'What is it that you wish to tell me about Mr Montague?' asked Dido.

Catherine frowned and scuffed at the gra.s.s with the toe of her shoe. (She had always done that, Dido remembered, no matter 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 gra.s.s a turning now slightly uphill and away from the sea a 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 s.h.i.+vered. '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 a.s.sistance?'

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 s.h.i.+eld 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 pa.s.sed a hand across her face to wipe away the tears a 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 s.h.i.+ne, 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 dear 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 a and, no doubt, her eyes a were too full for conversation to be attempted.

Dido held her arm in silent compa.s.sion 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 a even though that girl has no great fortune and no family worthy of note.

Could this be the reason for the hidden picture and the withholding of the family name? No, it could not of course have been a reason for the naming, for the child's affliction would not have shown itself until he was a few years old. No, I think my first surmise is sound and Sir Edgar does indeed doubt his paternity. For there is still my lady's physic to be considered.

You have my thoughts just as they arise, Eliza. I do not know what I write a nor what I think. But it is a great relief to write to you and I sincerely hope that you will not be so very unreasonable as to expect sense from me.

One source of distress is that I believe I have misjudged Catherine. I think that her affection for Mr Montague goes a good deal deeper than I have thought. You see, she was so very upset by the old gentleman's words this afternoon, struck almost senseless by them, in fact. And, lately, Eliza, I have begun to wonder whether I might not have been too hasty in thinking her only slightly acquainted with Mr Montague; for one might perhaps become rather well acquainted with a man in a short time a if there was a very remarkable coincidence of temperament and the time was pa.s.sed in rational converse on subjects that were of interest to both, rather than in the idle chatter of the ballroom a or card table...

Well, that is all quite by the by; the material point is that Catherine is now suffering a good deal and I have persuaded her to go to her bed.

So now I have a little time for quiet reflection here in the inn parlour, for the gentlemen have gone about business of their own a in the tap room or stables, I suppose a and I am sitting here in very companionable silence with the Misses Harris. The candles have been lit and the shutters closed and the fire is roaring in the chimney with the wind that is blowing in from the sea, and altogether we are very cosy here a with the occasional sound of wheels and horses outside to remind us that other folk are still abroad and make us glad that we are at rest for the night. Miss Sophia and I are writing our letters while Miss Harris is engaged upon her drawing a which, by the by, is vastly improved. Despite her efforts to conceal it, I contrived a peep just now. The giant sheep is gone and the perspective is very good and, all in all a as well as one can judge of such an incomplete performance a it promises to be a very fine picture indeed. How very strange!

It seems that I must amend my opinion of her as an artist a though not as a companion. I cannot say that I find either of them winning upon my affections. In the absence of the gentlemen not even Miss Sophia has anything much to say. And I am beginning to suspect that they are both naturally of a rather taciturn disposition and that Miss Sophia only exerts herself into chattering emphasis because she mistakenly believes it is becoming. Why do young women think that they must put on such airs to catch husbands? Were we ever such fools, Eliza? Well, well, I suppose we were, and I am allowing myself to wander quite off the point.

Perhaps when Mr Montague absents himself from home it is not entirely a matter of free choice. Perhaps the establishment at Hopton Cresswell has been formed as a place of concealment when his behaviour is disturbed. Exiled from his family, cut off from equal society, might a lonely, impressionable young man not all too easily form an unsuitable attachment?

And Mr Pollard was once Mr Montague's tutor. Or so it would seem by the old gentleman's description. And that accords well with him being now 'a university man', as the ostler described him. Catherine said that he looked like a professional man and his profession is no doubt the Church, for I am sure I remember Edward telling me once that only clergymen can hold posts at the university.

So what was his mission at the ball? I will not fall into the common modern cant of deriding all clergy; like the dutiful daughter of a clergyman that I am, I shall take it as an article of faith that a man so ordained must have had an honourable motive. Did he come to urge Mr Montague to confess his sins?

But why did he not speak? How could Mr Montague have guessed his meaning by a look? I keep coming back to that silence in the ballroom. I feel that if I could but understand that then I would have the key that unlocks all this mystery.

I am sorry for this rambling talk, Eliza. But I feel that there is an answer here in all this, and I am too stupid to find it.

I keep trying to remember everything that Charles and Edward used to tell us about the rules of argument and debate when they were at Cambridge and I heartily wish that my own education had had a little more logic in it and rather less playing of disastrously bad scales upon the spinet.

But then, to be fair upon our poor mother, I do not suppose that the solving of mysteries or the detection of murderers was much in her mind when she devised our schooling.

However, I may lay claim to one fairly rational thought today and that concerns Mr Harris and Tom Lomax a and their visit to the shrubbery. I am almost sure that they are both lying about it. Why are they lying? Well, Mr Harris is a member of the family and might easily be persuaded to hold his tongue about anything that he saw that day. And Tom? Well, might he not very easily be bribed into silence? Do you see my meaning? Perhaps the fortune which he looks forward to does not come from marriage.

Distasteful as any interview with Mr Tom Lomax must be, I rather think that I shall be forced to contrive another tete-a-tete with him and see what I may discover.

I am sorry, Eliza, I will have to break off my letter in a moment. The gentlemen have returned and... Now that is very strange indeed!

Eliza, I am sure I am not mistaken. When the door opened just now, Miss Harris changed the picture on her drawing board. I am sure she did it. She pulled out another paper from underneath and placed it over the drawing she was working on. I shall drop my sand shaker and try to steal a look at the drawing board as I retrieve it...

Yes! I was right. The monstrous sheep is back!

Now here is another mystery. Why should a woman who can draw very well pretend incompetence? And now I remember something else... But I must stop now; Tom Lomax is moving this way...

Dido was abroad the next morning before anyone else from the Belsfield party had stirred from their beds. She was able not only to take a long, thoughtful walk on the Cobb a where the beauty of white-capped waves dancing under the first narrow beams of sunlight did little to soothe her troubled mind a but also to take a little wander about the village and the church.

She turned back towards the inn, sunk even deeper in thought than when she left it and, a little way from its door, she met with Sophia Harris, who was also returning from a solitary walk. Miss Sophia had a remarkably serious look upon her face and she was lacking the fussy curls about her ears. Her hair was simply dressed in a tight, uncompromising knot at the back of her head. To Dido's mind, it improved her appearance considerably.

Together the two women made their way along the narrow street where yawning housemaids were was.h.i.+ng doorsteps and clattering pails, and errand boys were hurrying past with baskets of bread and pitchers of milk.

They were engaged first in exclaiming upon the beauty of the morning and the place. And then Dido took the opportunity of adding, 'I shall be pleased to see your sister's drawings of Lyme when they are finished. She draws extremely well.'

'Does she?' said Sophia in some confusion. 'That is... Yes, I think that she does. But I am her sister, so I don't doubt that I am prejudiced.'

'I cannot but notice, however,' said Dido cautiously, 'that her performance is somewhat...variable. But perhaps it makes her nervous to be observed at her work?'

'Yes, yes I suppose that it does.'

They walked on a little way. Dido tried to read her companion's feelings from her face a but could not make them out: her lips were tightly compressed and two little lines above her nose puckered her brow. 'It is quite remarkable, is it not,' continued Dido, 'how the presence of another person can distract us? It can quite spoil the execution of a drawing a or a piece of music.'

Sophia stopped and gave her a long look, then she turned and walked on. 'Yes,' she said. 'Perhaps it can.'

Dido was sure she had hit upon something. She hurried after her. 'On the morning before yesterday,' she said, 'while I was in the hall at Belsfield, I heard someone playing in the drawing room so exquisitely that I wondered who it could be. Afterwards, when I came into the drawing room, I found that it was you who was sitting at the pianoforte. Miss Sophia, I hope you will forgive me for saying that you play much better when you are alone.'

'Thank you, Miss Kent. It is no doubt, as you remarked, the distraction of being observed which sometimes injures my performance.' And she walked on as quickly as she might to the inn door.

As they stepped into the smoky warmth of the inn's dark little hall, Sophia took off her bonnet hurriedly. 'If you will excuse me now,' she said, 'I will return to my sister. She is a little distressed at present.' She started up the stairs, but then she stopped. The morning sunlight coming in through a little landing window caught her face, which was tinged with colour from her walk. She looked lively and intelligent. 'The fact is, Miss Kent, Colonel Walborough made a proposal of marriage to Amelia yesterday evening.' She gave a little grimace. 'It seems,' she said, 'that the colonel is more musical than he is artistic.'

With that she ran away up the stairs, leaving Dido alone in the hall.

She took off her bonnet slowly and stood for several minutes running its ribbons thoughtfully through her fingers, but could find no way of accounting for Miss Sophia's last, strange remark. With a little shake of her head, she opened the door and went into the parlour. She had hoped to find the room empty and to be able to think in peace there until breakfast was ready, but she was disappointed. Tom Lomax was lounging upon a bench, reading a newspaper.

'Miss Kent,' he cried as she entered. 'I believe you never sleep! Now, what are you busy about so early in the day?'

Dido smiled serenely. 'Why, I am just poking about,' she replied. 'In the way that I do, Mr Lomax.'

'And what do you hope to discover here at Lyme?'

She sat herself down beside the newly lit fire and considered as she gazed into the flames, which were burning white and blue as they consumed the salty sticks of driftwood. No better opportunity to confront Mr Tom might appear and she decided to make the best of this chance meeting. 'One thing I hope to discover, Mr Lomax,' she began slowly, raising her eyes to his, 'is why you were in the shrubbery on the day that young woman was killed.'

Tom folded his newspaper and sat up, looking extremely wary. 'You know the answer to that,' he said.

'I know the answer which you gave to Sir Edgar.' Tom said nothing. 'But,' she went on, 'in your own inimitable words, that explanation "will not do." Come, Mr Lomax, we both know that it "will not do at all."'

'Sir Edgar was quite satisfied with it,' said Tom sulkily, rubbing a finger across his bristling cheek.

'He was, but I cannot say that his satisfaction is a great credit to his understanding. For it is clear a clear even to a woman a that you are not engaged to either of the Misses Harris. Neither of the ladies seems to know anything of the business and, since you cannot even remember which of them has been so fortunate as to win your devotion...' Dido finished with a smile and a shrug.

'I do not think, Miss Kent, that it is any concern of yours whether I am engaged or not.'

'But, you see, it is. I am very concerned that you seem to be lying. For when a life has been taken, I believe it is the duty of us all to ensure that justice is done.'

Tom s.h.i.+fted on his bench and gave a strange smile a though whether it was intended to charm or to threaten she could not quite determine. 'And have you decided that I killed that woman?'

Dido continued her level stare. 'Did you?' she said.