‘This is the price you must pay for my silence, Harriet. If you wish me to hold my tongue – if your father’s name is to go untarnished – then you must let your sister come home.’
Chapter Forty-Five
By next morning the fog was entirely cleared away. The sun shone as Dido and Mr Lomax walked beside the lower pool, and the trees blazed forth gloriously against a cloudless blue sky. The pool was almost returned now to its old level; an enterprising pair of ducks had already taken possession of it and scores of curled, bronze oak leaves drifted across its ruffled surface, driven by a brisk, cold wind.
They stood upon the bank in silence for a while: her hand just resting on his arm.
‘Will you tell me the end of the story?’ he asked quietly at last. ‘Your countenance this morning seems to say that the “business” which took you from the ballroom yesterday was successfully completed.’
‘Yes, it was.’ She looked up into his brooding face. His eyes were fixed upon the peacefully sculling ducks, his jaw set in obstinate disapproval. ‘But if I tell you about it, it will be the cause of another quarrel between us. I fear,’ she said quietly, ‘that we must give up free and open discussion, for it will always end in my arguing like a woman – and your being displeased.’
He sighed heavily. ‘To quarrel when there is no possibility of changing one another’s mind is a fruitless indulgence. If you are so kind as to honour me with an account of last night’s events, I will undertake – I will endeavour – not to express opinions of which you are already aware.’
She searched his cheek for that restless little muscle, which always betrayed him when he reigned in his anger; but she could discern no sign of it. However she did notice that the sunlight was once more bringing forward the dark flecks in his eyes. She hastily turned her own gaze upon the pool and the ducks, and began her account.
Soon, she knew, she must tell him of the conclusion she had come to in the journey from Bath. But, for now she would indulge herself with talking freely to him – perhaps it would be the last time that such intercourse was possible.
As she talked they walked on about the edge of the pool and climbed the steps at its end. From time to time she stole a look at his impassive face. There was an occasional shake of the head; but, in view of his undertaking, she interpreted these as expressing wonder rather than disapproval.
She finished her tale as they arrived at the spoilt lawn and came to a standstill upon the once-smooth turf which was now deeply gouged by horses’ hooves and cartwheels. They stood for a moment, looking towards the irregular outline of the ruins, the blue sky showing brightly through ivy-clad arches and the great stone rose of the east window.
‘And so,’ he said meditatively as they walked on, ‘you knew that it would be Miss Crockford who came to retrieve the letter?’
‘Oh! No.’ She hesitated a moment. Like Harriet, she had known – and yet not known. ‘Perhaps …’ she confessed – for she was quite determined that, come what may, there must still be complete honesty between them. ‘Perhaps I should have been more certain if I had not wished with all my heart for it to be untrue. Until the very last moment I was hoping it would be Mr Coulson who came.’
‘I see.’ He looked very thoughtful, and Dido began to understand him. There was certainly disapproval – powerful disapproval. But there was interest too. He would not admit to it, but he was almost as fascinated by the subject as she was herself.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I can understand your suspecting Mr Coulson of being Harry Fenn. But why should you settle so very decisively upon him alone? That I cannot understand. He is, after all, not the only young man in the neighbourhood of a suitable age and unknown parentage.’
‘You are thinking perhaps of Mr Paynter.’
‘I am. The surgeon has been at Madderstone Abbey a great deal of late. Harman-Foote himself has wondered at his constant attendance. Paynter would certainly have had opportunity to take the letters – and the ring. And yet, I think you have been prejudiced so strongly against Mr Coulson you have quite overlooked the possibility of his guilt. Your reasoning was not sound.’
‘Upon my word!’ cried Dido. ‘You do not approve of my making enquiries, and yet you would instruct me how to carry them out.’
‘I disapprove of the use to which you put your powers of reason,’ he countered, ‘I do not disapprove of reason itself and I am always very sorry to see it overpowered by prejudice.’
‘But, as it happens, you need have no fear in this case; I was not prejudiced. For a while I was very much inclined to suspect Mr Paynter. There were other circumstances which rather suggested him, you see – such as the roses which he laid upon Miss Fenn’s grave. But I soon came to see that there was an entirely different explanation for those – and for his frequent visits to the abbey.’
‘There was?’
‘Oh yes. It is all in the sitting of a gentleman’s hat, you know, Mr Lomax!’
‘His hat?’
‘Yes, have you not noticed that Mr Paynter wears his hat upon the very back of his head?’ She laughed at his confusion and he took a firmer hold of her arm to assist her past a great patch of mud where a noble chestnut had fallen. Its wood was all carried away now, leaving only a mass of yellow leaves and spiked green fruit trodden into the dirt. ‘Mr Paynter is in love,’ she explained, picking her way with care. ‘He is in love with Harriet. It is she that has brought him so often to the abbey. He was, in fact, on his way to see Harriet when I met him in the churchyard, and the roses were a gift for her; but he was confused when he met me – he feared, you see, that I might guess his secret.’
Mr Lomax nodded understanding.
‘Of course, a country surgeon ought not to be paying attentions to Miss Crockford of Ashfield!’ said Dido, ‘and so he pretended the flowers were for the grave.’ She smiled. ‘The poor man was then obliged to return home to gather more before coming on to the house.’
‘You are sure of this?’
‘Oh yes, I saw pink roses in the sick-chamber on my next visit.’
‘No, no, I meant, are you sure of his being in love?’
‘Yes, very sure – and I am sure too that she returns his affection. The only point of doubt is whether she will allow herself to be happy with a man she knows her father would not approve.’
Lomax shook his head gravely. ‘I fear there would be disapproval on all sides. The whole neighbourhood would cry out against such a match.’
‘Oh, I think Harriet might defy the neighbourhood! But Dear Papa is a much stronger influence. He always has been,’ she added sadly.
‘His plan to evade the entail was – extraordinary,’ said Lomax.
‘An entail itself is a very extraordinary – a very cruel – thing,’ said Dido feelingly. ‘It takes away a woman’s home and gives it into the hands of strangers! Mr Crockford’s crime was monstrous – but some portion of blame must fall upon those inhuman circumstances which prompted him to it.’
He stopped walking and when she looked up she saw that his face was grave, the muscle in full play. She closed her eyes a moment, knowing very well what must follow. Their shared interest in the mystery had brought them thus far in comparative harmony, but the chasm dividing masculine and feminine worlds, that great inescapable divide, was upon the point of opening between them.
‘And is Mr Crockford’s crime to succeed?’ he asked in a restrained voice. ‘Is the entail to be evaded? I must ask you, Miss Kent, because it would seem that you have become the arbiter of right and wrong, the sole judge in this case.’
Dido withdrew her hand from his arm. ‘If you mean will I publish the facts which I have discovered, then the answer is no, I most certainly will not. If the men of authority wish to posses such information, then let them find it out for themselves! I will not rob my friends and give their home into the hands of such a man as Henry Coulson!’