‘No, there are about four thousand missing.’
‘Four thousand?’ cried Dido, thoroughly confused and discomfited. ‘I am afraid I do not quite understand.’
My lady raised her eyes and there was in them the same impenetrable coldness as Dido had seen there before. ‘Do you not?’ she said placidly. ‘And yet it is quite simple. My husband’s ancestor, the first Sir Edgar, was given his estates and title by Queen Elizabeth in 1582. Since then, Miss Kent, there have been twelve generations of Montagues.’
She stopped as if her explanation were complete, but Dido continued to stare blankly. Her ladyship smiled mockingly. ‘My dear Miss Kent, have you never considered that everyone has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on.’ Dido, who hated even the simplest sums, had indeed never considered such a calculation before and, now that it was forced upon her, her head began to ache with the extraordinary arithmetic it involved. ‘If you continue the reckoning over twelve generations,’ said her ladyship, ‘I believe you will find that the number of ancestors that should be represented here is exactly four thousand and ninety six.’ She raised her hand in the same weary gesture. ‘But here there are only a few Sir Edgars and their wives.’ Her eyes swept over Dido in chilling triumph. She turned to go. ‘I say again, Miss Kent, that there is not only one portrait missing from this gallery.’
Left alone in the sunny gallery with the solemnly watching ancestors, Dido was torn between amazement that her ladyship should have accomplished such strange computations, chagrin at the way in which she had been distracted from her own enquiries and admiration for the way in which that distraction had been accomplished.
And the end of it all was a growing certainty that her ladyship’s languid manner was only put on to shield herself – though precisely what she wished to shield herself from was much harder to determine.
It was about an hour later, as she was in her room, pondering upon my lady’s strange behaviour and getting ready for a walk in the grounds, that Dido’s attention was claimed by a commotion that was carrying on in the lower part of the house. There was a great deal of running upon the stairs, doors opening and banging closed again, chattering voices raised almost to a shout and then suddenly silenced.
She opened her door and walked to the head of the stairs. The disturbance seemed to be in the entrance hall and upon the main staircase. She started down the steps towards it – and almost immediately ran against Mrs Harris: her pink and white face very flushed and her grey-brown hair falling down out of her cap. It was a fortunate encounter. Dido could not have met with anyone with more to say about recent events – or one who was more likely to tell what she knew.
For the long and the short of it was that Sir Edgar was shut up with Mr Tom Lomax in the library and it seemed likely that the constable was to come and bear him off to the gaol. Mr Tom Lomax! Who would have thought it? Mr Tom who seemed such a pleasant lively young man – though a little bit too free, perhaps, in the way he spoke; but he was very young and you had to pardon him for that and, to be sure, you wouldn’t want to see him hanged for it, would you? Though, by the by, Mr Harris had never thought very highly of the young man, which was probably on account of the acquaintances he kept. People out in India that he had known, and Mr Harris had known too and had no great opinion of them. But still! Murder!
Dido ventured to hope that it was not quite certain that Mr Lomax must be hanged.
But, bless her soul! It seemed as if he would be. Because she had it on very good authority from her own maid who had spoken to the cook who was the sister of the under-gardener, that the footman – or the gardener’s boy – or someone – had actually heard Tom Lomax in the shrubbery – murdering the young woman! Actually heard him!
Dido suggested that it was perhaps not quite murder which the boy had heard.
But it was. Shouting and shooting and the woman crying out pitifully. He heard it all. And now there was Mr Tom in the library and without a doubt he’d be dragged off to the assizes before he could look about him. And the Lord only knew what the poor dear girls would say about it. They were so sensitive and tender-hearted. It was a shocking thing for them to have to hear.
And with this Mrs Harris hurried away to find ‘the poor dear girls’ so that no one else might have the pleasure of shocking them.
Left on her own, Dido made her way slowly to the main staircase and down into the hall – which seemed to be tranquil and deserted now. The great clock ticked ponderously in its corner, the black and white tiles shone in testimony of the housemaids’ labours, a fire of logs blazed cheerfully in the high basket grate and on the rug before it Sir Edgar’s favourite spaniel dozed, her paws and nose twitching as she sought out woodcock in her dreams. Opposite the stairs was the door to the library and it was, as she had expected, closed. She hesitated for a moment; reluctant to go away, yet not wanting to be suspected of eavesdropping. And as she stood with her hand upon the newel post, she saw that, after all, the place was not quite deserted.
A small movement drew her eye to a chair by the fire, a big, old-fashioned chair with a hood to it that all but concealed its occupant. She stepped forward and saw that Mr Harris was sitting there – in a state of great distress.
He was leaning forward with his hands planted upon his knees and his weather-beaten face had turned to a dangerous purple colour. His mouth was moving frantically, but no sound was coming out of it. He seemed to be experiencing some kind of seizure.
‘Mr Harris, are you unwell?’ She hurried to his side. ‘Shall I ring the bell? Shall I send for your man?’
‘No.’ He made a great effort to control himself. ‘No, no, I am quite well, thank you, my dear. Just a little overcome, just for a moment.’
‘Let me call for help…a glass of wine perhaps.’
‘No,’ he said more firmly. ‘No, there is no need at all to distress yourself, Miss Kent. I am only resting for a moment.’ He got to his feet. ‘There is something I must do. A duty. Not pleasant, but it must be done.’
And with that he put back his portly shoulders, crossed the hall, knocked upon the library door and entered without waiting for an answer from within.
As the door closed behind him, Dido sank thoughtfully into the hooded chair. Now, what, she wondered, was Mr Harris’s business with Sir Edgar and Tom Lomax? Something unpleasant.
There were, she thought, two possibilities. Firstly there was the business of how Tom could have been in the shrubbery when everyone had been led to believe that he had not left the spinney. She recollected that, according to Mr Lomax’s account, only Mr Harris had been able to vouch for Tom’s remaining with the shooting party. Was Mr Harris now having to admit that he had not told the truth about that?
And secondly, if Mrs Harris was to be believed, there were acquaintances her husband had in common with Tom. Was it possible that, through them, he knew of something to Tom’s disadvantage? Something which he now felt it was his duty to communicate to Sir Edgar?
Dido sank back as far as she could to hide herself in the hooded chair and resolved to wait until the men left the library. Despite what she had just written to Eliza, she could not be uncurious on this subject. Nor could she quite believe that it had no bearing upon the trouble between Catherine and Mr Montague.
She would wait until the gentlemen emerged. Then she might be able to judge from their behaviour something of what had passed between them.
But concealment proved difficult for, no sooner had she settled into the chair than the dog woke and came to sit beside her, with a hot, friendly paw placed upon her lap. Catherine, coming down the stairs a moment later, saw immediately that there was someone sitting in the chair. And, rather unfortunately, Catherine seemed to be in a very good temper. She was all smiles and friendliness.