A Woman of Consequence

‘… but to make me complicit in your deception!’

‘Upon my word!’ cried Lucy in a voice that was suddenly quick and sharp. ‘I am only asking you to watch for the letter and, if you should see it, hide it from Harriet and hand it quietly to me. I do not think that so great a test of friendship!’

‘No,’ said Dido, forcing herself to speak soothingly. ‘Of course it is not.’

She was sick at heart, almost overwhelmed by a crowding host of fears which were all the more painful for being so very ill-defined; but she dared not risk losing Lucy’s confidence: for retaining it seemed to offer the best – the only – chance of working against the marriage.

Chapter Thirty-Four

… Oh Eliza, what am I to do? I am miserable – and angry too with Lucy for having entrapped me in so invidious a position. It is monstrous to deceive Harriet – and yet I dare not speak a word. And my only comfort is in writing this account to you. I am like the man in the fable who must whisper to the reeds, ‘King Midas has asses’ ears.’

And I sincerely hope that you will forgive me for likening you to a bed of reeds!

But, if the very worst should happen: if this marriage should take place and Harriet afterwards discover that I have appeared complicit in it, I beg that you will bear witness to my motives – which, from the very beginning, have been fixed upon prevention.

I cannot sleep tonight for thinking about the business and I have fallen into my vicarage habit of writing in bed by candlelight. Though I do not know that, if my mind were completely at ease, I should get much sleep, for the lights in the street and the ringing calls of the watchman telling the hours make the night rather uncomfortable for a country-woman.

The great question – the question to which all my thoughts recur – is this: why should Captain Laurence insist upon a secret marriage? To say that he fears Lucy may be persuaded out of her consent is arrant nonsense. He is certainly not so  modest he cannot see how much she is in love with him! And he must know as well as Harriet or I that opposition would only harden her resolution of having him …

But then, when I consider the scene he was enacting with Penelope in the Pump Room, I begin to fear I understand him.

His address was very particular – and his confusion upon being disturbed very evident. I cannot doubt he was upon the point of declaring himself. And yet, Eliza, not even James Laurence can hope to marry two ladies at once.

This, I am sure, is his plan: he will marry Lucy and secure her twelve thousand pounds (or whatever portion of it the estate can be made to pay) and then, while everyone remains in ignorance of the marriage, he will persuade Penelope into an elopement. And, before she discovers that she cannot become his wife, her reputation will be so far compromised that the poor friendless girl will have no choice but to accept the shameful ‘protection’ which he offers.

He must, of course, be prevented. But how? Neither Penelope nor Lucy will listen to me unless I have solid proof. And there can be no proof – not until Lucy is actually married to the rogue. And then her misery will be assured – together with the misery of her brother and sister.

This is more than enough worry to keep me awake, without the continual passing of link boys and chattering gentlemen. And there is another small point which has begun to trouble me – Silas’s poem. I cannot quite be easy about Silas’s poem. I have had at the back of my mind all day an uneasy suspicion that there is something else odd about it, besides the hand in which it is written …

I have just been looking the poem over again. Perhaps  it is his use of the endearment, ‘beloved’, that troubles me – and the odd similarity between ‘No other can match me for constancy’ and the expressions of everlasting love in Miss Fenn’s letter. There is, when I come to consider it, a rather close affinity in the ideas expressed … Almost as if Silas might have read her declarations. Eliza, do you think it is possible that Henry Coulson has those other letters – the stolen ones – and he has shown them to Silas? Is that perhaps what Silas meant when he said that Henry had been helping him with his poem?

The letter arrived next day – directed to Lucy in Captain Laurence’s unmistakable looped and sprawling hand. It was lying upon the table of the inn parlour when Dido and Harriet returned from the shops where they had spent two hours and a half attempting to complete the very exacting commissions with which Margaret had charged them. And rarely had a little bit of sealed paper looked so very dreadful and ominous.

Dido swept it up and put it away in her pocket while Harriet was still occupied in telling the boy where to set down their parcels; then she dropped into a chair.

‘Why!’ cried Harriet. ‘You look well and truly done-up. And I think you had better not be walking out to Sydney Gardens with me now. For, when all’s said and done, there is no need to “make a labour of our leisure”, as the saying goes.’

Dido hesitated. It was arranged that they should meet Lucy and Penelope in the gardens and, if she did not go, then she would be able to delay handing the letter to Lucy … But, she would also delay her own knowledge of what it contained – and she did not think she could bear that.

‘No,’ she said a little unsteadily. ‘I am quite well, thank you. The walk will be refreshing after loitering about so long at shop counters.’ She smiled, struggling hard for composure.

And, within a quarter of an hour, they were out again and crossing the sunny Pump Yard. It was a bright day and warm for the season. The sun glowed on the creamy yellow stone saints of the abbey church’s west front, and its fine pinnacles stood out sharp against a cloudless blue. The peculiar white dust of Bath was rising in little clouds about everyone’s feet and the prospect of a walk among trees and shrubs was pleasant; but Dido’s anticipation of it was very much spoilt by the presence of the letter in her pocket.

What did it contain? When was the elopement to take place? How much time had she in which to prevent it? These questions were running so continually through her head that she was not aware of Mrs Nolan’s approach until she called out a greeting.

‘Upon my word,’ cried Harriet as the schoolmistress joined them, ‘you look as if you have lost a crown and found a farthing!’

‘Eeh now! Don’t tease me, I beg, Miss Crockford. For it is a great deal worse than that. I’ve found this.’ She held out a letter which was so very like the one in her own pocket that Dido started at the sight. Here were the same large black characters, the same paper, the same post office mark; the only difference was in the name and direction. For this was addressed to Miss P. Lambe. ‘It arrived not half an hour ago, and I think I know who it is from,’ continued Mrs Nolan.

‘It is Captain Laurence’s hand,’ said Dido quietly – and immediately saw that she had confirmed the poor woman’s worst fears.

‘Eeh! Well, I decided straightaway I’d out after my young lady with it and see if I can’t talk sense into her, for if it’s come to this then matters are pretty bad.’ She shook the letter fiercely.

Dido sighed and echoed the sentiment internally. Indeed, matters were pretty bad: if Laurence was corresponding with Penelope, then there could be no doubt of his having reached an ‘understanding’ with her too – nothing less could authorise it. She gazed up helplessly at the carving on the sunny church wall above their heads and wished that the stone angels there who laboured perpetually up Jacob’s ladder might carry with them a prayer for assistance; for she was beginning to fear that this tangle was beyond mortal ingenuity.

‘I doubt Penelope will heed you,’ said Harriet to Mrs Nolan as they all walked on together. ‘Her notions are all romantic, you know.’

It was a point upon which three such sensible women could not but agree and they continued in rather gloomy silence along the shady north side of the church and past the Lower Rooms. Dido was turning over in her mind the evidences for Captain Laurence’s plans of seduction and considering the ingenuity with which it was all carrying on.

‘But what I cannot quite understand,’ she confessed as they came to the road beside the river and paused to allow the passing of a smart curricle, ‘one point which still rather puzzles me is this: how was Captain Laurence’s