Jane and the Genius of the Place

Chapter 10 A Desperate Diversion

Thursday,

22 August 1805

I SET DOWN MY ACCOUNT OF THE BALL IN THE EARLY hours of the morning. Once in bed, I tossed and turned until the rain broke before five o'clock, and brought a cooling breeze through the open window. I rose not three hours later and took tea in my room, where I might collect my thoughts before the rest of the house had stirred.

Breakfast at Godmersham is never before ten o'clock, although the children are served in the nursery far earlier. By the time our indolent Lizzy is dressed and abroad, her numerous infants are long since out-of-doors — under the supervision of Sackree, the nurse, or the long-suffering Miss Sharpe. There had been talk yesterday of an expedition with the gamekeeper, in search of wild raspberries; we should have clotted cream and fresh fruit for the Finch-Hattons at dinner.

I found the breakfast parlour quite deserted of life when at last I descended, and was allowed the consumption of tea and toast unmolested. Afterwards I hied myself to the little saloon at the back of the house, which serves the ladies of Godmersham as a sort of morning-room; here my sister Lizzy keeps a cunning little marquetry desk, well-supplied with a quantity of paper, pens, and sealing-wax. I settled myself to compose a letter to my mother — who has been happily established these several weeks in Hampshire with our dear friends, the Lloyds. She was to come to us in September, and together we intended a visit to the seaside at Weymouth. I very much feared, however, that the pleasure-trip would be put off, from a superfluity of French along the Channel coast — but saw no reason to alarm my mother. She is given to the wildest fancies at the best of times, and should require no spur at present from her youngest daughter. One source of consolation I found at least: the Lloyds took no London paper. Mrs. Austen should thus be preserved in ignorance of the sailing of the French fleet, a circumstance devoutly to be hoped. Did the rumour of invasion happen to reach her ears, she should demand her daughters' immediate removal into Hampshire — a prospect I could not regard with composure. The society of Kent was too beguiling, and the matter of Mrs. Grey's death too intriguing, to permit of a hasty departure.

My letter, as a result, was full of a great deal of nothing — a recital of the delights of Race Week, absent the interesting events of the meeting itself. I spoke of Henry's horse, of Henry's disappointment, of the scene at the grounds and the Assembly soon after — all without the slightest mention of the scandalous sensation that had torn Canterbury's peace. Such a letter, being a complex of subterfuge and delicate evasion, required considerable effort; I devoted a half-hour to the task, and had just determined to spend the rest of the morning with the admirable (if tiresome) Sorrows of Young Werther, when my industry was abruptly interrupted.[27]

The sound of a horse's hooves galloping to the door — a man's voice, raised in anger — the protest of the servants — perhaps it was another constable, come posthaste with news? I threw down my volume and stepped into the back passage.

A gentleman I had never seen before was crossing the chequered marble of the hall with a rapidity that argued extreme necessity, or a violence of temper. He must pass by where I stood to achieve the library — his obvious intention, as my brother Neddie was generally to be found within after breakfast — but aside from the briefest glance at my face, he offered no acknowledgement or courtesy. Tho' hardly above medium height, the stranger was powerfully-built, with a beautifully-moulded head and greying hair trimmed far shorter than was fashionable. Something of the regimental was writ large in his form; or perhaps it was the air of battle he wore upon his countenance. I should judge him to be about the age of forty; but perhaps it was the weight of care that had traced years upon his looks.

The manservant, Russell, sped desperately in his wake, protesting, “But, sir! I cannot be assured that Mr. Austen is at home.”

“And where else should he be, man?” the stranger cried. “For he is certainly not about his duty!”

He paused by the closed library door, however, and allowed Russell to thrust it open.

“Mr. Grey, sir, to see you.”

I suppose I should have surmised as much; but, in fact, I was quite thoroughly routed in my expectation. How anyone in Kent might describe this man as a naif — or even remotely under the thumb of his young wife— was beyond my comprehension. Valentine Grey was not a man to be bent to any woman's pleasure; he would never be dismissed to his lodgings in London, and made a fool of, the length of Kent; nor was he to be whipped into submission, as Francoise Grey had managed with at least one gentleman at the Canterbury Races. Here was a figure of energy and decision, a formidable adversary and partner. Had she quailed in her heart, the wild French miss, when presented with the man who was her husband?

Valentine Grey, in short, was not what I had expected.

The library door snapped shut behind him.

I slipped out of the saloon and made my way through the passage to the kitchens, and from thence to the still-room, where a stout garden trug and shears sat innocently on a table by the garden door. I took them up, as though intent upon the culling of flowers for this evening's dinner — and stepped outside quite unremarked.

After the dim quiet of the saloon, the force of morning sunlight was like a blow against the cheek. I had come away without my bonnet. It was this sort of behaviour, my mother was forever reminding me, that brought freckles to the neatest complexion. But I cared little for such things at present; my complexion was spoilt beyond repair, and had been these three years at least. I hastened towards the swath of cornflowers and lavender that ran riot on either side of the library's French windows, pausing to clip a stem or two from each nodding plant. Neddie had thrust open a window to admit of the breeze; and the murmur of voices rose and swelled before ever I attained my object.

“You can be at no loss to understand why I have come.”

“Indeed, Mr. Grey, I am unable to account for the honour of seeing you here. Pray sit down.”

“Thank you — but I prefer to stand.”

There was the sound of a man pacing; an impatient expulsion of breath; and I had an idea of Valentine Grey come to rest before the barren hearth, and staring unseeing into the grate.

“Then pray tell me how I might be of service,” Neddie said, “for I perceive that you are greatly distressed.”

“Who would not be, circumstanced as I am?” From the sound of it, Mr. Grey had wheeled to face my brother. His next words had all the viciousness of a challenge. “You have spoken with the Comte de Penfleur, sir!”

“I was so fortunate as to make the Comte's acquaintance last evening — yes,” my brother acknowledged.

“And what sort of lies has he been telling you?”

“Lies?” Neddie could affect astonishment as readily as any of the Austens. “I cannot think why the Comte should lie to me, Mr. Grey — a virtual stranger, and one charged with the resolution of his ward's murder. But perhaps you may enlighten me.”

“Because he is a blackguard of the worst sort — a cunning insinuator, a seducer of other men's wives, a man without scruple or bar to his malice. Because he hates me as surely as he breathes, Mr. Austen, and has made it his object in life to destroy me.”

In another man, such language might have sounded preposterous — the stuff of a Cheltenham tragedy. Grey's quiet vehemence, however, spoke all his conviction; he said nothing more than what he believed to be the truth, and had suffered beyond endurance. — Or so I concluded, as I bent low over a clump of lavender.

“You speak of the Comte de Penfleur who is even now resident in your house, Mr. Grey?” My brother's voice was incredulous.

“I do.”

“You welcome such a man into your home — a man you regard with contempt and abhorrence, a man you acknowledge as your enemy?”

“My wife is dead, Mr. Austen, and will be buried tomorrow.” Grey's words fell with infinite weariness. “I cannot deny the head of her family admittance to the rites. The Comte arrived, I may assure you, with the intention of removing Francoise to the Continent for burial. It is only due to the extreme heat of the weather, and the advanced decay of the corpse, that she is allowed to remain here. Indeed, had the Comte been capable of swaying his father a year since, Francoise should never have left France at all. Hippolyte has charged me most bitterly with neglect, in the event of her death.”

“The Comte, I must conclude, was against your marriage?”

“The Comte is in the pocket of the Buonapartes, Mr. Austen, and despises everything to do with monarchy and England. He is too short-sighted to perceive the advantage of financial ties with this Kingdom.” Mr. Grey, it seemed, had commenced to pace again — a rapid, purposeful sound that conveyed all his anxiety. “His father, however, understood that progress was impossible, absent the judicious flow of capital throughout Europe — and promoted the marriage between myself and his ward with that end in view. The first Comte de Penfleur, Mr. Austen, was an excellent man. He died but six months ago. His son shall never do him credit.”

“I quite liked the Comte,” Neddie offered mildly.

If I expected an oath or a blow — some form of brutal denial — I was disappointed. Valentine Grey laughed.

“Everyone does,” he said. “They cannot fail to find Hippolyte everything that is charming. Even those who have cause to know him well — to understand the extent of his depravity — choose not to see the truth. Francoise—”

Grey broke off, and there was a heavy silence.

“Yes, Mr. Grey?” Neddie enquired politely. “You were speaking of your wife?”

“The Comte de Penfleur has what we English sometimes call address — the air of authority, of refinement, of self-restraint and confidence. It never deserts him, even in the most hideous of places. And I have seen him in any number of hells, Mr. Austen, to which a respectable man like yourself should never descend.”

There was the briefest of pauses, as my brother assessed his visitor across an expanse of mahogany desk. “Why do you tell me all this, Mr. Grey?”

“Because I hope it will persuade you to divulge your conversation with the Comte last evening.”

“To what end?”

“The elucidation of his motives.”

“You have said yourself that he came to pay his last respects.”

“And perhaps to put paid to the delicate balance now existing between our two banking houses. I believe, in short, that he means to ruin me.”

Neddie drew breath. “For the crime of allowing your wife to be murdered?”

“—Or for making her my wife in the first place.”

“I was never very good at the taking of hints,” Neddie observed. “I much prefer a plain-spoken man to a riddling one.”

That for Neddie, I thought. It was not for nothing that his patron, Mr. Knight, had seen him schooled in the art of fencing.

“I believe the Comte to have a purpose in discovering how much you know.” Grey's voice was as taut as a violin too-strenuously tuned. “He is adept at the drawing-out of the unwitting, through subtle ploys of which they are unaware. He may have learned much from the most trifling of your remarks — and will move in the greatest unease, or the greatest security, depending upon what he believes.”

“Indeed? Then he moves in a sharper light than I!” Neddie's exasperation was obvious. “If the Comte is aware of how much I know, then he is in possession of the dearest intelligence in all of Kent, not excepting the intended landfall of the French! To what, exactly, would you refer, Mr. Grey? The facts of your wife's murder? Her liaison with Denys Collingforth? The state of your own marriage? Or her affection for her adoptive brother, the disreputable Comte de Penfleur?”

“Remember to whom you are speaking, Austen,” Mr. Grey retorted ominously. “I am not a man to be insulted, in your home or my own.”

“Then perhaps you might tell me what it is you seek.” From the sound of his movements, Neddie had thrown himself into his favourite chair — a wing-backed fortress drawn up near the cold hearth. Grey, however, paced restlessly to the very edge of the room, and peered unseeing through the French windows. The sight of his compact and powerful form looming near my own had the power to strike terror into an eavesdropping heart — and so I threw my back into snipping flowers as tho' my very life depended upon it. I might have been a sheep cropping grass, or an under-gardener tilling earth, for all the attention Grey paid me.

“Appearance to the contrary, Mr. Austen, I loved my wife. My feeling for her was against the force of all reason — I had long known what she was. A spendthrift, a libertine, an unprincipled creature who lived only for pleasure. But I had waited perhaps too long to marry— and when I fell in love, I did so with utter heedlessness. I threw caution to the winds. I sacrificed everything— pride, principle, even common sense — to win Francoise from her family, and at length I prevailed.”

“And your wife, sir?” Neddie enquired drily. “She met your passion with an equal ardour?”

“She accepted it as a familiar token; men had been driving themselves mad about her since she was sixteen. But Francoise cared for no one but herself. Herself— and her guardian's son.”

“The present Comte.”

Grey must have nodded assent, for no sound fell upon my ears.

“It was in part to separate them that her guardian— the late Comte — betrothed Franchise to me. He must have known that once united in marriage, Hippolyte and his ward would destroy the Penfleur heritage. They are — or were — both selfish, headstrong, dissipated characters; neither restraint nor prudence would survive in their household. They could not be allowed to ruin what he jealously nurtured through revolution and the Empire's rise. And so Francoise was despatched to England.”

“He sold her to the highest bidder,” Neddie said harshly.

“And I was pleased to buy,” Mr. Grey returned, without a flicker of emotion. “I counted the purchase cheap, so mad was I to claim Francoise.”

But what, I thought, had been the currency of exchange? How much of his own financial house had Valentine Grey consigned to his enemy's bankers?

“The letter that was discovered in your wife's novel, Mr. Grey,” my brother broke in. “It was written by the Comte, I presume.”

“Of course.” Grey dismissed this abruptly. “I knew his hand the moment you showed it me. I merely denied the fact, from a desire to keep everything that was painful at bay. That letter can have nothing to do with my wife's death.”

“It may have everything to do with it.”

Grey turned. “What can you mean? Even did the Comte intend to meet my wife by night on the shingle at Pegwell, he cannot have been at the Canterbury Races the very same morning. Every sort of caution would inform against it. And why should he kill her, if he loved her enough to plead for flight? It is beyond all understanding.”

“Perhaps she refused him.”

“Refused him?” Grey's voice was incredulous. “She could refuse Hippolyte nothing, Mr. Austen, from the time she was a girl.”

“Perhaps she had learned to love her husband. Perhaps she thought to remain in Kent, and wrote to the Comte informing him of as much. In a jealous rage, he waited upon the Wingham road, and waylaid her coach…”

“… only to lay the blame upon a complete unknown, the absent Mr. Collingforth? It will not do, Mr. Austen; it decidedly will not do. A man of the Comte's cunning would certainly engage for his rival to hang; he should place the blame squarely upon my shoulders, and laugh the length of my road to Hell. Unless—”

There was a troubling stillness, an interval filled with thought. Then Grey said, “Is that what he told you last evening? That I had strangled Francoise, because she had determined to elope?”

“The Comte de Penfleur said very little to your detriment, sir.” Neddie's attitude was easy. “He may have intimated a good deal — that you had neglected your wife, that you bore her litde affection, and, indeed, had perhaps allowed her to expose herself to the ridicule of the neighbourhood, from a desire to be rid of her through some deplorable scandal—”

“You call this very little?” Mr. Grey burst out. “Upon my word, Austen, I should tremble to learn what you consider a great deal!”

“—but he fell short of charging you with the lady's murder. A man of the Comte's subtlety, you may be sure, would never so completely show his hand. We may expect him to work upon me by degrees, until my mind is shaped to his liking.”

“You begin to understand him.”

“I think I begin to understand you both. Or at the very least — what each of you wishes me to understand.”

Here was the steel beneath the velvet glove. My brother would have the gentleman comprehend that he was hardly a fool, to be played with as a shuttlecock between two battledores. He would reserve his judgement until all the facts were fully in his possession, and only then would he act. Neither Mr. Grey, nor the Comte de Penfleur, would be privy to his counsel.

“I do not quite take your meaning, sir. I have been completely open.”

“You have presented a very painful picture, sir, of your private affairs — and one that must have cost you something to divulge. I respect and pity you — for the fortitude which allows such a sacrifice of your natural reserve, and for the calculation that has urged it. But as to openness — there, Mr. Grey, our opinions must part company. I regret to say that you have not been entirely open.”

“Very well.” Grey's accent held an intolerable strain. “Endeavour to show, Mr. Justice of Canterbury, how I have deceived you.”

“The very morning after your wife's death, you were at pains to discover Mr. Collingforth die culprit; and quite ingeniously, the gentleman's flight and various circumstances conspired to prove you right. The inquest delivered him, in absentia, to the Assizes' mercy; and all of Canterbury condemned him as the very worst of men. Leave aside for the moment that his guilt is hardly proved; what is accepted opinion has all the weight of fact in a country neighbourhood, and the Law will always bow to the weight of fact.”

“Why should Collingforth flee the country, if he is innocent?” Grey cried.

My brother chose to ignore him.

“Now that the Comte de Penfleur has appeared to mar the scene, and has had the temerity to speak to the local Justice, you have come in haste to my door. For the first time I learn from your own lips, that the interesting letter written in French was not from your wife's courier, but from her lover — as I was always convinced. You speak feelingly of your marriage; of the hatred the Comte bears you; and to what purpose? — For if Collingforth is yet the man who strangled your wife, the Comte's intentions regarding yourself can be of no further interest to me.”

Grey was silent. I had an idea of the scene: Neddie at ease in his wing-backed chair, fingers bridged before his nose as he regarded the other man; and Grey, stiff and enraged, brought to a halt on the Aubusson carpet.

“You are desperate for a serious diversion, Mr. Grey,” Neddie persisted, “but for the life of me, I cannot think why. What would you protect? — Your own neck? It is hardly at hazard. — Your wife's reputation? She never possessed any. — Your banking concerns? Your position in the estimation of the 'Great'? Perhaps; for it is this that the Comte may yet destroy. I should be deeply gratified, Mr. Grey, if you could be as frank with regard to your business as you have been regarding your wife.”

Mr. Grey must have determined at this point upon quitting the room; there was the slightest rustle from beyond the window, and the sound of my brother rising to his feet.

“I will take what you have said under consideration, Austen,” Mr. Grey said sharply, “but I can offer you nothing further today.”

“Very well. I hope I may always be of service.” A bell rang distantly in the house; poor Russell would be running, I knew, to show the gentleman to the door.

“And Mr. Grey—”

“Yes?” The voice came indistinctly, from the far end of the room.

“I may assure you of one thing. I will find your wife's murderer — and so help me God, I will see him hang.”

The assurance may have been of less comfort than Neddie supposed.

WHEN GREY HAD GONE, I PUT DOWN MY GARDEN TRUG — now overflowing with posies already wilting in the late-morning heat — and stepped through the French windows.

“Is he gone?”

“Safely down the sweep.” Neddie was engaged in the filling of his pipe, an indulgence he never practised before a lady; but I had an idea of his internal disquiet, and forbore to chide him. Tobacco, I believe, may be a spur to thought as much as a comfort to the nerves, and I saw no reason to deny him the remedy at such an hour.

He settled himself in his favourite armchair and studied me with amusement. “How much of our conversation did you overlisten?”

“Nearly all of it. You were aware of my presence?”

“For the last half-hour. Grey may not have perceived you in his pacing about the room, but in following his figure to the garden prospect, I could not fail of detecting yours.” The amusement deepened. “And what is your considered opinion of the fellow, Jane?”

“As you said of the Comte — I quite liked him.”

“Yes,” Neddie mused. “It is a great failing in this line of work, to undertake to admire or pity anyone. He is made of stern stuff, Mr. Valentine Grey, and might be capable of anything.”

“—Of steady industry; of sacrifice in the name of principle; of ruthless calculation in matters of business or state — but is he capable of passion? I cannot believe it.”

“He was eloquent on the subject of his wife.”

“He spoke well,” I conceded, “but more as a man whose passion is dead.”

Neddie shrugged. “So, too, is the object of it.”

“Real love endures beyond the grave, Neddie, as you very well know. Men may remarry; they may cherish a second wife, and a third — but their feelings remain tender in respect of the departed. Mr. Grey's passion did not survive the first few months of his marriage, I suspect. He spoke as a man who has learned a part by rote.”

“You are severe upon him.”

“And yet, I cannot believe him capable of deception in an evil cause. He is the sort of man one instinctively trusts, and expects to perform with integrity. He will return again, I am sure of it — and tell you all you wish to know. His conscience will not allow him to rest, until he has done so.”

“I hope you are not proved credulous, Jane” — Neddie sighed — “for I have gambled a good deal on a single throw. Grey may as readily determine that silence is his truest friend, and deny me the knowledge that must unlock this puzzle.”

The great clock in the hallway began to toll the hour, and Neddie withdrew his watch from a waistcoat pocket. “Behind again,” he muttered, and commenced to wind it. “The Finch-Hattons are expected to dinner, and the sainfoin harvest has yet to be fired.”

“Bother the Finch-Hattons,” I cried petulantly. “What do you make of Grey's portrait of the Comte? There, at least, you must admit he was entirely frank. He went so far as to admit the letter.”

“We may judge, then, that the admission suited his purpose — whatever that purpose may be.”

“I quite long to meet the interesting Comte,” I persisted, as Neddie made for the library door. “Can not you conspire, Neddie, to invite him to take coffee with us some evening after dinner?”

“I shall do better, Jane,” he said with a roguish look. “I shall persuade my elegant wife to set the neighbourhood an example, and pay a call of condolence at The Larches. The funeral is tomorrow, at eleven o'clock; but a Saturday visit on the part of the Godmersham ladies would be admirably in keeping with what is due to Mr. Grey.”

“And so it should!” I exclaimed. “Dearest Neddie, for considering of it!”

“I am always happy to oblige you, Jane, even in the matter of your morbid taste for bones. I confess myself most impatient to learn your opinion of the devious Comte de Penfleur.”