Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

If his wife was within, she did not dare to show her face.

“Well, Lizzy,” my brother said as he pulled himself into the barouche, “I believe it is time we turned towards home. This meeting is become almost a brawl, and I will not have Fanny treated to such scenes.”

Lizzy's answer, did she contemplate one, was forestalled by a fearful cry. It was a man's voice, torn with suffering and revulsion, as though he looked upon the face of evil and knew it for his own. It came from somewhere behind us.

I turned, aghast, to enquire of Neddie, and saw my own confusion mirrored in my brother's countenance. And then our entire party was on its feet, and the gentlemen had sprung from the barouche, all fatigue and acrimony forgotten. A crowd had gathered at the open door of Collingforth's chaise. I looked, and then turned swiftly to gather Fanny to my breast. Death is not a sight for the young, however sporting-minded.

For spilling from the carriage doorway, arms out-flung in supplication, was the figure of a woman. Her streaming hair was dark, her eyes were staring, and tho' the veil and scarlet habit had been torn from her body, leaving her pale and child-like in a simple cotton shift, I knew her instantly for Mrs. Grey.

And knew, with a chill at my heart, that she would never ride again.

19 August 1805, cont'd.

“GOOD GOD! MRS. GREY, IN COLLINGFORTH'S CHAISE.” Neddie threw his elegant top hat into our barouche, and hastened towards the gruesome scene. Henry was hard on his heels.

“Mamma!” Fanny slipped from my grasp. “What has happened to Mrs. Grey? And why is she lying so, in her shift? Does she suffer from a fit?”

Mrs. Grey's face was contorted, her lips thrust apart, and her tongue protuberant; around her neck was a length of red ribbon, such as once must have bound up her long black hair. She had certainly been strangled with it. To gaze upon her was terrible — so much beauty turned horrible in an instant, and utterly beyond salvation.

With a choked cry from the seat opposite, Anne Sharpe fainted dead away.

“Sit dawn , Fanny.” Lizzy clutched at her daughter's sash and tugged on it firmly. “If anyone is suffering from a fit, it is your governess, child — and who can wonder, with a charge so troublesome as yourself? Endeavour to behave with a little decorum, while Aunt Jane secures Miss Sharpe's vinaigrette.”

I had already scrambled about the carriage in search of such an item, and found it at last in a little travelling case of Fanny's, tricked out with such necessaries as a lady might require. Extra handkerchiefs, a roll of sticking plaster, tiny scissors, and a packet of threaded needles— and, joy of joys, the crystal flacon filled with smelling salts. I waved it under the governess's nose, and watched her snort like Henry's champion.

Fanny was all concern in a moment, and hovered over Miss Sharpe like a little mother; the governess looked quite ill, indeed, but protested that she was entirely well, and struggled to sit upright with something like her usual composure. She accepted a glass of tepid cordial, but kept her face studiously averted from the Colling-forth chaise.

For my part, I felt no compunction in regarding the interesting scene unfolding to the rear. My brother had not leapt to the dead woman's side merely from an excess of chivalry — no, in the present instance, such a mark of active concern was absolutely required. The Lord Lieutenant of Kent himself had appointed my brother Justice of the Peace — a capacity in which Neddie had served barely six months. It was an honour without recompense (for gentlemen are never offered the insult of remuneration, as a more common magistrate in Town might be), and tedious in its general description, but quite suited to a man of Neddie's talents and inclination. For tho' my brother has assumed the polish of Fashion — tho' he has moved in the best circles from the age of sixteen, made the Grand Tour with unimpeachable grace, and imbibed all the follies, indulgences, and vices of Society as mother's milk — he was nonetheless reared in a country parsonage, by a father whose chief values lay in application and industry. Possessed now of great estates — and stewards to manage them; of numerous children — and phalanxes of servants, Neddie should decline into peevishness and indolence, without the care of public office as diversion.

And watching him as he knelt over the body of Mrs. Grey, I felt a familiar chill at my heart. I had witnessed such scenes too many times before. For a moment, I might have joined Miss Sharpe, in averting my eyes; but another instant's reflection steeled my resolve. However unpleasant the evil might be, it should encompass all our family; and I could not refuse to help my brother, whom so many occasions had proved so generous to myself. Neddie's superior knowledge of the world, and easy passage among the Great, had used to comfort his shy little sisters; now, it was he who should enter a strange and bewildering land, and I who must walk along familiar paths.

The varied experiences of the past several years have opened a new world entire to my understanding; I have endured and survived encounters with a most unscrupulous body of men, without loss of dignity or a very great diminution of reputation; and I could not but be aware now that Neddie's role in the present drama must afford me a greater knowledge of the particulars, than I had heretofore been able to command. It is not that I am prone to a morbid curiosity, or find enchantment and delight in the manifestation of evil, but rather that the power of laying plain a convoluted puzzle — to the greater good of some unfortunate, and the generalised comfort of Society — must have its very great satisfaction. I have not yet learned to despise my curiosity, for all my mother's anxious urging, or the perils of dubious association it brings inevitably in its train. It has been my privilege (tho' some would call it misfortune) to have the unravelling of a few very tiresome knots in the recent past; and in the present instance of Neddie's need, my talents might prove of use.

“What are we to do, Jane?” Lizzy whispered, “for we should not prolong Fanny's exposure to such a dreadful scene. And yet Neddie—”

“— must remain,” I agreed. “A Justice is required to think of others before his family.”

“But, Mamma, how very odd she looks, to be sure!” Fanny stared fascinated at the spectacle near the coach, now virtually obscured by a crowd of the curious. Another instant, and she had mounted to her favourite perch on the box next to Pratt, with the object of gaining a better view.

“Come down at once, Miss Fanny!” Anne Sharpe exclaimed, and took a decided grip on her charge's ankles.

“Perhaps Miss Sharpe and Fanny might pay a visit to the stables,” I murmured to Lizzy. “It is not above five minutes' walk, and they could enquire after the Commodore. That should divert Fanny's interest.”

Lizzy shook her head decisively. “An admirable notion, Jane, but for the murderer we have loose in the grounds!”

“Murderer?” Fanny slid abruptly back into her seat. “But is Mrs. Grey murdered then, Mamma?”

Lizzy gathered her eldest into her arms. “I fear that the lady is dead, my Fanny, but how she came to be so, I cannot say. I should not have spoken until Papa had come to us. Depend upon it, your father shall very soon apprehend the whole.”

Fanny's eyes might widen at this speech, and her breath come short; but to her credit, the child evinced a tolerable composure. She neither shrieked, nor fell insensible, nor shuddered as with a dreadful presentiment (as might betray an enthusiast of horrid novels), but turned her soft blue eyes upon her governess and said, “Poor Sharpie. I know you have not the stomach for such things — you were taken quite ill when Caky killed a rat once in the nursery. [9] “Caky” was the nickname Edward Austen's children bestowed on their nurse, Susannah Sackree, who was employed at Godmersham for over six decades. She often served as Jane Austen's personal maid when Jane was resident at Godmersham; she is buried at St. Nicolas's, the old Norman church just south of Godmersham Park, where Edward and Elizabeth Austen Knight are also entombed. — Editor's note. But then, it did squeal most horribly under the poker and tongs, and you are a little goose, are you not?” She patted Miss Sharpe's hand. “I cannot think that Mrs. Grey, however dead, was the sort to squeal. And do consider, Sharpie, that my father must presently relieve our fears.”