Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

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?”