Jane and the Genius of the Place

Chapter 3 The Unknown Cicisbeo

9 August 1805, cont'd.

FOR THE COMPLETION OF SEVEN MILES OF INDIFFERENT road to Godmersham, was required nearly two hours. Pratt will never allow the horses to travel at speed, from a horror of dust in an open carriage; and our progress in the present instance was decidedly impeded by the wealth of traffic on every side — most of it hastening from the race-meeting in equal perturbation of spirit. A happier party might have passed the journey in conversation, but Lizzy's thoughts were quite absent, Miss Sharpe's pallor was extreme, and Fanny was nodding in sleep before a quarter of the distance was achieved. We dawdled along between the high Kentish hedgerows while the sun declined into the hills, as silent as though our excellent Pratt conveyed an empty carriage.

From his unwillingness to address the subject, I believed it likely that my brother should arrest Mr. Denys Collingforth. In truth, I could not blame him; a shrewder man than Neddie would hesitate to discharge so obvious a malefactor. But I could not be easy in the determination of Collingforth's guilt. He was an unpalatable rogue, without question; he had spoken roughly of the murdered woman, and looked all his hate in his harsh features; and his carriage had borne the grisly burden of Mrs. Grey's corpse. But Collingforth should be a simpleton, indeed, to discover a body in his own chaise. Had he pursued Mrs. Grey along the Wingham road with murder as his object, he should better have abandoned her in a ditch along with her habit, than returned her to the world's sight. It looked very much as tho' someone else wished Collingforth to hang for the murder — and had arranged events to his liking.

But how had the corpse been conveyed to within the chaise? True, it had been divested of the red habit, and might have drawn less notice — if a corpse clad only in a shift, in broad daylight, could be said to look unremarkable. I did not think it likely, however, that Mrs. Grey had been brought to the chaise while yet alive, en deshabille, and strangled within it. Too little time had elapsed between her departure from the meeting-grounds and the discovery of her body, for the effecting of such a kidnapping; perhaps an hour, all told. Moreover, I had heard not a whimper of the poor lady's struggles, and our barouche had sat less than a hundred feet from Gollingforth's chaise. The tumult of a race might have covered the deed — but all of Canterbury knew the lady to have been alive and victorious for some time after the final heat

Revolve the matter of Mrs. Grey as I might, I could in no way account for her end, without the chaise itself having been removed. Upon reflection, I could not vouch for its presence behind our own equipage throughout the period in question — from Mrs. Grey's departure, until Collingforth had thrown open the carriage door. But who might have stolen the chaise for such an intricate purpose? And would there have been time enough to manage the business? It depended, I supposed, on the distance Mrs. Grey's team had already travelled, and where along the Wingham road she had been overtaken.

I should have considered of this earlier, and charged Neddie with examining the ground beneath the chaise's wheels. Some mark of hurried movement might have been discerned—

I sighed aloud, and Pratt glanced over his shoulder.

“It's not long now, miss. That be the turning for Chilham, as you'll know.”

Chilham — where I had danced on occasion at the modest little Assembly Rooms, and pined in my youth for Mr. Taylor's beautiful dark eyes. He bestowed them upon another young lady more in keeping with his station — his irrepressible cousin, Charlotte — and the two have passed the remarkable family feature to yet another generation. I had called only last week at Bifrons Park, and found all the Taylors thriving.

As I wandered thus among the byways of my youth, the road dipped and swung along an embankment — the hedgerows parted — and we were presented with a fine sweep of country. All the beauty of Godmersham broke suddenly upon me. I suspended thought and sat back in the seat cushions, refreshed immediately by the serenity of the scene.

My brother's principal estate, a fine modern building of rosy brick, nestles like a jewel between two saddles of the downs. Every line of the house as it rises from its deer park — the copses where pheasant thrive, and hares burrow — the enclosed kitchen gardens, and the noble avenue of limes we call Bentigh, that leads sweetly along the river to the old Norman church of St. Nicolas — all must proclaim to passersby, that here lives an English gentleman.

I have known Godmersham from the first days of Neddie's removal here, some ten years ago. I have been privileged to linger within its comforting walls for months at a time, and I regard the place as in some measure my home — and one I must quit always with regret. My own style of living is determined by the scant provision I bring to it; there is a constraint in relative poverty that weighs upon the soul and renders the mind weary. At Godmersham I am always free of penury's burdens, and the interval must be embraced with relief. To leave the place is to be cast out a little from Heaven.

As I considered the relative nature of peace and privilege, Pratt snapped the reins over the horses' backs, and the barouche rolled easily towards the turning for the park. Vivid green hills rose behind the house, shimmering and unvaried as velvet. Here and there a clump of trees broke the evenness of the landscape, rendering both hillside and clump more absolute in their disparity the one to the other. It was a style of beauty first brought to prominence in the last century — a paean to Naturalism, and quite in keeping with my sensibilities.

The Stour murmured a winding course through the meadow, and along its banks the willows trailed, restless in the slightest air. Swallows darted and swooped over our heads as we achieved the turning for the lodge, carriage wheels complaining at the paving's treatment, and little Fanny stirred and sighed. The slanting light of late August splashed gilt over her cheek — and over stone bridge, mown field, and rosy brick — as it turned the air to honey.

The whole was a scene of such measured beauty, in fact, that the horror of death seemed impossible, and the very notion of murder, absurd.

“Are we home, Jane?” Lizzy enquired, rousing herself. “It cannot be too soon. How Neddie must feel the burden of his duty, on such a day!”

“How happy you must be,” I returned impulsively, “to call these fields and hills your home! What richness, in the dull routine of a country life! Is there anything to compare with the peace and beauty of Kent?”

“The dust is intolerable,” Lizzy observed, as we pulled up at the door. “I am sure I shall have the head-ache.”

Her conviction bore fruit at the house's very entry, and so, calling for her excellent maid, Sayce, my sister was borne away to her room. The rest of us were not to be released without a trial, however — for shouting and jostling in their hurry to be seen, the young Austens tumbled down the steps from the nursery. They had been left behind at the day's outing, as being either too junior or too indisposed — for little Edward was troubled with a persistent cold, which refused to yield to all that the apothecary could advise. The others showed a dangerous inclination towards the same ailment, and with the commencement of their Michaelmas term looming, the older boys could not be too careful.[11] Lizzy had listened to the impassioned arguments of her children the previous night at bed-time. She had consulted with Mr. Green. And in the end, only Fanny — who might suffer a cold the autumn entire, and yet be schooled at home by Miss Sharpe — was permitted the treat of watching the Commodore run.

“Sharpie! Auntjane!” the children cried in a tumult. “Is it true? Was a lady murdered at the races, and is Father to find it all out?”

“Edward,” I said briskly — for Miss Sharpe appeared, if anything, worse for her journey than she had at its outset— “Miss Sharpe is greatly fatigued. Pray let her pass, and do not be plaguing her with your questions.”

Anne Sharpe looked all her thanks, and pressed a hand to her brow. She had been more overpowered by events than any of us. I concluded that she suffered a head-ache more severe than Lizzy's direst imaginings, and ordered her to bed.

“I am a little fatigued,” she admitted. “Perhaps a short interval — before the children require their suppers—”

“Sackree will see to the bread and milk,” I told her firmly. “Pray lie down for a while, Miss Sharpe. You look decidedly unwell.”

“I must believe it to be the shock,” she said feebly. “That woman—”

“So it is true!” Edward shouted triumphantly.

I sank down on the bottom step and set my elegant top hat by my side. “Wherever did you hear such a tale, Edward?”

“He had it from Cook,” said his brother George, hopping up and down on one foot, “—who had it from John Butcher, who met a man with the news on his way from the races.”

“It was not John Butcher, but Samuel Joiner had the news, and fomet the man in the road,” young Elizabeth, a stout girl of five, broke in hotly.

“That is what I said,” George retorted. “But—”

“Do not pinch your brother, Eliza,” I attempted.

“You did say it was so!” she insisted, “you said it was John Butcher. I heard the whole myself, while I was in the kitchen and Cook was in the yard. If you had gone for the pudding, Dordie, you would know it all, too.”

“And why were you gone for pudding while Cook was in the yard?” asked Miss Sharpe — suddenly stern and much the pinker for it. “It is the accepted practise to take your pudding at meals, Miss Eliza, and not behind Cook's back.”

Both culprits fell silent, their eyes on the ground. It was thus for Fanny to seize the triumphant moment.

“Of course the story is true,” she said scornfully, “tho' neither John Butcher nor Samuel Joiner were within a mile of the race-meeting. I saw it all, Edward, and if you will come into the schoolroom, I shall tell you how it was.”

The others fell back in awed silence — and little Eliza burst into tears.

“Come along, children,” I said in exasperation. “We shall both tell you the tale. And afterwards, George, perhaps we may have a game of shuttlecock. But you must be very quiet — for your mamma and Miss Sharpe are indisposed.”

I smiled at the governess, and bustled the children upstairs. But when I turned at the landing to glance at Anne Sharpe, she still stood with one hand on the rail, her thoughts quite fled and her pallor extreme.

MY DEAREST CASSANDRA, I WROTE, AS I SAT SOME HOURS later at my dressing table, in the solitary splendour of the Yellow Room — and then I hesitated, pen poised for the collection of my thoughts. The hour was late and the house entirely wrapped in slumber. I had opened a window against the still heat of the August night, and my candle's flame dipped and staggered with every stirring of the air. Something there was that hovered over Godmersham — a gathering of violence above my head, that stiffened the very draperies and turned the midnight light to sulphur. Relief might come with the rain— and afterwards, a little sleep; but until the storm should break, I must seek comfort in composition.

When I am parted from my dearest sister by the vicissitudes of Fate or the beguilements of pleasure, it is my inveterate custom to relate the particulars of each day in a newsy, comfortable letter. Two such women, of advancing years and modest society, may generally have very little of importance to communicate; but the habit of conversation, long deferred by absence, will find relief in the written word. A great deal of nothing, therefore, has flown back and forth between Goodnestone Farm and Godmersham Park during the interval of Cassandra's visit to Lady Bridges. I may attest to a voluminous correspondence, regarding such little matters as the progress of young Edward's cold; my continued improvement at the game of shutdecock; the opinion of Mr. Hall, the elegant London hairdresser, as to the best arrangement of my coiffure and several good jokes regarding Henry's infatuation with his lamentable horse.

But this evening I had matters of a far graver nature to relate, although some part of Mrs. Grey's sad history must already be known to Cassandra — for Mr. Edward Bridges, who could hardly be ignorant of it, should have borne the intelligence to the Farm before me. My sister must as yet be denied the full history of the lady's tragic end, however, for my brothers returned from the race grounds very late this evening, and the details of their grim work were imparted only to myself — Lizzy and the children having already retired.

You will know, I am sure, of the horrible events that occurred at our race-meeting, I wrote at last.

HERE I PAUSED IN MY LETTER TO CASSANDRA, AND SAW again in memory my brother's weary face. It was after ten o'clock when he and Henry returned from the race grounds, and we had the comfortable library entirely to ourselves. Henry threw himself onto a sofa and yawned hugely; Neddie stood in thought by his desk. I had determined not to plague them with questions, being content myself to rest a few moments in my favourite room.

The library, with its five tables, two fireplaces, countless volumes, and eight-and-twenty chairs, is in the newest part of the great house. The first Mr. Thomas Knight added two wings, east and west, nearly thirty years previous; and tho' the entire family is wont to live in the generous space, summer or winter, spurning the chilly grandeur of the more formal drawing-rooms, it sometimes happens that I command the library in splendid solitude. This is a richness not to be carelessly forsworn; for in a house that boasts the frequent presence of nine children — their number increasing with a stupefying regularity — solitude and peace are luxuries dearly bought. But my brother's goodness admits of few limits; he comprehends my need for daily reflection, and the delight I take in the house's privacies; and shoos his numerous progeny to the garden when “Aunt Jane requires her rest.”

“And so you are not abed.” Neddie swung round and peered at me from his place by the unlit hearth. “I am glad of it, Jane. I should soon drive poor Henry mad with my mutterings; he has borne with them too long today.”

“Not a bit of it.” Henry eased off his top boots with a sigh. It should not be remarkable if the feet were swollen, after hours of imprisonment in such fashionable footgear. “I shall be all attention to the despicable business, once I have heard from Jane how the Commodore does.”

“He was sold to the knacker not three minutes before your return,” I told him with conscious cruelty, “and I doubt he shall make a better meat than he has a race-meeting.”

“For shame! The lad was merely weighted too heavily. And he does not like the dust. Give the Commodore a splendid wet muck and he will tear the course to blazes. But truly, Jane — you saw he was looked after?”

I sighed. “A bucket of oats and an hour's rubbing-down. Your groom would hardly do less; I believe he led the nag at a walk the full seven miles between the meeting-grounds and Godmersham, Henry. You have no cause for fear.”

“Not for fear, perhaps,” Neddie observed, as he flung himself into a chair, “but his concern nonetheless does our brother credit. Yours is a most forgiving nature, Henry; you lose your fortune and mine in backing the beast, and yet are anxious to know whether it ate its dinner well. Were I disposed to transgress and disappoint, I should wish to fall into your hands. I might then be assured of a gende reckoning.”

“Unlike the unfortunate Mrs. Grey,” Henry observed. “She certainly met with more brutal treatment.”

Neddie regarded him quizzically. “You incline, then, to the theory of a husband pushed past endurance?”

“I incline to nothing,” he protested. “She might as readily have been strangled by a broken gamester, mad with backing the wrong horse!”

“Better to have strangled the Commodore, then,” I murmured.

Neddie bent his gaze upon me. “What say you, Jane, to Henry's notion?”

“I may say nothing, until I command a greater knowledge of the particulars. Why should you believe Mr. Grey the culprit? Was not he far from the scene, in London?”

Neddie laughed abruptly. “She is as sober as a judge, our sister! If it is particulars you fancy, Jane, then you shall have them. I could not suffer you to remain in ignorance, when all the world will soon be talking of the matter.”

He rang for wine, and when it had been brought, consumed a little in silence. It was Henry who related the history of the perch phaeton, its scandalous novel, and the letter it contained; and when he had done, I puzzled a moment over the matter.

“Like you, Henry, I cannot incline towards one theory or another,” I declared at last. “We must attempt to ascertain whether Mr. Valentine Grey was indeed in London at the moment of his wife's end — and whether he had reason to suspect a dangerous entanglement with The Unknown. It would not go amiss, either, could we put a name to the lady's lover. But until such things are laid plain, it must all be conjecture. And injurious conjecture at that.”

“So we thought as well,” Neddie said from his corner. “And having concluded our inspection of the phaeton, despatched the greys to their stable under the watchful eye of the tyger, and charged the Canterbury constabulary with the safekeeping of the carriage — Henry and I proceeded to pay a call upon The Larches.”

“The Greys' estate? No wonder, then, that you were so long detained!”

“Indeed. We have tramped through half the neighbourhood in pursuit of justice, and found not a hint of it within fifteen miles of the coast. It has all fled to London, I suppose, out of a terror of French cavalry.”

“And did you discover Mr. Grey in savage looks, with pistols at the ready and his housekeeper for hostage, intent upon the defiance of the Law?”

“Hardly. Imagine our surprise, my dear sister, to find Grey as absent as foretold, and the house in possession of strangers.”

“Strangers?” I echoed, intrigued.

“Perhaps that is not the correct word,” Henry broke in hastily. “But they certainly could not be considered as forming a part of the household.”

“Enough of riddles!” I set down my wineglass with decision. “I am not young Fanny, to be diverted at a word.”

“Can not you guess whom we found in the saloon, rifling the dead woman's desk for all they were worth?” Neddie's eyes glinted with something too acute to be called amusement.

“I cannot,” I retorted helplessly. “I never heard of Mrs. Grey until this morning, and cannot hope to name her intimates.”

“Captain Woodford and Edward Bridges,” Henry said apologetically, “and both of them much the worse for wine.”

“Good God!” I cried; and then, “How can you look so roguish, Neddie? Think what this must mean for Lizzy, if Mr. Bridges's name should be linked in scandal to Mrs. Grey's! And Captain Woodford, too — of whom Harriot has such hopes! It does not bear thinking of.”

“I believe it is my Lizzy who has hopes of the gallant Captain,” he amended. “Harriot's feelings, like those of any modest young lady, must be presently in doubt. I cannot be expected to consider of Harriot, if she will not consider of herself.”

“Pray, pray, be sensible, Neddie!”

“You disappoint me, Jane,” my brother replied drily. “You do not show the proper relish for intrigue. I had expected more, from Henry's account of your doings in Bath last winter. I thought you quite enslaved to a dangerous excitement.”

If I threw Henry an evil look, and received an air of insouciance in return, I may perhaps be forgiven.

“Captain Woodford we may explain,” I managed eventually. “I understand that he has been on terms of intimacy with Mr. Grey from boyhood, and might naturally wish to be present when the gentleman returned. Perhaps he hoped to shield his friend from the full weight of such terrible news. And Mr. Bridges might merely have accompanied him.”

“Tho' they travelled in separate equipages, and seemed distinctly out of charity with one another.”

This must give me pause.

“Captain Woodford would have it that they had come to condole with Mr. Grey,” Henry threw in, “tho' he could tell us nothing about that gentleman's movements, or when he was expected from London. And poor Mr. Bridges was decidedly red-faced and mumchance — either from the effects of wine or the ruin of his hopes, for I know him to have backed the Commodore to a shocking extent. At first he suggested he would condole with Grey as well, until Captain Woodford abused him to his face for a blackguard and a liar. It would have ended in Bridges calling the Captain out, had Neddie not intervened.”[13]

“How very singular,” I said slowly. “Captain Woodford and Mr. Bridges, to have had a falling-out. They seemed the best of fellows, when last I had the pleasure of conversing with them.”

“At the race-meeting itself, Jane?”

“Tho' well before the murder of Mrs. Grey. Our party met with the two gentlemen in the interval before the heats. They seemed most companionable, and joined in their good wishes for the Commodore's running.”

“As well they might,” Henry retorted gloomily. “Much good it may do them.”

“Perhaps the betting aroused their enmity,” Neddie mused. “Or Denys Collingforth's insults. He fairly accused them of Mrs. Grey's murder — and before all of Kent.”

“But would that cause either to drive post-haste to The Larches?” I protested. “You spoke of rifled desk drawers, Neddie. Certainly you were in error there? The two were surely not despoiling Mrs. Grey's things?”

My brothers exchanged a long look; then Neddie shrugged. “Their appearance at our entrance had all the suggestion of uneasy interruption, Jane. Woodford was bending over the desk, while Mr. Bridges was intent about the lock of one drawer. Whether either man had divined its secrets, I cannot say; but I am certain that was their purpose.”

“And could the housekeeper tell you nothing of their coming?”

“Only that they had burst upon her all unawares, when she was already prostrate with grief at her mistress's passing; that they insisted upon admission to the house, and vowed that they would wait for Mr. Grey.”

“And so she left them to peruse the contents of her mistress's desk,” I muttered. “A considerable liberty.”

“I must believe that Mrs. Bastable — the housekeeper— was quite accustomed to seeing my brother Bridges and the Captain at The Larches. To her there was nothing extraordinary in their being granted the freedom of the house.”

We considered this unfortunate conclusion in silence a moment, while the willows sighed gendy along the banks of the Stour in the darkness. The sound, so generally soothing, drifted through the open French windows like a whisper from the grave.

“Do you apprehend the nature of Mr. Bridges's intimacy with the Greys, Neddie?” I enquired at length.

He shrugged. “It was neither so very great, as to be called intimate, nor so trifling as to pass for the barest acquaintance. Edward would have it that Mrs. Grey was very fond of cards, and when her husband was absent on business in Town, she would often send round to various gendemen in the neighbourhood, that they might make up her whist table.”

“Mr. Bridges played at cards at The Larches?”

“Then no doubt he lost,” Henry added.

“It is his chief talent.” Neddie rose and turned restlessly before the bare hearth. “But I confess to some anxiety at his presence in that house, and at such a time. I feel scarcely less on Woodford's account. They are both of them honourable fellows — as the behaviour of gentlemen is usually construed.”

“Meaning, that they are amiable, good-humoured, feckless sportsmen who should not be trusted with their quarter's pay,” I finished. “Either they intended to retrieve their vowels from Mrs. Grey's desk, or some other piece of incriminating paper has given rise to anxiety.[14] A love letter? An indiscretion, too desperate to be revealed to the lady's husband?”

“Perhaps,” Neddie admitted.

“Perhaps the lady had a taste for blackmail,” Henry threw out.

I started at the word. Blackmail will always possess an ugly sound — and I had learned to respect its vicious nature in Bath the previous winter. The rifling of a desk was a natural aftermath of a brutal killing, when the victim of the act had proved brutal herself. Mr. Bridges's behaviour bore all the markings of a man in fear of betrayal. But of what?

Of whatever Denys Collingforth had hinted, in the middle of the race grounds? His object then had been the curate alone, not Captain Woodford — but Wood-ford had been encompassed in the insult later, the price of coming to the aid of his friend. Perhaps the shadow cast on the Captain's honour had caused the rift with the curate. But the Captain, too, had been discovered bent over the desk—

“I see how it is. This is an ugly business, Neddie.”

“And likely to grow worse.” He tossed off the last of his wine. “All of Kent may have despised Mrs. Grey; they may have cut her dead in certain circles, and laughed at her in others — but her influence was felt. Her charm was insidious. Her habits and style were bewitching to some. And no matter how the sad nature of her end is resolved, we can none of us hope to avoid the breath of scandal, Jane. We are touched by it too nearly.”

He looked then as though he felt all the weight of his commission — hollow-eyed, burdened, and wearied in mind and body. I went to him, and kissed his cheek in silent testament of affection.

“What do you intend to do next?” I asked him.

I shall endeavour to learn why Collingforth should have killed Francoise Grey,” he replied, “tho' I cannot believe he did it.”

“You might also enquire who bore a grudge against CoUingforth himself,” I suggested. “The introduction of the corpse into his chaise must bear a questionable aspect. It is one thing to murder a woman, and quite another to throw the blame.”

“True.” My brother took up his candle and made for the stairs. “Pray inform me, Jane, as to the result of your own researches. I am not so callow as to believe you will sit home, quiet and confined, while so much of interest is toward. I will neither enjoin you to silence, nor urge you to the chase — but I will always be ready to listen.”

And so our conferences ended, with a solemn procession by candlelight — my brothers to their beds, and I to the Yellow Room's little writing table.

I signed the letter, sealed it with some candlewax and my brother's fob, and waited for the storm to break above my head.