While life may still offer a good-size room, braced with roaring fires and a plethora of wax candles — while “The Comical Fellow” or “The Shrewsbury Lasses” still thread their delightful chords through the babble of conversation — while some hundred couples of a nodding acquaintance, and a full detachment of the Cold-stream Guards, exist as it were for my pleasure alone — I cannot fail of enjoyment. Let melancholy be banished for another day, when I am too-long marooned in the rains of Bath, and the regrets of my vanished youth.
And thus, heedless of murder and the threat of invasion both, I pinned the shoe-roses to my slippers this evening, adjusted my muslin shawl, and allowed myself to be borne away to yet another scene of dissipation. I had not been arrived five minutes, before I felt my morals to be thoroughly corrupted.
That this was the result of gallantries easily paid, from at least three gentlemen in my general acquaintance, might readily be imagined. I entered upon the scene in the company of the Godmersham party — Neddie, Henry, Lizzy, and myself — with every expectation of pleasure. I wore a borrowed gown, made over in respect of the current season, that became me almost as much as it had graced Lizzy two summers before; my hair had been cut and dressed in curls all about my forehead, courtesy of the obliging Mr. Hall; and despite the closing of that decade beyond which a woman is commonly believed to cherish few hopes, I knew myself to be presently in good looks. I shall never again possess the bloom of eighteen; the bones of my face have sharpened of late, particularly about the nose, as tho' the flesh is stretched too tightly over it, and my complexion is coarser than it was ten years ago. But several months' trial of the air of Kent, taken in daily doses through long country walks, will have their effect; and despite the worry of advancing French hordes, and a commensurate anxiety for the safety of my naval brothers, my eyes were as bright as though I were embarked upon my very first ball.
“The Godmersham party! At long last!”
Mr. Edward Taylor advanced upon us with arms outstretched, as befits a very old acquaintance. Those dark eyes I had so long ago celebrated, and mourned upon his betrothal to another, were alight with anticipation and scandal; little else of his former self could be traced in the present figure. Age will take its toll, even among the wealthy of Kent; and the object of my girlhood dreams was become florid and balding. But his ample waistcoat was a testament to the excellent management of his household at Bifrons Park — and so I judged Edward Taylor happy, and excused his fall from grace.
“You have had us all on tenterhooks, man! Thank God that you did not forgo the Assembly.” Mr. Taylor seized my brother Neddie's arm. “Is the fellow Collingforth laid by the heels? The matter quite resolved already? Or shall you have recourse to the authorities in London?”
“Don't look so dull and stupid, my dear,” Lizzy murmured in Neddie's ear. “He is enquiring about the Grey woman's murder.”
“I had perceived that much, Lizzy,” Neddie returned, and bowed to Mr. Taylor with careless grace. “You astonish me, Edward. I had hoped that at least you — who care nothing for horseflesh, and never venture farther than your own spring in such heated weather — might have escaped the tide of Race Week gossip. But if even Mr. Taylor is not immune, I must resign myself to being the object of every eye.”
“So that's the way of it, is it?” Mr. Taylor rejoined, not to be deterred. “You intend to tell us nothing?”
“The ways of Justice, like the secrets of the marriage bed, are best enshrouded in silence,” Neddie intoned.
Mr. Taylor merely snorted at this, while Lizzy laid a hand caressingly on my brother's shoulder. “Poor lamb,” she crooned, “you shall be led to the slaughter. I give you a quarter-hour, my dear, at the hands of your dearest friends — and then we shall see how enshrouded your tongue may be. Come along, Jane.”
And so I fled in Lizzy's bewitching train, bobbing and nodding to a multitude on either side, to take up a position just below the musicians, where we might observe the gathering company. I expected my sister Cassandra, and Harriot Bridges, among them; and was impatient to converse at long last with the former.
Lizzy snapped open her ivory fan — a gift from my brother Charles, when Endymion was in the Mediterranean — and began to waft a humid air about our faces. I do not believe there is a lady living who can carry off dark grey silk so becomingly as Lizzy. The new gown — so long expected from her modiste — had been ordered a month previous, during a flying visit to London; and with its cap sleeves, fitted bodice, and extraordinary turban of jet and feathers, it looked admirably suited to the wardrobe of a queen. Lizzy is in the last days of mourning for her eldest sister, Fanny Cage, who departed this life in May; but her dark colouring makes even the dusky shades of grief appear to advantage.
“Good God, it is hot,” she murmured. “Every sensible young lady will be slipping into the garden for a turn in the moonlight before the hour is out. How unfortunate that such a recourse is denied to me. You, however, might avail yourself — having neither a husband to detain you, nor an anxious regard for your reputation.”
“And with whom would you have me take a turn, Lizzy?”
“Anyone might do for a little moonlight,” she said, shrugging carelessly. “It conceals a host of sins, and lends an aura of grandeur to the most common physiognomy. Take my brother, Mr. Bridges, for instance — he can look quite well-made with a little shadow to lend him substance.”
“I understood from your sister Harriot that Mr. Bridges was indisposed. But perhaps it has passed off, if he truly intends the ball this evening.”
“My brother is nothing if not inconstant. He considers it as chief among his charms — being of a turn to mistake an unpardonable weakness for an amiable disposition.”
“You are severe upon him.”
“The Reverend Brook-Edward Bridges is the sort of man I cannot help but despise,” she rejoined sharply. “He believes the world exists to sustain his follies, and ask nothing of him in return. My brother was spoilt as a youth, and age has merely made him indolent. He sponges on my mother and my husband for the relief of his debts, and is foolish enough to believe that he might prevail upon an excellent woman to make his fortune in marriage. Yes, Jane, I am severe upon him — for he has disappointed me these fifteen years at least.”
I smiled, catching at but a part of her diatribe. “And which lady is so fortunate as to deserve the honour of Mr. Bridges's attentions? She cannot possess less than ten thousand pounds, I daresay — tho' as the son of a baronet, he might endeavour to look still higher.”
“Oh, Jane — have you not seen? Have you not understood?” Lizzy was too well-bred to cry out in exasperation, but the murmured words carried a singular vehemence. “My brother intends that either you or Cassandra shall be his bride. If Cassandra's visit to Goodnestone fails of the desired result, you shall be sent for next week, as a second string to his fiddle. It matters not to Edward which of your hearts he engages; it merely suffices to secure one or the other.”