A Woman of Consequence

– had been keenly anticipated, looked forward to with such dread and such pleasure as could not but lead to a kind of disappointment. It had passed, as such meetings frequently do, quite unremarkably. He had been pleased to see her – he had said it, and he had certainly looked it; but he was too well-bred to give any hint of what had passed between them. For which she was, of course, grateful … but …

She frowned at the cravat as she began to sew its hem. She could not explain why she should feel so very restless this morning.

She had, as yet, had little opportunity for private conversation with the visitor. The talk at dinner yesterday had been only a general telling over of news. But that news had necessarily included the recent events at Madderstone. And later, when Margaret and Francis were busy at backgammon, Mr Lomax had taken the opportunity of coming to Dido and saying very quietly – with just that lifting of his brows as appeared in their imagined conversations – ‘And what is your opinion of the ghost in the ruins, Miss Kent?’

‘Oh,’ she replied in some confusion, ‘I do not have an opinion, for I do not believe in ghosts.’

‘No, I would not have expected it of you.’ He steepled his fingers together, rested his chin upon them and regarded her with mock gravity. ‘But I would have thought your very disbelief would give you a strong interest in the business. For if there is no ghost, then there is a mystery, is there not?’

‘Is there?’ she said, smiling as innocently as she knew how. ‘I assure you I had not thought about it.’

‘Indeed?’ he said disbelievingly.

Dido had turned away her face and rather wondered at herself. Why should she attempt to hide her curiosity from him now? What did it matter if he thought ill of her? Could it be that, although she was determined not to marry him, she wanted him still to wish for it?

That, she told herself severely, was very selfish indeed.

Meanwhile he was considering – and the result of his consideration was: ‘Well, well, I suppose someone had got into the gallery. A servant perhaps. A figure appearing suddenly in the shadows might well frighten the poor young lady.’

‘Oh no!’ cried Dido immediately. ‘That is not possible. There is no door, you see, and no other stairway – and there is only a ten-foot drop at the end, guarded by a wall this high.’ She leant forward eagerly and held up her hand to indicate the size of the wall.

He began to laugh.

She froze for a moment with her hand still extended. She dropped her hand. ‘I assure you,’ she said demurely, ‘there was no one in the gallery that morning besides ourselves. But I do not see why you should be amused by it.’

‘I am not,’ he said. ‘I am only amused to find that a woman who has not even thought about the matter should be able to give such very exact information.’

As she sat at her sewing in the orchard remembering this conversation, Dido could not quite determine whether she should regret, or rejoice in it. She upbraided herself for having betrayed herself. And yet there had been a kind of pleasure in the discussion – he had not seemed so very disgusted by her interest in the ghost …

A heavy footstep and, ‘Ah Miss Kent! I hope I do not intrude too grossly upon your domestic labours!’ roused her abruptly from her thoughts. Much to her surprise, Mr Portinscale was picking his way delicately through the long grass of the orchard.

‘Not at all, sir,’ she replied putting the cravat back into its basket and closing the lid. ‘I am very happy to suspend domestic duties for the pleasures of society.’ (For some reason, she found Mr Portinscale’s ponderous manner rather infectious.)

He stepped into the moss hut and looked rather warily at a particularly fine spider which was resting in a web of its own making only inches above her head.

‘I was in hopes of a private conference with you,’ he said.

She obligingly lifted her basket from the bench to make room for him. But, remembering their last ‘private conference’, she could not help asking, ‘Have I been so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure again, Mr Portinscale?’

He looked uncomfortable, attempted a laugh, took a handkerchief from his pocket and made a great to-do about dusting a few fragments of moss and dead leaves from the seat before settling himself and smiling in a way which, to Dido’s mind, could only be described as conciliatory.

‘Ah! No, no, not at all. Not at all!’ he assured her. ‘On the contrary.’ He attempted another laugh which sounded more like a snort. ‘On the contrary. I was, in fact, rather hoping to consult with you, Miss Kent.’

Dido raised her brows in surprise.

‘That is, I am come upon business to visit your brother. But, finding I must wait for him … I hoped that I might – as I said – consult.’

‘Yes?’

‘About dear Mrs Harman-Foote.’

‘Oh?’

‘I do hope,’ he said, folding his narrow features into an expression of mournful concern, ‘I do sincerely hope that she is not so very distraught as she was – I mean, of course, in relation to the dreadful demise of her governess.’

Dido stole a glance at his face: it was red, shiny and exceedingly anxious. Was he relenting? Might he consent to a removal of the grave? ‘I do not think,’ she said carefully, ‘that it is the loss of her friend which hurts the lady so badly as the nature of Mr Wishart’s verdict – and its consequences. The death she has been long resigned to; but the disposal of the corpse is a fresh – and unexpected – blow.’

She looked steadily at him. He was sitting uncomfortably on the very edge of the bench, his ankles crossed, his thin, delicate hands clasped upon his knees. His eyes were resolutely turned from her, fixed in a study of the buttons on his gaiters.

‘Mrs Harman-Foote,’ she continued, ‘is very certain that Miss Fenn’s principles and character would have prevented her taking her own life.’ Still he would not look at her. She longed to know the emotions which kept him silent. Was there still tenderness in his memory of the dead woman? Or lingering resentment for her refusal of him? Was there perhaps even guilt?

‘And everything I have heard,’ Dido concluded, ‘would seem to support Mrs Harman-Foote’s view that self- murder was … unlikely. Miss Fenn was, by all accounts, a very religious woman.’

The colour deepened on the clergyman’s face and he looked up at last, scowling stubbornly. ‘I am very well aware of how the young woman appeared to her neighbours,’ he said with considerable force. ‘But appearances can deceive, Miss Kent. The Lord God looks not upon appearances but upon the secrets of our hearts.’

‘Yes, I am sure He does,’ said Dido – but she was more concerned to know whether, in this case, the Reverend Mr Portinscale had looked upon the secrets of the heart. Was he suggesting that he knew something to Miss Fenn’s disadvantage?

Meanwhile the clergyman appeared to be considering. At last he raised his eyes to hers with a look of determination. ‘Miss Kent, I have been at a loss to know what I should do – what it is right for me to do – in the face of your extraordinary determination to continue upon your enquiries, in spite of the very strong advice you have been given to desist. I am afraid that you leave me with no alternative but to be a great deal more explicit upon this subject than one would wish to be with a gently reared lady.’

‘Oh!’ A gently reared lady ought, of course, to disclaim immediately – to prevent him from continuing. Dido did not; she waited instead – with considerable eagerness – for him to be explicit …

He sighed, deeply and with great disapproval. ‘The woman you are interesting yourself about,’ he said stiffly, ‘was not at all what she appeared to be – she was not what she ought to be. Her religious principles were a pretence. She was, I fear, capable of anything – even of destroying the life which the Good Lord had seen fit to bestow upon her.’

‘Oh?’ Dido waited for more, but he appeared to have finished speaking. ‘Oh, but I cannot believe it!’ she cried provokingly, watching his face for a response. ‘The world could not be so deceived! There is no proof of her wickedness.’

‘There is indeed proof! There is the proof of her own words!’ he stopped, aware that she had driven him too