And it is, of course, the mortal remains of the Grey Nun. Lucy is quite sure that it must be.
That the bones of a woman who died four hundred years ago should have been preserved so long and should, furthermore, be accompanied, as these were, by a quantity of sovereigns, many of which bear the likeness of our present king, does not seem to astonish her at all. It is undoubtedly the Grey Nun.
However, the coroner, Mr Wishart, when he held his court at the Red Lion this morning, failed entirely to identify her correctly. You know how it is on such occasions. These fellows in authority are all too inclined to be blinded by commonplace evidence and probability and so are quite insensible to all the thrilling possibilities of what must be.
Lucy is sorely disappointed.
The other great cause of his failing to recognise the nun, was a ring which was upon her finger. It seems that just such a ring belonged to a Miss Elinor Fenn – a governess who disappeared from Madderstone Abbey some fifteen years ago.
So the coroner has declared that the remains are those of this Miss Fenn. A verdict with which Lucy is most displeased. And I very much pity poor Silas for having to report it to her.
For she would have Silas attend the inquest so that she might have the earliest intelligence, though I believe he has as little liking for frequenting public houses as any young man of one and twenty can have. And the viewing of bones would be a great deal less to his taste than his sister’s. However, the customs governing such occasions protect only the sensibilities of women, not sensitive younger brothers, and since Lucy had no other gentleman to attend on her behalf poor Silas must go. And he is so accustomed to doing just as both his sisters command, that I doubt he raised half a word in protest.
But he looked quite unwell when he returned …
I happened to be at Ashfield when he came in. I would not have you believe that I was at all anxious to hear Mr Wishart’s verdict; for, of course, being of such a remarkably incurious disposition, it was a matter of complete indifference to me …
But it did just so happen that I was with Lucy when Silas returned – and I have never seen him look so ill. He is but just recovered from his last great attack of asthma and should not, in my opinion, have risked his health in a public assembly. He was exceedingly white and shaken.
You may imagine him, Eliza, sitting on the old sofa by the window in the breakfast parlour, with Lucy upon one side and me upon the other, stammering out his account.
‘Miss Fenn?’ repeated Lucy again and again. ‘Miss Elinor Fenn? But who is she?’ For she seemed to feel that, if the coroner could not oblige her with a romantic nun, then he might at least furnish a name with which she is familiar.
And then, in the next moment, she was tugging at the poor boy’s arm and demanding to know how the woman had died. And I quite lost patience with her, for she should know that such treatment, besides making him nervous and risking another attack of the asthma, will always make his stammer worse. When it came to pronouncing the cause of the woman’s death, he could only stare from one to the other of us with a trembling lip.
‘Does Mr Wishart believe that she fell into the pool by accident?’ I suggested by way of helping him out.
He shook his head. ‘N … no,’ he managed at last. ‘It was not thought possible. The sides of the pool slope so gently, you know. So, n … no, not an accident.’
‘Murder!’ Lucy reached for her lavender water and I was in fear of the hysterics. But, luckily, the delay caused by his stammering prevented it. She could not very well give way to hysterics while she must wait and coax him into an answer.
At last he managed to explain that the verdict was not murder but, ‘s … s … su … In short, it seems that Miss Fenn took her own life.’
‘Self-murder!’
There was a silence while Lucy considered this – and I began to hope that she might after all forgive poor Mr Wishart his shortcomings, since his opinion at least furnished her with a great deal to feed her imagination.
While she was lost in thought, I questioned Silas about the reasons for this verdict; and it seems that Mr Harris Paynter could prove that the young woman was much troubled with melancholy in the months before her death. Of course, this Mr Paynter is not more than one or two and twenty and so the death occurred before he was surgeon here. But his uncle, Mr Arthur Paynter, was Badleigh’s medical man before him: and, by Silas’s account, he (that is, the uncle) kept a journal of his patients. It was this journal which was presented as evidence in the court today.
‘Well,’ said Lucy at last, ‘one thing is quite certain. It was this dreadful discovery which the Grey Nun came to warn us of.’
And I was on the point of arguing against her … But I found that I must pause and think a little more carefully about the matter. For, though I certainly do not believe that there was a ghostly warning, yet …
Yet I must confess to being puzzled, Eliza. It does seem so very strange, does it not, that two such unusual events – first Penelope’s fall, and now this discovery in the pool – should occur within the course of only a few days? And within a few hundred yards of one another. It seems so very improbable that they should be random occurrences coming together only by chance. But I cannot come at any explanation which might join the two together.
Nor can I escape the feeling that there was something wrong – no, not wrong exactly, perhaps I should rather say strange – about the discovery of the bones. I keep remembering that moment when the captain and I first saw the commotion down beside the lake and I feel as if there was something decidedly odd …
A knocking on the house door stilled Dido’s pen. She waited, fervently hoping that the visitor would not be admitted to disturb her precious hour of solitude. Margaret was gone to pay calls in the village and she had been quite determined to finish this letter while she was alone.
But, after a minute or two, there were the usual sounds of approach, the parlour door was opened and the round red face of Rebecca, the vicarage’s upper maid, appeared.
‘It’s Mrs Harman-Foote, miss. I told her the mistress was gone out, but she says she most particularly wishes to speak with you.’
‘Then you had better show her in, Rebecca,’ said Dido with a sigh. And she put the letter away in her writing desk, wishing very much that she had some success to report concerning her enquiries after the ghost.
But, meanwhile, the maid was hesitating in the doorway and looking quickly about the room as if to be quite sure Margaret was absent before venturing upon an opinion. ‘She’s looking but poorly to my mind, miss,’ she said in a half-whisper before ushering in the lady – who was looking very ‘poorly’ indeed. Dido had never seen her so pale – nor so agitated.
She took a seat beside the hearth and clasped her hands together tightly in her lap. Rebecca hurried forward solicitously to mend the fire, hoping, no doubt to hear something of interest, but Dido waved her away with a frown. As soon as they were alone, the visitor raised her eyes.
‘You have heard the news, Miss Kent? I mean, the news of the inquest.’
Dido replied that she had.
‘It is all so very unpleasant,’ began Mrs Harman-Foote, then seemed unable to go on. She pressed her lips together, swallowed and fixed her eyes upon a spot just behind Dido’s head, as if she was suddenly very interested in an old silhouette of Mr Kent which hung there. She had, altogether, the appearance of a woman who was endeavouring to hold back tears.
Dido waited rather awkwardly for, though they had been acquainted for a little more than five years, there had never existed between them the kind of intimacy which could authorise her to notice her friend’s distress. ‘It is all very shocking,’ she said at last.
‘Yes.’ Mrs Harman-Foote struggled for her usual assurance. ‘But there can be no doubt – I mean as to her identity. I knew the ring for Miss Fenn’s immediately. It was always upon her finger. It is certainly her, Miss Kent, but …’ Again it was necessary for her to study the silhouette and, as she did so, Dido’s mind turned to some hasty
