Jane and the Genius of the Place Read online

  “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.

  “AND SO YOU HAVE SEEN MR. GREY,” HENRY 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 powe
r.”

  “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.”

  Neddie threw down his napkin, pushed back his chair, and commenced to pace the length of the dining-parlour. Lizzy sat even more upright in her chair, and regarded him with the liquid green gaze of a cat.

  “It is too bad of you, Henry,” she whispered in an aside. “You have quite put him off his turbot. I will not have the mutton spoilt.”

  “Tell me what you know of Collingforth’s black-coated friend,” Neddie commanded. “The inscrutable Mr. Everett.”

  “Ah!” Henry cried, and his countenance lightened. “There you have hit upon a malignant fellow, indeed! Everett had not been in Canterbury a day before it was generally circulated, that he is an arranger of prizefights—which, tho’ quite beyond the pale of the law, are much patronised by the Quality. Everett represents the interests of a champion, a bruising mulatto by the name of Delacroix, who hails from Martinique.”

  “But what can such a man have to do with Denys Collingforth?” I enquired.

  “Collingforth has a passion for boxing, as he does for every game of sport, and has lost a fortune in betting around the ring. Men like Everett may always be found in the neighbourhood of such an one; for a susceptibility to the sport enslaves the purse as well as the man.”

  “But there was no prizefight at the Canterbury Races,” Neddie objected. He had ceased to pace, and now sank back into his chair. “Some other purpose must have drawn Everett hither.”

  “I believe he was forced to quit his lodgings in Town for a while,” Henry replied. “A matter of some delicacy, only vaguely understood by the regulars at the Hound and Tooth. I surmised a brush with the law, and a desire to lie low; a sudden inspiration as to his friend Collingforth, and a hasty descent into Kent. I should not be surprised if an arranger of prizefights was hardly ignorant of the coarser pursuits of his company—the fixing of cards and games of chance, and the ruin of innocent young men in gaming hells. I have seen an hundred Everetts in my time, and may now discern the type.”

  “Then we must conclude that the better part of Collingforth’s trouble springs from debts of honour,” I ventured. “His intimacy with Mrs. Grey is in part explained.”

  “Excellent, Jane!” Henry cried. “Depend upon it, you shall always provide the elegant turn of phrase that moves a tale along. I was coming to Mrs. Grey directly.”

  “Then pray do so at once,” Neddie broke in. “This wandering among the byways of the Sporting Life grows tedious.”

  “Mrs. Grey, as we know, had her own affection for the Sporting Life. A certain coterie of Kentish gentlemen enjoyed the privilege of high play at her tables. It seems that as lately as the spring, Collingforth counted himself among their number—and that he lost heavily. Mrs. Grey held a fistful of Collingforth’s vowels—and showed no sign of forgiving his debt.”

  “Then he should hardly mourn her early death,” I said slowly. “I wonder whom else she numbered among her debtors?”

  Henry shrugged. “Any amount of local bloods. The lady liked to win, and she possessed the Devil’s own luck. Fully half the men of Canterbury were laying bets on the Commodore yesterday, in the hope of improving their fortunes—but to my dismay, they merely bargained further into ruin.”

  “And there was Mrs. Grey, exulting in her win, while their hopes turned to dust and ashes,” Lizzy observed. “Lamentable behaviour, I must say.”

  “But incitement to murder?” I protested.

  “Why not?” Henry’s tone was rueful. “The notion has been no stranger to my own thoughts. At least ten times this morning I have considered whether a bullet to the head might not be the kindest service I could render the Commodore, if not myself.”

  “Henry!”

  “It has been a purgatory merely to move about the town, Jane, I assure you. One young buck, who was far too much in wine, went so far as to suppose a collusion between myself and Mrs. Grey—with the Commodore’s jockey throwing his race, and all the losses redounding somehow to my benefit. Or to Mrs. Grey’s, had she lived— I cannot be entirely certain.”

  “But to return to Collingforth,” Neddie urged. “Surely the death of his chief creditor must relieve his circumstances?”

  “I am very much afraid that the loss of merely one among the company, can do little to repair his fortunes.”

  “A desperate man might kill for revenge, in the belief he had nothing to lose,” I said.

  “—particularly if he may so construct the murder scene as to divert attention from himself,” Neddie added.

  “The body in the chaise?”

  “Of course. Only a fool would dispose of his victim so obviously—or a very cunning fellow, indeed. From the moment of Mrs. Grey’s discovery, we have been struck by the implausibility of the body’s lying as it did. We have endeavoured to clear Mr. Collingforth’s name, and hardly credited the notion of his guilt—”

  Neddie’s words were cut short at the entrance of the manservant, Russell, from the kitchen passage.

  “Forgive me, sir,” he said with a bow, “but there is a constable just arrived from Canterbury. He is most insistent that he be seen. I have informed him that the second course is not yet served, but he refused—”

  “Yer honour!”

  A spare, bandy-legged fellow pushed past the
footman and sprang lightly into the dining-parlour. “I’ve come fer yer gold sovereign, and I won’t take no paper fer it, neither!”

  A length of soiled cloth unfurled from his hands, its gold frogging glinting in the candlelight. Lizzy gasped, and Neddie started to his feet.

  Mrs. Grey’s scarlet riding habit.

  1 George Canning (1770-1827) served as Undersecretary of State in 1796, and as Treasurer of the Navy from 1804-1806. As such, he had virtually no authority over naval organization or policy, which was administered by the First Lord of the Admiralty, but he was responsible for matters of naval finance in Parliament. This included the salaries of naval captains, the naval budget, and the disposition of the Secret Funds—monies set aside for the purpose of espionage, and unaccountable to Parliament.—Editor’s note.

  2 The House of Hope was the powerful and influential Scots banking concern based in Amsterdam. Hope financed, among other things, Napoleon Bonaparte’s government and campaigns. —Editor’s note.

  3 William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) was in his last months of life in August 1805. As minister of the Treasury, he was also prime minister of England. A brilliant, lonely, and calculating political genius, he was the foremost Tory of his generation and a lifelong adversary of the Prince of Wales. He was also an alcoholic, and his liver failed when he was forty-seven. He was carried, dying, from the House of Commons in December 1805, and died early in 1806.—Editor’s note.

  20 August 1805, cont’d.

  NEDDIE MOVED TO THE CONSTABLE’S SIDE AND TOOK THE gown from his hands. He whistled softly under his breath. “What is your name, my good sir?”

  “Jacob Pyke, yer honour, and a Kentish man from four generations.”

  “Then I must assume you are familiar with the country, Mr. Pyke.”

  “I knows it as well as me own wife’s arse, sir.”

  A choking sound from Lizzy, hastily covered by a cough.

  “Mr. Pyke!” Neddie said sharply. “There are ladies present.”

  The constable scraped a bow, and leered all around. “Beggin’ yer pardon, and I meant no harm, I’m sure, it being a common enough saying.”