… Well, Eliza, be warned by this simple little tale: great ladies of Mrs Harman-Foote’s stamp are no less dictatorial for having tears in their eyes! Grief does not make such a woman any less determined upon getting her own way.
I am fairly caught!
Though I confess that I am not entirely sorry to be caught. The question of Miss Fenn’s death intrigues me. Mrs Harman-Foote seems so very sure that her principles would have prevented her from ending her own life. And I should be very glad indeed to help exonerate her if I can – an unconsecrated grave is a terrible thing.
I am to dine at Madderstone on Monday – rather to the surprise of Margaret. At first she was inclined to be offended by an invitation which does not include herself or Francis, but now she has very wisely decided to be delighted, and says again and again how perfectly charming it is that Mrs Harman-Foote should show attention to her family.
So the invitation does not, at least, disturb the peace of the household. Whether it will produce anything of interest remains to be proved. I am to be shown the governess’s room and also her ring. And I should very much like to look for myself at the place in which the remains were found …
Dido was forced to break off. There had been, all through the last few lines, a voice of protest attempting to make itself heard: a voice which was none the less insistent for being entirely imaginary.
‘My dear Miss Kent!’ it was saying. ‘Is it wise to interest yourself in such a very … unpleasant business?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Perhaps it is not exactly wise, Mr Lomax,’ she replied in a whisper, ‘but it is certainly humane. Poor Mrs Harman-Foote is so very distressed.’
‘And, tell me honestly, is her distress the real motive here? Do you not seek rather to satisfy your own curiosity?’
Dido coloured. His knowing tone – even in imagination – made her uncomfortable. ‘Curiosity may play a part,’ she consented reluctantly. ‘It certainly qualifies me for the task. But I cannot allow it to lessen the force of the poor lady’s distress.’
She was rather pleased with this argument. Mr Lomax was forced to attack on different ground.
‘And are you sure that investigation is the best way to comfort your friend?’
She faltered. ‘I hardly know …’
‘Consider the consequences. Once questions begin to be asked, all manner of secrets may be revealed – things which are much better left in obscurity.’
‘It is true …’ she began thoughtfully. But just then the wind caught in the eaves outside her window, producing a loud, desolate howl. She opened her eyes upon the cold attic room: the bare floorboards, the clothes hung upon pegs on the wall – the sleeve of a morning gown stirring slightly in a draught of air from the window. An apron cast aside upon the foot of the bed, and a large basket of interminable sewing beside it, reminded her of the pleasant diversions which awaited her on the morrow.
‘No, Mr Lomax,’ she said as she reached for her pen, ‘I see no reason why I should suffer the inconvenience of your opinions when I have not even the pleasure of your society.’
She turned her attention back to her letter with great determination.
The difficulty lies, Eliza, in proving for certain that a woman did not commit such an act. For it would be necessary to look into her mind, would it not?
It is not, of course, difficult to believe Miss Fenn might have been affected by melancholy – and even despair. The extreme loneliness of the governess’s life: the humiliation of an intelligent, feeling woman reduced to a situation of dependence upon people of inferior understanding is universally acknowledged.
Dido paused a moment and frowned a little uncomfortably at her own words before continuing.
But a great deal must depend upon her character. Exactly what kind of woman was Elinor Fenn?
Anne Harman-Foote’s affection for her governess – and her extreme youth at the time of the death – mean that her testimony upon this subject cannot be entirely relied upon.
Indeed, I confess that at first I had the gravest doubts as to the accuracy of her memories. We have often remarked upon the strange contradictions in her character, have we not? That a woman who sets herself up for clear-sightedness should be so deceived in the nature of her own children – so weak and blind to the faults in their behaviour – has always been a matter of amazement to me. And I could not help but wonder whether she might have been similarly taken in by Miss Fenn.
So I have been asking a few questions among people who remember the governess – at least, I have hardly needed to ask, but only to listen, for, just at the moment, the good folk of Badleigh and Madderstone need no prompting to talk upon this interesting subject.
And the general opinion seems to be that she was neither pretty, nor beautiful, but very handsome. Handsome, I always feel, says a great deal. A woman may be pretty and silly, beautiful and bad. But handsome is a different matter. ‘Handsome’ generally approves the character as much as the features.
And Elinor Fenn was, undoubtedly, ‘handsome’. In the haberdasher’s and in the milliner’s and also in the post office, there is but one opinion: Miss Fenn was a very handsome woman.
Another point of interest is that there is hardly a woman who knew her who had not planned a match for her. Rebecca is of the opinion that her employer, old Mr Harman himself, should have married her. And this remarkable school of thought has other adherents in the village, though mostly among the poorer sort. Mrs Philips, the abbey’s housekeeper, seems to have been content to settle Miss Fenn in Mr Portinscale’s modest, but comfortable, parsonage house – and most gossiping ladies were in agreement with her. Though there were some who recognised the utility of an experienced governess in a family with two daughters and would have had the late Mr Crockford make the proposal – if only he had not been so inconveniently devoted to the memory of his dead wife.
It is by no means usual for a neighbourhood to marry off its governesses to every prosperous bachelor and widower within reach. So I cannot help but conclude from all this that Miss Fenn was a very superior woman – or, at least, a very superior governess.
For the rest I can only discover that she was quiet, religious and came from ‘somewhere in Shropshire’. Nothing more definite is ever hazarded than ‘somewhere in Shropshire’. She was, by all accounts, an orphan with no living family.
This picture of her character – the high regard in which she was held by her neighbours and, above all, her religious principles – certainly argues most strongly against self-murder. It would, I think, have required something quite remarkable to overcome such a mind and drive it to despair.
I do not know that anything more may be gathered. But tomorrow I shall see what I may discover at Madderstone.
And in the meantime, Eliza, I have been considering again the facts which came out at the inquest. I should certainly like to know more about the journal which Mr Paynter’s uncle wrote. But, above all, I am deeply interested in those coins which were found with the bones. It seems to me very unlikely that a woman setting out from her home intent upon self-destruction should take the trouble of furnishing herself with money …
The parish church of St James at Madderstone had been built in Norman times, and was older even than the great Cistercian abbey which had once been its close neighbour. It was a rather humble little building of low rounded arches, crouching amid its yews and gravestones, embellished only by a short, half-timbered tower. On this particular morning, when Dido stopped there on her way to her dinner engagement, the yews were dripping from a recent shower. A shaft of sunlight was just breaking through the clouds and sparkling on the drops which hung under the arch of the lychgate.
She scarcely knew why she had come. But, passing by the gate, her mind full of recent events, she had felt compelled to turn aside and visit the grave of the unfortunate Miss Fenn.
She followed the path which led among the mounded graves of the poor and the stone-boxed tombs of the gentry, but turned aside from the porch, skirted the blunt west end of the church and came into the sunless northern corner of the graveyard, where the air struck cold against her face and the path was green and greasy with lichen.
