Jane and the Genius of the Place Page 26

  “A mother of nine cannot be thinking any longer of her own beauty,” Lizzy said indifferently. “She had far better look to her daughters’.”

  “In such cases,” Neddie broke in somewhat tartly, “a lady has not often much beauty to think of.”

  “Ninechildren?” cried the Comte. “But you must have been married very young!”

  Lizzy merely inclined her head without reply—not for her, to be trapped into revealing her age—and turned the conversation without a flicker. “The late Mrs. Grey, monsieur, was a paragon of style. Nothing in Canterbury was equal to her; nothing, indeed, in all of Kent. She was an adept at conveying the thousand little differences between a French manner of life and the English; and we shall not soon forget her. You have my deepest sympathies.”

  Admirable, I thought—she had managed to suggest a respect for the lady that she had never felt, without the slightest hypocrisy of word or look. Nothing she had said was open to dispute; and it might be heard in any number of ways, according to the inclination of the auditor.

  “You are very good,” the Comte replied. “I was often troubled by the tone of my Francoise’s correspondence— she appeared to live in such wretched loneliness and isolation—but to know that she was not entirely without friends is a considerable comfort. Indeed, in having made the acquaintance of your excellent husband, Mrs. Austen—and now yourself—I feel I have secured my hope that justice shall be done. Mr. Grey does not command the will of every gendeman in the country, I find.”

  “Upon my word, Hippolyte, you place a great deal of confidence in your own charm,” Mr. Grey said wryly from behind the Comte’s back. “Do you believe for a moment that by flattering his wife, you may convince the Justice that I murdered Francoise? This is not France, where insinuation will pass for statecraft, and influence suborn common sense.”

  He spoke just loudly enough to be audible to most of the room, and the pleasant murmur of conversation among the assembled guests died abruptly away. We were left standing in a little island of quiet, with barely a head turned in our direction. No one should have dreamt of suggesting in public that Valentine Grey had ever raised a finger against his wife; to have the gentleman propose the worst himself, was indelicate in the extreme.

  Then Captain Woodford laid his hand easily on Grey’s shoulder, and drew his friend away; the two men adjourned to a decanter standing on a demi-lune side-table. Mr. Grey poured out a drink, and tossed it back; Woodford spoke low and urgently into his ear.

  Charlotte Taylor rose to leave, her cheeks flushed and her eyes averted from Lizzy. She grasped her daughter’s hand firmly in her own, and made her adieuxin a breathless accent. Anna-Maria Toke was swift to follow.

  “My apologies, madam, for this little unpleasantness,” said the Comte de Penfleur. “I have learned to expect it in Mr. Grey’s household; but I shall not trouble him for very much longer.”

  “You are returning, I collect, to France?” Neddie enquired.

  “I hope to be able to cross from Dover early in the week, perhaps as soon as Monday. There remain a few… uncertainties, however. I might be prevented by circumstance from embarking for some time. But I believe I shall remove this evening to an hotel in that town, in expectation of my passage; it cannot do to remain in a house where I am regarded with so much suspicion and dislike.”

  “Are you familiar with Dover, sir? I should recommend the York House among the coaching inns; the Ship cannot be relied upon.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Austen—but I always put up at the Royal. I have already written to the landlord to bespeak my room, and shall be gone in a matter of hours. You may reach me there, should the occasion require it; and I depend upon you, sir, to convey the slightest detail regarding Mrs. Grey’s affairs. You know how deeply I am concerned that the man Collingforth, or”—with a significant look over his shoulder at Mr. Grey—“whoever is responsible, should not go unpunished.”

  So the news of Denys Collingforth’s murder had not yet reached The Larches. It could not be far behind us, however; there is nothing like the country for the rapid communication of what is dreadful.

  “Perhaps you would be so good as to afford me a little of your time this morning, monsieur,” Neddie replied, “when the duty you owe these visitors is done. I have recendy been placed in possession of some intelligence that may prove of interest to both Mr. Grey and yourself.”

  “Indeed?” the Gomte cried. “And may I ask—”

  “My deepest sympathies, Monsieur le Comte,” said Mrs. Goleman with a bob.

  “Deepest—that is, I am very sorry for you, indeed,” muttered her husband, and with a hand to her elbow, steered her towards the door. The little party, it seemed, had run its course; only the Austens and Captain Woodford were left in possession of the saloon.

  “You are not leaving, Austen?” Valentine Grey enquired of my brother in a lowered tone. “There is a matter regarding which I gready desire your attention.”

  “I am at your service, sir,” Neddie replied, “provided you may afford me a litde of your time for the communication of some urgent news.”

  Grey glanced about the thinning room, his eyes drifting indifferendy over the Comte de Penfleur. “Then I suggest we repair to the library.”

  “I would beg that you allow the Comte to accompany us.”

  Grey frowned. “Is that necessary?”

  “What I would say must necessarily concern him.”

  “Very well.” The banker turned for the door abrupdy. “But he shall not be privy to my words. He may listen to the Justice, and pack himself off to Dover. Bastable!”

  The housekeeper appeared in the doorway, an affronted expression on her countenance. Presumably she preferred the master to ring for a maid, rather than to shout like a common publican. “Yes, sir?”

  “Pray be so good as to summon a lad for the purpose of conveying our guests around the grounds,” he said impatiendy. “They may be some time at it, and will require refreshment in the temple. Have you adequate shoes, Mrs. Austen?”

  “Perfecdy, sir, I thank you.”

  He eyed Lizzy’s elegant slippers. “You shall be swollen and blistered before a quarter-hour is out; but no matter. The park does not give up its beauties so easily; they must be teazed into submission, like a spirited woman. And you, sir? What is your pleasure?”

  This last was directed at Henry. He had been most intent upon the study of a very fine snuff-box abandoned on a marquetry table, but lifted his gaze at Grey’s address, and said in as colourless a voice as possible, “My shoes are perfecdy adequate to your grounds, Mr. Grey, if that is what you would know. My stockings, perhaps, might be thinner; and as for my smallclothes—”

  Grey threw back his head and laughed with undisguised delight There was a difference in his manner of behaving this morning, from what it had been in his interview at Godmersham; he was at once reckless and carefree, grim and abandoned. It was as tho’ a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, or as tho’ he found himself in the thick of batde, and had wagered his all on the toss. Intriguing. His entire air suggested a man with nothing to lose, and everything to defend.

  “Come into the library, Austen,” he said, “and send the rest of your family out into the garden. Unless the weight of your brother’s smallclothes prohibits the tour.”

  “I believe they should be admirably suited to visiting the stables,” Henry offered mildly. “I quite long to see the filly Josephine at closer quarters. You may have heard, Mr. Grey, that your late wife’s horse bested my own at the Canterbury Races, on the very day of her tragic… accident”

  There was the briefest of silences. The Comte de Penfleur adjusted his cuffs, a look of abstracted pain upon his countenance. Then Grey said, “I should be happy for you to inspect the filly, Mr. Austen. The bulk of the stables will be sent down to Tattersall’s in a matter of weeks; and if, having seen Josephine, you wish to make an offer for her, I should not be loath to consider it.”

  “You would sell her hor
ses?” Penfleur cried, all complaisance fled.

  “I cannot send them out of my sight fast enough,” Grey replied, with a bitter emphasis.

  “Then I shall take them all!” The Frenchman’s face had reddened, and he walked slowly towards Grey, his hands clenching slighdy.

  The banker regarded him with undisguised contempt. “I regret to inform you, monsieur, that they are not for sale.”

  The Comte tore his glove from within his coat and dashed it in Grey’s face. The other man neither flinched nor dropped his gaze from Penfleur’s; but breathing shallowly, as tho’ an iron band constrained his lungs, he said, “I beg you will ignore what the Comte has just done, Mr. Austen. It can have nothing to do with you; and I should abhor your interference in so delicate and private a matter.”

  “Just as I should abhor the necessity of mounting a watch upon your movements, Mr. Grey,” Neddie replied steadily, “or yours, Monsieur le Comte. I have no wish to post men outside your door all night, for the prevention of a dawn meeting; so pray retrieve your glove, sir, and let us hear no more about it.”

  4 ou saw how he insulted me.” Penfleur’s voice, in that instant, was colder and more deadly than I could have imagined. “I cannot allow such abuse to go unad-dressed. My honour—”

  “—cannot have been abused by a simple truth,” Neddie protested. “Mrs. Grey’s stables are presently not for sale. They shall be under the gavel at Tattersall’s in a matter of weeks, and did you wish to appear in the ring, and place your bids with the rest, I am sure you would be heard as readily as another. Now, may I suggest, gentlemen—as Mrs. Bastable has appeared with the lad who is to guide the ladies—that we repair to the library? The Comte must not delay on his road to Dover; and the news I would communicate is decidedly pressing.”

  Neither Grey nor the Comte offered a word in reply; the malevolence of their mutual regard was chilling. The banker was the first to turn away, and at last the Frenchman followed him through the door.

  He did not deign to retrieve his glove.

  1 Elinor and Marianne was published in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. Susanvtas sold to a publisher in 1803 but did not reach print as Northanger Abbey until 1818, after Austen’s death. Steventon was Austen’s birthplace; she spent the first two decades of her life in Steventon Rectory, which was later razed.—Editor’s note.

  2 Stourhead was the ancestral home of the Hoares, a wealthy and ennobled family of bankers whose chief passion was the creation of a classical pleasure-ground running to over a thousand acres. There is no record of Austen ever visiting Stourhead, but as it sits a short distance from Bath, she may have done so. The Vyne, in Hampshire, was the ancestral home of the Chutes, and best known for its hunt; Reverend James Austen, Jane’s eldest brother, was an intimate friend of the Chute family.—Editor’s note.

  3 Austen later ascribed almost exactly these words to one of her more insufferable characters, Mrs. Elton, of Emma. Perhaps her extended caricature of that lady is taken, in part, from Charlotte Taylor.—Editor’s note.

  4YMagistrates (and, by extension, Justices of the Peace in country neighborhoods) were charged with preventing public demonstrations of violence. This included prizefights, which were illegal, but was particularly aimed at duels—which were conducted, of necessity, in the greatest secrecy.—Editor’s note.

  24 August 1805, cont’d.

  I WAS SEVERAL HOURS IN LEARNING THE NATURE OF THEinterview among the three men, for the tour of the gardens so transported Lizzy and me, that we quite forgot the ugly scene. We traversed the wood, and descended into the valley, and allowed the ferryman to ply his boat for our amusement. Then we sent the gardener’s lad away, and perched in some chairs arranged amidst the columns of the Temple of Philosophy.

  “I cannot believe that Mr. Grey is very well-acquainted with Aristotle,” Lizzy observed, wrinkling her nose, “nor yet with Heracleitus. And yet he installed those massive figures of them here as one might pose a favourite grandfather above the drawing-room mantel. It is quite an extraordinary taste. One has an idea of them come alive at midnight, and discoursing on the nature of eternity.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Grey possesses talents of which we know nothing.”

  “I quite pity the little Francoise,” Lizzy said idly. “There is no end of steel beneath his reserved exterior; he should be a formidable adversary. Hardly congenial for one bent on having her own way, and wild for amusement. I wonder she did not desert him long since.”

  “For the Comte?”

  “Ah, the Comte.” My sister smiled. “He is thoroughly reprehensible, is he not? Too clever for his own good; too careless of his morals for safety; and too intrigued by the effect of his meddling in the peace of others.”

  “Whether he cared a jot for Francoise or no,” I agreed, “he should attempt to destroy Grey’s happiness for the sheer satisfaction of it. The contest, I suspect, has always been between the two gendemen; the lady was merely a token. Grey first won a critical round, in securing Franchise’s hand, and the Comte thought to rout him entirely by eloping with her at the last.”

  “Penfleur is not a man who endures his losses, Jane. He will have his satisfaction in everything—including the matter of the horses.”

  “I tremble for Henry, does he attempt to offer for Josephine.”

  “What ridiculous creatures men are.” She sighed. “As tho’ honour were a stuff one could fashion and discard, like the latest modes! Poor Neddie will be dozing in Mr. Grey’s sweep for most of the night, in terror of a dawn meeting.”

  I was only half-attending to her, for a lone figure traversing the iron bridge had caught my eye. “Is that Henry come in search of us? Or—yes, it is Mr. Grey!”

  “You are far too intrigued by the man for safety, Jane,” she observed. “He is possessed of a deep and impenetrable character; and such an one will always prove of fascination to yourself. Take care.”

  “Perhaps he shall presendy strike into another path,” I suggested.

  But the gendeman did not; he strode through his pleasure grounds as tho’ intent upon a single object— the retrieval of ourselves. “I believe our time in Paradise is at an end.”

  “Then do you go to meet him, my dear,” Lizzy said, “and turn back for me at the ferry landing. I am far too fatigued to walk back to the bridge, and you know these slippers should never support it. Detestable Mr. Grey— he is far too correct about everything; and for that, I shall not forgive him.” She turned her sunshade towards the offending apparition, and gazed out over the lake.

  And thus was I thrown to the wolf.

  “THE LARCHES IS A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT, MR. Grey. I must congratulate you most sincerely.”

  If my faltering words were inadequate to the beauty everywhere around us, my companion did not choose to quarrel. Indeed, all trace of his former belligerence had fled; his countenance was as easy as a child’s released from illness. Whatever the nature of his interview with Neddie, the result had proved of benefit. Or perhaps he derived such solace from his grounds, that more melancholy considerations were banished.

  “I can never be unhappy while the park remains,” he replied, as tho’ reading my thoughts. “It is a peace unparalleled, a balm for wounded spirits, a little paradise on earth, Miss Austen—and when I am away, I long always to return.”

  “How unfortunate, then, that your business calls you so frequently to Town,” I rejoined. “For when we leave what is precious to the care of others, we endure a peculiar pain.”

  He frowned at that, and studied my countenance for some falseness—a desire to prick his vanity, perhaps, by alluding to the dalliances of his wife, of which all of Kent must be aware. But my aspect did not betray me; I had uttered the sentiment as a simple truth; and Mr. Grey at last accepted it as such.

  He offered me his arm, and we continued along the path towards the ferry.

  “Mrs. Austen was overcome by the heat, you say?”

  “Nothing so grave. Elizabeth is a stout walker, but her slippers are less e
qual to these paths than my more sensible boots. I came prepared to admire The Larches, from the praise I had heard everywhere of these grounds; and to admire, one must first be able to see.”

  A faint smile was my reward. “I have known any number of fools to praise from utter blindness, Miss Austen.”

  “That will always be the general case,” I said calmly, “but with very great luck, Mr. Grey, you may occasionally encounter a taste as brilliant as mine. I blush to admit it—it is most unwomanly, I own—but I have never been called a fool. I have long suspected it is the chief reason that no sensible man will marry me.”

  To my gratification, Mr. Grey laughed aloud. “Men of sense, whatever you may say, do not wish for silly wives.”

  “How mortifying,” I replied. “And I had doted on the notion! You force me to the conclusion, sir, that some other charm is lacking.”

  “Then I should be horsewhipped, Miss Austen. How may I make amends?”

  “By conveying me to that little temple on the hill. I failed to achieve it with my sister.”

  “—who even now awaits us anxiously.”

  “It must be her deprivation, then, for adopting fragile shoes.”

  “Very well. The prospect of the house from that vantage is magnificent.”

  He led me swiftly to the portico of the domed Temple of the Arts, and we stood in silent amity, with all of The Larches falling away before us. Here was no oppression of August heat, no desiccated air of a season wearied beyond imagining; all was verdant and singing with the voices of a thousand birds.

  “How glorious!” I cried. “I wonder you can bear to live within four walls, Mr. Grey, when all this beauty lies without them.”

  He did not reply, and his expression was remote.

  “And all this you have done, in the space of a few years,” I continued.

  “I cannot claim so much,” he returned abruptly. “The Larches was my father’s passion before me. The construction of this valley—the lake you observe—are entirely his own. Such growth of trees could never be accomplished in a few years, as you must know. What I have done is small, indeed, compared to my father’s accomplishments—I have pruned where his hand was excessive, and added what his sensibility could not envision.”