Chapter Thirteen
THE CARRIAGE RIDE back was dominated primarily by Cassandra being out of sorts.
“This is all the most sordid thing I think I have ever encountered in my entire life,” she exclaimed as they drove back.
“Is it like this every day with the two of you? One exclamation after another about people doing absolutely untoward things?”
“Well,” said Jane, “we are attempting to solve a murder, dear. It is going to be sordid.”
“Perhaps,” said Cassandra, “but I think you must leave me out of it from now on. I do not wish to know all of these things. I am at my limit with it.”
“All right,” said Byron. “If it does offend your delicate sensibilities so strongly—”
“It should offend yours, Jane,” said Cassandra.
“It does,” said Jane. “I’m just as appalled as anyone.”
“And it’s only more clear than ever that I was right and that Mr. Hardy is the murderer,” said Cassandra.
“No, it isn’t,” said Jane. “That’s not clear at all.”
“He is obviously a liar,” said Cassandra.
“No, if he came to steal the wild carrot, then he was telling the truth,” said Byron. “The only question is why he would have chosen this way to get it.”
“We have to speak to him,” said Jane. “I suggested we go to see him after we went to Farnham, and I think we should.”
“Except,” said Byron, “today is the burial for Miss Seward. He likely won’t be available for us to speak to.”
“Today is the burial?” said Cassandra. “Well, what are we doing? We must be there.”
“I don’t think we must,” said Jane. “Certainly, we are not so close to Miss Seward as to be essential at her graveside.”
“Well, we should have been at the funeral,” said Cassandra.
“Perhaps,” said Jane.
“Did we miss it?” said Byron. “What time is it?” He got out his watch. They had left early that morning, for it was about an hour and a half drive to Farnham. They had packed a luncheon, for they did not know how long they would be. “It’s nearly noon.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t said anything about eating,” said Cassandra. “You strike me, my lord, as someone who is interested in keeping to proper mealtimes.”
Byron put away his watch. “Why would you say that? Do I seem particularly fat to you or something?”
“Oh, heavens,” said Cassandra. “You ate us out of biscuits, that is why.”
“Right,” said Byron. “I have a tendency to eat when I’m nervous.” He scratched the back of his head. “Well, does anyone know when the funeral is?”
“No, because we’ve all been preoccupied with this nonsense between the two of you trying to solve a murder,” said Cassandra. “I think you must cease and desist, really. This is all tawdry, and we think she just drank too much laudanum—”
“Now, you are the one who said you thought someone climbed in her window on that ladder,” said Byron. “Are you taking that back?”
“I’m not sure she didn’t deserve it,” said Cassandra. “If she really was taunting Mr. Hardy, parading around in front of him with other men—”
“Only one man, I think,” said Jane. “And I think it was Beaumont, and I think he knew, and I think it was his idea.”
“What?” said Cassandra.
Jane fixed Byron with a glance. “You tell me, my lord, would Mr. Beaumont have been excited at the idea of another man in the room?”
Byron cleared his throat and his cheeks turned pink.
“That’s what I thought,” said Jane. “Here’s what I think. I don’t think Miss Seward was wild at all. I think that she happened to have sway over a certain James Hardy, and I think Beaumont targeted her specifically for that reason.”
“I’ll ask him,” said Byron.
“What are you on about?” said Cassandra. “I am ever so confused right now.”
“Believe me, you don’t wish to know,” said Jane.
“Even if that’s true,” said Byron, “what does it matter?”
“I think it matters because I don’t think poor Anne deserved it.
I think she was used by Beaumont as a young girl, ruined for his perversities, and then she was left to gather all that up.
She likely wanted that tavern because she felt she couldn’t marry, not if she’d been so ruined and used up,” said Jane.
“And that wasn’t her fault. It was the fault of Beaumont, because men like him think of women like fillies. ”
“All right, now, you’re taking one conversation out of context and giving it much more relevance than I think it should have,” said Byron.
“Fillies?” said Cassandra.
“And besides,” said Byron. “It really has no bearing on who killed her.”
Jane sighed heavily. Perhaps it didn’t.
Sometimes, she simply felt angry, though, angry about all manner of things in the world, and she didn’t know what to do with the anger. She knew that there was simply a natural way of things, and that the problem was her—she was unnatural.
Not as unnatural as Byron and Beaumont, nothing quite so disgusting as that.
But unnatural in the way that she was not satisfied with the sorts of things a woman ought to be satisfied with. She should be pleased to have been a filly, an object, a bauble, some man’s prize. That should be as high as she ever reached.
And yet, she had never much seen the draw to such a thing, not in the end.
She wanted to be more than desirable.
She wanted to be… she didn’t know, not exactly, but she wished she could accomplish something in the same way a man could. She did not wish to be a man, not that, never that. She only wished to matter.
“And it definitely has no bearing on whether or not Farnham would have been using Mrs. Blethens for her supply of wild carrot,” said Byron.
“Is that your theory?” said Cassandra. “Truly?”
“Well, for a man, it would be the easiest way to get it,” said Byron. “If some woman wanted me to procure it, that’s what I’d do. I’d steal it from a different woman.”
“You’re mad,” said Jane. “No, you would not.”
“Yes,” said Byron. “That is exactly what I would do.”
“Well, most men do not have more than one woman that they are… needing to dose with wild carrot seed,” said Jane.
Byron cleared his throat. “I wish that were true, Miss Jane, but I don’t think it is.”
Jane’s lip curled.
“Perhaps amongst a certain class of men,” said Cassandra in a terse voice. “Amongst your lot, my lord, amongst men who have too much money and too much time and nothing meaningful to do with themselves.”
“Look here, I haven’t got too much money,” said Byron.
“You know what I mean,” said Cassandra. “A man like Mr. Hardy is not out there with a vast array of mistresses.” She made a face. “By mistress, I mean—”
“No, I understand,” said Byron. “You mean mistresses of his pleasure.”
Cassandra made a face. “I really do not wish to even think about all of this anymore.”
“Apologies,” said Byron. “And you’re right. He doesn’t seem the type. But, consider the following: if I were, let’s say, close to a woman, and I wished to be close to another woman, I would lie to the second woman about being close to the first.”
“You’re despicable,” said Jane in a tired voice.
“Perhaps,” said Byron. “But let us assume that Mr. Hardy is like me in this regard.”
“You think he and Miss Seward were lovers, but he concealed it from Mrs. Blethens,” said Jane. “Just to get wild carrot?”
“Well, to get the wild carrot seed and to, erm, be close, I suppose, because that would have been no hardship for him. If a woman is willing, no man is going to turn that down.”
Both the Austen sisters gave him withering looks.
He spread his hands. “I’m only telling you the way it is. You don’t have to act as if I am responsible for all of it, now do you?”
“So,” said Jane softly, “if this is the case, then all of that story about being teased and being allowed to watch her with some other man, that would be…”
“A fiction,” said Byron. “Something entirely made up, something to excuse his association with Miss Seward, to explain it away to Mrs. Blethens, but that never happened at all.”
“With all these possible lies, how will we ever see the truth?” said Jane.
“Well, exactly,” said Cassandra. “I think you set the entire business aside and let it be. It’s sordid. It’s impossible. It’s maddening.”
“Sorry,” said Jane to her sister. “We shall speak of something else, then, something more pleasant?”
“Oh, please,” said Cassandra.
IT ENDED UP that they had not missed the funeral after all.
They all went, but Lord Byron did not sit with them. He sat in a pew with Mr. Beaumont, who was there alone, since his wife was not up and moving yet and the babe was far too young to be brought to the church.
Jane, Cassandra, and their mother sat in a pew together, and they noted that Edward was not there, but perhaps he hadn’t heard about the tavern owner’s death, or perhaps they had not thought his association to her close enough to warrant attendance.
It was true that this might have been something that Edward’s late wife Elizabeth might have overseen, but she had died four years back in childbirth, and Edward had not remarried.
After the funeral, they did not all go out to the graveside. Mrs. Austen would have liked them all to go home, but Jane found herself taken aside by Byron, who told her that he had spoken to Beaumont.
“Your theory, as it happens, is accurate,” said Byron.
“Which theory?” said Jane.
“The theory of Beaumont and Hardy,” said Byron.
“Well, Hardy had no interest in return, as it happens. But, yes, it was exactly as you say. Beaumont convinced her to bring Hardy into the business, and then eventually, Beaumont may have made advances towards Hardy. I can tell you that he was forward at that age. I met him when we were but sixteen, I should say. He was fearless. He went after what he wanted.”
They were standing outside the church now, and Jane felt as if they shouldn’t be discussing this so close to holy ground. She was curious, however, so she did not stop him. “And what he wanted was… other men.”
“It’s perfectly natural,” said Byron with a shrug. “You’ve seen male dogs go at each other, undoubtedly.”