Jane and the Waterloo Map by Stephanie Barron

Author:Stephanie Barron [Barron, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction, dpgroup.org
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-11-05T18:25:16+00:00

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******** Fanny refers obliquely here to her previous encounter with a murderer in Jane and the Canterbury Tale (Bantam, 2011).—Editor’s note.

16

Violet in Spring

Friday, 17 November 1815

23 Hans Place, cont’d.

I have said that Grafton House is a place of misery; but like most sources of suffering, it offers manifold delights to the innocent and unsuspecting. I have been taken in by its blandishments for years. No lady of my acquaintance would think of visiting London without submitting to its temptations; and Fanny, being more than willing to part with her pin-money, was straining at the leash. It was my penance to accompany her there this morning, for having banished her from my interview in the kitchen. She profited from our two-mile walk into Town by interrogating me about the batman, Spence—and having secured Henry’s unwilling complaisance, I felt free to tell her All.

The history was complicated enough to bring us right up to the corner of Grafton and New Bond Streets. Here, the crush of carriages awaiting their mistresses delayed us some moments; the crowd of ladies standing near the entrance of Wilding & Kent, the linen-draper we sought on the Grafton House premises, made it almost impossible to gain the threshold.

“I am excessively glad I persuaded Papa to part with me these few weeks,” Fanny said thoughtfully. “There is nothing to equal your intrigues, Aunt, in a Canterbury neighbourhood. Will you forgive me if I say I am eager to meet Mr. Raphael West? The stile of his father’s painting is outmoded, of course—any creature of taste must prefer the naturalism of a Lawrence—but Mr. West has won your esteem, and must therefore be of interest to all who care for you.”

“Do not be assuming we share any extraordinary degree of friendship,” I said hastily. “He is a very gentleman-like man, and must always treat a lady with deference; but I do not think he cherishes any peculiar regard.”

I said this for myself as much as for Fanny; for indeed, Mr. West occupied too large a share of my thoughts to be entirely safe. It was his eyes I saw in my own mind, when I settled myself for sleep.

“Pish,” Fanny said airily. “He reads your novels. He admits you to his confidence regarding the murder and the map. This is the highest mark of esteem possible—when a gentleman acknowledges the worth of a lady’s understanding.”

I had known one such man before, and lost him. I could not endure the temptation of another. “I believe it was I who admitted West to my confidence, regarding the murder and the map, Fanny.”

“Had my intellect met with half so much respect,” she persisted, “from even one of the young men of my acquaintance, I should have been married long since.”

Being unequal to an answer, I hastened to the opposite paving and Grafton House.

Wilding & Kent is an enormous establishment, even by London standards. For those who are incapable of meeting the extortionate cost of a modish dressmaker (who

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