My mother’s looks were eloquent: a mixture of rapacity and uneasiness.
“And does our home accommodate the murdered soldier as well?” I demanded lightly, “—his ghost creaking of nights upon the stairs of the cottage, crying out for vengeance?”
“You may inform us whether it is so in the morning, Miss Austen.”
Amidst general laughter, Lady Imogen protested, “For my part, I think it imperative that a search party be formed after dinner, as a kind of amusement, so that we might fan out across the countryside with lanthorns and dogs and discover the treasure. We might call the entertainment ‘Hunt the Necklace,’ and begin in St. Nicholas’s vestry!”
“Under the very flags of the church,” murmured Mr. Papillon distractedly, “or perhaps in the crypt! I cannot believe it possible — for there are several of the Deceased newly-laid in that part of the building, you know, and I cannot recollect any irregularities about the interments.”
“It is all a piece of horrid nonsense!” cried Ann Prowting with an arch look for Mr. Thrace, “but I am sure I shall not sleep a wink tonight, for gazing out my window at the cottage in my nightdress, in an effort to glimpse your ghost!”
“Let us hope, Miss Prowting,” murmured Mr. Hinton acidly, “you do not encounter Shafto French — or his murderers — instead.”
When the ladies retired from the dining parlour, it was a most ill-suited party that collected around the tea table in the Great House drawing-room. Lady Imogen took herself off to the instrument standing near the tall windows giving out onto the lawn, there to turn over the leaves of music with a deeply preoccupied air; she showed no inclination to revive the sport of Hunt the Necklace. Ann Prowting threw herself into a chair and yawned prodigiously, her conversation confined to such peevish utterances as, “Cannot we get up a dance this evening? I declare I am pining for a ball!” Her mother contented herself with arranging the stiff black folds of her dress and conversing most animatedly to Maria Beckford of the merits of Benjamin Clement, RN, who was perhaps not unknown to that lady; Miss Beckford listened in any case with the attitude of a sparrow trained upon a worm. Miss Benn had seated herself on the opposite side of Mrs. Prowting and was industriously knitting; while Jane Hinton drew forth a volume of sermons from her reticule and commenced reading, lips visibly lisping over the inaudible words.
This left me a choice of companions until the appearance of the gentlemen should restore Henry to me: Miss Elizabeth Papillon, sister to the rector of St. Nicholas’s and his spinster housekeeper, with whom I thus far had exchanged only curtseys; and Catherine Prowting. Naturally, I chose to approach the latter.
She was a solitary figure positioned near the hearth, in which no blaze burned; her eyes were fixed upon the empty firedogs, and so painful an expression of unhappiness was in all her bearing that I would have turned away without speaking to her, but for the sudden swift glance she gave me, and the lifting of her right hand as tho’ in supplication.
“Are you unwell, Catherine?” I asked without preamble.
“Only this wretched head-ache,” she replied in a suffocated voice. “I suppose I must ascribe it to the heat; but indeed I cannot bear it, and as soon as my father returns, I shall beg him to escort all our party home.”
“Are you displeased with the party? Is the Bond Street Beau not to your liking?”
She flushed. “Mr. Thrace is a most gentleman-like man in every respect. I own I am pleasantly surprised. If only the rest of the company were so well chosen!”
“Should you not lie down? I might enquire of Miss Beckford whether there is vinegar-water, for bathing your temples—”
She shook her head fiercely, which I should have thought would increase her pain; but if so, she was determined not to regard it. “Miss Austen — you have lived in the world more than I, and know far more of. gentlemen, and such things. ”
“A little, perhaps,” I returned guardedly; but my heart sank. Was I about to receive an unlooked-for confidence, and be burdened hereafter with an intimacy I had not sought?
“If only I knew what I ought to do, ” Catherine whispered, her fingers on her temples and her eyes closing in pain. “If only I understood my duty. ”
“Duty is the clearest path we know,” I told her. “It is the path of the heart that descends into obscurity.”
These words seemed to arrest her thoughts. The fluttering hands fell to her sides, and her mouth opened in a soundless O. At that instant, the drawing-room door opened and the gentlemen returned — faces flushed, heads thrown back in laughter at some jest of my brother’s — all except one. Mr. Hinton alone was morose and solitary. His sneering gaze fell upon Catherine where she stood at my side, and I observed her to stiffen, her lips compressed. Then, with an attitude of resolution, she approached her father and spoke low in his ear.
“All in good time, my dear,” he said heartily. “All in good time. The night is young, you know — and the card tables about to be brought out!”
She looked despairing; but her mother and sister were insensible to her pleas of ill health, and determined to remain as long as possible in such interesting company; and so Catherine retired to the far end of the room, intending to form no part of the groupings around the tables.
In a few moments I observed Julian Thrace to join her there. He seemed to enquire after her health, and unlike Mr. Hinton, I thought he should not be repulsed.
“Jane,” my mother said indignantly as she approached the fireplace, “wait until you hear what that woman has been saying to me. I will not call her a lady; I will not condescend to offer her that distinction.”
“Which woman, Mamma?”
“The Hinton creature. In her lisping, oily way she has desired me to understand that his lordship’s treasure chest is everywhere known to be residing in our cottage, and that speculation is rife as to the morals of my younger daughter. That intimathy on both thideth undoubtedly exithted, Miss Hinton would have me know, without the benefit of the marriage vow, is firmly established; and the horror of the ladies in the surrounding country, at being forced to acknowledge a hardened bit of muslin such as yourself — if only to remain on good terms with the Squire, whom she also suggested is of the lowest depravity imaginable, as evidenced by his heartless actions towards his tenants — is an insult from which the best local families are unlikely to recover. As though you were a Cyprian of the most dashing kind! It is too bad, Jane, when all he left you was a quantity of paper! I could cry with vexation!”
“Miss Hinton said all this?” I demanded with amusement. “I am astonished at her powers of articulation.”
“I do not mean to say she spoke it out plain,” my mother retorted impatiently, “but I am not so green that I cannot divine the meaning of a pack of lies. It is insupportable, Jane, that the Rogue should see fit to sink your character from his very grave!
And you not a penny the richer!”
“Lord Harold’s notice remains one of the chief delights of my existence, Mamma,” I answered quietly, “and I shall never learn to despise it. If I care nothing for the malice of a Jane Hinton, why should you listen to her words? It is all envy, ignorance, and pride; and we need consider none of them.”
My mother being very soon thereafter claimed for a table of whist, I was relieved of the necessity of calming her further, but longed to share Miss Hinton’s absurdity with Henry — who should value it as he ought. That the spite of the lady sprang in part from the ill-will of the brother, I had little doubt; and wondered whether Jack Hinton was determined to part Catherine Prowting from my dangerous company. The girl’s indecision might account for the troubled looks, and pleas of a head-ache. One fact alone in my mother’s recital gave rise to apprehension: that so many of the inhabitants of Chawton and Alton purported to know of my affairs, and were conversing freely about Lord Harold’s chest. I had not yet accustomed myself to the littlenesses of a country village; and tho’ I had perused some part of the chest’s contents, I was not yet mistress of the whole. I resolved to spend the better part of the morning in achieving a thorough understanding of Lord Harold’s early life.