A gentleman of fortune

no dinners, he kept a great deal of evening company… But the Lansdales, they were very quiet…’

There was no mistaking the note of regret in her voice. The Lansdales, it seemed, were unsatisfactory neighbours – they provided too little to watch.

They walked on a little. Dido’s mind was busy with a new idea – the idea of a ‘fine- looking’, but impoverished man visiting in secret an ageing, wealthy widow, and visiting her, furthermore, in a room fitted up with red, flattering lights.

Had he perhaps come in the form of a lover? And had Miss Neville been sworn to secrecy lest the nephew find out?

Dido paused when they came to the next stile. ‘What manner of man is Mr Henderson?’ she asked. ‘Is he a married man? Has he any family?’

‘Oh! He is a widower, my dear. A widower with three unmarried daughters – very pretty girls. At least, I suppose they are pretty. One did not see their faces – close bonnets they had on when they walked out. And very plain gowns… Which was another thing made me think the family were a little distressed for money.’

‘I see.’ Dido mused a moment. ‘But he was a gentleman of some standing I imagine – to have rented such a house, I mean.’

‘Oh yes! He was well connected for sure. The people who came to his evening parties! The Wyat’s carriage was often there.’ Miss Prentice began to check the illustrious names off upon her fingers. ‘And Mr and Mrs Edward Connors – their chaise came very often. And that gentleman who was at Mrs Beaumont’s delightful picnic, Sir Joshua Carrisbrook. Oh yes…’ She considered a moment. ‘Yes, all in all, I think Mr Henderson is of a good family, but that he has been obliged to retrench lately.’

‘I see.’ Dido’s suspicions deepened. And, as they did so, she began to feel more and more uneasy about Mr Lansdale. All this did not bode well for him.

By the time she reached home she had worried herself into a little fever on this subject and she was very much looking forward to a little quiet reflection and an opportunity to write a reply to her sister’s letter. She was not pleased to hear, as she paused in the welcome cool of the hall, the sound of voices coming from the drawing room. She sighed, laid aside her bonnet, and prepared herself unwillingly for company.

And then, upon opening the drawing room door, she saw Mr William Lomax sitting in quiet conversation with Flora…

Chapter Six

She stopped and stared, almost supposing that she had made a mistake. But it was indeed Mr Lomax sitting there in solid certainty beside the open french doors of Flora’s pretty, flowered drawing room. It was the same lean figure she had been remembering; the same long legs stretched across the polished wooden floor; the same, rather grave face – certainly past its first youth, but with remarkably clear grey eyes and that kind of strong chin and profile which give a man distinction as he ages.

Her surprise was very great: so great as to leave – at first – no room even for pleasure: so great as to overcome her manners and make her demand, rather abruptly, how he came to be there.

He stood up to greet her, laughing at her amazement – and apologised for being its cause. ‘But your cousin has invited me into her drawing room,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘I am no intruder.’

‘I am sorry, Mr Lomax.’ She recovered herself a little and held out her hand. ‘But it is so strange, so very strange, to suddenly meet with a friend I had supposed to be a hundred miles away.’

‘A hundred and fifty,’ he said, as he took her hand. ‘I believe it is nearer one hundred and fifty miles, from Belsfield into Surrey.’

‘You are a very exact reckoner.’

He smiled and bowed over her hand. ‘I would by no means wish you to underestimate the journey you have brought me on, Miss Kent,’ he said.

‘The journey I have brought you on?’ Dido coloured with pleasure, but just then her gaze fell upon Flora. There was no mistaking her look.

Flora might not understand an allusion to Shakespeare, she might be entirely deaf to metaphors, but in matters of love she was very quick-witted indeed. She recognised an attachment when she saw it (and even, sometimes, when she did not). Before Dido had sat down, her cousin was delightedly planning a Michaelmas wedding and determining just where the happy couple should set up home.

Meanwhile, Mr Lomax was explaining his visit. ‘I am staying eight miles away – at Brooke Manor, with Sir Joshua and Lady Carrisbrook. I believe he is a friend of yours, Mrs Beaumont?’

‘Oh yes! Yes he is. A very good friend indeed.’

‘Sir Joshua,’ he said with a little lifting of his eyebrows, ‘believes that my sole purpose in coming is to convey some papers concerning his property in Somersetshire – and I beg you will not disabuse him of that notion. But he has been so kind as to invite me to stay on for a few days – an invitation which I have been particularly pleased to accept.’

There was such meaning in these last words and they were accompanied by such an earnest look at Dido as made Flora wonder whether she had better not leave them alone together directly.

Dido herself hardly knew what she felt – so intent was she upon allaying Flora’s suspicions. ‘My sister told me that business had taken you from Belsfield, Mr Lomax,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘But I had no idea of that business bringing you into Surrey.’

He leant forward, studied her face. ‘I found,’ he said eagerly, ‘that I must try for an opportunity of seeing you. I could not be quite satisfied with answering your queries in a letter.’ He stopped, seemed to recollect himself and turned slightly so as to include Flora. ‘This rumour against your friend, Mrs Beaumont – it is such a very delicate business, I thought it would be better if we all three talked about it together.’

‘You are so very kind Mr Lomax! I am sure we are both very much obliged to you. Are we not, Dido?’

‘Oh yes, yes, of course.’ Dido exerted herself against a great confusion of emotions – some of which were most unpleasant. An hour ago, when she had been sitting beside the river, she would have counted such a visit as this to be one of the greatest pleasures life could afford. But now that Mr Lomax was actually here in the room with her, she found that she could not be comfortable. She must reflect an hour or so in peace upon his looks and his words before she could hope to understand them; but for now, what mattered most was to seem calm – unconcerned.

‘It is…’ she began – and her own voice sounded as if it were a long way away – ‘it is very kind of you, to make such a long journey for our sake.’ She turned to Flora. ‘Mr Lomax,’ she said, ‘has studied the law and I hope that he will be able to tell us how great the danger is – I mean as to Mr Lansdale and the rumours which are being spread about him.’

This was immediately effective in diverting Flora’s mind from the discovery she had just made. She forgot to watch for signs of love and began instead to relate eagerly the whole business of the death, the picnic and all the details of the ‘horrid, horrid, abominable’ things which had been said by Mrs Midgely.

Mr Lomax listened to her very gravely with his fingertips pressed together and his chin resting upon them, his eyes only once or twice straying, rather anxiously, in Dido’s direction.

Dido herself began to breathe more easily and by the time her cousin had finished her tale, she was tolerably calm. ‘It is a strange business, is it not, Mr Lomax?’ she said.

‘It is certainly very unpleasant.’

‘Can you tell us what might happen – I mean if Mrs Midgely prevails upon Mr Vane and persuades him to take some action?’

‘Well,’ he said very seriously, ‘if the apothecary has a genuine suspicion of Mr Lansdale, then the law requires that he should bring a complaint against him.’

‘And that complaint would have to be made to the magistrates?’

‘Yes. And the magistrates would then put it to a Grand Jury – probably at the midsummer Quarter Sessions. And the men of the jury would either dismiss it, or else find it “a true bill” – which would mean that, in their opinion,