Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“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.”