Place of Confinement (24 page)

Dido smiled … And then the ordinary, common sense part of her mind, which had been oddly silent since his taking her hand, raised a protest: reminding her abruptly that she was standing a great deal too close to a gentleman to whom she was not related, and that his attentive manner in such a situation – and in the wake of the scene just past – was rather indelicate. ‘You must excuse me,’ she said, ‘I am in need of air – I shall walk out to the carriage.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He stepped away immediately. ‘I must consult with Parry over what is to be done with the body. I shall join you in a few minutes.’

Dido turned away to the stairs and, as she did so, she was almost certain that she caught a glimpse of Mrs Bailey’s scarlet shawl in the hall below. She blushed uncomfortably, and hoped with all her heart that the little scene just past had not been witnessed by that lady.

Chapter Twenty-Five

There was no Mrs Bailey in the hall when Dido reached the bottom of the stairs, only the very small pot boy in his very long apron carrying an empty ale jug away from the parlour.

The sight of him provided a welcome distraction and reminded Dido of her need to discover more about Tom’s meeting with Mr Brodie. She called out to the boy as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped in the middle of the hall, swinging the jug back and forth in his hand.

He did not appear at all surprised when she began to question him about Mr Brodie’s last evening at the inn, for the topic was upon everyone’s lips. He was very happy to tell everything that he knew – and probably a great deal that he did not know but which he had now persuaded himself that he knew.

‘Oh yes, yes,’ he cried eagerly, swinging the jug more widely, and wiping his free hand upon his apron. He had heard ‘the gennlemen’ arguing in the parlour that evening. And very angry they had been, he was sure. Shouting and carrying on in a terrible way! He did not know that he had ever heard such another terrible quarrel in his life! They had seemed so very angry that he wondered they did not start out fighting straight away …

It was clear that – in the mind of the pot boy at least – the dispute had taken on all the force of a murderous rage. And Dido feared that, by the time his evidence was put before a jury, it might be almost enough to hang Tom Lomax on its own.

‘And do you know what their disagreement was about?’ she asked.

The boy frowned and peered down into his empty jug. ‘Just their game of noddy, miss. Until they started to play they seemed friendly enough. Young Mr Lomax, he kept calling for more whisky and pressing it upon Mr Brodie, very friendly like. “You need it,” he said, “to keep the English damp out of your bones.” It was only after they sat down to cards that the trouble started.’

‘You are quite sure it was the game they disagreed over?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Nothing else? Mr Brodie was only angry because Mr Lomax lost and could not pay what he owed?’

‘Oh no! It weren’t like that!’

‘Was it not?’

‘No, the young gennleman had won. He’d won and very pleased he was about it. But Mr Brodie was in a great rage. He swore he’d been cheated. “You’ve robbed me,” he shouted again and again. “You’ve robbed me of everything I’d got.”’

‘Mr Lomax had won?’

The pot boy nodded vigorously. ‘Won pretty handsome, I’d say.’

How odd, thought Dido as the boy hurried away to refill his jug. Why had Tom allowed them to believe that the argument was occasioned by an unpaid debt?

She turned away to the inn’s door, but she had not gone far before another thought struck her with great force. If Tom had won ‘pretty handsome’, then what had become of his winnings? Why were there only a few shillings in his pocket when the constables seized him?

*   *   *

Outside, the sun was shining brightly on the inn yard and the London Mail was gone. A stable lad was whistling as he cleaned the gravel and raked out the wheels’ tracks. The manor coachman was holding his horses’ heads and jealously guarding the gleaming varnish of his carriage against the approach of seagulls.

Mrs Bailey was sitting within the carriage and, to Dido’s surprise, Mr Mountjoy and his colourful waistcoat were in attendance upon her. The gentleman had one foot upon the step and an arm resting upon the open door – and he was leaning into the vehicle in a very familiar way.

Dido was not, of course, so ill mannered as to attempt to hear their conversation – at least, not until she, quite accidentally, caught a word or two. ‘A friend sent me to you,’ the gentleman was saying. ‘She told me where to find you…’

This was too strong an invitation for Dido. She halted her approach.

Mr Mountjoy leant a little closer into the carriage; Dido stood still and strained to hear.

‘Can I not prevail upon you, my dear Augusta,’ he was urging in a low voice. ‘While your husband is sojourning in foreign climes, will you not take pity upon your humble servant.’

Dido smiled thoughtfully; she believed she was beginning to understand Mrs Augusta Bailey rather well …

‘The too, too fortunate Mr Bailey,’ continued Mr Mountjoy, ‘need never know. If only you will be kind to me,
nobody
need ever know about our connection.’

Dido gave a little cough to announce her presence. Mountjoy turned, saw that he was observed, and immediately took his leave.

Mrs Bailey was seriously discomposed and blushing furiously. ‘You must not mind my friend Isaac, Dido,’ she said as the gentleman kissed his hand to them both and bowed himself off. ‘He is a very old acquaintance and he is inclined to allow himself liberties. He says the most shocking things!’

‘If he is a nuisance to you,’ Dido suggested, enjoying her discomfort, ‘you had better ask Mr Fenstanton to talk to the host here and have him sent away from the inn.’

‘Oh no! It is nothing. I beg you will not speak to anyone about it.’

‘Very well, if you do not wish it.’ Dido was too much preoccupied with other thoughts even to torment Mrs Bailey. She took her seat in the carriage; gradually the colour faded from the cheeks of her companion and an uneasy silence ensued.

They watched Mr Mountjoy striding away to the inn. There was a small thud as a seagull landed on the carriage roof – followed by a furious croaking as the coachman tossed a piece of gravel at it.

A little conversation upon light and indifferent subjects was required to dispel the air of embarrassment in the coach. But all the subjects presently in Dido’s mind were heavy – and far from indifferent. If Tom had won at the card table, she thought, why was the money not in his possession when the constables seized him? Where could it have gone? A few shillings, racecards and snuff – that was all that had been found in his pockets …

‘My dear Dido,’ broke in Mrs Bailey, who had now regained her composure and was watching her companion narrowly, ‘I hope you will not mind my remarking that you seemed a little distressed just now – when you returned from looking at poor Mr Brodie. I hope you are recovered from the shock of seeing the corpse.’

Dido made as slight a reply as she could. She was by no means pleased to find that Mrs Bailey
had
been in the hall to witness the scene between herself and Mr Fenstanton. Her own feelings about that little encounter were still confused; she did not wish to contemplate how it might have appeared to a looker-on.

‘Dear Lance!’ cried Mrs Bailey with another shrewd look which she quickly softened into her usual expression of condescending goodwill. ‘He seemed so very concerned about your distress.’

Dido made no reply, for her mind had returned once more to the inexplicable emptiness of Mr Tom Lomax’s pockets. It had occurred to her that there was something else, beside his winnings, which should have been in them …

‘This business of Letitia running away,’ sighed Mrs Bailey, ‘is a very great worry to poor Lance. And now Mr Brodie is dead and he must put himself to trouble over that. He is so
conscientious.
’

‘I am sure he is.’

‘Lance always wishes
everybody
to be happy,’ continued Mrs Bailey tilting her head to one side and watching Dido closely. ‘He is so very attentive to
everybody.
’

She spoke with such particular meaning that Dido must give her a little attention. ‘Mr Fenstanton seems to be a very kind gentleman,’ she hazarded.

‘Oh, he is! I have a very great regard for him – and so has Mr Bailey. And that was why I was so very happy when—’ Mrs Bailey stopped herself and put her hand to her mouth with a look of great consciousness. ‘I declare! I was upon the point of speaking out of turn! I beg you will forget entirely what I just said, Dido. Being unguarded is one of my greatest faults. My friends are always rebuking me for it. “Augusta,” they say, “you are so very unguarded. You are insufficiently cold and reserved.”’

Dido only smiled and thought how obliging it was of Mrs Bailey’s friends to be always discovering such very attractive faults. She returned to the vexed question of Tom Lomax’s pockets …

‘No, no!’ cried Mrs Bailey holding up a hand. ‘I must insist that we say no more upon this subject! I declare I have gone as red as my shawl. I beg you not to press me.’

Dido looked out of the carriage window and considered whether there was any way in which Tom could have removed something from his pocket and concealed it before his arrest …

‘Oh dear!’ cried Mrs Bailey. ‘I can see that you are wondering at my breaking off so sudden. I
know
that you are offended.’

‘No, not at all…’

‘Oh! I cannot bear to be suspected of incivility.’

‘I assure you—’

‘Well then, if you insist upon it, I think I must explain myself. I was,’ she whispered, seizing both Dido’s hands, and quite forcing her to pay attention, ‘upon the point of saying that I was pleased to find Lancelot so very much in love with Letitia.’

‘In love?’ repeated Dido. She had not expected this to be the secret which her companion was so very determined upon
not
concealing. Nor could she quite understand why Mrs Bailey should wish so particularly to convey the information to herself. ‘Mr Lancelot is in love with Miss Verney?’

‘Oh yes. He is over head and ears!’ Mrs Bailey assured her. ‘Of course, he has said nothing about it. But knowing him so very well, I cannot doubt it. My friends tell me that I have quite a talent for detecting these things.’ Her sharp eyes seemed to be watching for the effect of her words on her listener. ‘And though the Great Bard tells us that “the course of true love never did run smooth”, I do believe that in this case…’ The rest was all sunk in a convenient silence and a knowing smile.

Dido murmured a polite wish for the gentleman’s success with the lady, but her heart was not in it. She was distracted, for all at once she was seeing in her mind the moment of Tom Lomax being seized: his attempted escape, his stumbling against the stones, and his careful replacing of those stones …

‘My dear,’ said Mrs Bailey in a gloating voice, ‘you seem upset. Have I said something amiss?’

‘Oh no, not at all.’ But Dido already had one foot upon the step of the carriage. ‘It is nothing – a slight headache only. A little air will set me to rights. Please be so kind as to tell Mr Fenstanton that I shall walk back to Charcombe Manor.’

‘Very well, and I hope you are soon recovered, my dear,’ Mrs Bailey called after her. Her face leant out of the carriage window, yellow curls blowing across her eyes, her startlingly red lips parted in a look of ill-natured satisfaction.

Dido paid her no heed as she hurried down the grassy bank before the inn and started along the terrace. Her thoughts were all fixed upon the benches in the mall – and the heap of stones which lay beside them.

She must investigate those stones without delay.

Chapter Twenty-Six

As she hurried forward, the brisk wind from the sea lifted Dido’s pelisse and set it flapping, obliging her to hold it with both hands. She reached the bottom of the bank and came onto the main terrace which, she was pleased to see, was deserted. The dinner hour was approaching and all the widows and half-pay officers had returned to their lodgings to dress.

Down upon the sands a single bathing machine was ploughing out through white-crested waves, the tail of its horse streaming in the wind, the water foaming about its wheels. It would seem that Mr George Fenstanton was setting a good example to Charcombe’s visitors and taking his daily dip.

Shivering at the very idea, Dido hurried on towards the place where the green benches stood and, as she came close, she fixed her eyes eagerly upon the stones: a grey pile, almost as high as the bench beside it.

Tom Lomax had hidden something in that pile of stones.

She was sure of it. He had hidden something which he did not wish the constables to find in his possession. That had been the cause of his sudden movement, even though he must have known that escape was impossible. Perhaps it was the money he had won from Mr Brodie which he had hidden – or perhaps it was something more dangerous …

She paused as she reached the bench upon which Tom had been sitting, and she recollected the scene. He had been lounging with his legs stretched across the pavement; one hand had been resting on the head of his cane – and the other hand had been holding a letter
. He had been reading a letter.

Yet there had been no letter discovered when the constables made a search of his person.

Dido stooped down in the biting wind beside the stone heap. It was comprised of broken rock and fragments of dried mortar, each piece about the size of a fist. She peered into the gaps, but could see no edge of paper, no scrap of white among the grey. She closed her eyes in an effort of memory. Before the men seized him, Tom had been replacing stones on the very top of the pile.

Tentatively she began to remove the topmost stones, trying not to care too much about the staining of her gloves with dust, the scratching of the soft kid. The wind whipped her cloak and bonnet ribbons in all directions, and cut at her cheeks. The stones tumbled about her hands, trapping and bruising her fingers. She fervently hoped that nobody would pass by and see her engaged upon such a strange task. But she had not moved more than a dozen pieces of stone before she was rewarded with a glimpse of white paper. She began to work faster and a minute later she had the letter in her grasp.