The Highbury Murders
Page 20
“I’m sure her displeasure was alleviated by all the cash,” said Mr. John Knightley coolly.
“Have you been able to retrieve the silver?” was the next question.
Mr. John Knightley assured his brother and his fair sister-in-law that most of the Donwell silver could be retrieved. The proprietor of the shop claimed to be annoyed to learn he had dealt in stolen goods, for Mr. Elton had appeared exceedingly respectable. He was even more irritated to learn that the thief had broken into a household in which the owner was a magistrate and his brother an experienced lawyer. He had set aside most of it, save one or two pieces, which he had already sold to third parties.
“Of course he wants his money back,” said Mr. John Knightley.
And that led to the problem of what to do with Mr. Elton.
“We can’t have a clergyman who steals from people’s houses!” Mr. Knightley proclaimed decisively, while Emma wondered if he had robbed others.
No, such corruption in their vicar was intolerable. “He can hardly preach virtue in his sermons if he is a known thief,” said Mr. John Knightley. “Nor will anyone have confidence inviting him into sickrooms if they believe he is planning to pocket a brooch or a spoon.”
Emma reminded her husband that Mr. Elton had been seen fingering old Mrs. Bates’s golden locket after she died. “The theft at Donwell Abbey was bold – it would make sense if he had attempted smaller thefts earlier.”
The next day the two Mr. Knightleys paid an early visit to the Eltons. Emma could not justify going, of course, and besides she was needed by her child and her father, but both her husband and his brother promised her a full account of what transpired.
They first spoke to just Elton alone. The handsome young vicar turned red, and then white as John Knightley laid out the case, explained he had a witness, and even a copy of the bill of sale of the chest from the shop in question.
“He wants his money back,” said Mr. Knightley. “At which point he will return my silver to me.”
Elton broke down and confessed and threw himself on their mercy. He could not help himself; his crimes were the result of his nagging wife. Augusta – Mrs. Elton – wanted to be first in Highbury. She was irked when she heard of her sister’s patronage of the school in Maple Grove; she became shrill when she saw Mrs. Knightley’s fine clothes and was told of Mr. Woodhouse’s generosity. She conceived of the musical afternoon as a way of establishing herself – she worked very hard to make it a success. But they needed money; they always needed money.
“So is Mrs. Elton involved?” asked Mr. John Knightley.
At this point the vicar hesitated. He obviously did not want to implicate his wife, and Mr. John Knightley was reluctant to press, given that she was a mother with a very young child. Still, more information came out.
“She blames you for everything, Emma,” said Mr. John Knightley.
“How is this possible? How can I be culpable?” asked Emma, because for once she felt no guilt.
“Mrs. Elton is not the most rational of beings,” said Mr. Knightley, “and she dislikes you even more than you dislike her, my dear. Envy is the root of the matter. When you were yet unmarried she could enjoy her position as chaperone with respect to you, but ever since we married she has grown more discontent. From money, to your position in Hartfield, to the fact that you are more lovely and more talented than she: the whole situation, which she had no means to overcome. Even your baby is better than hers.”
“You only say that because he’s your child, too!” said Emma, passing him their son.
“Perhaps I am prejudiced,” Mr. Knightley acknowledged, jiggling the little boy, who laughed in delight. “At any rate, Mrs. Elton’s jealousy fueled her desire to establish herself as the leader among the matrons of Highbury. At first she wanted to increase her income, and so she speculated with some of her capital. Unfortunately she lost several thousand pounds and their means decreased.”
“I had no idea it was so serious.”
“It struck her as quite unfair that you should be the mistress of the two largest houses in the area, while she – and in most ways she considers herself superior to you – has only one. She wanted to punish you. If she could have, she would have made Elton steal valuables from Hartfield, but Donwell Abbey was easier.”
What was to be done with them, became the next point of discussion.
“They are considering emigrating, either to the former colonies in America or down to Australia,” said Mr. John Knightley.
Mr. Knightley said, “Mr. Elton would make a fresh start and Mrs. Elton thinks it would give greater scope to her talents.”
“It seems suitable,” said Emma. “Those places are already full of criminals.”
Mr. John Knightley finished his wine, excused himself and went to bed.
“My dear, what about your talents?” Mr. Knightley asked.
“My talents?” asked Emma. “Certainly my talents have had plenty of exercise lately.”
“Yes, but the dramas are over. The killers have been caught; the locket returned; we may even retrieve the Donwell silver. Mrs. Churchill, the closest you had to an intellectual peer, has departed. Your intimacy with Mrs. Weston has sunk. Even Mrs. Elton, your sparring partner, is planning to leave.”
“Perhaps I will take a greater interest in farming, Mr. Knightley.”
“Perhaps you will – perhaps you only hope you will. But farming does not often require a lot of imagination.”
“You are very kind to be concerned, but it is not necessary. I have my father and you and our son to occupy me, and Jane has promised to correspond. With the crimes committed by the Eltons, Mrs. Weston will no longer feel quite as disgraced, and we will be restored to our former level of intimacy. Perhaps the new vicar – Highbury will need a new vicar – will have a wife worth knowing. And if these things do not amuse me, then I will copy Mrs. Elton, and organize a musical afternoon.”
He caught her hand and raised it to his lips. “You are a treasure, my Emma.”
.
Author’s note
Jane Austen’s Emma has been famously described as a detective novel without a body. I always thought this was a little odd because there was a body – Mrs. Churchill – who died at a most convenient point in the novel. The true murderess was actually Jane Austen, but I always wondered if any of the other characters could have played a role in her death. Frank Churchill was certainly one possibility, but almost too obvious. Who else had a motive? Mr. Weston had disliked Mrs. Churchill for years, and might have realized that she was standing in his son’s way. I also theorized that he might have done something similar with his first wife, Frank’s natural mother, when she died of a lingering illness two decades before.
Here is the inspirational section from Jane Austen’s Emma:
“An express arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill. Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure, of a different nature than anything forboded by her general state, carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more.”
Thirty-six hours would be enough time to kill off someone using a poisonous mushroom, especially the one known as the “death cap,” or more formally as Amanita phalloides, and causes symptoms consistent with those described in Emma. Furthermore, Amanita phalloides is common in Britain and could have easily been gathered by Mr. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill during their visit to Box Hill.
Besides, Emma Woodhouse Knightley, with her tendency to speculate, seems like an ideal detective for a cozy mystery. I apologize to Mr. Weston for blackening his reputation, but as Mr. Knightley once remarked to Mrs. Weston in the original Emma:
“…and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I should have certainly named Miss Taylor.”
“Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to such a man as Mr. Weston.”
“Why, t
o own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from wantonness of comfort, or his son may plague him.”
As some readers may not be that familiar with Emma, or may have not read it in a while, I felt it necessary to review quite a bit of that plot. I did what I could to immerse myself in Jane Austen’s style and the sentiments her characters expressed in her novels and what she herself expressed in letters and other works and paid homage whenever I could to her style and structure. Emma, a romance, opens with the characters reacting to a wedding; The Highbury Murders, a mystery, begins with the characters reacting to a death.
I did my best to extrapolate the characters in a manner consistent with Jane Austen’s original work. Mr. Knightley is independent, a bit of a free-thinker, and aware that their lifestyle does not offer Emma much scope for developing or using her intellect. I suspect that the sweet but dithering Harriet Smith Martin may actually be suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. I gave Jane Fairfax an interest in mathematics – in the eighteenth century, great strides had been made, especially in the understanding of probability – which is consistent with her observation in Emma about the size of the Maple Grove parish. Mrs. Elton is jealous and vain; Frank Churchill is morally weak. And although I may have cruelly blackened Mr. Weston’s character, it was amusing to create a reason for the Churchills having never liked him. This is an homage to Jane Austen’s treatment of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, for Mr. Darcy is also misjudged by nearly everyone in Meryton, simply because they all prefer the company of the far more engaging Mr. Wickham.
Choices with respect to spelling and punctuation were a little awkward. Editions of Jane Austen’s novels are not consistent in their treatments; for example, I have seen “Randall’s” and “Randalls” and many other variations.
Although I owe the best of The Highbury Murders to the genius of Jane Austen, in the end the arrangement and the selection and the flaws are my own.
Victoria Grossack, 2013.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Grossack, besides having devoured all the novels of Jane Austen and greatly enjoying detective stories, is a student of Greek mythology. She is the author, with Alice Underwood, of the Tapestry of Bronze novels:
Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus
Children of Tantalus: Niobe & Pelops
The Road to Thebes: Niobe & Amphion
Arrows of Artemis: Niobe & Chloris
Antigone & Creon: Guardians of Thebes
Victoria is also responsible for the column “Creating Fabulous Fiction” at www.writing-world.com
More about Victoria and her novels can be found at
www.tapestryofbronze.com