“Prowting tells me there is to be no inquest, as he witnessed himself both the murder and the flight of the accused,” Neddie supplied. “His chief concern now must be to spare the Earl any further exposure, and conclude the capture of Thrace as soon as possible.”

“Poor Mr. Prowting is most distressed,” Cassandra observed.

“In all my days as magistrate, he told me, I have never presided over a matter of murder; and yet, in the past week, I find two men of my acquaintance under the most severe suspicion of their lives. I cannot ex- plain it, Miss Austen. ”

Edward laughed brusquely, and threw himself into a chair near Cassandra’s. “The people of Alton and surrounding parts can account for the problem. I was forced to listen to the direst hints in the course of nearly every interview. Want of a proper squire, they said; and misfortunes brought from afar. You were correct, Jane, in your admonition to me — the tide of public sentiment has turned against the Kentish landlord. I must consider what it is best I should do. Perhaps I may find a place near Godmersham for all of you after all.”

“What!” my mother exclaimed. “When there is a priceless fortune buried in the soil somewhere about this cottage? I would not be parted from it for any amount of gain, my dear Neddie; indeed I should not. ”

He stared at her in surprise.

“I think a sudden removal of our household will hardly aid your cause,” I agreed. “We must be seen as steadfast — and impervious to the weight of our neighbours’ opinion. And we have this to look forward to: the fall of Mr. John-Knight Hinton’s star. A thorough drubbing at the hands of the Law, as Mr. Prowting so proudly terms it, should do much for our standing in Chawton. Hinton is not universally liked.”

“And his sister is a dreadful woman,” my mother added. “No countenance, and most insipid in her manner. Having listened to her presumptions on the matter of the Rogue, I should dearly love to twit her on the rakehell nursed in the bosom of the parsonage.”

“And so you ride to Brighton at dawn, Henry?”

My brother was to take the sad news of Lady Imogen’s death to the Earl of Holbrook. So much had been decided before we parted from Charles Spence; the steward’s place must be at Stonings, where he should hold vigil over the body and do what he could to organise the hunt for Julian Thrace. It was unthinkable that a mere Express Messenger should carry such tidings to Brighton— Better a gentleman, even one as yet unknown to the Earl, who should break the news in person. On an errand of such delicacy, there was no one to be desired above Henry.

“I wish you will take care, Jane,” my brother said as he retired for the night. “In your brain and heart you hold the key to Julian Thrace’s past — and we know him for a desperate character. His very flight confirms his guilt; and having lost an earldom, he must hold freedom cheap. Remember that the papers are still at large — and that even were they not, you already know too many of their secrets. I should not like to think of you as Thrace’s next victim.”

Chapter 20

The Effect of Blue Ruin

Sunday, 9 July 1809

“TO ME, AVARICE SEEMS NOT SO MUCH A VICE, AS A DEPLORABLE PIECE of madness. So said one Thomas Browne, in his work of nearly two hundred years ago, the Religio Medici,” observed Mr. Papillon from his pulpit; “and what may serve to describe the benighted followers of the Popish faith then, may also serve to instruct us in Chawton today.”

He gazed out over his congregation: the gentlemen ranged in the box pews on the north side of the aisle, the ladies — including my mother and sister and myself — on the south side. Behind us in the galleries were assembled the common folk of Chawton, most of them Edward’s tenants. I do not know whether the Religio Medici had ever come in their way before — it certainly had not come in mine, as I am no Latin scholar — but Mr. Papillon was swift to instruct.

“Who among us — what man or woman, whether born high or low — is a stranger to avarice? In its gentlest form we know it as thrift; in its worst, as miserliness; at its most evil, we recognise the kind of jealous hoarding that may inspire all manner of violence. It is avarice that walks among us now, the kind of madness that brings theft and injury and even death among men. I see all about me the desire for riches or honours not won by merit or birth — but taken at the sword’s point, like the rapine of a pagan horde. This is the Devil’s work, not the Lord’s. I must urge all of you most earnestly to throw off the chains of sin, and turn your backs upon immodest desires; for assuredly the road to ruin lies in pursuing what does not come from the grace of God.”

We bent our heads, and prayed most earnestly for the peace of acceptance — for the good will of others — for contentment with our lot. But I could not help glancing about me, to observe how the rest received the rector’s admonition. The Prowting girls stood subdued and pale beside their mother. Jane Hinton was attired in black, her gloved hands clasped tightly on her prayer book, her thin lips moving as she prayed. Miss Benn smiled serenely at Mr. Papillon, with what was almost a transcendent look; she could not be pierced by his words, who had never regarded any soul in the world with the kind of envy that was native to the rest of us. Across the aisle, my brother Edward looked self-conscious, as tho’ he felt the sermon might be offered in defence of his interests — and yet perhaps it was he the rector would warn off from rights and riches not rightly his. Poor Neddie should feel no anxiety, I thought; Mr. Papillon’s loyalty was all for the Kentish Knights, and his distress at the crimes of the neighbourhood — calumny, burglary, murder — was perhaps the more acute, for having offended his belief in the natural order of things.

Mr. Papillon stood down, and led us in prayer; a hymn was sung, and the sacrament offered. Catherine Prowting, I noticed, did not take the Host — but remained in her pew, head bowed over folded hands. It is no very great thing to stay the sacrament — I have done so myself, when conscious of being in a state of Sin — but I must regard Catherine’s attitude of penitence as singular. Was all this for Julian Thrace? I suspected she had lost her heart to the renegade Beau, and must repent of it bitterly — but was that, in truth, a sin?

Or did some other cause keep her rooted in the posture of prayer?

I could not interrogate her on so delicate a matter as the state of her own soul; but I resolved to watch Catherine closely in future. I did not like the look of her heavy eyes, or the pallor of her face. They were too suggestive of despair. It is not our habit to engage in Sunday travel. A long, sober morning of contemplation and reflexion stretched before us; even my mother must forbear to excavate in her garden on such a day. Edward seemed disposed to remain in Chawton rather than return to his lodgings in Alton, but a restlessness pervaded all his movements that could not be satisfied with opening a book, or strolling the length of the Street under the notice of all his people.

“When do you intend to desert us for Godmersham?” I enquired at last, after he had inspected several articles of china on my mother’s mantelpiece without the appearance of enjoyment. “I am sure you feel some anxiety for the children in your absence.”

“I am always concerned for the children,” he replied, “but I know them to be well looked-after. Fanny is so capable — and then there is Caky. What would become of us without her—”[22]

“Yes,” I agreed. “Caky is wonderfully suited to the comfort of little ones. But having settled your affairs at Quarter Day — I cannot wonder that you wish to be gone.”