A gentleman of fortune

unexplained. And that is why I think it would be better avoided – or at least delayed.’

‘And I think,’ he said rather forcefully, ‘that you had better not put yourself in danger by being seen to interfere. You would be well advised, Miss Kent, to allow justice to take its course.’

Unfortunately they had been interrupted before she could reply. The carriages were announced and everyone was on the move.

Now, loitering over the toilette table in her chamber, she regretted that they had not been able to talk longer, but did not think that he would have been able to convince her. She sighed and took up her pen again.

Poor Miss Bevan! My heart goes out to her, Eliza, and I find it so very difficult myself to contemplate her fate, I find myself so disgusted by the idea of her going to this terrible place which has been chosen for her, that I cannot help but doubt Mr Lansdale will allow her to go. When it comes to the point I am almost sure that he will stop it in the only way possible to him – by announcing their engagement to the world.

And then what will become of him? Oh dear, Eliza, he is a great deal too handsome to be hanged!

There is I am sure another story to be told about events at Knaresborough House upon that fateful Tuesday evening – a tale very different from the one Mr Lomax suggests. And I am quite determined to find it out.

Firstly, I must find out more about the visitors who came there. Were they Mr Henderson and Mr Hewit? Was there a lady with them to play upon the instrument? Well, there is one person who can answer these questions if he chooses – the butler, Fraser. Though I am not sure how I shall find the courage to approach so dignified a servant, nor do I have any great hopes of his telling the truth. For whatever secrets his late mistress had would not have lasted so long without his collusion. But I shall attempt it.

And, second, I intend to find out more about the burglary: in particular what part Miss Neville and her acquaintance, Jenny White, may have played in it. I find I cannot trust Miss Clara Neville. I am sure she is hiding something from me; all the time that I was talking with her at Brooke I felt that there was something wrong about the things she was telling me. Why should she blush and look uncomfortable while only talking about such an unexceptionable errand as visiting her mother? What was the ‘bad business’ which she wished Mr Vane not to talk about?

And why does she associate with a woman of bad character like Jenny White?

The next morning saw Flora and Dido driving along a narrow street in a rather shabby part of Richmond, in search of Mrs Neville’s home.

There had been some reluctance on Flora’s part; she had not wanted to pay the call. Her acquaintance with the lady was ‘very slight’; and she had been intending to drive to town this morning to call upon a particular friend in Harley Street; and, from all she could remember, Mrs Neville was quite the dullest woman in the world. And that had been when she was in her right senses, you know. Now, by her daughter’s account, they must expect to find her confused as well as dull. It would be perfectly dreadful!

But Dido had persevered, assuring her that it was all done for Mr Lansdale’s sake, and had given an account of everything Miss Neville had told her at Brooke.

‘Oh, and so you do not believe her?’ Flora asked when the tale was finished. ‘You do not believe that it was in order to visit her mother that she left Knaresborough House that evening?’

‘I am still not sure,’ confessed Dido. ‘A call upon her mother would be of great use to us. At the very least we can discover whether it is true – whether Miss Neville did go there that evening.’

‘Oh well, I daresay I can go to Harley Street tomorrow instead. We shall go to your Mrs Neville today; though I confess, I did not know that helping poor Mr Lansdale must involve so many visits to tedious old women.’

So here they were, in a street of small, unprosperous looking houses and shops; and it seemed that nearly everything that Dido had heard of Mrs Neville’s circumstances was true. She did indeed live in a very small way. The house which she occupied was small and the portion allotted to her use was even smaller, for the house belonged to people in business and Mrs Neville had only two tiny apartments on the drawing room floor.

There was however one circumstance for which Dido was quite unprepared. Flora had told her that Mrs Neville employed no servant; but when they arrived at the house a woman appeared to show them up the stairs – and that woman was none other than Jenny White.

They exchanged very wondering looks as they climbed the narrow stairs; but there was little opportunity for talking.

‘I assure you I have never seen her here before in my life!’ was all that Flora could whisper as they waited on the dark landing to be announced. Then the door was thrown open, Jenny had given them a look which suggested she suspected them quite as much as they suspected her, and they were walking into the parlour.

It was a poor, threadbare, little room; low ceiled, very dark from the smallness of the windows and the extreme narrowness of the street outside, and so very noisy that the pewter candlesticks rattled on the chimney- piece whenever a carriage passed over the cobbles below. But the old lady in her chair was straight-backed and bright-eyed under her white cap. She was smaller than her daughter, with more regular features. She certainly had an air of more intelligence. She was knitting; but she set down her pins and threw a look of some keenness at them – and at her servant – as they were shown into the room.

She expressed gratitude for their visit and fell easily into conversation. The first subject, after being seated, was her work.

‘Well, my dears, you find me very busy,’ said she. ‘I have not the eyesight for the fine work that I used to do. Which is not at all to be wondered at, at my age, is it? But I have lately learnt to knit and I find it suits me very well. And I can make all manner of little things that are of use to myself and to the poor people hereabouts.’

Her voice was as calm and rational as her appearance, and Dido was surprised. She had expected the confusion which the daughter had spoken of to be more apparent. They talked a little more of how she passed her days. And everything she said, marking as it did either her gentility, her sense, or her gentleness, was adding to Dido’s surprise.

‘I daresay you miss the society of your daughter a great deal,’ she asked at the first opportunity.

‘Well, yes, I daresay I do, my dear,’ was the quiet reply. ‘But I was very glad for her to go to the Lansdales, you know. She has had so little opportunity for change and variety.’

‘Of course. And no doubt she has been able to visit you tolerably often?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Neville, ‘Clara is very good. She comes to me without fail every week – on a Tuesday evening.’ Quite suddenly she dropped her voice to such a whisper as they could barely hear. ‘I rather fancy…’ she said, setting aside her knitting and leaning very close, ‘…I rather fancy that she conditioned with Mrs Lansdale for coming on Tuesdays from the very beginning.’

Dido wondered at this sudden bid for secrecy; but then she followed the direction which Mrs Neville’s eyes had taken and saw Jenny White, not gone away to the kitchen as she had supposed, but standing still beside the door, her stout, red, laundress’s arms folded across her breast. ‘Jenny,’ whispered Mrs Neville, ‘takes her evening off on Tuesday, you see, and Clara does not like me to be left alone.’

‘Oh!’ Dido looked from the eager, elderly face before her, to the broad, red, expressionless one beside the door, which had something of a prison warder’s watchfulness.‘That is very thoughtful of her, I am sure.’

Mrs Neville pursed her lips, picked up her knitting and studied it for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, still speaking in a whisper. ‘Yes, Clara fears that if I am left, I may go out on my own and there will be trouble. That is why she insisted that Jenny should come here while she is at the Lansdales. Either she or Jenny must be with me all the time.’

‘I see.’ Dido was whispering now too. ‘I am sure it is very kind of your daughter to take such great care of you.’

‘Well, yes.’ She sighed. ‘But you know sometimes it is very hard. It is a very dull life. Sometimes I quite long to walk out as I used to do. I do so love to walk out – and take a little look at the shops, perhaps.’

‘Of course…’

‘And I am quite sure,’ she ran on in an eager whisper, ‘that I could accomplish it safely – if I only had a companion to go with me. I say often to Clara “I do not doubt one of my neighbours when they come to call, would be so kind as to lend me their arm and walk with me as far as the green, or to Mrs Clark’s shop. I am quite sure one of my visitors would oblige me…”’ And she looked very significantly from Flora to Dido.

‘Well…’ began Dido uncertainly. But there was a loud cough behind her and she turned to see that Jenny had