Thoughts of guilt and murder seemed out of place amid such tranquillity.
That the dead woman had been young was very bad news indeed. Respectable spinster though she was, Dido understood the ways of the world quite well enough to see that a woman of that class was much more likely to be…acquainted with the son of Sir Edgar Montague if she was young and…not ill-looking. That she should have been rather well dressed and that she should seem to have lately given over menial work was worse still. That telling phrase ‘a kept woman’ would insinuate itself into Dido’s mind in spite of all that she could do to keep it out.
She gazed at a beautiful, intricate mass of spiders’ webs that hung between the iron curls of the bench and she recalled Mr Montague’s words: ‘I must speak with my father.’ ‘He will not like what he hears.’ ‘It is impossible that he and I can remain friends after tonight.’
The words of a young man whose secret amour had been discovered?
But no, Dido would not, could not think that. After all, a woman was dead. This was not simply a matter of a gentleman’s youthful indiscretion (and again the vicarage-raised Dido proved herself more worldly-wise than most people would have suspected) such as had been passed over and covered up in many respectable families. This was a case of murder. By allowing herself to consider that Mr Montague’s strange behaviour and the woman’s death were connected, she seemed to be delivering up Catherine’s beloved, not simply to moral stricture, but to the very hands of the hangman.
Except, she thought guiltily, I am not delivering him up. I am protecting him.
Her last words to Rose had come unbidden to her tongue, surprising her with their fluency and calculation. For she had believed that her role at Belsfield was to uncover the truth, not to obscure it. But she had moved instinctively to conceal the last fact that Rose had unknowingly revealed to her.
The dead woman’s dress had been a puzzle to the scullery maid, coming, as she no doubt did, from a family where women’s clothes were coarse and loose and probably passed around among them as needs changed. But there were others among the servants who would have known precisely what the meaning was of those tucks and folds in the blue dimity gown. The ladies’ maids could certainly have enlightened her.
Dido had herself constructed dresses for her sisters-in-law in just the same way. One did it when the dress would have to be let out as the months progressed – and the time of confinement grew closer.
Dido gazed out across the park and wondered whether anyone else had discovered this truth. Perhaps not, for it did not seem as if the young woman’s figure had been betraying her yet. Perhaps she was the only one to know that the dead woman had been expecting a child.
Chapter Four
…I have told no one about the baby, Eliza. By which, of course, I mean that I have told no one but you. I hope you will excuse these long letters full of my own concerns; but it is such a relief to tell someone what is in my mind and I hesitate to confide in Catherine when everything is suspicion and uncertainty, for I do not wish her to be hurt more than she must be.
Exactly how much she must be hurt is not easy to judge. I am almost certain that it must all end in a broken engagement, no matter what I discover, for that is the course of action which Mr Montague himself desires. Her acquaintance with the young man has been brief and I trust the suffering of her heart will be in proportion. But how much the scandal will injure her reputation is much harder to determine.
Well, the next thing I want to tell you about is the shrubbery.
I went there yesterday, after I had spoken to Rose, and I found it to be as well cared for as everything else about this place. The laurels are as neatly clipped as Sir Edgar’s own side-whiskers. No great branches to collect the rain and be shaken over unsuspecting heads as we used to do when we were children. Here it is all very orderly: gravel paths raked quite clean of weeds, a murmuring of doves and a rich smell of damp earth and leaf-mould. Anyone knowing nothing of what had happened there could pass through without suspecting anything.
However, my eyes were awake to suspicion, so I noticed that beside the summerhouse – which, by the by, is called the hermitage; I do not quite know why, except that Belsfield is rather too grand to have something as common-place as a summerhouse, which every farmer may have these days – well, by the summerhouse, I noticed that there was a patch of gravel which was particularly well raked, and rather wetter than any of the rest. It looked very much as if it had been washed clean. And then, when I stooped down and looked closer, I saw that the water that had been thrown down had washed traces of a red crust onto the large white stones that border the path.
This was, undoubtedly, the place where the woman lay.
Eliza, knowing that, there was something indescribably disquieting about the very ordinariness of the place. I was not quite frightened, but it was oppressive to stand upon that spot and think that this picturesque little grey building, these banks of laurel gleaming with damp, were the last sights upon which a fellow creature’s eyes had rested.
Well, just beside the wet gravel was the door to the hermitage. I tried the lock, though of course I had not much hope of gaining an entrance. For you know how it is in these grand places: all the keys are jealously guarded by the gardeners and only they are able to go about wherever they like. But, to my very great surprise, the door swung open – letting out a faint smell of damp and dead leaves. There was not much light inside because the shutters were closed, but it was possible to see the usual collection of stools and basketwork chairs that fill such places, a stand with three umbrellas in it, and two forgotten sunhats lying on a small table. The floor was covered in dust and dry, brown leaves.
Nothing of interest, I thought, and I was about to close the door when my eyes became sufficiently accustomed to the dim light to make out footprints in the dust. I looked closer. Yes, some time recently someone – or maybe two people – had come into the summerhouse. I followed the track of the feet and saw that two chairs had been turned slightly towards one another. On the back of one of the chairs a cushion had been balanced and bore still the impression of a resting head.
Well now, Eliza, I did a very clever thing. I sat down in that chair and I tried to rest my own head against the cushion. But I found that it was impossible for me to do so and I was able to calculate that the person who had placed it must be almost a foot taller than I am. Was not that remarkably well done of me?
Indeed, I begin to think that, terrible though this whole business is, it has at least the advantage of allowing full play to my genius, which I have long considered wasted in the contriving of new gowns and roast mutton dinners out of a small income; and if there was such a profession as Solver of Mysteries, I think I should do as well in it as any man. Perhaps I should set myself up in town with a brass plate upon my door: ‘D Kent. Detector of Crimes and Discoverer of Secrets.’ Do you not think I should do good business?
But, rather than cry my own praises, I shall tell you instead of everything that I have been clever enough to deduce.
First of all, there is the question of when this murder took place. Well, about that there can be little doubt; we are all quite certain that it must have occurred while the men were out shooting. It must have happened then, otherwise the single shot would have been heard and remarked upon, if not by people up at the house, then certainly by the men working in the garden.