Dido pulled off a glove and felt the quality of the stuff as her mother had long ago taught her to do. It surprised her. In the window it had looked like good cloth; close to it was coarser than she had expected. Almost – but not quite – what her mother would have dismissed as ‘maid’s stuff’. And, she thought, as she pretended to consider buying, there was something else that was strange. The housemaid from Belsfield had seen this cloth in the window last month, so it had been on offer for at least so long. But the roll was still fat – no more than one dress length could have been cut from it.
‘I do not quite know,’ she said doubtingly, rubbing a corner of the blue cotton between her finger and thumb. ‘It is not such good quality as I thought.’
‘It is but three shillings a yard,’ said the woman with a deep sigh. ‘If you wish, I can show you some better stuff.’
‘No, wait a moment.’ Dido laid a hand across the roll to prevent it being removed. There was something in the woman’s manner which suggested that she had heard the same complaint many times before. So this was perhaps why she disliked the blue cloth. It was too poor for gentry: too good for servants. Unsaleable.
And yet it was not quite unsaleable: one length had been sold. Yes, one length had certainly been sold. Looking closely at the end, she could see where the shears had slashed through; a long blue thread came loose upon her finger. But to whom had that length been sold?
Since the shopkeeper was clearly no gossip, strategy alone would get her the information she required.
‘I wonder…’ she began thoughtfully. ‘A friend who is unwell has asked me to look about for stuff for the Christmas dole in her household. Now I wonder…’ turning the end of the blue cloth over in her hand, ‘I wonder whether this might do for the upper servants…’
The elderly woman’s manner changed rapidly at the prospect of selling a great deal of an unpopular commodity.
‘Why yes, madam, it might do very well.’ For a moment her look of pale refinement was swallowed up in eager calculation. ‘And if your friend was to buy, say, more than twenty yards of the stuff, I might be able to see my way to only charging her two and six a yard.’
‘Oh, that is kind! Now let me see. What kind of woman might this stuff be suited to?’ She thought of those hands with the healed chilblains. A working woman who had achieved a better post? ‘It might perhaps do for the cook,’ she mused. ‘And then there is the upper housemaid.’ As she named each post doubtfully she studied the shopkeeper’s face hoping for a response or a word of encouragement; but she received nothing but a small nod. She began to wonder how large she could make her friend’s imaginary establishment.
‘And maybe it would do for the housekeeper.’
That brought an encouraging little smile.
‘Mmm, now I wonder about the housekeeper,’ pursued Dido – and she was beginning to rather enjoy her own inventiveness. ‘She really is a most superior woman, you see, and she has been in my friend’s employ for nearly twenty years. I would not wish to offend her.’
‘Oh, I don’t think she would be offended, madam. I think she’d be pleased to get this dimity.’
‘Do you truly think so?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure she would. You see, Miss Wallis – that’s Mr Blacklock’s housekeeper – she bought some for herself just a few weeks ago. And very pleased she was with it, I assure you.’
Chapter Seven
…And so, you see, Eliza, I am now convinced that the dead woman was actually housekeeper in the house where Mr Montague’s mysterious visitor stayed. This brings Mr Montague dangerously close to the murder and I must own that I rather wish I had not discovered it. It has already lost me Catherine’s favour; she has hardly spoken to me since I told her about it. Of course, it was raining heavily when I reached Belston again, and she assures me that her yellow bonnet is now quite ruined because I was so late in returning with the carriage. But I think that my worst offence lies in mistaking her instructions. When she said that I must find out what was happening here, she did not, of course, mean that I must find out just anything, but that I must discover things that pleased her.
How foolish of me to misunderstand.
However, as somebody says somewhere in Shakespeare – and I believe it is in connection with a murder – ‘what is done cannot be undone.’ And I certainly cannot undo my morning’s work, nor cease to know what I know. I believe that all I can do now is to carry on my enquiries and discover what I may. Though I shall try not to tell Catherine any more until I am quite certain of what has happened here. Perhaps it will all yet work out well and I will discover a solution that Madam Catherine approves. And if not – well, I shall at least have the comfort of knowing that I have saved her from an unfortunate alliance – and, though she may hate me for the rest of her life, she will no doubt recover from the loss of the young man within a few months.
For what, after all, is this ‘love’, Eliza, which can be supposed to arise from such very slight acquaintance and which is often described as being felt before two words have been exchanged with the object? Any girl is authorised to say she ‘loves’ a man she has danced a few dances with and sat beside during a half-dozen dinners. I doubt whether Catherine has ever conversed with Mr Montague upon a serious subject…
But this is quite by the by and I must be wearying you with my strange ideas – and with telling over all the events of my day. But truly I feel that I must tell it all, for I do not know what is of importance and what is not. It is getting late now and if I do not finish soon the bricks in my bed will be cold. Rose has brought me three bricks tonight and I expect to be very snug indeed. It seems that she has had an extremely pleasant day, sitting in the housekeeper’s room and telling her story.
But, before I close, I shall lay before you all the little unconnected questions which keep returning to my mind, in the hope that if I communicate them to you, they will not trouble me so much as to keep me from sleeping. Here they are:
Firstly (and maybe this is not such a very little question), there is the matter which has long puzzled us, and which has particularly troubled me since I have become better acquainted with Belsfield and its ways: why has such a man as Sir Edgar – one who sets more store upon dignity and ancestry than anything else – promoted the match between his son and Catherine – a girl of small fortune and no alliance at all?
Second: why does it pain Sir Edgar to talk about his son?
Third: why did Annie Holmes look so uncomfortable when I asked her if she had seen Mr Montague?
Fourth: why has Annie Holmes’ daughter got such a costly doll?
Fifth: why does Lady Montague seem so languid and yet play such difficult games of Patience? One can, after all, play simple undemanding forms of Patience. When Catherine said this morning that her ladyship was the last woman in the world to be conscientious about business, it occurred to me that she was wrong – that my lady might indeed be very conscientious about something that interested her. And yet she chooses to be so very supine that one almost forgets she is there.
Sixth: is Mr Tom Lomax up to no good?
Seventh: what do the constant looks passing between the Misses Harris signify? They make me uneasy and make me suppose that they have some secret and are determined to play a part or ensure that they tell a story correctly.
And lastly: what exactly was the colonel looking for in the garden yesterday morning?
If you have any answers to offer to these questions, then I hope you will write to me straight away; but I suspect that you will think me ridiculous for worrying over trifles. I cannot help myself though, Eliza, for I believe that the very air of this place breathes suspicion. It seems to be a house of secrets and I see mystery and intrigue wherever I turn.
It rained very heavily during that night, but the morning showed a blue and white sky with raindrops gleaming
