A moment of silence

‘Oh yes, of course,’ simpered Dido. ‘I shall not breathe a word.’ She started for the door and then turned back. Tom was rubbing chalk onto the end of his cue and frowning at the confusion on the table. ‘There is just one question I cannot help asking, Mr Lomax. I am sure you will not mind.’

‘Yes?’ he said with an effort at patience.

‘Which of the Misses Harris is it that you are in love with?’

‘Well, as to that… I mean I cannot, at the moment…’ He faltered to a standstill as he saw that the smile spreading on Dido’s face was neither silly nor vague.

‘It is rather strange, is it not,’ she said, ‘to be unsure of the name of the lady to whom you are engaged?’

…Well, Eliza, I have made an enemy, I do not doubt. But I dislike Tom Lomax too much to care whether or not I have his good opinion. I am quite sure now that he was lying about his reason for being in the shrubbery. But if he was lying, then so was Mr Harris – which seems altogether much more surprising. Unlikely as such an idea seems, I cannot escape the conclusion that Tom and Mr Harris are confederates in some mystery. But how does it relate to the death of Miss Wallis? Or is there more than one mystery carrying on in this house? I begin to think that there must be and that I am surrounded by a great confusion of guilt and deceit.

Oh, Eliza! It is the little things that trouble me most. Things like the hiding of the dog behind my chair when Sir Edgar came out of the library; the game of football which Mrs Potter’s Kate saw carrying on at Tudor House; Catherine’s account of Mr Montague’s headaches. And out of all these little things is building a picture which I do not like to contemplate.

You see, I know, by Mrs Holmes’ account, that Mr Montague is anxious to please his father. And I think she falls short of the truth. Despite her denial, Eliza, I believe that the poor young man does indeed fear him. Because Sir Edgar is a bully. I am sure that he is – for why else would his own dog flee from him? Why else is his young footman afraid to speak to him even when he has important information to give? Why do the villagers dislike him? Yes, I make no doubt that Sir Edgar is a bully, a bully who does not like his son. Why he should have taken such a dislike to him I cannot understand, unless he perceives him as being weak. But the question that torments me is this: under such disapproval at home, what might a young man be driven to do?

And that brings me to what Catherine said yesterday when she talked of Mr Montague being at Lyme. She said something which she had not mentioned before. She said, ‘When Richard goes away – as he does when he feels unwell.’ Eliza, do you see what this means? Mr Montague is in the habit of absenting himself from Belsfield. Indeed, now I think of it, her ladyship told me as much on my first evening here. She spoke of Mr Montague’s marriage fixing him at Belsfield and preventing him from wandering off. As if that was something he was in the habit of doing.

And this brings me – as I am sure you have anticipated – to that game of football at Tudor House, which convinced the bobbing maid – and even the egregious Mrs Potter – that Mr Blacklock is only a temporary resident in Hopton Cresswell. Well, where is Mr Blacklock when he is not at Tudor House? Or, more to the point: who is he?

Is he, in fact, Richard Montague?

A young man, driven from his own home, living as much as he can in retirement, might, perhaps, form an unsuitable attachment. And if that attachment was likely to be made known to the parent he feared…

Well, Eliza, you see, no doubt, where all this is leading.

And, in support of this account, there are the undeniable facts: that the murder must have occurred while the guns were out; that the gentlemen from the house all vouch for each other during that time; and that Mr Montague might have returned to Belsfield that morning and reached the shrubbery without being seen by anyone but Mrs Holmes – whose affection for him would, no doubt, lead her to lie in order to protect him from suspicion.

I am quite sure that, despite his brave resolution, Mr Montague did not tell the full truth to his father at the ball. He left something at least unsaid – perhaps he did not mention the expected child. This incomplete account left Sir Edgar willing to forgive; but his son knew that if – when – the full truth was revealed, disinheritance would surely follow. He was in a desperate situation, in danger of losing everything. Perhaps he went away hoping to reason with the young woman, but she resisted and came to Belsfield to tell all. And he followed her…

Eliza, am I allowing my imagination to run away with me? Such an end as murder to an amour seems so very unlikely. Surely a generous payment to the woman and a sharp reprimand from Sir Edgar to his son would be less like the plot of a horrid novel and more in keeping with the manners of the modern world.

However…

Dido broke off as she heard the door open behind her and pulled the blotter across her incomplete letter. She was writing in the morning room, where she had hoped to be undisturbed at this time of day, when most of the household were already above stairs dressing for dinner, and when the sun had moved from the windows on this side of the house, leaving the room gloomy and rather chill, with a single log smouldering on a heap of fine grey ash in the grate.

She looked round and was immediately glad that she had hidden her letter, for the intruder was Tom Lomax. She hoped that he was in pursuit of the young ladies and would go away when he saw only her; but, on the contrary, he gave a slow satisfied smile, as if he had been looking for her, and lounged into the room.

‘I am always suspicious,’ he said as he sprawled in a chair beside her table, ‘when I see a lady hiding her correspondence. I cannot help thinking that she has been broadcasting information which she ought to keep to herself.’

‘Indeed? No doubt that is because of your conscience, which tells you there is information you wish to keep hidden.’

Tom frowned and sat for several minutes watching her insolently. Dido, determined not to be disconcerted, returned the stare.

 He had, as she had observed before, a rather handsome face, but there was something ridiculous about the dark shadows on the sides of his cheeks that showed where he was attempting to grow fashionable long side- whiskers and, by the look of things, not succeeding very well in his ambition. And his small mouth turned down sourly at the corners, as if the world, like his whiskers, was disappointing him. Which, she didn’t doubt it was, since it was – so far – refusing to provide him with a living for which he did not have to exert himself.

At the moment there was impatience and contempt in his pale eyes and, though she would not have confessed it, Dido was hurt by it. She found herself calculating for how long young men had looked at her in that way. Six years? Seven? Certainly no more than that. Before that she had been young. Never quite beautiful, of course, but reckoned pretty by some and never rated as less than ‘a fine girl’. Then young men looked at her differently, even when they were angry with her – as they quite often were. Then there might be irritation but never, never, contempt. A young well-looking woman always had a kind of respect.

A fragile, short-lived respect, she reminded herself. And one which all too easily prevented a girl from being honest, because she was too anxious for admiration. At least when the world had branded one a ‘spinster’ there was a kind of freedom, a release from that overwhelming concern for others’ good opinion.

‘Have you something to say to me, Mr Lomax?’ she demanded at last. ‘Or have you only come to stare me out of countenance?’

 He frowned, disconcerted by her honesty. But in a moment he had placed a cushion behind his head and was smiling as if he was very much at ease. ‘I have come to give you a little advice.’

‘That is very kind of you.’

‘Yes. You see, Miss Kent, it won’t do. All this poking about asking questions. It won’t do at all.’

‘I was not aware that I was “poking about”, Mr Lomax. And as to questions – perhaps you can explain which questions of mine you dislike.’

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I know what you are about,’ he said. ‘You are trying to patch up things between Dick and Catherine.’

Offended by his familiar use of Catherine’s Christian name, Dido chose not to reply.

‘And that won’t do at all,’ he said. ‘Because that affair concerns matters you don’t understand. Matters no woman can understand.’