A moment of silence

on the storm-battered roses of the terrace and puddles shining in the worn hollows of the lawn steps.

All the gentlemen were gone to the inquest and the ladies were left with nothing to do but to settle the verdict among themselves without the inconvenience of considering any evidence. By about three o’clock Dido had become weary of their speculations, which ranged freely over burglars and gypsies and highwaymen without any regard for what was probable, or even possible, and she announced her intention of walking into Belston village.

‘You will be ankle-deep in mud,’ cried Catherine.

‘I shall wear my pattens and my old pelisse.’

Catherine looked pained and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper. ‘Aunt Dido, no one but maids and farmers’ wives wear pattens now!’ She glanced quickly around the comfortable room and its elegant inhabitants. ‘Do you mean to shame me in front of everyone?’

‘No, my dear,’ said Dido calmly, ‘I only mean to stop my shoes being spoilt by the dirt.’

‘Well, I tell you honestly that in that shabby pelisse and pattens, you will look like a servant.’

‘If that is so, you will not wish to accompany me?’

For answer Catherine turned away and picked up some needlework. (Which Dido considered to be a mark of how deep her displeasure was; for it must be an extreme emotion which could make Catherine willingly open her work-box and sew.)

Unfortunately for Dido, who had been counting upon a solitary walk, Mrs Harris did not shrink from the shame of being seen in company with a woman wearing pattens. She had a bit of ribbon she wanted to match at the milliner’s and she was sure that an airing would ‘set her up nicely.’

‘For, would you believe, I have not stirred from the house these last two days, Miss Kent,’ she said comfortably as they walked up the drive, ‘and to own the truth, my dear, it doesn’t suit my digestion to be always sitting down. Doesn’t suit it at all.’

Dido was saved from any further details of Mrs Harris’s digestion by the servant’s dinner bell, which rang out from the little tower above the stables just then, and when speech was again possible she began to remark with energy upon the pleasantness of the afternoon. But Mrs Harris was one of those women to whom the notion of friendliness is quite inseparable from confidences and who are determined to demonstrate their regard by sharing the most intimate details of their lives. She was, with the best will in the world, forever boring and embarrassing her most favoured companions and, since she had taken rather a fancy to Dido, it was not long before praise of the day had proceeded to her hope that her eldest daughter would be able to walk out with the colonel later in the afternoon, and that led very naturally to her other hopes upon the colonel.

‘Just between ourselves, my dear, I think Amelia will be disappointed if he does not come to the point during this visit. Poor girl, she will be three and twenty next month.’

‘The gentleman does seem to be very attentive…’

‘Oh, my dear, he is! He is very attentive and quite struck with Melia, I am sure. Though I confess I am rather surprised it is her and not Sophie. For he has been very attentive to her too and, of course, he shares her passion for music. But then, there is no understanding love, is there, Miss Kent?’ she said with an arch smile.

Dido agreed that there was not.

‘Well, I don’t mind telling you, that I shall be heartily glad to see either one of them settled with the colonel, for I don’t know quite why it is, but there seems to be a little difficulty. Not that there is any shortage of beaux – but somehow it seems so difficult to make them come to the point. I don’t know why it should be. They are dear girls and so very accomplished and, bless them, they try as hard as any mother could wish. And they are certainly pretty… Well they are, are they not, Miss Kent? I don’t think a mother’s pride is blinding me, is it?’

‘Oh no,’ said Dido civilly. ‘They are pretty girls.’ And that, she reflected was not quite a lie. The Misses Harris were, as the saying went, ‘pretty enough’. Certainly they were more than pretty enough for girls who had twenty thousand pounds apiece. Pretty enough, under those circumstances, to bring any reasonable man ‘to the point’. Or so one would have supposed. It crossed her mind that ‘the little difficulty’ might lie with the mother – her manner perhaps? Or her low origins? But gentlemen were not usually so fastidious – not when twenty thousand pounds was at stake.

‘And it is such a compliment to the girls,’ continued Mrs Harris. ‘Such a compliment that the colonel should have seemed to quite make up his mind to have one of them as soon as he met with them here two weeks ago. For you must understand, my dear, that the colonel does not generally fall in love. He is well known for not doing so. Indeed, I once overheard the gentlemen talking about him – you know how gentlemen talk in those unreserved moments when they think that there are no ladies present – well, from what I overheard they were all quite sure that Colonel Walborough would never marry. That he had no wish to do so at all and was quite set against the idea. And bless me! I remember clearly how Mr H struck the table – as he does when he is very sure of something – and he cried, “No, no, Walborough is not interested in the ladies. His interests take quite a different direction.” And all the gentlemen laughed and laughed! Which I thought was strange, for I do not see why it should amuse them so much that the man should be too devoted to his career and like his own company too well to marry. But there is no accounting for gentlemen’s jokes, is there, Miss Kent?’

‘No, indeed, there is not,’ agreed Dido, who was more concerned with the colonel’s recent change of heart than impenetrable masculine humour. ‘It is quite remarkable, is it not,’ she said, ‘that he should now have decided to marry after all?’

‘Oh yes, my dear, it is,’ exclaimed Mrs Harris, her pink cheeks glowing in triumph. ‘And so romantic, don’t you think? Why, I heard him telling Melia that he had waited because he had not yet seen the woman he could be happy with – which I thought was very charming. Though, now I think of it, it was Sophie he said that to, because it was before he had settled on Melia, you see. “Well,” he said, “I should have married years ago if I had been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of the right lady.” Which was very pretty.’

‘Very pretty indeed! I congratulate you; he must be very much in love.’

‘And a very comfortable establishment it will be for Melia. For I don’t mind telling you, Miss Kent, though I wouldn’t mention it in general, that the colonel is rather richer than most people suppose. That is to say that he has prospects. For besides his four thousand a year, there is his uncle’s estate in Suffolk which he is almost sure to get for there is no one else the old man can leave it to.’

‘Indeed? I am very glad to hear it for Miss Harris’s sake.’

‘Oh yes.’ Mrs Harris lowered her voice to a suitably respectful whisper. ‘Five thousand a year,’ she mouthed. ‘Mr H reckons that the Hunston estate clears five thousand a year after land tax, and a very pretty house it is too…’

Mrs Harris talked on happily, but Dido gave her as little attention as she safely could. Her mind was full of suspicions. For, lacking the mother’s partiality, she could not help but wonder why the colonel should have decided so suddenly to break through his resolution of not marrying. And why should he have fixed upon the Harris girls, whose charms were, it had to be admitted, nothing out of the ordinary?

Dido did not accompany Mrs Harris to the milliner’s, she went instead in search of the village’s apothecary. She had need of some aromatic vinegar and was also anxious to get a new cough mixture made for Jack, the footman.

She found the place about halfway along the muddy street. It was a small dark shop sunk five steps below the level of the street, with the name of Bartley just visible in faded black letters above the door. The many shelves and drawers of dark old wood that were ranged behind the counter, together with the bottles and jars and boxes of pills displayed in the small window, made it seem very gloomy indeed. There was a smell of herbs and aniseed and horse liniment. Dido did not like the place. It was her experience that dark apothecary shops dealt too much in patent medicines of dubious character and too little in good old-fashioned stuff.

Nor was she pleased to see that the apothecary himself was absent. Behind the counter there was only his assistant – an extremely thin youth with a bad complexion and an apron which had perhaps, long ago, been white. He was talking to a gentleman – in fact he was talking to Mr Tom Lomax. As soon as she recognised him, Dido stepped back into the shadows, though she hardly knew why.

Tom was impatiently tapping a silver-headed cane against the counter and demanding a supply of horse pills. But there seemed to be a difficulty.

The shop-boy was red in the face and rubbing his hands together with discomfort. ‘I’m sorry,’ he kept saying.