A moment of silence

There was a note awaiting me when we returned this afternoon, brought by Jenny, the housemaid. Here is what it says:

Deer Madam,

Mary that is made at the crown aks me to rite My Kate sys Mr Blaglog is a torl yung genlman he has big brown eys and a vere plesunt smile

Yor servent Eliz. Potter (Mrs)

PS she is a vere trothful chile and wos 2 yers at Sundy Scol

Well, there is only one man at Belsfield who suits that description and that one man is Richard Montague. As I said, it is a piece of news which I would much rather not have received.

Oh, this really is a wretched business, Eliza! For everything seems to bring me back to those suspicions which are most dangerous to Catherine’s happiness. I begin to wonder whether the time has come when I must talk very seriously with her. But still I do not know enough. I wish that I could find out more about this household; in particular about Mr Montague’s absences from home and how long they last and whether there are ever arguments between him and his father.

I had hoped to make some discoveries from the servants and, to that end, have been questioning as many of them as I might since my return from Lyme; but their loyalty, or rather, I think, their fear of their master, has proved too strong for me and I can find out nothing. I think that I must somehow create a remarkable degree of goodwill in one or other of them before I can break down this reserve.

Have I not become very calculating since I turned into a solver of mysteries? But it cannot be helped for, as Charles often assures us, success in any enterprise is never achieved without a little deviousness. And I do believe that I have devised a way of gaining the goodwill of the young footman, Jack.

When he came to my room to bring some logs – for he still keeps me very well supplied – I noticed that his eyes were red and, all in all, though one does not like to suspect it of a young man, it seemed to me that he had been crying.

So I asked him what was the matter and, as you may imagine, he denied that he was upset and so we went on for a little while with fruitless questions; but the upshot of it all is that it is Colonel Walborough who is troubling him by sending for him at all hours to bring logs and wine and I know not what to his bedchamber. And the boy is very distressed by it for he seems to have taken quite an inordinate dislike to going to the colonel’s room alone.

Well, I suppose servants are as entitled to have their vagaries as much as the rest of us! But the great advantage of this to me is that I have undertaken to relieve Jack of the gentleman’s inopportune demands – though Jack shakes his head doubtfully and says that this is not something a ‘nice, kind lady’ can do anything about. My plan is that, by so doing, I shall win his gratitude and, I hope, his willingness to talk about his master’s business.

Well, I shall let you know how I go on…

Dido frowned so earnestly at Colonel Walborough as he drank his soup at dinner that evening, that he became nervous and began to suppose that she had had some terrible premonition concerning him.

Indeed, if the other people at the dining table had been as superstitious as the colonel, they might all have shared his apprehension. For, during the course of dinner, she considered them all; moving on from her contemplation of the colonel to meditate upon the changes in her knowledge of them all since she first sat at that table. She had discovered that there was hardly one of them who was not hiding a secret.

Here was Sir Edgar, smiling so benignly as he carved the fine goose; yet she knew now that there was stark tyranny behind his geniality. At his side sat Mrs Harris, cheerfully relating some tale which required her to fold her napkin about and about in explanation. In her past there were indiscretions which should make any woman blush.

Beside her was Mr William Lomax, returned at last from his business and looking more than usually grave. What did he have to hide? A guilty liaison? Or only the family secrets of his employer? Dido was some time watching him and wondering what the reason might be for his excessive gravity this evening. A little while ago, in just crossing the hall to the drawing room, she had overheard Sir Edgar and Mr Lomax talking in the library. ‘I am determined to find the killer,’ the baronet had been saying. ‘I will do everything in my power…’ But she had been unable to distinguish the words of Mr Lomax’s reply. Had he been arguing for more zeal or for more caution in the investigation?

Then, further along the table, there were the Harris girls, whose pretended incompetence and rage for accomplishments hid very real talents – but why? And there was Tom (with his side-whiskers still no more than a shadow) sitting between the girls and rolling his eyes about in a great effort of gallantry. His charming smiles concealed a plan of utter selfishness. And a little higher up was Margaret, and next to her, Mr Harris, his hard, leathery face set now in lines of resignation, looking sometimes at Tom and sometimes, with a softening of his expression, at his wife. Dido found herself wondering whether there might be some truth in Charles’s words about the insensible hardness of men with fortunes got from India. It certainly seemed that Mr Harris had only one point of weakness – his wife. And for her comfort he was willing to sacrifice even his daughters.

And then, sitting on the other side of Mr Harris, there was Catherine: even paler than usual, and rather silent, but with little else to show how many tears she had lately been shedding. Of Catherine, too, her opinion had changed in the last few days. Catherine’s affection for Mr Montague was more firmly founded than Dido had at first supposed… And did that mean that she too had secrets to hide: confidences that had been exchanged between the lovers and which she was determined not to break? Dido was beginning to suspect that it might be so.

And then, at the head of the table, sat her ladyship. Dido paused, for here perhaps was the greatest mystery of the household. With her blank face and her fingers forever twisting at her rings, her insipid air and her flashes of sharp intelligence, her exquisite beauty and her costly fashionable clothes…

Dido stopped. She had noticed something that she should have noticed long ago. There was something wrong about the way my lady was dressed.

When the ladies were alone in the drawing room, Dido looked about her purposefully. She had a plan in her head for saving Jack from the colonel’s constant demands and, in order to carry it out, she had need of a pack of cards.

At the pianoforte the candlelight shone on the bright little faces and the bobbing curls of the Misses Harris, and on the rouged cheeks of their mother. At the fireside, in another pool of candlelight, her ladyship was already spreading out the first Patience of the evening, her attention absorbed in the patterns she was making with the deft little movements of her hands. It was, thought Dido, a way of removing herself from the company around her. She moved towards her and took a seat, close enough for conversation but not so close as to be quite overwhelmed by the scent of rose water, which was mixing with the wood smoke. On the opposite side of the hearth, Margaret noticed the intrusion with pursed lips.

‘May I have the use of these a little while?’ asked Dido, picking up an unbroken pack of cards from the inlaid table.

Her ladyship nodded graciously and Dido began to rearrange the cards in the pack. As she did so, she covertly studied her companion’s hands. They moved elegantly and precisely over the table, never fumbling or making a mistake. Delicate hands with long white fingers, looking very beautiful with the creamy lace of her sleeves falling half across them; but, Dido saw now for the first time, their beauty was sadly marred by my lady’s habit of twisting her rings. The flesh around the rings was rubbed red and sore. It was as if the fine gold and diamonds and rubies were nothing more than the chafing bonds of a prisoner.

Dido set down her cards, and reached across the table. Making some pleasant remark about its loveliness, she just lifted the edge of lace at the lady’s wrist.

Instantly the hand was withdrawn and all the cards my lady was holding cascaded onto the floor.

There was a loud ‘hmph’ of disapproval from Margaret.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dido bending quickly to retrieve the cards.

‘It was nothing, Miss Kent. You merely startled me.’ Her face was impassive; but her eyes were cold and