by Amy Myers
‘But the door was open.’ Dora looked hurt. ‘I only had to push it a little way. I won’t do any harm, will I?’
‘No,’ Peter said, before Tim could answer her.
Dora took this as encouragement. ‘Just look at them, Peter,’ she said innocently. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ She was pointing at the wall to Georgia’s right. Georgia caught her breath as she looked at the three paintings that hung there. There were two charming watercolours, one of a man, and the other of a young woman. Between them was an oil painting of a man in Nelsonian naval uniform in heroic pose against a background of a stormy sea. It was badly in need of cleaning, but it was still striking, although it was the watercolours that held Georgia’s attention. Not, she thought, by the same artist, and yet the two seemed linked, partly through the fact that the young woman was gazing straight across to the companion piece, whose subject was returning the look with great tenderness. Looking at the oil painting carefully, she was almost sure it was the same young man in both.
‘Aren’t they gorgeous?’ Dora trilled at Georgia’s side. ‘This one is Jane herself.’ The young woman was clad in a long white dress with a blue shawl around her shoulders, and she was sitting in a garden, perhaps even Abbot’s Retreat, judging by the cloister and roses around her. She was seated, but the book in her lap lay disregarded as she looked lovingly outwards. ‘It’s painted by her sister Cassandra,’ Dora added.
Jennifer and Tim’s faces were perfectly blank, and neither of them confirmed or denied it. That would only goad Peter onwards, Georgia thought. Sure enough he asked: ‘Who’s the naval captain in the middle, Tim?’
For a moment Georgia thought Tim would not reply, but at last he said, ‘We think it’s a John Opie portrait. It’s of a Captain William Harker, and no, you won’t have heard of him.’
‘The watercolour is also of him,’ Dora added eagerly, ‘and it is by Jane herself. She was talented at drawing – her brother Henry testified to that.’
If this was correct, Georgia knew these watercolours were something remarkable indeed. Virtually nothing remained of Jane Austen’s own artistic work, and there were hardly any drawings or other likenesses of the novelist, only one or two by her sister Cassandra. And here might be a third. If so, it was of major importance.
‘You two lovebirds can tell us much more, I’m sure,’ Dora said archly to Jennifer and Tim. ‘You have the collection here – the room at the rear?’
Tim stiffened. ‘I’m afraid there’s no time for that now.’
‘Just a peep,’ Dora said, inching past him to the door.
This time she had gone too far. ‘No,’ Jennifer said flatly, visibly trembling with either fear or fury. ‘The room is locked, and we have to go. Don’t we, Tim?’
‘Sorry, but yes.’ Tim positioned himself in the entrance hall and in front of the third room, as if daring Dora to try the doorknob.
He and Jennifer then almost bundled the five of them out of the folly – to Georgia’s relief, interesting though the portraits were. Thankfully, once she was outside in the fresh air the nausea began to pass, but as she turned to speak to Tim and Jennifer, she realized they had locked up and were already hurrying along the path back to the house.
THREE
Georgia felt numb as she watched Tim and Jennifer disappearing and was momentarily unable to cope with both Elena and the after-effects of the fingerprints. She tackled the latter first. Dora was chattering avidly to Elena, as though nothing had happened, so Georgia took the opportunity to whisper to Peter: ‘You felt it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too.’
She was not able to say anything more as she could see Elena had her eye on her and her intention was obvious. She would want to find out what was going on: why was Georgia feeling sick? Was she pregnant? No, she wasn’t, and Georgia couldn’t bear the thought of being questioned. It was time to find Luke, and quickly. ‘Will you be OK?’ she asked Peter.
‘You mean OK with Elena?’ he queried drily. ‘Yes, Georgia, I will be. We were married for over twenty years. I can manage an hour or two more of her company.’
‘If it’s only that,’ she replied without thinking. She could have kicked herself, as he looked at her steadily, almost reproachfully.
‘I know there’s something on her mind, Georgia. I suspect she wants to come home.’
Her mouth went dry as the shock bore into her. ‘To Haden Shaw?’
‘To Kent at least. How would you feel about that?’
‘Numb.’
He sighed. ‘Go and find Luke, Georgia.’
He was obviously gently reminding her that she had a partner and that he was a grown man with his own decisions to take. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ she said softly to herself. All this and fingerprints as well. She brightly excused herself to Elena and hurried away back to the mass of people surging around bookstalls, Georgian flower stalls, stalls where one could sign up for everything under the sun.
But there was no Luke to be seen. With lunchtime fast approaching she made her way to the two catering tents. Still feeling somewhat sick, she decided that a cold drink would be a good idea. One tent was offering snacks, advertising Jane Austen’s toasted cheese and other delicacies. The other one went further with a Jane Austen buffet. Both had bars, so she chose the latter. The Jane Austen wines she would leave until Luke appeared, but a barley water seemed a good idea. She remembered too late that Elena used to make her drink it when she was a child, but luckily it still proved comforting, and she found herself a seat near the entrance to watch the crowds go by. By now it seemed normal to see people wandering around in Regency dress – or near equivalent – and she felt more relaxed about her own modest contribution, even though many far more sophisticated outfits were whisking past her.
At last she spotted Luke, looking rather dashing in his outgrown tailcoat. He was not alone, however. To her surprise she could see Luke’s son Mark together with his American wife, Jill, and baby Rosa. They had moved back from the States to a Victorian terraced house in Canterbury in March, three months after Rosa had been born. Georgia got on well with Mark, but Jill was harder to fathom out. After Washington DC she might be having a hard time adjusting to Kentish life, but if so she gave no sign of it, and she had brushed aside Georgia’s well-intentioned efforts to help. Seven-month-old Rosa was a delight, although Georgia was not sure she liked the title step-grandmother – especially as she was still clinging to her own thirties and certainly did not rank as highly in the pecking order as Jill’s own formidable all-singing, all-dancing, infuriatingly capable mother, Pat. The Incomparable Pat had only just flown back to the States after a month’s stay.
Today, Jill could pass for one of Mr Bingley’s haughty sisters, Georgia decided, taking advantage of her as yet unnoticed position to cast a critical eye on her new family. Mark was a younger edition of Luke, Jill was moving as gracefully as if born into the Regency ton, and in her pushchair Rosa seemed to be enjoying her brush with history. For a moment Georgia thought of the child she would never have herself, then firmly disciplined herself. That disappointment was in the past. Think ahead.
‘Hi!’ she called, walking over to join them.
‘Look who I ran into,’ Luke said, obviously delighted. ‘Serendipity, eh?’
In the crush Georgia saw that he was with a larger group than she had realized. There were two youngish men with him – one in his early thirties with black curly hair and lively eyes, who introduced himself as Jake Halliday; the other, who looked a year or two older and much more serious, announced himself as Philip Faring. Neither of them looked as if they were enthusiastic about galas, however.
‘I met Jill in the States,’ Philip explained, ‘and lo and behold she turns up in Canterbury. Luke says that you’ve just been to see Abbot’s Folly. How did it go?’
‘Weird building but interesting. My father and I wanted to see where Robert Luckhurst was killed in 1985.’
Philip looked somewhat surprised, not unnaturally, Georgia s
upposed.
‘My step-ma is part of a crime investigating team, Marsh & Daughter,’ Mark explained. ‘Dad publishes their books.’
The name Philip Faring had run a faint bell in Georgia’s mind, and she realized why. ‘You write literary biographies, don’t you?’ she asked Philip. ‘I’ve read your book on eighteenth-century novelists. Very good.’
He muttered a thank-you, and Jake laughed. ‘Not much good at self-publicity is Philip. He wouldn’t last two minutes in the film world.’
‘Is that your line?’ Georgia asked, then made a mental leap. ‘Is that the reason you’re here?’
‘Our lips are sealed—’
‘Until four o’clock?’ Georgia laughed. The great event was billed on the programme simply as ‘Speech by Mrs Laura Fettis’.
‘You got it.’
‘So let me guess. You’re working on a Jane Austen theme?’
Jake’s glance at Philip confirmed this – and also that they were probably an item in their private lives as well. ‘Ask Tim Wilson,’ he answered lightly.
‘Not the Fettises?’ Georgia was surprised – or was she? Tim seemed to be nicely in control, even if Laura was actually the owner of Stourdens. Jake shrugged. ‘Tim will be in the family soon enough, and he’s got a PR background. He’s getting things moving here to secure Stourdens’ future.’
‘You don’t sound as though that’s a good thing.’ Georgia was curious.
‘On the contrary. It’s a very good thing, isn’t it, Phil?’
‘Yes.’ Philip seemed so tense that Georgia became even more puzzled. Maybe it was just that they did not get on with Tim Wilson. Jake and Philip seemed straightforward enough, but Tim was someone with whom she would not want to fall out.
Philip ostentatiously looked at his watch. ‘Time to see Laura, Jake? Details to discuss,’ he added to them deprecatingly. ‘Sorry, we’d better be off.’
‘Was it something I said?’ Georgia commented ruefully, watching them disappear with haste.
Jill took her seriously. ‘I don’t think so, Georgia,’ she said kindly. ‘Phil gets easily wound up. I’ve known him for years. He was in the States on a temporary assignment, but now he’s back at Sandwich – the University,’ she added in case Georgia had missed the point that Phil was an important academic.
‘Jake and Phil seem remarkably reticent,’ Luke said as Jill and Mark then moved away. ‘Not usually the case with authors and film directors. I wonder if Phil’s hunting for a new publisher?’
‘You always wonder that.’ Georgia laughed. ‘They’re probably not very chatty simply because of this big announcement coming up. Perhaps Phil has a new book on Jane Austen to announce. I’m surprised he hasn’t cashed in on her earlier. She’s been high profile for donkey’s years.’
‘It’s more likely to be the launch of this collection you told me about,’ Luke said. ‘The Fettises might not have had the know-how or the contacts, but Tim Wilson obviously has.’
‘Especially as he’s hooked up to Jennifer Fettis.’
‘Engaged is the more usual word,’ Luke observed. ‘Don’t you take to him?’
‘Pleasant enough, but on a summer’s day at a show like this Jack the Ripper might look an attractive proposition.’
‘How about lunch? Food might make you less critical.’
She laughed. ‘Good idea.’
There was a long queue at the main-course buffet table in the dinner tent. Georgia could see Jennifer Fettis keeping an overall eye on what was going on, but there was no sign of the Fettis party yet. Pity, they were missing something, Georgia thought. Interesting dishes bore tempting labels including pork frigasy, haricot mutton, rolled salmon, stewed cucumbers, salmagundi, hunting pudding and salmon pye. The queue was moving amazingly quickly, considering the mind-boggling choice. Several women were serving, but one was clearly in charge, a rough complexioned, determined-looking woman of about forty-five or fifty, whom she heard addressed as Barbara.
‘Difficult to know what to try,’ Georgia remarked lightly to the woman behind her in the queue. In her sixties, a Regency high-waisted clinging dress should not have been first choice for her short and rather dumpy figure. Her face was a strong one, however, which suggested that clothes were of little importance to her life.
‘Have the potted shrimps,’ she advised Georgia. ‘Jane Austen must have gobbled them up, because the Medway estuary area was famous for its pink and brown shrimps in her time. To coin a phrase, people came from far and wide.’
‘That was before they had to cope with the M25,’ Georgia joked.
‘I managed it today.’
That seemed to end the conversation. Georgia decided on the pork frigasy, Luke chose the haricot mutton and then they attempted to get near the bar for a brave attempt to buy two drinks. Jane Austen’s orange wine was being so strongly pushed by the barman that she didn’t have the heart to choose anything else, while Luke went for Mr Knightley’s spruce beer. The barman was a young chap in his twenties, who – she worked out from the shouts across from the food counter – was called Craig and he was Barbara’s son. The family was doing a good job, Georgia decided, because once she and Luke had found themselves somewhere to sit outside on the grass, the food proved to be as delicious as it looked, and the wine too was worthy of Miss Austen’s name.
Perhaps with the help of the wine, the afternoon seemed to pass quickly, even though the magic hour of four o’clock loomed large in her mind. Nevertheless, she found herself playing an elegant game of shuttlecock with Luke, Mark and Jill, while Elena and Peter looked after Rosa. The men had a distinct advantage, owing to their wearing trousers as opposed to long skirts, but Jill turned out to be a superb player (naturally) and she and Georgia won comfortably. For the first time, Georgia felt at ease with her stepdaughter-in-law, and her hopes grew of welding the four of them into a contented family group – five with Peter, and if the worst happened six with Elena. She pushed that thought away. She couldn’t cope with it yet.
Luke then swept her off into the Sir Roger de Coverley, the only country dance that Georgia knew. She enjoyed stripping the willow – or threading the needle as the Dancing Master termed it – followed by a cotillion, and she realized the day was turning out much better than she could have hoped . . . save, she thought uneasily, for the fingerprints. She had a moment of fear that the nausea would return, but it didn’t, and she fixed her mind on what was going on around her. She noticed the woman who had been behind her in the food queue dancing nimbly with someone whose face, or rather costume, she recognized as the peasant who had bowed to her when they had first arrived.
‘This is a very egalitarian cotillion,’ she joked to Luke. ‘Fancy letting peasants in.’
Joke over, the uneasiness returned as Luke pointed out that it was getting near to four o’clock. She had caught glimpses of Roy, Tim and Jennifer at intervals, but not of Laura. What was she worrying about? she asked herself. The anxiety that she had noticed in the Fettis family or the fingerprints? The latter had no relevance to the future of Stourdens, if that was to be the subject of the speech. They belonged to the past not to the future. She could see microphones and cameras installed on the terrace, and people were beginning to gather there.
She and Luke went over to join Peter and Elena just as the magic hour struck, but if she was expecting a simultaneous dramatic entrance by Laura and her family, she was disappointed. Instead Tim appeared, but went back into the house without making any public statement. Then nothing. As the minutes passed, it became clear that this was not merely a late arrival, and a ripple of restlessness spread through the crowd. Finally, the tall figure of Roy Fettis appeared from the door of the house, but there was no Laura, no Jennifer and no Tim. Just what was going on?
Roy looked confused and ill at ease, and he had to clear his throat several times before he managed to speak. Something was wrong, and the crowd realized it as the level of murmuring rose. At last he said simply, to Georgia’s astonishment, ‘My wife is not well e
nough to speak to you this afternoon. She begs that you will excuse her until a later date.’ With that, before he could be questioned, he almost scuttled back into the house. The silence of surprise was followed by more murmurs and then by raised voices as people began drifting back towards the refreshment tents.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Luke said crossly. ‘What a way to do it. Why on earth couldn’t he read her speech if she’s ill?’
‘Something must have happened.’ Peter frowned. ‘Interesting. How do we find out? The Clackingtons might know, but I can’t see them. Or Philip and Jake. Jill might have heard something. I know it’s nothing to do with Bob Luckhurst’s death, but it’s intriguing, since we know today is all about Jane Austen.’
‘Tea,’ Luke said firmly. ‘The only solution.’
‘Splendid,’ Elena said. ‘Peter?’
‘Why not? Let’s go.’
Georgia demurred. Now that she had stopped dancing, a headache was beginning to rage, and a stuffy tea tent was not the answer. She clutched at the excuse that there was still Abbot’s Retreat to see. She would go nowhere near the folly, but the garden would be safe. No fingerprints there. In the Retreat she could be on her own, away from the Clackingtons, away from Elena – and away from any immediate obligation to talk. Just rest for a while.
Her hopes were dashed. Elena had either overheard her quiet few words of explanation to Luke, or had simply followed her. ‘I’ll come too, darling,’ she said happily as she caught Georgia up.
Georgia’s heart sank. She could hardly say no, although it was all too clear that Elena was aching for a mother-to-daughter chat. Was Georgia up to coping with one? No, especially if the question Elena wanted to ask was whether she was pregnant or not. Or maybe she was wrong. Perhaps Elena wouldn’t be concentrating on Georgia’s life but her own. She would be eager to discuss the matter of her returning to Kent to live.
Georgia braced herself. ‘That would be nice,’ she said.