Place of Confinement (16 page)

She looked about; the hall and gallery above were both deserted.

She ran once more up the stairs and this time reached the end of the gallery and the interesting door which led into the deserted part of the house. Her hand was actually upon the latch, when again a voice called out to stop her.

‘Lord! Miss Kent! You are up and running about very early!’ Miss Gibbs was just emerging onto the gallery from her chamber. She yawned widely and approached the door. ‘I declare I have not slept a wink again, there was such a crying in the night! And I could not run a step until after I have ate my breakfast!’

Dido said something rather foolish about the beauty of the morning making one energetic; but Miss Gibbs was not to be got rid of.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked bluntly. Her eyes were red with sleeplessness and the curls about her face were once more singed. (How, wondered Dido, could any woman – even one as clumsy as Miss Gibbs – make the same mistake again and again when dressing her hair?)

‘I confess that I was attempting to creep into the east wing unobserved. For I have a great curiosity to see the whole house.’

‘Oh well! Then I shall come with you,’ said Martha and, without waiting to hear whether her company was wanted, she threw open the door, crashing it loudly against the wall. Martha Gibbs was certainly not the ideal companion for a covert mission.

And it soon appeared that she had her own reasons for seeking a private conference, for she stepped forward eagerly, preventing Dido from passing through the door. ‘Have you found out anything about Tish?’ she said in her flat, forthright way.

‘I do not yet know what has become of her,’ Dido replied cautiously. ‘But I have made one or two discoveries. And,’ she added, thinking that since she could not rid herself of the young lady’s company she might as well take advantage of it, ‘there is a question or two I should like to ask of you, Miss Gibbs.’

‘Oh, but—’ Martha looked wary.

‘For example,’ said Dido, looking about to be sure they were not observed and speaking low, ‘what is your friend’s opinion of Mr Tom Lomax? Does she admire him? Or does she … distrust him?’

Martha frowned immediately. ‘Why should she think bad of him?’ she demanded.

‘Perhaps she might suspect that he was pursuing her for the sake of her fortune.’

‘Oh, but Miss Kent, he ain’t like that at all!’ cried Martha. ‘He is the most delightful young man in the world!’

‘And does Miss Verney—’ Dido began, but Miss Gibbs was not to be stopped.

‘And it is all nonsense, you know, what they are saying about him wanting Tish’s money. For he ain’t mercenary in the least – he is all for love.’

‘Is he indeed? And may I ask how you are able to speak of it with such certainty?’

‘Oh!’ Miss Gibbs blushed furiously and looked down upon the floor. ‘Oh, I overheard him telling Tish about it – quite by accident, of course. I was not meaning to listen, Miss Kent. I would not for the world have you think bad of me.’

‘I understand. As a chaperone sometimes one cannot help but hear…’

‘Yes! That’s just how it was! And so you see, I heard him telling Tish that he loved her so much he did not care about the money one jot and … and he said that he would want to marry her just the same if she had not a penny in the world! So you see—’

But just then there came the sound of Mrs Bailey’s voice, the tread of her feet upon the stairs. Seizing Dido’s arm, Miss Gibbs hurried her through the door, into the east wing and across the dark lobby beyond. She paused, listening as if she feared pursuit. Her face was still red, her eyes wide in the sudden gloom, and the air of a thing pursued was compounded by her rather rapid breathing.

Dido waited in silence for an explanation of this strange urgency.

To the right there stretched an uncarpeted passageway. The passage windows were all shuttered, but, upon one side, three doors stood open at regular intervals, admitting pale oblongs of daylight from the three rooms beyond. There was a musty smell of a place long shut away, and a slight smell of damp and decay besides. The plaster of the walls and ceiling had crumbled in places, dusting the uneven floorboards with white. Dust motes floated in the shafts of light and the silence of the place reasserted itself as the echo of the closing door faded.

‘I must know what has happened to Tish,’ whispered Martha at last. ‘Papa has writ to say I must go home straight away. But I
can’t
leave Charcombe now … Not before I know that Tish is safe.’

Dido looked levelly at her companion. ‘Miss Gibbs,’ she said quietly, ‘what do
you
suppose is the cause of Miss Verney’s disappearance? Do you suppose that Mr Tom Lomax—’

‘He ain’t got anything to do with her going,’ said Martha quickly.

‘But how can you be so very certain?’

‘Because I know it is some scheme of Mrs Bailey’s. Tish says Mrs B has been wanting rid of her these last two years.’

Dido could only stare in surprise and wait for more information.

Miss Gibbs bit furiously at her lip. Her eyes rolled about and her fingers twisted in the chain of a locket she wore about her neck. At last she burst out with: ‘Mrs B has been against Tish ever since she married Mr B.’

‘And their marriage took place two years ago?’

‘Yes. Till then, Tish says, everything was very pleasant. Mr Bailey was always very kind to her. But then he married – and Mrs B was jealous of Tish being so pretty, you know, and was always making trouble for her. And then last autumn they quarrelled.’ Martha hesitated, her hand twisting her necklace so tight she seemed to be in danger of breaking it. ‘Did you know there had been a great falling out between Tish and Mrs B?’

‘No. What was the cause?’

‘It was about us going into Worcestershire to visit Melia. Mrs B didn’t like it at all. She don’t like Tish going anywhere without her. She watches her like a hawk.’

‘But Mrs Bailey permitted the journey into Worcestershire?’

‘Yes, she did,’ said Miss Gibbs with a strangely suspicious shake of the head. ‘Though I was quite sure she never would. It was all very odd. It happened very sudden when we was all in town together. I had a headache and stayed at our lodgings; and Mrs B and Tish went off to dine with the Whittakers and on to the theatre afterwards. And when Tish got home that night she comes to me laughing and says it’s all settled, but I must not ask how. We was off to Worcestershire next day and Mrs B sent us the whole way in her own coach. But she’s been in a great rage ever since … And Tish has always said Mrs B would get her own back if she could … and now Tish is gone. And Lord! I don’t know what to think!’

Dido stood in silence for a moment, struggling to comprehend. From beyond the closed door could be heard footsteps on the stairs and the voices of the household gathering for breakfast.

Martha turned fearfully towards the sounds. ‘I can’t say any more. She mustn’t know we’ve talked. But you will find out things, won’t you? You’ll find Tish – and prove to everyone that Mr Lomax ain’t done her any harm. But I mustn’t seem to help you.’

‘Why? Why is such caution necessary?’

Martha only shook her head like a startled horse.

‘Miss Gibbs, why are you so very frightened?’

But Martha was already opening the door and peering about its edge. ‘I must go to breakfast before I’m missed.’ Then she was out through the door and striding hurriedly along the deserted gallery.

*   *   *

Left alone in the east wing, where every movement of her feet echoed about the crumbling walls, Dido fell to wondering about Martha Gibbs. Why was the girl so very frightened? Had she been threatened? Were her suspicions of Mrs Bailey well founded, or was she too much influenced by her friend’s account of her stepmother? Nothing about Miss Gibbs suggested a very deep thinker and it was obvious that she had been used to defer to the more forceful Letitia. She had, perhaps, a little too much of a plain girl’s trust and respect for beauty.

For several minutes Dido stared along the gloomy passage with its dusty patches of sunlight. The only thing she could be sure of was that Miss Gibbs knew more than she was prepared to tell. Fear was certainly keeping her silent upon some very material points.

Well, she must look for another opportunity of gaining the girl’s confidence. But now she must complete her exploration, before she was missed at the breakfast table.

She started cautiously along the passage, the boards creaking and the fragments of fallen plaster crunching under her feet at every step …

She stopped abruptly and studied the dust upon the floor, making out the vague shape of footprints. Someone had walked here recently. Whoever it was had walked rather lightly and it was not possible to see the prints clearly; but they
might
be the prints of Mr Lancelot’s dancing shoes …

Except that those dancing shoes had been perfectly clean when he returned to the hall! She remembered searching them for evidence of the stables.

She looked down at her own feet in the block of light falling through one of the doors. There was already a layer of plaster dust covering the toes, turning the dark, serviceable leather grey. There had certainly been no such dust on the feet of her dancing partner.

Frowning thoughtfully, she looked into the first room of the wing. It was a dismal sight: a bedchamber stripped of its smaller furnishings, leaving only a mouldering bed and an oak linen press – items too large to be easily moved.

And it was the same in every room. In the next room a bird had fallen down the chimney at some time, soiling the bed hangings and covering the floor with feathers in its frantic efforts at escape. But the third, and last, room was the most desolate of all. Here so much plaster had fallen from the ceiling that the canopy of the bed had collapsed beneath its weight, skewing the curtains and spilling a great heap of rubble and white dust onto the fine yellow silk of the coverlet.

Dido stood in the doorway, quite at a loss to understand why anyone should come here by candlelight. There was nothing in this room that could be of use, or interest, to anyone. And yet she was sure that it was here, to the last room, that the candle had been carried. She remembered the light’s faint journey along the wing and imagined someone carrying a candle down the passageway, the light falling through the open doors and illuming each window in turn until it came here, to the end …

Except this was not the end. It could not be. She now had a vivid memory of counting the windows – there had been
four.
It was in the fourth window that the light had come to rest, not the third.

She stepped back into the passage. But there was no door beyond this one. She moved into the room – the floorboards groaning alarmingly beneath her. There was certainly only one window in this room – as there had been in all the others. She turned to the far wall of the chamber which was half obscured by the bed hangings. The door to the fourth room must be there.

She drew aside the torn, dirty silk, sending gritty dust into her hair and eyes. And there was the door. An unremarkable little door, such as one might find in any old house leading from a bedchamber into a dressing room. But there was one very remarkable thing about this door. There were three bolts fixed to it; sturdy bolts, slightly rusted, but still sound.

Two of the bolts were undone, the third half closed to hold the door in place. When Dido set her hand to draw this last bolt, it moved smoothly as if it had been recently released.

The door creaked open and there was the last room of the east wing: a narrow dressing room, bare, but a little cleaner than the outer room. Some of the plaster dust had been brushed from the floor; the counterpane on the small bed shaken. The only other furnishings were a table and a chair beside the tiny fire grate, and they had likewise been cleared of dust; rather roughly – the arc of a swiping hand or cloth was still visible. But it was the window which drew Dido’s eye. It was a casement window in solid stone embrasures. And into the old grey stones had been fastened a thick set of iron bars.

The little room was, in fact, a prison.

Dido sat down upon the bed; for several minutes she was too shocked for rational thought. But her head was full of a great many impressions. She felt the desolation of this deserted wing and the contrast that it made with the inhabited portion of the house, where the company was drinking its chocolate and coffee and eating its toast and chops. She felt the oddness of a hidden, empty place in the midst of life and bustle … And then her heart chilled at the wretched evidences in this room … evidences of restraint … imprisonment …

She looked from the bolts upon the door to the bars at the window and gradually reason began to assert itself over the horror of the moment.

This room had been made secure, and made secure for a purpose. The existence of a prison argued for a prisoner. She went to the window and set her hand to the bars. They chilled her hand and, as she slowly uncurled her fingers, she saw that they had left a red stain of rust. Rain had made its way in through the old window leads and, from the base of the bars, a thin red trickle lay, like blood, across the grey stone …

And there, beside the rust stain, was something scratched in the stone. She peered more closely at the place where daylight fell on the window sill. There were a great many scratches which looked like letters unsuccessfully formed. She studied them, but could make out nothing until she came at last to a pair of initials carved – as one sees such things sometimes scratched by tourists upon castle walls or druid stones. Two letters … She looked closer; traced the marks with a finger. FF? Yes, that was what it appeared to be. And four straight lines had been cut to enclose the letters. She looked along the window ledge and saw the same two letters, framed in the same manner, again – and again. And then, upon the stone mullion, she found them repeated three more times.

The repetition spoke of the monotony of a confined life. But the engraving was not freshly cut. It appeared to be years old – as old perhaps as the rusted bars. And yet, someone had recently been here. The dust had been disturbed – and the bolts upon the door had been drawn …