A moment of silence

It wanted but half an hour until tea was brought in when Miss Harris and Miss Sophia caught Dido’s eye and beckoned her out of the drawing room into the hall, where a good fire was burning and the spaniel was pursuing dream-woodcock.

Sophia said, ‘We are going to the morning room. We will wait for Mr Tom Lomax there. We thought it would be the best place to carry out your plan.’

‘The place will suit our purposes very well,’ said Dido. ‘But how do you know that Mr Lomax will follow you there?’

‘He will,’ said Amelia.

‘My sister means that when he does not find me in the drawing room, he is sure to come in search of me. It would hardly be attentive of him not to, would it?’

Dido smiled. ‘You are Mr Lomax’s sole object now, are you?’

‘Yes. As you suggested, Amelia has given him to understand that she has accepted the colonel’s offer.’

‘That should make our plan work more smoothly.’

The three women paused a moment and listened to the sound of voices from the dining room, where the gentlemen were still sitting over their port wine.

‘They will be finished soon,’ said Amelia abruptly.

Sophia nodded and again explained her sister’s remark. ‘You can judge by the sound of their voices, Miss Kent. They always talk louder just before they leave the table.’

And then, as if to prove her point, there came the unmistakable sound of a chair scraping back across the floor. Sir Edgar’s loud voice was heard proposing that they ‘join the dear ladies’. The dog woke and hid herself behind the hooded chair. Dido and her companions hurried away into the morning room.

‘We will not have long to talk to him,’ said Amelia as she took a seat beside the low fire.

‘No, Mama will come to look for us when tea is served.’ Sophia hesitated and looked about. It was a large room with heavy, old-fashioned furniture; there was a great deal of very dark wood and velvet upholstery which had once been red but which had faded over the years to the colour of cold chocolate. At the moment the room was full of shadows because the only light came from the fire and from one stand of candles on the writing table by the window. After considering for a moment, Sophia took a seat upon a couch close beside the table and Dido noted that she had chosen her position very well; the colonel himself, commanding his troops, could not have made a wiser decision. When Tom came into the room and sat beside her – as he surely would – she would be able to turn her back to the candles; but the light would be full in his face.

Dido placed herself opposite Amelia by the hearth and put two fresh logs into the grate. The fire was little more than a heap of grey ash and red embers, but the logs – like everything else at Belsfield – were of the very best and little flames were soon licking around them and giving up a faint smell of applewood. Their crackle and the ticking of a clock upon the mantelshelf were the only sounds in the room. Amelia and Sophia exchanged looks – anxious, but determined too.

It was a quiet domestic scene: two young women in muslin and shawls and patent slippers sitting after dinner in a comfortable old room in gentle candle-and firelight. But Dido felt that she had been right to think of the colonel and his army; for there was a battle to be enacted here. There might be no cannon and no swords – no blood to be shed – and yet the girls were here to fight for everything that was dear to them. She only hoped that the weapons she had put into their hands would be strong enough to gain them a victory.

She had prepared them as best she could. There was little that she could do now except watch and hope that they could carry off the attack.

There came the unmistakable sound of the drawing room door opening. They all looked at one another. Something like panic crossed Sophia’s face, but she mastered it and drew in a long breath. Footsteps – a man’s footsteps – crossed the hall. Tom’s voice called out a hearty greeting to the dog. Dido picked up a book and pretended to read.

Tom appeared in the doorway.

‘Miss Sophia!’ He hesitated as he noticed Dido and Amelia. ‘Miss Harris, Miss Kent.’ He made a small bow in their direction before returning his attention to Sophia with a little smirk which was, no doubt, intended to suggest the extreme tenderness of his regard. ‘Will you not come into the drawing room and play for us, Miss Sophia?’

‘No.’ Sophia’s voice was badly distorted, and for one anxious moment Dido thought it would fail her completely, but she made a valiant effort to control it and continued in a tolerable imitation of her usual manner. ‘Thank you, Mr Lomax. You are very, very kind. But I do not intend to play today.’

He crossed the room and took the seat beside her. Dido thought of an enemy force moving into the trap which has been laid for it.

‘You are very cruel,’ he declared dramatically. ‘I do believe that my evening will be a blank unless I hear you play, Miss Sophia.’ The light shone into his face, revealing that the last few days had done nothing to improve his dark, ragged side-whiskers. He stretched his long legs across the rug and placed one arm along the back of the sofa so that his thick fingers almost touched the pretty ruching on her short white sleeve. ‘Come, will you not relent?’

Sophia looked down at her hands and shook her curls. ‘I am so sorry, Mr Lomax, but really I fear that to play anything would be quite beyond my powers this evening.’

‘I hope you are not unwell,’ he cried with exaggerated alarm and formed his bristling cheeks into an expression of doleful concern.

‘Thank you,’ she said, sinking her voice. ‘I am just a little tired. That is all.’

‘Her hands are tired.’ This rather surprising remark came from Amelia and Tom had to turn about in his seat to look at her – which rather spoilt the nonchalant pose that he had struck.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Harris?’

‘Her hands are tired on account of the letters, Mr Lomax.’

Tom looked confused – as well he might. Dido had hoped for confusion at this point.

‘My sister and I have been very busy, you see,’ said Sophia. He turned back to her. ‘We have been writing letters all morning. Why, we have written seven each, you know! That is a great many letters, is it not?’

‘It is quite remarkable!’

Hardly knowing what she was doing, Dido lowered her book into her lap. Now, she thought, keep him confused. Keep him off his guard.

‘You must,’ Tom continued gaily, ‘be enjoying your stay at Belsfield very much if you wish to tell so many of your friends about it.’

Dido saw the sisters exchange meaningful looks – the army was signalling that the moment had come to close in for the attack.

Sophia raised her eyes to his and gave a shy smile. ‘Oh yes,’ she simpered. ‘We like Belsfield very much, very much indeed.’

Encouraged by the smile, Tom leant closer and, like a good chaperone, Dido watched and listened carefully. ‘I hope,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I hope, Miss Sophia, that I may have played some small part in making your stay enjoyable.’

Sophia looked down at her hands and, though she did not quite blush, she contrived to look so very, very conscious that one might almost have believed that she did. Dido would have been surprised that a gently reared young lady could give a performance that must rival anything achieved by Drury Lane’s most hardened actress – if she had not known that this particular young lady had been playing a part for many years. Her character was certainly more than enough to deceive Tom, predisposed as he was to believe in his own charms.

‘Tell me,’ he whispered, ‘please tell me, or I shall be miserable. Did I figure just a little bit in any of those letters? Did you mention my name to your friends?’

Sophia did not raise her eyes, but the curls about her ears trembled in a modest little nod. Oh, it was an excellent performance!

The workings of Tom’s face betrayed strong emotion – as well they might, for at that moment, twenty thousand pounds and an easy life seemed to be within his grasp.

‘And what did you say about me?’ he whispered.

‘I said…’ Sophia continued to avoid his eye. ‘I said that you had been very…attentive. And that you seemed to