‘No, I do not!’ Flora Beaumont frowned prettily in the deep shade of her bonnet, her soft white nose wrinkling in a way which always put Dido in mind of a rabbit. ‘He is such a very delightful man. Why, I cannot conceive that he could have an enemy in the whole world! And besides, Mrs Midgely does not know him.’ Her lips puckered in a childish pout. ‘The Lansdales have been here but a month and Mrs Midgely is not even upon visiting terms with them, you know.’
‘Then perhaps she had heard something ill of him.’
‘But I have told you, there is nothing ill to hear! Nothing at all!’
‘There were, I understand, quarrels between aunt and nephew.’
‘Oh, but they were nothing! It was just her way.’ Flora paused in the shade of a tree, twisting one finger daintily in the long ribbon of her bonnet. ‘I rather fancy she liked to quarrel sometimes, you know. There was always a great making up afterwards.’
‘Perhaps,’ Dido suggested, trying her best not to injure her cousin’s sensitive feelings, ‘perhaps it is jealousy which turns Mrs M against him. He is after all so very fortunate – a poor young man taken in by his aunt, and now inheriting a great estate in Westmorland…’
‘Dido! Do not talk so! I cannot bear it. You sound so horribly suspicious.’
‘No, no,’ Dido assured her hastily. ‘I am not at all suspicious. I am only trying to understand why other people might be suspicious.’
‘Well!’ cried Flora, clapping her hands together. ‘I can tell you why such a woman as Mrs Midgely is suspicious. It is because she is spiteful and cruel…and horrid. And we must find a way to silence her. You must find a way, Dido. You are the clever one. The whole world is forever saying how very clever you are.’
‘I am sure I am very much obliged to the world for its good opinion. And I certainly intend to silence Mrs Midgely if I can. But…’
She stopped suddenly because they had come now through the gates of Knaresborough House and, as they started up the sweep, she had caught sight of something rather strange.
A young boy in a gardener’s smock was digging a hole beneath the great boughs of the cedar tree which stood close by the gate. As Dido and Flora watched, he thrust his spade into the pile of excavated earth, picked up a bundle wrapped in sacking and dropped it into the hole.
‘Oh dear!’ cried Dido, almost without thinking, ‘is that a grave you are making?’ Impelled by overwhelming curiosity, she hurried towards him, leaving Flora frowning upon the gravel.
The boy looked up, pushing damp hair out of his eyes. He was about twelve years old with fair, almost white hair and a drift of freckles across his cheeks and nose. ‘It is Sam, is it not?’ said Dido. ‘We met when you came to dig the new flower-bed in Mrs Beaumont’s garden. Do you remember?’
‘Oh yes, miss,’ he said with a smile. ‘I remember. You was very kind about that wasp sting.’
‘And today you are working for Mr Lansdale?’ Dido looked inquiringly towards the hole.
‘Yes miss,’ he said. ‘I’m burying Mrs Lansdale’s little dog.’
‘Oh? Indeed!’ said Dido with great interest.
‘Been dead nearly a week, miss. I’d not come any closer if I were you.’
She took a step back, for there was indeed a very unpleasant odour mixing with the scent of lilac and the dark smell of the cedar. ‘Nearly a week?’ She glanced anxiously back at Flora and calculated rapidly. ‘Then the dog died about the same time as Mrs Lansdale?’
Sam nodded. ‘They say he went missing the very night the old lady died. But they only found him this morning – dead and hidden in among the laurel bushes.’
‘I see. How strange.’ How very strange. She gazed thoughtfully at the gaping hole in the ground. Why should the dog die at the same time as his mistress? It seemed a remarkable coincidence – indeed it seemed a great deal more than a coincidence… ‘But,’ she said carefully, ‘they do say, do they not, that a dog will sometimes pine away when the person to whom he has been devoted dies?’
‘I don’t know about that, miss,’ said Sam. He too looked down at the open grave and rubbed the side of his nose, smearing dirt into the freckles. ‘It may be a dog’d pine away,’ he said slowly. ‘But I can’t see how any dog would be so heart-broke it’d crawl away into a bush and cut its own throat.’
‘Oh no, no indeed,’ said Dido as she turned away, ‘you are quite right. Quite right.’
‘I do not see,’ said Flora irritably, ‘why you should be so concerned about the death of a dog.’
‘But my dear cousin, it is of the greatest importance. For it would seem the dog died at the hand of man, and that must mean…’ She stopped herself. There was something so remarkably innocent about Flora’s childlike face – the wide blue eyes gazing at her in such a puzzled, unsuspecting way…
Dido shrugged up her shoulders and merely said, ‘Well it is very strange, is it not?’
But her thoughts were working rapidly. The dog had been killed. Why? Why should the animal meet its death at the very same time as its mistress…? Unless there had been dark forces at work here at Knaresborough House.
The great question must be: had the death of the lady been as unnatural as her pet’s? Dido found herself remembering the apothecary’s account of the large amount of opium mixture Mrs Lansdale had drunk. She could not help it; she was beginning to wonder whether there could be some truth in the rumours. Perhaps there was some agency at work here worse than the malice of gossip.
She approached the respectable red-brick front of Knaresborough House with increased interest – and more than a little suspicion.
A remarkably young and inexperienced maid opened the door to them. She was very unsure of herself. She was unsure of how many curtsies she should make; unsure of whether Flora was to be addressed as ‘Miss’ or ‘Madam’; unsure whether her master was at home. And then, having ascertained that he was at home, and that he would be ‘down directly’, she was very unsure indeed about which room the visitors should be shown into.
She stood for several moments in the spacious, white-painted entrance hall, looking anxiously from one closed door to another, her hands twisting clumsily in her apron. No superior servant appeared to advise her and Dido observed the scene with great interest, wondering how it came about that such a fine house should be so ill-served. She had expected a manservant to open the door – a fellow with a bit of dignity about him: and a footman perhaps in attendance too.
‘It had better be the drawing room, I think,’ said the girl at last, throwing open a door, ‘though it’s not been used or put to rights since the day before the mistress died and I hope you’ll excuse it not being aired.’
They walked into the room and Dido looked about her with great interest.
It was very gloomy from the blinds still being half-drawn, and the furnishings were as impersonal as those of any house that is offered to be let by the month – though very rich and substantial, as befitted one advertised as a spacious residence suitable to a gentleman of fortune. There was a wealth of solid mahogany furniture and silver candlesticks, a magnificent, steadily ticking wall clock, and sumptuous, over-long curtains of cream brocade which lay in folds upon the Axminster carpet; but there was little that spoke the character of the present occupants – except, perhaps, some pretty red shades which had been fitted over the candles by the hearth.
‘I believe,’ said Dido, turning to her cousin, ‘that, in general, it is possible to learn a great deal about our acquaintances from looking at their drawing rooms.’