Place of Confinement (20 page)

What was there here to draw Miss Fenstanton from the enjoyment of fresh air and company?

*   *   *

I hope that she will come here soon,
wrote Dido,
for I cannot wait long. Today we are all to go to the inn at New Charcombe to look upon poor Mr Brodie. It was all arranged by Mr Parry during his visit. I must walk thither in order to perform some errands for my aunt. And I intend to take the opportunity of meeting Mr Lomax in the old village so that we may visit his son. I have sent word to him and …

*   *   *

Out in the hall – beyond the door which had been purposely left ajar – there was the sound of a light, tripping step. Dido bent her head over her letter and, with her pen resting on the last word, waited.

But the door did not open. The footsteps passed away across the hall.

She set down her pen and went to the door. Miss Fenstanton was running across the hall from the front door to the screens passage; her bonnet was hanging back from her curls, her shawl was slipping gracefully from her shoulders, and there was a little workbox tucked under her arm. For a moment it was doubtful what she was about; then Dido made out that she had come there to meet someone. Matthews, the grim housekeeper, was waiting for her beside the screen.

Emma held out her hand, she seemed to be thanking the housekeeper – who answered rapidly, saying something in which was included the name of her master and also the need to ‘be mighty careful’ about something.

She handed a little package to Emma, who put it away quickly in her workbox, before turning towards the library.

Dido had only just time to resume her seat and look up in great surprise as Miss Emma and her workbox burst through the library door. The door slammed and the girl leant against it in a moment of relief.

‘Good morning, Miss Fenstanton.’

Emma started, her cheeks coloured and she could barely manage a greeting. She dropped into a chair and put her box – a pretty little thing of Tunbridge-ware with a pink silk lining peeping from its lid – on the table.

And Dido, quite cruelly, hastened to increase the poor girl’s distress. ‘I am glad of this opportunity of speaking to you alone,’ she began pleasantly, ‘for I have been wishing to return your book. I hope you do not mind my borrowing it.’ She pushed across the table the extraordinary copy of
Blair’s Sermons
which had been lying ready beside her writing desk.

Emma Fenstanton stared at it, and seemed for a moment as if she might deny possession. Then: ‘Oh!’ she said. Dimples flashed into existence for a second, her bright eyes darted to her companion’s face. ‘I wondered where it was got to. Did you … did you happen to look into it, Miss Kent?’

‘Yes. I read a whole chapter to my aunt yesterday.’

‘To your aunt?’ The last vestige of Miss Emma’s usual self-possession was lost. Her hands flew to her face. ‘And … and what was Mrs Manners’ opinion?’

‘Oh, she approved it heartily – if sleeping soundly throughout may be counted approval.’

Emma sat in stunned silence – until she caught at the smile which was spreading across Dido’s face. In a moment both women were laughing loudly.

‘She suspected nothing,’ Dido reassured. ‘And your secret is quite safe with me. I shall not say a word to anyone about the surprising sentiments which Mr Blair expresses in this particular volume of sermons.’

Emma answered with very promising gratitude. Then, with a little of her playfulness returning she added, ‘And what did
you
think of these
sermons
Miss Kent?’

‘Well, I did not find Miss Wollstonecraft’s style of writing pleasant, but many – indeed most – of her opinions I considered very sound indeed.’

‘And that,’ cried Emma, ‘was what everyone thought – when this was first published.’ She crossed her arms over the disguised book and continued eagerly. ‘When the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman
first appeared it was not thought shocking at all, you know – well, not so
very
shocking. It was thought to be just another book about the education of girls.’

‘It is certainly a subject which often exercises the female pen,’ agreed Dido.

‘But then – after her death – the circumstances of Miss Wollstonecraft’s life came to be known.’ Emma’s dark eyes glinted wickedly in the library’s gloom with the spice of gossip. ‘She loved a man to whom she was not married, you know,’ she whispered. ‘And she
gave way
to her passion.’

‘Yes, I had heard that there were … irregularities.’

‘And it was
that
which turned the world against her book. It was the scandal of her life which made men like Papa forbid their daughters to read her work.’

‘And so,’ said Dido, lowering her own voice to suit the very convenient atmosphere of confidence and intimacy which was gradually taking possession of the library, ‘you believe it is on account of her character, rather than her opinions, that the lady is despised?’

‘Yes.’ Emma sighed extravagantly. ‘And is it not the way of the world, Miss Kent?’ She shook back her curls and lifted up her eyes. ‘Is it not the fate of every woman to be judged by her character … by what she
is
rather than what she
thinks?
’

‘Indeed. Reputation is everything to the female sex,’ agreed Dido. ‘I believe it always has been – since we ceased to live in a state of complete savagery.’

‘But do you not sometimes wish to defy the world and behave quite shockingly?’ sighed Emma.

Dido chose not to consider the question. ‘And yet,’ she observed quietly instead, ‘you have
not
defied the world, Miss Fenstanton.’ She indicated the book. ‘You proceed by subterfuge, and read in secret what is proscribed.’ She smiled. ‘It is a stratagem of which Miss Wollstonecraft would certainly not approve. She denounces as beneath us all those little tricks and subterfuges which we women use to gain our ends.’

‘Oh!’ cried Emma. ‘“Behold the natural effect of ignorance!”’ She shrugged up her shoulders. ‘In short, you know, I cannot help but be devious. It is my faulty education – and the denial of my rights and liberties – which has made me so!’

‘This is poor morality and you know it,’ laughed Dido. ‘I would be quite worried about you if I did not believe your little trick to be harmless.’ She paused. ‘If I did not believe
all
your little tricks to be harmless.’

Emma’s smiling dimples disappeared abruptly. She dropped her eyes, ran a finger around the edge of the book’s cover. ‘I do not understand you, Miss Kent.’

‘Your little arrangement with the bookbinder is not your only secret, is it? You have other schemes in hand?’

‘Now, why should you suspect me?’ cried Emma, clutching her book to her as if it were a breastplate to ward off attack.

‘Because,’ said Dido looking at her levelly, ‘you have shown yourself to be quite determined to prove Mr Tom Lomax innocent of the crimes charged against him. And I cannot help but wonder why you are so very concerned about a young man you have never met.’

Emma’s dimples returned. She cast up her eyes to the finely moulded plaster of the library ceiling. ‘Perhaps you suspect me of being secretly acquainted with Mr Lomax,’ she mused playfully. ‘Perhaps you suspect me of being in love with him.’

‘Perhaps I do.’

‘Why, what a very interesting woman you think me, Miss Kent! I am quite flattered! But in fact I am very dull, you know. I give you my word that I have never met the young man. And – being so very dull as I am – I have not the knack of falling in love with gentlemen I do not know.’

‘But I will not believe that you are dull at all, Miss Fenstanton. I
know
that you have some other secret to hide. Come now, I have obliged you with the quiet return of your book. Will you not oblige me by satisfying my curiosity.’ She smiled invitingly. ‘Please tell me why you like to come alone to this room.’

Emma looked uncertain. Dido began to hope …

But her hopes were cruelly dashed by the opening of the library door.

‘So this is where you are hiding, Emma!’ Mr George’s perspiring face appeared around the door’s edge. ‘Make haste! Make haste and come into the garden. Lancelot is asking for you.’

Emma rose quickly, threw one mischievous smile in Dido’s direction, and was gone. Father and daughter could be heard crossing the hall; he in full flow of disapproval of her ‘hiding herself away indoors, and spoiling her eyes with too much reading…’

As his complaints faded away into the garden, Dido railed inwardly against her ill luck, and wondered whether another ten minutes might have produced anything of interest. Perhaps they might; but Miss Fenstanton was a difficult subject for investigation. She seemed to delight in subterfuge for its own sake …

So absorbed was Dido in these considerations that it was several minutes before her eye fell upon the workbox which had been left behind on the library table.

She stared at it a moment as if she feared that it too might be snatched away from her. Then she went to the door and looked out into the hall. She wished to be quite certain of privacy. Only when she was sure that she was alone did she return and cautiously lift the lid of the workbox.

Inside, the housekeeper’s paper-wrapped package lay among the coloured cottons, the scissors and the needle cards. A little grease had seeped from it and stained the pink silk lining.

Dido drew back a corner of the paper – and revealed a freshly cooked chicken leg.

Chapter Twenty-One

… Well, Eliza, why should any young woman go to such trouble to convey a chicken leg into a deserted library? I had not put Miss Fenstanton down for a secret eater! I
have known
girls who seek to satisfy in private an appetite which they consider indelicate to reveal at table, but I am quite sure that Miss Emma has no such overstrained notions of refinement.

So I cannot doubt that it was her intention for the chicken to be consumed by someone else. But who is this eater of roast chicken? I can see for myself that there is no one here in the library …

*   *   *

Dido stopped and looked about rather uneasily – almost expecting to see this hungry person watching from among the books. But the shelves and the panelled walls stretched blankly about her. The only watching eyes were the distinctly malevolent ones of the ram above the fireplace.

She got to her feet and made a slow circuit of the room, running her hand carefully over books and wooden panels. There was no sign of any hiding place … And yet, she thought, considering the style of the room … and the age of the Charcombe Manor …

An idea darted into her brain.

Pausing only to lock her letter away in her writing desk, Dido ran out of the room. She sped across the hall, took the shallow stairs two at a time, and did not stop until she had cleared the second flight and arrived at the very top of the house.

The long gallery was silent and deserted; the sun shone in through the south-facing windows onto the worn matting, white walls – and the disapproving Elizabethan lady. Dido approached her slowly over gently creaking boards and was gratified to find that she had remembered correctly – there was, indeed, a
rosary
in the white tapering fingers.

She peered up at the picture, and found it an old, indistinct thing; an indifferent likeness of a forgotten ancestor, such as hang by the dozen upon the walls of country houses everywhere, grimed over with the dust and smoke of more than a century, turning slowly to the uniform colour of chocolate and disregarded entirely by family and visitors alike. The lady seemed to be fading into her background, her broad skirts now barely distinguishable from the dark room in which she stood.

Dido clambered onto the chamber horse in her eagerness to read the picture and, swaying precariously on its protesting springs, brought her face close to the canvas. From here it was just possible to make out a little of the background – though it all seemed to swim in a brownish fog. Beyond the broad blue sleeves and the crimped white edges of the lady’s ruff, the corner of a chimney piece could just be made out. There was an overmantel of dark wood – with the head of a ram carved upon it.

‘Exactly as I thought!’ she cried, just before losing her balance and stumbling backward onto the floor.

But even the fall could not diminish her spirits. She sat down upon the chamber horse and gave several little bounces of triumph. Her mind was rapidly filling with ideas about Miss Fenstanton and her secrets. She began – like a woman sewing patchwork – to fashion a very serviceable theory from bits and scraps of observations which had individually seemed to be of little value.

She thought about a little ghost crying in the night; the mysterious figure creeping from the garden to the library; she thought about a round depression in the moss of the path; she thought of thick black slugs, and of the Elizabethan lady’s piety; she thought about the scratch upon Miss Fenstanton’s hand and the concern of that young lady to prove Tom innocent; and she thought about the rather weak excuse given for that concern …

At last she paused to consider her fine new piece of patchwork. The pattern of it was remarkably satisfying. But there was yet one detail missing. There was one enquiry to be made without delay. She rose from the chamber horse, determined upon risking her aunt’s displeasure and escaping the house for a few minutes.

For it had become absolutely imperative that she consult with young Charlie and his assistant in the stables.

*   *   *

‘I have been thinking about the story of Charcombe’s little ghost,’ Dido remarked to Mr Lancelot later that day as they were walking together along the shady road which led beside the river to the village of Old Charcombe. ‘In particular I have been wondering where exactly Lady Fenstanton is reputed to have hidden her child.’

‘Ha! I am sure I don’t know.’ He considered a moment. ‘No, I never heard
where
the child was put.’

Dido was a little disappointed in drawing a blank here for, in general, the gentleman seemed in the mood for confidence. He had insisted upon accompanying her on her walk to the village and seemed to be taking pleasure in her company. They had been talking very comfortably about his house and grounds, and she was in hopes of learning a little more about his family. For recent discoveries (in particular the spoiling of the silk slippers) had led her to suspect that the mysteries surrounding her might be rooted in the past of Charcombe Manor.