Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (3 page)

I find my condition in general so enviable, and so entirely suited to my taste, as to make me think with wonder on a certain event of nearly three years ago. Can I have been in full possession of my senses, indeed, to have refused Mr. Harris Bigg-Wither—a man of wealth and easy circumstances, despite his numerous imperfections—simply because I could not esteem him? Utter folly! The indulgence of a fanciful mind! And its bitter reward is orange wine and hired lodgings for the rest of my days.

“Jane.
“My brother Henry, two steps ahead of Edward in their assault upon our barouche, shattered my reverie at a word. “I fear we must desert you this very instant, or we shall never secure a position at the rail. It is the Commodore's final heat, you know, and he is to meet a very telling litde filly, Josephine by name, who won her last quite handily. He is to carry four stone six.”
2

Edward—handsome, carefree, and debonair despite the fine beads of sweat starting out on his brow—leaned into the open carriage and kissed his wife. “You look a picture, my dear. Shall our defection make you desolate?”

Picture
was the very word for Lizzy, with her delicate parasol of Valenciennes lace inclined just so, above her dark head, and the famous Knight pearls shining dully on her bosom. “Not at all,” she murmured, with a languid look from her slanting green eyes, “for positioned as you are, Neddie, you quite destroy all our hopes of flirtation. Jane and I can manage quite well by ourselves—until dinnertime, at least, when we shall grow cross and hot and prove quite ready to declare ourselves of your party. Until then, sir, be off! For we want none of your careful ways.”

My brother burst out laughing at this sally of his wife's, and kissed her again, to the astonishment of the raven-haired little governess, Anne Sharpe; but all of Kent might observe the pair without contempt, for the Austens' was always acknowledged a love-match. Indeed, Neddie is so amiable, so honesdy
good
—and Lizzy so perpetually elegant, without the least pretension to snobbery—that there can be few who must observe their happiness, without wishing them the heartiest good fortune in the world.

“May not I accompany you, Papa?” My niece Fanny bounced impatiendy on the barouche seat opposite. She is Edward's eldest child, and very nearly his favourite— a pretty litde thing of twelve, with all the advantage of birth, fortune, and connexion to recommend her. “I long to see the Commodore's action!”

“His action, is it? Lord, Fanny, how you do go on. I suppose we have you to thank, Miss Sharpe, for this cunning miss's tongue!”

A look of horror suffused Miss Sharpe's flushed cheeks, and she searched in vain for a word. Fanny's governess cannot be more than two-and-twenty, and however proficient in French and instruction on the pianoforte, is possessed of a delicate constitution. She holds my amiable brother in something very like terror.

“I should not have thought you equal to the mortification of the governess, Neddie,” Lizzy interposed quietiy. “You are usually possessed of better taste.”

“I believe Henry deserves the credit of schooling Fanny's tongue,” I quickly supplied, while Miss Sharpe sank back into her seat in confusion. “The children have acquired all manner of cant expressions in the short time he has been with us. I was treated to a sermon on the art of boxing this morning, from litde George—who offered to show young Edward
his fives
, and threatened to
draw his cork
, if he did not
come up to scratch
, and I know not what else. Miss Sharpe is hardly equal to Henry's influence. She shall merely be forced to remedy it, when he has at last returned to Town.”

“But, Papa—may not I accompany you to the rail?” Fanny persisted, having heard not above a word of the abuse visited upon her favourite uncle.

“The Commodore's action shall hardly be worth viewing, my dear,” Neddie said easily, “after the three heats he has already survived. We shall be in luck, does he finish the race at all.”

“Nonsense!” Henry cried. “The horse was never fitter!”

“But, Papa—”

“Now, do not teaze, Fanny. You know it would never do. We shall return directly the race is run, for there is sure to be a crush in leaving the field, and the oppression of the weather is fearsome. I will not have your mother tired.” And with a forage into the picnic hamper for some bread and cheese, the two men set off for the rail.

Fanny burst into tears and buried her head in Lizzy's lap.

“I suppose,” Lizzy observed distantly, while one hand smoothed her eldest's bedraggled curls, “that a finer lady would lament the ruin of her best muslin at such a moment, and shriek for Miss Sharpe to come to her aid. But I have never been very fine in my ways, Jane.”

“No,” I fondly replied, “only born to an elegance that is as natural as breathing, and that must serve as a lesson to all who meet you. The muslin shall survive, Lizzy, without the intervention of Miss Sharpe.”

The governess was in no danger of hastening to her mistress's aid, however, for her interest was entirely claimed by a scene unfolding well beyond the limits of the barouche. As I watched, Miss Sharpe drew a sudden breath, and clasped her gloved hands together as tho' desperate for control. I glanced over my shoulder to discover what had so excited her anxiety—and found myself arrested in my turn.

The lady in scarlet, whom I had remarked some time earlier, now stood upright in her elegant perch phaeton. Her countenance—which in easier moments might well have been judged lovely—was contorted with rage, and she held a whip poised in her right hand. A gendeman stood calmly at her carriage mount, as tho' braced for the issue of her fury; and as I watched, the whip lashed down with a stinging sigh upon his very neck. Beside me, Anne Sharpe cried aloud, and then stifled the sound with her hand.

Lizzy's green eyes narrowed. “Whatever has Mrs. Grey got up to now?”

“Mrs. Grey?”

“The banker's wife. She is capable of anything, I believe—”

“She has just struck the gentleman by the phaeton with her riding whip. Are you acquainted with him?”

“Not at all.” Lizzy sounded intrigued. “I have never seen him before in my life. A gendeman from Town, perhaps, come down to Kent on purpose for the races.”

“He is possessed of the most extraordinary countenance,” I whispered. “But why should she abuse him in so public a manner? I cannot believe he offered her an insult—there was neither heat nor drunkenness in his looks.”

Not a commanding figure, to be sure—for he was slight and taut as a greyhound, in his elegant coat of green superfine and his fashionable high-crowded hat. A young man of perhaps thirty, whose auburn hair fell loose to his shoulders, like a cavalier's of another age. In these respects, he looked very much like any other gendeman of breeding who strolled about the race grounds; but in his aspect there was something more: an air of nobility and unguessed powers, that demanded a second glance.

“Perhaps he has declined the offer of Mrs. Grey's favours,” Lizzy murmured, “and she could not abide the affront. It would be in keeping with her reputation, I assure you.”

As we watched, the scarlet-clad woman pushed angrily past the man she had injured, and hastened from the phaeton. He gazed after her a moment, his countenance devoid of expression, and then drew a handkerchief from within his coat. This he applied to a great weal standing out above the line of his neckcloth; and then, rather thoughtfully, his eyes shifted towards our own. He held our gaze some few seconds, and then, quite deliberately, raised his hat in acknowledgement.

'Yes, Jane,” Lizzy breathed, “self-possession and nerve are in all his looks. I would give a great deal to know his name.”

“Fanny,” Anne Sharpe said abruptly from the seat opposite, “you are crumpling your mother's dress. Do come and sit by me, dear, and partake of the jellied chicken. I am sure this litde fit of temper is entirely due to your nerves. They cannot withstand such heat, you know, if you refuse Cook's excellent luncheon.”

“Some jellied chicken, Lizzy?” I enquired.

“Every feeling revolts,” she said dismissively. Her eyes were still trained on the elegant young man, who had moved off through the crowd in the direction opposite to Mrs. Grey. “I shall never make a patroness of the turf, my dear Jane, for I find the stench of dust and dung very nearly insupportable. Without the parade of fashion that always attends such events, I should be bored to tears.”

“Are you perhaps increasing again?” I enquired delicately.

“Lord, no! That is all at an end, I am quite sure,” she retorted; but I thought her voice held a note of doubt. Lizzy's ninth child is as yet a babe in arms; but at the age of two-and-thirty, she might expect any number in addition. “Perhaps some raspberry cordial.”

I secured her the collation. “Fanny? Miss Sharpe? Some cake and cordial, perhaps?”

My niece raised a tear-stained cheek. “I could not stomach a bite, Aunt Jane, from all the anxiety attendant upon his prospects.”

“His
prospects”
her mother repeated in some perplexity. “Whose, my dear?”

“I believe she means the horse, ma'am,” Miss Sharpe supplied in her gentle voice.

“Such elevated language! You have been lending Fanny your horrid novels, Miss Sharpe, I am certain of it.”

“Indeed not, I assure you, madam—merely Mrs. Palmerstone's edifying letters to her daughters.”
3
Anne Sharpe raised eyes full of amusement to my own, and I could not suppress a smile—for we had debated the merits of such writers as Mrs. Radcliffe and Madame D'Arblay for nearly an hour in the schoolroom, with Fanny pleading to borrow my subscription volumes of
Camilla.
I had pressed them, instead, upon Anne Sharpe—and did the governess often resort to horrid novels, I should be the very last to blame her. With the schooling of two small girls in her charge, and limited reserves of strength or health to aid her, she must find in the Austens' exuberance a trial.

Particularly since the Commodore had come to plague us all.

A fearsome, snorting chestnut steed of nearly sixteen hands, the Commodore might be termed my brother Henry's latest folly. Being a man of some means, well-established in banking circles, and possessed of an elegandy-aristocratic wife in my cousin Eliza, Henry aspires to the habits of the Sporting Set, and has gone in for horse-racing in its most vicious form. Not content with losing breathless sums at Epsom and Newmarket, he has gambled his all on a dearer stake—the possession of an actual beast.

Knowing litde of horseflesh, and still less of such points as action or blood, I have been rendered mute in almost every conversation since Henry's arrival in Kent a week ago. He is full of nothing but the subject; and it has been all a matter of furlongs and oat mash and Tattersall's betting room for a se'nnight.
4
The children have caught a dose of the fever; Neddie himself is hardly immune; and never have I found dear Henry's company so profoundly tedious. The flight of his wife, the litde Comtesse Eliza, to a shooting party in the North, suggests that she is as impatient for the fad's decline as any of us. And so I prayed that the Commodore might stumble to his ruin in the present race, or perform as wretchedly as a carter's nag, and thus save us all the trouble of adoring him.

“It is too bad!” Fanny was craning over the carriage's side for a view of the course. “In sitting at such a remove, we shall be denied the smallest glimpse of the Commodore's triumph. I believe my heart shall break!”

“My dear Fanny.” Miss Sharpe laid a gloved hand on her charge's arm. “We are privileged in attending the meeting at all. Recollect that ladies must never approach the rail—it is not the done thing, and is left to the province of such hoydens as may claim neither rank nor breeding among their charms.”

“Mrs. Grey may claim rank and breeding, Sharpie, and yet
she
is allowed the liberty of the grounds,” Fanny retorted. “I should not be so nice as you are, for a kingdom! Mrs. Grey for me!”

And, indeed, the child spoke no more than the truth. The dark-haired beauty in the scarlet riding habit was strolling freely among the assembled carriages, with the eye of more than one gendeman lingering upon her wistfully. As we watched, she caught the banter of one and returned it playfully, her countenance alive with laughter. The brutal cut of a few minutes earlier was plainly forgotten. She appeared a ravishing young lady of exuberant spirits—forward, perhaps, but entirely in command of her circumstances.

“Perhaps we should read a little of Palmerstone aloud,” Miss Sharpe suggested, with a slight note of reproof. She drew a volume from her reticule and patted the empty seat beside her. “Sit down by me, and endeavour to attend. I believe we left off at letter number twelve.”

“Mrs. Grey has never read Palmerstone,” Fanny retorted darkly, but she sank down next to Miss Sharpe.

“Mrs. Grey is not the pattern I should choose for your conduct, Fanny.” Lizzy's words had the tenor of a scold, but I observed her mouth to twitch. “However dashing in moments, Mrs. Grey has
notbeen
gendy reared. She is a Frenchwoman, moreover, and her manners must be very different from ours.”

Miss Sharpe commenced to read, in a quiet tone; and at that moment, I caught a glimpse of scarlet as Mrs. Grey passed to the rear of the governess's bent head. As Lizzy and I watched her wordlessly, she approached a shabby-looking chaise but a hundred feet from our own. It was equipped with neither footman nor tyger, and but for its sweating team of matched bays, appeared all but deserted. At Mrs. Grey's swift knock, however, the carriage door was thrust open by an unseen party within. With a swift glance about, the lady disappeared into the darkness, and the door closed sofdy behind her.

“Good Lord!” Lizzy murmured. “So Laetitia Collingforth makes Franchise Grey her friend.
This
is news, indeed.”

“Has she so little acquaintance among the neighbourhood?”

“I am afraid that Kent has not embraced the Greys as it should,” Lizzy replied. “But, then, Mrs. Grey is very young—”

“—and very French,” I concluded.