‘Oh no!’ cried Mr Paynter who was constitutionally deaf to humour. ‘I am only collecting a few feathers, Miss Kent.’
He said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a gentleman to do, but Dido could not help but ask why he should find himself so urgently in need of feathers that he must gather them for himself.
‘They are required for a little … enquiry which I am carrying out at present.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes a … medical enquiry.’ He laid aside the bird and the sack and dusted a few stray feathers from his person.
‘Indeed?’ said Dido, ‘I did not know that feathers were a cure for any illness.’
‘Oh no,’ he said very seriously and raised his finger as his habit was when he wished to make a precise point. ‘In point of fact, I suspect they are a cause rather than a cure.’ He picked up his bag.
‘What? Poisoned by feathers? This is a new thing.’
‘On the contrary, Miss Kent,’ he said with a bow, and not even the hint of a smile. ‘The case I have in mind is an old one. Some fifteen years old.’ And with that he hurried off. She almost called him back; but he seemed very anxious to be gone and, besides, she did not know exactly what she could say – what she would ask – if she did succeed in delaying him …
‘Well! He’s a strange one, isn’t he?’ said a voice close beside her. She turned to see Mrs Philips, the housekeeper, picking up the half-plucked chicken from the bench and frowning in puzzlement beneath her well-starched cap.
‘Oh, yes, it does seem rather … unusual behaviour, does it not?’
The housekeeper shook her head. ‘Came here saying could he have some feathers. Said it was for his “enquiries”. “Well,” said I, “you’re welcome to all the feathers you care to take out of this bird” – and off he goes to pluck it! Ah, but he’s always been a strange one, Miss Kent; has been ever since his uncle took him in when he was just five years old.’
‘Indeed? Has he?’
‘And, in my opinion, he takes the strangeness from old Arthur Paynter. For he was a great one for “natural philosophy” and “experiments” and young Harris admired him very much.’
‘And now the nephew has taken to “experiments”?’
Mrs Philips nodded. ‘Last month,’ she said, ‘it was eggs gone bad he wanted for his enquiries. Comes here solemn as a judge – “Have you got any eggs gone bad, Mrs Philips?” “Well,” said I, “I might, but I don’t see why you’d want them.” And he says it’s a “medical enquiry” for finding out why they make folk sick.’ She folded her arms and stood with the bird dangling over her crisp white apron. ‘Don’t know what the sense is in that for I’m sure we all know a bad egg will give us a powerful bellyache. Seems to me a surgeon’d do better reckoning out how to cure folk, not how to make them sick.’
‘Oh, yes, yes indeed.’
‘Ah well, as I often say, there’s no accounting … And so, Miss Kent, what brings you here? Was there anything you wanted?’
‘Oh no … no. I just came to look about me and see how your chickens go on … I see the new clutches are all hatched. And you seem to have done remarkably well! I do believe you have hardly lost one!’
‘Well!’ Mrs Philips cheeks glowed with pride. ‘It’s very kind of you to say so, miss. And, though I don’t like to boast, these new pullets are coming on very nicely …’
Mrs Philips was an old acquaintance of Dido’s and she fell comfortably now into a conversation which, beginning upon the merits of her pullets, moved very naturally to the depredations of foxes, and thence to the even worse depredations of poachers on the estate, to the deplorable state of all the estate’s walls, to their long-awaited repair, to repairs and improvements in general, and so, at last, to the draining of the lake – and the relics which it had revealed.
‘And that,’ remarked Dido, watching her companion closely, ‘is an extraordinary business, is it not?’
‘Dear, dear, yes, a very odd business indeed,’ said Mrs Philips. ‘There’s no accounting, is there? Poor Miss Fenn lying up there in the water all this time and no one knowing anything about it! That fair makes me shudder.’
Dido nodded kindly. ‘It must have been a very great shock to everyone who knew the poor lady. And you, Mrs Philips, who had known her ever since she came to this house, must feel it very deeply indeed.’
‘Dear, dear, yes,’ she sighed, very well pleased to have her share of sympathy.
They stood together for a while without speaking, watching the hens pecking up corn. A large cockerel with a fine green and gold tail flew up onto the broken wall and crowed importantly.
‘I understand,’ said Dido as indifferently as she could, ‘that poor Miss Fenn had been low in her spirits for some time before she died.’
‘Yes …’ said the housekeeper, a little doubtingly. ‘There’s no denying she had been a little low … But … Well, there’s no accounting, is there?’
‘No accounting for what, Mrs Philips?’
‘Well, that did seem to me she’d got a bit brighter in the last few weeks. More at ease with herself.’
‘Indeed!’
They watched the poultry a little while longer. A very fat hen shuffled herself luxuriously in a dirt bath and a frantic line of chicks peeped and scuttled out of her way. Dido was considering risking a very particular question – and decided at last that it must be hazarded.
‘Was Miss Fenn at all acquainted with James Laurence?’ she said, her eyes still fixed upon the hens.
The housekeeper looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, of course. All the Laurence boys knew her, for they used to come often on visits – their mother being Mr Harman’s sister, you know.’ She stopped, smiled fondly. ‘The truth is – and I wouldn’t mention this to anyone else – but young Mr James was rather struck with Miss Fenn that last summer. We all used to laugh about it a bit. Nothing improper of course – just following her about and leaving flowers by her place at dinner.’
Dido ceased to study the hens. ‘He was in love with her?’ she cried.
‘Oh no! I would not call it love. Not in a boy of sixteen for a woman of nine and twenty.’
‘Well, you and I may call it what we wish, Mrs Philips,’ said Dido meditatively, ‘but to a boy of sixteen I think it might seem very much like love.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, miss. But it wasn’t to be wondered at, you know. She was such a very handsome woman and she had such a way with her. And if young Mr James was in love with her …’ She bent over the dead chicken in her hands and began to tweak a feather or two from its neck, ‘he was not the only one.’
‘Oh?’
Mrs Philips continued with her plucking.
‘Who was this other admirer?’ Dido prompted.
‘Well – quite between ourselves …’
‘Of course.’
‘Mr Portinscale.’
‘Indeed? You believe Mr Portinscale was … paying attentions to Miss Fenn?’
‘Oh yes, there can be no doubt about it! All that last summer she was here, he’d call regular at four o’clock – just when he knew she was at liberty. And they’d walk out across the lawns and down to the pool nearly every fine day. “Mark my words,” I used to say, “we’ll see her settled in the parsonage before Christmas.” But then … Well, there’s no accounting, is there, miss?’
‘No accounting for what, Mrs Philips?’
‘Why! The way it all went off.’
‘Mr Portinscale never made an offer?’
‘Ah well!’ cried Mrs Philips. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’ But she folded her arms and began to look about at her chickens with the air of a woman who knows a great deal.