Free Jane and His Lordship's Legacy by Stephanie Barron Page A

so mad for blood. It is unnatural in a woman. But she will not understand me. She will not listen to reason. I am sure, Mr. Prowting, that you suffer similar trials yourself—being the father of daughters.”
    “An
inquest
cannot be the proper place for a lady,” Mr. Prowting said doubtfully.
    “In the present case, sir,” I replied with dignity, “I believe attendance to be my duty. The man was found in this house; and surely we must learn the truth, at all costs, of how he came here.”
    The magistrate looked for aid to his daughter; but such a recourse must be useless. Catherine Prowting was pale as death, her hand gripping the back of my mother’s chair; and in an instant she had slipped to the floor insensible.
             
    W E PREVAILED UPON M R. P ROWTING TO LEAVE HIS daughter a little while in our care, and Catherine appeared—when consciousness was regained—not averse to the suggestion. We laid her upon the sopha in the sitting room, and my mother went in search of vinegar-water, while the magistrate patted her hand in loving awkwardness.
    “You will never be as strong as your sisters,” he told her fondly. “It is the head-ache, I suppose?”
    “Yes, Papa,” she said tearfully.
    “Well, well—rest a little in Miss Austen’s care, and then return to your mother. But do not be alarming her with talk of an
indisposition.
You know what her nerves are.”
    “Yes, Papa.”
    I saw the magistrate to the door and closed it quietly, so as not to disturb my suffering neighbour; and indeed, tho’ returned to her senses, Catherine looked very ill. Had it been the talk of blood and corpses that had unnerved her so?
    “I understand you will be dining at the Great House tomorrow,” she managed as I dipped a cloth into the vinegar-water my mother had provided, and prepared to bathe her temples. “We are all to go as well, and my sister is devoting the better part of the morning to new-dressing her hair.”
    “At your sister’s age—a period of high spirits, charm, and natural bloom—one’s appearance is of consuming interest,” I observed.
    “Perhaps. There are four years’ difference in age between myself and Ann—she is but two-and-twenty; but I confess I have never wasted a tenth part of the hours that Ann believes necessary to the perfection of her toilette. Of course, I have not her beauty; but is it not remarkable, Miss Austen, that the more beauty one possesses, the more one is required to nurture and support it?”
    “A tedious business,” I agreed with a laugh, “that must make the disappearance of all bloom a blessing rather than a pity!—As I have reason to know.”
    “But you are charming,” Catherine protested.
    “I am in my thirty-fourth year, my dear, and must put charm aside at last.”
    “I have lived the better part of my life with Ann’s beauty and foibles as though they were quite another member of the family. There is more than enough of
them
to supply two women, I assure you—and when such a prospect as dinner at the Great House is in view, and in the company of a Bond Street Beau, there is hardly room for us both at Prowtings!”
    This was bitterness, indeed, let slip so readily to a virtual stranger; but not all sisters are happy in possessing that perfect understanding and cordiality that have always obtained between Cassandra and me. I gazed at Catherine—at the sweetness of expression in her mild dark eyes, and the nut-brown indifference of her hair; and understood that a lifetime of denial and self-effacement had been hers: supported almost unconsciously by the fond indulgence of parents whose collusion in their youngest daughter’s vanity, though perhaps at first unwitting, was now become the sole method of managing her.
    “That is enough vinegar,” Catherine said abruptly. “I am very well now, I thank you—indeed, I cannot understand how I should have come to be overpowered in the first place. It is so very silly—”
    “We were too frank in our