-------    " I would rather spend an hour among the notorious than two minutes with the dull."  To Jane Austin's surprise,   her visit to the snowy Hertfordshire estate of the young and beautiful Isobel Payne, Countess  Of Scargrave, will be far from dull. She has scarcely arrived when the Earl--a gentleman of mature years-- is felled by a mysterious ailment too agonizing and violent to credit to a fondness for claret and pudding. Scargrave's death seems a cruel blow of fate for Isobel, married but three months.