“How very singular,” I said slowly. “Captain Woodford and Mr. Bridges, to have had a falling-out. They seemed the best of fellows, when last I had the pleasure of conversing with them.”

“At the race-meeting itself, Jane?”

“Tho' well before the murder of Mrs. Grey. Our party met with the two gentlemen in the interval before the heats. They seemed most companionable, and joined in their good wishes for the Commodore's running.”

“As well they might,” Henry retorted gloomily. “Much good it may do them.”

“Perhaps the betting aroused their enmity,” Neddie mused. “Or Denys Collingforth's insults. He fairly accused them of Mrs. Grey's murder — and before all of Kent.”

“But would that cause either to drive post-haste to The Larches?” I protested. “You spoke of rifled desk drawers, Neddie. Certainly you were in error there? The two were surely not despoiling Mrs. Grey's things?”

My brothers exchanged a long look; then Neddie shrugged. “Their appearance at our entrance had all the suggestion of uneasy interruption, Jane. Woodford was bending over the desk, while Mr. Bridges was intent about the lock of one drawer. Whether either man had divined its secrets, I cannot say; but I am certain that was their purpose.”

“And could the housekeeper tell you nothing of their coming?”

“Only that they had burst upon her all unawares, when she was already prostrate with grief at her mistress's passing; that they insisted upon admission to the house, and vowed that they would wait for Mr. Grey.”

“And so she left them to peruse the contents of her mistress's desk,” I muttered. “A considerable liberty.”

“I must believe that Mrs. Bastable — the housekeeper— was quite accustomed to seeing my brother Bridges and the Captain at The Larches. To her there was nothing extraordinary in their being granted the freedom of the house.”

We considered this unfortunate conclusion in silence a moment, while the willows sighed gendy along the banks of the Stour in the darkness. The sound, so generally soothing, drifted through the open French windows like a whisper from the grave.

“Do you apprehend the nature of Mr. Bridges's intimacy with the Greys, Neddie?” I enquired at length.

He shrugged. “It was neither so very great, as to be called intimate, nor so trifling as to pass for the barest acquaintance. Edward would have it that Mrs. Grey was very fond of cards, and when her husband was absent on business in Town, she would often send round to various gendemen in the neighbourhood, that they might make up her whist table.”

“Mr. Bridges played at cards at The Larches?”

“Then no doubt he lost,” Henry added.

“It is his chief talent.” Neddie rose and turned restlessly before the bare hearth. “But I confess to some anxiety at his presence in that house, and at such a time. I feel scarcely less on Woodford's account. They are both of them honourable fellows — as the behaviour of gentlemen is usually construed.”

“Meaning, that they are amiable, good-humoured, feckless sportsmen who should not be trusted with their quarter's pay,” I finished. “Either they intended to retrieve their vowels from Mrs. Grey's desk, or some other piece of incriminating paper has given rise to anxiety.[14] A love letter? An indiscretion, too desperate to be revealed to the lady's husband?”

“Perhaps,” Neddie admitted.

“Perhaps the lady had a taste for blackmail,” Henry threw out.

I started at the word. Blackmail will always possess an ugly sound — and I had learned to respect its vicious nature in Bath the previous winter. The rifling of a desk was a natural aftermath of a brutal killing, when the victim of the act had proved brutal herself. Mr. Bridges's behaviour bore all the markings of a man in fear of betrayal. But of what?

Of whatever Denys Collingforth had hinted, in the middle of the race grounds? His object then had been the curate alone, not Captain Woodford — but Wood-ford had been encompassed in the insult later, the price of coming to the aid of his friend. Perhaps the shadow cast on the Captain's honour had caused the rift with the curate. But the Captain, too, had been discovered bent over the desk—

“I see how it is. This is an ugly business, Neddie.”

“And likely to grow worse.” He tossed off the last of his wine. “All of Kent may have despised Mrs. Grey; they may have cut her dead in certain circles, and laughed at her in others — but her influence was felt. Her charm was insidious. Her habits and style were bewitching to some. And no matter how the sad nature of her end is resolved, we can none of us hope to avoid the breath of scandal, Jane. We are touched by it too nearly.”

He looked then as though he felt all the weight of his commission — hollow-eyed, burdened, and wearied in mind and body. I went to him, and kissed his cheek in silent testament of affection.

“What do you intend to do next?” I asked him.

I shall endeavour to learn why Collingforth should have killed Francoise Grey,” he replied, “tho' I cannot believe he did it.”

“You might also enquire who bore a grudge against CoUingforth himself,” I suggested. “The introduction of the corpse into his chaise must bear a questionable aspect. It is one thing to murder a woman, and quite another to throw the blame.”

“True.” My brother took up his candle and made for the stairs. “Pray inform me, Jane, as to the result of your own researches. I am not so callow as to believe you will sit home, quiet and confined, while so much of interest is toward. I will neither enjoin you to silence, nor urge you to the chase — but I will always be ready to listen.”

And so our conferences ended, with a solemn procession by candlelight — my brothers to their beds, and I to the Yellow Room's little writing table.

I signed the letter, sealed it with some candlewax and my brother's fob, and waited for the storm to break above my head.

Chapter 4

A Passage with the Bereaved

Tuesday

20 August 1805

IN NEARLY THIRTY YEARS OF LIVING I HAVE OFTEN HAD occasion to observe, that one sensational event may only be supplanted by another of equal or greater import. And so it has been with all of us at Godmersham this morning: Mrs. Grey's brutal murder is quite forgot, and the agent of her eclipse is none other than Captain Woodford.

He appeared in the approach to our gates at noon, arrayed in his full dress uniform and mounted on a dappled grey. I was privileged in having the first sight of him — for I had profited from the interlude after breakfast, when the little ones were taking turns with patient Patch, the old pony, to escape to my Doric temple and my solitude. There in columned shadow I was established with paper and pen, secure in such privacy as I may rarely command. There I might gaze out over the chuckling Stour, and watch the growing heat of morning raise a fine mist above the meadows; feel birdsong throbbing in my veins, and attempt to wrestle Lady Susan to her Fate.[15]

The nature of that Fate is much in question at present, for Lady Susan is not a woman to suffer the vagaries of fortune as willingly as her creator might intend. She is a vengeful and calculating Virago, in fact, and I am entirely delighted with her. Cassandra believes there is something shocking in a woman so very bad; she would have Lady Susan repentant and reformed at the tale's end. But in this we may read the force of sentiment— and the failure of Art to mirror Truth. For I have known a thousand Lady Susans; have seen them sail unremarked through the Fashionable World, their consequence increasing with every fresh outrage. Unnatural mother, adulterous schemer, and treacherous friend — what can such a woman ever know of virtue?