Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor Read Online Free PDF Page A

part,” the Lieutenant replied, “I take my uncle's happiness as the sole consideration. But others may feel a nearer interest.”
    “I do not pretend to understand you.” I turned my back upon him in the dance and caught Isobel's eye as she made her way along the line.
    “You must be aware, Miss Austen,” said Tom Hearst, “that an elderly man without children of his own may disappoint his family when he goes in pursuit of heirs.”
    “With a father past seventy, I should not call eight-and-forty elderly” I replied, turning again to face him.
    “Oh! To be sure! I spoke but as a matter of form. I do not doubt, however; that my cousin the Viscount”—this, with a glance at Lord Payne, who stood opposite Fanny Delahoussaye in the next couple but one—”may feel such a mixture of emotions more acutely than I. Though Lord Fitzroy Payne appears to rank the Countess as chief among his acquaintance, even he must acknowledge the blow to his fortunes. If my uncle gets an heir, Lord Payne's prospects are decidedly the worse.”
    “Your solicitude for your cousin's purse may disarm reproof,” I told him, “but your uncle's happiness must be said to outweigh more material concerns.” That I wondered at his imparting so much of a personal nature to a complete stranger I need not emphasise; but it hardly dissuaded me from pursuing the conversation further.
    “Oh! Uncle's happiness,” said the Lieutenant, turning his gaze upon Lord Scargrave, who even then was engaged in a bout of laughter as he moved his elegant wife through the figures. “His happiness cannot be doubted. We should all be as fortunate at eight-and-forty. But as we are blessed with only half his years, Miss Austen, let us throw off sober talk and take up other things. Have you been much in Hertfordshire?”
    Recovering his senses, as it seemed, the Lieutenant conversed with great charm until the music ended, and then he bowed low over my gloved hand. After earnestly entreating me to favour him with another dance, and hearing me plead the necessities of fatigue, he took himself off in search of wine punch.
    I gazed after him for an instant, turning over his words in my mind, then shook my head and resolved to think of him no more. Tom Hearst is altogether a scapegrace, a rake, and possibly a dangerous fellow, with his likeable face, his vigourous dancing, and his easy manners; a man who might do with a woman as he liked, having once won her heart.
1. A brief explanation of English titles and modes of address may be helpful to American readers, who lack Jane's easy familiarity with both. Isobel Collins married Frederick Payne, the Earl of Scargrave, and as such became the Countess of Scargrave. She would be addressed as Lady Scargrave, but because she is a commoner by birth, she would never be addressed as Lady Isobel; that would be a courtesy title conferred on the daughter of a peer. The Earl is usually addressed as Lord Scargrave, taking his name from his title, rather than as Lord Payne, his family name, which in this account denotes his heir Fitzroy, Viscount Payne. — Editor's note.
2. In Austen's day, it was a sign of great friendship and mutual esteem to address an acquaintance by his or her first name. This was a privilege usually reserved for the family circle; between unrelated men and women, for example, it generally occurred only after an engagement was formed.— Editor's note.
3. The novel to which Jane refers was initially called Susan. Finished and sold to a publisher for ten pounds in 1803, it had still not been published in 1816 when Jane bought it back from the purchaser. Later retitled Northanger Abbey , it was published posthumously in 1818.— Editor's note.
4. The term living applied to a clergyman's post—his salary and usually his home—which passed from one man to another, often as the gift of a patron who “owned” the living, or, if the clergyman himself had purchased the living, through the sale of the position before