Jane tried not to yawn, but yawns were contagious, and so she found herself yawning as well.
“Time soon for bed, I should think,” said Cassandra.
“Indeed,” said Jane, sighing. She gazed into the fire. “It is only, what was all of it for, if we’re not going to do anything about it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE NEXT DAY, there was quite a hubbub amongst the servants. After luncheon, Jane called Nellie in to speak to them about it, and Nellie said that all she knew was that a valet from Cannar Hall had been taken away by the magistrate and others for the murder of Miss Seward.
Oh,thought Jane,so this is his plan.
“The magistrate came here today?” said Cassandra. “How did that occur?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” said Nellie. “I just know they came and demanded that the man be brought out and then they took him away. He is to stand trial, as I understand.”
Mrs. Austen spoke up. “But Jane, I thought you were the one who was going to find out who had murdered that poor woman.”
“Yes,” said Jane, “well, I did find out, and it was the way it always is amongst men of that class. They weren’t willing to take the blame, so they cast it elsewhere.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Austen, “are you saying that this valet isn’t the murderer after all?”
Jane shrugged. “I think the valet deserves it.”
“What does that mean?” said Mrs. Austen.
How had Byron done it? Jane wondered. How had he spun it? What tale had he told? And what was to be doneabout Beaumont, who shouldn’t get away with this without any consequence?
But she was angry with Lord Byron, and she wasn’t going to seek him out and ask her questions.
And as for Mr. Beaumont, she supposed he would have absolutely no consequences, none at all.
The worst of it was the ruin of the life of poor Anne Seward, who had been ruined by Mr. Beaumont as an adolescent girl, and not even because he took pleasure in her, but because he wished to used her to get other bodies close to him, bodies that did give him pleasure. She’d been used and discarded in all of it, and what was left of her?
No marriage for her. No children.
Men like Mr. Hardy in love with her, but really dependent upon her, and doing evil like blackmail in her name and other men like Mr. Crampton using her worse, and then…
Accidental death from a dose not even meant for her.
That was a tragic sort of life, if Jane did say so herself.
It was awful, and it was purposeless.
If this was a novel,thought Jane,I should make her wicked. If she had been wicked, abominably wicked, it would not be so bad that she was dead.
Yes, it was as Cassandra had said, it was better if there was a reason for bad things to have happened, if all badness was a punishment against some sin in the past. Perhaps God provided that service for humans, gave everything a meaning and a purpose, and if so, such things were necessary and must be preserved.
It was only that it was so dreadfully difficult in one’s own life to figure out the meaning and the purpose.
Now, now,she scolded herself.Not again. We have been through this before. There is nothing so terribly awful about your own life.
No, not truly.
Well.
She and Miss Anne Seward were both unmarriageable and had no children of their own. Jane didn’t know if she really missed the tangible aspects of that sort of life or not. She did. Of course, she must. She must miss the idea of a man who looked at her with fondness, who put his arm around her when they were alone, the kiss of whiskered lips. She must miss the warm, soft heft of a babe in her arms, the cry of a child saying mama, the laughter of a nursery full of one’s growing children.
But she also felt, deep down, a sort of wrongness that was separate from those tangible aspects.
