“Oh, there cannot be two opinions on the subject, my love,” my father replied with a satiric eye. “A knife will always be vulgar, particularly in the drawing-room. The kitchens and the dining-parlour are its proper province; but when it seeks to climb so high as a Duchess’s salon — even a Dowager Duchess’s — we may consider ourselves on the point of revolution.”
“Dear madam,” I intervened, “be assured that I quitted Laura Place as soon as it was possible to do so. The general flight of guests rendered chairs remarkably scarce, and it was a full hour before Henry could obtain a suitable conveyance — a chaise summoned from his inn — which would set Madam Lefroy down in Russell Street before returning to Green Park Buildings. We hastened home as swiftly as our means allowed. Do but pity poor Henry and Eliza, who faced a longer journey still to their rooms at the White Hart, before finding the mercy of their beds. They cannot have arrived before four o’clock.”
“Well,” my mother said with some asperity, “since the matter is past all repair — the vulgarity endured — you might favour us with a report of the affair.”
“Was Lord Kinsfell truly taken up for murder?” Cassandra enquired. So the papers had printed that much.
“He was,” I replied sadly, “the knife having fallen from his grasp before an hundred witnesses. The manager of the Theatre Royal, one Richard Portal, lay bleeding at Kinsfell’s feet, all life extinguished. The knife point found his heart. Or so said Dr. Gibbs, who examined the body. He is the Dowager Duchess’s physician, and was present last evening at Her Grace’s invitation, in the guise of a Moor.”
“But is it likely that the Marquis of Kinsfell would stoop so low as to murder a common actor?” My father was all amazement.
I sipped at my tea and found that it was grown disappointingly cold. The virtuous Austens had lingered long over the cloth in expectation of my intelligence.
“Mr. Portal was hardly a common actor, Father. He has had the management of the company since Mrs. Siddons’s day, and has won the respect of all in Bath. It is at Portal’s direction and expense that the new theatre in Beauford Square is being built.[15] Mr. Portal was possessed of high spirits and considerable address — a tolerably handsome gentleman, in the flood tide of life. I may hardly credit the notion of his murder, much less Lord Kinsfell’s guilt; but I must suppose that the magistrate, Mr. Elliot, will very soon find the matter out.”
“You presume no such thing,” my father retorted testily. “You abhor justices with a passion, as I very well know. ‘They seek only to make a case against some unfortunate innocents, while the true culprit goes free.’ Is not that a quotation, my dear Jane, from one of your very own letters? A letter written from Scargrave Manor?”
“I will not pretend to an unalloyed admiration for English justice,” I ventured, “but I may, perhaps, have spoken then too warmly. I do not abhor such respectable gentlemen as Sir William Reynolds.[16] Nor may I assume that Mr. Elliot is entirely incapable. Mr. Elliot is a singular fellow, assuredly — both gross in his humours and repulsive in his person — but a shrewd and cunning intellect nonetheless.”
“If Lord Kinsfell was found with the knife,” Cassandra innocently observed, “what doubt can possibly exist? Does his lordship deny the murder?”
“Naturally!” I said, with more attention to my plate than it deserved. “He should be a fool to do otherwise, whether he be guilty or no.”
“Though he uttered a falsehood? Such wickedness!”
It is remarkable, indeed, to spend all of one’s life in the company of a lady so thoroughly good as Cassandra. Never mind that a falsehood, at such a juncture, should be as nothing to the shedding of blood — the slightest misstep is capable of causing my sister pain. It is well, perhaps, that the untimely demise of her beloved intended should have left her pining in the single state. The vicissitudes of marriage — with that frailest of creatures, a man—should certainly have been the death of her.
“Lord Kinsfell insists that in the very midst of Hugh Conyngham’s declamation — a passage from Macbeth — he was overcome with an excess of heat and spirits, and intended to seek his bedchamber by passing through the little anteroom at one side of the main party. Upon throwing open the double doors, he observed Mr. Portal in his Harlequin dress, prone upon the floor with a most hideous blade protruding from his breast. Kinsfell gave a shout, and leapt to Portal’s side; he felt for a pulse, and then effected the removal of the knife; but was swiftly overpowered by two stout fellows convinced of his dangerous intent. It was only then that I observed him myself.”
“And this Portal? Had you remarked his figure before?”
“I had.” The memory of Lord Kinsfell’s bitter words to Richard Portal brought a frown to my countenance. I pushed aside my cup of cooling tea and toyed hopelessly with a piece of bread. Cook had allowed it to grow stale again.
“And did he betray any morbid sensibility?” Cassandra enquired.
“Of what, my dear?”
“Of his impending death! Did he comport himself as might a marked man?”
“Indeed, Cassandra, I might fancy you to have indulged too much the taste for horrid novels! Portal seemed no more marked than any eligible gentleman at a rout full of ladies!” I hesitated, uncertain how much to divulge. “I did observe him to dance with Lady Desdemona Trowbridge, Lord Kinsfell’s sister, and somewhat later, he treated the better part of the company to a scene of some belligerence.”
“On the point of blows, was he? And with whom?” my father asked.
“With Lord Kinsfell, I regret to say.”
He touched his napkin to his lips, eyes averted.
“An actor! Well!” my mother cried, as though picking up a thread of conversation quite lost long ago. “They are always coming to blows, with swords or pistols or ruffians for hire. One sees it constantly in Orchard Street—Hamlet is nothing but a brawl, though it pretends to treat of adultery. I never leave the theatre without feeling I have been pummelled from one end to the other.”
“But did Kinsfell perceive no one else in the room?” my father enquired.
“He did not. He persists in believing the murderer exited by the anteroom window, which stood open at Portal’s discovery.” I gazed soberly at the Reverend Austen’s lined and kindly face. In three-and-seventy years, my father had seen much of the evil men may do, though from so retired a vantage as a Hampshire parsonage. “But Lord Kinsfell’s assurances are open to doubt, Father. Not one of the chairmen assembled in the street below admitted to having observed a similar flight; and if they had, the man should certainly have been taken. The drop from window to pavement, moreover, must be full thirty feet. For any to attempt the ground — in darkness and in haste — is madness. The man should surely have broken a leg.”
“But you forget the heavy snow, my child. If there were a drift to break the fall—”
“The Dowager’s footmen were assiduous in sweeping the pavement, for the accommodation of her guests,” I replied wearily. “It seems unlikely that anyone quitted the house in so heedless a manner.”
A brief silence fell over the breakfast table, and I saw once more in memory the Duchess’s horror as Kinsfell was led away. But for Lady Desdemona, I believe Eugenie Wilborough should have sunk to a heap on the floor, her seventy years quite suddenly writ upon her face.
“Some toast, my dear? Or perhaps a muffin?”
“I believe I shall walk out, Mamma.” I thrust my chair from the table. “A breath of air will do my head a world of good.”
DESPITE THE HEAVY FALL OF SNOW LAST E’EN, THE SUN HAD consented to shine, with a brilliance that dazzled the eyes. I found that my own poor orbs, much weakened from years of plying my needle and pen in the indifferent light of a sitting-room candle, could barely sustain the force of the light, and so kept them fixed upon the paving-stones. Here the snow had begun to melt, and the water ran in rivulets along the gutter. In my cumbersome pattens, I picked my way around the puddles, clicking and clattering in company with every young lady so stout as to venture out-of-doors. Sydney Gardens should be impassable on such a day; my accustomed walk along the verge of the canal must be foresworn for drier weather. And so I ignored the roads leading down towards the river; and determined upon the much shorter distance through Queen Square, in the direction of Edgars Buildings.