hanging low and sullen, and the grounds deserted, except for two men up on the lawns lopping branches from the fallen trees.
There was a sad, winter smell about the place: smoke and freshly cut wood, mud and bruised grass. When I first descended the steps in the bank and looked down into the pool it seemed unpromising. But there is this to be said for the business of mystery-solving: it can enhance the dullest scene with the thrill of discovery. For here was only an expanse of gently sloping mud, with a sort of large puddle collecting at its centre and its edges dry and cracking, except for the great wet hole – a yard or two from the bank and all trodden round with boot prints – which showed where the remains had been dug out.
And yet, there were two great points of interest. Can you discern them from my description? I charge you not to read on until you have tried to find them out …
Well, did you notice, first of all, that I said there was water collecting in the centre of the pool?
As yet it is no more than an inch or two deep, but it alerted me and, when I looked to the end of the lake, I saw that the dam is repaired. The pool is being refilled! Soon the place in which Miss Fenn lay will be lost once more beneath the water – and all its secrets sunk with it!
Do you not think that this has a very suspicious appearance? Why has the plan to redirect the stream been changed? Does it not seem as though someone is anxious to have the place, and any information it can offer up, concealed? Who, I wonder, has decided it should be done? Was Mr Harman-Foote giving orders to effect it when I passed him and Mr Coulson on my way to dinner yesterday?
All this, Eliza, is puzzling enough, but … I wonder whether you have yet noticed the other strange detail in my description: the fact that the place where the bones were discovered is no more than a yard or two from the bank?
Now, I am sure that this is of the very greatest significance.
For, as Mr Wishart observed, the sides of the pool slope very gradually indeed. And, though I am inclined to agree with him that this renders an accidental falling-in unlikely, I cannot agree that, in this case, a suicide is more probable.
I shall tell you what I did. I took up a stick from the bank: as long and straight a one as I could find. And, putting one end of it against the place where mud ends and grass begins – the place which marks the margin of the old pool and the level of its water – I held it out towards the hole. By this means I was able roughly to calculate the depth of water in which Miss Fenn lay.
It was, I am sure, no more than three feet!
And so you see, even allowing for her sinking six inches or so into the mud of the lake-bottom, she cannot have been beyond her depth in that place. The water would not have reached to her shoulders – unless she was remarkably small of stature. And I have certainly never heard her described so.
I confess that this observation threw me into a very melancholy train of thought.
I stood upon that muddy bank in the gathering gloom, with no company but the ringing of axes echoing back from the house-front, and I imagined coming there in a state of utter despair and loneliness. I imagined walking down into the green, weedy water with the intention of extinguishing life, of ending for ever worry and pain. I declare that I could almost feel the chill of the water rising against my shrinking flesh, the soft silt sucking at my feet as I surrendered up misery, loneliness and humiliation …
You are perhaps wondering, Eliza, why I should distress myself – and you – with such terrible thoughts. But there is a purpose. You see, it is all but impossible to imagine lying down to die in the water. I am sure, that if one had made up one’s mind to self-destruction, and had the determination to carry out the intention, the only way to accomplish it would be to walk on until the water became so deep it was impossible to save oneself. In short, I believe that, while the continuation of life remained possible, the body would insensibly struggle for it, even though the heart and brain were determined upon destruction.
A woman bent upon suicide would have no choice but to walk out into the deep water at the very centre of the lake – and that is where her remains would be found.
Well, this conclusion was as grim as the thoughts which had brought me to it, and you may imagine how I began to shiver in the gathering dusk. For it would seem that I am being forced to agree with Anne Harman-Foote’s opinion and declare, with her, that it is impossible for Elinor Fenn to have taken her own life. And little by little, I am being brought to contemplate the alternative: murder …
Chapter Twelve
Dido woke from an odd dream of despair, loneliness and cold, encroaching water, to find that she had fallen asleep remarkably awkwardly. Her writing desk was still upon the bed and the covers were slipping away from her, leaving her feet exposed and thoroughly chilled.
It was still rather early. The light falling through the little window was thin and grey, and there was no movement from the house below, only the slow heavy sound of Rebecca descending the attic stairs to begin her duties.
She pulled up the covers and attempted to rub some warmth into her frozen feet, but the gloom and wretchedness of the night seemed still to hang about her. Nor was there much comfort to be found in anticipation of a day carrying out Margaret’s orders as the vicarage was prepared for its visitor.
In fact, there was but one way to dispel desponding thoughts: she drew the little writing desk back onto her knees, turned herself about to gain as much light as she might from the window, and resumed her letter:
… I mean to be rather selfish this morning, Eliza. I shall keep to my room until Margaret has gone out upon her early morning errands and then I shall attempt an escape to Madderstone. It is not a course of which I think you will approve, but I am quite determined to pass as much of the morning at the abbey as I am able – for once Mr Lomax is here it may become rather more difficult to pursue the matter of Miss Fenn’s death.
And, while I wait for Margaret to leave the house, I shall attempt to divert your thoughts – and my own – by giving an account of an amusing and very surprising little encounter which followed my discoveries at the pool yesterday.
I was just turning away when I saw that I was not alone. Silas Crockford was walking along the opposite bank, with a very distracted look upon his face and a pencil and a tablet in his hand.
Poor Silas … It is odd, is it not, how often the epithet accompanies his name? But I cannot help it, it is nearly always ‘poor Silas’ with me. Perhaps it is his sickly air; or his sisters’ constant chiding; or his great brown eyes and little pointed chin which always put me in mind of a child. I do not know why it should be, but there is something which never fails to arouse a pitying fondness whenever I see him. And yesterday he appeared more than usually pathetic, for, can you guess what he was about, Eliza?
He was attempting to write a poem.
It is true: little Silas Crockford has turned poet! He told me all about the poem he is writing: it is the tragic story of the Grey Nun’s doomed love and is to be composed ‘in the style of an old-fashioned m … minstrel’. Of course, he begged that I would not mention the matter to Lucy or Harriet. For he was sure there would be ‘a g … great carry-on’ about it if they knew.
I agreed immediately upon secrecy, but I doubt my complicity will result in a work of towering literary merit, for the poor boy did not seem to be going on very well. He showed me his page and was very eager to know whether I could suggest a rhyme for ‘drooped’ or ‘b … bonnet’. ‘W … what do you think, Miss Kent? I should be very g … glad to know your opinion.’
Altogether this did not seem to be a proper way of going about the business of poetry to me. At least, I do not think that Mr Pope ever asked advice, nor can I suppose that dear Mr Crabbe is forever troubling his friends for rhymes. Though, of course, I may be wrong. I know very little about poetic genius … Except that I believe I know what has turned young Silas into a poet.
He is in love, Eliza!
I began to suspect it as soon as he mentioned poetry, for the two generally go together, do they not? But I became sure of it soon after, when he asked in a very anxious voice if I could assure him that Miss Lambe
