Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“My dear Fanny.” Miss Sharpe laid a gloved hand on her charge's arm. “We are privileged in attending the meeting at all. Recollect that ladies must never approach the rail — it is not the done thing, and is left to the province of such hoydens as may claim neither rank nor breeding among their charms.”

“Mrs. Grey may claim rank and breeding, Sharpie, and yet she is allowed the liberty of the grounds,” Fanny retorted. “I should not be so nice as you are, for a kingdom! Mrs. Grey for me!”

And, indeed, the child spoke no more than the truth. The dark-haired beauty in the scarlet riding habit was strolling freely among the assembled carriages, with the eye of more than one gentleman lingering upon her wistfully. As we watched, she caught the banter of one and returned it playfully, her countenance alive with laughter. The brutal cut of a few minutes earlier was plainly forgotten. She appeared a ravishing young lady of exuberant spirits — forward, perhaps, but entirely in command of her circumstances.

“Perhaps we should read a little of Palmerstone aloud,” Miss Sharpe suggested, with a slight note of reproof. She drew a volume from her reticule and patted the empty seat beside her. “Sit down by me, and endeavour to attend. I believe we left off at letter number twelve.”

“Mrs. Grey has never read Palmerstone,” Fanny retorted darkly, but she sank down next to Miss Sharpe.

“Mrs. Grey is not the pattern I should choose for your conduct, Fanny.” Lizzy's words had the tenor of a scold, but I observed her mouth to twitch. “However dashing in moments, Mrs. Grey has not been gently reared. She is a Frenchwoman, moreover, and her manners must be very different from ours.”

Miss Sharpe commenced to read, in a quiet tone; and at that moment, I caught a glimpse of scarlet as Mrs. Grey passed to the rear of the governess's bent head. As Lizzy and I watched her wordlessly, she approached a shabby-looking chaise but a hundred feet from our own. It was equipped with neither footman nor tyger, and but for its sweating team of matched bays, appeared all but deserted. At Mrs. Grey's swift knock, however, the carriage door was thrust open by an unseen party within. With a swift glance about, the lady disappeared into the darkness, and the door closed softly behind her.

“Good Lord!” Lizzy murmured. “So Laetitia Colling-forth makes Franchise Grey her friend. This is news, indeed.”

“Has she so little acquaintance among the neighbourhood?”

“I am afraid that Kent has not embraced the Greys as it should,” Lizzy replied. “But, then, Mrs. Grey is very young—”

“—and very French,” I concluded.

Lizzy nodded abstractedly, her eyes still fixed on the shabby chaise. “That cannot be agreeable, at such a time.”

The London papers have been full of nothing but the rumour of invasion the entire summer. Buonaparte's dreaded army, which is said to number some one hundred thousand men, sits but a stone's toss across the Channel from Kent, and many of the less stalwart families among our acquaintance have quitted the neighbourhood for safer regions far from the sea, until the danger should be passed.

“A lesser woman than Mrs. Grey might find her situation awkward,” I observed, “and adopt a retiring appearance; but that has hardly been the lady's choice.”

Lizzy laughed abruptly. “Retirement would never be Mrs. Grey's preference. I fear she endures our company better than we suffer hers!— Tho' I cannot think why she remains in Kent; London should prove a better field for her appetites and pursuits. Perhaps the country air suits her — or, more to the point, her horses.”

“She has set up her stable?” I enquired.

“—And is passionate about the turf. Some one of her racers is entered in the Commodore's heat, no doubt, and thus we may account for her extraordinary behaviour in strolling about the meeting-grounds. She considers herself quite one of the Sporting Set, and spends a fortune, it is said, on the comfort of her mounts.”

“Her husband must be in possession of easy circumstances, then.”

“Mrs. Grey has never had the appearance of a pauper,” Lizzy observed enviously. “I, for one, cannot afford her modiste . My pin money should never run to such sums. You observed the cut of that habit, I presume? The quantity of gold frogging about the neck and bosom? And having displayed it to all of Canterbury, she should never presume to wear it again.”

“Well, well.” I sighed. “The French are known for their ruinous habits, I believe. Perhaps she shall run through her husband's fortune, and serve as spectacle for us all. We cannot do without a little amusement, the news from the Channel being so very bad.”

Lizzy threw me a mocking glance. “We are not all without resources, Jane. Some little money attaches to the lady herself. She is said to be the ward of a French banking family — de Penfleur by name, although her own was Lamartine. Grey married her for her connexions, I believe.”

The judgement was callously expressed, but was no more than Lizzy should serve upon any number of her acquaintance. It is rare to marry for love, as my brother has done. Calculation is the more general advocate of worldly alliance, as every baronet's daughter must know.

“She must be new to the neighbourhood,” I replied, “for I cannot think I have ever met her before.”

“She has been resident in Kent but seven months, and her husband, Mr. Valentine Grey, acceded to his estate only three years ago. You may have heard me speak of it — The Larches. It is one of the finest places in England, Jane. Perhaps we shall pay a call there, one day, if you persist in your fascination for the lady.”

I frowned. “The Larches! But is not that only a few miles from Goodnestone? How have we never come to meet them before?”

Lizzy's childhood home, Goodnestone Park, is a lovely old place some seven miles from Godmersham. Her elder brother, Sir Brooke-William Bridges, acceded to the tide nearly fifteen years ago, and at his marriage to a respectable young woman, Lizzy's mother retired to Goodnestone Farm a mile distant from the great house. My sister Cassandra has been gone on a visit to Lady Bridges and her unmarried daughters this fortnight, but her letters have made no reference to any neighbours, near or far.

“The Greys do not mix very much in Society, Jane. He is the principal member of a great banking firm— and however genteel a profession, it remains one that many still consider to be trade.” Lizzy glanced sidelong at this, to see how I should take it; for banker or no, Henry has always been my favourite brother, and I have no patience with snobbery of any kind. “And as Mr. Grey has been resident in these parts only a little while, moreover, he cannot be said to be truly of the neighbourhood.”

“No,” I rejoined with a touch of irony, “for that he should have been forced to endure his infancy here, and have married the daughter of a local worthy — a Miss Taylor of Bifrons Park, perhaps, or one of the Wildmans of Chilham Castle.” Kent, for all its wealth and easy manners, can be a very closed society; it suffers from a touch of the provincial, as every country neighbourhood must.

“Perhaps I have not done as much for Mrs. Grey as I ought,” Lizzy admitted, “but I like her too little to further the acquaintance. She is far too young, far too pretty, and far too much of a temptation to the local bloods to stand my friend; such a woman must always be seen in the light of competition. I confess, Jane, that I have withdrawn from the field, rather than tilt with such an adversary.”

“Lizzy! You may command any number of dashing young gentlemen with the slightest curl of your finger! You know it to be true!”