He took a step closer to her and lowered his voice to a whisper that was all but torn away on the breeze. ‘Well, the fact of the matter is, m’dear, that I’ve made up my mind to…enrol my name in the lists of Hymen, as they say. In short, I plan to marry, Miss Kent, and it ain’t something I ever thought to do.’
‘Yes, indeed, I see,’ said Dido, nodding sagely over his palm. ‘Yes, that would explain this great change in your future, which is written so clearly here.’ She pondered again for the space of time that it took for three waves to break on the Cobb wall. ‘Mmm, I cannot quite make out still whether your decision will increase your happiness… Perhaps if I knew why you had decided to break through your resolution of not marrying…’
‘Well, you see, Miss Kent,’ he whispered, ‘this is the way it is. And this is quite in confidence, don’t y’know?’
‘Oh yes, I will be very discreet.’
‘Well, this is the way it is. There’s this uncle of mine; old fellow and pretty sick too, likely to pop off any day now. And he’s got a monstrous big estate and I’m the only kin he has in this world. So, you see the way the land lies, don’t you?’
‘Oh quite! Naturally you look forward to inheriting and I am sure it is a great comfort to your uncle to know that his property will pass into such good hands.’
‘Ah, yes. But the devil of the business is, m’dear, that he ain’t that comfortable about it. You see, he’s heard rumours about me.’ He gave a spluttering cough. ‘Ill-natured gossip that I won’t trouble a lady with… But the old fellow has taken against me and he won’t put his name to the will until I “regularise my life”, as he terms it.’
‘And that regularising must take the form of matrimony?’
The colonel nodded.
‘I see.’
So, thought Dido immediately, the colonel fears only respectable ladies. He is, in fact, a libertine and a womaniser. She was sure it must be so, despite what the other men said about him, for she could think of no other irregularity in a man’s life for which marriage might be considered a cure…
She stood in thoughtful contemplation of the hand for several moments longer. His reply had presented her with a dilemma. Should she advise him to marry or not? The trick she had undertaken for her own ends had given her a power which she did not want.
His motives for marriage were selfish and his character, apparently, doubtful. But how eager to be married was Miss Harris? How acutely did she feel the approach of three and twenty? And, in a prudential light, it would be a fine match for her…
Well, these were questions which the lady must decide for herself.
‘Ah! I understand now,’ she said raising her eyes to his red, anxious face. ‘This was why I found your hand so difficult to read. You see, Colonel, your future happiness depends entirely upon how you act now. It is written here that you will find true contentment only with a woman who exactly understands the demands of your uncle. You must explain to any lady you ask to marry you the reason why you have broken through your lifetime’s resolution of remaining single.’
‘I think,’ said Catherine a little more than an hour later, ‘that Colonel Walborough will make an offer to Miss Harris before the day is over. I see that they are walking out together along the beach.’
‘Hmm,’ said Dido thoughtfully, ‘and that leaves Mr Tom Lomax to entertain her sister.’
‘Why do you look so ill-tempered? I did not know that you disapproved of love-making.’
Dido made no reply, but it passed through her mind that she did most heartily disapprove when either one of the two gentlemen making love might fairly be suspected of murder. For, with them both so set upon matrimony for their own mercenary reasons, might not either one of them have destroyed a woman who stood in his way?
She sighed deeply and they walked on a little way in silence. They were now upon a rutted track and had left the town a little way behind them. The voices of visitors had faded and there was nothing about them but short, sheep-bitten grass; no sound but the rush of waves and the crying of gulls overhead.
Suddenly Catherine stopped, turned to her companion and surprised her greatly by saying very rapidly, ‘Aunt Dido, there is something I must tell you. Something about Richard. I did not like to tell you before. But now that you are going to meet him, I feel you should know it. If you don’t you may ask questions that will pain him. You have got to be such a great asker of questions lately.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes, you know that you have. It is alclass="underline" How? And who? And where? with you now.’
‘My dear, you did ask me to discover things.’
‘Yes, but I did not mean…’ She stopped helplessly and brushed away the strands of hair that the breeze was blowing across her cheek.
‘What is it that you wish to tell me about Mr Montague?’ asked Dido.
Catherine frowned and scuffed at the grass with the toe of her shoe. (She had always done that, Dido remembered, no matter what they had said to her about it injuring the leather.) ‘He is not… He is not quite what you would expect a man of his age and birth to be,’ she said. ‘He is not quite the man of the world.’
‘I see.’
‘He is…very diffident.’
‘I see.’
‘Surprisingly diffident. He has no confidence in himself at all. He has always been like that. Ever since he was a little boy. It is all Sir Edgar’s fault. He was so unkind to Richard. He made him work so hard at his lessons and he was hardly allowed to leave Belsfield, you know. He had no friends except the servants’ children.’
Like Annie Holmes, thought Dido. And she wondered too whether this extreme diffidence and lack of confidence in his own abilities might be the reason behind the way the family talked of Richard; was it this which made them seem so unwilling to say anything which clearly delineated his character?
Catherine’s sudden disclosure interested her in another way, too. For it suggested a deeper knowledge of the young man’s character than had appeared before. In fact, this honest description of her lover accorded with other observations which Dido had lately made and, together with them, made her rather wonder whether there were other things about him which Catherine knew and was determined to conceal.
Out loud she said only, ‘Catherine, why do you feel that you must tell me this now?’
‘Because…’ She drew in a long breath. ‘Because I do not want you to distress him with a lot of questions when you meet him.’
‘If I meet him…’
‘No, Aunt, it is a case of when you meet him. Because you are going to meet him now. We are on our way to Richard at this very moment. I made enquiries at the inn, you see, about the house. It is called the Old Grange. I remember him telling me that. And we will find it at the end of this track.’
Dido looked doubtingly from the track which led off across the grass – turning now slightly uphill and away from the sea – to Catherine, who was smiling at it as if it were the very path to happiness. ‘My dear,’ she said cautiously, ‘we can by no means be sure that he will be at this house.’
‘But I know he will, Aunt. I know.’
‘You are very good at knowing exactly what you wish to know.’
‘You will see,’ said Catherine and without another word she hurried on along the path, setting a pace which left neither of them any breath to spare for conversation.
After about ten minutes they came to the top of the rise. Catherine stopped.
‘There it is,’ she cried, breathless and triumphant.
Standing alone and fronting the sea, it was a solid, foursquare house such as young children delight in drawing, with two clumps of tall chimneys and four large windows on either side of the front door, and a gravel sweep with iron gates before it.