A Woman of Consequence

They each took a letter and their faces showed immediate recognition of the hand-writing. They turned aside preparing to break the seals – their movements mirroring one another so exactly they might have been engaged in a country dance.

They stopped, back to back. Dido held her breath.

They seemed to stand frozen for an eternity of seconds in the sunlight as people sauntered past. The child on the grass stumbled and began to cry.

Slowly the girls turned back to face one another. The wind flung back a bonnet string, cracking it like a whip. Lucy’s face burnt red with fury; Penelope’s was pale and trembling, a tear creeping slowly from one eye.

‘Miss Lambe, I believe this letter is directed to you.’

‘And this, I think is yours.’

Stiffly they made the exchange. A moment later the glorious sound of tearing paper reached Dido’s ears, bringing with it the very comfortable conviction that Captain Laurence’s schemes were defeated.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Dido was very well pleased with her solution of this problem. Her triumph made her rather confident of succeeding at last in all her other undertakings and she had an appearance of great satisfaction and self- congratulation when she entered the theatre the following evening. Mr Lomax noticed it as they met in the lobby and, as they were all taking their seats, he remarked that the air – and the company – of Bath seemed to agree with her.

As he spoke, he cast a meaningful look at Captain Laurence, who had now rejoined their party and was being very attentive to Dido – no doubt as a consequence of the cold looks he was receiving from Lucy and Penelope.

Dido only smiled and acknowledged that the air suited her very well. There was no time for further explanation just then, for everyone must look about them and admire Bath’s grand new theatre.

The bright fresh paintings upon the ceiling and the rows of boxes rising up on their bronze pillars, glorious with scarlet linings and gilt lattices, were a fine sight to behold. The audience (though it was, by common consent, as ‘thin’ as the company in the Pump Room) was aglitter with jewels and feathers and silks. And upon the stage there were all manner of gaily painted scenes and clever tricks with lights and machinery to be admired.

Indeed, amid all this opulence, there was but one dull thing – and that, unfortunately, was the wit of the playwright.

The play itself proved to be a poor old threadbare thing, and throughout the first act Dido’s attention was perpetually wandering from it. She soon found a great deal more to interest her in Captain Laurence’s wanderings about the building than she did in the worn out maxims and jokes of the actors.

The captain seemed to be no better amused by the play than she was herself. He left their box before the first scene was over and, thereafter, he was forever appearing first in one part of the theatre and then in another. She could not help but wonder what he was about and it became a kind of game with her to guess in which box she would detect him next.

‘Do you know,’ she whispered eagerly to Mr Lomax as the first act ended, ‘who the man is that Captain Laurence is talking to now?’

Lomax followed the direction of her eyes to a box almost opposite their own where the captain had now joined the elderly rake of the colonnade, and his well-painted lady. ‘That,’ he replied rather stiffly, ‘is Lord Congreve: the man who owns half the land in Shropshire, and has a great deal of influence at the Admiralty besides – which is no doubt the reason for Laurence courting his favour.’

‘I see!’ cried Dido her interest deepening. ‘But I think you do not like His Lordship?’ she added as she noticed a look of marked distaste spreading across her companion’s face.

‘I have no opinion of him at all,’ he said with great dignity. ‘It is you who are so very occupied with James Laurence and his acquaintances that you cannot keep your eyes upon the stage.’

Dido suppressed a smile – and continued to look at the captain’s acquaintances. The fat lord was listening intently, as Laurence – with one hand resting familiarly on the noble shoulder – talked earnestly into his ear. As he listened he stroked the old scar on his cheek very thoughtfully – and looked in their direction.

Whatever was Laurence communicating? His plan for Lucy and Penelope’s ruin was at an end; yet he seemed still to be scheming …

‘I w … wonder at Laurence being seen in c … company with that fellow,’ whispered Silas from his seat behind. ‘I’ll w … warrant the friendship’s not known about at Madderstone!’

The expression upon his face suggested he knew something in particular to the disadvantage of ‘that fellow’, and Dido was about to ask what exactly he meant; but the play was beginning again and his attention was returning to the stage.

So she fell instead to examining Lord Congreve’s companion again. And that little painted face set in motion such a very interesting train of thought that soon ‘the two hours’ traffic of our stage’ was passing by quite unregarded. Dido recalled all the things which she knew about His Lordship – and an idea began slowly to form in her head: an idea far stranger than the fiction acting out before her. And yet, she assured herself, it was an idea based entirely upon reason, facts and observation. It certainly allowed for no shadow of coincidence or superstition – perhaps even the ghost itself might be rationally explained by it …

As they all came out upon the stairs at the end of the play, the very great pressure of the crowd bore Dido and Mr Lomax away from their companions and authorised her to cling rather tightly to his arm. Indeed it was only by pressing herself against him that she could save herself from being carried away by a careless troop of passing gentlemen. She seized upon this moment of jostling intimacy.

‘Are you familiar at all with the lady accompanying Lord Congreve?’ she asked urgently. ‘Is she his wife?’

He looked surprised by the sudden application. ‘No,’ he said, gravely disapproving, ‘she is not. His marriage ended unhappily some years ago. The young lady with him tonight is his mistress.’ He turned away as he spoke and held out a hand to guard her as a drunken man staggered by.

‘You call her young,’ said Dido. ‘About what age do you suppose her to be?’

‘What a very strange question!’

‘But I think it is a rather important one. Please? Do you know her age?’

He sighed and shook his head. ‘She is reported to be barely sixteen,’ he said reluctantly. ‘His Lordship has the reputation of … associating with very young women.’

‘Yes,’ said Dido remembering the peer’s behaviour under the colonnade. ‘I rather suspected it.’

She lapsed into a very thoughtful silence and they were carried forward down the stairs on a hot tide of coloured headdresses, dark evening coats and bare white shoulders. The memory of that white powdered face was still intriguing her. ‘It is a puzzle,’ she said as they came to rest upon the last landing. ‘A very great puzzle. Why should such a young woman paint her face so very thickly?’

Lomax looked down at her laughing: brows raised over questioning eyes. ‘Miss Kent!’ he cried. ‘I would never have expected to find you so much interested in appearance and cosmetic!’

‘Oh, but on this occasion, I am, Mr Lomax! I really believe …’

‘What is it?’ he said, matching her seriousness immediately. ‘What is it you believe?’

‘I believe that that lady’s face paint might be a key to Madderstone’s mysteries.’

He looked bewildered – and rather irritated; he particularly disliked her speaking in riddles. Struggling hard for patience he began, ‘I am afraid I do not quite …’

But she was not listening. Her attention was fixed upon the hallway just a few steps below, where a discourteous footman was now making way for a disdainful Lord Congreve and his companion.

Then, all at once, she was on the move, weaving rapidly through the crowd on the stairs and slipping off the loop of ribbon which secured her fan to her wrist. She reached the bottom of the steps just as the manservant succeeding in clearing a passage for his master; she turned in apparent confusion and nearly ran against His Lordship – there was an ill-bred oath. She stepped back in confusion – and somehow contrived to drop her fan. It slid most satisfactorily across the floor and came to rest just in front of the couple. She bent to retrieve it – and so was able to look full into the face of the young woman as she stood up and apologised for inconveniencing her …