work had been lying forgotten in her lap as she watched Mr Lomax’s face watching the flames. She had been thinking: this is how I will remember him when I am gone from here.
‘I have enjoyed your company very much indeed,’ he began again, and then stopped and fell to stirring up the logs on the grate, though his attentions seemed to injure the blaze rather than improve it. ‘Indeed,’ he said with his face very red with exertion, or heat – or something else, ‘in fact, you are perhaps aware, Miss Kent…’ He stopped again, set the poker down upon the hearth and held his hands to the dull fire he had made.
Dido waited, suddenly finding that it was very hard for her to breathe and staring down at her bright needle with its long scarlet silk as if she had never seen such things before.
‘In point of fact, Miss Kent,’ he continued, ‘you have reminded me of what I am afraid I had forgotten. You have reminded me of the great…the very great pleasure that there is to be found in the companionship of a charming and intelligent woman.’
She tucked the needle into the material in her lap; her hand had become too hot to hold it securely. She looked earnestly at him, but he was determined to keep his face turned from her.
‘It is my misfortune,’ he continued heavily, ‘that I should rediscover such enjoyment at the very time…’ she saw his throat move as he swallowed hard, ‘at the very time when I find I am quite unable to secure the blessing of such companionship for myself.’ He sighed deeply and raised his head. ‘Unfortunately, my present circumstances make it impossible for me to ask any lady to share my life. I have nothing to offer but poverty and dependence.’
Dido exerted herself to speak calmly, struggling to sound as if her only concern was that of a friend. ‘I am sorry to hear that you find yourself in such difficult circumstances, Mr Lomax.’
‘It cannot be helped,’ he said resolutely. ‘My son has debts. Miss Kent, I do not approve of the life my son leads, but I am sure you will understand the feelings of a father. I cannot stand by and see him imprisoned by his creditors. I have pledged myself to pay what he owes. And I fear it will be many years before I have cleared the debt.’
‘I am very sorry to hear it, Mr Lomax,’ she said calmly, and she continued to pull the scarlet silk through the white linen.
Inside her head her thoughts were raging. To know that she had his regard was a source of intense delight. Her heart glowed with pleasure even as she grieved over his present situation.
Yet she found that she could not regret the steps that she herself had taken to obstruct Tom’s plans, nor could she be so inhuman as to regret that the Misses Harris had escaped him. She would have liked to condemn the kindness of the father, but she found that that comfort was also denied to her. For that kindness was an essential part of the man she had come to esteem so highly over these last weeks.
And it all ended at last in her deciding that her best chance of happiness now lay in somehow finding a woman who was rich enough – and foolish enough – to be tolerably happy as Mrs Tom Lomax. It would be a task ten times more difficult than anything she had yet achieved at Belsfield. But somehow she would accomplish it. At that moment, secure in the knowledge of his affection, she felt equal to anything…
About the Author
ANNA DEAN lives in the Lake District with a husband and a cat. She sometimes works as a Creative Writing tutor and as a guide showing visitors around William Wordsworth’s home, Dove Cottage. Her interests include walking, old houses, Jane Austen, cream teas,
A Moment of Silence
A Gentleman of Fortune
A Woman of Consequence
