Place of Confinement (3 page)

Perhaps he was telling her about the letter. They were walking away together; they had almost gained the terrace before the house and Dido was in hopes of hearing their conversation – Miss Emma seemed distressed. She was clinging now to her cousin’s arm. And she seemed to be pleading with him.

In her eagerness to hear what was passing, Dido leant towards the door, but the light, girlish voice was lost in the breeze. And when Mr Lancelot replied he spoke quietly. The genial look was gone from his face: he looked stern.

What, Dido wondered, was little Miss Fenstanton asking that displeased him so much? Was she making some plea on behalf of the vanished Miss Verney? She was shaking back her short black curls; there was a look of entreaty upon her pale face as it turned up gracefully.

But the gentleman was immune to her charm. He spoke briefly with every appearance of firmness, and walked away, leaving Emma gazing after him, her arms crossed about her book. She stamped a small foot in irritation. Then stood for several minutes, lost in thought.

At last she seemed to take some decision and began to walk purposefully towards the house.

She stopped a moment in the darkness of the porch, and looked about with the quick little movements of a hunted animal. It appeared that she might have private business to conduct in the house which she did not wish to be overlooked. Perhaps, thought Dido, that private business related to the vanished lady …

Miss Emma was running into the hall now. She crossed to the library door, unaware of the silent observer in the shadows. But then, with her hand upon the lock of the library door, she looked about – and saw the inquisitive figure sitting with her writing desk at the hall table. ‘Miss Kent!’ she cried. ‘Why, I thought everybody was in the garden!’ She moved away from the door – as if she did not wish to be suspected of having any interest in it.

‘But why, why, why do you sit inside on such a delightful day? Whatever are you up to?’ Emma skipped across the hall and laid her parasol and her book on the table. (The book, Dido noted with some surprise, was the dry and worthy
Dr Gregory’s Advice to his Daughters.
)

Dido pleaded her aunt’s indisposition as her reason for not joining the company in the garden, and Miss Fenstanton sat down beside her with a look of sympathy on her merry little face. ‘Ah dear,’ she said, ‘how delightful it must be, to be as rich as Mrs Manners and able to torment all one’s relations! I hope that I may be as rich one day – and then I shall be
horribly
tyrannical.’ She gave a little laugh – in any other girl it might have been a giggle, but in Emma it was a laugh, musical and gentle on the ear. ‘I shall make a dozen different wills and threaten everybody with not leaving them a penny! It will be such fun!’

Miss Fenstanton did not mean to be unkind. Such flights of fancy were common with her. But Dido blushed; any reminder of her own situation – her enforced attendance upon her aunt and the mercenary motives which must be imputed to it – was painful. She said nothing, and studied her companion so that she might provide a description for Eliza.

Though she was but sixteen, there was a look of good health and high spirits about Miss Emma; an air of blooming womanhood. And so it was a shock to look close and find that there was little actual beauty in face or figure. Her complexion was good, but her nose was insignificant and her eyes, though bright, were rather small. But, pleased with herself and with the world, Emma Fenstanton had never considered the possibility that she was not pretty. And, possessed of such certainty within herself, she carried her point with all observers. She passed everywhere for a beauty.

At the moment there was one decided flaw in her looks which appeared as she drew off her gloves and laid them beside the book on the table.

‘Your hand is scratched,’ remarked Dido solicitously.

‘Oh!’ Emma laughed again and looked down at her hand. An angry red mark ran across the white skin, beaded with blood which was but recently dried. ‘I scratched myself on a rose bush while I was gathering flowers this morning.’ She indicated a large vase which stood near the hearth.

Dido made a civil remark upon the prettiness of the flowers’ arrangement; but all Emma’s attention was now fixed upon the open door, beyond which could be seen the small plump figure of her father, Mr George Fenstanton.

He was hurrying purposefully across the lawn towards the house.

Emma jumped up, took her parasol and book from the table and ran out onto the steps – as if she did not wish to be discovered within doors.

‘Now then, miss!’ boomed Mr George as he all but ran against his daughter on the front steps. ‘I’ll thank you to stop a moment and listen to me.’

He took her arm and paused a moment, struggling for breath after his brisk walk across the lawn.

He was a short, round, oddly smooth-looking man in a tight green coat. His pink scalp showed through the sparse white hair of his head and his busyness and self-consequence showed through every movement that he made, every word that he spoke. And when Mr George was feeling particularly self-important, some odd arrangement of his teeth made a whistle of his breath.

‘What are you about?’ he demanded, still holding his daughter’s arm.

‘Nothing, Papa.’

He snatched the book from under her arm, read its cover and handed it back to her without a comment. ‘Now, I don’t like the way things are carrying on,’ he said, whistling loudly. ‘Did I see you just now quarrelling with your cousin Lancelot?’

‘No, Papa. We were not quarrelling, merely talking.’

‘Well, miss. I’ll thank you to remember your duty. This is a fine opportunity for you to catch Lancelot – while the Verney heiress is out of the way. And I expect to see you
smiling
at him – not quarrelling.’

‘Yes, Papa. I shall smile.’ Miss Emma turned up her face and displayed a dazzling – but mischievous – smile that was all made up of dimples and white teeth and sparkling black eyes.

George Fenstanton seemed blind to the danger of the smile. Looking pleased with himself for having resolved this little matter, he linked his arm firmly through his daughter’s, and steered her back to the company on the lawn.

Left alone in the hall, Dido indulged herself with some rather suspicious thoughts about the lively Miss Emma. Why had she come into the house? And why had the discovery that she was not alone prevented her from completing her purpose?

And it was very doubtful that Emma had been telling the truth about the scratch on her hand. The vase by the hearth contained lilacs, and lilies aplenty – but there was not a single rose. In fact, as well as Dido could recall, there were as yet no roses blooming in Charcombe Manor’s garden. Miss Fenstanton would have had little reason to approach a rose bush …

Chapter Three

… Well, perhaps Miss Emma Fenstanton has some knowledge of Miss Verney’s plans and is pleading her cause with Mr Lancelot … Or perhaps Mr George Fenstanton has quietly disposed of Miss Verney in order that his daughter may have a better chance of marrying Mr Lancelot.

By the by, Eliza, the existence of this Mr George burst upon me when we arrived at Charcombe Manor. He is the brother of our Aunt Manners and also of Mr Lancelot’s late father. I had no notion of her possessing a surviving brother, for I have never heard one word of him from her lips – unlike ‘my dear nephew, Lancelot,’ about whom we have all been hearing for ever.

And I notice that she has little more to say to Mr George than she has of him, scarcely ever addressing him unless she has the opportunity of contradicting him.

I confess that I can feel little regard for the man myself. He is a pompous, prosing fellow – and I have noticed that he is very much attached to Charcombe Manor in a jealous, younger brother sort of way. I do not doubt that it would suit him
very well indeed
to see his child married to the present owner (though I do not believe the child herself has much enthusiasm for the scheme) … Perhaps he has taken extreme measures to bring about a match! Perhaps Mr George is at the heart of Miss Verney’s odd ‘elopement’ which appears to be no elopement at all.

I declare, when one comes to consider the matter there are all manner of interesting possibilities!

I watched very closely this evening to see the effect of this latest news – the young man’s claim to have escorted the lady safely home. All the older members of the company – Mr Lancelot, Mr George Fenstanton, Mrs Bailey and my aunt – are united in a disbelief of the young man’s account. He is a thorough-going villain in their eyes.

As one might expect, the two young ladies are less inclined to condemn, youth being always predisposed to trust and excuse.

Martha Gibbs and Emma Fenstanton, I should say, have such a friendship as two young ladies thrown together in a country house – without possessing a thought or feeling in common – may be supposed to have. They are confederates in working a chair cover and sit over it every evening, conversing very comfortably; in no danger of ever understanding one another on any subject beyond the choice of threads and patterns.

Merry little Miss Fenstanton considers it ‘a great lark’ that the young man knows not where Letitia Verney is. And she doubts not he is ‘as foolish as other men – even though they do say he has a handsome face’.

To which Miss Gibbs solemnly replies, ‘Lord yes! It is just as you say. He has a
very
handsome face indeed and one cannot believe such a fine man is a liar.’

I cannot help but wonder about Miss Martha Gibbs – I am
sure
she was not surprised to hear that the young man denies all knowledge of abduction …

You will probably find my enthusiasm for this mystery unbecoming, Eliza; but I know you are too kind to begrudge me a little diversion from the duties of a niece. Life as a lady’s ‘companion’ is excessively dull. I may not walk abroad for fear of my aunt being ‘seized suddenly’; if I am detected with a book in my hand, she is immediately taken with the desire of having ‘a comfortable chat’; and I am scarcely allowed to be in company.

I am writing now in Aunt Manners’ bedchamber; she is unwell and has retired early. I am required to sit with her until she sleeps, to guard against the possibility of her being seized so very suddenly as to make her unable to ring the bell. It is an acute sickness of the ‘enervating’ sort which overcame her at teatime – just after she was disappointed in the forming of a whist table when all the young people vetoed cards and decided that dancing was to form the evening’s entertainment.

She has taken a glass of wine and a particularly large dose of the brown medicine which is generally of use in cases of ‘enervating’ seizures. And I hope that she is on her way to sleeping now …

*   *   *

She stopped writing again, and raised her head to listen. The sound of a lively Scotch air came very faint from below. The dancing was yet in progress.

Dido had been surprised that the company should be so very merry while Miss Verney’s fate remained uncertain. But Mr Fenstanton and Mrs Bailey were determined that no rumours of elopement should begin to circulate. For the sake of the young lady’s reputation everything was to be smoothed over – and her absence explained by that convenient cover-all of ‘visiting friends’.

The Parrys, a family of neighbours who knew nothing of the business, had walked up to the manor after tea. And since there were three grown-up young Mr Parrys, and not one inconvenient daughter, there were probably gentleman enough in the hall that even Dido might be asked to dance …

Of course, at six and thirty, such calculations
should
be beneath her notice. And besides, why should she expect to be entertained at Charcombe? The very purpose of her being here was that she might suffer every pain of neglect and insignificance, until she had learnt her duty to her family …

But there is something so very
inviting
about a Scotch air – even when it is rattled out upon an old harpsichord.

She looked across the wainscoted chamber – very gloomy beyond the candle’s light. In the high bed with its four posts and its dark crimson curtains, her aunt lay very still, her fingers just clutching the edge of the sheet, her eyes shut tight, her soft little face composed beneath her starched white nightcap.

Was she sleeping? Might it be possible to creep down and join the dancing? A little company, a little exercise would be delightful … And it might be possible to learn more about Miss Verney’s disappearance …

Dido laid down her pen, rose very quietly and began to tiptoe about the room, putting to rights her aunt’s possessions. She folded the dressing robe which had been left across the bed’s foot and put it away in one of the pair of closets that flanked the fireplace. Then she took from the side of the bed the pretty new slippers of green silk which the maid had but just finished sewing in their journey thither. She noticed that the backs were already trodden down, and shook her head over the damage as she put them away, for she never could bear to see good shoes injured needlessly.

Mrs Manners did not stir as she worked and Dido began to hope that escape might be possible. She crept slowly towards the door …

‘My dear?’ The voice was weak: the voice of a woman barely alive and about to whisper a parting benediction. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes, Aunt.’ She sighed and went to the bedside.

‘Oh, I wondered where you were got to. I feel so very
unwell.
’ Mrs Manners peered up short-sightedly at her niece. One hand released the covers and fastened itself upon Dido’s wrist. It was a dry little hand, heavily burdened with rings. The bones in it were as delicate as a bird’s; but its warmth and strength were strangely at odds with the weakness of the voice.

‘Shall I send for an apothecary?’ suggested Dido.

‘No, I do not wish to be a trouble to anybody.’ The hand tightened, the thick gold of the rings bit into Dido’s wrist.