Free A Woman of Consequence by Anna Dean Page A

nothing of them; and her pursuits seem to have been only attending church and visiting the poor. And as to mixing in the family – Anne was puzzled by the question.
    ‘Why, she was with us as much as she chose to be!’
    ‘And when there was company?’ I pressed. ‘Dinners? Balls?’
    ‘She generally dined with us,’ said Anne, ‘but she did not attend balls – except, of course, the All Hallows ball. That she always attended.’
    And I thought that point rather telling, Eliza. That she should be present for Madderstone’s famous All Hallows dance when the greater tenants and the half-gentry of the  place are invited but absent herself from the later, grander balls of the winter, speaks to me of a woman with a delicate sense of her own place. A woman with scruples, determined not to impose too far upon her employer’s goodwill.
    And, finally, I asked about the day of her disappearance.
    It was, it seems, the sixth of June 1791 – a Monday, and a very warm day. There was a large party staying in the house: all the Laurence cousins were there and Mr Harman-Foote – plain Mr Foote as he was then – had arrived that morning with his mother. It had been too hot to take much exercise during the day but the evening was a little cooler and Miss Fenn left the abbey quite soon after dinner, saying that she had an appointment to keep.
    I asked, of course, what this appointment was, and I wondered for a moment if Anne might know more of it than she was telling. But when I pressed her she only said she supposed it to be a charitable errand – that was the usual cause of Miss Fenn visiting the village.
    And did her manner seem at all unusual? I asked. Was there anything to mark this day as different from any other?
    Oh no, Anne assured me, nothing at all. Absolutely nothing at all. It had been a day just exactly like any other and she had expected Miss Fenn to return before tea – it had been agreed that they should all drink tea in the summer house.
    Well, I rather fear that if there was anything unusual about the day it may now be irretrievable. Anne is either unable or unwilling to recall it.
    So I turned my attention to the coins and the ring which were recovered from the lake. There is perhaps five or six pounds in money: the gold still remarkably fresh-looking – the silver coins very much tarnished and one or two of them positively  misshapen with decay. As for the ring – it is rather a plain thing. Which, I am told, is entirely in keeping with the lady’s taste. It seems she had quite a horror of finery. There is nothing to this ring but a narrow gold band and a simple setting holding a curl of fine hair. The curl is dark, almost black; but, upon reflection, I am not at all sure that that is its natural hue. I think it may have been darkened by lying so long in the water.
    ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘whose hair is in the ring?’
    But she said she did not and, when I pressed to know whether she had ever asked about it, she smiled. ‘I did once,’ she said, ‘and was rebuked for impertinence – I never asked again.’
    I looked more closely and saw that, within the gold band, there is engraved a single word: ‘Beloved’.
      
    Dido laid down her pen and blew upon her chilled fingers to warm them. The rain was beating hard at her attic window, the wind moaning under the roof like a lost soul and the landing clock had long since struck midnight. She was determined to finish her letter before sleeping, but was unsure how to go on.
    The ring had raised so many speculations in her mind, she was ashamed to reveal half of them to her sister. Had there been a secret lover? Had he played a part in the woman’s death?
    Of course Miss Fenn’s character and reputation argued against it. And it was entirely possible that the ring was a remembrance of a father or mother, a brother or a sister; but if that were so, why had she not acknowledged it?
    The fact was that, in this case, investigation seemed to breed