She snatched it up and had just time to see that it was a letter directed to
The temptation was too great; it was decided in the instant. The door opened. Mrs Harman-Foote walked into the room. Dido was laying the bible back in its place beside the bed – and the letter was hidden away in her pocket.
Dido was not in the habit of thinking of herself as a bad woman. While acknowledging her many faults, she had always believed the balance to be, overall, in favour of virtue. But she found that now, facing her friend with Miss Fenn’s letter concealed in her pocket and reminding her of its presence with a little rustling every time she moved, she could not be quite so comfortable with herself as usual. It had been theft – a kind of theft. She ought to tell Anne about it. She ought not to read it …
‘Why, Dido, I believe you
‘Oh, I am quite well, thank you.’
‘Well, I am glad of it,’ cried Mrs Harman-Foote immediately. She sat down on the window seat and clasped her hands anxiously in her lap. ‘I must talk with you. I have had a dreadful shock!’
‘A shock?’ Dido sat down beside her and watched emotion working in every feature of her face. ‘Whatever has happened?’
‘The ring! It is gone!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My dear Miss Fenn’s ring. It is gone from my jewel case.’
‘But it cannot … Are you sure?’
‘Oh yes. I have searched the whole room. It is gone. It was certainly there yesterday. But just now I went up to my bedchamber to change my wet clothes – and I found that the ring is gone.’ She drew a long breath. ‘I am this minute going to my housekeeper. I shall insist that the house is searched.’
Dido smiled. For all the pretence of talking the matter over, it was clear that Anne had already determined upon her exact course of action. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You are quite right, of course. It is very important that we find it – and even more important that we find
‘There were a dozen beside it in the jewel case which were of much greater value – and they were left untouched.’ Anne stood up, very eager to begin the search, for commanding activity was a great deal more to her taste than contemplation.
But Dido was still puzzling over the matter. ‘Who would have had the opportunity to take the ring?’ she asked.
‘No one except the housemaids. There is my own maid, Jones, but she is above suspicion. She has been with me for more than ten years.’
‘And you can think of no one else? What of … visitors to the house.’
‘Visitors!’ cried Anne. ‘I could never suspect my visitors of such a thing!’ And then, having paid this necessary tribute to good breeding, she considered the matter carefully. ‘It cannot have been a visitor,’ she said at last. ‘A visitor could certainly not wander away to the bedchambers without my being aware of it. No one but a servant could have gone to my room.’
This disappearance of the ring was intriguing, but there was nothing to be gained from staying to watch it searched for. It was, Dido knew, a matter with which Anne Harman-Foote could be safely entrusted. And the letter in her pocket was continually demanding her attention. So she left the house just as soon as the rain held off – and when the search was at its height, with Anne confidently issuing commands from the hall, like a general directing a battle.
She hurried through the gardens and into the park, busily calculating whether she must walk the full two miles to Badleigh before looking at the letter – or whether the path afforded some secluded place in which to satisfy her curiosity. She still could not quite explain to herself why she had decided so quickly to conceal her discovery in the bedroom, nor why she had continued to say nothing of it all the time she remained in the house. Perhaps it was because she was half-afraid of the contents: afraid that they would reveal something which Anne Harman-Foote would not wish to know … Something which might make her call a halt to the enquiries …
But the removal of all the other letters pointed to the significance of Miss Fenn’s correspondence … And this one letter, which had by good fortune escaped the attention of the intruder, seemed by its privileged position in the bible to be more important even than the others …
In short, the only thing she was sure of was that she could not bear to remain any longer in ignorance of its contents. And when she had left the open parkland and the church, and had followed the path into a small wood, she decided that its great oaks and hazel thickets provided secrecy enough, and a fallen log a sufficient resting place. She sat down and there, amidst the drifts of curled, bronze leaves, with the busy sound of a small stream filling the stillness, she drew the letter from her pocket.
It was rather thick – there seemed to be two sheets of paper. The direction was written in a strong, slanting hand … a man’s writing perhaps? And there was no mark of a post office on it. It had certainly been delivered by hand – which argued for its having come from no great distance. She turned it over: the broken seal was of red wax, and did not bear the imprint of any device.
She opened it and found that it was not, in fact, a single letter of two sheets, but rather one letter enclosed within another. Her interest quickened.
She smoothed the outer sheet and read, in the same firm hand as the direction:
There was no signature.
She quickly picked up the inner letter, but was instantly disappointed. It bore no direction – nothing to show to whom it had been sent. She unfolded it and found, written in the same small, neat hand which she had seen in the bible:
