‘Aunt Dido, you look out of sorts,’ said Catherine as the carriage started off up the drive. ‘Have you been quarrelling with Mama again?’
‘No, she has been quarrelling with me.’
‘That is what you always say.’
Dido chose not to answer that. ‘My dear,’ she said instead, ‘would you be so kind as to ask the coachman to stop at the gatehouse? I would like to just put a question or two to the gatekeeper.’
‘Annie Holmes? But you will get no sense from her. She is a very stupid woman.’
‘Nevertheless, I should like to speak to her.’
Stepping down from the carriage a few moments later, Dido was pleased to find that Catherine was not following her, for she was not sure that she wanted her niece to know the direction that her enquiries were taking.
She stood under the stone arch, where the air was chill with the scent of moss and damp, and waited as the carriage was let through the gates. The gatekeeper herself was rather a surprise to Dido, for she was neither the injured soldier nor the favoured pensioner of the family for whom such a post is usually reserved, but a rather pretty young widow who drew the bolts and swung open the gates with neat, economical movements that were particularly pleasing to watch. On the step of the little lodge house stood a solemn-faced child with large brown eyes. She was perhaps four years old and she was holding a rather fine china doll by its neck.
Dido smiled kindly at the girl and made a polite enquiry about the name of the doll, but the attention threw her into a fit of shyness and she fled to hide behind her mother’s skirts.
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ said Mrs Holmes with a bob. ‘She’s usually got enough to say for herself!’ Then, as the carriage rolled through the gates, she raised her voice above the echoing noise of it. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Dido, conscious that Catherine was waiting for her, lost no time in making her enquiry about Mr Montague: had he returned to Belsfield during the last three days? As she spoke she thought that there was a fleeting look of anxiety on the pretty face. There was certainly a flush of colour. Mrs Holmes put a hand to a dimple in her chin, then tucked up a bright brown curl that had escaped from her cap.
‘Why no, miss, I haven’t seen Mr Montague since he left on the morning after the ball.’
‘I see. And at what time did he leave?’
‘About nine o’clock, miss.’
‘In his curricle?’
‘No, miss. On horseback.’
‘And could he have returned without your knowing about it?’
She frowned. ‘On foot he could, miss. He could have come in by the side gate over there.’ And she pointed in the direction of the chapel in its cluster of yews. ‘But if he came on horseback, or in a carriage, he would have to come by this gate and I’d have been sure to see him.’
‘Thank you.’ Dido began to follow the carriage through the gate, but slowly, with a feeling that there was more to discover here, if she only knew the right questions to ask. Why did she suspect that the woman knew more about Mr Montague’s departure than she was telling? She stole another look at her: despite her blushes there was a kind of assurance about her. It was not quite insolence, no, you could not call it that, but there was a calm fearlessness in her address which sat strangely upon a servant.
Dido was level with the high red wheels of the carriage now and was about to mount the step when a different thought came to her. She spun round on the gravel.
‘Mrs Holmes,’ she called. ‘May I ask one more question?’
Annie Holmes turned back. There was no mistaking the reluctance on her face now. Her lips were pressed tight together. ‘Yes, miss?’
‘On the night of the ball, you opened the gates to all the guests, did you not?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Do you remember a man who came here that night? A tall, soberly dressed man with red hair.’
There was relief on the gatekeeper’s face now; she half smiled. ‘Would that be the gentleman who came very late, miss?’
‘Yes, I think perhaps he did arrive late. Do you remember what kind of a carriage he came in?’
‘Oh yes, miss, I remember.’ Mrs Holmes smiled comfortably and reached down to take her daughter’s hand. ‘It was a hack chaise. The old hack chaise from the Feathers.’
‘I see. And the Feathers is the inn here in Belston village, is it?’
‘Oh no, miss. The Feathers is over at Hopton Cresswell.’
Chapter Six
And Hopton Cresswell was six miles away. Six miles of very indifferent road. It took Dido almost an hour to complete the journey – which was just as Catherine had foretold.
‘And what am I to do while you go there?’ she cried when Dido told her that she wished to drive on to Hopton Cresswell – alone.
‘You can make your calls in Belston.’
‘But, Aunt, I am not intimate with anyone in the village,’ cried Catherine, with outraged propriety. ‘It would be most ill-mannered for me to pay any visit of longer than a quarter of an hour – or twenty minutes at the very most.’
‘Then I suppose you must pay a great many calls – and walk very slowly between them,’ said Dido heartlessly. ‘For I must go to Hopton Cresswell and there is no knowing when I might have the use of the carriage again.’
Fortunately, Catherine saw the importance of discovering more about Richard’s visitor and agreed, in the end, to the arrangement with so little complaint that Dido was in hopes of only being reminded of the great kindness four or five times a day for the next week or so.
Of Hopton Cresswell’s other claim upon her interest – the suspicion that the dead woman had lived there – she said nothing to her niece. The gatekeeper’s words had shocked her – providing, as they did, the first hint of a connection between the murder and Mr Montague’s sudden departure and, as she travelled along the narrow lanes beyond Belston, she had ample time to worry over it.
Was it possible that the young man’s disappearance and the murder were part of the same mystery? The thought could not be avoided.
It would all have been so much easier, she reflected, if she knew Richard Montague. Then she might know – or at least be able to guess – what he might be guilty of. But she had never set eyes on the young man and the accounts that others gave did very little to delineate his character.
What kind of a young man was he? Was it possible – was it conceivable that he had known the woman in the shrubbery? That he had taken her life? Catherine’s testimony, being that of a lover, was not to be relied upon, of course. But yesterday Dido had tried to discover what she could about him, starting first with the one who might be supposed to know him best – his mother.
When the ladies retired from the dining room after dinner, Lady Montague had immediately engrossed herself in an intricate game of Patience, which she spread out on an inlaid table by the fire. The Misses Harris, tireless in their pursuit of accomplishments, had taken themselves respectively to their instrument and drawing board, so Dido had had only to signal to Catherine with a little motion of her head to intercept the garrulous Mrs Harris, before she herself stepped over to her ladyship’s side and began her enquiries.
It had been heavy work, standing there, almost overwhelmed by the rose-water scent of the lady and with the heat of the fire beating upon her cheek.
Her ladyship was, of course, properly charmed at the approaching marriage. Delighted with the prospect of having Catherine for a daughter. And as for Richard himself, yes, he was a sweet boy. And she believed he had done very well at the university. Or rather well, at least; for young men did not generally like to apply themselves,
