by Dean, Anna
‘Assistance?’ repeated Martha blankly as they climbed the stairs together. ‘What kind of assistance?’
‘Well, I hope you will not mind my mentioning it, but I have noticed that you have lately had some ill luck in dressing your hair…’
‘Lord!’ Martha’s hands flew to cover the burnt curls. ‘Does it look so very bad?’ she whispered.
‘No, no. But,’ Dido took her arm, ‘I cannot help but wonder why you should have the same mishap again and again.’
‘I am sure I don’t know why, Miss Kent. Lately it just seems to happen so.’
‘Well, I hope you will allow me the office of a friend.’ They walked together along the gallery and approached Miss Gibbs’ room. ‘With Miss Verney and her maid gone you have no one to help you – and my sister tells me that I have some skill in arranging hair.’
Martha pushed open the door of her room. ‘It is very kind of you I am sure,’ she said, running an anxious finger through her hair.
‘No trouble at all.’ Dido hurried forward into the bedchamber – and came to a sudden standstill.
There was something wrong with the room.
It was very like the room occupied by Mrs Manners. There were the same panelled walls, and a curtained bed facing a casement window. Beyond the bed was a grate with a small fire in it, the flames pale in the afternoon sunshine; there was a closet set into the wall on one side of the grate, and beside that – against the back wall of the room – was the toilette table. Strewn about was all the flotsam common to a young lady’s bedchamber: a pair of silk stockings hung over the carved oak footboard of the bed, a shawl had been dropped upon a chair, a length of yellow ribbon was knotted about one of the bedposts, a garter and an open novel lay upon the window sill. There was a smell of face powder and rose water – and burnt hair. It was all remarkably ordinary. And yet … something about the place made Dido acutely uneasy. ‘What a very … strange room,’ she said.
‘Lord, it certainly is!’ cried Miss Gibbs. ‘Mr Fenstanton is in the right to call it haunted, I’m sure. And if you could hear the odd crying in the night, Miss Kent, you would believe it too.’
‘Crying?’ repeated Dido, looking about her and trying to understand the cause of her unease, quite determined not to submit to a supernatural explanation.
But Martha was now looking remarkably suspicious and businesslike. ‘Was you wanting to ask me more questions about Letitia?’ she said. ‘Is that why you wanted to come here?’
‘Oh no,’ said Dido, ashamed that her stratagem had been so easily seen through. And a little ashamed too of the prejudice which had led her to suppose that because the young lady lacked elegance she must lack penetration too. ‘That is … Yes, I should like to ask you one or two things. I am sure you will not mind – for it is all in the cause of finding your friend. And we may talk it all over as I arrange your hair.’
Martha protested once more that she had told everything she knew, but she sat down before the toilette table willingly enough and allowed work to commence upon her ruined curls. And, as Dido brushed the hair up and forward to cover the burnt parts, she started upon the subject of Miss Verney’s last day at Charcombe Manor.
‘What – exactly – can you remember about the day your friend went away?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. I have told you…’
‘Who was in the house when you set off for your walk?’ Dido paused in her brushing and looked very directly into the eyes of her companion reflected back in the looking glass. The gloomy corner of the room, and the dark, spotted old surface of the glass, gave poor Martha’s stare a white and haunted look. ‘Miss Fenstanton and Mrs Bailey were gone to Exeter that morning, I believe,’ she prompted.
‘And Mrs B was all for Tish going with them.’
‘But Miss Verney chose to remain at home?’ Dido resumed her brushing.
‘Yes. We had got a note from Mr Lomax and knew he was to come here that day. So, of course, we were mighty glad to have the others go away because we wanted to see him by ourselves. But there was a fine carry on about it, for I think Mrs Bailey suspected Tish was up to something. And she got awful cross and insisted she go with her to Exeter. But in the end she gave it up and went off in a fine old temper.’
‘And only Mr George and Mr Lancelot remained in the house?’
‘Yes, but they was in the hall with a lot of papers talking about the new town and how much it is costing and how they are to get funds.’
‘I see.’ Dido searched with one hand for pins among the ribbons and the court plasters and the phials that cluttered the toilette table. ‘And you and your friend received Mr Lomax in the drawing room? You did not talk to the gentlemen in the hall?’
‘No.’ Martha joined in the search for pins, and found three at last after some hard peering into the gloom. ‘Except,’ she said, ‘just as me and Tish went upstairs to fetch our bonnets, Mr Lancelot looks up. I think Mrs B had set him on to spy on us, you know. “Where are you going?” he says. And Tish was very angry at that, for her spirit is pretty independent.’
Dido pushed home the pins and stood back to observe the effect. ‘And what answer did Miss Verney make?’
‘Oh, she tossed up her head and said she was going to show Mr Lomax the view from the top of the downs. “Do you mean to go alone with this young fellow?” says Mr Lancelot. All disapproving, you know. “Oh yes,” says Tish, as bold as you like, “for it would be beyond Martha’s strength to walk so far.” And she gave him such a look, as if she would say, “You cannot stop me. You are not my guardian.”’ Martha gave a long, admiring sigh. ‘Tish has a very fine spirit. She does not care how she talks to anyone.’
‘Twenty thousand pounds can give a woman a great deal of spirit,’ said Dido as she unwound the ribbon from the bedpost. ‘But why should she wish to anger Mrs Bailey – or Mr Fenstanton?’
‘Oh, it has been her way lately to defy Mrs B,’ said Martha. ‘I told you, they have not been friends since Tish persuaded her into letting us go to Melia’s house … Oh, that is clever!’
Dido had wound the yellow ribbon into a bandeau about Martha’s head and was now tucking the burnt hair out of sight, while bringing forward some little natural curls brushed up from the back. She finished the task, peered into the glass and – as well as she could judge in the poor light – decided the effect was not unpleasing. ‘Well,’ she said, sitting down upon the edge of the bed, ‘I suppose running away is a fine way of discomposing her guardian. But it is an unusual motive for elopement.’
‘No, no!’ insisted Martha. ‘She has not eloped. I know she has not. You must believe me. I cannot tell you how I know it; but I am quite certain that Tish has not—’ She stopped abruptly, for she had turned now to plead her cause and saw that her companion was not attending to her. ‘Miss Kent? Whatever is wrong? Lord! You look like you have seen a ghost.’
‘Oh! No,’ said Dido, continuing to stare about her. ‘No, there is certainly not a ghost. That is not what is wrong at all.’ She jumped up. ‘It is not that the room is haunted – that is not what struck me as wrong when I came into it. It is something in the arrangements … The toilette table!’
‘I beg your pardon.’
Instead of answering, Dido walked to the window and – much to Miss Gibbs consternation – knelt down and fell to studying the carpet. ‘I understand now,’ she said at last, sitting back upon her heels. ‘I understand why you have been burning your hair.’
‘My hair? But it was only an accident.’
‘An accident repeated again and again.’
‘Yes…’
‘Because you cannot properly see what you are about! Why, I found it myself just now. I could not find the pins because the light was so poor – and I could barely make out your reflection.’ She pointed an accusing finger at the inoffensive table. ‘Why,’ she demanded, ‘is the toilette there? No lady should dress her hair with her back to the light. This,’ she said, pointing to the floor before her, ‘is where it should stand: be
side the window where the light is good. And until very recently it did stand here. I can see the marks which its legs have left upon the carpet.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Martha, ‘it did. But Tish did not like it there and had it moved.’
‘Why?’ Dido jumped to her feet. ‘Why would she not let it stand in the light?’
‘It was just one of her whims. There is no arguing with Tish when she gets an idea into her head.’
‘Indeed.’ Dido pressed a knuckle thoughtfully to her lips. ‘Perhaps she did not wish to see her own reflection clearly,’ she mused. ‘Miss Gibbs,’ she asked slowly as her mind struggled for understanding, ‘has your friend been unwell lately?’
‘No!’ The answer came too quick. Martha had turned her head away – Dido could see nothing but the white neck with little wisps of curls, and the vague image of her face swimming in the dark glass. ‘No, Tish has been quite well.’
‘Then has she seemed careless of her appearance – depressed in her spirits?’
There was a pause. Martha picked up a piece of court plaster from the clutter on the table and worked it nervously through her fingers. ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted at last, ‘she has been a little low-spirited and unhappy since our coming back from Worcestershire. But she has not been ill. Everyone has said she is in good looks and quite plump.’
Chapter Nineteen
… Why should any young lady move her toilette table into an obscure corner in which she can scarcely see her face in the glass? I have known some vain women veil their mirrors when the pimples are too terrible to look upon; but Miss Gibbs reports that her friend has lately been in good looks.
And why was Miss Gibbs so very reluctant to admit that her friend has been unhappy? It almost seemed that she was ashamed to speak of it.
Did this lowness of spirits make Miss Verney wish to escape Charcombe Manor? Or was it the cause of someone else wishing to remove her from the house?
Eliza, I find myself continually drawn in two opposing directions. Sometimes my thoughts are all in favour of an escape, and sometimes I am persuaded that someone else is the author of the young lady’s disappearance.
The story of the maid and the chaise might be a fabrication by the guilty party.
And there are three possible ‘guilty parties’ in my head. Mr Lancelot might be employing some unfair means of persuasion; Mrs Bailey might have designs upon the fortune of a ward for whom she seems to feel little affection; and Mr George might wish to dispose of the inconvenient heiress in order that he may marry his own daughter to the master of Charcombe. Mr Brodie and his ‘information’ might have cut across the schemes of any one of them. Perhaps desperation turned one of them into a murderer.
But I cannot approach Mr Parry with accusations against them all. I must find out more – and quickly too for it is but four days until the assize judges arrive to hold court in Exeter.
And, unfortunately, I find myself very inconveniently placed for investigation this evening – separated from the rest of the company by two floors!
And this is all on account of Mr Sutherland who, I find, is a remarkably persuasive man. His suggestion of ‘a little gentle exercise’ carried such force with my aunt that this evening she and I and her maid must climb up here to the long gallery at the top of the house so that she might make use of her father’s old chamber horse …
I confess that I cannot but find a chamber horse comical, Eliza, particularly when it is employed by such a very dignified woman as our aunt. She sits so very straight upon its springs, holding the high handles so hard that her knuckles are white and she rises and falls in a pretence of riding so very solemnly that I must look away for fear of laughing out loud.
A turn or two about the drawing room might, I am sure, have provided gentle exercise just as well. And I wish we had stayed below so that I might talk with my fellow guests.
But the long gallery is a pleasant enough place. It runs the length of the main house, and has a sloping floor of ancient boards. A pious-looking Fenstanton lady with a rosary and a fine Elizabethan ruff looks down upon my aunt from her picture frame – and disapproves of her activity, I think. There is old woven matting of rushes on the floor which gives the place a remarkably church-like smell, and the light of the setting sun is shining through the western window. Benson sits in its light, sewing upon the green silk slippers …
* * *
Dido stopped abruptly and looked in wonder at the last three words she had written – as if they were the revealed wisdom of Holy Writ. She laid down her pen and stared at the little maid whose full-moon face was bent industriously over her work. The light of the sunset laid a slightly reddish sheen across the material in her lap; but there was no doubting that it was green silk.
There was something wrong here. Here was another of those odd little details – like the placing of the toilette table in the haunted chamber – which made Dido uncomfortable. Details which could no more be left uninvestigated than a pebble in a shoe.
She put aside her writing desk and stood up. ‘Benson,’ she said – speaking quietly and trusting to the creaking of the springs in the chamber horse to screen her words from her aunt. ‘Why are you sewing those slippers?’
The maid started and looked up anxiously, her little hands dropped her work and twisted together. Many years’ attendance upon Mrs Manners had made her constitutionally apprehensive of rebuke. ‘My mistress has need of them, miss.’ She spoke in a whisper – not from fear of being overheard, but because whispering was a habit with her.
‘But why?’ persisted Dido. ‘I mean why green silk slippers? Has she not just such a pair which you made on our journey here? She wore them for the first time on the day after we arrived at Charcombe. I remember noting when I put them in the closet that she had already begun to tread down the backs of them.’
‘Oh yes, miss!’ Relieved understanding flooded across the little round face. ‘I did make a pair just last week; but those are spoilt now. They became covered all over in white dust and my mistress said I was to throw them away.’
‘White dust?’ said Dido trying to sound as if an interest in dust was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Do you mean white plaster dust?’
‘Why yes, miss, I think it was plaster dust.’
Dido was about to ask more but was prevented by a sudden, ominous silence. The creaking of the chamber horse had ceased.
‘I have exercised enough,’ announced Mrs Manners.
‘Oh!’ Dido turned and hastily gathered her thoughts. ‘Shall we return to the drawing room?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Manners sitting very erect and eying her niece as if she wished to know what she was about. ‘I shall go to my room and rest.’
‘But—’
‘I shall rest and you shall read to me.’
‘But I have no book.’
‘Well, I daresay, Miss Dido, you have the wit and the strength to get one from the library, have you not?’
‘Yes, Aunt.’ Dido stood up and turned to the stairs.
But her aunt seemed to wish to torment her particularly this evening. ‘Be sure to bring a respectable book,’ she said. ‘Something sensible. Sermons – or a history perhaps.’
‘Yes, Aunt.’
‘Providing it has not too many battles in it.’
Dido bit her lip. ‘Yes, Aunt.’
‘Nor folk having their heads chopped off,’ she insisted, still watching closely – almost as if she were deliberately testing. ‘I am not accustomed to that sort of unpleasantness.’
‘Yes, Aunt.’
‘And I do not wish to hear about foreign parts. And none of your novels, please!’
Dido finally reached the stairs and began to run down them with her mind in turmoil.
White plaster dust! Her aunt’s slippers had been spoilt with white plaster dust. And there was only one place in Charcombe Manor which could inflict such damage. The east wing!
Dido arrived in the hall rather breathless and found it deserted. But b
right light and voices spilt through the half-open door of the drawing room. The door of the library was also ajar and, when she entered, she found one candle burning on a table by the window, with a little Tunbridge-ware workbox beside it.
She took up the candle and began to search the serried rows of books. The gilt lettering of each volume glimmered into prominence as her light passed. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, volumes of Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen. There was nothing very new. Mr Lancelot did not seem to be a great collector of books; there was nothing here which would please her aunt, no sermons or histories.
And Dido’s mind was soon wandering from sermons to slippers. She sat down upon the set of steps which gave access to the higher shelves, and thought …
On the evening that she had seen the light in the east wing she had made a serious error in her calculations. She had reasoned that the only person who was absent from the hall was Lancelot Fenstanton. But that had been a foolish mistake. Mrs Manners had not been in the hall. And, now that she gave the matter some thought, she remembered that her aunt had been particularly restless that evening – that she had, in fact, been still awake when the dancing ended.
But why should Mrs Manners exert herself to walk so far as the east wing? What could be there to interest her?
Dido was suddenly shaken from her reverie by the entrance of Benson – sent by Mrs Manners to enquire why the choosing of a book was taking such a very long time. She jumped up, raised her candle high and looked about desperately for something suitable. The light fell at last upon a chair beside the window on which had been laid aside Miss Fenstanton’s new volume of Blair’s Sermons.
This would serve the present purpose very well – and Dido hoped that Miss Fenstanton would not object to her borrowing it.
She picked it up and ran up to her aunt’s chamber, still puzzling over what there could be in the east wing to draw Mrs Manners from the comfort of her bed.
* * *
In the bedchamber Dido drew a chair close to her aunt’s sofa and began to read. Mrs Manners clasped her hands in her lap, closed her eyes and lifted up her face with that expression of virtuous expectation which is proper to sermon-listening.