And then, sitting on the other side of Mr Harris, there was Catherine: even paler than usual, and rather silent, but with little else to show how many tears she had lately been shedding. Of Catherine, too, her opinion had changed in the last few days. Catherine’s affection for Mr Montague was more firmly founded than Dido had at first supposed… And did that mean that she too had secrets to hide: confidences that had been exchanged between the lovers and which she was determined not to break? Dido was beginning to suspect that it might be so.
And then, at the head of the table, sat her ladyship. Dido paused, for here perhaps was the greatest mystery of the household. With her blank face and her fingers forever twisting at her rings, her insipid air and her flashes of sharp intelligence, her exquisite beauty and her costly fashionable clothes…
Dido stopped. She had noticed something that she should have noticed long ago. There was something wrong about the way my lady was dressed.
When the ladies were alone in the drawing room, Dido looked about her purposefully. She had a plan in her head for saving Jack from the colonel’s constant demands and, in order to carry it out, she had need of a pack of cards.
At the pianoforte the candlelight shone on the bright little faces and the bobbing curls of the Misses Harris, and on the rouged cheeks of their mother. At the fireside, in another pool of candlelight, her ladyship was already spreading out the first Patience of the evening, her attention absorbed in the patterns she was making with the deft little movements of her hands. It was, thought Dido, a way of removing herself from the company around her. She moved towards her and took a seat, close enough for conversation but not so close as to be quite overwhelmed by the scent of rose water, which was mixing with the wood smoke. On the opposite side of the hearth, Margaret noticed the intrusion with pursed lips.
‘May I have the use of these a little while?’ asked Dido, picking up an unbroken pack of cards from the inlaid table.
Her ladyship nodded graciously and Dido began to rearrange the cards in the pack. As she did so, she covertly studied her companion’s hands. They moved elegantly and precisely over the table, never fumbling or making a mistake. Delicate hands with long white fingers, looking very beautiful with the creamy lace of her sleeves falling half across them; but, Dido saw now for the first time, their beauty was sadly marred by my lady’s habit of twisting her rings. The flesh around the rings was rubbed red and sore. It was as if the fine gold and diamonds and rubies were nothing more than the chafing bonds of a prisoner.
Dido set down her cards, and reached across the table. Making some pleasant remark about its loveliness, she just lifted the edge of lace at the lady’s wrist.
Instantly the hand was withdrawn and all the cards my lady was holding cascaded onto the floor.
There was a loud ‘hmph’ of disapproval from Margaret.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dido bending quickly to retrieve the cards.
‘It was nothing, Miss Kent. You merely startled me.’ Her face was impassive; but her eyes were cold and angry.
Dido was glad that the appearance of the gentlemen and Sir Edgar’s approach to his lady with his usual questions about her health and her medicine gave her an excuse to move away to the other side of the room. There was no staying within range of those furious eyes.
She walked away very thoughtfully and took up her post on a distant sofa. She laid the pack of cards down on a table at her side – and she waited.
She did not doubt that the colonel would walk into her trap.
…And I was right. He soon came. My looks in the dining room had of course alerted him to the terrible peril that I had foreseen for him.
And I had foreseen a terrible peril for him, Eliza. I did not attempt to conceal it from him. Though, I confessed, I might have withheld the awful knowledge from a lesser man. A lesser man might have been too much frightened. But to a military hero like himself I was willing to own that I had received the most direful presage of doom.
What kind of doom? he asked immediately.
Well, to own the truth, the society of someone within this house was of the greatest danger to him. There was someone within this house who he should sedulously avoid. I did not, of course, know who it might be that was so dangerous to him.
Could I not discover the identity of this individual?
No, no, I did not think I could. It would be too great a test of my abilities.
Was there no way of discovering more?
Well, sometimes a careful reading of the cards might…
And then, since we discovered that, quite by chance, there was a pack of cards on the table beside us, and since he pressed me so very urgently, I reluctantly consented to try what might be done. I was not pleased, however, with my own performance and regretted very much that it seemed to help him not at all. For twice when I dealt the cards there appeared – quite unaccountably – in the very centre of my pattern, a black jack. Which could only suggest to me a dark-haired fellow in a lowly walk of life – and how such a person could be an associate of the colonel I was quite at a loss to understand…
He, however, much to my surprise, nodded vigorously and thanked me again and again for my warning.
How strange!
It is as well, I think, that I am not inclined to turn spy, Eliza. For it would, no doubt, be of the utmost advantage to the French to know that they might lay aside their muskets and cannons because the doughty leaders of our armies can be routed with a mere pack of cards.
It is late now and I am in my chamber celebrating my victory with a very wonderful luxury indeed – a delicious hot jug of chocolate. Jack has just brought it to me with a great many smiles and thanks. So it seems that he is already enjoying the good effects of my warning. How he came by the stuff I do not know. In all probability he raided Sir Edgar’s private store. But I find myself liking Sir Edgar less and less so I do not care about stealing from him; and, besides, I learnt long ago that in these great houses it is as well to accept such kindnesses gratefully and hold one’s tongue.
I am becoming quite accustomed to Belsfield’s luxurious manner of living and you will, no doubt, find me completely spoilt when I come home.
I must go to bed now, for tomorrow I shall be very busy. I intend to put some of those questions to Jack which I was too weary to begin upon tonight. And, emboldened by my success this evening, I have determined that tomorrow I will set about defeating Mr Tom Lomax. You see, Eliza, I have concocted a plan. It is made partly from the things that he said to me once when he found me writing to you, and partly from that extraordinary conversation which I had with Lady Montague in the gallery. It is a bold scheme and I hardly think that you will approve it, but I think that it might just succeed…
Chapter Seventeen
‘Thank you.’ Sophia Harris put a shaking hand to her throat as if talking was a very great effort. ‘Thank you, Miss Kent, for telling me this.’
‘I hope,’ said Dido rather fearfully, ‘that I have done right in speaking to you. Mr Tom Lomax did not expect me to take such a measure, I am sure. And if I could have thought of any other means of defeating him, I should have spared you the pain of hearing his plans – and his accusations.’
‘Please,’ said Sophia exerting herself to sound calm. ‘Do not distress yourself on that account. I was already acquainted with the circumstances of my sister’s birth – and of all the cruel things that could be said about Mama were they known. Once or twice over these last days I have wondered whether Mr Lomax meant mischief by the things he was saying – those remarks about his wide circle of friends in India. My father, too, I know has been uneasy about it almost since we came to Belsfield, and I am sure it is only my mother’s good nature which has allowed her to remain ignorant of the danger.’