discussion here at the vicarage, and Margaret has a great deal to say upon the subject of ‘expense’ and ‘not imposing upon the goodwill of the Crockfords’ and even of ‘there being nothing to be achieved from such a visit at six and thirty’ – by which I suppose she means that I am unlikely to return with a new name on my tickets.
At times I am sorely tempted to disclose my true situation …
And of course I have another reason, besides this enquiry into the science of human nature, for wishing to go to Bath. I am very anxious indeed to find out just who Penelope is. This second haunting must increase the suspicion that she is the daughter of the dead woman.
But, at present, I have no chance of even getting back to the abbey to pursue my enquiries – much less travelling to Bath. For Rebecca is still gasping and sneezing in her bed, young Mary is busy with the marketing, and Margaret has had Francis get horses for the carriage and gone to pay a call upon Mrs Harman- Foote. So I am once more in charge of the bread, the spit, the curds and the cat.
And, by the by, it is to the latter that you must attribute the smudged writing of this letter: it is no fault of mine. Puss has been walking about the table and trying to put herself between me and the page this last quarter of an hour. She is now settled upon my lap and purring a kind of counterpoint to the spit’s ticking.
Monday night’s ‘haunting’ has disturbed me greatly. I want very much to be doing something. But I am neither able to get out of this kitchen, nor am I even certain what it is that I ought to be doing.
Even my scheme to help Silas is not prospering. He declares himself heartbroken at the prospect of Penelope’s going, but I have not yet seen a single line of his poem. Harriet informs me that most of his time is now spent in shooting and lounging about with Mr Coulson – and very angry she is about it too! The effects upon his health are, I believe …
She broke off as a loud knocking sounded on the kitchen door. The cat leapt up with such a look as seemed to suggest the noise was Dido’s fault and stalked away.
She opened the door to find Harris Paynter on the step, a thin mizzling rain silvering his dark coat. He was come, he said, to visit Rebecca.
‘For I hear,’ he said, coming in and shaking moisture from his hat, ‘that she has been sick some days.’
‘She has indeed and I sincerely hope that you can cure her.’ Dido stepped to the fireside and began to turn the key of the spit, for it was all but unwound. ‘We are in a great muddle without her.’
‘Oh dear!’ He shook his hat again, sending drops of water hissing against the range. ‘I am sorry … I did not know.’ He hesitated a moment, looking very disconcerted, then excused himself and hurried away to make the examination.
Dido stood for several minutes upon the hearth rug, staring after him and wondering very much why he should feel it necessary to apologise for the sickness of his patient. It seemed to be yet another conundrum which she could not answer – one of many surrounding her at present.
She had basted the meat and put the bread into the oven when the surgeon reappeared, crossed immediately to the range and threw a handful of something onto the hot coals. ‘I am sure Rebecca will be quite well by tomorrow,’ he said, turning to the door and putting on his hat.
She tried to delay him with a question, but he seemed determined upon going and, pleading another case which urgently required his attendance, hurried off into the rain.
‘How very strange,’ she said as the door closed behind him. ‘Did it seem to you, Puss, that the good surgeon was anxious and guilty about something?’
The cat expressed no opinion upon this subject; she was entirely taken up with watching the sparks which were now flying from the range, her nose twitching delicately at the strong odour accompanying them.
Burning feathers! It was a horribly familiar smell to Dido, for it had been her grandmother’s favoured restorative (in Grandmama’s opinion, the pleasanter scents of lavender and aromatic vinegar only encouraged silly girls to swoon). She crossed to the fire and saw that a bundle of brown hens’ feathers was being rapidly consumed in the heart of the embers.
How very odd. Why was Mr Paynter disposing of feathers? She stared down into the glowing red cave of the fire, her mind moving rapidly as she recalled his plucking of the chicken at Madderstone. And then other ideas began to occur …
Chapter Twenty-Eight
… Feathers, Eliza! Feathers! Have you noticed how very many feathers there have been blowing about in this mystery?
And yet I had not thought to consider them until now.
Well, I have made up the deficiency: the last hour of my time has been devoted entirely to the consideration of feathers. I have visited poor Rebecca (who is now most miraculously recovered) – and learnt a great deal. Her information has answered one or two troubling questions – and started half a dozen more.
There was, at first, a certain reluctance to talk. For ‘the mistress’ would be very angry if she knew what had been carrying on. Though she (Rebecca) had not known that she would be so ‘poorly’ and throw the whole house into a muddle …
At last, however, upon an assurance that I would not speak a word to the dreaded ‘mistress’, the story all came out.
It would seem, Eliza, that Rebecca has been the subject – or rather, the victim – of one of Mr Paynter’s ‘experiments’. You see, the surgeon has been investigating ‘what it is that makes folk like poor Mr Crockford wheeze so much.’ And, noticing that ‘rich folk wheeze more than ordinary ones’, he was taken with the notion that it might be the result of what Rebecca calls ‘a bad masma’ coming out of the feathers in their beds. And so he decided to subject some ‘ordinary folk’ – people that had not feather beds – to this poisonous miasma in order to see whether it made them ill.
Surely only Mr Paynter could have embarked upon such an odd undertaking!
He has supplied bundles of feathers to villagers in Madderstone and Badleigh, and paid them sixpence apiece to place them beneath their pillows. And the result? I confess my own curiosity made me quite impatient to know it. But it would seem that Rebecca has been the only one to produce so much as a single wheeze – though I am assured that ‘old Jonas Wells reckons the feathers charmed his warts away. And Mary Ann, what’s kitchen maid up at the abbey, is sure they made her dream about the man she’s going to marry.’
To Rebecca’s great astonishment however, Mr Paynter is interested in neither wart charms nor lovers; but she tells me that he has not entirely given up his idea of feathers causing asthma. He now believes that, while most people have the constitution to withstand the noxious vapour arising from them, some – like Rebecca and Silas – have a weakness to it and so become ill.
It seems to me to be a rather wild idea. For, I ask you, Eliza, if feathers are a cause of sickness, why do birds appear so very healthy? But I don’t doubt poor Silas will now be denied the comfort of a feather bed as well as port wine and rich food … Ah well, if he is saved from another bad attack of the asthma, I suppose the sacrifice will be well made. For the last one very nearly killed him.
And it was in fact that consideration which started an entirely new train of thought and led me back to my mystery. For, you see, I believe this experiment, besides explaining Mr Paynter’s plucking of Mrs Philips’ chicken, may also throw some light upon the haunting of Penelope’s bedchamber …
But as yet this is only surmise; there is nothing decided, nothing fixed; and I will not expose myself by claiming a solution which I may later be obliged to retract. I must give the matter a great deal more thought. There is one very important question which I must ask – and I must ask it in such a way as not to betray my interest.
I have been walking about the house this last half-hour endeavouring to find a situation in which I may think all these things over in peace; for the rain continues steadily and the moss hut is unattainable. I am now at the table in the parlour, but I cannot hope to remain undisturbed for long. Margaret will soon return … Ah, I hear footsteps approaching already. I had better hide my letter or there will be impertinent questions. Oh, Eliza, the
