And my thoughts are rioting!
I have spent a great deal of time wondering about the mysterious ‘young gentleman’ who lately visited Mrs Pinker. I do wish that I had had an opportunity to ask the maid about his looks. For I am sure his identity is of the utmost importance.
Who is he? Why is he making the same enquiries that I am making? And is he the person who has stolen the letters and the ring? His being described as a young man, makes it almost impossible he can be Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’.
Maybe he is Captain Laurence. The captain might, I suppose, be considered young – at least by a woman as elderly as Mrs Pinker’s maid – and I cannot escape the idea that he is deeply involved in this business …
I have just had a little interval in which I wound up the spit and removed the cat from the curds. And, while I was about it, I began to consider Mr Coulson.
Perhaps Mr Coulson is the mysterious inquirer. I know he is a visitor to Great Farleigh. And I keep remembering his words to me on the gallery: his implied contempt for Mr Paynter. Why should he wish the surgeon’s testimony to be distrusted? Is he, also, attempting to prove that Miss Fenn was murdered? Is that why he would discredit the surgeon? For, after all, it is largely upon Mr Paynter’s evidence that the inquest verdict rests.
Yesterday, I fell in with Mr Paynter himself – I found him here in the kitchen consulting with Rebecca – and I took the opportunity of enquiring whether he is at all acquainted with Mr Coulson. He considered the question carefully as he always does and replied that he was ‘only very slightly acquainted with the young gentleman’. But there was certainly that in his manner which hinted at disapprovaclass="underline" a suggestion that he would not wish the degree of acquaintance to be any greater. So I rather suspect that Mr Coulson’s criticisms have been general and sustained enough to reach his ears.
But I cannot think of a reason why Mr Coulson should interest himself in the business of Miss Fenn’s death, any more than I can imagine what he might have been conveying in his malodorous box.
No, I cannot make it out at all.
But at least I can now see my way forward. I must make enquiries into Penelope’s history. It cannot be impossible to find out just who she is. After all, someone maintains her at Mrs Nolan’s school. The great object must be to discover who it is that pays her allowance.
* * *
Dido soon began upon her enquires into Penelope’s birth, but it would seem that there was not a great deal to know upon the subject.
Lucy Crockford, though assuring Dido that she knew everything about dear Pen, that they were like sisters and would not for the world keep secrets from one another, could only say that Penelope had been at Mrs Nolan’s school since she was five years old; that she had been raised to the status of parlour boarder several years ago; and that she was certainly the natural daughter of somebody. Although Lucy, being such an extraordinarily sensitive and generous woman, had never found the circumstances of birth a barrier to friendship. She was much too tender-hearted to blame the child for the faults of the parents …
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Dido. ‘But how did you become acquainted with Miss Lambe? Have you known her long?’
‘Oh! No, I would not say I have known her long. But I have often observed that time alone does not determine intimacy. It is rather a matter of disposition, you know. And Pen and I are so remarkably well suited that I believe we were intimate within seven days. And she is so very happy to be with us you know, and I am sure …’
‘But, in point of fact, when did you meet her?’
‘About six weeks ago – when Harriet and I were last in Bath. Captain Laurence introduced us.’
‘Did he indeed?’ said Dido with great interest. And, as she spoke, she was able to glance across the room at the gentleman in question, for the conversation was taking place in the drawing room of Madderstone Abbey, where a large party was collected for the evening.
Just now, the captain was standing with his back to a roaring fire telling a story which involved a great deal of energy and expression, ‘alarms’, ‘overwhelming odds’, and ‘French privateers’. Margaret, Silas and Harriet sat before him listening attentively and Lucy was wanting to join them. She began to rise from her seat, but Dido placed a delaying hand upon her arm. She could not allow the opportunity for conversation to pass. Soon the whist table at which Mr and Mrs Harman-Foote, Francis and Mr Lomax were all engaged, would be breaking up – the company dispersing …
‘And how did Captain Laurence become acquainted with Miss Lambe?’ she asked.
‘I do not know,’ said Lucy carelessly, ‘I have never asked.’
Dido sighed. Sometimes she found the lack of curiosity in others very hard to forgive.
‘But,’ continued Lucy in a thrilled whisper, ‘he was quite determined that we should become friends, you know. For he said that he esteemed us all so much he must have us love one another!’
‘Indeed!’ Dido looked across again to the captain as he smiled broadly in the ruddy light of the fire, his strong white teeth very prominent in his weather-beaten face. There was a great deal too much self-congratulation in the smile for her taste.
At tea he had devoted himself to Penelope, who had made a brief appearance in company that evening – her first since her accident. Now she had returned to rest in her bedchamber, but while she had remained below the captain had been so very solicitous for her comfort and welfare that Dido had wondered how Lucy could look on with every appearance of goodwill and complaisance …
She realised suddenly that the captain had ceased talking – that he was now returning her gaze. His smile broadened.
She turned back to Lucy quickly. ‘And Penelope knows no more about her own history?’ she asked.
‘Oh no! Though of course she remembers her mother quite distinctly!’
‘Does she?’ cried Dido in surprise – but then distrusted. ‘And what, exactly, does she remember?’
‘She remembers the sweetest, most beautiful face in the world bending over her cradle – a voice, angelic in its softness, singing her to sleep … All that kind of thing, you know – for it is quite impossible to ever forget a mother’s love.’
‘I see.’ Dido detected more of romance than memory in all this. ‘But she has never asked Mrs Nolan …?’
She stopped, aware that her companion was no longer attending. Captain Laurence himself was now approaching and Lucy was happily making room for him to sit between them on the sofa.
‘You are talking of Miss Lambe?’ he asked as he sat down and arranged his bristling brows and side-whiskers into a look of compassionate concern. ‘I was,’ he said turning to Lucy with a very particular look, ‘very glad indeed to see her so much recovered. For I know, Miss Lucy, how very, very anxious you have been about her.’
Lucy smirked and exclaimed.
Dido watched and listened with great interest as the captain talked on in a low insinuating voice. She could not help but admire the way in which every concern for, every attention to, Penelope was now explained away by his overwhelming anxiety for Lucy’s peace of mind.
‘… And so you see, Miss Lambe has told me that she is experiencing no great pain in her head; so you must, I beg you, cease to distress yourself by imagining any such thing. Come now, will you promise me that you will not lie awake at night any more worrying about it …?’