Dido laid down her pen and was on the point of stepping to the window to see where the gentlemen might be going, when the door of the dining room burst open and such an apparition appeared as put her in mind of some fellow in a play of Shakespeare’s ‘with his doublet all unbraced … Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other …’
Not that there was a doublet exactly to be ‘unbraced’, but the general effect was the same. Silas was certainly pale and exceedingly dishevelled: his black curls were falling about his face, his shirt was open at the neck – and his knees were shaking violently as he stepped into the room, holding out a paper.
‘It is done!’ he declared in a momentous tone.
Dido could only stare, uncomprehending.
‘My poem. It is done.’ His face was bright with a kind of confidence and triumph she had never witnessed there before. He pushed the tumbling hair out of his eyes and smiled. ‘I have never known such r … remarkable
‘Indeed! But I thought that you were unwell …’
‘And so I was. But the laudanum … It set my b … brain on fire. It conjured up such visions!’ He crossed to the table and sat down beside her, his poem still clutched in his hand – the paper trembling slightly with his emotion. ‘I did not believe it possible! But Henry says it is always so. He says those r … romantic fellows take opium every day and are none the worse for it. Henry says there’s not a p … poet alive who can write a line without the stuff …’
‘I did not know,’ she said coolly, ‘that Mr Coulson was such a great authority upon poetry.’
‘Oh yes! He has been telling me all about it. I have talked a great deal about my poem with Henry and he has been helping me enormously.’
Dido watched him a moment, considering carefully. Then she drew a slow breath and fixed her eyes upon the window. ‘You do not think,’ she suggested lightly, with every appearance of indifference, ‘that perhaps you allow Mr Coulson to influence you a little too much? He is, after all, only a distant relation.’
‘N … No,’ stammered Silas. ‘He is the n … nearest male relation that I have and so, you know, the n … nearest thing to a b … brother that I have.’
‘Is he?’ she asked quickly, abandoning her scrutiny of the window.
But Silas was too restless and too full of his own genius to hear her. ‘The poem all came to me in a vision, you know. It was as if I was p … possessed: possessed by a higher p … power! Will you read it, Miss Kent?’ he said, pressing the paper upon her and springing to his feet. ‘I beg you will tell me honestly w … w … what …’ he began; but by now he was at the door and even his new-found confidence could not stand against her actual unfolding of the page and preparing to read. With a blush and one more nervous smile he was gone.
Dido sat for several minutes considering what had passed, before turning, rather apprehensively, to the paper in her hand.
To her relief, it contained only four verses. Clearly ‘It is finished!’ had not alluded to the whole ballad, but only to that part of it which she was to show to Penelope. For all the influence of the narcotic, the lines were written in a firm, slanting hand and the title ‘The Nun’s Farewell to her Lover’ was underscored by a thick black stroke which only faltered slightly.
She spread the page on the table and read:
Dido read the poem through several times and sat for some time staring at the page. It disturbed her – though she could not think why …
Nor could she quite determine whether there was anything to be gained from showing the work to Penelope. The veiled declaration of devotion might be very much to the purpose, but she rather doubted the poetry had the power of recommending its author … Though Penelope was not likely to be discriminating … Its brevity might count for more with her than anything else – for the
She looked again at the paper with its four neat black verses. And again there was a kind of a jolt: a shock almost of recognition … familiarity …
Why did the poem disturb her so much?
Still pondering she rose from the table with a heavy sigh and stepped closer to the window to gaze out upon the darkening town. The first lamps were already lit; over in Cheap Street carriages continued to rumble by, but the Pump Yard was very much quieter now as people hurried away to dress in preparation for the dinner hour. A few ladies were still gazing into the windows of shops; a chairman rested on the pole of his vehicle, smoking a short stub of a pipe; and, in the gathering shadows of the colonnade, two lovers lingered, too wrapped up in one another to heed the approaching dusk.
It was the sight of the couple which at last brought inspiration to Dido. It led her wandering mind through a very natural series of connections, from the tangled affections of her young friends to a consideration of the very great dangers of a passionate nature – and so to that other passionate and dangerous attachment of Miss Fenn to her mysterious correspondent …
She turned hurriedly from the window and seized Silas’s poem. Holding it up eagerly in the fading light of the window, she studied it closely.
Yes, that was what had disturbed her! Not the verse – but the hand in which it was written! The letters were small and black with a marked forward slant. It was not exactly the hand of Miss Fenn’s ‘Beloved’ – but it was very much like it.
‘Harriet,’ said Dido next day as they were walking together in the Pump Room, ‘how was your brother educated? Was he sent away to school or was he placed with a private tutor?’
‘Why ever do you ask?’ cried Harriet in surprise. ‘Upon my word, Dido, I never knew a woman like you for asking odd questions!’
‘I am only a little curious.’
‘Oh, you are always a little curious, and I tell you honestly, that it will not do. Curiosity, you know, is something that old spinsters are always laughed at about.’
‘Yes,’ said Dido, taking her arm. ‘But I am sure
