‘Nothing in your experience has prepared you for making a decision of such a very serious nature. It is natural – it is amiable – that you should put private feelings before public duty. But …’
‘No, you are wrong, Mr Lomax,’ she said, with chilling composure. ‘I am very well prepared to make this decision. I am prepared by six and thirty years of being a woman with no independent fortune. I understand Miss Fenn’s wretched plight as no man ever could – and I will never betray her.’
She curtsied and walked off around the screen, just as Harriet bustled into the passage to remind her that only early birds catch worms and they must put the better foot first.
If Dido could have chosen the luxury of solitude she would probably have deemed herself incapable of bearing with company. But having no such choice and being shut into a carriage for several hours with three other people, she found that she could endure well enough by only turning her thoughts inward and being rather silent.
She certainly had more than sufficient thoughts to fill the tedious miles between Bath and Madderstone. And the first and most melancholy of her thoughts was that their experiment had failed. It would seem that, after all, it was
Perhaps it could all be explained by Mr Lomax’s theory of ‘a woman’s usual sphere’. For, if such a thing existed – and there was also a corresponding ‘sphere’ usual to men – then nothing of importance could be communicated between the sexes; their experiences and their natures differed so widely they never could agree upon important matters.
Perhaps the only happy marriages were rather silent ones …
She sighed and leant her face against the cold, lurching window-glass. If this were the case, there seemed to be no escaping the thought that she was herself constitutionally unsuited to marriage. For she doubted it was in her nature to be restrained and uncommunicative in the most intimate connection of a woman’s life.
When she was got to such a pitch as this, there was an uncomfortable suspicion that tears might not be very far away and some kind of diversion of her thoughts was absolutely necessary.
And so she sought refuge in the mysteries of Madderstone. For they at least offered the possibility of solution – unlike the horrible dilemma of the spheres …
She set herself to consider the stolen letters. If she was to prevent their falling into Captain Laurence’s hands, then she must discover who had taken them – and discover it quickly. As the carriage rattled on, she fell to a careful consideration of the nine people who had been at the dinner table on the day the letters were stolen, running over everything she knew of their whereabouts during that all important interval between dinner and tea.
Harriet had been with Penelope, Anne had been with Dido herself in the drawing room and, by Lucy’s account, Captain Laurence had been making love to her in the conservatory. Mr Harman-Foote testified to Silas and Mr Portinscale having been with him in the billiard room. And that left only Henry Coulson unaccounted for! But …
‘Oh!’ she cried involuntarily.
‘Dido, whatever is the matter?’ demanded Harriet.
Dido looked about her and saw, to her surprise, that the scene of barren common-land and furze bushes beyond the carriage window proved them to be many miles from Bath. The carriage was cold and gloomy with late afternoon – and becoming colder every minute. Opposite her Silas and Lucy were drowsing, their two heads drooping closer and closer together and nodding in time to the jolt and creak of the wheels.
‘Harriet,’ said Dido eagerly, but speaking low so as not to wake the others, ‘do you remember the night we all dined at Madderstone two weeks ago – the night on which the letters were taken from Miss Fenn’s chamber?’
Harriet looked surprised and put the book which she had been attempting to read into her lap. ‘Yes,’ she said with a frown, ‘I remember it. But, Dido, I hope that this is not a beginning of odd questions …’
‘No, no. The questions are not odd at all. They are very sensible ones which I should have thought to ask before. After dinner you went upstairs to sit with Penelope, did you not?’
‘Yes’ – with great resignation – ‘I did.’
‘And the chamber which Penelope was given at Madderstone was in the same wing as Miss Fenn’s room, was it not? They were within a few doors of one another.’
‘Yes – though I do not see why you should be so very interested …’
‘Harriet, I want you to think very carefully – this is, I believe, very important. I
‘I understand that you are intent upon meddling. Why must you always be wanting to discover things? “Let sleeping dogs lie,” that is what Papa always said.’
Dido sighed. Now they were got to Dear Papa and proverbs all at once! It was going to be a great struggle to get any information at all out of Harriet.
‘That evening,’ she persisted, ‘did you hear anyone come up the stairs and go to Miss Fenn’s bedchamber?’
Harriet hesitated a moment, then: ‘Well, since you ask, Mr Harman-Foote came by.’
‘You are sure it was him?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Why, Dido, I do believe the old inquisitors of Spain could not match you for tormenting a person with questions!’
‘Harriet, why are you so sure that it was Mr Harman-Foote?’
‘I know because he came past Penelope’s room just as Mr Paynter was leaving it. He – Mr Paynter – had come to visit Penelope, you see – that is why I had been called away from the drawing room immediately after dinner. We went up to Penelope’s chamber together, he made his examination and then, as he left, I went to the door of the chamber with him. As he went out, he met Mr Harman-Foote in the passageway.’
‘I see,’ said Dido. ‘That certainly accords well with Mr Harman-Foote’s own account of events. But it was not he who took the letters. Are you sure you heard no one else?’
The pale outline of Harriet’s face looked mutinous in the gloom, as if she would protest against Dido’s torturing her again. But then she seemed to change her mind. She frowned as if considering the question rather carefully, and turned to look through the window, at the yellow grass, the hunched shadows of furze bushes and the gaunt, long-legged sheep which grazed among them. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘I remember now: there
‘Indeed? Harriet are you sure?’
‘Oh yes.’ Harriet turned back, but the faint light of the window was behind her now and the encroaching evening together with the deep shadow of her hat made it impossible to read her exact expression. ‘It was certainly Mr Coulson,’ she said firmly. ‘There can be no doubt about it. I was sitting on my own beside Penelope, you see, and I heard steps coming up the stairs so … so I went to the door and looked out – and there was Mr Coulson!’
‘And what was he doing?’
‘Why, he was walking along the passage – he went into Miss Fenn’s chamber.’
‘You are sure of it?’
‘Oh yes! I remember it very clearly. Now are you satisfied?’
‘Yes,’ said Dido, drawing her fingers thoughtfully through the moisture on window-glass. ‘Yes, I am satisfied. But how odd, how very odd …’
And she fell into a sad reverie – for Harriet’s account had confirmed her very worst apprehensions. Matters were as dangerous as she had supposed, and rather more difficult of solution than she had feared. She sat for some time in silent contemplation of the scene beyond the window where a few sharp, cold stars were beginning to wink out in the darkening arch of the sky. Sheep turned stern yellow eyes to follow the carriage, their chins rotating as they chewed meditatively. An icy little draught crept around the glass of the window, making her shiver and pull her
