‘From here one can see clear along the gallery,’ she remarked.
‘And nothing else?’ he asked.
‘No … Except through the great window I can see a little of the grounds … But very little; from here I can see only trees – and the drained pool.’
‘The pool?’ Captain Laurence straightened up abruptly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ she said, puzzled by his sudden interest. ‘Perhaps you would like to look for yourself.’ She returned to the gallery and he hurried to take her place on the steps.
As he passed, his long overcoat stirred something very small which was lying on the stones. She stooped down – but found only a little brown and green feather which seemed to have blown in from somewhere. However, as she was standing up again, she caught sight of something much more sinister.
A foot or so away lay the pool which, on first entering the gallery, she had taken for a puddle of rainwater. But, now that she was so close, it was possible to see that it was too dark for water. She took off her glove and touched the gleaming surface with the tip of a finger; it was thick and sticky. She examined her finger – and saw blood …
‘Good God!’ cried the captain. She turned to him thinking that he had seen the red stain. But he was still on the step, and he was staring, not at her, but at something behind her. A frown was gathering his black brows into one thick, bristling line above his nose.
She stood up and looked about to see what had alarmed him. The gallery was empty and, for a moment, she feared he had glimpsed some fleeting apparition … But then, through the east window, she saw the cause of his surprise.
Down beside the drained pool there was a scene of consternation.
Two workmen were shouting and pointing down at the dried mud, while a stout young man in gaiters – whom Dido recognised as Henry Coulson, the landscape gardener responsible for the present deplorable state of Madderstone’s grounds – was standing with his hat in his hand and rubbing at his thatch of fair hair.
Laurence came to stand beside her. ‘There is something amiss,’ he said with keen interest. ‘They have found something.’
Dido had already turned towards the steps, but the captain took her hand. ‘Miss Kent, I think you had better wait here,’ he said earnestly. ‘I will go to see what it is and return to tell you.’ He bowed and was gone, running down the steps, through the fallen stones and out into the cloister.
Dido, who had a rather better opinion of her own nerves than Captain Laurence, felt equal to any surprise which the pool might supply and began, almost immediately, to make her way towards the men.
The captain was perhaps fifty yards ahead of her. Mr Coulson had now left the side of the pool and was hurrying past the fallen trees and through the lengthening shadows towards him. They met upon the lawn and an eager conference ensued with the smaller man waving his arms about a great deal while Laurence listened attentively.
As Dido came close enough to distinguish words, Mr Coulson seemed to be cursing and saying something like, ‘I don’t understand.’ He laid his hand upon the captain’s arm, ‘Damn it, Laurence,’ he said urgently, ‘we need to talk about this.’
But Laurence shook him off. ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘I must go up to the house and tell them the news. You go back and set the men to … getting it out of there.’
He turned to Dido with an upheld hand. ‘Miss Kent,’ he cried, ‘I would not advise you to go any closer. The men have found something … rather unpleasant at the bottom of the pool.’
‘Indeed?’ she said with keen interest. ‘What precise nature does the unpleasantness take?’
‘I am afraid it is a skeleton.’ He paused, but Dido showed no sign of fainting away. ‘A human skeleton,’ he added.
Chapter Six
… Well, Eliza, as you may imagine, there is not another topic on anyone’s lips but the skeleton in the pool. As Rebecca solemnly assures me, ‘the whole place is alive with this dead body, miss.’
And it is, of course, the mortal remains of the Grey Nun. Lucy is quite sure that it must be.
That the bones of a woman who died four hundred years ago should have been preserved so long and should, furthermore, be accompanied, as these were, by a quantity of sovereigns, many of which bear the likeness of our present king, does not seem to astonish her at all. It is undoubtedly the Grey Nun.
However, the coroner, Mr Wishart, when he held his court at the Red Lion this morning, failed entirely to identify her correctly. You know how it is on such occasions. These fellows in authority are all too inclined to be blinded by commonplace evidence and probability and so are quite insensible to all the thrilling possibilities of what must be.
Lucy is sorely disappointed.
The other great cause of his failing to recognise the nun, was a ring which was upon her finger. It seems that just such a ring belonged to a Miss Elinor Fenn – a governess who disappeared from Madderstone Abbey some fifteen years ago.
So the coroner has declared that the remains are those of this Miss Fenn. A verdict with which Lucy is most displeased. And I very much pity poor Silas for having to report it to her.
For she would have Silas attend the inquest so that she might have the earliest intelligence, though I believe he has as little liking for frequenting public houses as any young man of one and twenty can have. And the viewing of bones would be a great deal less to his taste than his sister’s. However, the customs governing such occasions protect only the sensibilities of women, not sensitive younger brothers, and since Lucy had no other gentleman to attend on her behalf poor Silas must go. And he is so accustomed to doing just as both his sisters command, that I doubt he raised half a word in protest.
But he looked quite unwell when he returned …
I happened to be at Ashfield when he came in. I would not have you believe that I was at all anxious to hear Mr Wishart’s verdict; for, of course, being of such a remarkably incurious disposition, it was a matter of complete indifference to me …
But it did just so happen that I was with Lucy when Silas returned – and I have never seen him look so ill. He is but just recovered from his last great attack of asthma and should not, in my opinion, have risked his health in a public assembly. He was exceedingly white and shaken.
You may imagine him, Eliza, sitting on the old sofa by the window in the breakfast parlour, with Lucy upon one side and me upon the other, stammering out his account.
‘Miss Fenn?’ repeated Lucy again and again. ‘Miss Elinor Fenn? But who is she?’ For she seemed to feel that, if the coroner could not oblige her with a romantic nun, then he might at least furnish a name with which she is familiar.
And then, in the next moment, she was tugging at the poor boy’s arm and demanding to know how the woman had died. And I quite lost patience with her, for she should know that such treatment, besides making him nervous and risking another attack of the asthma, will always make his stammer worse. When it came to pronouncing the cause of the woman’s death, he could only stare from one to the other of us with a trembling lip.
‘Does Mr Wishart believe that she fell into the pool by accident?’ I suggested by way of helping him out.