A moment of silence

did they?

Dido had suggested that, at three and twenty, he was rather young to marry.

Her ladyship pulled the lace of her long, full sleeve down over her wrist and twisted a ring about on her finger. ‘Yes,’ she owned, ‘I was a little surprised when I was told that it was all settled. But Sir Edgar says that an inclination to marry early is no bad thing in a young man.’

‘Did you expect that it would be some years before Mr Montague settled?’

‘Oh, no…’

For a moment her ladyship looked so very vacant, with a kind of milky staring in her pretty green eyes, that Dido suspected her natural languor might be receiving a little artificial aid. Laudanum perhaps? She had known several ladies to make rather free with the stuff.

She repeated her question.

‘Oh no,’ said her ladyship vaguely, ‘I do not know that I expected anything, but Sir Edgar thinks the boy should marry. Sir Edgar thinks that it might serve to fix him at Belsfield and make him attend to the business of the estate. That it will prevent him from always wandering off to town – or wherever it is that he goes.’

As she spoke her ladyship turned up a card – one which seemed to necessitate a rearrangement of all the others on the table. She bent over the table, rapidly making her calculations and placing each card into its new position with a neat little snap.

It became impossible for Dido to draw her attention away from the increasingly complex patterns of her Patience. Reluctantly she turned away and abandoned herself to the unwelcome confidences of Mrs Harris.

Mrs Harris was a large woman with extravagant greying curls and plump red arms below the fashionable short sleeves of her gown. She very neatly manoeuvred across the drawing room and trapped Dido upon a corner sofa where she talked unceasingly of how the world despised her because she had once been nurse to the first Mrs Harris, until tea and the gentlemen arrived to distract her from her grievances – and to give Dido an opportunity for a change of companion.

She watched with interest as the men disposed themselves about the room. Colonel Walborough going to Miss Harris’s side and Mr Tom Lomax, on seeing that, taking up his station at the instrument with Miss Sophia. Sir Edgar, she noticed was a very dutiful husband, going immediately to his wife to enquire how she felt and had she taken her physic? Though the lady was so far from appreciating his exemplary behaviour that she turned her face away and pulled the rings about on her fingers, hardly giving him two words in reply.

Dido continued her enquiries into Richard Montague’s character.

Miss Harris clearly felt that the most remarkable thing about her cousin was that he was, ‘Handsome. Oh, very handsome indeed. He has beautiful eyes and he moves extremely well.’

This seemed to exhaust the ideas of Miss Harris. But Dido was almost sure that as she spoke she cast a significant look in her sister’s direction. Immediately, Miss Sophia left the instrument and came to add the highly original information that ‘Dear Richard’ was ‘sweet.’ And that he was ‘really the most delightful man.’ And ‘you can have no idea how very agreeable.’

Miss Sophia was much given to emphasis. If her conversation had been a letter, more than half the words would have been underlined. And when Dido ventured to press her further on the subject of her cousin’s character, she showed an alarming propensity for the strangest, most rambling of anecdotes. Dear Richard, had, she cried, been so terribly sweet about the rats. Miss Sophia had been enchanted by the rats.

Dido was at a loss to know what to say to such an extraordinary declaration. But – and this time she was quite sure that she was not imagining it – there was a nod of encouragement from her sister and Miss Sophia continued.

You see, all the gentlemen had gone ratting in the great barn, oh, two or three days before the ball. There had been a great many rats, you see. And they were to be chased somehow with the dogs – though quite how, Miss Sophia did not know because she could not bear the thought of it. So she had been at her instrument all the morning, because there was nothing like music to put anything unpleasant quite out of her head. Well, when the gentlemen came in to dinner they were all extremely vexed with Richard for not playing his part properly. And Tom Lomax swore a great many oaths. For she made no doubt Mr Tom had bet a great deal of money on his own dogs killing more rats than anyone else’s. Well, of course she knew nothing about the business of ratting, so she could not say quite what had happened, but it seemed that Richard was to have let the dogs go on a word or a signal or something; but he had not done so. Well, he said it was because he had not heard the signal. But she was quite certain that that was not the case because he was so very very distressed about it.

In short it was quite plain – at least to Miss Sophia’s penetrating understanding – that Richard had been overwhelmed by compassion for the rats. She could tell that he was too soft-hearted, much too kind to let the dogs kill the rats. He had let them escape on purpose.

And that was so like dear, dear Richard. He was so very, very sweet.

All this was run through with breathless enthusiasm while Miss Harris gravely nodded approval.

‘He is a dear boy.’ This was the remark of Sophia’s mother, who had followed Dido and now sat herself down beside her. ‘And what is more, he is a true gentleman. Richard has real good manners; the kind of manners which put everyone at their ease. He does not go out of his way to make other people feel inferior.’

Fearing a renewal of Mrs Harris’s grievances, Dido took the opportunity of a slight fit of coughing on that lady’s part to escape to the table where Margaret was (with considerable pride) doing the honours of the tea and coffee tray, which her ladyship was too indolent to perform herself.

She judged this to be a good opportunity of questioning Margaret on the subject of her future son-in-law’s character, since her duties prevented her from answering at any great length.

Between her pouring and her gracious smiling, Margaret gave Dido to understand that Mr Montague was a very pleasant young man. And that ‘that silly girl’ wasn’t likely to find a better one.

Dido took her teacup and stirred thoughtfully. ‘You think that he and Catherine are well matched?’ she asked. ‘You are sure they will be happy together?’

‘Oh yes,’ came Margaret’s reply in a voice fit to sour the cream in the jug she was holding. ‘Very well suited indeed. She has the upper hand of him already. He will do just what she tells him and that suits Miss Catherine very well indeed – spoilt madam that she is!’

The subject of whether Catherine was spoilt or not was an old argument between the sisters-in-law and Dido was about to retort with spirit when she became aware that Mr William Lomax had paused beside her in his way to returning his cup.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said in his pleasant, gentle voice. ‘You are enquiring about Mr Richard Montague?’

Dido replied that she was and, Mr Harris just then appearing in quest of coffee, they were able to step away from Margaret’s little domain.

‘It is very natural that you should wish to know about Mr Richard Montague and I am sorry that your meeting with him has been postponed,’ he said gravely. ‘I am sure he is as anxious to meet you as you are to meet him.’ Dido smiled at this kindly fiction. ‘But my dear Miss Kent, you may put your mind at rest. He is a very pleasant young man and I don’t doubt he will make your niece very happy indeed.’

Dido looked into the grey, penetrating eyes. ‘I confess I cannot help but worry,’ she said.

‘Of course not. Standing almost as a mother to Miss Kent as I understand you did for several years. And now she is engaged to a young man who you have never met. It is only natural that you should be concerned. But I don’t doubt that when you become acquainted with Mr Richard Montague you will be as happy in the prospect of the union as all their friends are.’ He glanced quickly at Margaret, but he was too well bred to mention the ungracious words he had overheard. ‘And I am sure too,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘that the marriage will not divide you from your niece. It will, no doubt, give her great pleasure to have a home of her own to which she can invite you.’

This conversation, though it undoubtedly formed the pleasantest part of Dido’s evening, did little to advance her enquiries, for she was left thinking less about Mr Montague than about Mr Lomax – how long he had been a