“Nearly all of it. You were aware of my presence?”
“For the last half-hour. Grey may not have perceived you in his pacing about the room, but in following his figure to the garden prospect, I could not fail of detecting yours.” The amusement deepened. “And what is your considered opinion of the fellow, Jane?”
“As you said of the Comte — I quite liked him.”
“Yes,” Neddie mused. “It is a great failing in this line of work, to undertake to admire or pity anyone. He is made of stern stuff, Mr. Valentine Grey, and might be capable of anything.”
“—Of steady industry; of sacrifice in the name of principle; of ruthless calculation in matters of business or state — but is he capable of passion? I cannot believe it.”
“He was eloquent on the subject of his wife.”
“He spoke well,” I conceded, “but more as a man whose passion is dead.”
Neddie shrugged. “So, too, is the object of it.”
“Real love endures beyond the grave, Neddie, as you very well know. Men may remarry; they may cherish a second wife, and a third — but their feelings remain tender in respect of the departed. Mr. Grey's passion did not survive the first few months of his marriage, I suspect. He spoke as a man who has learned a part by rote.”
“You are severe upon him.”
“And yet, I cannot believe him capable of deception in an evil cause. He is the sort of man one instinctively trusts, and expects to perform with integrity. He will return again, I am sure of it — and tell you all you wish to know. His conscience will not allow him to rest, until he has done so.”
“I hope you are not proved credulous, Jane” — Neddie sighed — “for I have gambled a good deal on a single throw. Grey may as readily determine that silence is his truest friend, and deny me the knowledge that must unlock this puzzle.”
The great clock in the hallway began to toll the hour, and Neddie withdrew his watch from a waistcoat pocket. “Behind again,” he muttered, and commenced to wind it. “The Finch-Hattons are expected to dinner, and the sainfoin harvest has yet to be fired.”
“Bother the Finch-Hattons,” I cried petulantly. “What do you make of Grey's portrait of the Comte? There, at least, you must admit he was entirely frank. He went so far as to admit the letter.”
“We may judge, then, that the admission suited his purpose — whatever that purpose may be.”
“I quite long to meet the interesting Comte,” I persisted, as Neddie made for the library door. “Can not you conspire, Neddie, to invite him to take coffee with us some evening after dinner?”
“I shall do better, Jane,” he said with a roguish look. “I shall persuade my elegant wife to set the neighbourhood an example, and pay a call of condolence at The Larches. The funeral is tomorrow, at eleven o'clock; but a Saturday visit on the part of the Godmersham ladies would be admirably in keeping with what is due to Mr. Grey.”
“And so it should!” I exclaimed. “Dearest Neddie, for considering of it!”
“I am always happy to oblige you, Jane, even in the matter of your morbid taste for bones. I confess myself most impatient to learn your opinion of the devious Comte de Penfleur.”
Chapter 11
The Improvement of the Estate
22 August 1805, cont'd.
THE FINCH-HATTONS CAME, IN ALL THE HASTE AND splendour native to the possessors of an elegant green barouche. They came — tho' not, as commonly expected, for the dinner hour, but a bare three minutes after the household had sought our separate rooms to dress. A tremendous scurrying in the lower passages, an anxious banging of Elizabeth's door, and the sudden catapult of Fanny into my bedchamber, alerted me to my doom.
“Aunt Jane!” Fanny burst out in an ill-managed whisper, “you will never guess what has happened! Mamma's guests are arrived, and a full hour before their time— and Mamma not even dressed! She begs that if you are more beforehand, that you might go down and do the civil for a while. Sayce is only just begun on Mamma's hair — and you cannot think how droll Mamma looks, with curls all bunched on one side, and nothing at all on the other! I thought I should die of laughter, until she sent me away in a fury.”
A fury, for Lizzy, must encompass nothing more than a penetrating look, and a suggestion that her husband should show Fanny the dressing-room door; but I apprehended the gravity of her condition in an instant. Lizzy with her hair undone is not to be contemplated.
“Help me with these buttons, Fanny.” I shrugged myself into a passable dinner gown and presented my back to my niece. “If you can but find my pale blue slippers — I believe your mother's pug has dragged one under the bed — I am at your service directly.”
When I entered the drawing-room moments later, the Finch-Hattons stood aloof from one another, in attitudes of flight — for all the world like strangers at a ship's embarkation. There was Lady Elizabeth, her driving shawl still pinned about her shoulders, and an enormous straw hat balanced like a charger upon her head. She had taken up a position near the front windows, which gave out on the entry and sweep, and seemed engaged in a study of her own conveyance. Her husband, Mr. George Finch-Hatton, stood scowling over his pocket-watch, as though the expected ship had failed to make the tide; while Miss Louisa, the eldest daughter, was perched on the edge of one of Lizzy's litde gilt chairs, tapping her foot impatiently.
“What good fortune!” I cried, rushing in with extended hands, the very picture of effusive welcome. “We had not hoped for a glimpse of you until the dinner hour! I am charged with offering a most hearty welcome, in default of my brother and sister, who will no doubt be with us directly. And how did you find the road, Mr. Finch-Hatton? Your horses endured this heat tolerably well?”
“Tolerably, thank you, Miss Austen,” he said, and returned to his watch with studied indifference.
“Allow me to take your wrap, Lady Elizabeth.”
“Thank you, Miss Austen, but I so detest the duty of wrapping myself up again — particularly when travelling without my maid — that I believe I shall retain it yet a while. Your sister is indisposed?”
“Not at all — and most anxious to see you. She is merely dressing for dinner. I expect her every moment.”
“I see. A pity, George, that we have so little time.”
“But I thought…”
“It is quite impossible for us to stay above a quarter-hour. We are expected at Eastwell tonight. An engagement of Mr. Finch-Hatton's—”
Expected at Eastwell! When they had been expected here for dinner! It was quite extraordinary behaviour— almost indicative of a desire to snub my brother. But no — in that case, they should simply have sent a note, filled with regret at the necessity of despising his hospitality. Perhaps it was a family matter, too private for explanation; or perhaps our embroilment in the affairs of Mrs. Grey … I dismissed the last notion as absurd.
“I see,” I said with an effort, and crossed to the bell-pull. “Perhaps I should summon Mrs. Austen, so that you do not escape her altogether. She would never forgive me.”
“If you would be so good—”
It was fully eight minutes by Mr. Finch-Hatton's pocket-watch, I am sure, before my brother and his wife hurried through the door. I endured the interval as gamely as I might — but with little pleasure, I confess. The Finch-Hattons are never a talkative family; in such circumstances, each seemingly lost in a private reverie, they were as mute as sybils. It was impossible to introduce the subject that must be uppermost in all our minds — Mrs. Grey's death; delicacy forbade it. But each of my forays into conversation proved disappointing. Neither the subject of Race Week, nor last evening's Assembly, nor even the prospect of long sleeves for winter dress, could animate the ladies; and as for Finch-Hatton himself— he was preoccupied with pacing off the length of the drawing-room, a habit acquired, I suppose, from his intimacy with architects.