“My dear Miss Sharpe,” I said, “you must allow me to assist you with the backboards and the instruction books. Surely you cannot expect to manage all this alone!”
The schoolroom is a sparsely-furnished, whitewashed, sloping-roofed apartment tucked into a dormer of the great house. A shelf of stout books was ranged under one window; several samplers lay cast aside on a little stool, and a paint-box — probably Fanny's — sat forgotten on a table. A rage for transparencies several years back had left the windowpanes dotted with a scene or two, and a similar passion for silhouette-drawing had made of the walls an indifferent family portrait gallery — but otherwise the space can have few charms, particularly for one of Anne Sharpe's native elegance. Its windows too small and warped to permit of much air, and its grate insufficient for the extent of the space, the schoolroom is perishingly hot in summer and draughty in winter. Such healthful conditions, I believe, are considered necessary to the rearing of children — who must not be coddled in their formative years, or encouraged in the practise of luxury. I should never charge Neddie or Lizzy with a want of interest in their children's welfare — the number of persons consigned to the little ones' care is testament to their parents' liberality — but I might regard them as suffering from a certain lack of imagination. They rear their children as they themselves were raised — or, perhaps I should say, as Lizzy was raised. Her childhood was a progression from nursemaid to governess and thence to a fashionable school in Town — a period spent almost entirely in the upper floors of Goodnestone Farm. A child of privilege might live the better part of its life in a warren of nursery rooms, sleeping, playing, learning, and dining, all without descending the stairs! Thus are the scions of a baronet raised, in a world quite removed from their parents.
Neddie's case, until he came to Godmersham in his sixteenth year, was very different, indeed — for tho' in our infancy my mother put us all out to nurse with a woman in the village, our childish days were spent in a splendid hurly-burly of crowded rooms and shared beds.
When I gaze at these attics, I cannot help but think that a sensitive little soul might shrink under their influence, as a delicate plant will wither in a gale. How much more might be accomplished, for the enlargement of a young mind, in an atmosphere of cheerful contentment!
“Indeed,” objected Anne Sharpe, “you are too solicitous, Miss Austen. I am sure to manage these few things very well alone, and must beg you to turn your energies where they might be of greater use. Pray offer your assistance to Mrs. Austen, who must greatly require it, and allow me to order my province.” And then, with a little hesitation— “It is hardly of such moment, you know, if a few primers fall in the hands of the French.”
“I only thought that you might be feeling unwell,” I returned, “and might require a partner in your endeavour. I suffer myself from the head-ache on occasion, and must pity any of its victims.”
Miss Sharpe blushed, and turned away. “I am quite recovered, I thank you. The necessity of quitting this place has entirely revived me. I cannot be low when so much of an urgent nature is toward. And we shall be leaving quite soon! I should not like Mr. Austen to find me behindhand in my work, when the moment for departing Kent is upon us.”
I regarded her curiously. There was a slight feverishness to her looks — a hectic tumble to her words — that seemed at variance with their sense. She spoke of duty, to be sure — she expressed herself as under an obligation that might not be deferred — but from her aspect it almost seemed that she was wild to be free of Kent. Were the associations of this place, then, entirely unhappy?
“Mr. Austen believes, Miss Sharpe, that we may exert ourselves to litde purpose.” I eased onto a child's wooden bench, a sampler furled in my hands. “It is by no means certain that Buonaparte is to invade; indeed, the merest rumour appears to have animated the General's anxiety. My brother has given no orders for the children's removal.”
“I do not understand,” she faltered. “We are not to be evacuated, then? We are not to leave for London in a few days' time?”
“As to that — I cannot say. I am sadly denied a full knowledge of the officers' intentions. We must abide by their instructions, of course — pack up our belongings and make ready to flee, in the event that all our calculations are hollow.” I smiled at her encouragingly. “Were it not the sort of conduct unbecoming to a lady, Miss Sharpe, I should suggest we lay a little wager. For who knows what will be the outcome? It is ever the way when Buonaparte has the ordering of events. The best-laid plans are torn all asunder.”
“So it seems,” she replied unsteadily. “So it has always proved, in my unhappy life.”
“Miss Sharpe—”
“Pray leave me, Miss Austen, to attend to this chaos. I am sure you have trunks enough of your own to fill.”
It was undoubtedly a dismissal, and one that brooked no refusal. I left the governess, her countenance grown agitated and pale, to the business of the backboards and books; and wondered very much as to the cause of her distress. Nothing so simple as a disgust for Mrs. Grey's murder could account for it. But I was hardly on such terms of intimacy as to invite Anne Sharpe's confidence. She moved presently in deeper waters, and must breast the current alone.
“AND SO YOU HAVE SEEN MR. GREY,” HENRY SAID GAILY, when the footmen had served the first course of dinner and retired to the kitchen passage.
“And he has seen me,” Neddie replied. “A less satisfactory meeting between two men of interest to one another, I cannot conceive. But come, brother — you have been cognizant of his banking practise some few years. What is your opinion of Grey?”
Henry shrugged. “I have formed none, Neddie. I cannot claim to be intimate with the man.”
“Intimate! I do not know of anyone who is — excepting, perhaps, Captain Woodford, who I believe has known Grey from a boy.”
“Grey is not the sort to encourage intimacy,” Henry said thoughtfully. “He is of a taciturn, unbending disposition, and keeps his own counsel.”
“But what is his reputation in Town?”
“He is a member of White's, of course. I should imagine that is where the groom found him last evening.” Henry set down his fork and tasted his wine. “Or rather, he may often be seen among its clubmen, but whether any of them are likely to call Grey friend, I cannot say. Perhaps George Canning—”
“Canning? The Treasurer of the Navy?”
“The very same. He is a very deep file, George Canning, and quite in the confidence of Mr. Pitt. He is also a passionate gardener — and it is this that endears him to Valentine Grey. I suppose you have heard of Grey's interest in exotic plants?”[20]
“I have heard very little of Mr. Grey,” Neddie replied grimly, “and I now comprehend how unfortunate such ignorance must be, in the present circumstance. I begin to think I have led too retiring a life.”
“But what of his character, Henry?” I pressed. “You have painted a very dry portrait, indeed! It is nothing like the quixotic fellow our brother encountered this morning!”
Henry studied me with interest. “Quixotic? I should say rather that Grey is calculating and shrewd. He is of a resentful disposition, and possessing considerable powers of intellect and energy himself, despises those of his fellows whose talents are inferior.”
“His good opinion, once lost, is lost forever,” Lizzy remarked from her end of the table.
Henry smiled at her. “Grey prizes loyalty and honour above all else. Such traits must serve him well in matters of business; but where ties of a more personal nature are concerned, I should imagine they would prove difficult to bear.”
20
George Canning (1770–1827) served as Undersecretary of State in 1796, and as Treasurer of the Navy from 1804–1806. As such, he had virtually no authority over naval organization or policy, which was administered by the First Lord of the Admiralty, but he was responsible for matters of naval finance in Parliament. This included the salaries of naval captains, the naval budget, and the disposition of the Secret Funds — monies set aside for the purpose of espionage, and unaccountable to Parliament. —