating in the doorway and looking quickly about the room as if to be quite sure Margaret was absent before venturing upon an opinion. ‘She’s looking but poorly to my mind, miss,’ she said in a half-whisper before ushering in the lady – who was looking very ‘poorly’ indeed. Dido had never seen her so pale – nor so agitated.

She took a seat beside the hearth and clasped her hands together tightly in her lap. Rebecca hurried forward solicitously to mend the fire, hoping, no doubt to hear something of interest, but Dido waved her away with a frown. As soon as they were alone, the visitor raised her eyes.

‘You have heard the news, Miss Kent? I mean, the news of the inquest.’

Dido replied that she had.

‘It is all so very unpleasant,’ began Mrs
Harman-Foote
, then seemed unable to go on. She pressed her lips together, swallowed and fixed her eyes upon a spot just behind Dido’s head, as if she was suddenly very interested in an old silhouette of Mr Kent which hung there. She
had, altogether, the appearance of a woman who was endeavouring to hold back tears.

Dido waited rather awkwardly for, though they had been acquainted for a little more than five years, there had never existed between them the kind of intimacy which could authorise her to notice her friend’s distress. ‘It is all very shocking,’ she said at last.

‘Yes.’ Mrs Harman-Foote struggled for her usual assurance. ‘But there can be no doubt – I mean as to her identity. I knew the ring for Miss Fenn’s immediately. It was always upon her finger. It is certainly her, Miss Kent, but …’ Again it was necessary for her to study the silhouette and, as she did so, Dido’s mind turned to some hasty calculations which she had not thought to make before.

The woman had died fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago Anne Harman was a girl of (a pause while Dido counted, arithmetic did not come easily to her,) thirteen or fourteen years old. And, since she was the sole heiress of Madderstone, it was probable that she had been the only young person in the family at that time.
Elinor Fenn had been her governess.
And the struggling face, the gleaming eyes, proved the pupil had been very much attached to her teacher.

‘I am very sorry,’ Dido said quietly. ‘The lady who died in the pool was a good friend of yours, I think?’

‘She was the woman who brought me up. For many years – since I was six years old – Miss Fenn had supplied the place of the mother I never knew.’ The words were pronounced with quiet, feeling dignity – but a slight flicker of the eye as she spoke sent a single tear running
down her cheek. She drew out a handkerchief and wiped it away briskly.

‘This discovery,’ said Dido gently, ‘and the publicity of the inquest must be very painful indeed for you.’

‘It is, of course, distasteful,’ she said, and tucked away her handkerchief as if resolved upon not needing it again. ‘But not because I have ever doubted …’ She stopped, drew in a long breath and straightened her back. ‘I have known for many years, almost from the time of her going, that my dear friend was dead. There could be no other explanation. She went out one evening, you see, and never returned. She was searched for, but never found.’

‘So,’ said Dido cautiously, with curiosity and propriety making their usual battle inside her, ‘this late discovery has not surprised … That is, I hope, it has not pained you so much as …’

‘It has, of course, shocked me. It has raised unhappy memories. But it has not recalled me to grief,’ came the firm, quiet answer. ‘That would not be right. It is a principle of mine
never
to waste time upon empty regrets. I have mourned my friend already and I have long ago committed her soul to the loving care of that greater power which I
know
has received her.’ As Mrs Harman-Foote spoke these comfortable phrases of Christian reassurance, her usual confidence seemed to be gaining ground. There was something positively defiant in her emphasis and in the setting of her jaw. ‘But,’ she continued resolutely, ‘I know that the verdict of the inquest is wrong. I
know
that Miss Fenn did not take her own life. Every principle which she possessed – every principle which she taught to me – would have cried out against such a wicked, irreligious act.’

‘I am sure it is very much to your friend’s credit that you should remember her so kindly,’ said Dido. And she sat for some time in very thoughtful contemplation of the woman before her. There is always a kind of fascination in seeing a familiar acquaintance act in an unfamiliar way; and tears in the eyes of Madderstone’s assured mistress were an odd sight indeed. But Dido’s interest in the present case went deeper. Doubts as to the coroner’s verdict must raise the possibility of a mystery …

Meanwhile Mrs Harman-Foote was struggling for composure. ‘I have spoken,’ she said at last, in the same quiet, feeling voice, ‘I have spoken to Mr Portinscale …’ She broke off. Dido wondered why Madderstone’s clergyman had been consulted. ‘He is quite unpersuadable …’ She stopped. It was necessary to take the handkerchief out again and wipe away a fresh tear. ‘My dear Miss Fenn is to be buried in a suicide’s grave on the north of the churchyard. In
unhallowed ground.
’

She stopped, her face working with emotion, the handkerchief pressed firmly to her lips. And Dido watched in silent sympathy; for a little while she was beyond words herself. Poor lady! To see a beloved friend laid outside the benediction of the church; to be denied all the natural solace of religion in her loss. The idea must frighten even Dido into silence, still for a while even the workings of
her
mind …

They sat together for a while saying nothing. The little fire smoked sullenly; there was a loitering footstep in the passage and Rebecca’s face peered once around the door, full of questions, but upon receiving nothing but a frown, it was withdrawn.

At last, with a great effort: ‘You are wondering I am sure, Miss Kent, at my calling here – at my speaking so openly. I hope you do not feel that I intrude too much upon our friendship.’

‘No,’ stammered Dido hastily – and a little untruthfully. ‘No, not at all.’

‘But I must do something you see.’

‘Oh, yes, quite.’

‘And I have no one else to whom I may speak without reserve on this subject. My husband does not wish me to concern myself over the matter, you see. He believes that my making any enquiries will only add to my distress.’

‘Yes, I quite understand,’ murmured Dido, though she was beginning to wonder where all this might be leading.

‘And so I have decided that I must ask for your help, Miss Kent. For, you see, I have always had the highest regard for your good sense and understanding – I have always felt that you are someone whose judgement may be relied upon.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dido, surprised and flattered by a good opinion which she had never had much cause to suspect. ‘I am sure I should be very glad to be of any assistance.’

Mrs Harman-Foote looked pleased and put up her handkerchief. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘I am quite sure that, if only a few enquiries were made into the matter, it would be possible to establish that dear Miss Fenn is innocent of this terrible crime which is charged against her.’