A Woman of Consequence mdk-3

by Anna Dean

  She bade a rather abrupt farewell to the housekeeper, left the house and hurried busily along the gravel path towards the ruins, the air of the autumn morning raw and cold against her face after the clinging heat of the hothouse. Over on the lawns among the felled trees, a wagon was being loaded with great logs and a pair of big, placid workhorses were dragging away tree stumps, the rattling of chains and the shouts of their driver carrying clearly in the stillness. A raven rose from the abbey walls, crying harshly as she approached.

  She walked meditatively across the cloisters, where little stunted hawthorns had broken through the stone flags worn smooth by the feet of long-dead nuns, and passed through a fallen wall into the remains of the nave. And, as she did so, she heard a sound from the gallery above – slight though it was, it echoed about the high, damp walls. She held her breath and listened intently. The sound came again – a slow, heavy footfall.

  She crept very carefully across the broken pavement, and peered up into the gallery. There was a man up there: a dark figure against pale grey sky, framed by an arch of stone. For a moment the power of her expectations caused her to see Captain Laurence; but then there was a slight movement and the shape resolved itself into Henry Coulson.

  Without hesitating to think what she was about, she gathered up her skirts and quietly climbed the steps.

  Mr Coulson had his back turned towards her. He was walking slowly along the gallery, studying the floor as he went. About halfway along he stopped, bent down, picked something up, then looked about and picked up one, two, three more things before tucking them all away inside his coat. Dido was upon the tips of her toes, her fingers clutching tightly at the ivy for support as she endeavoured to see what he was gathering so carefully; but the bulk of his body obscured her view and, try as she might, she could not make it out …

  He straightened up – and turned around.

  ‘Miss Kent!’ he cried. His face became very red; he laughed nervously. ‘You quite surprised me!’ He hurried towards her. ‘I was … just looking about me, you know.’ He insisted upon taking her hand and shaking it, whether she would or not. ‘I declare I am monstrous glad to see you, Miss Kent!’ he cried. ‘For, d’you know, you are the very person I have been thinking I must talk to?’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Dido, stepping into the gallery’s dank atmosphere and looking up at him with some surprise. He was a thickset young man with a decided air of fashion, untidy fair hair and rather weak, pale eyes which were blinking and peering in the shadows of the gallery. Now that the first shock of being observed was over, he was regaining his usual air of easy familiarity.

  ‘Yes indeed! I’ll warrant you are just the woman to help me! As soon as I set eyes upon you, I said to myself, now there’s a remarkably clever woman and I’ll wager fifty pounds she’s the very person to advise me.’

  ‘I am sure I should be very glad to be of service to you, Mr Coulson, but I do not know …’ Dido was now attempting to peer beyond him, without seeming to do so. She was particularly anxious to see whether there was anything still lying upon the flagstones.

  ‘And good-natured too,’ he cried, ‘which is just as I thought. Now then,’ he said leaning easily against a pillar, ‘what do you think of this surgeon fellow – Paynter? For I expect you’ve known him for ever.’

  ‘Mr Paynter,’ said Dido very much astonished at the question, ‘is a very respectable man: very knowledgeable, and exceedingly well regarded in his profession.’

  Mr Coulson’s small eyes narrowed above his rather snubbed nose. ‘Is he now?’ he said keenly. But then he laughed. ‘Well, I daresay he does well enough. But I’ll warrant his patients die a great deal, do they not? Come, they do, don’t they?’

  Dido stared. ‘I am sure,’ she began rather warmly, ‘that they die a great deal less …’ She stopped, realising that she too was now talking nonsense. ‘I am sure,’ she said with careful precision, ‘that Mr Paynter’s patients are a great deal less likely to die for consulting with him.’ ‘Yes, but he is just a country fellow. Why, I’ll wager a thousand pounds he scarcely knows Galen and Harvey and has never heard of Edward Jenner!’

  ‘As to that,’ said Dido doubtingly, ‘I hardly know.’ She could see beyond him now – and was quite sure that there was nothing lying on the floor of the gallery – nothing but one or two green and brown feathers. ‘I never heard Mr Paynter speak of those gentlemen,’ she said, ‘but, really, I know nothing about his acquaintances.’

  ‘Excellent!’ he cried, very well pleased. ‘That is just as I thought! An ignorant country fellow!’

  Dido was uneasy: she did not quite like him being so well satisfied with her information. ‘Why do you think so badly of Mr Paynter?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, it is nothing. Merely that I went to the inquest, you know, and there was this bumbling fellow talking – and the whole room listening and saying how much he was to be trusted on account of him being “a very clever medical man”, which, you see, I could not help laughing at!’

  Dido looked up at him sharply. ‘You mistrust Mr Paynter’s testimony?’

  He smiled knowingly and tapped the side of his nose. ‘I think he knows nothing at all and had better be disregarded,’ he said.

  Dido’s last visit of the day was to the front of the house – in search of Mrs Harman-Foote. She wished to solicit the use of the carriage – and also to make a few more enquiries about Miss Fenn’s acquaintances. For a little reflection upon the matter had brought her to suspect that Anne Harman-Foote might know more than she was telling about ‘the woman who had brought her up’.

  She was fortunate enough to arrive in the drawing room just after the children had quitted it for the nursery dinner. The room – and the mother – had a rather fagged, weary appearance. There were toys and books everywhere: a wooden doll lolled against the elegant gilded leg of a chair with a decidedly wine-flown appearance; spillikins sticks, toy soldiers and a ragged Latin grammar covered the sofas. Anne had her hair pulled down about one ear and the imprint of a small hand upon the pale grey silk of her gown in what appeared to be plum jam.

  Dido brought forward the name of Mrs Pinker, but Anne immediately shook her head. No, she was quite sure she had never heard of the woman.

  Might she have forgotten?

  Oh, no. She never forgot a name. And, as for the carriage, of course it would be at Dido’s disposal whenever she wished. ‘But,’ Anne added anxiously, ‘I doubt I shall be able to accompany you. My poor Georgie is suffering from the most distressing bilious attack and I cannot leave him alone so long as it would take to travel there. It is a principle of mine never to leave my children when they are sick.’

  Dido readily assured her that her help would not be necessary in the search for Mrs Pinker – for it would, in point of fact, suit her rather well to go to Great Farleigh alone.

  But Anne continued with an account of poor dear Georgie’s symptoms, which was a great deal more detailed than it had any cause to be. To distract herself from it Dido formed a representation of the Battle of Blenheim with the soldiers upon the sofa, then picked up the Latin grammar and began idly to look it over – discovering stale cake crumbs adhering to several of its battered pages …

  ‘But, now,’ continued Anne in a dangerously businesslike voice, ‘we must talk about Mr Lomax. When he called here this morning I was most particular in bringing the conversation around to you.’

  ‘Oh!’ Dido put down the grammar. ‘I do not think you had better trouble yourself with recommending me to Mr Lomax after all,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘He and I have argued – you see he does not approve of my interesting myself in Miss Fenn’s death.’

  Anne regarded her with alarm. ‘You did not talk to Mr Lomax about that, did you?’

  ‘Why, yes.’

  ‘My dear Dido, that is not a subject to discuss with a gentleman! When talking to a man a woman must always avoid any topic upon which disagreement is possible – it is a principle of mine.’

  ‘But e
ven if such a principle were sustainable before marriage,’ Dido protested, ‘it could not be maintained after.’

  Anne looked puzzled. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘I do not believe that Mr Harman-Foote and I have ever found it an inconvenience.’

  Dido was silenced. She let Anne talk on about Mr Lomax – and turned her mind to thinking about cake instead …

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Great Farleigh was a large, populous village which had almost grown into a town with the aid of a particularly fast-flowing stream and a half-dozen or so mills and weaving sheds which had been established along its banks. The narrow streets were filled with people intent upon business, and with wagons carrying sacks of grain to the miller, logs to the sawmills and bales of cloth from the manufactories. Builders were at work upon the ragged remains of a village green, raising a new row of cottages, and their loud shouts and oaths were added to the rattle of carts, the whine of sawmills and the ceaseless low thunder of the great waterwheels.

  Dido held up a hand as if to protect herself from the noise as she descended from Madderstone’s carriage in the grimy, confined little yard of the inn – for her head ached dreadfully from the tears of the previous night – and quickly made her way into the inn’s chilly parlour where, in keeping with the general busyness of the village, no one was at leisure to attend her. A quarter of an hour’s perseverance produced little information – or refreshment: only a pot of cold, bitter coffee, a shrug of the shoulders and, ‘No, I can’t ever remember hearing of no Pinker … Well, maybe she lives here, maybe she don’t … I couldn’t say.’

  So she determined on making more enquiries in the village, but was met at the inn door by Jed Waters, the Madderstone coachman, who was, very kindly, intent upon accompanying her, ‘on account of the folk round here being a bit rough in their manners – and you not used to their ways, miss.’

  She thanked him, but insisted upon his remaining at the inn to refresh himself and his horses. ‘For we have had a seven-mile drive,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are in need of rest before returning.’

  And she made her way back across the busy, cobbled yard – wondering a little as she did so about those seven miles which lay between Madderstone and Great Farleigh. Now that she came to consider it, she saw that seven miles was a great distance for a lady to travel alone in a pony carriage. And yet, such was the esteem in which Miss Fenn had been held, she could not doubt that a different conveyance would have been put at her disposal, had she desired it.

  What had been her motive in driving herself so far? Secrecy perhaps? Had she wished her employer’s household to remain ignorant of her exact destination? This idea quickened Dido’s interest and made her more determined than ever to discover all that she might about the mysterious Mrs Pinker.

  But when she reached the archway that led into the street, she was forced to stop. A large cart was just turning into the yard at a rapid pace with a horseman riding beside it. She stepped back into the shadow of the inn’s walls and they clattered past her without seeming to notice that they had almost run her down.

  ‘Hey fellow!’ shouted the rider to a passing ostler. ‘Has the London coach gone? Damn my luck! I’ll wager fifty pounds it has!’

  Dido turned immediately at the sound of the familiar voice and saw Henry Coulson, swinging himself out of his saddle – and being reassured by the ostler that, no sir, the coach weren’t yet come, but it’d likely be here in ten minutes, for he was almost sure he’d heard the horn very faint …

  ‘Why, I’m monstrous glad of it, for I’d have been in a fine pickle if I’d missed it. Now,’ handing a coin to the man, and gesturing at the cart, ‘you make sure this box is safely stowed aboard. It’s mighty important it gets to town today.’ And, with a tap at his nose, he was off through the parlour door.

  Dido watched him go with great interest and wondered very much why he should put himself to the trouble of bringing his box here. A London coach passed within two miles of the abbey and stopped every day at the Red Lion in Badleigh …

  She could not resist stepping closer to look at the box which the cart driver and the ostler were now, with some difficulty, lifting out of the bottom of the deep cart. It seemed rather heavy, though small to be the only cargo in such a large cart: long, and narrow, it was made of deal and clasped at the corners with iron plates.

  ‘What’s he got stowed in this, solid gold?’ grunted the ostler.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied the carter quickly. ‘Ain’t none of my business what he’s got in it. I just drive it for him.’ And he lowered the box onto the cobbles as if he wanted rid of it.

  Dido peered over his shoulder as he bent down and read the label pasted on the lid. To John Kenning, Leadenhall. How very interesting …

  The carter was climbing back onto his seat and gathering up the reins, eager to be gone. The ostler looked up.

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’

  ‘Oh!’ She blushed and stepped back hastily. ‘Oh, no thank you … That is … I wondered whether you might direct me to the haberdasher’s shop.’

  He did so, but as he was talking, she kept her eyes upon the box – and noticed that there were one or two damp leaves clinging to it, and that a very thin trickle of liquid was now running from the edge of one of its iron plates, forming a little dark stream through the dirty cobbles. And then, as she thanked the ostler and started off across the yard, she became aware of a smell. It was very faint, but it was something other than the usual inn-yard odour of horses, dust and sour ale: something sweet and very slightly rotten. And she was almost sure that it was coming from the box …

  There was no more information to be got about Mrs Pinker in the haberdasher’s shop than there was at the inn. It seemed that the good people of Great Farleigh bought their laces and their cottons and their knitting-pins as rapidly as they did everything else, and had no time at all to talk about their neighbours. The woman behind the long counter shook her head at Dido’s questions, astonished to be asked about anything other than haberdashery. However, a woman with a pair of whining children hanging upon her skirts did interrupt her hurried selection of shirt buttons long enough to suggest that Dido might make enquiries at the post office.

  It was an excellent thought and Dido praised the buyer of shirt buttons so warmly for it, that she was rewarded with a little smile – and a few hasty directions.

  The directions took her back to a muddy lane beside the inn, a tiny room adjoining the stables and a very old man upon a very high stool who was so exceedingly short-sighted that he was obliged to hold the letters he was sorting within a half-inch of his spectacles in order to read their covers.

  And … yes, he certainly knew Mrs Pinker. He continued with his work.

  Might he be so very kind as to direct her to the lady’s house?

  He slowly lowered the letter he had been reading, pushed his spectacles to the very end of his long nose and studied her. He seemed, after all, to be the one inhabitant of the village who had time to spare. She waited. A couple of fat, sleepy bluebottles buzzed loudly in the window. At last he shook his head with a ‘Well, well,’ as if he were somehow shocked at her enquiring after Mrs Pinker.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Dido.

  ‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ He hurriedly picked up another letter and hid his face behind it. ‘Out along the Upper Farleigh road, that’s where you’ll find her. ’Bout half a mile out. Green gate in a high garden wall. You can’t mistake it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She turned to go, but, just as she reached the door, he said something else very quietly – something which sounded rather like, ‘I doubt she’ll be able to oblige you.’

  She stopped. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said again.

  ‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ he said, very busy with his letters.

  The noise of the village faded rapidly as Dido made her way along the road which led to Upper Farleigh. The muddy street became a broad, steep track and the crowding houses gave way upon
one side to fields of stubble, yellowing hazel thickets and hedgerows bright with rosehips and hawthorn berries. Upon the other side of the road were now more prosperous-looking cottages with honeysuckle fences and mounded onion beds.

  As she walked, she wondered about Mrs Pinker, the kind of house she kept here – and the nature of Miss Fenn’s acquaintance with her … And of one thing she was certain: such a very busy village would be an excellent place for the keeping of a secret. Perhaps both Miss Fenn and Mr Coulson had discovered how to use that fact to their advantage.

  The old man’s grudging information was accurate. She found the wall and the gate – which was unlocked – and let herself into a rather pleasing, but overgrown, little garden. The air was full of the heady scent of crab apples fermenting in long grass, and from a branch of the ancient apple tree hung a low, lopsided swing. A great mass of rose bushes gone wild clambered about the gate, snatching at her hands as she replaced the latch. A pigeon was warbling comfortably to itself somewhere close by, and a little tabby cat was trotting along the cinder path to greet her.

  The house, old and low-built and more than halfcovered with ivy, was too large for a labourer’s cottage, but certainly not a gentleman’s dwelling … The home of a shopkeeper perhaps, she calculated … or a family that was prospering in a humble trade … It was altogether a rather surprising establishment for such a woman as Miss Fenn to be visiting …

  The cat, as attentive as a footman, conducted her to a porch where a dilapidated hobby horse was propped beside a low old door. A minute or two of knocking produced at last an elderly maid and the information that it was quite impossible to see the mistress.