Jane and the Wandering Eye by Stephanie Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

said my sister Cassandra, reaching hastily for my cup.
    “Tea, rather—for my head
does
ache dreadfully.”
    “Gentlemen of discernment,” my mother continued, warming to her subject, “cannot bear a young lady’s being too familiar with blood. I have always held that a girl should know as little of blood as possible, even if she be mad for hunting. When the fox is killed, it behooves a lady to be busy about her mount, or on the brink of a pretty observation regarding the landscape’s picturesqueness. So I believe, and so our James agrees—and he hunts with the Vyne, 1 you know, and must be treated to refinement in such matters on every occasion. Blood, and torn flesh, may only be termed vulgar. Are not you of my opinion, Mr. Austen? Was it not very bad of Jane to have remained in such a place, once the knives were got out?”
    “Oh, there cannot be two opinions on the subject, my love,” my father replied with a satiric eye. “A knife will always be vulgar, particularly in the drawing-room. The kitchens and the dining-parlour are its proper province; but when it seeks to climb so high as a Duchess’s salon—even a Dowager Duchess’s—we may consider ourselves on the point of revolution.”
    “Dear madam,” I intervened, “be assured that I quitted Laura Place as soon as it was possible to do so. The general flight of guests rendered chairs remarkably scarce, and it was a full hour before Henry could obtain a suitable conveyance—a chaise summoned from his inn—which
would
set Madam Lefroy down in Russell Street before returning to Green Park Buildings. We hastened home as swiftly as our means allowed. Do but pity poor Henry and Eliza, who faced a longer journey still to their rooms at the White Hart, before finding the mercy of their beds. They cannot have arrived before four o’clock.”
    “Well,” my mother said with some asperity, “since the matter is past all repair—the
vulgarity
endured—you might favour us with a report of the affair.”
    “Was Lord Kinsfell truly taken up for murder?” Cassandra enquired. So the papers had printed that much.
    “He was,” I replied sadly, “the knife having fallen from his grasp before an hundred witnesses. The manager of the Theatre Royal, one Richard Portal, lay bleeding at Kinsfell’s feet, all life extinguished. The knife point found his heart. Or so said Dr. Gibbs, who examined the body. He is the Dowager Duchess’s physician, and was present last evening at Her Grace’s invitation, in the guise of a Moor.”
    “But is it likely that the Marquis of Kinsfell would stoop so low as to murder a common actor?” My father was all amazement.
    I sipped at my tea and found that it was grown disappointinglycold. The virtuous Austens had lingered long over the cloth in expectation of my intelligence.
    “Mr. Portal was hardly a common actor, Father. He has had the management of the company since Mrs. Siddons’s day, and has won the respect of all in Bath. It is at Portal’s direction and expense that the new theatre in Beauford Square is being built. 2 Mr. Portal was possessed of high spirits and considerable address—a tolerably handsome gentleman, in the flood tide of life. I may hardly credit the notion of his murder, much less Lord Kinsfell’s guilt; but I must suppose that the magistrate, Mr. Elliot, will very soon find the matter out.”
    “You presume no such thing,” my father retorted testily. “You abhor justices with a passion, as I very well know. ‘They seek only to make a case against some unfortunate innocents, while the true culprit goes free.’ Is not that a quotation, my dear Jane, from one of your very own letters? A letter written from Scargrave Manor?”
    “I will not pretend to an unalloyed admiration for English justice,” I ventured, “but I may, perhaps, have spoken then too warmly. I do not abhor such respectable gentlemen as Sir William Reynolds. 3 Nor may I assume that Mr. Elliot is entirely incapable. Mr. Elliot is