Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (22 page)

“Whenever Mr. Bridges has proposed, and been refused,” Cassandra said wickedly. “I cannot be expected to remain within the bosom of the family, once
that
regrettable episode is sustained.”

“When may we expect the elegant curate to come to the point? I have my packing to consider.”

A sudden stiffening in Cassandra's looks alerted me to a subtle change. Her gaze was fixed a few inches above my head, and that the selfsame Mr. Bridges now hovered there, all civility and attention, I immediately surmised. I turned and found his good-natured, slightly anxious face bent upon us both. I say bent—for the height of his collar points, and the stiffness of his cravat, rendered any but the most exaggerated movements from waist to neck impossible.

“Miss Austen!” he cried. “And the delightful Miss
Jane
Austen! How well you both look this evening, I declare. That such beauty and wit should be united in
one
lady surpasses all experience … but that two such, and claiming the same family name, should so subjugate us all to their charms…”

“Mr. Bridges,” Cassandra broke in, “I must suppose you are come to tell us that the carriage is called. You are very good.”

“Not at all! A decided pleasure—and only exceeded by the honour of escorting you home at the close of these delightful festivities. Or should I say—back to the Farm, which, although not your home, must be, I hope, very nearly as dear to you as though it were. That it might prove even dearer in future, through the accomplishment of a certain change…”

Cassandra's countenance, I fear, offered no encouragement to the gallant performer; and so he was suffered to dwindle into silence under the glacial influence of her gaze. He merely bowed to me, and offered my sister his arm, and thus the unfortunate pair moved off through the thinning crowd. I pitied Cassandra, but reserved some measure of the feeling for myself— for that Mr. Bridges would soon bring the matter to a point, and as speedily earn his refusal, I litde doubted. It would be but a matter of days, then, before I should be despatched to the Farm in Cassandra's stead. And I should hardly meet Mr. Bridges's attentions with my sister's steady tranquillity. I had not the recourse to a headache complaint; for I was commonly acknowledged to be in riotous good health.

“L
IZZY
,” H
ENRY BEGAN AS WE SETTLED OURSELVES WITH
some exhaustion in the Godmersham carriage a quarter-hour later, “have you heard what your young brother is up to? He has actually waited upon Major-General Lord Forbes in the card room, in a matter of pheasant-shooting!—Was pleased to bring the General's attention to a rumour of the Guards' troop movements, and expressed his concern that the marching men might entirely rout his birds! The cheek of it all! Can not you put a word in your brother's ear?”

“I am sure the General gave him a dressing-down,” Lizzy returned languidly.

“In too subde a manner, I fear, for Mr. Bridges's understanding. Lord Forbes informed him that if only the
birds-were
routed, he should consider all of Kent but too fortunate.”

Neddie's sharp bark of laughter cut through the darkness of the coach. “And how did the young popinjay take it?”

“He suggested an alternative route for the troops— through the hayfields to the west, which he represented as a course that might save several miles.”

“And ensure the crops' ruin,” Neddie said with satisfaction. “I am sure the General knew how to express his gratitude for young Edward's sage advice.”

“He was too much engrossed in play, to lend Mr. Bridges more than half an ear,” Henry returned, enjoying the moment hugely, “but I believe he took the point under consideration; for I observed him not a half-hour later, in a frightful rage, with poor Captain Woodford as his object. Lord Forbes was displeased, it seems, with the general knowledge of his manoeuvres. All of Kent may command it; and if
we
are apprised of the Guards' plans, can Napoleon's spies be in ignorance? While the General marches to Deal, the Monster will throw his troops quite elsewhere.”

“I doubt it was Captain Woodford who published the intelligence,” I mused, “but I should not vouch for Lady Forbes. She has quite the look of a woman who enjoys a sensation—and herself at the centre of it, above all things.”

“She is quite the persecution of poor Woodford,” Lizzy murmured. “Were it not for the deference he owes his commanding officer, I am sure he should shake her off in a trice; but she
willhang
upon his arm, and regard him as her personal pug-dog, to be petted and spoilt for show.”

“You observed once that Lady Forbes was intimate with Mrs. Grey,” I said. “On what was their friendship founded?”

Lizzy waved her fan, a gleaming arc of ivory in the darkness. “On a mutual love of finery—of spending more than they ought—and of a desire for shared confidences. There is little that occurred in the Army's Officer Corps, I am sure, that was not known at The Larches an hour later. Lady Forbes is the kind of woman who delights in confiding secrets.”

“And Mrs. Grey, in possessing them?” I added thoughtfully. The notion of blackmail was never far from my mind, when I considered of that lady. What might she not have known regarding Captain Woodford, for example, that should thwart his career in the Army?—Or of the spendthrift curate, Edward Bridges, whose luck proved so ruinous at her card-table? She should be unlikely to toy with them for money; she possessed enough of it herself. What, then, had been her object? What form of pressure had she employed? And was her interest merely a malicious delight in the unhappiness of others—or had she a greater object in view?

“Mrs. Grey's relation is a secretive sort, as well,” Neddie observed from his corner, as the carriage jolted down the road. “I could not make the Comte out at all; but I quite liked him, all the same.”

“The Comte de Penfleur! A very elegant gentleman, indeed.” Lizzy was all approval. “But I cannot think it the wisest thing you have ever done, Neddie, to closet yourself fully an hour in his company. All of Canterbury must be alive to the interest of your
tete-a-tete;
and all of Canterbury will be chattering even now.”

“It is clear, at least, that the Comte attended the Assembly solely with our conversation in view. He is gready distressed at Mrs. Grey's death, and cannot feel sanguine with Grey's management of it.”

“Grey's
management?—But Grey is not the Justice responsible,” I cried.

“No more he is,” my brother replied comfortably, “and the Comte de Penfleur was relieved to hear of it. He was circumspect enough, for the first quarter-hour; but he unbent a great deal, and intimated almost too much, for the remaining three. I shouldjudge him much attached to Francoise Grey; profoundly distrustful of her husband; and anxious that her murderer should not go unpunished.”

“As he believes Denys Collingforth will,” I added.

“He cares nothing for Collingforth, unless he be guilty—and it is quite clear, from his manner of speaking, that he cannot believe him so. Mr. Grey is too eager to charge poor Collingforth with the murder, for the Comte's liking.”

“How very intriguing, to be sure.” Lizzy sighed. “It has quite a Continental flavour to it, Jane, almost of a tragic opera. I am sure the stage shall be littered with the dead and dying, before the final curtain is rung down—do not neglect to inform me of how it all ends. For the present, however, I must
implore
you, Neddie, not to forget that the Finch-Hattons are to be at dinner tomorrow. We cannot neglect what is due to our friends, however tedious they might prove, merely because of invasion and murder.”

My brother laughed aloud, and kissed his wife's gloved hand, and was content to pass the remainder of the drive in reflective silence.

But I very much wondered, as the shades of night flitted disconsolately past the carriage windows, how greatly the Comte had been attached to his adoptive sister—and whether it was
he
who had written that letter, in agonised French, to urge a meeting at Pegwell Bay.

1
Harriot Bridges's elder sister, Marianne (1774-1811), was an invalid from childhood, and was at this time bedridden. Much of Harriots time was spent attending her, and Cassandra was assisting in the duty while resident at Goodnestone Farm.—
Editor's note.

2
The projected troop movements took place on August 30, 1805, as Jane reported in a letter later written from Goodnestone Farm.—
Editor's note.

Thursday,
22 August 1805

I
SET DOWN MY ACCOUNT OF THE BALL IN THE EARLY
hours of the morning. Once in bed, I tossed and turned until the rain broke before five o'clock, and brought a cooling breeze through the open window. I rose not three hours later and took tea in my room, where I might collect my thoughts before the rest of the house had stirred.

Breakfast at Godmersham is never before ten o'clock, although the children are served in the nursery far earlier. By the time our indolent Lizzy is dressed and abroad, her numerous infants are long since out-of-doors—under the supervision of Sackree, the nurse, or the long-suffering Miss Sharpe. There had been talk yesterday of an expedition with the gamekeeper, in search of wild raspberries; we should have clotted cream and fresh fruit for the Finch-Hattons at dinner.

I found the breakfast parlour quite deserted of life when at last I descended, and was allowed the consumption of tea and toast unmolested. Afterwards I hied myself to the litde saloon at the back of the house, which serves the ladies of Godmersham as a sort of morning-room; here my sister Lizzy keeps a cunning litde marquetry desk, well-supplied with a quantity of paper, pens, and sealing-wax. I settled myself to compose a letter to my mother—who has been happily established these several weeks in Hampshire with our dear friends, the Lloyds. She was to come to us in September, and together we intended a visit to the seaside at Weymouth. I very much feared, however, that the pleasure-trip would be put off, from a superfluity of French along the Channel coast—but saw no reason to alarm my mother. She is given to the wildest fancies at the best of times, and should require no spur at present from her youngest daughter. One source of consolation I found at least: the Lloyds took no London paper. Mrs. Austen should thus be preserved in ignorance of the sailing of the French fleet, a circumstance devoutly to be hoped. Did the rumour of invasion happen to reach her ears, she should demand her daughters' immediate removal into Hampshire—a prospect I could not regard with composure. The society of Kent was too beguiling, and the matter of Mrs. Grey's death too intriguing, to permit of a hasty departure.

My letter, as a result, was full of a great deal of nothing—a recital of the delights of Race Week, absent the interesting events of the meeting itself. I spoke of Henry's horse, of Henry's disappointment, of the scene at the grounds and the Assembly soon after—all without the slightest mention of the scandalous sensation that had torn Canterbury's peace. Such a letter, being a complex of subterfuge and delicate evasion, required considerable effort; I devoted a half-hour to the task, and had just determined to spend the rest of the morning with the admirable (if tiresome)
Sorrows of Young Werther
, when my industry was abruptly interrupted.
1

The sound of a horse's hooves galloping to the door—a man's voice, raised in anger—the protest of the servants—perhaps it was another constable, come posthaste with news? I threw down my volume and stepped into the back passage.

A gentieman I had never seen before was crossing the chequered marble of the hall with a rapidity that argued extreme necessity, or a violence of temper. He must pass by where I stood to achieve the library—his obvious intention, as my brother Neddie was generally to be found within after breakfast—but aside from the briefest glance at my face, he offered no acknowledgement or courtesy. Tho' hardly above medium height, the stranger was powerfully-built, with a beautifully-moulded head and greying hair trimmed far shorter than was fashionable. Something of the regimental was writ large in his form; or perhaps it was the air of batde he wore upon his countenance. I should judge him to be about the age of forty; but perhaps it was the weight of care that had traced years upon his looks.