Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“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 would not have you share this intelligence with Harriot for the world , I cautioned Cassandra now. Better that she should learn the worst — if worst there is — when it cannot be avoided. But if you should have occasion to observe the two gentlemen, my dear sister — one comprising her brother, and the other her suitor — pray be on your guard. For anything you discern might be as gold.

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

Tuesday

20 August 1805

IN NEARLY THIRTY YEARS OF LIVING I HAVE OFTEN HAD occasion to observe, that one sensational event may only be supplanted by another of equal or greater import. And so it has been with all of us at Godmersham this morning: Mrs. Grey's brutal murder is quite forgot, and the agent of her eclipse is none other than Captain Woodford.

He appeared in the approach to our gates at noon, arrayed in his full dress uniform and mounted on a dappled grey. I was privileged in having the first sight of him — for I had profited from the interlude after breakfast, when the little ones were taking turns with patient Patch, the old pony, to escape to my Doric temple and my solitude. There in columned shadow I was established with paper and pen, secure in such privacy as I may rarely command. There I might gaze out over the chuckling Stour, and watch the growing heat of morning raise a fine mist above the meadows; feel birdsong throbbing in my veins, and attempt to wrestle Lady Susan to her Fate. [15] Lady Susan , first drafted in the mid-1790s, was never titled or published during Austen's life. Even at the time of its composition, the novel's epistolary form was considered more appropriate to the eighteenth than the nineteenth century. Why Austen abandoned The Watsons , which she had begun in 1803 or 1804, in order to finish the more cynical Lady Susan, is a mystery; but some Austen scholars impute the decision to a persistent depression that resulted from her father's death in January 1805. Despite its flaws, Lady Susan's calculating and amoral heroine is utterly irresistible. — Editor's note.

The nature of that Fate is much in question at present, for Lady Susan is not a woman to suffer the vagaries of fortune as willingly as her creator might intend. She is a vengeful and calculating Virago, in fact, and I am entirely delighted with her. Cassandra believes there is something shocking in a woman so very bad; she would have Lady Susan repentant and reformed at the tale's end. But in this we may read the force of sentiment— and the failure of Art to mirror Truth. For I have known a thousand Lady Susans; have seen them sail unremarked through the Fashionable World, their consequence increasing with every fresh outrage. Unnatural mother, adulterous schemer, and treacherous friend — what can such a woman ever know of virtue?

I love her too well, in short, to have her broken for a moral.

My thoughts in this vein had only just borne fruit, in the composition of the novel's final pages, when the sound of hoofbeats on the dusty lane below my hilltop perch alerted all my senses. I half-rose, and peered round a column; observed an officer mounting the stone bridge over the Stour; and set aside my paper and pen. A moment's further study revealed the upright figure to possess an eye patch — and there could not be two such at large in the country. Captain Woodford, then, was come to Godmersham, and well before the usual hour for paying a morning call!

If I entertained the notion of a soul burdened with guilt, and advancing upon my brother for the full confession of its sins, I may perhaps be forgiven. I watched with narrowed eyes as the Captain achieved the gates and made his measured progress up the sweep. [16] The sweep, in Austen's day, was the common name for the driveway. — Editor's note. He did not look a man overwhelmed by grief; yet neither was he galloping as befit an officer charged with the most urgent intelligence. The French were not upon our very doorstep, at least.

I gathered up my little sheaf of paper, secured Lady Susan and my pen in the pocket of my apron, and set off down the slope towards the house.

“CAPTAIN WOODFORD,” LIZZY SAID, WITH HER MOST charming smile — the one that is barely a smile at all. “I fear you find us quite abandoned by the gentlemen.”

Neddie had left early on horseback intent upon Valentine Grey, while Henry had been charged with learning what he could of Denys Collingforth's affairs. He intended, I believed, to spend the better part of the day drinking ale in the Hound and Tooth, the center of all gossip in Canterbury.

The Captain bowed low over my sister's hand, then inclined his head towards myself. “Mr. Austen is from home? should have suspected as much. The tragic business at the race-meeting—”

“Indeed,” Lizzy returned smoothly. “My husband left the house at eight o'clock, intent upon The Larches. Mr. Grey, it seems, arrived home just after dawn, and Mr. Austen wished to speak with him as soon as might be.”

“Of course. I had not known Grey was returned.” If the Captain felt a moment's uneasiness at the mention of The Larches, he betrayed nothing in his countenance. His entire aspect, in fact, was official and grave, as tho' he moved in a role not entirely his own. He handed Lizzy a furled despatch, tied round with a scarlet cord.