After Miss Sophia had left her, Dido sat for a quarter of an hour in the gloomy arbour, struggling with the ideas which those words about the finality of marriage had suggested. And when, at the end of that time, the contemplation of clipped hedges and crumbling cupid had done nothing to relieve her mind, she set off across the park to try what exercise might do.
So occupied was she with her own thoughts that, for some time, she hardly knew where she was walking and was rather surprised to find herself approaching the yew-shaded path that led to the family chapel. However, the little old building with its one squat tower and its windows winking in the last feeble light of the day had a rather reassuring appearance. She turned into the path and paused on flagstones which were stained red with fallen berries from the yew trees. She was surprised to see that the heavy door of the chapel was standing ajar.
She stepped forward and peered around it, but could make out nothing in the gloom. She slipped silently through the door and looked about. The air was stale and dead and cold; the stone arches rose up into darkness, the white marble of family monuments loomed in a side aisle and the only patch of light, tinted blue and green from the coloured window, fell upon the white cloth that covered the altar. The place seemed to be deserted. She advanced several steps, then her eyes became accustomed to the poor light and a slight movement caught her attention. There was a figure – a man’s figure – kneeling in prayer close to the altar rail.
Her first impulse was to withdraw politely before she was detected; but then – as it so often did – her curiosity got the better of her manners. She took a few more cautious steps and peered through the dusk. The kneeling figure was Mr William Lomax. His head was bowed on his clasped hands and his shoulders were shaking with the violence of his supplication.
As she stared, she began to make out the faint sound of the familiar words he was repeating. ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil… Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…’ The whispered words echoed faintly in the holy chill of the chapel.
Dido turned and hurried out into the daylight, not pausing even to draw breath until she gained the knoll and the green bench in the park. What, she wondered as she sat herself down, was the evil from which Mr Lomax so ardently wished to be delivered? And what was the temptation into which he dreaded being led?
She sighed and shook her head. Of course it had been quite unpardonable to listen to a man’s private devotions. It would be very wrong to suspect him on such evidence, would it not…?
It was six o’clock before Dido returned to the house and the outcome of her many troubling reflections was such that left her face, in Catherine’s opinion, looking ‘sour and old-maidish’.
However, since they were divided by almost the full length of the table at dinner, it was not possible for her niece to get at her with this pleasant remark until after the ladies removed into the drawing room. Then, finding her upon the distant sofa with a piece of work lying untouched upon her lap, Catherine demanded to know why she must sit all alone and talking to no one. ‘It is a sure sign of encroaching age, you know,’ she said.
‘Then you had better leave me alone to doze quietly. That is the privilege of dotage, is it not?’
‘But you are not dozing,’ Catherine pointed out. ‘You are merely sitting in this corner watching everybody with that sharp, satirical eye of yours. I wish you would not do it; you make me quite ashamed.’
‘Oh dear! And I had hoped that since I am now a clever future-gazer and since I am at this moment wearing neither pattens nor pelisse, I could not embarrass you before your friends.’
‘Well, you can,’ said Catherine ungraciously and Dido had to remind herself of the poor girl’s misery in order to keep in charity with her. ‘Who is it that you are watching so intently?’
‘As you said, I am watching everyone. I cannot help it. It is on account of having a sharp and satirical eye.’
‘You are in a very ill mood this evening.’
‘And you are all sweetness, I suppose?’
Catherine linked her arm through Dido’s. ‘You know that I only insult you because I am fond of you.’
‘And if you disliked me I suppose you would be full of compliments?’
‘Yes, I probably should.’
‘Well, well, you always were a contrary child.’
Dido patted her hand and studied her pale unhappy face with great affection and an irresistible memory of the little girl who used to cling to her every morning as she asked, ‘Has Mama returned?’ Very little had changed; Dido still longed to protect her and make her happy.
But it was impossible. She could no more restore Catherine to her happy engagement than she could reply to her all those years ago, ‘Yes, all is well, your mama is here in the house.’
The reflections of the afternoon had left her more troubled than ever. There was, stronger than ever, a feeling that she was being foolish; that there were answers which she ought to see and yet was blind to.
And there were also some very difficult things which must be said.
‘My dear,’ she began cautiously, ‘there is something I must talk to you about. And I had better say it now while I have leisure, because I expect to be occupied shortly with a little scheme I have promised to help the Misses Harris with.’
‘Indeed? I did not know that you were intimate with the Harris girls.’
‘I am not particularly intimate with them – but, in fact, it was something Miss Sophia said this afternoon which made me think…’
‘Made you think what?’
‘Oh,’ said Dido, trying to speak lightly, ‘it just made me think that I should talk to you about…about one or two observations that I have made.’
‘Observations?’
‘Yes. Just little things.’ Dido picked up her work and began to stab in stitches rather randomly. ‘There is, for example, Annie Holmes’ great regard for Mr Montague.’ Catherine’s head jerked; her lips moved, but no sound came out of them. ‘And,’ continued Dido earnestly stitching away, ‘there is the very comfortable parlour at the lodge house, and little Susan’s costly doll…and her large brown eyes. Things like that. But, most of all, my dear, there is your very great dislike of Mrs Holmes; the way you cannot bear to look at her or hear her spoken of.’
‘Aunt Dido,’ cried Catherine suspiciously. ‘What have you been about with your endless questions?’
‘There is no need to worry, my dear; no one has told me anything. No confidences have been broken. I have only made use of my senses and my brain to see what is before me.’
‘And what do you see? Or, rather, what do you think that you see?’
Dido stopped sewing and instead began to turn her work around as if intent upon studying the pattern she was making. ‘I see that when he was a very young man, Mr Montague was fond of Annie Holmes – and that little Susan is his natural daughter. I see that Sir Edgar knows of the business and the woman and her child have been provided for. I also see that Mr Montague has confessed to you his youthful mistake. Asked your forgiveness perhaps…’ There was a gasp from Catherine and Dido stopped. ‘Please, don’t be uneasy about me knowing this, my dear,’ she said, taking her hands. ‘Because it has helped me to understand you; helped me to understand how well founded your love seems to be – if he could be so honest with you. This is why you have been so determined to trust him, is it not?’
Catherine gulped and nodded. ‘I have good reason to trust him,’ she said. ‘I know he could not have broken with his father over a lover. Why should he? Why should there be a “rupture”, as you so elegantly put it, over this woman when there had not been over the last one? Aunt Dido, I tried to make you understand that that could not be the trouble, but without betraying Mr Montague’s confidence, I could not convince you.’
‘Yes, I understand. And I am very sorry that, at first, I thought so lightly of your attachment. That was very wrong of me, my love. But I was convinced in the end – convinced that you must have some good reason to place so much trust in Mr Montague. And then I knew that there must be more at stake here than a youthful mistake – or a natural child.’ She sighed. ‘It all goes much deeper than that.’
Chapter Eighteen
