A moment of silence

murderer was not, after all, her principal task. Her first duty was to find the reason for Mr Montague’s sudden departure from his father’s house. It would perhaps be best to set aside considerations of how the killing could have been accomplished and which gentleman it was of whom young Jack had something to report. Her first care must be for Catherine and the state of her engagement. She would visit Annie Holmes again – for she seemed to know something of Mr Montague which she was not telling.

However, her resolution of visiting the lodge house was no sooner taken than she discovered that the rain was still falling heavily and she was confined for another three long hours to the drawing room, where Margaret wore her patience with questions about Catherine’s affairs which she could not answer, and Miss Sophia played upon the pianoforte without mercy.

At one time Mr Harris came to sit with the ladies and alarmed Dido with one of his abrupt questions.

‘She plays well, does she not, Miss Kent?’ he said, taking a seat beside her and nodding in the direction of his youngest daughter. ‘She has talent, has she not?’

She was at a loss for an answer, for it was impossible to tell from the gentleman’s tone whether he judged the music to be good or bad himself. After a moment’s struggle she replied, ‘She appears to have a great deal of taste, Mr Harris.’

In Dido’s experience the word ‘taste’ was so ill-defined – it was so frequently laid claim to by women who could not distinguish one note from another – that it might be safely applied to the least competent of performers.

‘Ah, yes, taste,’ said Mr Harris and he listened in silence for a while.

Dido studied him curiously. He was lean, with a face so lined and suntanned it was almost leathery, and he had the worn, fagged look common in men who have spent a long time in a hot climate. There was, altogether, something hard and unyielding in his appearance that reminded her of what her brother Charles had once said about ‘fellows who make great fortunes out in India.’ It was, Charles maintained, possible for such men to remain honest – but only just, and any kind of softer feelings were not to be expected of them.

And yet, despite his appearance – and his fortune – Mr Harris seemed to be a devoted husband and a kindly father. He was now watching his daughter with a troubled expression.

‘Perhaps I lack taste myself,’ he said at last. ‘For sometimes Sophia’s playing seems delightful and sometimes…’ He shrugged and took his leave of her.

She sat smiling for some time over his words for they presented an amusing picture of the battle between affection and sense; that constant denying of truth which can form a part of love.

And that brought her to a more sombre consideration of Catherine’s behaviour. For never had she seen a stronger inclination to hide from unpleasant thoughts about the beloved; never had she encountered such determination to believe the best, contrary to all evidence.

Yesterday she had affronted Catherine badly when she had tried again to persuade her to end her engagement.

‘It is, after all, what he wishes you to do,’ she had argued. And then, when that proved fruitless, she had tried, as delicately as possible, to suggest the most likely circumstance, which had, days ago, suggested itself: that Mr Montague had formed a dishonourable attachment in the past which could no longer be hidden and which had lost him his father’s favour. Of her other, darker, thoughts, which connected Mr Montague’s strange behaviour with the death of the young woman, she dared not speak; though she could not doubt that her niece suspected them.

‘But his father has not disowned him,’ Catherine argued stubbornly. ‘He is not even angry with him.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Dido, voicing another idea which had been forming in her head for some time, ‘perhaps Sir Edgar is not yet aware of all the truth. Yes, I know that Mr Montague said he was going to tell him everything on the night of the ball, but perhaps, when it came to the point, his courage failed him.’

‘No, it did not,’ cried Catherine. ‘Mr Montague is no coward. If a thing had to be said then he would have said it. Besides, he had no such shameful secret to reveal. I am sure he had not.’

‘My dear, how can you be sure?’

‘Because…’ Catherine stopped herself. There was just a touch of colour in her cheeks, which in another girl would have been scarcely noticeable but which in Catherine was as telling as a blush. ‘I just know,’ she said. ‘I cannot explain it.’

‘But how can you be certain? You have been acquainted with Mr Montague for so short a time. You scarcely know him.’

‘I do know him. I love him.’

‘I make no doubt you love him, Catherine. But what did love ever have to do with knowing? We hear every day of people falling in love at first sight…’

‘Oh, spare me the lecture, please!’ cried Catherine, jumping to her feet. ‘You know nothing of love. You have never loved a man. You are too cold and satirical.’

You have never loved a man…

Was that true? Dido wondered now, as she sat in the stuffy drawing room, gazing out of the rain-washed window at dripping rose bushes and puddled paths. Was this the reason why she was so impatient with Catherine’s determination to think the best of her lover?

It was, of course, a great failure in a woman’s life – to never have achieved even a doomed and unsuccessful love. But she was not quite sure whether she had failed or not.

When she was young there had been moments, of course. But those moments had never amounted to much more than a little fever of admiration – a little flutter and agitation in a ballroom – so slight a feeling that the cautious Dido had never considered it a secure foundation for a lifetime of living together. And then, sooner or later, she had always made an odd remark, or laughed at the wrong moment, and the young men became alarmed or angry – and the flutter and the agitation all turned into irritation.

Dido could laugh and gossip about love as well as any woman but, deep down, she suspected that she had not the knack of falling into it.

Well, she told herself bracingly, if she had never experienced such an elevating passion, neither had she been afflicted by the foolishness that so often accompanied it. She would never be so stupid as to deliberately blind herself to any man’s guilt.

This reassuring thought, together with the ceasing of the rain, did a great deal to raise her spirits and she resolutely escaped for her walk, despite Margaret’s chiding and her ladyship’s languid protests that she would find it ‘too dirty for anything’.

Outside, she was further cheered by the fresh smell of wet leaves and the singing of a blackbird – and by meeting William Lomax who was just alighting from his carriage in the drive.

He, too, feared that she would have rather a wet walk.

‘But, Mr Lomax,’ she said, laughing, ‘a wet walk is much to be preferred to being confined any longer in the drawing room.’

‘Ah,’ he replied with a kindly smile and immediate sympathy. ‘Too much Speculation?’

‘Oh no. After two days of rain, we are all grown too irritable to even speculate.’

‘And you will soon be reduced to Snap?’

‘Quite so!’

‘Then I sincerely hope that your walk will refresh you.’ He bowed and walked into the house.

Dido continued happily on her way, noticing as she did so that his carriage was a small post-chaise with yellow wheels. But then, she thought, what of that? There must be hundreds of such carriages in the world.

‘I thought you would come back,’ said Annie Holmes bluntly.

‘And why did you think that?’

‘Because you thought I was lying when I said I’d not seen Mr Montague since the day after the ball.’

‘And were you lying?’

The woman smiled, as if she was amused to have her honesty met with equal honesty. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I was not lying.’

Well, perhaps you were and perhaps you weren’t, thought Dido, but you are certainly hiding something. You know something about Mr Montague. But how to find it out?

Mrs Holmes was remarkably sure of herself. She did not behave like a servant. She was a pretty little woman