It was all so very cleverly done! And no doubt Lucy – predisposed as she was to believe whatever suited her – had cause enough to think him ‘attached’.
Dido glanced about the room to see whether anyone else was taking note of the very particular attention he was paying. But it would seem that she was their only audience. On one side Silas, overheated by Mr Harman-Foote’s enormous fire, was beginning to wheeze and cough, and Harriet was entirely taken up with chiding him and placing a screen to protect him, for all the world as if he were a delicate girl. And on the other side, the whist players were intent upon their cards and a conversation on the perennial subject of poachers.
‘It’s a mystery to me, Lomax, where the devil the birds are all going,’ boomed Mr Harman-Foote. ‘They can’t be eating them all – they must be getting ’em off to sell in town somehow, but I’m damned if I know how they’re doing it, for the keepers have been out looking at every cart that leaves the village. Why, I rather take my hat off to ’em. Clever devils ain’t they …?’
‘… And I am particularly grateful to you, Miss Kent …’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Dido turned back hastily to find that the captain was now regarding her with a look of great feeling.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘that you have been doing the poor invalid the greatest of services – I refer of course to your efforts at discovering the cause of her fall. Such an explanation would’ – a solicitous glance here at Lucy – ‘help to put all our minds at rest. And I am sure there is no one better qualified for the undertaking.’
‘I hardly know about that,’ Dido replied. ‘For I am not at all certain what qualities the task might require. But if overweening curiosity and a frivolous mind which cannot allow the smallest detail to pass unnoticed are called for – then perhaps I may make some claim.’
‘You are too modest!’ he cried with habitual gallantry. ‘But I cannot allow you to escape the compliment so easily, for I hear too much about your intelligence and quickness of understanding to doubt you are capable of solving any manner of perplexity.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, rather wishing he would not lean so close, nor speak in such a softened tone. It was, she knew, no more than his manner – the duty of charming all women which his vanity imposed upon him. But, beyond his shoulder, she could see Lucy becoming very annoyed at having to share his attention.
‘I should be very grateful if you would tell me what you have discovered in your search. And’ – he leant closer still, sinking his voice so that only she could hear – ‘there is the other matter – the mysterious disappearance of Miss Fenn’s letters. My cousin tells me that you are making enquiries into that too …’
Dido drew back, shocked that he should know of the letters, and offended by the familiarity of his manner. She opened her mouth to protest; but her words were drowned in an exclamation from the card table. ‘Mr Lomax! Are you forgetting that spades are trumps?’
She looked across to see the unfortunate Mr Lomax stammering an apology as he frowned distractedly at the game. And she was wondering whether her imagination was flattering her in suggesting that his eyes had been only just withdrawn from her corner of the room, when all other considerations were driven out by such a scream from above their heads as seemed to shake the very walls of the house.
There was a moment of complete stillness in the drawing room as the echoes died away along the stairs and hallways of the old abbey. Everybody seemed to be staring at somebody else.
And then everybody was moving and talking at once.
Silas Crockford’s voice rang out, with unusual clarity, above the rest. ‘It was Penelope!’
Lucy was taken with hysterics, and Captain Laurence was forced to attend her. Silas, Francis and Mr Lomax were running into the hall, but Harriet was ahead of them all, crying out, ‘It is of no consequence. Do not worry, please. I will go to her.’
And Dido, neatly avoiding Lucy’s clutching hands, was running after her friend immediately. She slipped past the gentlemen who were all come to an uncertain standstill at the foot of the stairs – very eager to encounter any danger, and yet unable to pursue it into a lady’s bedchamber.
She caught up with Harriet on the turn of the stairs. ‘Is Penelope alone?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘No … At least I thought not. I thought that Nanny was sitting with her …’
They were on the landing … At the door … Dido pushed it open …
The only light in the room came from the fire, burning low upon glowing embers with a small flame or two flickering unsteadily, sending fingers of light and shadow across the ceiling and the bed-hangings. There was no attendant – only Penelope sitting up on her bed, her face terrified. She turned to the door as Dido and Harriet hurried in.
‘Oh! She was here!’ she cried. ‘I saw her! The Grey Nun was here at the foot of the bed!’
‘It was a dream,’ said Harriet soothingly. ‘Nothing more.’ She went to the bed and tried to persuade her charge to lie down.
But Penelope resisted feverishly. ‘No, no! I was awake. I was quite awake! And she was just there, you know,’ she insisted, pointing a shaking finger. ‘I had just fallen asleep and then I woke up. And there was a figure in a very ugly grey gown like nuns wear. And there was a light. And a great big hood so her face was quite covered up.’
‘No, no …’
‘Yes!’ Penelope’s poor eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. ‘She spoke to me in an odd sort of voice – such as I suppose they call hollow tones in a book. And I thought I should die of fright …’
Harriet shook her head, and continued to talk quietly and calmly about dreams and tricks of the firelight and the injury from which Penelope was not yet quite recovered …
Meanwhile Dido had followed the direction of the pointing finger and was looking closely at the spot by the bed’s foot where the ghost was supposed to have appeared. She stooped down and touched the bedpost lightly, raised her finger and studied its tip …
Just then the door was opened by poor Nanny, full of tearful apologies for having ‘only just gone down to the kitchen with the tray. And she had only been away a minute or two. And she was right sure her old legs couldn’t have taken her there and back any quicker than they did. And Miss Harriet knew full well that she never had been one for wasting time gossiping in the kitchen …’
Harriet left the bedside to confer with her and send her off with a reassuring message for the company below. Dido went to Penelope. ‘The Grey Nun spoke to you?’ she whispered eagerly.
‘Yes.’ Penelope seized her with hot little hands, very anxious to be believed.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said …’
‘Now now,’ said Harriet turning back towards them, ‘it will not do at all to dwell upon it. It was nothing but a nightmare. Least said soonest mended.’
But Penelope clung on, her eyes wide and pleading. ‘She did speak. I am quite, quite sure it was not a dream. You believe me, do you not?’
‘Yes …’ Dido looked down thoughtfully at her own fingers, rubbed them together a little. ‘Yes, I think perhaps I do believe you.’ There was a protest from Harriet, but she continued. ‘Can you tell us what the Grey Nun said to you?’
‘Oh! She said that I am in great danger. She said that I must get away from here as soon as ever I can.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dido left the bedroom immediately and hurried out onto the landing, eagerly looking to right and left. There was no one in sight. Down in the hall the company was yielding to Nanny’s message and Mrs Harman-Foote’s entreaties. Everyone was returning to the drawing room. She could hear their voices fading away. She started down the stairs. The drawing room door was just closing; Nanny was hurrying off to the kitchen; there was only one person left in the hall – it was Mr Lomax.