by Anna Dean
‘Oh?’ said Dido with mock innocence. ‘The boys? What boys?’ She knew the answer, of course, but she could not help but be irritated when Margaret spoke of her little sons as if they were the only boys in the world.
Margaret coloured and retaliated sharply. ‘You know what I mean, Dido. Girls who are too choosy over getting a husband have a way of turning into old maids. And I would not have Catherine being a burden on her brothers.’
Dido winced.
‘Aunt Dido, you look out of sorts,’ said Catherine as the carriage started off up the drive. ‘Have you been quarrelling with Mama again?’
‘No, she has been quarrelling with me.’
‘That is what you always say.’
Dido chose not to answer that. ‘My dear,’ she said instead, ‘would you be so kind as to ask the coachman to stop at the gatehouse? I would like to just put a question or two to the gatekeeper.’
‘Annie Holmes? But you will get no sense from her. She is a very stupid woman.’
‘Nevertheless, I should like to speak to her.’
Stepping down from the carriage a few moments later, Dido was pleased to find that Catherine was not following her, for she was not sure that she wanted her niece to know the direction that her enquiries were taking.
She stood under the stone arch, where the air was chill with the scent of moss and damp, and waited as the carriage was let through the gates. The gatekeeper herself was rather a surprise to Dido, for she was neither the injured soldier nor the favoured pensioner of the family for whom such a post is usually reserved, but a rather pretty young widow who drew the bolts and swung open the gates with neat, economical movements that were particularly pleasing to watch. On the step of the little lodge house stood a solemn-faced child with large brown eyes. She was perhaps four years old and she was holding a rather fine china doll by its neck.
Dido smiled kindly at the girl and made a polite enquiry about the name of the doll, but the attention threw her into a fit of shyness and she fled to hide behind her mother’s skirts.
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ said Mrs Holmes with a bob. ‘She’s usually got enough to say for herself!’ Then, as the carriage rolled through the gates, she raised her voice above the echoing noise of it. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Dido, conscious that Catherine was waiting for her, lost no time in making her enquiry about Mr Montague: had he returned to Belsfield during the last three days? As she spoke she thought that there was a fleeting look of anxiety on the pretty face. There was certainly a flush of colour. Mrs Holmes put a hand to a dimple in her chin, then tucked up a bright brown curl that had escaped from her cap.
‘Why no, miss, I haven’t seen Mr Montague since he left on the morning after the ball.’
‘I see. And at what time did he leave?’
‘About nine o’clock, miss.’
‘In his curricle?’
‘No, miss. On horseback.’
‘And could he have returned without your knowing about it?’
She frowned. ‘On foot he could, miss. He could have come in by the side gate over there.’ And she pointed in the direction of the chapel in its cluster of yews. ‘But if he came on horseback, or in a carriage, he would have to come by this gate and I’d have been sure to see him.’
‘Thank you.’ Dido began to follow the carriage through the gate, but slowly, with a feeling that there was more to discover here, if she only knew the right questions to ask. Why did she suspect that the woman knew more about Mr Montague’s departure than she was telling? She stole another look at her: despite her blushes there was a kind of assurance about her. It was not quite insolence, no, you could not call it that, but there was a calm fearlessness in her address which sat strangely upon a servant.
Dido was level with the high red wheels of the carriage now and was about to mount the step when a different thought came to her. She spun round on the gravel.
‘Mrs Holmes,’ she called. ‘May I ask one more question?’
Annie Holmes turned back. There was no mistaking the reluctance on her face now. Her lips were pressed tight together. ‘Yes, miss?’
‘On the night of the ball, you opened the gates to all the guests, did you not?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Do you remember a man who came here that night? A tall, soberly dressed man with red hair.’
There was relief on the gatekeeper’s face now; she half smiled. ‘Would that be the gentleman who came very late, miss?’
‘Yes, I think perhaps he did arrive late. Do you remember what kind of a carriage he came in?’
‘Oh yes, miss, I remember.’ Mrs Holmes smiled comfortably and reached down to take her daughter’s hand. ‘It was a hack chaise. The old hack chaise from the Feathers.’
‘I see. And the Feathers is the inn here in Belston village, is it?’
‘Oh no, miss. The Feathers is over at Hopton Cresswell.’
Chapter Six
And Hopton Cresswell was six miles away. Six miles of very indifferent road. It took Dido almost an hour to complete the journey – which was just as Catherine had foretold.
‘And what am I to do while you go there?’ she cried when Dido told her that she wished to drive on to Hopton Cresswell – alone.
‘You can make your calls in Belston.’
‘But, Aunt, I am not intimate with anyone in the village,’ cried Catherine, with outraged propriety. ‘It would be most ill-mannered for me to pay any visit of longer than a quarter of an hour – or twenty minutes at the very most.’
‘Then I suppose you must pay a great many calls – and walk very slowly between them,’ said Dido heartlessly. ‘For I must go to Hopton Cresswell and there is no knowing when I might have the use of the carriage again.’
Fortunately, Catherine saw the importance of discovering more about Richard’s visitor and agreed, in the end, to the arrangement with so little complaint that Dido was in hopes of only being reminded of the great kindness four or five times a day for the next week or so.
Of Hopton Cresswell’s other claim upon her interest – the suspicion that the dead woman had lived there – she said nothing to her niece. The gatekeeper’s words had shocked her – providing, as they did, the first hint of a connection between the murder and Mr Montague’s sudden departure and, as she travelled along the narrow lanes beyond Belston, she had ample time to worry over it.
Was it possible that the young man’s disappearance and the murder were part of the same mystery? The thought could not be avoided.
It would all have been so much easier, she reflected, if she knew Richard Montague. Then she might know – or at least be able to guess – what he might be guilty of. But she had never set eyes on the young man and the accounts that others gave did very little to delineate his character.
What kind of a young man was he? Was it possible – was it conceivable that he had known the woman in the shrubbery? That he had taken her life? Catherine’s testimony, being that of a lover, was not to be relied upon, of course. But yesterday Dido had tried to discover what she could about him, starting first with the one who might be supposed to know him best – his mother.
When the ladies retired from the dining room after dinner, Lady Montague had immediately engrossed herself in an intricate game of Patience, which she spread out on an inlaid table by the fire. The Misses Harris, tireless in their pursuit of accomplishments, had taken themselves respectively to their instrument and drawing board, so Dido had had only to signal to Catherine with a little motion of her head to intercept the garrulous Mrs Harris, before she herself stepped over to her ladyship’s side and began her enquiries.
It had been heavy work, standing there, almost overwhelmed by the rose-water scent of the lady and with the heat of the fire beating upon her cheek.
Her ladyship was, of course, properly charmed at the approaching marriage. Delighted with the prospect of having Catherine for a daughter. And as for Richard himself, yes, he was a sweet boy. And she beli
eved he had done very well at the university. Or rather well, at least; for young men did not generally like to apply themselves, did they?
Dido had suggested that, at three and twenty, he was rather young to marry.
Her ladyship pulled the lace of her long, full sleeve down over her wrist and twisted a ring about on her finger. ‘Yes,’ she owned, ‘I was a little surprised when I was told that it was all settled. But Sir Edgar says that an inclination to marry early is no bad thing in a young man.’
‘Did you expect that it would be some years before Mr Montague settled?’
‘Oh, no…’
For a moment her ladyship looked so very vacant, with a kind of milky staring in her pretty green eyes, that Dido suspected her natural languor might be receiving a little artificial aid. Laudanum perhaps? She had known several ladies to make rather free with the stuff.
She repeated her question.
‘Oh no,’ said her ladyship vaguely, ‘I do not know that I expected anything, but Sir Edgar thinks the boy should marry. Sir Edgar thinks that it might serve to fix him at Belsfield and make him attend to the business of the estate. That it will prevent him from always wandering off to town – or wherever it is that he goes.’
As she spoke her ladyship turned up a card – one which seemed to necessitate a rearrangement of all the others on the table. She bent over the table, rapidly making her calculations and placing each card into its new position with a neat little snap.
It became impossible for Dido to draw her attention away from the increasingly complex patterns of her Patience. Reluctantly she turned away and abandoned herself to the unwelcome confidences of Mrs Harris.
Mrs Harris was a large woman with extravagant greying curls and plump red arms below the fashionable short sleeves of her gown. She very neatly manoeuvred across the drawing room and trapped Dido upon a corner sofa where she talked unceasingly of how the world despised her because she had once been nurse to the first Mrs Harris, until tea and the gentlemen arrived to distract her from her grievances – and to give Dido an opportunity for a change of companion.
She watched with interest as the men disposed themselves about the room. Colonel Walborough going to Miss Harris’s side and Mr Tom Lomax, on seeing that, taking up his station at the instrument with Miss Sophia. Sir Edgar, she noticed was a very dutiful husband, going immediately to his wife to enquire how she felt and had she taken her physic? Though the lady was so far from appreciating his exemplary behaviour that she turned her face away and pulled the rings about on her fingers, hardly giving him two words in reply.
Dido continued her enquiries into Richard Montague’s character.
Miss Harris clearly felt that the most remarkable thing about her cousin was that he was, ‘Handsome. Oh, very handsome indeed. He has beautiful eyes and he moves extremely well.’
This seemed to exhaust the ideas of Miss Harris. But Dido was almost sure that as she spoke she cast a significant look in her sister’s direction. Immediately, Miss Sophia left the instrument and came to add the highly original information that ‘Dear Richard’ was ‘sweet.’ And that he was ‘really the most delightful man.’ And ‘you can have no idea how very agreeable.’
Miss Sophia was much given to emphasis. If her conversation had been a letter, more than half the words would have been underlined. And when Dido ventured to press her further on the subject of her cousin’s character, she showed an alarming propensity for the strangest, most rambling of anecdotes. Dear Richard, had, she cried, been so terribly sweet about the rats. Miss Sophia had been enchanted by the rats.
Dido was at a loss to know what to say to such an extraordinary declaration. But – and this time she was quite sure that she was not imagining it – there was a nod of encouragement from her sister and Miss Sophia continued.
You see, all the gentlemen had gone ratting in the great barn, oh, two or three days before the ball. There had been a great many rats, you see. And they were to be chased somehow with the dogs – though quite how, Miss Sophia did not know because she could not bear the thought of it. So she had been at her instrument all the morning, because there was nothing like music to put anything unpleasant quite out of her head. Well, when the gentlemen came in to dinner they were all extremely vexed with Richard for not playing his part properly. And Tom Lomax swore a great many oaths. For she made no doubt Mr Tom had bet a great deal of money on his own dogs killing more rats than anyone else’s. Well, of course she knew nothing about the business of ratting, so she could not say quite what had happened, but it seemed that Richard was to have let the dogs go on a word or a signal or something; but he had not done so. Well, he said it was because he had not heard the signal. But she was quite certain that that was not the case because he was so very very distressed about it.
In short it was quite plain – at least to Miss Sophia’s penetrating understanding – that Richard had been overwhelmed by compassion for the rats. She could tell that he was too soft-hearted, much too kind to let the dogs kill the rats. He had let them escape on purpose.
And that was so like dear, dear Richard. He was so very, very sweet.
All this was run through with breathless enthusiasm while Miss Harris gravely nodded approval.
‘He is a dear boy.’ This was the remark of Sophia’s mother, who had followed Dido and now sat herself down beside her. ‘And what is more, he is a true gentleman. Richard has real good manners; the kind of manners which put everyone at their ease. He does not go out of his way to make other people feel inferior.’
Fearing a renewal of Mrs Harris’s grievances, Dido took the opportunity of a slight fit of coughing on that lady’s part to escape to the table where Margaret was (with considerable pride) doing the honours of the tea and coffee tray, which her ladyship was too indolent to perform herself.
She judged this to be a good opportunity of questioning Margaret on the subject of her future son-in-law’s character, since her duties prevented her from answering at any great length.
Between her pouring and her gracious smiling, Margaret gave Dido to understand that Mr Montague was a very pleasant young man. And that ‘that silly girl’ wasn’t likely to find a better one.
Dido took her teacup and stirred thoughtfully. ‘You think that he and Catherine are well matched?’ she asked. ‘You are sure they will be happy together?’
‘Oh yes,’ came Margaret’s reply in a voice fit to sour the cream in the jug she was holding. ‘Very well suited indeed. She has the upper hand of him already. He will do just what she tells him and that suits Miss Catherine very well indeed – spoilt madam that she is!’
The subject of whether Catherine was spoilt or not was an old argument between the sisters-in-law and Dido was about to retort with spirit when she became aware that Mr William Lomax had paused beside her in his way to returning his cup.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said in his pleasant, gentle voice. ‘You are enquiring about Mr Richard Montague?’
Dido replied that she was and, Mr Harris just then appearing in quest of coffee, they were able to step away from Margaret’s little domain.
‘It is very natural that you should wish to know about Mr Richard Montague and I am sorry that your meeting with him has been postponed,’ he said gravely. ‘I am sure he is as anxious to meet you as you are to meet him.’ Dido smiled at this kindly fiction. ‘But my dear Miss Kent, you may put your mind at rest. He is a very pleasant young man and I don’t doubt he will make your niece very happy indeed.’
Dido looked into the grey, penetrating eyes. ‘I confess I cannot help but worry,’ she said.
‘Of course not. Standing almost as a mother to Miss Kent as I understand you did for several years. And now she is engaged to a young man who you have never met. It is only natural that you should be concerned. But I don’t doubt that when you become acquainted with Mr Richard Montague you will be as happy in the prospect of the union as all their friends are.’ He glanced quickly at Margaret, but he was too well bred to mention the
ungracious words he had overheard. ‘And I am sure too,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘that the marriage will not divide you from your niece. It will, no doubt, give her great pleasure to have a home of her own to which she can invite you.’
This conversation, though it undoubtedly formed the pleasantest part of Dido’s evening, did little to advance her enquiries, for she was left thinking less about Mr Montague than about Mr Lomax – how long he had been a widower; whether he had been too much attached to his first wife to marry again; and what a great pity it was that such a pleasant man should remain single.
From these reveries she was roused by Mr Harris, who came to her and said abruptly, ‘You want to know about Mr Montague?’
‘Yes,’ she said in some surprise.
‘Well, I shall tell you. He is not like his friend.’ He nodded in the direction of the pianoforte where Sophia Harris had now reseated herself – and where Tom Lomax was ceremoniously arranging music on the stand while he smiled and whispered to her.
Mr Harris’s weather-beaten face was tinged crimson with disapproval. ‘Miss Kent,’ he said, ‘Montague is a steady, decent young man. He tells the truth and he has a sense of duty: a sense of what is proper. In short, my dear, if you imagine a gentleman as different from Tom Lomax as he possibly can be, then you will have a pretty good picture of Mr Montague.’
And with that he walked off.
Considering the results of the evening’s work now as the carriage rattled into the yard of the Feathers, Dido could not help but feel that she had learnt more about the people to whom she had applied for information than she had about Mr Montague himself.
Hopton Cresswell was a pleasant village. It had a church with a lych-gate and a green with a broad, yellow-leaved chestnut tree and a fine gaggle of geese, who stretched their necks in a loud chorus of disapproval as the carriage rattled past. The Feathers itself was an old-fashioned house with a creaking sign, twisted chimneys and leaded casement windows – and a bustling yard, which suited Dido’s purposes very well indeed.