But then I considered the character of the lady … And I saw a possibility.
I suggested to Silas that his poem might make a great appeal to Penelope’s romantic disposition … and that the character of a poet might make an even greater appeal.
He looked more than a little frightened, but he is not lacking in understanding and he caught my meaning well enough. And so, before we left the side of the pool, we had agreed upon our plan. When he has written some part of his great ballad – I was careful not to condition for the completion of the whole, which I rather fear may never be accomplished – when some part of it is completed, he is to show the work to me; and I am to convey it to Penelope.
Do you not think it a rather good plan, Eliza? I am extremely proud of it.
I grant that there would seem to be some danger in the probable badness of the verse; but I am trusting that Penelope’s taste in such matters is not too nice.
It will not be easy, for Harriet has always opposed any attachment of her brother’s – love no doubt being considered as dangerous to his constitution as ragouts and port wine. But I confess that I am very glad to have another scheme on hand to divert me a little from gloomy thoughts. And I would dearly love to rout Captain Laurence. Somehow, I just cannot like the man. Nor can I escape the feeling that I have detected in him some kind of duplicity or deception. And yet I cannot quite remember what it is that has made me suspect him.
For some reason my mind keeps returning to that moment upon the gallery when we saw the men discovering the bones. It seems ridiculous to suggest it, Eliza, but I feel as if in that moment he revealed something about himself: something very suspicious.
Chapter Thirteen
Dido emerged cautiously from the vicarage sweep and looked about her.
It was a dull, raw morning; shreds of mist lay about the gravestones in the churchyard, and all the spiders’ webs on the vicarage railings were thickly beaded with moisture. There had been rain in the night and the ruts of the village street were full of puddles. Beyond the black and white front of the inn, the usual little knots of women were gathered upon the steps of the baker’s and the milliner’s shops; but, though Dido looked very carefully, she could not distinguish Margaret among them.
Very much relieved, she set off along the street at a brisk pace, her thoughts all fixed upon a stile beyond the village forge which led, through a little copse, to the Madderstone footpath. Once over this stile she would be beyond Margaret’s sight – and free to spend the morning as she pleased.
She passed the Red Lion in safety, and the baker’s, with its warm yeasty scent. She was passing under the chestnut trees on the village green and was just daring to hope … when a voice called out her name.
She gave a guilty start. However, it was not Margaret, but Lucy Crockford who was hurrying over the yellow carpet of fallen leaves.
‘My dear friend!’ she cried, ‘I am so very glad to have met with you! For I must speak to you on a matter of the utmost importance … and … delicacy.’ Her face coloured coyly – until it matched almost exactly the pink satin lining of her bonnet.
‘Indeed?’ said Dido looking anxiously about her. ‘But I am afraid I am in rather a hurry just now.’
‘Then I shall walk with you.’ Lucy linked arms and leant close to talk as they walked on. ‘You are on your way to Madderstone to visit the poor invalid I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh! It makes me quite wretched to think of dear, dear Penelope lying sick,’ said Lucy in her slowest most languishing voice. ‘No one feels these things as I do! I declare, I had rather be sick myself than see someone I care about suffer! You will laugh at me for it, I am sure, but it is quite true.’
Dido showed no inclination either to laugh or to reply, but only to walk on as fast as Lucy’s dragging arm would allow.
‘I wish,’ continued Lucy, ‘that I might come with you to Madderstone and sit a while with poor Penelope! But I dare not attempt it!’
‘I see no need for caution. I do not believe there is any infection in a broken head.’
‘Oh, but it is so dangerous to my nerves. I feel things so very deeply. Captain Laurence …’ there was a conscious glance as she spoke the name, ‘says that it is extremely uncommon for a woman to be so exceedingly sensitive, so very alive to the feelings of everyone around her. He thinks it something quite remarkable. But I am sure that, if I am remarkable, I had much rather not be. As I tell the captain, it is a dreadful trial to me. Harriet of course is different. She is much better suited to a sickroom.’
‘I do not doubt she is.’
Lucy pressed Dido’s arm and sunk her voice almost to a whisper. ‘In point of fact, it is Harriet I wish to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’
The pressure of Lucy’s fingers increased. ‘Dido,’ she whispered urgently, ‘you must speak to Harriet on my behalf!’
‘Must I? On what subject must I speak?’
Lucy cast her eyes down modestly. ‘Captain Laurence,’ she whispered.
‘Oh!’
‘You must tell her,’ Lucy said eagerly, ‘that she should not attempt to separate …’ She stopped speaking, looked conscious, tossed her head. ‘She seems determined to part us. And I declare it will break my heart …’ She stopped again, and gave Dido’s arm another squeeze. ‘I am sure you understand.’
But Dido was quite determined not to understand so easily. ‘Has the captain made you an offer?’ she asked.
‘Well …’
‘Has he?’ Dido was so eager to know – for Silas’s sake – whether Captain Laurence was, indeed, an engaged man that she momentarily forgot the risk of capture to herself. She drew Lucy to a halt outside the open front of the village forge – where the light of the blacksmith’s fire shone out into the dull morning, and the smells of hot iron and coal mixed with the damp air. ‘Is there an understanding between you and the captain?’ she asked firmly.
Lucy bent her head. ‘Nothing has quite been said,’ she admitted. ‘There has been no outright proposal. For you know it would not be proper to announce an engagement whilst my poor friend is lying sick. I could not bear to do anything so indelicate myself, and the dear captain is so very considerate …’
‘Is he?’ said Dido suddenly, half to herself. The description did not quite chime with her own opinion of the man – and yet, for some reason, it had raised again the troubling memory of that moment when she and Laurence had stood together on the gallery … Why?
But meanwhile Lucy, who had not heard the question, was running on eagerly with her own narrative.
‘Of course he cannot speak until Pen is quite out of danger. But …’ She stopped with such a look of happy consciousness as cried aloud to be prompted.
Dido put aside her doubts about the captain’s character. ‘But?’ she prompted obligingly.
There was a little lifting of the eyes. A sigh of great sensibility. ‘But … I believe I do not say too much if I confess that there is an attachment between us.’
‘I see.’ Dido was rather surprised by this news; she had been almost certain that – if Captain Laurence settled on either of the two friends – it would be the lovely Penelope. She looked doubtingly at Lucy’s unremarkable little face: the ruddy light of the blacksmith’s fire deepened the rather excessive colour on her freckled cheeks and laid a faint red gleam across the lank curls clustering under the pink bonnet. Could a man such as Laurence be charmed by the person or the mind of Lucy Crockford?