It seems to me to be a rather wild idea. For, I ask you, Eliza, if feathers are a cause of sickness, why do birds appear so very healthy? But I don’t doubt poor Silas will now be denied the comfort of a feather bed as well as port wine and rich food … Ah well, if he is saved from another bad attack of the asthma, I suppose the sacrifice will be well made. For the last one very nearly killed him.
And it was in fact that consideration which started an entirely new train of thought and led me back to my mystery. For, you see, I believe this experiment, besides explaining Mr Paynter’s plucking of Mrs Philips’ chicken, may also throw some light upon the haunting of Penelope’s bedchamber …
But as yet this is only surmise; there is nothing decided, nothing fixed; and I will not expose myself by claiming a solution which I may later be obliged to retract. I must give the matter a great deal more thought. There is one very important question which I must ask – and I must ask it in such a way as not to betray my interest.
I have been walking about the house this last half-hour endeavouring to find a situation in which I may think all these things over in peace; for the rain continues steadily and the moss hut is unattainable. I am now at the table in the parlour, but I cannot hope to remain undisturbed for long. Margaret will soon return … Ah, I hear footsteps approaching already. I had better hide my letter or there will be impertinent questions. Oh, Eliza, the comfort of being sometimes alone!
The parlour door opened and Dido found that she must hastily put away her look of discontent, for the intruder was not Margaret, but Mr Lomax.
‘Miss Kent,’ he exclaimed, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room with a look of great confusion, ‘I have had the most alarming letter …’ He stopped as he saw the anxiety on her face and held out a reassuring hand. ‘Forgive me – I should not have been so violent. There is nothing to distress yourself about. No bad news from any of our friends. I only meant that I have received a letter which has puzzled me very much. I cannot make out what it means.’
‘Indeed?’ She invited him to a seat and for a moment they faced one another in silence across the green baize tablecloth. Rain pattered on the window beside them. He looked as if he did not know how to go on. ‘May I ask who this letter is from?’ she prompted.
‘It is from my friend, George Lockhart,’ he replied, then, seeing her blank look, he added, ‘George lives in Shropshire – very close to old Mrs Foote.’
‘Oh yes!’ cried Dido with rising interest. ‘I recall – it was to him you were to apply for information about Miss Fenn’s family?’
‘It was.’
He pressed together the tips of his fingers – causing her to ask: ‘And what has he told you that is making you think so very deeply, Mr Lomax?’
‘He has told me that there is no family of the name of Fenn living in that neighbourhood.’
‘Is he quite sure?’
‘Oh yes. He is certain that there is no family called Fenn residing within thirty miles of Mrs Foote’s home.’
‘How very strange,’ she cried. ‘I was sure that Miss Fenn had come from that county. I thought that her family were neighbours of Mrs Foote and that is how she came to be recommended to the Harmans. But perhaps,’ she said, considering, ‘I may have mistaken Anne’s information … Perhaps it was an acquaintance Mrs Foote formed in town … But no,’ she added, ‘no, all the gossiping ladies of Badleigh and Madderstone are quite sure that Miss Fenn came from Shropshire …’ She stopped.
He was frowning over his linked fingers and she understood his looks well enough to know that he was far from comfortable. There was something else to tell – something which he was reluctant to broach.
‘My friend George is a … singular fellow,’ he began slowly. ‘He is very persistent. Once he is presented with a puzzle he cannot rest until it is solved.’ He smiled. ‘In fact, I know of only one person who can equal him for finding things out – and that is yourself.’
‘Then Mr Lockhart must be a remarkably capable and intelligent man!’
‘I shall not, of course, contradict you,’ he said with a gracious inclination of his head. ‘But I confess that, in the present case, he has been a great deal more … diligent than I asked him to be.’
Dido found herself rather warming to the unknown Mr Lockhart. ‘And what has he discovered?’ she asked eagerly.
‘He has discovered Elinor Fenn. He has discovered that, until twenty two years ago, Elinor Fenn was living in Mrs Foote’s own house.’
‘Oh! But I thought you said that there was no one of that name in the neighbourhood.’
‘Ah no,’ he said gravely. ‘I said that there was no family of that name.’
‘You are too precise!’
‘Not at all. The science of disputation requires precision. Besides …’ He could not suppress a smile. ‘Are you not always reminding me of the importance of noticing details?’
She opened her mouth to argue, but could find nothing to say, and he continued with insufferable self-complacency.
‘Elinor Fenn did indeed reside in Shropshire. She was, in point of fact …’ He stopped – his uneasiness was returned now. ‘She was a maid in Mrs Foote’s household.’
‘A maid!’ cried Dido – her resentment all forgotten in the shock. ‘Elinor Fenn was a maid before coming to Madderstone?’
‘It would seem that she was.’ He looked down at his linked fingers. ‘You must understand,’ he said, after a moment’s struggle, ‘that I did not ask George to pursue the topic so far … but he saw fit to make enquiries through … tavern talk, the gossip of stable yards … I know not what.’
‘Did he indeed?’ cried Dido whose regard for Mr Lockhart was increasing rapidly. ‘How very shocking! And what did this gossip reveal?’
He frowned at her severely, but continued. ‘It revealed that the young woman disappeared from her employer’s home …’
‘Twenty-two years ago?’
‘Yes. And it is supposed – as it generally is in such cases – that the reason for her sudden removal was—’
‘She was with child!’
He inclined his head reluctantly and Dido sat for several minutes eagerly considering his information. ‘And do the men of the taverns and stables have anything to say about who the father of her child might be?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said with a reproving frown. ‘They do not. And,’ he added hastily, ‘before you suggest it, no, I shall not ask George to make any further enquiries. In my opinion, the matter has been carried quite far enough.’
There was something about the set of his jaw as he spoke which determined her against pressing him. Instead she considered the information which Mr Lockhart had supplied.
‘I suppose,’ she mused, ‘that Miss Fenn’s simple possessions – the coarse hairbrush, the old bible – might suggest poverty.’
‘She lived in comfort at Madderstone,’ he remarked, the note of distaste and disapproval very strong in his voice. ‘It would seem that her sin was rather well rewarded.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘But?’ He regarded her questioningly.
‘It is so very strange,’ she mused. ‘That her history should be so … dishonourable.’ She hesitated to go on with the subject; she sensed his discomfort at its indelicacy – and yet, she was too puzzled, too intrigued to stop. ‘Miss Fenn appeared to her neighbours to be such a virtuous woman.’
‘Then it would seem her neighbours were deceived.’