truth about how your emeralds came to be in his drawing room.’
‘No,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I could not.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to make up her mind: to determine to know the worst. ‘Miss Kent,’ she said firmly. ‘How much do you know? How much do you know about me – about my life before I was married?’
Dido did not answer for several minutes. She rested her warm cheek against the cool stone of the old window embrasure and gazed into the darkening herb garden where the dark shapes of bats were beginning to skitter out from under the eaves of the roof. The harp had ceased and, after a moment or two, it was replaced by the notes of the pianoforte.
‘I know,’ Dido began cautiously, ‘that you were Miss Henderson before you were married.’ She kept her eyes upon the garden, not turning to look at her companion. ‘And I know that your…family occupied Knaresborough House for several months, without the permission – or knowledge – of the agents responsible for its letting.’
‘I see. And do you know why…I mean, do you know what our purpose was in occupying that house?’
Dido leant out into the dusk and took a long breath, as if intent upon enjoying the scents of mint and thyme. ‘Such a house,’ she said carefully, ‘such a very respectable, solid house, would make a very advantageous setting for three beautiful, unmarried girls. It would do a great deal to disguise their poverty – and desperation.’ She stopped and turned her eyes slowly upon the woman beside her. For a moment neither of them spoke. But the memory of her guilt coloured Maria’s cheeks. Far away in the drawing room the sweet voices of glee singers were joined to the music of the pianoforte. ‘For you, Lady Carrisbrook, I believe the undertaking answered rather well. Sir Joshua’s visits to that house ended in him making you an offer of marriage.’
‘Yes, they did.’
‘But,’ said Dido with a smile, ‘there was something rather strange about that offer. By my reckoning, it cannot have been made until after the Lansdale’s came to Knaresborough House. For when, at Flora’s picnic, Sir Joshua told us – so happily – of his engagement, he spoke of it as having just been formed – within the last week. But by then, of course, Mrs Lansdale and her nephew had been resident at Knaresborough for a month.’
Maria smiled briefly. ‘He had,’ she said, ‘very nearly come to the point when we were obliged to leave the house. I was sure – absolutely sure – that one more visit would settle the matter.’
‘And so you decided that for one evening, your household must be reformed? Sir Joshua must be deceived into paying one more call upon the charming Miss Henderson – deceived into entering another man’s home without his knowledge.’
‘But how do you know this?’ cried Maria. ‘How can you possibly know so much. We were so very careful.’
‘I am sure you were, Lady Carrisbrook. But I have a strange habit of noticing small things which when added together… Well, you see what is achieved when they are added together.’
‘But what kind of small things did you notice?’
‘Oh, things like the music that you had left behind on the pianoforte. Your handwriting, you know is singular – particularly your Ss and Ws. I recognised the hand immediately when I saw the note which you had sent to my cousin.’
Maria’s eyes widened.
‘And I noticed that Sir Joshua wears hair powder – like the man who was entertained in Mr Lansdale’s drawing room that evening.’ She hesitated: dissatisfied with herself. ‘I was rather foolish about that,’ she admitted. ‘I had not paid enough attention to Sir Joshua’s hair. After all, one rather expects a man of his age to have greying hair. It was not until his hair powder was washed away in the thunderstorm that I realised the natural colour of his hair is black.’
Maria shook her head wonderingly. ‘And was there anything else?’ she said.
‘Well, there was your anxiety to keep Mr Lansdale away from Brooke. It must have been a great worry to you to discover that he was acquainted with your husband. For of course you did not wish Sir Joshua to discover that his friend occupied the very house he had visited. And then of course,’ she continued, ‘there was the beggar.’
‘The beggar?’ cried Maria, ‘Do you even know about the beggar, Miss Kent?’
‘Oh yes! He stood by the gate all evening – I imagine that he was paid to do so. To be exact – for I consulted with Miss Prentice most particularly over this – he stood upon the left hand side of the gate. With him standing just there, of course, it would be impossible for anyone arriving at the house to read the name-plate which young Sam fixed there a few weeks ago. It would not have done to have Sir Joshua knowing the name of the house at which he was being entertained!’
Maria was beginning to look fearfully at Dido. ‘It seems,’ she said anxiously, ‘impossible to keep a secret from you, Miss Kent.’
Dido looked down and said nothing. Maria reached out a shaking hand and laid it upon her arm. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I am quite at your mercy. I beg you will say nothing of this to Sir Joshua. He does not know the truth about that evening. He must never know. He would be so angry, so very, very angry if he knew that he had himself been exposed to discovery and embarrassment. You will not tell, will you?’
Dido looked from the clutching hand to the lovely, anxious face and hesitated. Should she make such a promise? Could it be right to conceal self-interest and shameless deception?
‘It was – if I might say so, My Lady – a very bold, indeed a desperate plan. A great many things might have gone wrong.’
‘But my dear Miss Kent, you must consider how much I had to gain from the scheme – how very much I had to lose by never seeing Sir Joshua again!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dido quietly. ‘I had not realised that you were so excessively attached to your husband.’
Maria blushed and lowered her eyes.
‘Ah! I see that is was this that you feared to lose.’ Dido made a scornful gesture which encompassed not only the pleasant house in which they sat, but also the estate around it – and all Sir Joshua’s possessions beyond. ‘It was wealth and consequence that you were prepared to risk all for – not the man himself.’
‘No!’ Maria jumped up from her seat. ‘No, you are wrong, Miss Kent. It was for an establishment that I took that risk: for security and an end to poverty and friendlessness. You may think my actions reprehensible, but I have not yet grown so used to comfort and prosperity as to condemn my own behaviour. And, no matter what my past has been, no matter what I may have been guilty of in getting a husband, I would defy even you to discover any fault in my behaviour as a wife. Sir Joshua will never, never have any cause to regret his choice.’
Dido shook her head helplessly: moved in spite of herself. ‘Lady Carrisbrook,’ she said, ‘you do not know what you are asking when you wish me to be silent on this matter. For the truth is that the charade you enacted that night was the cause – the partial cause – of Mrs Lansdale’s death. And in just two days time her nephew must answer for that death before the court. What am I to do? Am I to stand by and see him hanged for a killing of which he is no more guilty than you and your friends?’
Maria turned pale. She sat down beside Dido again. ‘You are mistaken,’ she said earnestly. ‘Completely mistaken. We played no part in that lady’s death – I swear to you that we did not.’
‘Did you not?’ said Dido looking steadily into the beautiful hazel eyes. ‘Tell me, My Lady, how could you be certain that she would sleep through the whole of the evening?’
She looked away, traced out the shape of one of the little leaded panes of the window with her finger. ‘We gave her a little of the laudanum mixture she was in the habit of using,’ she said quietly. ‘It was put into her chocolate while it was in the kitchen. But I promise you – upon my life, I swear – that it was only a few drops. Enough to make her sleep a few hours: no more. It cannot, it certainly cannot have brought about her death.’
‘It was poor Mrs Lansdale’s misfortune,’ said Dido with a sigh, ‘to be very much in the way that evening. She seems to have been an inconvenience to everyone around her. Everyone wished her to sleep!’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Would it be brought more within your comprehension if I were to tell you that I have spoken to two other people who also put a sleeping draught into that very same jug of chocolate?’
Maria’s hand went to her lips and Dido watched dawn upon her face an understanding of shared guilt such as she had seen in Mr Lansdale and Miss Neville. For several minutes she was too aghast to speak. Then she said, in a trembling voice, ‘Do you mean to expose me?’
Dido would dearly have loved to protest against the question – to abdicate such a heavy responsibility. But it could not be done. She may have entered too lightly upon this business of investigation; but she recognised that it
