A Woman of Consequence

disapproval.

But there was no preventing Dido now, for she had seen the salvation of her ‘great idea’ – it lay in the ancient wrongs of her sex. ‘Her being with child might be the result of a man’s sin only,’ she cried. ‘Everyone knows of the … nuisances which young maids sometimes suffer in great houses. The crime might not be mutual. After all, a man is stronger than a woman – perhaps her consent was not given …’

She stopped. There was a look of disgust upon his face. She comprehended at last the very great impropriety of describing such a scene to a gentleman – and looked hastily away from him. But there was no recalling her words; they seemed to echo about Margaret’s grim parlour.

Mr Lomax stood up. ‘I think our conversation had better end, Miss Kent, if we are got onto such subjects.’ But he stopped with his hands clenched on the back of a chair. ‘Does this not demonstrate to you,’ he said with quiet control, ‘the very great danger of conducting these arguments – when they lead you into contemplation of scenes which no lady should allow to intrude upon her thoughts?’

Dido turned to the window, and met the faint reflection of her own red face on the dark streaming glass. The very ticking of the clock on the mantle had a shocked sound to her ears; and her own father’s silhouette seemed to be regarding her with a look of displeasure which the original had rarely turned upon her.

But her nature was one in which embarrassment was always more inclined to produce justification than remorse …

‘Mr Lomax,’ she protested, ‘I thought I was to be allowed to disagree with you.’

‘It is not your disagreement which troubles me. But …’ He put a hand to his brow, ‘But I must blame myself when I allow the pleasure of conversing with you to draw you into unsuitable subjects.’

‘Are we not to attempt an equal and open discourse?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Such a discourse is quite impossible if there is to be an embargo upon every subject which touches upon misdemeanour – every subject with which the world decrees a lady must not “concern herself”?’ She smiled. ‘If there are to be such restrictions, you know, we might as well give up our experiment at once and confine ourselves to conversations upon the weather and the state of the roads.’

‘I suspect,’ he said grimly, ‘that you might have dangerous opinions even upon turnpikes and rain- showers.’

There was rather a long silence in which the rose clawed urgently at the window and the severe black outline of old Mr Kent continued to glower reproachfully at his daughter. But then there was a sound of the outer door opening, footsteps in the hall, and Margaret’s querulous voice calling out, ‘Rebecca, I see that the front step is still not swept!’

Lomax’s knuckles whitened upon the chair’s back, his voice shook. ‘I wish,’ he said low and urgent, ‘that I could make you understand how very painful it is to a man to hear a woman he esteems …’ he hesitated, looked down upon his hands, ‘a woman he loves – talking upon such indelicate subjects.’

Dido coloured, but she must speak. Margaret’s steps were already crossing towards the parlour.

‘I believe,’ she said – scarcely speaking above a whisper, ‘that true delicacy, consists not in remaining silent about the evils of the world – nor even in being ignorant of them. I am convinced,’ she said, finding at last the courage to raise her eyes to his, ‘that real feminine delicacy consists rather in having right opinions of those evils. And I hope,’ and this last was a positive whisper for Margaret was now in the room, ‘I hope, Mr Lomax, that, in the course of our acquaintance, you have never had any cause to think my opinions indelicate, corrupted or unfeminine.’

He opened his mouth to reply, but Margaret was upon them and he could only smile, bow and excuse himself, leaving Dido alone with her sister-in-law – and struggling to look as if nothing of consequence had passed between them.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

An early escape to the moss hut had now become absolutely necessary. Never had Dido been more in need of solitude; but the rain continued and Margaret was wanting to be listened to.

Margaret was, in fact, in high good humour just now – for dear Mrs Harman-Foote had sent for her – actually sent for her. Dear Mrs Harman-Foote wished particularly to consult with her – as one mother to another, you know – about whether young Georgie should be sent to school. For Mr Paynter had advised that he should and had written her a very considered letter upon the merits of plain living in a school. But, of course, she did not wish her husband to know anything about her consulting the surgeon. And so she had confided in Margaret, for she knew that she could rely upon her good sense and it seemed that it was a principle of hers …

The day was beginning to draw to a close before the rain held off and Dido was able to escape, at last, from this account of Margaret’s triumphant intimacy at the great house.

She slipped out thankfully into the garden’s dripping trees and scent of damp earth, and hurried along the gravel path which skirted the side of the house: her mind endeavouring still to interpret the slight smile, the bow which Mr Lomax had made before leaving her alone with Margaret … What had they signified? Assent to her claim? Or doubt …?

There was a peremptory rapping as she passed the library window; she stopped and turned with a dreadful sinking of the heart. However, it was not Margaret knocking; it was Francis’s thin face and grey whiskers pressed against the glass, his finger beckoning her in.

‘I would just talk with you a moment, Dido,’ he said when she joined him. ‘Alone, you know. It would not do to …’ He waved a hand in vague indication of … something – Margaret perhaps.

Dido closed the library door and went to warm herself at the excellent fire, while her brother settled behind his desk and looked at her in a troubled way. Francis was the oldest of the Kent brothers – in looks, though not in years. He had dark, almost black eyes, narrow features, a high-domed balding head, and particularly large side- whiskers which his sister suspected him of growing so that he might hide from his wife behind them when he was not able to employ a book or a newspaper for that purpose.

Here, however, in the fire-lit sanctuary of his own small room, there was no shortage of books. He had inherited his father’s collection and had added to it until it overflowed the shelves to cover every available chair and table. Books were stacked upon his desk and he was now peering around them.

‘Ahem, yes. Well, it’s this Bath plan, you see …’

‘Yes, what of it?’ Dido asked briskly. Years of experience had taught her there was little to be gained from waiting for Francis to finish his sentences. ‘You do not wish me to go?’ She removed a dictionary and two volumes of Ovid from a chair and sat down.

‘Well, as to that … I daresay it could be … And God knows, you’ve had few enough treats lately.’ He gave a quick smile, reminding her suddenly of the kindly older brother who used to read the Arabian Nights to her. He opened a drawer in his desk, took something out and hurriedly pushed it towards her. It was a little pile of five gold sovereigns. ‘Buy yourself something pretty while you are away – a cap, or a gown or …’ He gave another vague wave – clearly at a loss to know what it was that women spent money on.

Dido considered the coins – and his offer – eagerly. She knew there were but a few shillings left in her purse; and, since her regular allowance had disappeared with Charles’s bank, heaven only knew when such riches would be within her grasp again. And the visit to Bath represented an opportunity of being with Mr Lomax – continuing their ‘open and honest discussion’ without Margaret’s agonising intrusions.

But still she hesitated. ‘I would not wish to rob you, Francis.’ She always felt a kind of awkward pity for him and, besides, the money and the holiday would be dearly won if they were to be the cause of more arguments and economy in the vicarage. ‘Are you certain it will not inconvenience you?’

‘No,’ he said, looking steadily at her, his black eyes bright under bushy grey brows. ‘Take it, Dido. Take it and go to Bath. I hope things are not got quite so bad that … I should think I can give my sister a few pounds without being obliged to teach Latin lessons again, or I would not …’

‘Oh!’ Dido put her hand to her mouth as sudden understanding flooded her brain, blotting out for a while even solicitude over Mr Lomax. ‘Of course!’ she cried delighted at the memory. ‘I had forgotten, Francis, you used to take