by Anna Dean
It was exhilarating to be alone on the exposed stone walk with the wind driving the white-crested waves about her and snapping at her bonnet ribbons, and she was not pleased to see Colonel Walborough walking intently towards her, red-faced, head bowed against the wind, hands clasped behind his back.
‘Ah, Miss Kent, I wondered whether this might be an opportunity…’ he began and was then forced to pause from lack of breath. ‘My fortune, don’t you know,’ he reminded her and held out a large, plump hand. ‘You were so kind as to say that you would read my palm.’
‘Oh yes.’ Dido looked down at the hand and wondered what she ought to do with it. The rage for palmistry had not yet arrived at Badleigh and she had never witnessed the science. But she bent her head over the proffered hand and endeavoured to look wise.
The sunlight showed up calluses on the palm – no doubt caused by weapons and the reigns of horses. The lines crisscrossing the hard skin were unremarkable. What struck her most forcibly was the childish shortness of the big, square nails, which were bitten down almost to the quick.
‘Ah, yes,’ she said slowly with a shake of her head, which she hoped suggested profound musing. ‘I see that you are very worried about something, Colonel Walborough. Something is troubling you a great deal.’
‘You are right, m’dear. That is quite remarkable! Can you see that in my hand?’
‘Oh yes,’ Dido assured him. ‘It is all here to be read in your hand.’ She smiled and held aside the unruly ribbons of her bonnet, which were flapping about her face. ‘Now, let me see,’ she said, thinking much more of how she might discover information than reveal it. ‘There is something very strange here in these lines. Very strange indeed.’
She looked up and saw his eyes fixed intently upon her and his broad cheeks glowing in the wind. She could almost fancy that he was holding his breath. ‘Colonel, I see that you have lately undergone a change of heart. That you have taken a decision to alter the course of your life.’
‘Miss Kent, you are quite remarkable!’
‘Thank you, Colonel Walborough. You recognise what I am talking about?’
‘Oh yes.’ He looked anxiously about him. Their companions were still gathered about the easel. Miss Sophia’s earnest chatter was borne to them on the wind, followed by an extravagant laugh from Tom Lomax. ‘What I wish you would tell me, m’dear,’ he continued in a low, hurried voice, ‘is whether I am right in making that change. It is so damned hard to be sure. Will it answer? Will it bring me all that I hope it will? Don’t you see? That’s what I need to know.’
Dido bent lower over the plump hand that was still held out expectantly and made a pretence of studying it. The waves slapped upon the wall of the Cobb; a seagull shrieked and laughed as it fought its way up the wind. The hand before her began to shake a little. She gave a long sigh. ‘I am sorry, Colonel, it is very difficult to decipher… Perhaps if you could explain a little to me about the nature of this change in your life – and why you have made it. Then I might be better able to understand…’
He took a step closer to her and lowered his voice to a whisper that was all but torn away on the breeze. ‘Well, the fact of the matter is, m’dear, that I’ve made up my mind to…enrol my name in the lists of Hymen, as they say. In short, I plan to marry, Miss Kent, and it ain’t something I ever thought to do.’
‘Yes, indeed, I see,’ said Dido, nodding sagely over his palm. ‘Yes, that would explain this great change in your future, which is written so clearly here.’ She pondered again for the space of time that it took for three waves to break on the Cobb wall. ‘Mmm, I cannot quite make out still whether your decision will increase your happiness… Perhaps if I knew why you had decided to break through your resolution of not marrying…’
‘Well, you see, Miss Kent,’ he whispered, ‘this is the way it is. And this is quite in confidence, don’t y’know?’
‘Oh yes, I will be very discreet.’
‘Well, this is the way it is. There’s this uncle of mine; old fellow and pretty sick too, likely to pop off any day now. And he’s got a monstrous big estate and I’m the only kin he has in this world. So, you see the way the land lies, don’t you?’
‘Oh quite! Naturally you look forward to inheriting and I am sure it is a great comfort to your uncle to know that his property will pass into such good hands.’
‘Ah, yes. But the devil of the business is, m’dear, that he ain’t that comfortable about it. You see, he’s heard rumours about me.’ He gave a spluttering cough. ‘Ill-natured gossip that I won’t trouble a lady with… But the old fellow has taken against me and he won’t put his name to the will until I “regularise my life”, as he terms it.’
‘And that regularising must take the form of matrimony?’
The colonel nodded.
‘I see.’
So, thought Dido immediately, the colonel fears only respectable ladies. He is, in fact, a libertine and a womaniser. She was sure it must be so, despite what the other men said about him, for she could think of no other irregularity in a man’s life for which marriage might be considered a cure…
She stood in thoughtful contemplation of the hand for several moments longer. His reply had presented her with a dilemma. Should she advise him to marry or not? The trick she had undertaken for her own ends had given her a power which she did not want.
His motives for marriage were selfish and his character, apparently, doubtful. But how eager to be married was Miss Harris? How acutely did she feel the approach of three and twenty? And, in a prudential light, it would be a fine match for her…
Well, these were questions which the lady must decide for herself.
‘Ah! I understand now,’ she said raising her eyes to his red, anxious face. ‘This was why I found your hand so difficult to read. You see, Colonel, your future happiness depends entirely upon how you act now. It is written here that you will find true contentment only with a woman who exactly understands the demands of your uncle. You must explain to any lady you ask to marry you the reason why you have broken through your lifetime’s resolution of remaining single.’
‘I think,’ said Catherine a little more than an hour later, ‘that Colonel Walborough will make an offer to Miss Harris before the day is over. I see that they are walking out together along the beach.’
‘Hmm,’ said Dido thoughtfully, ‘and that leaves Mr Tom Lomax to entertain her sister.’
‘Why do you look so ill-tempered? I did not know that you disapproved of love-making.’
Dido made no reply, but it passed through her mind that she did most heartily disapprove when either one of the two gentlemen making love might fairly be suspected of murder. For, with them both so set upon matrimony for their own mercenary reasons, might not either one of them have destroyed a woman who stood in his way?
She sighed deeply and they walked on a little way in silence. They were now upon a rutted track and had left the town a little way behind them. The voices of visitors had faded and there was nothing about them but short, sheep-bitten grass; no sound but the rush of waves and the crying of gulls overhead.
Suddenly Catherine stopped, turned to her companion and surprised her greatly by saying very rapidly, ‘Aunt Dido, there is something I must tell you. Something about Richard. I did not like to tell you before. But now that you are going to meet him, I feel you should know it. If you don’t you may ask questions that will pain him. You have got to be such a great asker of questions lately.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes, you know that you have. It is all: How? And who? And where? with you now.’
‘My dear, you did ask me to discover things.’
‘Yes, but I did not mean…’ She stopped helplessly and brushed away the strands of hair that the breeze was blowing across her cheek.
‘What is it that you wish to tell me about Mr Montague?’ asked Dido.
Catherine frowned and scuffed at the grass with the toe of her shoe. (She had always done that, Dido remembered, no ma
tter what they had said to her about it injuring the leather.) ‘He is not… He is not quite what you would expect a man of his age and birth to be,’ she said. ‘He is not quite the man of the world.’
‘I see.’
‘He is…very diffident.’
‘I see.’
‘Surprisingly diffident. He has no confidence in himself at all. He has always been like that. Ever since he was a little boy. It is all Sir Edgar’s fault. He was so unkind to Richard. He made him work so hard at his lessons and he was hardly allowed to leave Belsfield, you know. He had no friends except the servants’ children.’
Like Annie Holmes, thought Dido. And she wondered too whether this extreme diffidence and lack of confidence in his own abilities might be the reason behind the way the family talked of Richard; was it this which made them seem so unwilling to say anything which clearly delineated his character?
Catherine’s sudden disclosure interested her in another way, too. For it suggested a deeper knowledge of the young man’s character than had appeared before. In fact, this honest description of her lover accorded with other observations which Dido had lately made and, together with them, made her rather wonder whether there were other things about him which Catherine knew and was determined to conceal.
Out loud she said only, ‘Catherine, why do you feel that you must tell me this now?’
‘Because…’ She drew in a long breath. ‘Because I do not want you to distress him with a lot of questions when you meet him.’
‘If I meet him…’
‘No, Aunt, it is a case of when you meet him. Because you are going to meet him now. We are on our way to Richard at this very moment. I made enquiries at the inn, you see, about the house. It is called the Old Grange. I remember him telling me that. And we will find it at the end of this track.’
Dido looked doubtingly from the track which led off across the grass – turning now slightly uphill and away from the sea – to Catherine, who was smiling at it as if it were the very path to happiness. ‘My dear,’ she said cautiously, ‘we can by no means be sure that he will be at this house.’
‘But I know he will, Aunt. I know.’
‘You are very good at knowing exactly what you wish to know.’
‘You will see,’ said Catherine and without another word she hurried on along the path, setting a pace which left neither of them any breath to spare for conversation.
After about ten minutes they came to the top of the rise. Catherine stopped.
‘There it is,’ she cried, breathless and triumphant.
Standing alone and fronting the sea, it was a solid, foursquare house such as young children delight in drawing, with two clumps of tall chimneys and four large windows on either side of the front door, and a gravel sweep with iron gates before it.
‘It is just as he described it,’ cried Catherine happily. ‘I know we will find him here.’
She began to run towards the house, but Dido, following at a more sedate pace, could not share her certainty. The place had an unpromising appearance to her. There was no smoke issuing from the chimneys and the windows all looked dark. Her heart sank. Drawing closer, she discerned not a few weeds in the gravel of the drive, and when she came up to Catherine she found her staring in amazement at the gates, which were locked together with a great length of rusty chain.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Catherine wretchedly and she took hold of the gate and shook it, but all the good that did was to stain her gloves with rust.
‘He is not here,’ said Dido gently. ‘It is plain that no one has lived here for many years.’
Catherine continued to stare at the house. ‘I was so sure…’ Tears gathered on her eyelashes and her lip trembled. ‘Aunt Dido, I was so sure he would be here.’
‘I know, my dear, but really there was no reason why he should be.’ She put an arm about the girl for she looked as if she might faint. They stood for some moments staring at the blank face of the house and the dark windows seemed to stare back at them. Dido shivered. ‘Come, there is no use us staying here in the wind. We had better walk back to the others.’
But Catherine resisted and held her ground, stubbornly watching the house as if by willing it, she could make her lover be there.
‘Is the young lady unwell? Can I be of assistance?’
Dido turned and saw an elderly gentleman hurrying anxiously along the track towards them with a pair of terrier puppies playing about his ankles. ‘No, thank you,’ she said, stepping forward to shield Catherine’s distress. ‘We are just a little disappointed. We had hoped to find friends of ours living here.’
‘Here?’ said the man. ‘Well now, there’s been no one here at the Old Grange for many a year.’
‘Are you sure?’ cried Catherine, almost pleading. She passed a hand across her face to wipe away the tears – and left a smear of rust on her cheek. ‘We are looking for a Mr Montague. Do you know him?’
‘Montague?’ the man repeated, and then was distracted by the puppies, who, now that he was standing still, were having a fine time worrying at his gaiters. He released himself by picking up a stone from the track and throwing it as hard as he could across the turf. The little dogs bounded happily after it. ‘Montague? No, it’s a very long time since anyone of that name lived here. Not since that little boy was here with his tutor. And that would be, well now, let me see. Fifteen…no, it must be sixteen years ago because it was just after we first came here and before my dear wife died. I remember that because she used to feel so sorry for the poor little chap. Many’s the time, after we’d seen him out here playing, she’d go home and weep, bless her tender heart!’
‘Sorry for him?’ asked Dido quickly and Catherine too gave the gentleman a look of some surprise.
But the puppies were back now and he had forgotten their conversation in the more pressing business of searching for another stone and keeping his bootlaces away from sharp little teeth. When they had again bounced off on a fruitless errand, Dido repeated her question. ‘Why did your wife feel sorry for the little boy, sir?’
The man rubbed at his chin. ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘Fine looking little chap he was and yet…well…’
Dido and Catherine looked at each other in puzzlement. ‘You mean he was sickly?’ said Dido.
‘Yes…sickly.’ The old fellow had gone red in the face and he shuffled his feet on the track as if he knew not what to say. ‘Sickly in the head, if you know what I mean,’ he added at last. ‘Well, the fact is, it was plain for all to see, he was weak in his wits.’
‘I see,’ said Dido as calmly as she could and put herself forward so that Catherine might be spared from speaking. ‘How very sad. And how could you tell that there was anything wrong with the boy?’
‘Well now, you see, we’d see him out in the garden. Just between ourselves, I fancy the physicians had said the sea air would benefit his health. Though it was plain to me that nothing could be done for him. I have no great opinion of physicians, myself. Take your money and make all manner of promises…’ He paused. ‘Well, yes, as I was saying, the boy would be out in the garden in all weathers, rain or shine, summer or winter, and my wife and I, we’d call out and say “how do you do?” and he’d never say a word. Just wave his hands at us, he would, and make a kind of roaring sound. Very sad. Very sad.’
Dido felt Catherine’s grip tighten upon her arm and, indeed, she herself felt rather shaken by this strange account. But she was now becoming so accustomed to her role of discoverer of truth that it was natural for her to exert herself and to extract as much information as she could.
‘And what of the tutor? Does he still live in Lyme?’ she said. ‘Do you happen to remember the name of the man who was tutor to young Master Montague?’
The elderly gentleman rubbed thoughtfully at his chin again. ‘No, I am not sure I ever knew his name,’ he said. ‘But I would certainly know him again if I saw him. There’d be no mistaking him. Very tall fellow, he was, with flaming-red hair. I remember my de
ar wife used to say…’ He stopped suddenly at the sound of frantic yelping in the distance. ‘Little devils are down a rabbit hole again!’ he cried, and, with a hurried bow and an apology, he was off across the turf.
Dido and Catherine stood for several minutes staring at one another, hardly knowing what to think. Then, still in silence, they linked arms and started slowly back along the track towards the town. A little way off they could see the old gentleman on his knees bellowing furiously into a hole in the ground.
‘Catherine, my dear…’ Dido began after a little while.
But Catherine merely shook her head. Her heart – and, no doubt, her eyes – were too full for conversation to be attempted.
Dido held her arm in silent compassion and they walked on through the scent of salt and wild thyme with seabirds wheeling and calling over their heads.
She was not sorry to have time to reflect, for her own mind was overflowing with troubling thoughts. What exactly was Mr Montague’s present state of health? How much was he recovered from the little boy who roared and waved his hands about? How severe were those fits of headache which caused him to leave his parents’ home? And how might the sickness in his mind affect his actions?
Stealing a glance at Catherine’s white, shocked face, she guessed that she had, so far, seen little to distress her in the behaviour of her lover. Well, she had not known him long…
And yet, there was something in the girl’s manner which demanded Dido’s respect, something which spoke of a deeper attachment, a love founded more in reality and less in romantic notions than she had previously suspected…
They walked on in silence towards the lights of the town.
Chapter Fifteen
…This sickness in Mr Montague might explain so much. It provides a motive, not only for Sir Edgar’s dislike, but also for his determination to marry the young man quickly to a girl who scarcely knows him – even though that girl has no great fortune and no family worthy of note.
