“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.”
“I did not intend to stay in Alton above a few days. But matters are so miserably left at present — I cannot feel it wise to bolt to Kent, Jane, however much I should wish to do so. Thrace is still at large; Hinton sits in the Alton gaol, accused of murdering the man he cuckolded; and your papers have not been found. Have you written to Major Spence?”
“I am still composing the letter.” I studied my brother from my seat at the Pembroke table. “I understand your discomfort, Neddie — but the unpleasantness of the past week is not only yours to resolve.”
“No — because I have not chosen to make it so! But if I would call myself Squire, Jane — if I would assert my authority over Chawton’s rents and freeholds — have not I an obligation to manage my tenants’ affairs?”
“You cannot live their lives for them. You cannot serve as conscience to an entire village.”
He sighed in exasperation. “Do you not see — that in my bereavement — my loss of my excellent wife — I have read a warning, Jane?”
“What kind of warning?”
“I have been shown, in the most dreadful manner possible, that life and its comforts are not a surety! One may be taken off at any moment. To live therefore in the frivolity of selfindulgence is to waste what must be precious. I want to be doing something, Jane, to win the respect of the people in my charge. I want to be the kind of landlord and master that is remembered when I am gone, for the soundness and worth of my actions.”
I smiled at him faintly and set down my pen. “I am sure you will be, Edward. — In particular by those of us whose lives you have directly altered, through the generosity of your heart. But if you wish to impress your Chawton neighbours with your goodness, there is one gesture of benevolence you might immediately make. You might visit Mr. John-Knight Hinton at the Alton gaol.”
My brother’s colour changed. “That pup?”
“He is fully five-and-thirty years old. And he is at present embroiled in considerable difficulty. The appearance of magnanimity such a visit must offer the surrounding country should do you much good in publick opinion.”
“I should not like to meddle in Prowting’s province.”
“You are Squire; Mr. Prowting is not. And it might behoove us to hear Hinton’s version of the story. I have wondered, of late, if Catherine Prowting is entirely to be trusted.”
“Good Lord, Jane — how can you talk so?” my brother returned impatiently. “Recollect the fact of the footprint — the boot mark in the cellar. Prowting told me of it himself!”
22
“Caky” was the Austen-Knight children’s name for Susannah Sackree, nursemaid at Godmersham from 1793 to 1851.