Mrs. Beaumont’s face twisted.
“And Mr. Hardy was part of this, but he was interested in Miss Seward, not in your husband, which was not the way yourhusband would have wished it. Anyway, Mr. Hardy used this information about your husband against him—”
“You know that Lord Byron is—”
“I do,” said Jane.
“Well,” said Mrs. Beaumont, “so, at least it is true what he said, it is nothing to do with me, simply some flaw within him.”
“Do you love your husband, Mrs. Beaumont?” said Jane.
Mrs. Beaumont let out a funny little laugh and looked away, shaking her head. “Such a question,” she said faintly.
“Well,” said Jane, “let me put it this way. I could report your husband for what he did, and it would drag his name and yours through the mud, and the damage would be visited upon your child, whose parentage might be scrutinized. All of that is very bad. Or… I could, I suppose, insist on something else. Perhaps your husband leaves England. Perhaps he goes elsewhere and leaves you here with your little son and that lovely house where you live, and he doesn’t return to plague you.”
“How would you do that?” said Mrs. Beaumont.
“Is this what you would wish?” said Jane.
“You can’t make something like that happen,” said Mrs. Beaumont.
Jane shrugged. “Say the word, Mrs. Beaumont, and we shall see if I can or not.”
Mrs. Beaumont clasped her hands together. “It’s not that I don’t love him, you understand? It’s that he does not love me. He never has, not in that way. He sees me as… I don’t know… he cares about me, he would protect me, he likes to have me around, and he likes it when other people see me on his arm, but he does not desire me. Do you see? There is some element of it, some element of what love should be between a husband and a wife that is missing. And I don’t know why it is so frustrating. If you had told me, going into it all, that I would be loved but not desired, I would have said it was absolutely acceptable, thatI didn’t need desire. Perhaps it is, you know, perhaps I don’t mind. I like it, I suppose, being desired. When Mr. Eves looked at me… oh, but that was so long ago, and everything is different now, and after a woman grows a babe in her body, it all… all of that… it’s so different. It’s only…” There was a long pause. “For my husband, it matters. He wants to love that way. He wants to love someone and to desire them, and whatever he feels for me, it’s not enough. I think eventually, he will go mad from the feeling of it, that feeling of it not being enough. I think…”
Another long pause.
Eventually, Jane said, “That was not quite an answer, I’m afraid.”
“For his own sake,” said Mrs. Beaumont, “perhaps he would be better off away from me.”
Jane gave her a nod. “I understand perfectly.”
Cassandra, however, did not, so Jane had to explain it to her.
The two left Mrs. Spotts’s home behind, left Mrs. Beaumont to her babe, and began walking to town.
Jane explained her scheme to Cassandra as they walked.
Cassandra listened without interrupting, only now and again breaking in to ask questions when she found she didn’t quite understand one thing or another.
They walked under the boughs of the trees, heavy with blossoms, and the air was warm, even though it had been quite cold enough for the fire the night before.
They walked and eventually Jane finished, and then she waited.
Cassandra nodded to herself, looking down at the ground, saying nothing.
“Well, let me have it,” said Jane. “Tell me how I should not meddle in such things and that we must rather tell the magistrate and that it is not my place and that I ought to mind my own business.”
“No, no,” said Cassandra. “I think it’s clever, actually. Apt. And, well, a bit poetic.” She put her arm around her sister and gave her a brief squeeze. “If I didn’t know better, I should think you a popular novelist.”
Jane snorted.
“I WOULDN’T HAVEthought it of that valet,” Mr. Hardy was saying to Jane, “but I always did get a bit of a feeling from him, like something about him was off. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about, if you ever get that kind of feeling from someone. Certain people, they like to take charge of others, you know.”
“Certain people?” said Jane with a laugh.
They were in the storage room at the tavern that also had a desk set up in it. Mr. Hardy stood in front of the desk, facing Jane as she spoke.
