There were times when I almost went to him but something made me draw back. Then I would go and play with Livia. But for her perhaps I should have considered giving up everything, for I believed he had that in mind too. Landower was not the same to him since his marriage. It had had to be too dearly bought.
Then the terrible fear came to me.
It happened when I went to my room to find Bessie, my personal maid, dusting there. She apologised and said that there had been such a lot to do this morning that she was behind with her work.
I said: “That’s all right, Bessie. Just carry on.”
“I was wondering, Miss Tressidor,” she said, “if you’d heard from Mrs. Landower.”
“Heard from her? Why? She’s away. In Yorkshire … visiting her aunt.”
“Well, there be some as says …”
I said: “What do they say?”
“Well, there’s some as asks whether she did go to Yorkshire. She left … sudden like.”
I wanted to close the conversation but I had to know what lay behind Bessie’s words.
“I suppose she suddenly made up her mind,” I said. “She comes from Yorkshire, you know.”
“It’s Jenny … her maid … lady’s maid. She said she knew her mistress well and she didn’t say nothing to her about going to Yorkshire.”
“That was a matter for Mrs. Landower to decide surely.”
“Jenny said it was funny like … her not saying … and she’s left her comb behind.”
“Comb? What on earth are you talking about, Bessie?”
“Well, according to Jenny, she always used this comb when she was dressing up like. For her hair. You know what her hair was like. It was all over the place if it wasn’t held … like. This comb used to be stuck in the back. She was hardly ever without it.”
“It seems to me that Jenny’s trying to tell us something. What?”
Bessie looked embarrassed and said: “Well, I don’t want to talk out of turn, Miss Tressidor.”
“But you want to share this gossip with me. You know that I am outspoken and like others to be the same. So tell me quickly please, what is Jenny hinting?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know. She said she thought Mrs. Landower might not have gone to Yorkshire after all.”
“Well, where does the all-knowing Jenny think she went?”
“That’s what she’s worried about. She’s gone … and she’s left her comb.”
“I cannot imagine that a comb should play so big a part in Mrs. Landower’s life.”
“Well, seeing as how things are … up at Landower, I mean, Jenny just thought it was funny like.”
“I should think Jenny probably hasn’t got enough to do now that her mistress is away.”
Bessie was silent.
“She writ a letter. Jenny can write a good hand. She likes to show it off a bit, I think.”
“So she has written you say … To whom?”
“She’s writ to Mrs. Landower’s aunt. She knew her address because Mrs. Landower had it in a little book, and Mrs. Landower talked to Jenny a lot. She tells her things … and Jenny says they always talked together … like friends. It wasn’t like a mistress and maid, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Mrs. Landower liked to hear about everybody, and Jenny used to tell her what she knew. Well, Jenny have writ this letter to her aunt with a letter inside for Mrs. Landower … care of Miss Arkwright. Jenny knows how to do these things. Jenny reckoned she’d be missing that comb and perhaps sending for it and Jenny thought she’d ask her. That’s if she’s there …”
“If she’s there?”
“Jenny thinks it’s funny … and then there’s that black dog.”
I felt I could endure no more of this conversation.
“That’ll do, Bessie,” I said.
And she went out leaving me with a terrible fear in my heart.
Nanny Loman had taken Livia to Landower to play with Julian. Ever since that talk with Bessie I had been unable to throw off an ever increasing uneasiness.
Gossip! I thought. It is foolish to think too much of it. But I could not shut out of my mind the memory of the moors, with those people wandering about, whispering, their attention focussed on the mine as though they expected to see black dogs and white hares at any moment.
When Livia returned I would supervise getting her to bed, an undertaking which soothed me considerably. I would watch her absorption in Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood and occasionally diverge from the text so that she could have the pleasure of putting me right because she knew it off by heart.
I heard them return and went to the nursery.
Nanny Loman looked disturbed.
I said to her: “Is anything wrong, Nanny?”
She looked at Livia and I nodded. It was something she did not want to say in front of the child.
Cinderella seemed a long time reaching her happy ending that evening, but as soon as I had tucked in Livia I sought out Nanny Loman.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, it’s very strange, Miss Tressidor. You know Jenny who acted as lady’s maid to Mrs. Landower …”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, apparently she thought it was rather strange that Mrs. Landower had gone off to Yorkshire without telling her and she had not taken some comb or other which she usually wore.”
“Yes,” I said. “I did hear that.”
“Well, she wrote to Mrs. Landower’s aunt, because Mr. Landower said she had gone to her. The letter she enclosed to Mrs. Landower herself has come back with a note from the aunt saying Mrs. Landower had never been there and she hadn’t heard from her since Christmas.”
“Oh! What can that mean?”
“Well, it means … where is Mrs. Landower?”
“She must have gone to Yorkshire.”
Nanny Loman shook her head and turned away.
I could not read her thoughts, but I could guess the direction they were taking. I thought that our lives were an open book to them. Sometimes I wondered how much they knew of our secret thoughts. And what they did not know they would guess.
The expression in her eyes when they looked at me … were they faintly suspicious? Was she asking: And what part are you playing in all this?
I had the utmost respect for Nanny Loman. She was a good, conscientious nurse who took her duties seriously, but because of her virtues it was unlikely that she would ever have been tempted to step out of line. Perhaps this made her specially censorious.
All would know the state of affairs which existed between Paul and Gwennie. What did they know of Paul’s feelings for me and mine for him? It was hardly likely that we had been able entirely to disguise them from those ever-watchful eyes.
They would reason: Mrs. Landower was in the way. And now Mrs. Landower had disappeared.
I had to see Paul.
Suspicion was like a worm that wriggled its way through my mind. It would give me no peace.
I kept seeing his face. “Something will be done.” What had he said: “I hated her …” and I had replied: “You talk of her as though she were no longer there.”
Yes, we had said something like that. Why had he talked of Gwennie in the past tense?
I knew it was probably foolish but I couldn’t help it. I walked over to Landower.
It was a pity there were so many servants and I could not see him without its being known.
One of the maids opened the door.
I said: “Good evening. Mrs. Landower isn’t back yet, is she?”
“No, Miss Tressidor.”
“No news of when she is coming?”
“No, Miss Tressidor.”
“Then perhaps I could see Mr. Landower.”
“I will tell the master you be here, Miss Tressidor.”
Was she smirking? What were they thinking, this army of detectives who recorded our every movement, who lived in our lives, alongside their own?