It was a quiet domestic scene: two young women in muslin and shawls and patent slippers sitting after dinner in a comfortable old room in gentle candle-and firelight. But Dido felt that she had been right to think of the colonel and his army; for there was a battle to be enacted here. There might be no cannon and no swords – no blood to be shed – and yet the girls were here to fight for everything that was dear to them. She only hoped that the weapons she had put into their hands would be strong enough to gain them a victory.
She had prepared them as best she could. There was little that she could do now except watch and hope that they could carry off the attack.
There came the unmistakable sound of the drawing room door opening. They all looked at one another. Something like panic crossed Sophia’s face, but she mastered it and drew in a long breath. Footsteps – a man’s footsteps – crossed the hall. Tom’s voice called out a hearty greeting to the dog. Dido picked up a book and pretended to read.
Tom appeared in the doorway.
‘Miss Sophia!’ He hesitated as he noticed Dido and Amelia. ‘Miss Harris, Miss Kent.’ He made a small bow in their direction before returning his attention to Sophia with a little smirk which was, no doubt, intended to suggest the extreme tenderness of his regard. ‘Will you not come into the drawing room and play for us, Miss Sophia?’
‘No.’ Sophia’s voice was badly distorted, and for one anxious moment Dido thought it would fail her completely, but she made a valiant effort to control it and continued in a tolerable imitation of her usual manner. ‘Thank you, Mr Lomax. You are very, very kind. But I do not intend to play today.’
He crossed the room and took the seat beside her. Dido thought of an enemy force moving into the trap which has been laid for it.
‘You are very cruel,’ he declared dramatically. ‘I do believe that my evening will be a blank unless I hear you play, Miss Sophia.’ The light shone into his face, revealing that the last few days had done nothing to improve his dark, ragged side-whiskers. He stretched his long legs across the rug and placed one arm along the back of the sofa so that his thick fingers almost touched the pretty ruching on her short white sleeve. ‘Come, will you not relent?’
Sophia looked down at her hands and shook her curls. ‘I am so sorry, Mr Lomax, but really I fear that to play anything would be quite beyond my powers this evening.’
‘I hope you are not unwell,’ he cried with exaggerated alarm and formed his bristling cheeks into an expression of doleful concern.
‘Thank you,’ she said, sinking her voice. ‘I am just a little tired. That is all.’
‘Her hands are tired.’ This rather surprising remark came from Amelia and Tom had to turn about in his seat to look at her – which rather spoilt the nonchalant pose that he had struck.
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Harris?’
‘Her hands are tired on account of the letters, Mr Lomax.’
Tom looked confused – as well he might. Dido had hoped for confusion at this point.
‘My sister and I have been very busy, you see,’ said Sophia. He turned back to her. ‘We have been writing letters all morning. Why, we have written seven each, you know! That is a great many letters, is it not?’
‘It is quite remarkable!’
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Dido lowered her book into her lap. Now, she thought, keep him confused. Keep him off his guard.
‘You must,’ Tom continued gaily, ‘be enjoying your stay at Belsfield very much if you wish to tell so many of your friends about it.’
Dido saw the sisters exchange meaningful looks – the army was signalling that the moment had come to close in for the attack.
Sophia raised her eyes to his and gave a shy smile. ‘Oh yes,’ she simpered. ‘We like Belsfield very much, very much indeed.’
Encouraged by the smile, Tom leant closer and, like a good chaperone, Dido watched and listened carefully. ‘I hope,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I hope, Miss Sophia, that I may have played some small part in making your stay enjoyable.’
Sophia looked down at her hands and, though she did not quite blush, she contrived to look so very, very conscious that one might almost have believed that she did. Dido would have been surprised that a gently reared young lady could give a performance that must rival anything achieved by Drury Lane’s most hardened actress – if she had not known that this particular young lady had been playing a part for many years. Her character was certainly more than enough to deceive Tom, predisposed as he was to believe in his own charms.
‘Tell me,’ he whispered, ‘please tell me, or I shall be miserable. Did I figure just a little bit in any of those letters? Did you mention my name to your friends?’
Sophia did not raise her eyes, but the curls about her ears trembled in a modest little nod. Oh, it was an excellent performance!
The workings of Tom’s face betrayed strong emotion – as well they might, for at that moment, twenty thousand pounds and an easy life seemed to be within his grasp.
‘And what did you say about me?’ he whispered.
‘I said…’ Sophia continued to avoid his eye. ‘I said that you had been very…attentive. And that you seemed to value my society very highly.’
‘And you were quite right to say it.’
‘I said, in fact, that you enjoyed my society so much you were prepared to go to quite remarkable lengths to secure it.’
‘I am sorry.’ He was still leaning over her, in the attitude of a lover, but his face was troubled. ‘I am sorry, Miss Sophia, I am not sure I quite understand you.’
‘Do you not?’ She raised her eyes at last. Her voice lost all its silliness; her manner became businesslike. ‘But it is quite simple, Mr Lomax. I referred of course to the remarkable conversation that took place between you and Papa.’ She met his eyes fearlessly.
Tom started back from her. For the moment he was beyond speech, but the look that he threw in Dido’s direction suggested that he was not beyond calculating who was to blame for this sudden turn of events.
Amelia left her seat and went to stand behind him. ‘It is in all the letters,’ she said quietly.
‘All fourteen of them,’ said Sophia.
‘All about your agreement with Papa,’ said Amelia.
‘And the horrible threat that you have made.’
‘We have told all our friends about it.’
‘All our unmarried friends.’
‘All our unmarried, wealthy friends.’
‘And if you attempt to expose Mama,’ Sophia continued gravely, ‘we shall take those letters to the post office.’
Tom’s face was burning red. He looked from one to the other of them in confusion. ‘You mean you would broadcast the matter yourselves?’ he said in bewilderment.
‘What would we have to lose?’ said Amelia.
‘If you had already spoken out against her, it would do our mother no more harm. And you see, Mr Lomax, we would not wish any of our friends to be deceived by your attentions – deceived into thinking you a gentleman.’
He stared at her – too dull-witted to comprehend that a woman could be threatening him.
‘And there is something else which I ought to mention,’ Sophia said, calmly rising from her seat. ‘Each one of our letters contains a request that the reader send seven similar letters to her friends – particularly her wealthy friends – with a request that each of those friends send another seven to her friends. And so on. I am no mathematician, Mr Lomax, but I am sure you would agree with me that within a very short time indeed there would be a great many letters circulating and I doubt very much whether you would find an unmarried lady of fortune in the country who had not heard of your deception – and was disgusted by it.’