widower; whether he had been too much attached to his first wife to marry again; and what a great pity it was that such a pleasant man should remain single.
From these reveries she was roused by Mr Harris, who came to her and said abruptly, ‘You want to know about Mr Montague?’
‘Yes,’ she said in some surprise.
‘Well, I shall tell you. He is not like his friend.’ He nodded in the direction of the pianoforte where Sophia Harris had now reseated herself – and where Tom Lomax was ceremoniously arranging music on the stand while he smiled and whispered to her.
Mr Harris’s weather-beaten face was tinged crimson with disapproval. ‘Miss Kent,’ he said, ‘Montague is a steady, decent young man. He tells the truth and he has a sense of duty: a sense of what is proper. In short, my dear, if you imagine a gentleman as different from Tom Lomax as he possibly can be, then you will have a pretty good picture of Mr Montague.’
And with that he walked off.
Considering the results of the evening’s work now as the carriage rattled into the yard of the Feathers, Dido could not help but feel that she had learnt more about the people to whom she had applied for information than she had about Mr Montague himself.
Hopton Cresswell was a pleasant village. It had a church with a lych-gate and a green with a broad, yellow- leaved chestnut tree and a fine gaggle of geese, who stretched their necks in a loud chorus of disapproval as the carriage rattled past. The Feathers itself was an old-fashioned house with a creaking sign, twisted chimneys and leaded casement windows – and a bustling yard, which suited Dido’s purposes very well indeed.
In just crossing the cobbles to the inn door of blackened oak, she fell easily into conversation with an elderly ostler and progressed very naturally from a discussion of his busyness (‘Running about so fast, miss, I reckon I’ll meet myself coming back soon’) to some enquiries about the size and nature of the village (‘Pretty big, miss, but all scattered about, if you know what I mean. We don’t like to live in each other’s pockets in Hopton Cresswell’) to a few compliments about the prettiness of the place and enquiries as to whether they saw many strangers at the inn.
‘Not so many, miss. We’re a bit out of the way for folk driving down to Lyme and the other seaside places.’
‘I see. In that case, you may be able to help me.’ She took refuge on the inn’s doorstep as a boy led past a skittish horse. She smiled her conspiratorial smile at the ostler – a wiry, tough-looking man who was not much taller than she was – and pitched her voice to carry over the clatter of hooves and hobnails which echoed off the walls. ‘There is a man who I think may have stayed here,’ she said. ‘He is an acquaintance of my niece and I ought to remember his name, but it has quite escaped my memory and I do not wish to appear rude when we meet again…’
‘What sort of a gent is he?’
‘A very tall gentleman, with red hair.’
‘Ah, would that be Mr Pollard? A thin gent with very fine white hands? A university man from Oxford?’
‘Yes, indeed, that is the man!’
‘Ah yes, miss, I know him. But he didn’t stay here.’
‘Oh? But I understood him to say that he had hired your chaise.’
‘Ah, he did, miss. But he didn’t take a bed here. He was Mr Blacklock’s visitor. Stayed with him two or three days and left on the London coach the day before yesterday.’
‘I see. And Mr Blacklock is…?’
But unfortunately the door of the inn was now opened by a maid with a very long face and the kind of nervous bobbing curtsy that made Dido feel seasick. The ostler was obliged to return to his business and Dido had to begin her pleasantries all over again. However, by the time she was seated by a coal fire in a dark, low-beamed parlour and had been supplied with tea and muffin, she felt herself to be sufficiently well acquainted with the bobbing maid to venture upon a question or two.
‘Mr Blacklock? Oh, he’s out at Tudor House. That’s three miles up the Great Cresswell road, miss.’
‘And what sort of a gentleman is he?’
‘Well, now.’ The girl considered and Dido suspected that she had been fortunate enough to touch upon a favourite subject of gossip. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know, miss,’ she said with relish, ‘because you see, I
‘Oh? Is he a very old gentleman?’
‘Old? No, miss, I don’t think he’s so very old. But some kind of an invalid, I think.’
‘And has no one in the village ever seen him?’
‘Well now.’ The girl took a step closer, and a slight flush of excitement crept up her thin face. ‘Mrs Potter’s Kate – she’s seen him. She goes up regular with the milk and eggs. Sometimes, she says, he’s sitting out in the garden when it’s fine.’
‘I see. But he never leaves the grounds of the house?’
‘Ah now, as to that, miss, I don’t know.’
‘But you say he’s never seen.’
‘No, miss,’ said the girl with the air of one revealing a great and significant truth to an unpromising pupil, ‘not in the village he isn’t. But there’s a carriage comes to the house from time to time and it’s my belief – and Mrs Potter’s too – that Mr Blacklock sometimes goes away in it.’ She nodded significantly and dropped another curtsy.
‘How interesting! Now, why do you and Mrs Potter think that?’
‘Because of the way his servants carry on, miss. Young Kate says some days when she goes up there, there’s a rare old carry-on – the boot-boy and the gardener kicking a ball about on the drive and the maid standing by laughing and shouting. Now that’d not be happening if their master was at home, would it?’
‘Well, if Mr Blacklock is an invalid, perhaps they feel secure that he will not come out and see them.’
‘Maybe, miss. But he’d
‘I see. How very, very interesting.’
The girl smiled, bobbed about like a cork in a storm, and then seemed to decide to tell all. She glanced about the empty parlour and lowered her voice. ‘It’s my belief, miss,’ she said in a rush, ‘it’s my belief – and Mrs Potter’s too – that he might be a-spying for the French.’
‘Indeed!’ whispered Dido in return. ‘And, I wonder… I don’t suppose you can remember what sort of carriage it is – this one that comes to Mr Blacklock’s house sometimes.’
‘Why yes, miss, I can. It’s a small post-chaise with yellow wheels.’
‘Do you know whose carriage it is?’
The girl shook her head. ‘It doesn’t belong to anyone about here, miss, that I do know.’
‘Well, thank you,’ said Dido setting down her cup and recalling poor Catherine paying her visits in Belston. ‘I have enjoyed our chat very much indeed. Now, perhaps you could direct me to the draper’s shop.’
Fortunately, the shop was barely fifty yards from the inn. And before she had even climbed the three brick steps and set the merry little bell jangling on its wire behind the door, Dido knew that she had found the right establishment. For there in the small bow window, between a remarkably ugly puce bonnet and an olive green shawl, was a large roll of blue dimity dress material.
The inside of the little shop smelt of leather and newly cut cloth and it was packed from floor to ceiling with everything that the folk of Hopton Cresswell might wish to wear: from cards of ribbon to shelves full of pattens, bonnets on wire stands and parcels of gloves wrapped in brown paper, tied with hairy string and bearing labels like
Behind the counter, squeezed into the smallest of possible spaces under the crowding shelves, was an elderly woman who wore an old, well-mended lace cap and an air of faded gentility. She was not, unfortunately, inclined to chat. All Dido’s attempts at conversation met with short discouraging replies. And, as she took the blue cloth from the window and laid it on the counter, she scowled darkly at it as if she held a grudge against it.
