Eliza, am I allowing my imagination to run away with me? Such an end as murder to an amour seems so very unlikely. Surely a generous payment to the woman and a sharp reprimand from Sir Edgar to his son would be less like the plot of a horrid novel and more in keeping with the manners of the modern world.
However…
Dido broke off as she heard the door open behind her and pulled the blotter across her incomplete letter. She was writing in the morning room, where she had hoped to be undisturbed at this time of day, when most of the household were already above stairs dressing for dinner, and when the sun had moved from the windows on this side of the house, leaving the room gloomy and rather chill, with a single log smouldering on a heap of fine grey ash in the grate.
She looked round and was immediately glad that she had hidden her letter, for the intruder was Tom Lomax. She hoped that he was in pursuit of the young ladies and would go away when he saw only her; but, on the contrary, he gave a slow satisfied smile, as if he had been looking for her, and lounged into the room.
‘I am always suspicious,’ he said as he sprawled in a chair beside her table, ‘when I see a lady hiding her correspondence. I cannot help thinking that she has been broadcasting information which she ought to keep to herself.’
‘Indeed? No doubt that is because of your conscience, which tells you there is information you wish to keep hidden.’
Tom frowned and sat for several minutes watching her insolently. Dido, determined not to be disconcerted, returned the stare.
He had, as she had observed before, a rather handsome face, but there was something ridiculous about the dark shadows on the sides of his cheeks that showed where he was attempting to grow fashionable long side-whiskers and, by the look of things, not succeeding very well in his ambition. And his small mouth turned down sourly at the corners, as if the world, like his whiskers, was disappointing him. Which, she didn’t doubt it was, since it was – so far – refusing to provide him with a living for which he did not have to exert himself.
At the moment there was impatience and contempt in his pale eyes and, though she would not have confessed it, Dido was hurt by it. She found herself calculating for how long young men had looked at her in that way. Six years? Seven? Certainly no more than that. Before that she had been young. Never quite beautiful, of course, but reckoned pretty by some and never rated as less than ‘a fine girl’. Then young men looked at her differently, even when they were angry with her – as they quite often were. Then there might be irritation but never, never, contempt. A young well-looking woman always had a kind of respect.
A fragile, short-lived respect, she reminded herself. And one which all too easily prevented a girl from being honest, because she was too anxious for admiration. At least when the world had branded one a ‘spinster’ there was a kind of freedom, a release from that overwhelming concern for others’ good opinion.
‘Have you something to say to me, Mr Lomax?’ she demanded at last. ‘Or have you only come to stare me out of countenance?’
He frowned, disconcerted by her honesty. But in a moment he had placed a cushion behind his head and was smiling as if he was very much at ease. ‘I have come to give you a little advice.’
‘That is very kind of you.’
‘Yes. You see, Miss Kent, it won’t do. All this poking about asking questions. It won’t do at all.’
‘I was not aware that I was “poking about”, Mr Lomax. And as to questions – perhaps you can explain which questions of mine you dislike.’
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I know what you are about,’ he said. ‘You are trying to patch up things between Dick and Catherine.’
Offended by his familiar use of Catherine’s Christian name, Dido chose not to reply.
‘And that won’t do at all,’ he said. ‘Because that affair concerns matters you don’t understand. Matters no woman can understand.’
‘What is it that you fear I do not understand?’
‘That note,’ he said, surprising her greatly.
‘Oh? And which note would that be, Mr Lomax?’
‘The one Dick left for Catherine.’
For a moment Dido was at a loss. Then she remembered Catherine telling her that Mr Montague’s last note had been conveyed by Tom Lomax. She met his gaze with a level stare. ‘But,’ she said, ‘you can know very little about that note. It was, after all, addressed to my niece and, since I am sure she did not show it to you, your part was only to hand it over, and you can know nothing of its contents.’
‘As to that,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘if Dick had cared about me reading it, he would have sealed it.’
‘So, you read what was not addressed to you?’
‘Yes, yes. The point is—’
‘The point,’ said Dido, rising from her seat and taking up her letter, ‘is that I am not willing to discuss with you information which an honourable man would not possess.’ She crossed the room with what she hoped was dignity and he watched her scornfully.
‘The point,’ he said mockingly, ‘is that that note is a complete lie. It’s plain that Dick is tired of the engagement and wants to end it. So he has made up this story about being disinherited.’
Dido opened the door and stood for a moment with the brass door-knob in her hand. Sunlight from the hall streamed into the gloomy room and with it came a lovely rippling melody from the pianoforte across in the drawing room. ‘Of that,’ she said coldly, ‘you can have no proof at all.’
‘Oh, I have proof! Proof that would be plain to any man. Only a woman could be blind enough to believe what was in that note.’
Dido hesitated in the doorway. Her pride and her anger urged her to walk on and yet her curiosity was all for staying. To ask a question now would have all the appearance of inconsistency – and yet she could not prevent herself.
‘What then,’ she said quietly, her back still turned to him, ‘is this proof?’
He did not answer. She turned back and saw him lounging still in the chair, his hands folded behind his head and his long legs stretched across the Turkey carpet. He smiled at her. ‘Dick can’t be disinherited,’ he said. ‘The old man might want to do it, but he can’t.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She took hold of the back of a chair to steady herself. ‘I do not understand you.’
‘No, women never do understand inheritance. But you don’t need to believe me, Miss Kent. Ask any man in the house. Ask Harris. Or ask my father. They will all tell you the same. The whole of the Belsfield estate is entailed on the next male heir. It must pass to Dick when the old fellow dies. The terms of the settlement are quite clear. No one can stop him inheriting.’
‘But…’ Dido struggled for both understanding and dignity. ‘If there was a serious disagreement between Mr Montague and Sir Edgar…’
‘It would make no manner of difference. My dear Miss Kent, Dick could spit in the old man’s face at dinner and he’d still inherit everything.’
‘Perhaps he would inherit on his father’s death. But in the meantime, without his father’s goodwill, he would be penniless.’
‘Again, you are arguing like a woman. A man with Dick’s prospects is never penniless. He could borrow against his expectations and live very comfortably until the old man pops off.’