Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (14 page)

When I went in search of Anne Sharpe, I found the case no better served in the attics—for among the children's things, Mrs. Salkeld had both the governess and the nursemaid, Sackree, to contend with. I drew Miss Sharpe firmly into the schoolroom and left the two older women—well-matched adversaries of longstanding—to sort out the playthings and smallclothes of nine different children, along with their trunks, bedding, keepsakes, and sundry animals, a menagerie that included three kittens, two grass snakes, and an ailing hedgehog.

“My dear Miss Sharpe,” I said, “you must allow me to assist you with the backboards and the instruction books. Surely you cannot expect to manage all this alone!”

The schoolroom is a sparsely-furnished, whitewashed, sloping-roofed apartment tucked into a dormer of the great house. A shelf of stout books was ranged under one window; several samplers lay cast aside on a litde stool, and a paint-box—probably Fanny's—sat forgotten on a table. A rage for transparencies several years back had left the windowpanes dotted with a scene or two, and a similar passion for silhouette-drawing had made of the walls an indifferent family portrait gallery— but otherwise the space can have few charms, particularly for one of Anne Sharpe's native elegance. Its windows too small and warped to permit of much air, and its grate insufficient for the extent of the space, the schoolroom is perishingly hot in summer and draughty in winter. Such healthful conditions, I believe, are considered necessary to the rearing of children— who must not be coddled in their formative years, or encouraged in the practise of luxury. I should never charge Neddie or Lizzy with a want of interest in their children's welfare—the number of persons consigned to the litde ones' care is testament to their parents' liberality— but I might regard them as suffering from a certain lack of imagination. They rear their children as they themselves were raised—or, perhaps I should say, as Lizzy was raised. Her childhood was a progression from nursemaid to governess and thence to a fashionable school in Town—a period spent almost entirely in the upper floors of Goodnestone Farm. A child of privilege might live the better part of its life in a warren of nursery rooms, sleeping, playing, learning, and dining, all without descending the stairs! Thus are the scions of a baronet raised, in a world quite removed from their parents.

Neddie's case, until he came to Godmersham in his sixteenth year, was very different, indeed—for tho' in our infancy my mother put us all out to nurse with a woman in the village, our childish days were spent in a splendid hurly-burly of crowded rooms and shared beds.

When I gaze at these attics, I cannot help but think that a sensitive little soul might shrink under their influence, as a delicate plant will wither in a gale. How much more might be accomplished, for the enlargement of a young mind, in an atmosphere of cheerful contentment!

“Indeed,” objected Anne Sharpe, “you are too solicitous, Miss Austen. I am sure to manage these few things very well alone, and must beg you to turn your energies where they might be of greater use. Pray offer your assistance to Mrs. Austen, who must gready require it, and allow me to order my province.” And then, with a litde hesitation— “It is hardly of such moment, you know, if a few primers fall in the hands of the French.”

“I only thought that you might be feeling unwell,” I returned, “and might require a partner in your endeavour. I suffer myself from the headache on occasion, and must pity any of its victims.”

Miss Sharpe blushed, and turned away. “I am quite recovered, I thank you. The necessity of quitting this place has entirely revived me. I cannot be low when so much of an urgent nature is toward. And we shall be leaving quite soon! I should not like Mr. Austen to find me behindhand in my work, when the moment for departing Kent is upon us.”

I regarded her curiously. There was a slight feverishness to her looks—a hectic tumble to her words— that seemed at variance with their sense. She spoke of duty, to be sure—she expressed herself as under an obligation that might not be deferred—but from her aspect it almost seemed that she was wild to be free of Kent. Were the associations of this place, then, entirely unhappy?

“Mr. Austen believes, Miss Sharpe, that we may exert ourselves to litde purpose.” I eased onto a child's wooden bench, a sampler furled in my hands. “It is by no means certain that Buonaparte is to invade; indeed, the merest rumour appears to have animated the General's anxiety. My brother has given no orders for the children's removal.”

“I do not understand,” she faltered. “We are not to be evacuated, then? We are not to leave for London in a few days' time?”

“As to that—I cannot say. I am sadly denied a full knowledge of the officers' intentions. We must abide by their instructions, of course—pack up our belongings and make ready to flee, in the event that all our calculations are hollow.” I smiled at her encouragingly. “Were it not the sort of conduct unbecoming to a lady, Miss Sharpe, I should suggest we lay a little wager. For who knows what will be the outcome? It is ever the way when Buonaparte has the ordering of events. The best-laid plans are torn all asunder.”

“So it seems,” she replied unsteadily. “So it has always proved, in my unhappy life.”

“Miss Sharpe—”

“Pray leave me, Miss Austen, to attend to this chaos. I am sure you have trunks enough of your own to fill.”

It was undoubtedly a dismissal, and one that brooked no refusal. I left the governess, her countenance grown agitated and pale, to the business of the backboards and books; and wondered very much as to the cause of her distress. Nothing so simple as a disgust for Mrs. Grey's murder could account for it. But I was hardly on such terms of intimacy as to invite Anne Sharpe's confidence. She moved presendy in deeper waters, and must breast the current alone.

“A
ND SO YOU HAVE SEEN
M
R
. G
REY
,” H
ENRY SAID GAILY
, when the footmen had served the first course of dinner and retired to the kitchen passage.

“And he has seen me,” Neddie replied. “A less satisfactory meeting between two men of interest to one another, I cannot conceive. But come, brother—you have been cognizant of his banking practise some few years. What is your opinion of Grey?”

Henry shrugged. “I have formed none, Neddie. I cannot claim to be intimate with the man.”

“Intimate! I do not know of anyone who is—excepting, perhaps, Captain Woodford, who I believe has known Grey from a boy.”

“Grey is not the sort to encourage intimacy,” Henry said thoughtfully. “He is of a taciturn, unbending disposition, and keeps his own counsel.”

“But what is his reputation in Town?”

“He is a member of White's, of course. I should imagine that is where the groom found him last evening.” Henry set down his fork and tasted his wine. “Or rather, he may often be seen among its clubmen, but whether any of them are likely to call Grey friend, I cannot say. Perhaps George Canning—”

“Canning? The Treasurer of the Navy?”

“The very same. He is a very deep file, George Canning, and quite in the confidence of Mr. Pitt. He is also a passionate gardener—and it is this that endears him to Valentine Grey. I suppose you have heard of Grey's interest in exotic plants?”
1

“I have heard very little of Mr. Grey,” Neddie replied grimly, “and I now comprehend how unfortunate such ignorance must be, in the present circumstance. I begin to think I have led too retiring a life.”

“But what of his character, Henry?” I pressed. “You have painted a very dry portrait, indeed! It is nothing like the quixotic fellow our brother encountered this morning!”

Henry studied me with interest. “Quixotic? I should say rather that Grey is calculating and shrewd. He is of a resentful disposition, and possessing considerable powers of intellect and energy himself, despises those of his fellows whose talents are inferior.”

“His good opinion, once lost, is lost forever,” Lizzy remarked from her end of the table.

Henry smiled at her. “Grey prizes loyalty and honour above all else. Such traits must serve him well in matters of business; but where ties of a more personal nature are concerned, I should imagine they would prove difficult to bear.”

“Little wonder, then, that his wife could not love him,” I murmured.

“They do seem an ill-matched pair,” Henry conceded, “but they are not the first to find themselves tethered for life in an unequal harness.”

“Mr. Grey spends the better part of his time in London, I believe. Does his trade prevent him from moving in the first circles? Or has it proved a sort of entree? What are his pursuits? His interests and ambitions?”

Henry was engrossed in the consumption of a quantity of buttered prawns. “I should hardly call Grey's sort of banking a
trade
, Jane. He inherited a vast concern second only to Hope's, unlike your jumped-up scrivener of a brother. “
2

“Surely you exaggerate,” Neddie broke in.

“The fate of England sometimes hangs upon Grey's influence, brother.” An unwonted expression of seriousness had suffused Henry's countenance. “He has any number of the Great quite comfortably in his pocket, and may move among them as an equal. Grey is the sort of man who might go anywhere, and meet anybody— but to my knowledge the Fashionable World commands none of his respect. He is the ornament of no particular set, tho' many would claim him. He is much in the affection of Mr. Pitt, but spurns the Tories as liberally as he does the Whigs; he was once spoken of as a likely advisor to the Treasury, but disdains the connivance of public office. And with the Prince, thank God, he will have nothing to do.”
3

Mr. Grey sounded remarkably like another gentle man in my acquaintance, Lord Harold Trowbridge— and I wondered, for a moment, whether the two were acquainted. Knowing a little of their characters, it was impossible for me to consider either man the
friend
of the other. Such subde calculation as animated the spirit and understanding of each, did not easily lend itself to intimacy. They should rather be allies, or foes.

But then I checked my fanciful portrait of Grey before it was half-formed. In ignorance of one gendeman's character, I employed another's as pattern—and did grievous harm, no doubt, to the merits of both.

“If the mastery of neither politics nor Society is Mr. Grey's object,” Neddie persisted, “to what, then, may we ascribe his ambition?”

Henry shook his head. “Therein lies the chief of the man's power. He is a mystery to all but himself.”

I sipped Neddie's excellent claret, and allowed my thoughts to wander among the tantalising shades of Henry's conversation. The blustering vagaries of Valentine Grey—his insistence that his wife was chaste—his urgency in proving himself a man bereaved, and yet the absence of feeling behind his words—all rose in my mind with the force of argument: disputed, confused, uncertain as to issue.

“And his wife, Henry—the wife he appears to have banished to Kent,” I said. “Was Francoise Grey merely an impediment?”

“The lady was certainly a pawn, I believe, when she was affianced to Valentine Grey—it was a marriage of houses rather than hearts. It is indisputable that Grey owes to his late wife a considerable part of his present resources. The Penfleur family may command the fortunes of a continent, and in marrying Francoise, Grey acceded a little to their power.”

“And placed himself under the thumb of an empire,” I observed.

Henry's eyebrows shot skywards, and he pushed away his plate. “I should never describe Grey as under anyone's thumb.”

“Then you fail to consider clearly of the matter,” I retorted. “Such a material bargain is never struck, without it is of benefit to both parties. The Penfleur family would be unlikely to part with their ward—and all the weight of their influence—for the paltry return of an estate in Kent. We must assume that Mr. Grey was to further the Penfleur interests in England.”

“A delicate business, in time of war,” Henry said.

“Perhaps he tired of his obligations,” Neddie suggested, “and thought to be rid of them with his wife.”

“But why throw the blame upon Denys Collingforth?” I objected. “Why should a man so wholly unconnected with Grey's concerns, be made to suffer for his infamy— if, indeed, he did away with his wife?”

“Perhaps because Collingforth is in no position to defend himself,” Henry said wryly. “The man is entirely to pieces, and all of Canterbury knows it. Not a tradesman for miles has been paid by the fellow in months, and they say his pockets are to let to a host of creditors in Town.”

“As bad as all that?” Lizzy murmured. “How very shocking, to be sure, to number such folk among one's acquaintance! Were Collingforth possessed of a tide, or a position of some consequence, he might weather the storm with becoming grace; but as he is of a vulgar turn, and his wife little better, there is nothing to be done for them.”

“They tell me in the Hound and Tooth that the man has run through all his wife's money, placed a mortgage on Prior's Farm, and faces certain ruin, now that Mrs. Grey is dead.”

“Was she so much his protectress?” Neddie enquired sharply.

“As to that, I cannot say—but Collingforth's creditors might have allowed him a little more room, but for the fear of a murder charge. They are presently besieging Prior's Farm, and the bailiffs cannot be far behind.” Henry hesitated, toying a little with his wineglass, then continued apologetically, “There are those who would say, brother, that you should better have clapped Collingforth in irons when you could. Circumstanced as he is, there is very little else for the man to contemplate than flight to the Continent. Indeed, some are asserting that he has already effected it.”

“The Devil he has!” Neddie cried, and at Lizzy's faint moue of disapproval, added, “My dear, a thousand pardons. Brother,
who
would have it that Collingforth is fled?”

Henry shrugged. “Everyone and no one. The intimates of the Hound and Tooth, you understand, are most liberal with their words and chary of their proofs. I only repeat what is commonly held. I must leave you to sort out the business.”