by Anna Dean
Everyone was intent upon strawberries – except perhaps Mr Hewit who was standing a little apart from the rest, wrapped in thought and only occasionally stooping down to dutifully pick at the fruit.
Dido and Flora set themselves to pick alongside Miss Bevan who had detached herself a little from her companions and who was looking decidedly ill and pale beneath her plain white bonnet. There was a little reddening of the eyes which could not but rouse a suspicion of tears against her.
She spoke very civilly to them, however, about the day and the garden and, after a while, seeing that Flora was very busy with her task, she said quietly to Dido, ‘And how do your enquiries go on, Miss Kent? I hope you will soon be able to prove Mr Lansdale quite innocent.’
Dido sighed, set down her basket and straightened her already-aching back. ‘They go on very badly indeed, I am afraid,’ she said.
‘I am sorry to hear it. I wish I could be of more use to you; but I regret that I know very little of the matter.’
‘Perhaps you can help me, Miss Bevan,’ she said looking very directly at her. ‘There is a line of Shakespeare’s – it has been brought to my attention in connection with this affair – I am not at liberty to say exactly how – but I believe it may be of some importance.’
‘How very intriguing!’ exclaimed Miss Bevan, returning her gaze with fearless interest.
‘You see, the difficulty is that, having no knowledge of its origin, there is no understanding its meaning.’
‘I shall do my best to help, Miss Kent. But I hope you are not meaning to judge me by my answer.’
‘Why should I mean to judge you?’ asked Dido keenly.
But Mary laughed. ‘I am only afraid,’ said she, ‘that I may reveal my ignorance and you will judge me unfit for my future task of educating children.’
‘Oh no! No, I promise I am not testing. But can you tell me whether the line: “The world is not their friend, nor the world’s laws,” does indeed come from Shakespeare?’
Miss Bevan crossed her arms as she thought. ‘I believe it does,’ she said at last, ‘though I am afraid I cannot think which play it occurs in. Why do you particularly wish to know?’
‘Because,’ said Dido, still watching her companion’s face for any change of complexion or sign of consciousness, ‘I would dearly love to know just who it is who must be considered unfriended by the laws of the world.’
Mary shook her head with a smile and bent once more over the strawberry bed. ‘I am sorry I cannot help you, Miss Kent. I have heard the line certainly, but you know I may not even have heard it in its original setting. For Shakespeare is so much a part of our heritage as Englishwomen that we hear and read his lines quoted everywhere. We meet them every day, do we not? All the great writers of our own time describe with his phrases and adopt his beauties. His lines are to be found in almost every book – every periodical that we open.’
Dido acknowledged it and they talked very pleasantly about the influence of the great poet upon the English language, until they were disturbed by Henry Lansdale’s approach. He came, as usual, to devote himself to Flora, positioning himself carefully between her and Miss Bevan so that Dido found herself attending rather more than she should to his talk.
He was so pleased that they were come…he had been wanting their company very much…such a scheme as this was nothing without pleasant companions… He had been so afraid that the best of the fruit would be gone before they came…had in fact taken the liberty of saving some of the choicest berries…
Dido looked up as he proffered the basket in his hand. Perhaps he caught her eye – and her disapproval – for instead of holding it out to Flora he turned at the last moment and gave first pick of the fruit in it to Miss Bevan. Dido frowned at the little tableau and turned back very thoughtfully to the business of filling her own basket. There was something dangerous in Mr Lansdale’s manner… Was he to be trusted entirely?
She was next roused from her thoughts by Miss Neville who drew along beside her and said plaintively, ‘This is rather a singular occupation is it not, Miss Kent?
She turned. Miss Neville was peering suspiciously under a strawberry leaf and looking hot, tired and unhappy. ‘In my opinion,’ she continued, ‘strawberries are all very well in a dish with a little sugar and cream – but I had never thought to have to gather them myself.’
‘I believe it is generally considered the best – the most natural – way of enjoying the fruit. I am sure Sir Joshua means to give us pleasure.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Neville. ‘Oh well!’ It was plain that her life had had rather too much necessary toil in it for her to regard as pleasure any exertion which might be avoided.
‘You seem fatigued, Miss Neville,’ said Dido solicitously. ‘Why do you not sit down awhile in the shade?’
Miss Neville looked about her at the rest of the company who were happily picking and eating and praising. ‘I do not like to go away,’ she confessed in a whisper. ‘It would look so very singular.’
Dido could not allow such an opportunity to pass her by.
‘Then I shall accompany you,’ she said with decision, popping one last strawberry into her mouth and standing up. ‘Then it cannot look singular, you know.’
She led the way to a wooden seat in a rose arbour beyond the wall of the kitchen garden and Miss Neville sat down gratefully. ‘Thank you, Miss Kent, this is very kind of you,’ she said – which was the occasion of some guilt, for Dido’s motives in suggesting the removal had not been ones of unadulterated humanity.
She smiled and allowed her companion to enjoy for a while the rest and comparative coolness. The arbour was deep and old and irregular, and composed of extremely pale pink roses of the kind which droop and fall almost as soon as they are opened. Little drifts of petals lay about their feet on the old brick path. Here they were hidden from both the house and the strawberry beds; their companions were no more than a buzz of voices beyond the wall – and an occasional ripple of laughter from Flora marking some more than usually outrageous remark from Mr Lansdale. In the alcove they were comfortably sheltered from the glare of the sun, but heat breathed up from the bricks at their feet. Three or four ornamental pheasants loitered about on the path.
Dido watched them for several minutes, and listened to a bee fumbling noisily in the heart of a rose, before she turned determinedly to her silent companion. ‘Miss Neville,’ she said, ‘I am glad to have this opportunity of conversation with you. There is something which I wish most particularly to ask you about.’
‘Yes?’ The single word sounded wary. She looked worried.
It would be kindest to speak quickly and plainly. ‘There seems,’ said Dido, looking directly at her, ‘to be a little confusion about the night on which Mrs Lansdale died. You see, Miss Prentice is quite certain that she saw a visitor approaching the house – and yet you assure me that you saw no such visitor. It is very strange, is it not?’
Miss Neville twisted her hands together and said nothing.
‘In view of the events which followed – the lady’s death – and the burglary too – I wonder whether more enquiries ought not to be made into this business. At the very least the man Fraser should be questioned, for he could tell us whether or not there was a visitor came to the door that day…’
‘No! No, Miss Kent…I assure you…it will by no means be necessary… No such enquiries need be made. For I think I can explain to you everything that seems strange in the case.’
‘Oh?’
‘You see…’ Miss Neville’s hands writhed and twisted harder than ever. ‘You see when I told you…or rather, when Mr Lansdale told you that I was at home that evening…it was certainly not my intention to deceive you…or to deceive anyone.’
‘So it was not true? You were not at home all evening?’
She stared down at her clenched fingers. ‘No,’ she said very quietly. ‘The truth is, I left the house soon after Mr Lansdale.’
It changed everything. That was Dido’s fir
st thought. And for a little while the surprise of it was too great to allow her to think further.
The two ladies sat in silence for several minutes. The sun beat down upon the brick path and upon the roses – raising a sweet scent. One of the pheasants strutted past, turning its little bright head to eye them curiously.
It changed everything. It made a great deal possible that had before seemed only wild surmise. There could have been a secret tryst: a meeting between Mrs Lansdale and Mr Henderson… A meeting about which the nephew and companion knew nothing… Unless one of them, returning, should have discovered it…and the discovery had made him, or her, desperate…
Dido turned to Miss Neville and saw that her cheeks were very red and she was holding a plain little handkerchief to her eyes. ‘And when did you return to Knaresborough House? Before Mr Lansdale, or after him?’
‘Oh before him,’ said Miss Neville eagerly, ‘I was very careful of that – because, you see, he did not know that I had gone. And, Miss Kent, if you would be so very kind…I should be very grateful if you would not mention my going to him.’
‘Why do you wish to hide it?’
‘Because I should not have left his aunt. It was my duty to remain with her. I am quite well aware of that. But then you know,’ she continued in a plaintive voice, ‘it was also my duty to go… And, I ask you, how was I to decide?’
‘What was it that took you out that evening?’
‘I had to visit my mother.’
‘Your mother?’ repeated Dido disbelievingly. She could see no reason for concealing such a respectable errand.
‘I always did visit mother on a Tuesday, you see. It was quite an agreed thing.’
‘I see.’
‘But, there was a problem. The truth is that there often was a problem,’ she added irritably. ‘It had become quite a habit with my cousin to complain on Tuesdays of feeling unwell – of feeling too unwell for me to leave her. And sometimes, as on this particular day, she would forbid me to go. You see, Mr Lansdale had told us that he was to spend the evening in town. It was not quite fair! But I thought there was nothing wrong with her, and after she had retired, I went out…to see mother. After all, she was expecting me…’
‘I see. It must have been very difficult for you.’
‘It was,’ came the eager reply. ‘The truth is, Miss Kent,’ continued Miss Neville, who seemed to be as fond of enunciating truths as any clergyman in his pulpit, ‘that I found myself in a very difficult situation. The role of companion, it is not an easy one, you know.’ There was a little, self-pitying shake of the head. ‘To be always at someone else’s command. I do not mean to complain, for I know it was very kind of Mrs Lansdale to invite me to live with her. But I scarcely had a moment to myself. She would call me at any hour if she felt unwell.’
‘I understand, of course. It must have been a very trying situation.’
‘And you see, I was so very worried about mother.’
‘Ah yes, your mother is unwell is she not?’
‘Oh no, thank you, she is well – as well as a woman of her age can be. Why should you think she is ill?’ she asked anxiously.
‘No reason – it is just that you were consulting Mr Vane on Sunday – I thought you were perhaps worried about your mother’s health.’
Miss Neville looked extremely uncomfortable. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘that was quite a different matter.’
‘I see. But you say that you were worried about your mother on this particular day.’
‘Yes, because she was going to be alone on that evening and…you know how it is with old people. They can become confused and forgetful. They cannot be left long unattended.’
‘I see.’
‘And she was expecting me to go,’ said Miss Neville querulously. But then she recollected herself and added more calmly, ‘Naturally now, I feel that I should have stayed. Poor Mrs Lansdale really was unwell, you see. Perhaps,’ she said with great sentiment, ‘perhaps, if I had stayed, I could have helped her.’
‘It is only natural that you should feel so. Though I doubt your presence could have saved her. I am sure you have nothing with which to reproach yourself.’
Miss Neville seemed very grateful for this reassurance, but, nevertheless, she soon afterwards stood up and proclaimed her determination of resuming the hard labour of strawberry picking.
‘Before you go, Miss Neville, there is something else I was hoping to ask you,’ said Dido. She was unwilling to lose this rather promising opportunity of putting a very important question. ‘Can you tell me – was Mrs Lansdale at all acquainted with her neighbour, Mrs Midgely?’
Miss Neville stopped under the roses. A little cluster of petals spilt down onto the crown of her bonnet. She stared at Dido, rather perplexed. ‘No, she was not,’ she said. ‘That is, Mrs Midgely had called at the house but once.’
‘Ah!’ cried Dido eagerly. ‘And when was it that she called?’
‘It was on the morning before my poor cousin died. But she was not admitted because Mrs Lansdale did not…feel equal to company that morning.’
‘And so she left her card and went away?’
‘Yes. And she left a message too – with Fraser – she asked to be allowed to call again. She had, she said, something she particularly wished to say to my cousin.’
‘Did she indeed! And tell me,’ Dido pursued, ‘did Mr Lansdale know of her visit – and her message?’
‘Why yes, I believe he did.’
Chapter Sixteen
Dido remained in the alcove. The heat became oppressive; the chatter and laughter from the strawberry beds became more languid as the pickers tired; bees droned in the pale roses. Hidden in her corner, she considered what she had learnt.
It would appear that when Mr Henderson called at the house, Mrs Lansdale was alone. That raised a multitude of possibilities.
And then there was Miss Neville herself to consider. There was a kind of dissatisfaction about the woman: a reined-in anger, which was most intriguing. And what was the ‘bad business’ she had been discussing with Mr Vane, if it was not her mother’s health? Dido did not trust her at all. She had a great idea that anyone who was so very eager to point out that she was stating truths, must be concealing some other – perhaps more important – truths.
And finally, and perhaps most interesting of all, there was this visit of Mrs Midgely’s. What had been its purpose…?
She was able to proceed no further in her musing. There was a heavy footstep on the path and she looked up to see Mrs Midgely herself bearing down upon her, her cheeks very red and her cherry-coloured parasol aflutter.
‘Miss Kent! Here you are! I hope that you are not unwell. Your cousin is becoming quite anxious about you.’
‘No. Thank you, I am quite well – just a little heated.’
‘Well then, I am very glad to have this opportunity of talking to you.’
As Mrs Midgely began to settle herself and her skirts upon the bench, Dido was busily considering a direct question about that visit to Mrs Lansdale. But, regretfully, she decided it had better not be attempted. To admit an interest in the matter would only put the lady on her guard and an honest answer was scarcely to be expected.
‘I think,’ she said, half rising, ‘that I had better not stay – if Flora is worried about me.’
‘There is something which I most particularly wish to say to you, Miss Kent,’ said Mrs Midgely, lowering her voice to a very impressive undertone, ‘something concerning Mr Lansdale and the late events at Knaresborough House.’
Dido decided that Flora might be allowed to worry a little longer.
‘Dear Mrs Beaumont,’ continued Mrs Midgely, ‘has, I discover, a great regard for Mr Lansdale.’
‘Yes,’ said Dido carefully, ‘I believe she has. She – and her husband – have been friends of the Lansdales this past year.’
‘Yes, quite so. And I am sure it is very unpleasant for her to hear ill of him.’
‘As to that…’
> ‘My dear Miss Kent, as a friend I would wish to warn her. I wish you would speak a word of warning to her in my behalf.’
Dido stared. ‘What manner of warning, Mrs Midgely?’
‘I would advise her to drop the acquaintance, for I believe there will soon come out such things! Things which will… Well, my dear, shall we say they are such things as will prove her confidence in him to be quite misplaced.’
‘To what are you referring Mrs Midgely?’
She blushed so deeply that the colour of her cheeks was a fair match for her parasol. ‘This business of his aunt’s death – I fear that it will end in court you know.’
‘I do not think,’ said Dido, ‘that that apprehension would turn my cousin against her friend.’
‘Ah! But you see, she is not aware of all that may come out before the judge.’
Dido looked at her sharply: aware that there was something – something to the gentleman’s disadvantage – which Mrs Midgely most particularly wished to tell her. Her interest was keen: but she took great care to keep that interest from her voice. ‘And what is it that she is unaware of?’
Mrs Midgely looked sidelong at her. ‘Are you – or Mrs Beaumont – aware that Mr Lansdale was heard to argue with his aunt on the day of her death?’
Dido was shocked; but it was absolutely necessary to exert herself. She would not, for the world, have Mrs Midgely suppose she had bettered her. ‘And what… Or rather who… How is this known?’
Mrs Midgely shook her curls and whispered importantly. ‘Mr Vane was in the house when it occurred. He heard it all.’
‘And what was this “all” that he heard?’
‘A great deal. You see Mrs Lansdale considered herself to be very unwell that evening and it seems that she quite forbade her nephew to leave her. But he said he had to see his friend Mr Morgan on very important business.’
‘I see.’
‘And that is not all. When he persisted in saying that he would go, she fell into a great passion. And she began to threaten him. Miss Kent, she threatened him with a new will which she said would leave him poor: “as poor as his foolish mother had made herself”, that is what she said.’