Place of Confinement (14 page)

‘It is not possible!’

‘Is it not?’

‘There are two very strong objections. Firstly, Mr Lomax is quite sure that she did not slip away. He assures me that his eyes were upon her the whole time. Gazing devotedly, I don’t doubt.’

‘And is Mr Lomax so
very
devoted?’

‘He is a great deal too devoted to Miss Verney’s fortune to neglect any detail in his role of lover.’

Miss Fenstanton’s pale face puckered into childlike disappointment. ‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘he was distracted for a moment – and in that moment she slipped away.’

‘Even if I could believe that possible, there would still be another, stronger, objection remaining. Mr Lomax stood just there, beside the gate, until Miss Verney entered the house door. He saw her walk beyond these trees. He saw her walk the length of the carriage drive.’

‘Ah! No, no!’ cried Emma eagerly. ‘I had thought of that. You see, Letitia had an ally in her plan – Miss Gibbs.’

Dido could only look at her in wonder.

‘And Miss Gibbs,’ Emma continued, ‘was already concealed behind the tree before Mr Lomax and Letitia returned. It was all prearranged. As Letitia stepped behind the tree, Martha stepped out. It was the work of a moment.’

‘And it was Miss Gibbs that Mr Lomax saw walk into the house?’

‘Yes. They are of a similar height – and if they were seen only from the back…’ Emma held up her hands with a smile as if she had herself accomplished the clever trick. The dimples flashed in her cheeks.

But Dido shook her head. ‘Were the two young ladies in similar gowns that day? What of their bonnets? Their cloaks? The dressing of their hair?’

‘As to all that, I confess, I cannot remember. But,’ Emma continued, brightening, ‘I rather think that Martha
did
come in around the time that Miss Verney is supposed to have returned. She came in from the garden rather late. She said that she had been misled as to the time by the stable clock being slow.’

‘Did she indeed?’ Dido looked thoughtfully down the sloping drive to the manor house, lying like a crouching beast in the dusk. But, even from here, at the top of the gentle rise, it was not possible to see the buildings grouped behind the house and the face of the stable clock was not visible.

Emma seemed encouraged by her companion’s considering expression. ‘You begin to believe me, do you not?’

‘Oh, I am not sure … Not entirely. But what do you suppose Miss Verney did next?’

‘She waited here, of course – behind the tree – until her maid came with the chaise.’

‘But would not Mr Lomax have seen the chaise taking her up?’

‘No, no for I suppose he went away along the path over the downs.’ Emma beckoned Dido to the gates and pointed across the dusty high road to the deep, well-worn track which led away through overarching hazels, crossing a small stream upon stepping stones before rising gently towards the uplands. ‘That would be the nearest way back to the inn at New Charcombe,’ she said, ‘and if the gentleman took that path he would be beyond sight and hearing within a few minutes.’

‘I suppose he might.’

This notion of Miss Verney playing a trick upon Tom Lomax was, in many lights, a pleasing explanation. And Miss Emma was certainly determined to make it out to be possible. Dido looked thoughtfully at the little white figure beside her. The girl was all energy and smiles as usual, but what was her motive? Why should she be so very determined upon Tom’s innocence?

Dido turned back to the driveway with her hand resting on one of the iron gates. ‘The trees,’ she observed, ‘are so very close to the spot upon which Mr Lomax was standing. The exchange would have had to be performed within ten yards of him. How could he have been so very inattentive as not to notice that one young lady had been substituted for the other?’

‘Oh! I have just had an idea about that,’ cried Emma. ‘Miss Kent, are you familiar with the tricks of mountebanks?’

‘A little. I have seen them carrying on at fairs, and my Uncle Manners used to delight in performing little tricks which he called “magic” when I was a child. I believe he meant to entertain me.’

‘And were you not entertained?’

‘No. I confess the performance most often ended in tears and disgrace – on my part, of course, not my uncle’s. I never could take pleasure in being deceived. If only he would have told me how the trick was accomplished then I might have been delighted. But a trick without an explanation was as unsatisfactory as a story without an ending.’

‘And I think that your feelings are unchanged. You still must have an explanation.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Well, I believe the explanation usually lies in distraction. The watcher is made to look away while some little sleight of hand is carried out.’

Dido looked doubtfully about her at the gates and the drive and the house front. ‘I will grant,’ she said, ‘that it is possible to make a child look away for a moment while one card is substituted for another, or a sixpence is concealed beneath a handkerchief. But I cannot believe in a grown man allowing a woman to disappear before his eyes!’

‘Is it not because such performances
seem
impossible, that they are given the old superstitious name of “magic”?’

‘And you believe that Miss Verney performed magic that afternoon?’

‘Yes,’ laughed Emma, ‘I am quite certain of it.’

Dido looked suspiciously at her pale little face in the gathering dusk. ‘You are very eager to see Mr Lomax acquitted,’ she said.

Emma only blushed and drew the shawl closer about her shoulders.

‘Are you at all acquainted with the young man?’ said Dido.

‘Oh no. Not at all.’

‘But you met him on the day that he called here?’

‘No. I was with Mrs Bailey in Exeter that day.’

‘You are very concerned about the fate of a young man you have never met.’

‘Oh,’ cried Emma, ‘it is nothing. It is only that I never can bear to see any fellow creature condemned unjustly.’ She shivered as if she had but just discovered the evening to be cold, and began to walk back towards the house.

Dido pursued her. ‘And where do you think Miss Verney is now?’ she asked.

‘I do not doubt she is in Worcestershire with her friend Mrs Hargreaves. From all I have heard of that lady, she is the very sort to take part in such a scheme.’

‘I sincerely hope you are right. I know that Mr Fenstanton has written to Mr Hargreaves – and every other friend that he knows of…’ Dido stopped talking as she realised her companion had ceased to listen.

Emma had come to a standstill on the gravel and was staring towards the house.

‘Is something wrong, Miss Fenstanton?’

‘Oh, no. It is just a light.’

‘A light?’

There was, in fact, a great deal of light. The vast window of the hall blazed brightly, throwing its beams out onto the terrace, turning the clematis stems into a delicate, dark tracery, and the box hedges into long solid blocks of shadow. The faint sound of music reached them on the still evening air, proving that dancing was yet in progress.

But Emma was not looking at the hall window or the terrace. She raised a finger slowly. ‘There,’ she said, ‘there in the east wing. Do you see a light?’

Dido’s gaze followed the pointing finger, and she saw a faint light in a window on the first floor of the east wing, the window closest to the main body of the house.

‘Now why should anyone go into that part of the house at this hour of the night?’ said Emma. ‘Those rooms have not been used since my aunt Francine died.’

The two women stood side by side in the dusk and watched as the light disappeared from the first window and appeared a moment later at the next window along. They watched it move slowly to a third, before finally coming to rest in the fourth – the last in the wing. ‘Those were my aunt’s apartments,’ said Emma. ‘But they are all shut up now. Who would want to go there?’

The question stirred Dido into life. She took her companion’s arm. ‘Let us see who is missing from the company in the hall,’ she said.

Chapter Fourteen

The great hall appeared very bright after the gloom of the garden. Extra candles had been set up on the instrument, where one of Mr Parry’s sons was obliging the company with a lively Irish air; and the light showed up faces flushed with dancing, the tumbled curls and bright eyes of the ladies – and young men with their cravats awry. The exercise had made everyone warm. Two casements had been opened in the great window and the old tapestries on the walls stirred slightly in the draught of night air, making the shadowy huntsmen and stags appear to move among the woven trees. Moths had found their way into the room and were executing their own dances about the candle flames.

Dido’s eye moved quickly over the five couple of dancers. Mr George was manoeuvring the particularly large and unwieldy Mrs Parry down the set. Mrs Bailey was standing opposite the youngest of the Parry sons – who looked painfully embarrassed by his situation.

And there was one lady disengaged. Miss Gibbs was sitting glumly in the window seat, plying her fan and endeavouring (unsuccessfully) to look as if she did not care about dancing.

As Dido skirted round the set and made her way to the window, she took another rapid survey of the room – and found one gentleman missing.

‘Oh,’ she cried, approaching Martha with a look of sympathy. ‘You are out of luck to have no partner! Where is Mr Lancelot Fenstanton?’

‘He went off just before the dance began,’ sighed Martha. ‘A servant came and whispered something to him and he was off saying he must look at a sick horse. But he said he would be back before the dance was finished.’ As she spoke, Martha cast no very friendly look at Emma who had now curled herself like a basking cat into the window seat. Poor Miss Gibbs was no doubt calculating that her dance was lost entirely. When the gentleman returned he would ask his cousin.

Dido’s eyes strayed from the look of resentment to the wide staircase. But the hall was so well lit as to render the gallery above all darkness. She was just wondering whether, on the pretence of visiting her aunt, she might escape and look into the east wing, when Mr Lancelot himself appeared from behind the carved screen and hurried towards them.

Both girls turned to him and Dido noticed that, beyond the bulk of his partner, Mr George was watching too, very eager for his daughter to enter the dance on her cousin’s arm.

Mr Lancelot stopped, bowed and surveyed the girls with a smile – and then he turned to Dido. ‘Miss Kent, I have not yet had the pleasure of dancing with you since you have been at Charcombe. I hope you will indulge me now.’

He had succeeded in surprising everyone. Martha looked mortified. Emma was smiling good-humouredly; but her father appeared to be upon the point of exploding with rage. Dido offered her hand in confusion, her mind momentarily distracted from the pressing question of why anyone should wander about a disused part of the house in the hours of darkness.

But, by the time he had handed her across the set, she was sufficiently accustomed to her position of honour to say: ‘I hope your horse is recovering, Mr Fenstanton.’

‘Ha! My horse?’

‘The sick horse that you were called away to look at,’ she said – her suspicions all alive again.

‘Oh no!’ he cried cheerfully. ‘I shall not bore you with talk of my horse. All the world knows that ladies despise gentlemen who soliloquise upon their horses. If you find me such a dull partner, you may never consent to dance with me again.’ And he began immediately to talk of Devonshire: of its beauties, its castles and its fine prospects, and of the many places which he hoped she would be able to visit during her stay at Charcombe.

It was all very delightful. But, before Dido gave herself up entirely to the pleasure of dancing with a charming (and remarkably sure-footed) man, she did spare time to consider that although the passage behind the screen might have brought Mr Lancelot through the back of the house from the stables, it might also have furnished a route from the backstairs and the first floor of the east wing.

And then, as they joined hands and danced down the set, she looked at the dark shoes flying beside her across the flagged floor. They were remarkably clean. They certainly did not give her partner the appearance of a man who had been called away to hurry into a stable yard.

Chapter Fifteen

… I am quite determined to look into the east wing this morning, Eliza. I shall do it just as soon as the housemaids have finished their work upon the stairs and the gallery. It is not long after seven, but I have already been walking in the grounds. I hope that my aunt will sleep another two hours – it may be three, for she was remarkably restless last night. I found her awake and full of complaints when I came up from the dancing in the hall.

Now, what is your opinion, Eliza? Why should Mr Lancelot – or anyone else – go into a deserted part of the house in the dark? What business there could be so very urgent as to call a host away from his guests?

That is the most
pressing
question in my head this morning. Though it is by no means the
only
one. For my thoughts run a great deal too upon Miss Emma and her theories and information.

Emma Fenstanton is an odd, contradictory little creature, with her pretty ways that seem calculated to ensnare lovers, her avid reading of such very
worthy
books, and her strong opinions which deride the entire male sex. She is an intriguing mixture of the frivolous and the serious. I cannot make her out at all, and so it is very difficult to judge exactly what she would be about.

Why did she come out to join me yesterday evening? Why was she so very determined to tell her unlikely tale of Miss Verney’s deception? Perhaps it was no more than the pleasure of exercising her fancy. But somehow I think it was more than that. Her whole heart seemed to be in the attempt to prove Tom Lomax innocent – and yet she says that she has never met the man for whom she was pleading so earnestly.

Can I trust her? In particular, can I trust the information which she supplied about Miss Verney?