A Woman of Consequence

are two old spinsters together are we not? We may defy the world.’ Harriet gave her most weary smile. ‘But I do not see why you should care about Silas’s education.’

‘Oh, it is just that he writes such a very … interesting hand and I rather wondered from whom he had learnt it. For, you know, we all write a little in the style of the master who taught us.’

Harriet frowned and studied her companion rather suspiciously for a moment before shrugging up her shoulders. ‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘Silas’s poor state of health prevented his ever going away to school. He was educated chiefly at home; his only tutors were friends of the family.’ She considered a moment. ‘Mr Portinscale taught him for a little while,’ she said.

‘I see.’

Dido fell into a reverie at that and they walked on in silence. This information did not lie at all easily with everything else that had come to light. How could Mr Portinscale be the illicit lover of Elinor Fenn? How could he have written that cold letter ordering her to forget him? He was the man who had made love to her openly – and offered her marriage, was he not?

‘Shall we join the others,’ said Harriet, gesturing towards Captain Laurence and Penelope who were standing beside the well-head, very deep in conversation.

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Dido a little absently, and they began to make their way up the long room – their progress much impeded by the crowd.

In point of fact, the company in the Pump Room this morning was ‘thin’. Everybody had said that it was so and it had been generally agreed among them that it was too early in the season for truly fashionable people to be in Bath. Dido believed it all, and, aloud, she lamented it with as much energy as her companions; but privately she hoped that she might never have to form part of the company when it was ‘thick’.

There was quite enough crowding for her taste. There was a perpetual movement of people through the doors, and such a noise of restless feet and chattering voices as echoed about the elegant Greek pillars and high ceiling, almost overpowering the efforts of the musicians in the gallery who seemed, sometimes, to be fingering and sawing at their instruments in vain. Outside, the sun was just breaking through after a heavy shower, and, within, the smell of wet umbrellas was mixing with that of greenhouse plants and the warm, sulphurous breath of the spring. The very floor was shaking beneath its weight of fashion and it was not until they were within an arm’s length that she was able to distinguish anything that was passing between the captain and Penelope – although, alerted by the earnestness of their manner, she was struggling hard for their words all the way along the room …

‘… And so you see, I have my orders. Tomorrow I must go up to town to make my preparations,’ the captain was saying as they drew close. ‘And within five days after that I must be aboard my ship.’ He took both Penelope’s hands. ‘At such a time,’ he continued in a low, urgent voice, ‘at such a time, Miss Lambe, a man becomes bold. It is not to be wondered at, you know, for he has need of all the courage he can command – knowing what hardships and dangers lie ahead of him.’

‘Oh yes!’ cried Penelope fervently, ‘You are all so very, very brave. I am sure the navy is such a body of men as … Well, I am quite sure there is no one else like them in all the world! Except perhaps,’ she added anxiously, ‘for soldiers – for I would not wish to be unfair upon them, you know. But then, though they are called upon to fight, they may stay upon the land and do not have to go to sea – which I am sure is a great deal more comfortable. So sailors you see,’ she finished with conviction, ‘are the bravest after all.’ She smiled serenely and, catching sight of Dido and Harriet, turned eagerly to them for confirmation. ‘Sailors are the best and bravest men in the whole world, are they not?’

Laurence saw them now. ‘Miss Crockford, Miss Kent.’ He bowed, released Penelope’s hands and looked so very discomposed that Harriet and Dido’s suspicions were immediately raised against him.

Had he been upon the point of a declaration?

They stood together a few minutes: all rather ill at ease, but for Penelope who had noticed nothing at all and was now busily enumerating the hardships of naval life, through battle, storm and privateers to what must be ‘the greatest inconveniences imaginable caused by the motion of the ship. I mean the sliding about of food upon the table and the falling out of beds and so forth …’

As she chattered, Dido’s eye was drawn away to a bench beside the great clock, from which the schoolmistress, Mrs Nolan, was watching. She was sitting very straight, with her hands clasped upon the handle of her umbrella: her face sharp and watchful in the shadow of her vast white cap and the elaborate bonnet which covered it. A cluster of flowers hanging low upon the brim half-obscured her eyes and gave her rather the appearance of a small, wild creature peering through undergrowth. But it would seem that she too had noticed the captain’s ‘attentions’ – and they had made her uneasy.

And it occurred immediately to Dido that her uneasiness might provide a very useful opening for conversation. Perhaps this was the moment to try for her confidence … Declaring, rather abruptly, that she was tired and must rest, she left Harriet to chaperone Penelope, and made her way purposefully back towards the schoolmistress.

‘My dear, Mrs Nolan,’ she cried with a smile as she approached, ‘you are looking very worried. Are you afraid of Miss Lambe’s tiring herself with walking about too much?’

‘Nay.’ Mrs Nolan shook her head and set the flowers flapping about her eyes. ‘She’s a stout lass, and I doubt a little knock on the head has turned her into an invalid. But …’ she raised her umbrella in Laurence’s direction and gave it a little shake, ‘I’m right vexed to see her walking about on yon fellow’s arm.’

‘Oh?’ said Dido in a tone of innocent surprise. ‘Do you not consider the captain a suitable acquaintance for the young lady?’

‘Suitable? Eeh, no!’ Mrs Nolan lowered the umbrella, folded her hands over its handle and gave Dido a doleful stare. ‘Pardon me for saying it, Miss Kent, but I’m accustomed to speaking my mind, and I tell you honestly, yon captain is such a fellow as I swear is sent to test and torment poor honest schoolteachers like myself. For I declare there ain’t no way of keeping young ladies safe from his sort.’

‘Is there not?’ said Dido, deeply interested. ‘And how …?’

‘As if the cost of candles for the schoolroom wasn’t trial enough,’ Mrs Nolan ran on, with all the appearance of a woman who is launched upon a favourite complaint and will not be easily turned aside from it. ‘And folks being so tardy over paying their fees! As if such things weren’t sufficient torment, there must be men like that one sent to make us miserable

‘Dear, dear,’ said Dido. She took a seat beside the schoolmistress, her head tilted in sympathetic attention.

‘Aye, a woman in my situation lives in terror of such fellows as that. One hears such tales, Miss Kent!’

‘Does one?’

‘Eeh yes! Ladders set up at bedroom windows in the dead of night and young lasses carried off to Gretna in the twinkling of an eye. Or worse …’ Mrs Nolan tapped at Dido’s foot with her umbrella to emphasise her point, ‘not carried to Gretna at all – if you gather my meaning.’

‘Oh heavens! How shocking! I confess I had heard …’ Dido bent a little closer. ‘But do such things truly happen?’

‘They do, my dear. Though …’ her face reddening. ‘Never in my establishment, I assure you.’

‘No, no of course not! I would not have thought it.’

‘Twenty-six years, come next Lady Day, I’ve been educating my lasses and not one has ever come to harm. And a schoolmistress’s reputation is her livelihood you know, Miss Kent. I’ve seen a school or two closed down because there’s been a breath of scandal – for the parents cannot trust then, you see.’

‘Dear, dear! What a very great worry it must be for you!’ Dido regarded her companion with great interest. But, unfortunately, the others were approaching now and Mrs Nolan was reaching out with the umbrella to tap Penelope on the arm with a ‘Well now, my dear, I think you have walked enough for today.’

And it was quite impossible to re-engage her in conversation, for a moment later Lucy and Silas also appeared and then they were all in a group talking together.

Silas had been very busy securing places at the obligatory entertainments of Bath. He had tickets for a concert in the assembly rooms that evening, and there was a theatre box taken for tomorrow. ‘A b … box which holds n … nine. So we are in hopes, Mrs Nolan that you and P … P … Miss Lambe will be kind enough to join us.’