A Woman of Consequence

is much better suited to a sickroom.’

‘I do not doubt she is.’

Lucy pressed Dido’s arm and sunk her voice almost to a whisper. ‘In point of fact, it is Harriet I wish to talk to you about.’

‘Oh?’

The pressure of Lucy’s fingers increased. ‘Dido,’ she whispered urgently, ‘you must speak to Harriet on my behalf!’

‘Must I? On what subject must I speak?’

Lucy cast her eyes down modestly. ‘Captain Laurence,’ she whispered.

‘Oh!’

‘You must tell her,’ Lucy said eagerly, ‘that she should not attempt to separate …’ She stopped speaking, looked conscious, tossed her head. ‘She seems determined to part us. And I declare it will break my heart …’ She stopped again, and gave Dido’s arm another squeeze. ‘I am sure you understand.’

But Dido was quite determined not to understand so easily. ‘Has the captain made you an offer?’ she asked.

‘Well …’

‘Has he?’ Dido was so eager to know – for Silas’s sake – whether Captain Laurence was, indeed, an engaged man that she momentarily forgot the risk of capture to herself. She drew Lucy to a halt outside the open front of the village forge – where the light of the blacksmith’s fire shone out into the dull morning, and the smells of hot iron and coal mixed with the damp air. ‘Is there an understanding between you and the captain?’ she asked firmly.

Lucy bent her head. ‘Nothing has quite been said,’ she admitted. ‘There has been no outright proposal. For you know it would not be proper to announce an engagement whilst my poor friend is lying sick. I could not bear to do anything so indelicate myself, and the dear captain is so very considerate …’

‘Is he?’ said Dido suddenly, half to herself. The description did not quite chime with her own opinion of the man – and yet, for some reason, it had raised again the troubling memory of that moment when she and Laurence had stood together on the gallery … Why?

But meanwhile Lucy, who had not heard the question, was running on eagerly with her own narrative.

‘Of course he cannot speak until Pen is quite out of danger. But …’ She stopped with such a look of happy consciousness as cried aloud to be prompted.

Dido put aside her doubts about the captain’s character. ‘But?’ she prompted obligingly.

There was a little lifting of the eyes. A sigh of great sensibility. ‘But … I believe I do not say too much if I confess that there is an attachment between us.’

‘I see.’ Dido was rather surprised by this news; she had been almost certain that – if Captain Laurence settled on either of the two friends – it would be the lovely Penelope. She looked doubtingly at Lucy’s unremarkable little face: the ruddy light of the blacksmith’s fire deepened the rather excessive colour on her freckled cheeks and laid a faint red gleam across the lank curls clustering under the pink bonnet. Could a man such as Laurence be charmed by the person or the mind of Lucy Crockford?

Of course, there was money to be considered. But the Ashfield estate, she knew, was entailed upon the male line. It was not a subject ever entered upon by Lucy or Harriet, but it was generally known in the village that there was somewhere a distant relation who could ‘turn them out of the house if anything should happen to their brother’. It was also universally supposed that Lucy and Harriet’s marriage portions were small – a thousand – two was the most that even generous gossip allotted to them.

Two thousand pounds was certainly no great inducement to an ambitious man. And Dido would take an oath that Laurence was ambitious. It was possible that Lucy was deceived – either by her own wishes, or by the gentleman himself …

Meanwhile Lucy was chattering on. ‘Two days ago, on the evening we all dined at the abbey, Captain Laurence and I were in the conservatory alone all the time between dinner and tea. And he was very attentive.’

She smirked and raised her brows in a way which invited her companion to beg for confidences – but Dido was in no mood to oblige her. ‘And you are certain,’ she said briskly, ‘that Harriet would oppose an engagement?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘But why? Why should Harriet wish to prevent your happiness?’

Lucy primmed up her lips. ‘It is not in my nature to be suspicious,’ she said, ‘nor to speak ill of a sister.’

Dido stared a moment, then understanding dawned. ‘You suspect her of … admiring the captain herself?’

Lucy tossed her head. ‘Why do you suppose she has insisted upon staying at Madderstone with Penelope?’ she cried in a sharp, quick accent.

‘Why, she is nursing her!’

‘But why cannot she leave the house? The business of nursing could be safely left in the hands of Nanny and the Madderstone housekeeper. But there is no shifting her from the place! She is determined to remain where he is.’

‘I cannot believe …’ began Dido, but just at that moment, Margaret’s unmistakable green and yellow bonnet emerged from the butcher’s shop. Forgetting everything but her own need for liberty, Dido began to hurry towards the stile, pulling Lucy with her.

‘Please, please say that you will speak to Harriet for me.’

‘I do not know,’ Dido said distractedly … The stile was just a few paces away now. They had reached it. She was climbing the step; but her companion was dragging upon her arm, preventing her from crossing over. ‘Very well! Yes, I shall speak to her.’ She broke away: climbed the stile.

‘Oh thank you! Thank you!’ Lucy clapped her hands together like a child. ‘You will be sure to do it without delay, will you not?’

‘Very well,’ said Dido resignedly. ‘I shall speak to her this morning.’

The trees of the copse at last cut Dido off from the sight of the village street. She stopped among the dripping branches, drew a long, grateful breath of damp leaf-mould and considered this new responsibility which had been laid upon her.

She found she was rather angry at what had just passed. She had more than enough to occupy her at present and she certainly had no wish to be deeply involved in Lucy Crockford’s affairs. She was determined to fulfil her promise of ‘speaking to Harriet’ as briefly as possible.

She gave no credit at all to Lucy’s notion of Harriet being in love with Captain Laurence – she had seen no symptoms of it … Although there was no denying that Harriet had seemed determined to fix herself at the abbey, and she did appear to be opposed to a match between her sister and the captain. Dido had observed as much herself.

Now, why should she oppose such a match? Was it possible that she knew something about Captain James Laurence which made her fear for her sister’s happiness?

That was a very interesting thought indeed!

As she began to hurry along the path away from the village, Dido gladly abandoned all thoughts of love affairs for the rather more interesting subject of the Captain’s character. Why did she distrust him so very much herself?

And why, when Lucy spoke of Captain Laurence as considerate, had she suddenly remembered again that moment when she had been with him upon the gallery? – the moment of the bones’ discovery. Why should that moment have come into her mind?

She stopped walking and pressed her hand to her head in a great effort of memory. The trees dripped disconsolately around her. A pigeon broke cover suddenly and whirred up into the sky.

She tried to recall every detail of that moment on the ruined gallery. The dying light, the damp, gloomy stillness of the abbey, the captain’s fingers laid gently on her own hand, his very considerate words: ‘Miss Kent, I think you had better wait here. I shall go to see what it is and return to tell you …’

‘Oh!’ The answer came upon her so suddenly and forcefully she could not help crying out. How stupid she had been! Of course, it was not his consideration which must be suspected, but its