Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [69]
I say nothing of my own credence in the plot outlined above. To be frank, I know not what to think. An unhappy choice is before me: to find the Countess's and her lover's earnest avowals of innocence to spring from the grossest duplicity, and my own faith in Isobel to be founded upon sand; or to accuse others, equally intimate to the household, of adding to the sin of murder that of entangling the innocent in a deadly web of suspicion. Neither is to be preferred, for both are based upon die worst in human nature; and though I have learned to laugh at such—to look for it among my acquaintance and mock it in my writing—when met with evil in its truest form, I find that even I cannot dismiss it with worldly detachment. The maid was too dead, and too anguished in her dying, to permit of it; any more than the ravaged face and painful final hours of the late Earl should counsel mercy to his assassin.
Later that afternoon
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“MY DEAR COUNTESS,” TOM HEARST SAID EARNESTLY TO Isobel, “may I suggest you ride with George and me, and Miss Austen if she will, and leave the Scargrave coach for another day.”
“But Percy has brought the horses round, Tom,” Isobel protested, with a gesture for the Scargrave coachman.
The Lieutenant appeared to hesitate, and cast a glance at Fitzroy Payne.
“I believe my cousin fears for your safety, Countess,” that gentleman said quietly. “The townsfolk's mood is grown ugly since the publication of the maid's letter, and her brutal death.”
Isobel's beautiful eyes were shadowed as she studied the Earl's countenance. With a tremor in her voice, she enquired, “You share Tom's fears, Fitzroy?”
“I am afraid, my dear Isobel, that many would relish the chance our public parade affords them. My late uncle was neither so lenient in his management of accounts, nor so indulgent in his stewardship of his tenants, as to win their gratitude and affection. As his heir, I have inherited the malice they bore him.”
“There was even talk of stoning the coach,” Lieutenant Hearst said apologetically, “the maid having been a favourite among the bloods at the Cock and Bull. Indeed, Sir William advised that any equipage bearing the Scargrave crest should be left in the carriage house today. It is he who apprised me of the danger. Our chariot, as you know, is painted a simple black, and could not hope to draw the attention that Percy and his four matched greys should do.”
“Very well,” Isobel said, her voice choked. “I shall submit to hiding and deceit, though both are alien to my nature. And I shall leave for London as soon as the inquest is closed, the better to escape this horrid place.”
And so we were handed in to the Hearsts’ equipage, while the Delahoussayes and the new Earl sought Sir William's chariot; and though a crowd was gathered at the publican's door, we pulled up in the rear of the building, and entered it unscathed.
THE CORONER, MR. BOTT, HAD ASSEMBLED HIS JURY IN THE largest space the Cock and Bull could boast. It was the main tavern-room, redolent of the smoked hams that hung from its rafters and the yeasty aftermath of spilt been The floor had been scrubbed for the occasion, and all but one of the tables rolled into an anteroom; behind the last, the twelve men were ranged in an awkward rank upon rank—small holders in their Sunday best, unable to meet Isobel's eyes when she entered on the arm of Lieutenant Hearst; the master of the pub himself, his large wattle tucked into a collar several sizes too small; the local apothecary, Mr. Smollet, red of face and stern of expression; and Squire Fulsome, from Long Farm, resplendent in a red silk waistcoat (a Christmas present from his little Judy), whom Bott had appointed foreman.
Facing this hodge-podge assembly were rows of chairs, posed as for an Evangelical revival,2 the majority of them firmly held by the good folk of the village. At our appearance a few moments before the appointed hour of one o'clock, only the row designated for the Scargrave family remained at liberty; and I felt myself quail when the mass of heads turned as if with one force,