Chapter Nineteen #2
“Why did you not stop then, madam?” Jonathan said.
The expression upon Mrs. Hurst’s countenance made it clear she had never considered such a thing. “It is not enough to be out of debt. I wish to win. Someday I shall win, and get back every penny I have lost to the man and as much again in profit. Until then—why, I must try.”
She is a gamester, Jonathan realized, one of those who cannot ever put down their cards.
This had led to the disgrace of many persons of a higher class than she, and to the ruination of fortunes larger than the one she possessed.
Yet reason would do no good here; rational prudence had no part in Mrs. Hurst’s decisions.
She would always and ever determine it best to play, and no amount of losses would stop her—unless and until she became a bankrupt.
One thing still puzzled him, however. “My uncle does not allow large bets to be placed in his house. He is firmly against gambling such sums.”
“Ah, Charles,” she scoffed. “He is not nearly so much fun as once he was, I must say. Let me add only that Charles cannot sit at every table set up for cards, nor hear everything said at other tables. Mr. Brooks and I have quite a code together by this point, you see, so even if Charles is with us, sometimes we are able to play for real stakes.”
Juliet said, “Did Mr. Hurst know of your debts?”
It took Mrs. Hurst some time to answer. “To some extent. Enough to be displeased. He would be sharp with Mr. Brooks after he won, though Mr. Brooks never took any account of it. Mr. Hurst would sometimes scold those who had lost to me, even were it but a few pounds, because he wished for me to pay Mr. Brooks back very soon. Some night, though, I shall clear the debt in one stroke. How I wish Mr. Hurst could have lived to see it!”
This last bit of sentiment rang false to Jonathan, but he would not challenge it at this time.
“Madam, we know that you have sent secret messages from this house before, even that you have traveled into Meryton early in the morning without informing anyone of your plans. Were these all messages to Mr. Brooks, or is there other correspondence of which you wish to inform us?”
“If there is more,” Juliet added, still gentle, “tell us now, so that all the unpleasantness can end.”
Mrs. Hurst nodded. “He says he will charge me interest. I argue that is not fair. We go back and forth on this matter—on times and methods of payment—I tell you now, that man never tires of speaking of money! Though it is so horribly vulgar.”
She was then released to return to her room, there to retrieve her offended dignity.
Jonathan and Juliet were left alone. He said, “I feel certain she is telling the truth about the debts. Do you think she is also being honest about the correspondence, that it was solely between them and on that topic?”
“I agree with both your certainty and your doubt,” said Juliet. “We have learned at least one more thing of value—Mrs. Hurst and Mr. Brooks were not so intimately connected as we had feared.”
For Aunt Kitty’s sake, Jonathan was glad of this. “How I wish we were not so lost in this…maze of suspicion. Guilt and secrets touch everyone, but surely only one is a murderer. Still we know not what to think.”
Juliet considered this for a moment before saying, “Then let us learn what others think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tomorrow morning, let us question everyone again—but this time, we will ask them only one question: Whom do they believe to be guilty?”
At first, to Jonathan, this seemed a terrible dereliction of duty. Why should they ask others to solve a mystery they themselves had not? Yet only a moment’s consideration persuaded him of the idea’s merit. The guilty person would be among those questioned; the reaction might tell them much.
Juliet suggested that they begin with the two people she and Jonathan both considered to be innocent: the Bingleys.
They went to Mrs. Bingley first, speaking with her in the small room upstairs that she used to speak with her housekeeper and sometimes write letters. “Oh, I could not say,” she replied, “for I am sure I do not know.”
“You must have wondered, Mrs. Bingley,” Juliet said. “It would be impossible not to.”
“Of course I have asked myself this, but—Mrs. Hurst has been an intimate of this house for so many years, and though she and I think differently about so many things, surely she would not stoop so low as murder. Mr. Lofton has always been very congenial, very charming, to my family as well as to others in town, and I cannot think how he would benefit from harm befalling Mr. Hurst or poor Becky. And Mrs. Lofton frightens so easily! I should think she would be terrified by the very prospect of something so horrid. As for the Brookses, why, I do not think they could ever slip into Netherfield without being announced.” Mrs. Bingley paused, no doubt thinking of Mrs. Brooks’s great resentment, but she shook her head.
“There is no one, no one at all, that I can bring myself to believe capable of such wickedness.”
Jonathan said, “You must realize that at least one person here was capable of it, and remains so.”
“I do,” said Aunt Jane, “but still, I cannot believe it.”
—
Mr. Bingley, though generally as good-natured as his wife, proved to have thought more seriously upon the matter than she. “It pains me to say this,” he said in his study, which he had for a few moments reclaimed, “but my thoughts return to Mr. Brooks.”
“Truly?” Jonathan said. “Why so?”
“Of course it would be dreadfully difficult for him to enter the house at odd hours—but if he and Becky had been speaking in some way, to this purpose, she could well have let him in,” Mr. Bingley pointed out.
“But Mr. Hurst had been very difficult with him about some gambling debts involving Mrs. Hurst, very difficult indeed.”
Juliet could tell from his tone of voice that Mr. Bingley had no idea of the scale of the debt involved; he considered Mr. Hurst to have been overreacting.
Instead, the strife had been occasioned by a sum far greater than others had been willing to kill for.
“Do you mean that Mr. Brooks might have been frightened of Mr. Hurst?”
Nodding, Mr. Bingley replied, “Quite possibly. I hate to say it, for Brooks has been Mrs. Bingley’s brother-in-law these many years, but he is a cold sort of fellow.
Practical to a fault. I do not wish to think him capable of murdering a man to protect himself…
but I can think of no one else at Netherfield with even so much motive as that. ”
—
To Juliet’s surprise, Mrs. Hurst appeared more congenially inclined toward the two investigators this morning, talking with them easily over breakfast while no one else happened to be present.
Either she felt safe now, because her only secret had been exposed, or she had more reason to want their good opinion.
“To my mind, it could only be Mrs. Brooks.”
“Why do you think so, ma’am?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, she used poison, didn’t she? All know that poison is a woman’s weapon. And that servant girl—Betsey or Becky or whatever it was—was she not murdered with a sash? Would a man be likely to choose a satin sash to commit a murder?”
Juliet had to admit this was somewhat persuasive. “Why would you think Mrs. Brooks wanted your husband dead?”
Mrs. Hurst shrugged, nonchalant even in the matter of Mr. Hurst’s murder. “Perhaps only to bring scandal to her sister. To somehow shame this house, for she is quite bitter enough for that, let me assure you.”
—
Mr. Lofton they spoke with again in Mr. Bingley’s study. “You must look carefully at Mr. Brooks, I think.”
This was the first time someone had been named twice, but Juliet was determined not to let this sway her. “Why so?”
“He and Mr. Hurst had some manner of strife between them—I thought it a small thing at the time, but I could well have been wrong. As you know, Mr. Hurst drank to excess, often to a stupor. When not stuporous, however, he could become very angry, very belligerent, make entirely irrational decisions.” Mr. Lofton sighed.
“Rarely was Hurst in such a state, but when he was, his behavior could become very unnerving indeed. If he threatened Mr. Brooks in that way, Brooks may have believed he must protect himself—at all costs.”
—
Mrs. Lofton proved the most elusive of those they sought to question.
Despite the autumnal chill and gusty winds, she had chosen to take a turn along the pathways that lined Netherfield Park.
Juliet and Jonathan set out to meet her on the path, Juliet holding on to her bonnet as the wind whipped the edges of her pelisse.
Mrs. Lofton must have seen their approach from quite a distance, and yet she made no move to acknowledge them or hurry their meeting.
When they reached her side, Mrs. Lofton simply inclined her head.
Her gaze remained fixed on the tree limbs lashing the sky overhead and did not lower until Jonathan asked her the fateful question.
“You believe that I know who did this?” Mrs. Lofton said.
“If you knew beyond all certainty, of course you would tell us,” Juliet said, omitting the possibility that Mrs. Lofton could be very certain if she had done it herself. “We only want to know what you think.”
“I find that an outrageous question. It is you two who have undertaken to determine this, not I, and if you have failed at it, you should admit as much.” Mrs. Lofton clutched the side of her bonnet, perhaps to keep her ribbons from lashing her with the wind, perhaps only to keep Juliet and Jonathan from seeing her face.
“I will not be baited into accusation. You will excuse me.” With that, she walked away.
Once Mrs. Lofton was out of earshot, Jonathan said, “Do you think it means much that she has been the only one to refuse to answer?”
“We will not know,” Juliet said, “until we have an answer of our own.”