“I must thank you, sir,” I said, “for relieving me in a desperate moment. I confess I was unequal to Lord Harold in Isobel's defence, lacking full knowledge of the particulars at issue.”
“You suffer no dishonour by being unequal to Lord Harold,” Fitzroy Payne said. His eyes swept over my head, searching, I fancied, for dark red hair above a daring green gown; but Isobel had quitted the ballroom.
After a pause, and some observation of the dance, which had just then commenced, I assayed another attempt.
“I suppose Lord Scargrave wished Lord Harold present, the better to converse with him in his library — for certainly Isobel was much surprised at the gentleman's arrival.”
“Did she have full knowledge of Trowbridge's descent upon this house hours before he effected it, she should still be made as ill,” Lord Payne said, with some bitterness.
“You share the Countess's dislike,” I observed.
To this sally I received no answer but a knitting of the brows and a heightened gravity.
“Perhaps we shall summon Lieutenant Hearst and have him challenge Lord Harold to a duel,” I suggested, in an effort at lightness. “The Lieutenant shall exercise his honour, and be of service to a lady — two pursuits in which I understand he excels.”
A chill smile, but again no word.
“I detect a similarity in the turn of our minds, Viscount Payne,” I persisted, in some exasperation. “We are both of a taciturn, ungenerous nature, and would rather be silent until we may say what is certain to astonish all the world.”
For this I won the barest moment of liveliness in his grey eyes, and the gift of an answer.
“From a better acquaintance with my own foolishness, Miss Austen, I must be silent; but of you I can readily believe a delight in astonishing.”
“There!” I cried. “My opinion is proved. You cannot even insult without phrasing it well.”
“I meant rather to praise than insult, and so my words could hardly fall ill.” He turned his dark eyes upon me with a penetrating look. “The desire to astonish may be considered a vice only when it lacks the wit to achieve its aim — but with wit, Miss Austen, you are clearly most blessed. And now, I fear, I must desert you for the office with which I am charged — that of informing my uncle of my aunt's indisposition.”
He bowed; I nodded; and a gentleman assailing me for a dance at that moment, I left Fitzroy Payne to find his way amidst the boisterous throng. But during the course of the evening I was made more sensible of Lord Payne's attractions. My subsequent partners were to prove less able in conversation, and less provocative even in their silences, than the Viscount had proved with a single sentence.
IT WAS AFTER A PARTICULARLY TEDIOUS EXCHANGE WITH such an one, that I bethought me of refreshment, and parting with my dubious suitor in some relief, betook myself along the gallery that led from the ballroom to the smallish parlour, where the supper was arrayed. The last of the dances being just then struck up, I found myself blessedly alone in my progress towards the wine punch. I had barely passed the first of the closed doorways lining the hall, when I was halted in my steps by the fierce eruption of argument near at hand. I turned and espied the entrance to the Earl's library, whence Lord Harold had disappeared but an hour before. From behind its closed door emanated the voices of two men, raised in strenuous argument. Lord Scargrave and Trowbridge? It could not be otherwise. I may perhaps be forgiven a woman's curiosity when I admit that, finding myself quite alone for the moment, I lingered along my way.
The words soon became intelligible.
“You are not to mention the name of Rosie Ketch,” one gentleman cried. “You have debauched her in speech often enough.”
“That is laughable, sir; coming from you.”
“You shall not support me in this?”
“Never; sir.”
“Then, my lord, I cannot be responsible for the consequences. You have driven me to my utmost extremity, and God forgive me! I know how it is that I must act.”
The voices were grown louder, as though one or both of the parties had approached the door; I looked about me for a place of safety, and could find none but the heavy draperies cloaking the tall windows. I had only tucked myself behind them, doing violence to my hair and gown, when the door was thrust open and a gentleman burst from the room, the fury of his words propelling him with like energy from the Earl's presence.
I stole a look around the curtain edge, certain to see Lord Harold — and found myself confronted, to my astonishment, with George Hearst, the Lieutenant's older brother. What could it mean? The gloomy ecclesiastic, revealed as a man of hot temper?
Mr. Hearst was not a moment gone when the Earl himself appeared in the hall, his face reddened as with apoplexy. I remembered then Isobel's care for her husband's health, and smiled. It was not an excess of claret that plagued the Earl, but a surfeit of family; and of this, no one was likely to cure him.
The Earl made for the ballroom, and after an instant's pause to right my feather and settle the clumps of curls about my cheeks, I followed my host. I was in time to see him raise a glass before the assembly to his newly-won bride, drink it to the dregs, and double over in a fit of acute dyspepsia. Protesting and declaring himself to be very well, our host was borne from the room on the broad backs of two footmen, an anxious Isobel in his wake; and so the revels ended.
I WAS JUST NOW RETURNED TO THE PRESENT BY ISOBEL'S appearance at my door.
“Jane,” she said, with great steadiness, “the crisis is passed.”
“God be thanked!” I cried, and threw down my pen.
“Is He, indeed?” She gave me a strange look. “You mistake my meaning. The crisis is passed, my dear friend, and the Earl is dead.”
I went to her in an instant, my countenance conveying all my sorrow, and bent her head upon my breast. But Isobel had no tears; her beautiful sherry-coloured eyes were blank and unseeing, her form as rigid as the Earl lying cold within her marriage bed. I released her without a word, feeling as though my heart should break, and watched her tortured progress down the corridor.
At my window now, I pull back the heavy draperies smelling of must, and gaze out upon a desolate dawn. No sun shall rise today for human eyes to see; the world entire is wrapped round in whirling white, an impenetrable cloud of cold and ice that chills the heart as it freezes the ground. Scargrave's vast parkland is adrift, its black trees etched like wraiths against the grey sky of morning. I think of Frederick, Earl of Scargrave — of his soul gone forth too soon from earthly happiness, and on such a frigid day — and I am consumed with sorrow for all of mortal men. What are last night's revels, its frivolities and petty triumphs, against the magnitude of the grave? I let fall the draperies, blocking out the snow, and shiver in my nightdress.
I came into Hertfordshire seeking diversion; and what I have found is Death, in more vivid and horrible a form than I had yet been taught to expect. I may take it as my reward for cowardice — for so such a flight from one's worst nature is always revealed — to witness the agonising end of the Earl of Scargrave, and be utterly powerless to reverse it.