I suppose Mrs Nolan is a little over fifty years old and she has more than a hint of the North Country in her voice. She has a pale, soft, placid appearance – except for her eyes which are small and black and particularly shrewd. She wears the most remarkable hats I ever set eyes upon, with a great many ribbons and large silk flowers in surprising places. But, though the hats are silly, I suspect the head beneath them is sensible enough.
Yesterday I contrived a tête-à-tête and attempted to ask about Penelope’s connections – in a roundabout way. I was not at all successful! I was given to understand that ‘the poor lass has not a soul in the world to care for her but me, for I’ve had the charge of her since she was but five years old’. And, when I pressed to know who it was that had placed her at the school, I was immediately put off. ‘Nay, Miss Kent, that is a kind of information which a woman in my situation never discloses.’
Ah well, I suppose I should not have expected her to confide so easily; and I am sure I respect her the better for her discretion. I have not yet determined how she is to be worked upon, but I think I must make a great effort to secure her trust.
Mr Lomax is not yet arrived in Bath, and will not be here until the day after tomorrow. So I fear there will be little time for our ‘honest and open discourse’. I was amused, by the by, that you should consider the experiment we have undertaken ‘a little dangerous’. What possible danger can there be in our only talking to one another?
Silas has neuralgia; got, so Harriet says, from sitting in a draught in the carriage. He has taken laudanum and has been in his chamber all day. Harriet has taken Lucy away to the shops – where I suspect she is sedulously guarding her from the captain’s dangerous company. And I am at peace beside my window – which is very pleasant indeed after the noise and confinement of our journey. The late afternoon sun is shining down in the street, making the stone of the buildings glow. All the fashionable hats of the hurrying ladies – and the fine figures of the gentlemen loitering in the Pump Yard – appear to great advantage in its cheerful light. Little knots of people are gathered under the colonnade and …
Ah, now that is very interesting, Eliza!
I have recognised one of the figures lounging under the colonnade. It is Captain Laurence! And he is in conversation with an elderly, rakish-looking man whose appearance I do not like at all! He has a fat, dissipated face, a scarred cheek, a quizzing glass – and a very ill-mannered interest in every young lady who walks past him … And the captain – yes, I am not mistaken – the captain, though he has neither the ugly countenance nor the glass, certainly shares the interest. There now! the two of them are putting their heads together and grinning insolently at a little party of schoolgirls.
How very distasteful! I wish that Lucy could see it; it might work her cure.
I confess I am increasingly puzzled by the captain. He is, I am sure, engaged in some very deep scheme. Though I suppose that his contriving to get the pool drained does rather argue against his having killed Miss Fenn – unless he is a very strange murderer indeed: one who wishes the world to know of his crimes.
Upon reflection, I rather think that he is not the guilty man himself; but that he knows something about the poor woman’s death. You will remember that, according to the housekeeper, he was in the habit of following Miss Fenn. Well, is it possible that he followed her upon the evening of her death? That he saw her go to the pool and afterwards suspected that she met her death there?
But why should he wish to bring the remains to light? And why should he do it now – after being content to let them lie hidden for fifteen years?
Ah! Here are Lucy, Penelope and Harriet walking up from Cheap Street towards the colonnade! In a moment they will see the captain. I pray Lucy may see enough of his behaviour to disabuse …
But no, it is not to be. Laurence has seen them first. He is pointing them out to his companion in a very insolent way and … and he is hiding from them! It is true, Eliza, the intrepid captain has fled behind a pillar and his friend is shielding him. There now, the women are passing quite unaware and turning away towards Bath Street.
How very strange. Why did he not wish …?
But now L, H and P are out of sight and the captain and his friend are visible again; they have stepped out into the sunshine – they are looking after the women. Laurence is talking fast and earnestly – explaining something to which the other man is listening very attentively indeed. Oh, I wish I could make out their words! The fat man is exceedingly well amused by what he is hearing. His red face is smiling broadly. He is clapping the captain upon the back as if in congratulation. They are sauntering away. Oh Eliza! I do not like the unkind looks upon their faces at all.
Dido laid down her pen and was on the point of stepping to the window to see where the gentlemen might be going, when the door of the dining room burst open and such an apparition appeared as put her in mind of some fellow in a play of Shakespeare’s ‘with his doublet all unbraced … Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other …’
Not that there was a doublet exactly to be ‘unbraced’, but the general effect was the same. Silas was certainly pale and exceedingly dishevelled: his black curls were falling about his face, his shirt was open at the neck – and his knees were shaking violently as he stepped into the room, holding out a paper.
‘It is done!’ he declared in a momentous tone.
Dido could only stare, uncomprehending.
‘My poem. It is done.’ His face was bright with a kind of confidence and triumph she had never witnessed there before. He pushed the tumbling hair out of his eyes and smiled. ‘I have never known such r … remarkable inspiration, Miss Kent. Never!’
‘Indeed! But I thought that you were unwell …’
‘And so I was. But the laudanum … It set my b … brain on fire. It conjured up such visions!’ He crossed to the table and sat down beside her, his poem still clutched in his hand – the paper trembling slightly with his emotion. ‘I did not believe it possible! But Henry says it is always so. He says those r … romantic fellows take opium every day and are none the worse for it. Henry says there’s not a p … poet alive who can write a line without the stuff …’
‘I did not know,’ she said coolly, ‘that Mr Coulson was such a great authority upon poetry.’
‘Oh yes! He has been telling me all about it. I have talked a great deal about my poem with Henry and he has been helping me enormously.’
Dido watched him a moment, considering carefully. Then she drew a slow breath and fixed her eyes upon the window. ‘You do not think,’ she suggested lightly, with every appearance of indifference, ‘that perhaps you allow Mr Coulson to influence you a little too much? He is, after all, only a distant relation.’
‘N … No,’ stammered Silas. ‘He is the n … nearest male relation that I have and so, you know, the n … nearest thing to a b … brother that I have.’
‘Is he?’ she asked quickly, abandoning her scrutiny of the window.
But Silas was too restless and too full of his own genius to hear her. ‘The poem all came to me in a vision, you know. It was as if I was p … possessed: possessed by a higher p … power! Will you read it, Miss Kent?’ he said, pressing the paper upon her and springing to his feet. ‘I beg you will tell me honestly w … w … what …’ he began; but by now he was at the door and even his new-found confidence could not stand against her actual unfolding of the page and preparing to read. With a blush and one more nervous smile he was gone.