Dido thanked her and turned back along the cinder path wondering who the ‘young gentleman’, can have been. And why had he been asking questions?
And where had she heard the name of Nolan before?
She was almost back to Great Farleigh when the answer to this last question occurred – and the memory brought her to a standstill in the lane between the hawthorn hedges and the cottage gardens, her eyes staring, her hands pressed to her mouth.
Mrs Nolan was the keeper of a school in Bath. She was, in fact, Penelope’s guardian …
Chapter Twenty-Four
…And so you see, Eliza, my two mysteries, Penelope’s accident and the skeleton in the pool, are now joined together!
I knew all along that they must somehow be connected!
But the discovery has thrown all my ideas into a great muddle and, if you are not so indulgent as to allow me to share my perplexities with you, I believe I shall run mad!
You see, I have made the necessary calculations and – unless my arithmetic deceives me – it can certainly be made to fit. I mean it is possible that Penelope is Miss Fenn’s child. There was gratification in this discovery for a mind such as mine which delights in patterns and connections and the complete absence of coincidences.
But I soon began to see that there is little cause for rejoicing.
For, supposing Penelope is indeed Miss Fenn’s daughter – what kind of sense does this make of recent events? What force has brought her back to the very place at which her mother met her death – and at the very time at which that death is discovered? And what am I – as a determinedly rational woman – to make of the ghost which Penelope saw? Was it somehow conjured into being by the discovery – or rather the proximity – of her mother’s remains?
Now, you see, I am got into a morass of coincidence and supernatural happenings which does not suit me at all!
But I intend to confine myself entirely to reason. I shall not allow my fancy to get the better of me. The only sensible course of action is to make some quiet enquiries into Miss Lambe’s background with a view to determining whether she is indeed the child that Miss Fenn placed in Mrs Pinker’s care.
You would laugh if you could see me just now, Eliza, for I am writing this from the kitchen. My writing desk stands upon the table here between the knife box and a great dish of curds, and I am in perpetual danger of mistaking the salt pot for my sand shaker. Rebecca is abed, suffering from a sudden and rather surprising attack of the asthma, and her assistant is gone out upon errands. So I am deputed to keep the spit wound up and to watch over the rising of the bread. I only hope I may acquit myself well. At least I have a warm and quiet place in which to think.
And my thoughts are rioting!
I have spent a great deal of time wondering about the mysterious ‘young gentleman’ who lately visited Mrs Pinker. I do wish that I had had an opportunity to ask the maid about his looks. For I am sure his identity is of the utmost importance.
Who is he? Why is he making the same enquiries that I am making? And is he the person who has stolen the letters and the ring? His being described as a young man, makes it almost impossible he can be Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’.
Maybe he is Captain Laurence. The captain might, I suppose, be considered young – at least by a woman as elderly as Mrs Pinker’s maid – and I cannot escape the idea that he is deeply involved in this business …
I have just had a little interval in which I wound up the spit and removed the cat from the curds. And, while I was about it, I began to consider Mr Coulson.
Perhaps Mr Coulson is the mysterious inquirer. I know he is a visitor to Great Farleigh. And I keep remembering his words to me on the gallery: his implied contempt for Mr Paynter. Why should he wish the surgeon’s testimony to be distrusted? Is he, also, attempting to prove that Miss Fenn was murdered? Is that why he would discredit the surgeon? For, after all, it is largely upon Mr Paynter’s evidence that the inquest verdict rests.
Yesterday, I fell in with Mr Paynter himself – I found him here in the kitchen consulting with Rebecca – and I took the opportunity of enquiring whether he is at all acquainted with Mr Coulson. He considered the question carefully as he always does and replied that he was ‘only very slightly acquainted with the young gentleman’. But there was certainly that in his manner which hinted at disapproval: a suggestion that he would not wish the degree of acquaintance to be any greater. So I rather suspect that Mr Coulson’s criticisms have been general and sustained enough to reach his ears.
But I cannot think of a reason why Mr Coulson should interest himself in the business of Miss Fenn’s death, any more than I can imagine what he might have been conveying in his malodorous box.
No, I cannot make it out at all.
But at least I can now see my way forward. I must make enquiries into Penelope’s history. It cannot be impossible to find out just who she is. After all, someone maintains her at Mrs Nolan’s school. The great object must be to discover who it is that pays her allowance.
* * *
Dido soon began upon her enquires into Penelope’s birth, but it would seem that there was not a great deal to know upon the subject.
Lucy Crockford, though assuring Dido that she knew everything about dear Pen, that they were like sisters and would not for the world keep secrets from one another, could only say that Penelope had been at Mrs Nolan’s school since she was five years old; that she had been raised to the status of parlour boarder several years ago; and that she was certainly the natural daughter of somebody. Although Lucy, being such an extraordinarily sensitive and generous woman, had never found the circumstances of birth a barrier to friendship. She was much too tender-hearted to blame the child for the faults of the parents …
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Dido. ‘But how did you become acquainted with Miss Lambe? Have you known her long?’
‘Oh! No, I would not say I have known her long. But I have often observed that time alone does not determine intimacy. It is rather a matter of disposition, you know. And Pen and I are so remarkably well suited that I believe we were intimate within seven days. And she is so very happy to be with us you know, and I am sure …’
‘But, in point of fact, when did you meet her?’
‘About six weeks ago – when Harriet and I were last in Bath. Captain Laurence introduced us.’
‘Did he indeed?’ said Dido with great interest. And, as she spoke, she was able to glance across the room at the gentleman in question, for the conversation was taking place in the drawing room of Madderstone Abbey, where a large party was collected for the evening.
Just now, the captain was standing with his back to a roaring fire telling a story which involved a great deal of energy and expression, ‘alarms’, ‘overwhelming odds’, and ‘French privateers’. Margaret, Silas and Harriet sat before him listening attentively and Lucy was wanting to join them. She began to rise from her seat, but Dido placed a delaying hand upon her arm. She could not allow the opportunity for conversation to pass. Soon the whist table at which Mr and Mrs Harman-Foote, Francis and Mr Lomax were all engaged, would be breaking up – the company dispersing …
‘And how did Captain Laurence become acquainted with Miss Lambe?’ she asked.
‘I do not know,’ said Lucy carelessly, ‘I have never asked.’
Dido sighed. Sometimes she found the lack of curiosity in others very hard to forgive.
‘But,’ continued Lucy in a thrilled whisper, ‘he was quite determined that we should become friends, you know. For he said that he esteemed us all so much he must have us love one another!’
