“Nor any of the day's events, I am sure,” Lizzy replied. “It is quite an introduction, Miss Sharpe, to the elegant delights of Canterbury Race Week. I am sure your friends the Portermans will be appalled, when they hear of it, and shall request your immediate return to London.”
Anne Sharpe glanced up at her mistress swiftly, then dropped her eyes once more to the little chapbook.
“I cannot tell the answer to your riddle, Sharpie,” said Fanny fretfully, “and I am very hot and tired. When will Papa be done?”
“In a little while, my dear,” her mother said, “in but a very little while. Lay your head upon my lap, if you choose, and endeavour to sleep.”
While my sister smoothed her daughter's curls, I surveyed the milling crowd.[10] Several of the parties had no intention of awaiting the constabulary, as Lizzy had said. A clutch of horses and harness clogged the gates of the meeting-grounds, and it should be hours, perhaps, before the turf was cleared.
“Tell me of Mr. Collingforth, Lizzy,” I said softly.
“Collingforth? He is of no very great account, I assure you. Nothing to do with the Suffolk family, you know — a lateral heir, in the maternal line, who took the name upon his accession to the property.”
“Yes, yes — but what sort of character does he possess? Is he the sort of man to conceal a fresh corpse in his carriage?”
“I cannot fathom why any man should do so, Jane,” Lizzy retorted in exasperation, “much less contrive to discover it himself. Either he is very simple, or very devious, indeed — and my mind at present is divided between the two.”
“He seems to hate Mrs. Grey.”
She smiled mirthlessly. “Love often turns to hate, I believe — particularly when it is formed of obsessive passion. Six months ago, perhaps, Mr. Collingforth was very much in Mrs. Grey's pocket. But she tired of him, as she does of so many, and sent him on his way.”
“And the affair was countenanced by Society?” I enquired.
“Society, as you would style it, took no notice of either Mrs. Grey or Collingforth. Whatever their form of intimacy, it was quite without the pale of Canterbury fashion. Only Lady Forbes — the wife of the commanding General of the Coldstream Guards — condescended to visit Mrs. Grey after her first weeks in Kent, once the measure of her style had been taken; and Lady Forbes is very young, and cannot be trusted to know any better.”
“I see. You said she tired of any number of gentlemen. A motive, perhaps, for her brutal end?”
“Perhaps.” Lizzy's slanting green eyes rounded upon me. “My brother must be considered one of them, Jane— Mrs. Grey had him quite wrapped around her little finger — and Captain Woodford, of course. He has been intimate from boyhood with Mr. Valentine Grey, and has frequently called at The Larches.”
I glanced at Miss Sharpe's sleek, dark head; her eyes were closed, and she appeared to be dozing. I lowered my voice all the same. “You heard what Mr. Collingforth said of your brother?”
“In company with most of Kent. I wonder where the blackguard has got to? I would dearly love to know what Collingforth meant by accosting him in that fashion, just before the body was discovered. There is something ugly between them, and Woodford, too, if I am any judge of appearances; and such things are so tiresome when they are thrown in the public eye. How I long to shake brother Edward until his teeth rattle in his head!”
Our interesting discourse was broken at that moment by the arrival of the Canterbury constabulary, come at a gallop, it seemed, from town. They brought in their train a waggon draped in black; I knew it at once for a makeshift hearse.
Neddie strode to meet them; consulted, for a moment, with the man who seemed to be their principal; and this last commenced to bark out orders, dispatching some of his fellows in one direction, and some in another. A few made immediately for the Collingforth chaise.
Mr. Wood, the surgeon, placed his arm under Mrs. Grey's neck, and raised her slightly from the ground. The constables gathered at waist and feet. Neddie looked on, his arms folded across his chest and a line of care etched between his brows. And then Mrs. Grey, her unbound black hair sweeping over the surgeon's arm, was carried slowly to the black-draped waggon. The tide of the curious parted like a guard of honour, and not a whisper or a sigh was heard, as the men struggled forward with their unhappy burden.
“I should like to go home, Pratt,” Lizzy said quietly into the stillness. “Let us learn what Mr. Austen intends, and then seek the road without delay.”
“Very good, ma'am,” the coachman replied. He jumped from the box at once — as he had been longing to do for some time, I am sure — and sought out his master.
Neddie returned with Pratt in a moment.
“There is nothing more for you to do here, Lizzy,” he said. “Return to Godmersham with our party, and order a cold supper for Henry and myself. We shall be upon the road some hours, I fear. I ride even now towards The Larches, in the hope that something has been discovered of the missing phaeton.”
“Of course,” she said dismissively. “Jane and I shall both sit up against your return. But, Neddie—”
“Yes?”
“Can not you tell us something of how Mrs. Grey died?”
“She was throttled with her own hair-ribbon.”
“That much I had discerned. But the chaise! How did she come to be there?”
He shook his head. “I could find nothing within that might reveal her history. It is an ugly business — Mrs. Grey being what she is.”
“A Frenchwoman?” I concluded.
He nodded. “The danger of her nationality alone should have counselled a greater propriety of behaviour at such a time — but she was never very restrained, as I am sure you observed, and that may have excited the hatred or jealousy of any number of men. I hope to know more once I have seen her husband; but that cannot be until tomorrow.”
“You believe her killing an act of war, then?”
“In such times as these, with all of Kent in an uproar over the Monster's invasion, I cannot think it extraordinary. She must have been killed on the road, in a chance encounter, when she was quite alone and defenceless. But how she came to be in Collingforth's chaise—”
I gazed pensively at the constables' waggon and its tragic burden. Mr. Wood, the surgeon, had elected to attend the body, and was mounted on the box. Beside me, Miss Sharpe had completed the repacking of the picnic hamper, and Fanny was settled on the seat next to Lizzy. All around us the festive air of a race-meeting was fled, and a line of carriages lengthened towards the Canterbury road. The sedate assemblage of Kentish folk seemed the very last to harbour a political assassin; but other passions might be nearer at hand.
“Mrs. Grey possessed wealth, beauty, and spirit,” I mused, “and each might be an insult to a certain sort of man. Or woman, for that matter — for I believe that few among her own sex dared to call her friend.”
“And her end is not likely to improve her reputation,” Neddie observed. “There is already too much scandal and talk. The disappearance of the lady's habit bears an ugly aspect. I would that her husband were not in Town.”
“Unhappy gentleman! To receive such news, in so brutal a manner! No one can deserve such wretchedness.”
“Nor such an end,” Neddie added. “Tho' God knows Mrs. Grey made any number of enemies in the short time she was among us.” He surveyed the tide of his departing neighbours with unwonted shrewdness. “I can think of several spurs to violence, Jane, in the lady's case. A man might wager his purse on the outcome of a meeting, and lose a fortune in the toss; or fancy himself crossed in love, and ready to avenge an injury.”
Neddie slapped the barouche's side and nodded to Pratt. The coachman unwillingly lifted the reins.
“And must you charge Mr. Collingforth?” I asked hurriedly.
My brother hesitated, his grey eyes suddenly wary. “As to that — I cannot say, Jane. But I should be happy to canvass the matter at greater leisure, when once we are all together at Godmersham. Henr
y believes your advice is worth seeking; and I am not fool enough, I hope, to soldier on alone when good counsel is on offer. My experience has never run to murder. The duty must be a serious one. It must weigh heavily.”
He kissed his wife's hand, smoothed Fanny's touseled curls, and then moved off through the thinning crowd towards the glowering Mr. Collingforth. The latter's dark-suited friend, Mr. Everett, had not deserted him; but little of comfort could be derived from so dour a companion. Further observation was denied me, for at that moment the horses started forward under Pratt's meticulous hands, and we were sent back to Godmersham — like all of Canterbury's ladies, preserved from further intimacy with what was unpleasant.
In death, it seemed, Mrs. Grey had won what she preferred in life — the companionship of sporting men.
Chapter 3
The Unknown Cicisbeo
9 August 1805, cont'd.
FOR THE COMPLETION OF SEVEN MILES OF INDIFFERENT road to Godmersham, was required nearly two hours. Pratt will never allow the horses to travel at speed, from a horror of dust in an open carriage; and our progress in the present instance was decidedly impeded by the wealth of traffic on every side — most of it hastening from the race-meeting in equal perturbation of spirit. A happier party might have passed the journey in conversation, but Lizzy's thoughts were quite absent, Miss Sharpe's pallor was extreme, and Fanny was nodding in sleep before a quarter of the distance was achieved. We dawdled along between the high Kentish hedgerows while the sun declined into the hills, as silent as though our excellent Pratt conveyed an empty carriage.
From his unwillingness to address the subject, I believed it likely that my brother should arrest Mr. Denys Collingforth. In truth, I could not blame him; a shrewder man than Neddie would hesitate to discharge so obvious a malefactor. But I could not be easy in the determination of Collingforth's guilt. He was an unpalatable rogue, without question; he had spoken roughly of the murdered woman, and looked all his hate in his harsh features; and his carriage had borne the grisly burden of Mrs. Grey's corpse. But Collingforth should be a simpleton, indeed, to discover a body in his own chaise. Had he pursued Mrs. Grey along the Wingham road with murder as his object, he should better have abandoned her in a ditch along with her habit, than returned her to the world's sight. It looked very much as tho' someone else wished Collingforth to hang for the murder — and had arranged events to his liking.
But how had the corpse been conveyed to within the chaise? True, it had been divested of the red habit, and might have drawn less notice — if a corpse clad only in a shift, in broad daylight, could be said to look unremarkable. I did not think it likely, however, that Mrs. Grey had been brought to the chaise while yet alive, en deshabille, and strangled within it. Too little time had elapsed between her departure from the meeting-grounds and the discovery of her body, for the effecting of such a kidnapping; perhaps an hour, all told. Moreover, I had heard not a whimper of the poor lady's struggles, and our barouche had sat less than a hundred feet from Gollingforth's chaise. The tumult of a race might have covered the deed — but all of Canterbury knew the lady to have been alive and victorious for some time after the final heat
Revolve the matter of Mrs. Grey as I might, I could in no way account for her end, without the chaise itself having been removed. Upon reflection, I could not vouch for its presence behind our own equipage throughout the period in question — from Mrs. Grey's departure, until Collingforth had thrown open the carriage door. But who might have stolen the chaise for such an intricate purpose? And would there have been time enough to manage the business? It depended, I supposed, on the distance Mrs. Grey's team had already travelled, and where along the Wingham road she had been overtaken.
I should have considered of this earlier, and charged Neddie with examining the ground beneath the chaise's wheels. Some mark of hurried movement might have been discerned—
I sighed aloud, and Pratt glanced over his shoulder.
“It's not long now, miss. That be the turning for Chilham, as you'll know.”
Chilham — where I had danced on occasion at the modest little Assembly Rooms, and pined in my youth for Mr. Taylor's beautiful dark eyes. He bestowed them upon another young lady more in keeping with his station — his irrepressible cousin, Charlotte — and the two have passed the remarkable family feature to yet another generation. I had called only last week at Bifrons Park, and found all the Taylors thriving.
As I wandered thus among the byways of my youth, the road dipped and swung along an embankment — the hedgerows parted — and we were presented with a fine sweep of country. All the beauty of Godmersham broke suddenly upon me. I suspended thought and sat back in the seat cushions, refreshed immediately by the serenity of the scene.
My brother's principal estate, a fine modern building of rosy brick, nestles like a jewel between two saddles of the downs. Every line of the house as it rises from its deer park — the copses where pheasant thrive, and hares burrow — the enclosed kitchen gardens, and the noble avenue of limes we call Bentigh, that leads sweetly along the river to the old Norman church of St. Nicolas — all must proclaim to passersby, that here lives an English gentleman.
I have known Godmersham from the first days of Neddie's removal here, some ten years ago. I have been privileged to linger within its comforting walls for months at a time, and I regard the place as in some measure my home — and one I must quit always with regret. My own style of living is determined by the scant provision I bring to it; there is a constraint in relative poverty that weighs upon the soul and renders the mind weary. At Godmersham I am always free of penury's burdens, and the interval must be embraced with relief. To leave the place is to be cast out a little from Heaven.
As I considered the relative nature of peace and privilege, Pratt snapped the reins over the horses' backs, and the barouche rolled easily towards the turning for the park. Vivid green hills rose behind the house, shimmering and unvaried as velvet. Here and there a clump of trees broke the evenness of the landscape, rendering both hillside and clump more absolute in their disparity the one to the other. It was a style of beauty first brought to prominence in the last century — a paean to Naturalism, and quite in keeping with my sensibilities.
The Stour murmured a winding course through the meadow, and along its banks the willows trailed, restless in the slightest air. Swallows darted and swooped over our heads as we achieved the turning for the lodge, carriage wheels complaining at the paving's treatment, and little Fanny stirred and sighed. The slanting light of late August splashed gilt over her cheek — and over stone bridge, mown field, and rosy brick — as it turned the air to honey.
The whole was a scene of such measured beauty, in fact, that the horror of death seemed impossible, and the very notion of murder, absurd.
“Are we home, Jane?” Lizzy enquired, rousing herself. “It cannot be too soon. How Neddie must feel the burden of his duty, on such a day!”
“How happy you must be,” I returned impulsively, “to call these fields and hills your home! What richness, in the dull routine of a country life! Is there anything to compare with the peace and beauty of Kent?”
“The dust is intolerable,” Lizzy observed, as we pulled up at the door. “I am sure I shall have the head-ache.”
Her conviction bore fruit at the house's very entry, and so, calling for her excellent maid, Sayce, my sister was borne away to her room. The rest of us were not to be released without a trial, however — for shouting and jostling in their hurry to be seen, the young Austens tumbled down the steps from the nursery. They had been left behind at the day's outing, as being either too junior or too indisposed — for little Edward was troubled with a persistent cold, which refused to yield to all that the apothecary could advise. The others showed a dangerous inclination towards the same ailment, and with the commencement of their Michaelmas term looming, the older boys could not be too careful.[11] Lizzy had listened to the impassioned arguments of her children the previous night at bed-time.
She had consulted with Mr. Green. And in the end, only Fanny — who might suffer a cold the autumn entire, and yet be schooled at home by Miss Sharpe — was permitted the treat of watching the Commodore run.
“Sharpie! Auntjane!” the children cried in a tumult. “Is it true? Was a lady murdered at the races, and is Father to find it all out?”
“Edward,” I said briskly — for Miss Sharpe appeared, if anything, worse for her journey than she had at its outset— “Miss Sharpe is greatly fatigued. Pray let her pass, and do not be plaguing her with your questions.”
Anne Sharpe looked all her thanks, and pressed a hand to her brow. She had been more overpowered by events than any of us. I concluded that she suffered a head-ache more severe than Lizzy's direst imaginings, and ordered her to bed.
“I am a little fatigued,” she admitted. “Perhaps a short interval — before the children require their suppers—”
“Sackree will see to the bread and milk,” I told her firmly. “Pray lie down for a while, Miss Sharpe. You look decidedly unwell.”
“I must believe it to be the shock,” she said feebly. “That woman—”
“So it is true!” Edward shouted triumphantly.
I sank down on the bottom step and set my elegant top hat by my side. “Wherever did you hear such a tale, Edward?”
“He had it from Cook,” said his brother George, hopping up and down on one foot, “—who had it from John Butcher, who met a man with the news on his way from the races.”
“It was not John Butcher, but Samuel Joiner had the news, and fomet the man in the road,” young Elizabeth, a stout girl of five, broke in hotly.
“That is what I said,” George retorted. “But—”
“Do not pinch your brother, Eliza,” I attempted.
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