Place of Confinement (7 page)

The truth was that silent looks across a church suited Dido rather well, for had she and the gentleman been allowed only a few minutes’ more conversation she would certainly have found something upon which to disagree with him, something to remind her of the reason why – for all her admiration of the figure and the profile – she had not yet said ‘yes’ to his offer of marriage.

In point of fact, theirs was a rather singular affection, strong enough certainly to withstand Aunt Manners – and the delay to marriage which Mr Lomax’s present lack of fortune occasioned. But Dido’s regard for the gentleman had not yet created that humility of spirit, that willingness to adopt her beloved’s opinions which is almost universally considered a necessary condition of marriage. Nor had she even that talent for keeping silent which will sometimes make up for a wife’s lack of real agreement with her husband. What Dido thought, she spoke – even to the man she loved; in fact, most especially to the man she loved.

This was a difficulty. But Mr Lomax had now ceased to hope for a change in her. Courageous man that he was, he declared himself resigned to a life of dispute; he understood her character and yet he wished her to be his wife. He believed – he had told her after their last great disagreement – that trust and mutual confidence might, in their case, take the place of deference and silent acquiescence.

But could a happy marriage be built upon such very unusual foundations? Over the last months Dido’s mind had veered alarmingly between the yes and the no. But now, watching him across the crowded church, her heart swelling with indignation and music – and admiration – the yes was very much in the ascendant.

Why restless, why cast down my soul?

Hope still and thou shalt sing …

Dido closed her hymnal at last and sat down to the sermon with a heart full of hope.

Beside her Mrs Manners settled into her cushions – and a comfortable doze – while Mr Lancelot drew out a pencil and paper and began to make notes upon the sermon.

For a short time Dido felt at peace with all the world; in charity with everyone. And, fortunately, Doctor Jeremiah Prowdlee was very far from her thoughts at that moment. Otherwise she might have been obliged to confess that Margaret’s predictions had been accurate: just two weeks acting the part of companion were enough to make any woman look upon matrimony with a favourable eye …

Chapter Seven

‘Dido, I forbid you to speak to that man.’

It was another discreet whisper for the listening bats.

Many eyes turned towards Aunt Manners as she made her dignified progress through the crowded church at the end of the service. It was, perhaps, something about the way she walked, an awareness of her own importance and dignity, which gave such significance to her small figure.

Dido followed, clutching her burdens in mutinous silence and dawdling so that the rest of her party might leave her behind. Aunt Manners reached the west door, stopped and waited with a look of haughty expectation. The aisle was rapidly filling with people now: young misses in fresh muslins for the fine spring weather, red-faced farmers with their hats crushed beneath their arms, and matrons guarding flocks of children as they looked about them for a gossip. Dido let the crowd hurry past her and slowly drew level with the pew where Mr Lomax remained alone.

He had considerately turned his face away at the sound of her aunt’s words. He was now pretending to read the Commandments on the board above the pulpit – as if he were suddenly in need of advice about the coveting of his neighbour’s ox and the making of graven images. Dido stopped; still he would not look at her. The fine profile was infuriatingly impassive: as stiff as the crisp cravat which supported it. She could not accost him forcibly – but if she walked on, her aunt would have been obeyed. And that would be intolerable.

There was, she determined, only one thing to be done.

She opened her arms and let everything that she was holding slip away – retaining her hold only on the fragile bottle of salts. Shawls and cushions tumbled down on the rushes of the aisle; the parasol clattered against the pew’s end, and, as if to make quite certain of gaining Mr Lomax’s attention, a prayer book bounced hard against his knee.

At the back of the church, Aunt Manners turned red with anger and hurried out of the west door.

Mr Lomax, being too well bred to leave a lady unassisted, began immediately to gather books and shawls and cushions. ‘But you should not have acknowledged me,’ he said quietly as he picked up the spectacles and shook dust from them. ‘It is only reasonable that your aunt should resent me.’

‘No.’ Dido took up a shawl and folded it slowly. ‘It is not at all reasonable. You are not your son, and whatever he has done to offend, you are guiltless. The whole family should not be held responsible for one man’s sins.’

‘It is the way of the world, Miss Kent.’

‘Then the world is wrong,’ said Dido with quiet conviction.

He retrieved the prayer book and smoothed out the creases from its pages. ‘And would you seek to change the world’s opinion on the matter? It would be a revolution far beyond anything the French and the Americans have achieved between them.’

‘I do not presume so far.’ She laid down the folded shawl on the pew, took up another and slowly picked fragments of rushes from its fringe. ‘I seek only to act as my conscience dictates. It is a matter of integrity, Mr Lomax, not revolt.’

He looked down at her busy little fingers and shook his head. ‘I do not think we shall ever agree upon this point,’ he said.

‘But upon another point I am sure we are in complete accord: the necessity of finding your son and Miss Verney.’

He rested his hand upon the pew’s end. ‘That is what has brought me here,’ he said quietly as the last footsteps echoed away through the west door, leaving them alone in the little church. ‘Mr Fenstanton wrote to enquire whether I knew anything of the business. I did not; but I hoped I might be able to talk some sense into Tom.’

‘And have you met with any success?’

His face clouded. He beckoned Dido into the shelter of the pew and they sat down side by side. ‘No, I have had no success at all,’ he confessed. ‘Tom continues to tell this nonsensical tale of returning the young lady to the house. You have heard it?’

She nodded.

‘It is a lie, of course!’ he cried, then shook his head. ‘And yet he insists that it is true. He will not be shaken from the foolish story.’

Dido gazed silently into his grave, troubled face. She was so close to him that her hand rested against the sleeve of his coat; she could see the troubled little furrows between his brows. ‘And what is your opinion?’ she asked gently. ‘Do you believe that your son has persuaded Miss Verney to remove herself from her friends’ protection?’

‘I think he must have done.’ He looked at her very directly. ‘Unfortunately, my knowledge of Tom’s character makes me believe him very capable of guilt … And yet…’

‘Yes?’

‘The business has been carried on so very oddly. Why is he not with her? I cannot understand what he would be about.’ He shrugged up his shoulders and sighed.

‘Do you think it possible,’ suggested Dido, ‘that he believes his own tale to be true; that he has somehow been mistaken … or deceived?’

Lomax looked at her in surprise. ‘I cannot see how that might be—’ he began.

But just then they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the aisle. Mr Lancelot Fenstanton had returned to the empty church and both Dido and her companion were suddenly aware of how very close they were sitting – and what an odd appearance their private conference might have to an impartial observer.

She jumped up with a quick farewell and hurried forward to meet the gentleman, wishing with all her heart that she had been allowed a few minutes more to pursue the very interesting idea of Mr Tom being deceived.

*   *   *

Mr Lancelot insisted upon taking some of Dido’s burdens into his own hands as they left the church together. ‘I have been commissioned by our aunt to seek you out, Miss Kent,’ he explained with a smile. ‘There is some arrangement of the carriage windows, or some order to be given to the coachman which only you can properly accomplish.’

Dido suppressed an answering smile. ‘I am very sorry to keep her waiting,’ she said quietly.

‘But,’ he continued, as they stepped out of the cool, damp porch into sudden sunshine and birdsong and the fresh, clean smell of daffodils, ‘I am a selfish fellow, you know, and I’m hoping to snatch a moment to talk to you myself. I have something to tell you about.’ He laid the parasol down upon the final resting place of Mr Barnabas Finch, and drew a letter from his coat pocket. ‘The pot boy from the inn at New Charcombe delivered this to me before the service.’

‘Oh,’ cried Dido deeply interested. ‘Is it from Mr Tom Lomax? Has he changed his account?’

‘No, it ain’t from young Tom at all. It’s from some fellow I never heard of in my life before.’ He gave the letter a puzzled look. ‘Fellow by the name of Brodie,’ he said. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No, not at all.’

He looked down thoughtfully at the page again, then handed it to Dido.

She took it eagerly and read:

Sir,

Although no acquaintance subsists between us, I hope you will forgive my intruding myself upon your notice. I am reluctant to take such a liberty, but flatter myself that I have two claims upon your indulgence: first, an acquaintance with a guest currently residing in your house, and second, the possession of some very important information concerning Miss Letitia Verney, the ward of Reginald Bailey. The young lady is in very grave danger.

The business upon which I wish to consult you is delicate and complicated, concerning, as it does, the danger of elopement and secret marriage. So I shall say no more of it here – except to observe that I have in my possession papers of the utmost importance to you. I shall wait upon you tomorrow morning and hope that you will be at liberty to receive me. It will certainly be to your advantage to do so – and to attend very closely to everything which I have to say.

Your humble servant

James Brodie.

‘What an extraordinary letter!’ cried Dido. ‘Whatever can be the danger threatening poor Miss Verney? And who is this Mr Brodie?’

‘Well,’ said Mr Lancelot taking the letter back into his own hands. ‘That last is a question which someone in my house will be able to answer. Someone is acquainted with him.’ He stopped and looked at her with concern. ‘What is it, Miss Kent? You look quite queer.’

‘Oh, it is nothing.’ She turned away from him and began to hurry towards the little gate of the churchyard and the carriage from which she could see the angry features of her aunt peering.

But it had occurred to her that if someone in the house was indeed complicit in Miss Verney’s disappearance, then it might be from that person that Mr Brodie had gained his information. In short, the man or woman at Charcombe Manor who acknowledged Mr Brodie’s acquaintance must be suspected of playing a part in the young lady’s disappearance.

Chapter Eight

… But Eliza, this business becomes odder and odder. For when Mr Lancelot read Mr Brodie’s letter to the whole company at tea,
nobody
would admit to knowing the man at all!

Which raises the very interesting possibility that somebody is lying.

*   *   *

Dido paused and recalled the scene in the drawing room.

*   *   *

Mr George Fenstanton became quite indignant over the business and it was all: ‘Now then, Lance, my boy, I make no doubt he was just a common little fellow wanting to claim acquaintance in good society. No need for you to bother us all with it, no need at all…’ Until my aunt – who never loses an opportunity of contradicting her brother – interposed with, ‘But we aren’t any of us bothered, George. It is only you who is making yourself ridiculous about a trifle.’

In point of fact, the only member of the company to express any doubt about knowing the man was Mrs Bailey.

She does not
think
that she knows any James Brodie; but it would seem that the unfortunate Mrs Bailey is frequently finding her acquaintance claimed by people she has no memory of! And she is often obliged to draw back from introductions, for she has quite a horror of forming ‘second-rate’ connections … In short, we were given to understand that it is quite
impossible
for Mrs Bailey to remember everyone who might wish to claim her as a friend.

But I was unable to observe Mrs B for long, for our aunt was now calling out, ‘Can that girl not even drink tea safely!’ And I was obliged to rescue an overturned teacup. On the sofa beside me, Miss Gibbs was mopping at her gown with her handkerchief, choking upon her cake and anxiously enquiring, ‘Does this man say what it is he knows about Tish? What kind of danger is she got into?’

She was
very
worried. Perhaps she is worried because she is the one who wishes her association with Mr Brodie to remain secret; but maybe she is simply worried to hear that her friend is in ‘grave danger’.

Aunt Manners has been in an ill mood all evening – the kind of mood in which she insults and contradicts everybody. She has now retired to bed overcome with ‘enervating’ symptoms; I have administered a particularly large dose of the brown medicine and she is sleeping soundly. Though she was restless for a long time – in that strange state between sleeping and waking which brown medicine seems to induce – and her mind ran a great deal upon Letitia. She insists that Miss Verney lies at Manchester tonight – and will be married at Gretna Green in only two days’ time. The continued presence of the bridegroom in Charcombe does not seem any impediment to her.

The house is all abed, the clock down in the hall has just struck one and,
at last
, I am able to return my thoughts to the mystery of Miss Verney’s disappearance.

I wonder whether Miss Gibbs is correct in believing that Mrs Bailey does not wish her ward to be found. I believe Miss Martha to be very much influenced by her friend’s ideas. There was a great deal of ‘Tish says’ in her account. I do not think Miss Gibbs is much in the habit of forming opinions of her own and suspect that she has rather fallen under the spell of the rich and beautiful Miss Verney.