Place of Confinement (40 page)

But she had judged ill in leaving the protection of a companion. For now the whole party was putting aside its plates and glasses and turning its mind to the next great business of the day – the admiration of fine prospects. And Mr Lancelot had taken advantage of the general movement to seek her out.

‘I fear,’ he said, approaching her so quietly that she started and almost fell into a bush of juniper, ‘that I must press you for an answer to my proposal, Miss Kent. Our aunt is eager to have the business settled. And besides, I am sure I need not remind you that the assize judges arrive in Exeter today.’

She looked up at him hastily – then back to the sandy track. Still there was no movement upon it.

‘I … I need to consider,’ she said. He was standing too close again; and now she found it most decidedly unpleasant. She wished he would go away. And she wished too that she had been a little wiser herself. A little less easily flattered. Too late she suspected that her recent behaviour towards him might have been interpreted as
encouraging.

She began to walk away, but he pursued her and drew from his pocket a tattered paper which she immediately recognised for Mr Bailey’s letter. She stopped.

He looked from the letter to her with an air of innocent puzzlement. ‘Now, what shall I do with this? Shall I deliver it directly?’ The breeze blew the loose black hair into his face and he blinked like a little boy. ‘You would not wish me to do that, would you, Miss Kent?’

The pretence of innocence was more than she could bear; all at once, anger had the better of her. ‘You are mistaken,’ she cried, ‘if you think such ungentlemanly behaviour can prevail upon me.’

He laughed. ‘Now, take care what you say, my dear. Remember everything that is at stake.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I understand exactly what is at stake. And that is why…’ She fought for control – but it was control of her voice, not her temper. She could feel caution blowing away on the warm sea breeze. Her eyes had ceased to search the track for the approach of assistance. She could not help but act for herself – and speak what she thought. She knew that she might regret it in a moment, but the words would not be held back. ‘I thank you for your offer, sir, but I cannot marry you,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘I cannot marry you because I have reason – good reason – to doubt your character.’

‘My character?’

The air of surprise was a further provocation. Her anger was rising with every moment. His very expectation of compliance was an insult – and a shameful reminder of how weak and foolish her own behaviour had been. ‘Yes, sir,’ she cried, the words almost bursting from her lips. ‘I could never marry a man who is so lacking in consideration for the feelings of others, and who has no respect for the rights or possessions of his fellows! Nor,’ she added after a moment’s thought, ‘could I accept a man who is so remarkably irreligious.’

Fenstanton took a step back, almost as if her words were blows. ‘Ha! Now, I think you had better explain yourself. A fellow can’t have such accusations thrown at him without wanting to hear an explanation, you know.’

‘You shall, by all means have my explanation,’ she said, but was forced to stop and collect her powers.

It required all her strength to form rational, comprehensible words when she only wished to scream and rail against him. They had come now to a place where a small but rapid and noisy stream ran down between banks crowded with curls of young bracken and pale-pink cuckoo flowers. She stood for a moment watching the clear water swirl and chatter around the stones, then drew a long breath and raised her head.

When she spoke her voice was tolerably calm but it had still the edge and tremor of extreme emotion. ‘You have shown how very indifferent you can be to the sufferings of others by your cruel treatment of Miss Verney. You had pursued your interest with her, led her to believe in a “growing understanding”, but did not hesitate to give her up when a more favourable alliance fell in your way.’

‘I daresay she will not be too badly hurt by it.’

‘Oh no, Mr Fenstanton, she has been very badly hurt. It was your defection which made the poor girl quit Charcombe Manor. I had not understood that until today … I have been foolishly blind and thought it was your uncle’s crimes which frightened her away. But now I understand the truth. Miss Verney was in the library on Thursday last when you read aloud a letter in the hall.’

‘Ha!’ he cried as her words struck home. ‘Now what are you at? What are you saying?’

‘Miss Verney disappeared the day before my aunt and I arrived at Charcombe. And it was on the day before our arrival that you received my aunt’s letter giving notice of our visit.’ She began to walk slowly along the stream bank, trailing her hand across the bracken fronds. She did not wish to look at him. ‘That was the letter you received when you were alone in the hall – the letter you read aloud, as your habit is.’

‘And what if I did?’

‘The letter also contained an explanation of the “arrangement” my aunt wished to make with you, did it not? In point of fact, you knew how valuable I was to you
before
I came here. That is why you were willing to let Miss Verney run to Scotland if she pleased.’

He pursued her and caught her arm, his face flushed red at first, then bleached white with a cold, settled anger. ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the way this is going, madam.’

‘Neither, sir, do I. I find it extremely distasteful. But these are facts which cannot be ignored. For after you had read the message – and, I don’t doubt, betrayed by your very manner of reading your enthusiasm for the scheme – you suspected yourself overheard and made a threat against poor Miss Gibbs whom you believed to be the eavesdropper. A cruel, horrible threat! But you were mistaken. It was Miss Verney herself who had heard that you meant to throw her over for a more advantageous match.’

‘Letitia heard?’ He was shocked now. She watched him struggle for comprehension of everything that would follow from this one fact. ‘No,’ he insisted at last. ‘She cannot have heard. Letitia had walked out with young Lomax.’

‘As it happens, she had not. Miss Gibbs had accompanied the young man; it was Miss Verney herself who had returned to the house – just in time to hear you exulting over my aunt’s letter. The effect of your treachery upon that very spirited young lady was to determine her upon discomposing you by disappearing. A trick which she knew she could accomplish very effectively because of a particular arrangement which had been made between her and her friend.’

‘I am not certain that I quite understand … How can you know that Miss Verney heard any such proof of what you term my “treachery”?’

‘Because she was determined to punish not only you, but also the guardian who had so assiduously promoted her marriage to you. Miss Verney clearly felt that Mrs Bailey had betrayed her too. After she left the house she took a very cunning revenge upon that lady. She sent an old theatrical acquaintance here to cause her embarrassment.’

Fenstanton kicked at the pebbles by the stream as he considered, stirring the clear water to muddy brown with the toe of his boot. ‘And so Miss Gibbs knew nothing of the matter?’ he asked at last.

‘No. She knew nothing at all,’ said Dido quietly, her eyes fixed upon his brooding face. ‘You need not have pushed down the stones upon her.’

She waited, hardly daring to breathe. The sunlight threw shimmering reflections up from the water onto his face. They glimmered across his tanned cheeks and the little fans of lines at the corners of his eyes. Dido remembered how she had once thought all the creases of his face caused by good humour. She had been deceived. Selfishness might very effectively inoculate a man against trouble; by always getting his own way and never concerning himself with the pain of others, a man might keep his countenance open and unravaged.

‘Now what,’ he said at last, ‘makes you suppose that I pushed the rocks onto Miss Gibbs? Did you see me perform the act?’

‘No, for you took great care to keep at a distance which made recognition impossible. I saw only a horseman in a green coat.’

‘Ha! But I don’t possess a green coat.’

‘But that would be no obstacle to you, Mr Fenstanton! For that, you know, is my second cause for disapproving your character. You have no respect for the rights of property. I do not doubt that you appropriated your uncle’s coat to deceive me.’

‘And so I am a thief too, by your calculation!’ He stood solid and angry before her. His face was pale and his voice loud. But the walk upstream had gained Dido a little height and, beyond his broad shoulder, she could once more see the road from town – and there were the solid forms of Mr Parry and his two constables hurrying up the hill. But outstripping them by many yards was Mr Lomax – he was already nearing the summit.

‘Yes, I believe you might be described so.’ She folded her pelisse about her, driving her fingers into her arms in an effort to prevent herself trembling with emotion.

His head was thrown back, a powerful hand clenching and unclenching continually as if there was also passion in him which only the proximity of others prevented his acting upon.

‘His coat was not the only thing you took from Mr George Fenstanton.’ She could not keep the tremor from her voice now. A part of her brain was wondering that she dared speak this at all – but indignation drove her on. ‘You also appropriated his horse.’

‘No!’ He took a step towards her. ‘Damn you!’ She began to walk back towards the picnic party. But he pursued her and caught her arm in a bruising grip. ‘You will explain yourself, madam! What is all this?’

Across the meadow she could see Mr Lomax. He had gained the top of the hill and was beginning to run past the table towards her, quite disregarding the consternation of the picnickers. Mrs Bailey was staring; Mrs Manners had risen from her seat and raised her stick in protest; Mr George Fenstanton was beginning to trot after him. His faint protest of ‘Now then, now then…’ reached Dido on the breeze.

She raised her eyes to Mr Lancelot’s furious countenance. ‘This,’ she said quietly, ‘is my answer to your proposal. I thank you very much for the compliment. I am keenly aware of the honour you do me in asking, but I cannot marry you, sir, because you are a murderer.’

‘Ha!’ His grip tightened for a moment, and then he released her. ‘This is madness, no one will believe you. You have imagined it all.’

‘Oh no. My weakness has not been imagination, but rather slowness of comprehension. I was foolish enough to assume that Mr Brodie’s killer had ridden his own horse to the crime. But I should have known better. The stable boy had told me something very different – if only I had listened to him. In talking to the mare he said “some great lump has ridden you”. The horse had been injured by someone other than her usual rider; someone who was too heavy for his mount.’

‘No!’ He raised a hand and let it fall again, uncertain what to do.

‘Miss Kent!’ The cry had come from Mr Lomax who was hastening forward with a look of extreme anxiety on his face. ‘You must come with me immediately.’

‘Oh yes, Mr Fenstanton,’ she said hurriedly as Lomax approached. ‘I understand it all now. It was you. There was no one in Charcombe Manor with better cause to wish dead the man who could prove my aunt has no rights in my uncle’s fortune. For you are the one who meant to gain the whole. You understood very clearly Mr Brodie’s threats – despite your seeming innocence. You went to meet him at the inn on Sunday night, and, when you could not persuade, you killed him.’

*   *   *

As Mr Lomax reached her and seized her arm, Dido turned to find a scene of chaos and consternation. Mr Parry and his constables were now arrived and were hurrying across the spread rugs with a look of determined business about them. Mrs Bailey had succumbed to hysterics and the two young ladies were attending her. Mrs Manners continued to brandish her stick. In the confusion, a cloth had been dragged from the table and a pair of gulls were already squabbling over a shattered pie, while an upturned red jelly wobbled in a gorse bush.

Mr Lomax was half leading, half carrying her away towards the edge of the cliff, she leant gratefully upon him, for a moment quite beyond thought or action. But then her head cleared a little. ‘Oh, but you do not understand,’ she gasped. ‘I was wrong. It was not Mr George…’

‘I know,’ he said calmly and continued to walk. ‘I know that Mr Lancelot Fenstanton is the killer. That is why I am removing you from him. My mission at the inn was more successful than we hoped. The old marriage certificate was indeed in the chimney piece. But it was not the only document which Brodie had concealed there.’

Dido stopped walking abruptly and pulled him to a standstill. ‘The note!’ she cried. She turned shining eyes up to his face. ‘The other document which you found, it was a hurriedly written note, was it not? A note written in pencil!’

‘Yes it was…’

‘I knew it!’ she cried in delighted relief. ‘For that was my third argument against Mr Fenstanton’s character. He is lacking in religious devotion.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ He was looking down with an expression of utter bewilderment on his flushed face. She noticed that there was soot still upon his hands – a smudge of it on his cheek.

‘In church last Sunday I saw Mr Lancelot writing during the sermon. And I supposed that he was noting down the beauties of the discourse. But such piety is certainly not a part of his character. In fact, his mind was upon other matters entirely. He had received the letter from Mr Brodie before he entered the church. I saw the boy deliver it to him. And during the service he wrote a reply. The reply changed the time of his meeting with Mr Brodie. He suggested that instead of the gentleman coming to Charcombe Manor next morning, they should instead meet behind the inn at midnight.’

‘He did indeed.’

‘And that was the note you discovered in the chimney?’

‘Yes, and it is very powerful evidence against him,’ said Lomax in a voice of great relief. ‘Together with the marriage document, it will suffice to get Tom released.’ They had reached the cliff’s edge and the hedge of gorse now, and they turned together to watch the destruction of Mrs Bailey’s delightful little exploring party.