“It is of no consequence, Neddie.” She let fall the drape across the window, and turned away. “They had not been alighted from their carriage five minutes, before I considered the exchange an admirable one. Mr. Sothey must be formed of sterner stuff than we, to contemplate a visit of some weeks to Eastwell!”
“Perhaps you underrate Miss Louisa's charms,” I suggested.
“The Finch-Hattons generally rate them so high themselves, that one must forever fall short,” she replied. “But I stand by my original claim. Mr. Sothey is a martyr to a peculiar cause, known only to himself — and is much to be pitied.”
Neddie raised his brows expressively in my direction. He was considering, no doubt, the curious fact of Mr. Sothey's departure for Eastwell Park on the very day of Mrs. Grey's murder. We had heard nothing before this of Sothey's presence in the Grey household; and yet so protracted a visit — even under the guise of an estate's improvement — must be remarkable. Valentine Grey had told us nothing of it, nor of his designer's abrupt departure. Was this the matter he would keep dark — the element of the story that required a desperate diversion?
“I quite long to meet Mr. Sothey,” I observed, “being but too susceptible myself to every Sprig of Fashion. And the delight of uniting the honour with another tour of Eastwell Park, is almost too much to be borne! — Tho' I doubt I am improved enough myself, since last summer, to stand comparison with that noble place.”
“Have a care, Jane,” my brother advised, as the dinner bell rang. “Lady Elizabeth may appear foolish at times, and suffer from a lamentable taste; but she is not a stupid woman. Even an irony so disguised as yours, cannot entirely escape her notice.”
Chapter 12
The Bitter Bread of Governesses
Friday,
23 August 1805
IF THERE IS ANY SORT OF UNPLEASANTNESS TO BE FACED in the coming day — depend upon it, it will rain.
The heat broke with a vengeance above our heads about an hour before dawn, lashing the early morning darkness with a petulant violence. I drowsed under the persistent patter of raindrops, content to drift in the twilight between dream and waking. I expected the storm to pass on directly, and leave the world new-washed under an August sun. By nine o'clock, however — when all but our indolent Lizzy had assembled in the breakfast parlour — a steady deluge veiled the meadows from our sight. The dun-coloured grasses were flattened with the pelting drops, and the willows at the riverbank were streaming like a mermaid's tresses.
“The Wingham road will be a morass of mud,” Neddie pronounced with decided gloom. “Such a day for a funeral!”
“—And such a funeral for the day!” Henry added. “It is well you go in black, brother — for the wet cannot mar such a shade.”
Neddie returned no answer; Henry's caprice can prove a sore trial, at times.
“I believe I shall bear you company, Ned,” he added, after an interval. “It would never do to send forth the Justice without a proper escort. I might be your outrider, and lend a certain style.”
The Justice in question surveyed his brother's fawn-coloured riding breeches and elegant salmon-and-green waistcoat with a critical air. “I declare you look almost Roman, Henry. The very thing for a Papist rite. Do not alter the slightest particular, I beg — excepting, perhaps, the addition of a black armband.”
Mrs. Grey was to be interred in the family vault at The Larches itself, with an elderly Catholic priest pressed into service. Where such a man had been found in the cathedral town of Canterbury, was a question best left to Mr. Valentine Grey; that gentleman must have resources of which we knew nothing.
“I understand,” Henry confided to the table in general, “that there was some talk of shipping the body back to France. The French Comte is said to have been most insistent. Grey, however, would have none of it — and so in English earth she will lie. The fellows at the Hound and Tooth could talk of little else.”
“You astonish me,” I said, over my teacup. “I thought nothing could turn them from laying bets on the fate of Mr. Collingforth.”
My brothers set out for The Larches a quarter-hour later, for the service was to be at eleven o'clock, and they would require every moment of the interval. In respect of the mire, they went mounted on two of Neddie's hunters, who might gallop over hill and hedgerow if the road proved impassable. I watched their progress some few moments from the breakfast parlour window— Neddie's easy hands and graceful seat, and Henry's scrabbling dash. The elder brother could never look anything but the country gentleman; the younger, nothing but a man of Town.
“The post is come, Jane,” Lizzy informed me from the door, “and you have a letter from Cassandra. Pray do not stand on ceremony with me; I beg you would read it.”
The packet's direction was written remarkably ill; my sister had undoubtedly scrawled it in considerable discomposure of mind. I broke the seal without further apology, and endeavoured to make out the hasty lines.
Mr. Edward Bridges, Cassandra reported, had been besieged yesterday morning by creditors at the very doors of the Farm itself, to the embarrassment of his sisters and the extreme displeasure of his formidable mother. Lady Bridges had dismissed the harried men encamped upon her door, with instructions to apply for recompense to her Canterbury solicitor, a Mr. Bane; and then was closeted with her errant son for several hours. Mr. Bridges emerged, looking utterly wretched, and having furnished his mother with a complete list of his tradesmen's debts, and obligations of honour; his losses at race-meetings, cockfights, cricket wagers, and so on. He was made so thoroughly uncomfortable by Lady Bridges's discovery, that he threw himself on Cassandra's mercy, and begged forthwith for an interview. It seems that Lady Bridges had offered her son little choice: He must marry sensibly, and respectably, and quite soon; and he must marry a lady of whom his mother could approve. Mr. Bridges relied upon Cassandra's compassion — her interest as a friend — her unselfish devotion to the welfare of his family, which all of them had frequently remarked — in short, he drove my sister into the drawing-room corner with the energy of a cattle-herder intent upon his dinner.
Cassandra was thus placed in a most dreadful position. She had been a guest in the Bridges household nearly a month, and had received nothing but kindness at their hands; she had always looked with affection upon the entire family; and she was conscious, moreover, of the peculiar tie that existed between her generous brother, Neddie, and his wife's relations. A sense of obligation must very nearly overwhelm; but she recovered her senses before any hasty betrothal might be forced upon her; expressed her gratitude to Mr. Bridges for his esteem — and refused him.
She wrote to inform me that she would be returning to Godmersham on Monday.
I read the bulk of this letter aloud to Lizzy. To her credit, she retained a tolerable measure of composure, and expressed her feelings most eloquently in the determined shredding of a piece of toast. When I had concluded, she said briskly, “And I suppose that this letter” — pointing with a butter knife to the sealed packet lying next to her plate — “will be a summons from Mamma.”
“A summons?”
“For yourself.” She broke the seal and unfolded a single sheet of determined script, underlined in places and closed with several flourishes. A moment sufficed to peruse it; Lizzy was familiar of old with her mother's style and purpose.
“It is as I suspect, Jane. You are to return to the Farm in Cassandra's carriage; it shall wait only five minutes to deposit your sister, before flying away with yourself. The coachman's instructions are quite explicit; he is not to return from Godmersham, without he carries you as his passenger.”