“Little wonder, then, that his wife could not love him,” I murmured.
“They do seem an ill-matched pair,” Henry conceded, “but they are not the first to find themselves tethered for life in an unequal harness.”
“Mr. Grey spends the better part of his time in London, I believe. Does his trade prevent him from moving in the first circles? Or has it proved a sort of entree? What are his pursuits? His interests and ambitions?”
Henry was engrossed in the consumption of a quantity of buttered prawns. “I should hardly call Grey's sort of banking a trade, Jane. He inherited a vast concern second only to Hope's, unlike your jumped-up scrivener of a brother. “[21]
“Surely you exaggerate,” Neddie broke in.
“The fate of England sometimes hangs upon Grey's influence, brother.” An unwonted expression of seriousness had suffused Henry's countenance. “He has any number of the Great quite comfortably in his pocket, and may move among them as an equal. Grey is the sort of man who might go anywhere, and meet anybody— but to my knowledge the Fashionable World commands none of his respect. He is the ornament of no particular set, tho' many would claim him. He is much in the affection of Mr. Pitt, but spurns the Tories as liberally as he does the Whigs; he was once spoken of as a likely advisor to the Treasury, but disdains the connivance of public office. And with the Prince, thank God, he will have nothing to do.”[22]
Mr. Grey sounded remarkably like another gentleman in my acquaintance, Lord Harold Trowbridge — and I wondered, for a moment, whether the two were acquainted. Knowing a little of their characters, it was impossible for me to consider either man the friend of the other. Such subtle calculation as animated the spirit and understanding of each, did not easily lend itself to intimacy. They should rather be allies, or foes.
But then I checked my fanciful portrait of Grey before it was half-formed. In ignorance of one gentleman's character, I employed another's as pattern — and did grievous harm, no doubt, to the merits of both.
“If the mastery of neither politics nor Society is Mr. Grey's object,” Neddie persisted, “to what, then, may we ascribe his ambition?”
Henry shook his head. “Therein lies the chief of the man's power. He is a mystery to all but himself.”
I sipped Neddie's excellent claret, and allowed my thoughts to wander among the tantalising shades of Henry's conversation. The blustering vagaries of Valentine Grey — his insistence that his wife was chaste — his urgency in proving himself a man bereaved, and yet the absence of feeling behind his words — all rose in my mind with the force of argument: disputed, confused, uncertain as to issue.
“And his wife, Henry — the wife he appears to have banished to Kent,” I said. “Was Francoise Grey merely an impediment?”
“The lady was certainly a pawn, I believe, when she was affianced to Valentine Grey — it was a marriage of houses rather than hearts. It is indisputable that Grey owes to his late wife a considerable part of his present resources. The Penfleur family may command the fortunes of a continent, and in marrying Francoise, Grey acceded a little to their power.”
“And placed himself under the thumb of an empire,” I observed.
Henry's eyebrows shot skywards, and he pushed away his plate. “I should never describe Grey as under anyone's thumb.”
“Then you fail to consider clearly of the matter,” I retorted. “Such a material bargain is never struck, without it is of benefit to both parties. The Penfleur family would be unlikely to part with their ward — and all the weight of their influence — for the paltry return of an estate in Kent. We must assume that Mr. Grey was to further the Penfleur interests in England.”
“A delicate business, in time of war,” Henry said.
“Perhaps he tired of his obligations,” Neddie suggested, “and thought to be rid of them with his wife.”
“But why throw the blame upon Denys Collingforth?” I objected. “Why should a man so wholly unconnected with Grey's concerns, be made to suffer for his infamy— if, indeed, he did away with his wife?”
“Perhaps because Collingforth is in no position to defend himself,” Henry said wryly. “The man is entirely to pieces, and all of Canterbury knows it. Not a tradesman for miles has been paid by the fellow in months, and they say his pockets are to let to a host of creditors in Town.”
“As bad as all that?” Lizzy murmured. “How very shocking, to be sure, to number such folk among one's acquaintance! Were Collingforth possessed of a tide, or a position of some consequence, he might weather the storm with becoming grace; but as he is of a vulgar turn, and his wife little better, there is nothing to be done for them.”
“They tell me in the Hound and Tooth that the man has run through all his wife's money, placed a mortgage on Prior's Farm, and faces certain ruin, now that Mrs. Grey is dead.”
“Was she so much his protectress?” Neddie enquired sharply.
“As to that, I cannot say — but Collingforth's creditors might have allowed him a little more room, but for the fear of a murder charge. They are presently besieging Prior's Farm, and the bailiffs cannot be far behind.” Henry hesitated, toying a little with his wineglass, then continued apologetically, “There are those who would say, brother, that you should better have clapped Col-lingforth in irons when you could. Circumstanced as he is, there is very little else for the man to contemplate than flight to the Continent. Indeed, some are asserting that he has already effected it.”
“The Devil he has!” Neddie cried, and at Lizzy's faint moue of disapproval, added, “My dear, a thousand pardons. Brother, who would have it that Collingforth is fled?”
Henry shrugged. “Everyone and no one. The intimates of the Hound and Tooth, you understand, are most liberal with their words and chary of their proofs. I only repeat what is commonly held. I must leave you to sort out the business.”
Neddie threw down his napkin, pushed back his chair, and commenced to pace the length of the dining-parlour. Lizzy sat even more upright in her chair, and regarded him with the liquid green gaze of a cat.
“It is too bad of you, Henry,” she whispered in an aside. “You have quite put him off his turbot. I will not have the mutton spoilt.”
“Tell me what you know of Collingforth's black-coated friend,” Neddie commanded. “The inscrutable Mr. Everett.”
“Ah!” Henry cried, and his countenance lightened. “There you have hit upon a malignant fellow, indeed! Everett had not been in Canterbury a day before it was generally circulated, that he is an arranger of prizefights — which, tho' quite beyond the pale of the law, are much patronised by the Quality. Everett represents the interests of a champion, a bruising mulatto by the name of Delacroix, who hails from Martinique.”
“But what can such a man have to do with Denys Collingforth?” I enquired.
“Collingforth has a passion for boxing, as he does for every game of sport, and has lost a fortune in betting around the ring. Men like Everett may always be found in the neighbourhood of such an one; for a susceptibility to the sport enslaves the purse as well as the man.”
“But there was no prize-fight at the Canterbury Races,” Neddie objected. He had ceased to pace, and now sank back into his chair. “Some other purpose must have drawn Everett hither.”
“I believe he was forced to quit his lodgings in Town for a while,” Henry replied. “A matter of some delicacy, only vaguely understood by the regulars at the Hound and Tooth. I surmised a brush with the law, and a desire to lie low; a sudden inspiration as to his friend Collingforth, and a hasty descent into Kent. I should not be surprised if an arranger of prize-fights was hardly ignorant of the coarser pursuits of his company — the fixing of cards and games of chance, and the ruin of innocent young men in gaming hells. I have seen an hundred Everetts in my time, and may now discern the type.”
21
The House of Hope was the powerful and influential Scots banking concern based in Amsterdam. Hope financed, among other things, Napoleon Bonaparte's government and campaigns. —
22
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) was in his last months of life in August 1805. As minister of the Treasury, he was also prime minister of England. A brilliant, lonely, and calculating political genius, he was the foremost Tory of his generation and a lifelong adversary of the Prince of Wales. He was also an alcoholic, and his liver failed when he was forty-seven. He was carried, dying, from the House of Commons in December 1805, and died early in 1806. —