‘I see. Thank you very much for explaining it to me.’
The man walked away, but Dido remained in the shadow of the gateposts a little while, contemplating the front of Knaresborough House.
Its shutters were open now that the first stage of mourning was over. In the thick creeper that covered one corner of the building, swallows were busy about their nests. It was a very pleasant, respectable prospect.
But there were secrets hidden here. She was sure of it… There was certainly something very odd indeed about this burglary…
She shook her head at the house. What did it have to hide? And how could one penetrate such respectability, to come at the truth? She dared not approach its door and question its master. Nor could she think of any reason to enter the kitchens and pursue her enquiries among the servants. And how else was she to discover anything? It seemed an impossibility.
However, as Dido’s governess used frequently to remind her, we should ‘despair of nothing we would attain’ as ‘unwearied diligence our point would gain’. And, though there might appear to be little diligence in only sighing over the view of a house-front – or at least none which the redoubtable Miss Steerforth would have valued – Dido almost immediately saw an answer to her question: a means of penetration and discovery.
Kneeling in the shadows by the corner of the house was young Sam, engaged in pulling weeds out of the sweep.
She walked over to him, bade him good morning and exchanged a few remarks upon the warmth of the day, the likelihood of there being thunder before long and the persistence with which groundsel grew in gravel.
‘It makes a great deal of work for you, Sam. Are you employed here all the time now?’
‘Oh no, miss, I only come to do jobs now and then – like burying the dog, and helping Pa fix that new name plate on the gate, and pulling up the weeds sometimes.’
‘Is there no regular gardener employed about the place?’
‘No miss,’ he sat back on his heels and took a welcome rest. ‘There’s precious few servants here at all.’
‘Yes,’ said Dido, recalling the clumsy maid, ‘I had observed as much. Why is the house so ill-served?’
‘Well miss, I reckon the land-agent only keeps on Mr Fraser while the house is empty. And then, when the house is let out, Mr Fraser gets folk in by the day to do the work.’
‘I see,’ said Dido, making the best of her opening. ‘That woman I have seen about here then: a large woman in a grey dress and a straw bonnet. I have seen her here talking to Miss Neville. She comes to help in the kitchen I daresay.’
Sam shook his head so hard the damp hair fell down into his eyes. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘that’s Jenny White you mean, miss. Mr Fraser wouldn’t have her sort working in the house.’
‘Oh! Then what is her business here?’
‘I don’t know, miss, honest I don’t. I wish I did.’ He looked troubled. It was a fact which Dido had frequently observed that labouring people did not like to see their betters valuing anyone beyond their deserts. ‘I reckon it’s very odd the way Miss Neville lets her come around here and doesn’t send her away. Because Miss Neville must know what Jenny White is as well as any one else.’
‘And what is Miss White?’ asked Dido with great interest.
‘She’s a bad lot, miss, that’s what she is. She’s been in prison. Been in prison a good long while. And my Pa says she was lucky the judge was a soft one or it would’ve been transporting for sure.’
‘I see, and why was she sent to prison, Sam?’
‘Well, you see, miss, Jenny White is a laundress…’
‘And an excellent name she has for one of that profession!’
Sam gave her a puzzled look. ‘But the point is, miss, every house Jenny worked in got burgled. And at the trial it all came out how she was working for a gang of housebreakers. Telling them all she could about locks and jewels and when the family were going to be away for the evening. That kind of thing you know, miss.’
‘How very shocking!’
‘It was, miss, and Pa says she’d have been transported for sure – or even hanged – but she made the judge believe she was frightened of the gang. Said she only did what she did because they made her. But Pa reckons…’
Unluckily, just at that moment, there came the sound of the house door opening. They looked up and there was Fraser standing on the step – watching them severely.
‘I’m sorry miss,’ said Sam, shuffling a little along the gravel and attacking a dandelion, ‘I’d better be about my work.’
Reluctantly Dido walked away – and felt Fraser’s disapproval staring at her back all the way to the sweep gates. She made her way home slowly, reflecting upon what a very remarkable thing it was, that she should have seen Miss Neville talking with – paying – a woman known to associate with criminals and that, the very next day, they should hear that Knaresborough House had been burgled.
Flora was still above stairs when Dido returned. And there was no sound of visitors. As she entered the hall she looked immediately to the table at the foot of the stairs – to see if any caller had left a card.
There was no card, but there were several letters just come from the post office. She picked them up – and found among them a letter addressed to herself in an unfamiliar hand.
She paused, her bonnet in her hand, its ribbons trailing on the floor, the heat of the morning cooling on her cheeks. She turned the letter over thoughtfully: studied its direction. It was not written in a flowing script, but in separated letters – as if it were the work of a child – or a person of little education.
Frowning to herself, she laid down her bonnet and carried the letter into the bright little breakfast room where everything was fresh and clean from the housemaid’s hands and the french doors stood open upon the garden. She sat down and broke the seal.
There was but one sheet of paper and only a few lines written in the same clumsy letters.
Dear Miss Kent
You wish to discover what happened at Knaresborough House, but I think you had better not. There are some people of whom it may truly be said, ‘The world is not their friend, nor the world’s laws.’ I beg you would remember it.
There was no name, no signature.
Chapter Thirteen
…As you may imagine, Eliza, we have puzzled over this letter a great deal. The writing is so remarkably ill-done that Flora believes it to be the work of a servant or someone of the sort. But I cannot agree with her. For, although it is written badly, the words are spelt very correctly and they are not such words, or expressions, as a person of no education would use. In short, I believe it to be the work of a man or woman who could write a fair hand if they wished, but did not choose to do so for fear of being recognised by it. Which suggests it is the work of someone well known to me.
It would seem that some acquaintance of mine knows the truth about Mrs Lansdale’s death and is advising me not to enquire into it.
And then there is the quotation. Is the line at all familiar to you, Eliza? I am almost certain that it is from Shakespeare. But you know how I am about the great bard – I never can remember the names of his characters or plays. And I find that Flora has not a single volume of his work! Please tell me of any ideas that you have – and you might ask Catherine’s opinion too, for she was more lately in a schoolroom than either of us.
I would dearly love to know just who it is that must be supposed unfriended by the world and its laws. I have determined to ask everyone that I can about it – not only for the sake of discovering the meaning, but also so that I may watch for consciousness in the speaker.