She stopped and stared, almost supposing that she had made a mistake. But it was indeed Mr Lomax sitting there in solid certainty beside the open french doors of Flora’s pretty, flowered drawing room. It was the same lean figure she had been remembering; the same long legs stretched across the polished wooden floor; the same, rather grave face – certainly past its first youth, but with remarkably clear grey eyes and that kind of strong chin and profile which give a man distinction as he ages.
Her surprise was very great: so great as to leave – at first – no room even for pleasure: so great as to overcome her manners and make her demand, rather abruptly, how he came to be there.
He stood up to greet her, laughing at her amazement – and apologised for being its cause. ‘But your cousin has invited me into her drawing room,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘I am no intruder.’
‘I am sorry, Mr Lomax.’ She recovered herself a little and held out her hand. ‘But it is so strange, so very strange, to suddenly meet with a friend I had supposed to be a hundred miles away.’
‘A hundred and fifty,’ he said, as he took her hand. ‘I believe it is nearer one hundred and fifty miles, from Belsfield into Surrey.’
‘You are a very exact reckoner.’
He smiled and bowed over her hand. ‘I would by no means wish you to underestimate the journey you have brought me on, Miss Kent,’ he said.
‘The journey I have brought you on?’ Dido coloured with pleasure, but just then her gaze fell upon Flora. There was no mistaking her look.
Flora might not understand an allusion to Shakespeare, she might be entirely deaf to metaphors, but in matters of love she was very quick-witted indeed. She recognised an attachment when she saw it (and even, sometimes, when she did not). Before Dido had sat down, her cousin was delightedly planning a Michaelmas wedding and determining just where the happy couple should set up home.
Meanwhile, Mr Lomax was explaining his visit. ‘I am staying eight miles away – at Brooke Manor, with Sir Joshua and Lady Carrisbrook. I believe he is a friend of yours, Mrs Beaumont?’
‘Oh yes! Yes he is. A very good friend indeed.’
‘Sir Joshua,’ he said with a little lifting of his eyebrows, ‘believes that my sole purpose in coming is to convey some papers concerning his property in Somersetshire – and I beg you will not disabuse him of that notion. But he has been so kind as to invite me to stay on for a few days – an invitation which I have been particularly pleased to accept.’
There was such meaning in these last words and they were accompanied by such an earnest look at Dido as made Flora wonder whether she had better not leave them alone together directly.
Dido herself hardly knew what she felt – so intent was she upon allaying Flora’s suspicions. ‘My sister told me that business had taken you from Belsfield, Mr Lomax,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘But I had no idea of that business bringing you into Surrey.’
He leant forward, studied her face. ‘I found,’ he said eagerly, ‘that I must try for an opportunity of seeing you. I could not be quite satisfied with answering your queries in a letter.’ He stopped, seemed to recollect himself and turned slightly so as to include Flora. ‘This rumour against your friend, Mrs Beaumont – it is such a very delicate business, I thought it would be better if we all three talked about it together.’
‘You are so very kind Mr Lomax! I am sure we are both very much obliged to you. Are we not, Dido?’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course.’ Dido exerted herself against a great confusion of emotions – some of which were most unpleasant. An hour ago, when she had been sitting beside the river, she would have counted such a visit as this to be one of the greatest pleasures life could afford. But now that Mr Lomax was actually here in the room with her, she found that she could not be comfortable. She must reflect an hour or so in peace upon his looks and his words before she could hope to understand them; but for now, what mattered most was to seem calm – unconcerned.
‘It is…’ she began – and her own voice sounded as if it were a long way away – ‘it is very kind of you, to make such a long journey for our sake.’ She turned to Flora. ‘Mr Lomax,’ she said, ‘has studied the law and I hope that he will be able to tell us how great the danger is – I mean as to Mr Lansdale and the rumours which are being spread about him.’
This was immediately effective in diverting Flora’s mind from the discovery she had just made. She forgot to watch for signs of love and began instead to relate eagerly the whole business of the death, the picnic and all the details of the ‘horrid, horrid, abominable’ things which had been said by Mrs Midgely.
Mr Lomax listened to her very gravely with his fingertips pressed together and his chin resting upon them, his eyes only once or twice straying, rather anxiously, in Dido’s direction.
Dido herself began to breathe more easily and by the time her cousin had finished her tale, she was tolerably calm. ‘It is a strange business, is it not, Mr Lomax?’ she said.
‘It is certainly very unpleasant.’
‘Can you tell us what might happen – I mean if Mrs Midgely prevails upon Mr Vane and persuades him to take some action?’
‘Well,’ he said very seriously, ‘if the apothecary has a genuine suspicion of Mr Lansdale, then the law requires that he should bring a complaint against him.’
‘And that complaint would have to be made to the magistrates?’
‘Yes. And the magistrates would then put it to a Grand Jury – probably at the midsummer Quarter Sessions. And the men of the jury would either dismiss it, or else find it “a true bill” – which would mean that, in their opinion, there was a case to be made against the gentleman.’
‘And what would happen then?’ asked Flora eagerly.
‘Then, I am afraid, he would be committed for trial at the Assizes.’
‘But how dangerous is the accusation?’ asked Dido. ‘How heavily would Mr Vane’s testimony tell against him if the matter were to be put to a jury?’
‘That is a difficult question to answer,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It would depend a great deal on just what he has to say of this “Kendal Black Drop”.’
‘But Mr Vane is an apothecary. The jury would believe what he told them about such things.’
‘That is very true,’ he acknowledged with a reluctant nod. ‘It is so very difficult to determine the cause of any person’s death that the opinion of a reputable medical man must always carry a great deal of weight.’
‘Oh dear.’ Flora began to wring her hands in great agitation. ‘Oh dear, is there no hope for poor Mr Lansdale?’
He was dismayed to find that he had distressed her. He had, without knowing it, been addressing himself to Dido’s vigorous mind and had quite overlooked the more delicate sensibilities of her cousin.
‘Well, well,’ he said with more gentleness, ‘I would not say that there is no hope, Mrs Beaumont, by any means.’ He turned kindly towards her. ‘I rather think – I hope that the time which has elapsed since the poor lady’s death must materially weaken Mr Vane’s case. You see, if a case were brought, a jury would be sure to ask why, if his suspicions are strong and well founded, Mr Vane did not make his complaint as soon as he discovered his patient was dead.’
‘Oh! And so they would not believe that he was telling the truth?’ cried Flora.
‘They would be a great deal less likely to believe him than they would if the matter had been raised at the time of the death. Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘Yes, upon reflection, I do believe that this must be Mr Lansdale’s greatest security. In point of fact, I very much doubt that Mr Vane will take the matter any further now. If some fresh evidence were to come to light – something which Mr Vane could reasonably claim had heightened his suspicions – then it might be a different matter. But, as it stands, the case would be unlikely to convince any jury.’ He paused and cast Dido a look of deep concern. ‘I think you had better both put the matter out of your heads entirely,’ he said.