Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (22 page)

Chapter 22

The Figure in the Night

9 July 1809, cont.
~

I
RELATED NOTHING OF ALL
I
HAD LEARNED AMONG THE
cottage circle tonight, but allowed my sister to talk of the beauties of the surrounding country—in which she had walked a little with the dog Link, so that he might become acquainted with his neighbourhood. “It is full of dells and hills, Jane—a rolling, varied country quite unlike the flat monotony of Steventon in which we were raised—” I listened to a letter from Fanny, which had followed Cassandra on her journey from Kent, the post having no concern for the delays imposed by broken axle-trees and the ostlers at Brompton’s Bell. And I was made privy to all the minute concerns of Edward’s household, which Neddie should never bother relating and which Cassandra has not yet learned to give up: how the four youngest children—Charles, Louisa, Cassandra-Jane, and Brook-John—are as yet in the charge of Susannah Sackree, the beloved Caky of the nursery-wing, while the elder girls—Lizzy and Marianne—are
not
to be sent away again to school, Marianne having most bitterly despised her exile from the rest of the family. The two eldest boys, Edward and George, are to return to Winchester in the autumn term, and then Fanny may well obtain some peace and quiet—a governess being to be hired for Lizzy and Marianne, a tutor for young Henry and William. Of the tutor in particular Cassandra had great hopes: he was a nephew of the Duke of Dorset, only lately having quitted Cambridge, and intended for the Church. She only hoped he should
not
fall in love with Fanny, as she is barely
out—
as such things may be determined in Kentish society. There could be no question of a real London Season for Fanny; Edward’s spirits were not up to the hiring of a house in Town.

“Good God,” I murmured. “And to think that poor Fanny is expected to manage all this! I wonder she could consent to part with you, Cass—despite the allurements of our six bedchambers and numerous outbuildings. Shall you miss Kent exceedingly?”

She flushed pink, and returned some small nothing regarding the insignificance of her own contribution, and the worth of Fanny’s talents. I recalled to mind a picture of Godmersham as I had myself left it only a short while ago—the elegance of its apartments, the plasterwork above the mantel in the entry hall, the marble floors, the pleasing aspect of the high downs behind the house. In the environs of Canterbury one meets with only the most liberal-minded and cultivated of friends; no Ann Prowtings or Miss Benns for Cassandra’s edification. Kent is the only place for happiness, after all; everybody is rich there, and my brother’s household not excepted. I must endeavour to remember that Cassandra’s spirits might be a trifle low in coming months, until she has grown accustomed once more to the simplicity of our arrangements.

My mother announced over our Sunday meal of buttered prawns and cold beef that she had quite given up her scheme of retrieving the Rubies of Chandernagar. Mr. Thrace’s guilt she had taken to heart, and regarded it as a sure sign of duplicity in everything the man had said; for how else must she account for the failure of her searches? Mr. Papillon’s sermon on the evils of avarice had proved no less salutary. She should not like the Companion of My Future Life—for so she persisted in regarding poor Mr. Papillon—to believe his prospective mother-in-law a hardened sinner. Then, too, she had happened to catch Sally Mitchell laughing with the baker’s boy about the eccentric habits of her mistress, and was
most
discomfited to find that she had broken three fingernails in digging.

We left her after dinner to all the pleasures of a hot bath in the washroom, and sat down to compose a few letters: Cassandra to Fanny, and I recounting what I could of Chawton events to my friend Martha Lloyd.

Thoughts of Charles Spence, however, could not help but intrude. I might sit by the Pembroke table, in the soft air of evening, and attempt to write in compact lines of the people we had met, and the alterations we had effected in the cottage; but the Major’s dark eyes
must
sketch themselves on the sheet of paper. His serious, earnest gaze—the dreadful pallor of his looks at Lady Imogen’s death—the fury of the man, as Thrace escaped—all must clamour for my attention. I had wondered before if Spence’s honour might be suborned by a woman of Lady Imogen’s power—if her bewitching charm and his desire for her affection might compel him to all manner of actions he should never undertake alone. I was now certain that they had. Charles Spence could find no peculiar interest in Lord Harold Trowbridge’s papers, absent the interest of the woman he loved. Lady Imogen had bent him to her purpose—cajoled him, as a steward well-acquainted with the labouring class—to secure a pair of ruffians who might force their way into my house.

Had they also, I wondered, forced their way into Henry’s bank nearly a week ago?

Had the plan to find Lord Harold’s bequest been in train long before my arrival in Chawton? It was certain that Lady Imogen possessed an understanding of the chest’s contents for some months; she should have learned of their true nature from Desdemona, Countess Swithin, during the last London Season.
¹
Locating the chest itself, however, had demanded some time and exertion; no doubt Lady Imogen had recruited others besides Spence to the task. Who might her accomplices be?

I concluded my letter to Martha with a request that she bring some peony cuttings from her sister’s garden at Kintbury—and rose to take a restless turn about the room.

“What is it, Jane?” Cassandra asked.

“I hardly know.”

“You are thinking of our acquaintance in Sherborne St. John. Has there been no word yet of Mr. Thrace’s capture?”

“None that Edward or I have heard. The renegade appears to have vanished into thin air.”

“Then he will soon be desperate. With all the country alive against him, how can he hope to obtain so much as a cup of water?”

“—Unless he has found friends who will help him.”

“How can such a man—a stranger to Hampshire—recruit friends?”

“He might buy them, I suppose, among those who have no concern for murder.”

She set down her pen. “And what of Henry?”

“He must have reached Brighton some hours ago—but has not seen fit to despatch the news to his sisters Express. I suppose all such activity must be reserved for the Earl, and all such letters for Charles Spence.”

Charles Spence.

I had written to him myself only this morning; he might even now be reading my letter—the post between Chawton and Sherborne St. John being no very great distance.
²
What should be his feelings upon perusing my words?

. . . pray accept my very deepest condolences on the sad loss you have recently suffered. Lady Imogen was all that was lovely and amiable, and to witness her sudden taking off—at such an interesting period of life, when youth, high spirits, beauty, and the privilege of birth must conspire to make her existence a blessed one—is a dreadful reminder of the end we must all someday face, and our daily proximity to our Maker.

It is regrettable at such a moment to allow the personal to intrude. Circumstances, however, require that I be perfectly frank. I have reason to think that her ladyship’s natural exuberance—her desire to best Mr. Thrace at every turn—and her very commendable wish to prevent her respected father from committing an error his friends must all deplore—may have led her to engage in an activity injurious to her reputation, and beneath her better sense. In point of fact, I believe the chest taken from my home—a bequest of my friend Lord Harold Trowbridge—might even now be found among Lady Imogen’s effects.

If what I have related causes you pain, I am heartily sorry for it. I am aware, however, that Stonings may soon be shut up and yourself gone from the premises, as must only be natural; and I should wish the chest returned before all your party has quitted Hampshire. Do I ask too much, Major Spence, or may I be allowed to wait upon you at Stonings as soon as may be convenient?

I had taken a good deal of trouble over the letter, as being a most awkward composition to a man in Spence’s state of mourning. Indeed, I had winced at the brutal force of it—the necessity of putting so delicate a matter into the bluntest prose. But I had done my work, and seen it into the hands of the post some hours before; and could not call it back again. The knowledge that Spence himself was encompassed in Lady Imogen’s crimes, however, made the communication a bitter one.

It was possible he should read in my letter a veiled threat to his own security. If I professed to know that Lady Imogen had taken the Bengal chest, how could I be ignorant of the methods by which it was obtained? Did Charles Spence think to find me at Stonings’ door with Mr. Prowting the magistrate at my back?

I feared that I had blundered in writing as I did. Spence was no fool; and despite the misery of his present circumstances, must be alive to the implication of my charge. He was as likely to sink Lord Harold’s chest in the bottom of the Stonings’ lake, as return its contents to me; and I had only my own impatience to thank.

I placed my letter to Martha near Cassandra’s own, for posting on the morrow; made trial of a novel in three volumes that my sister had brought especially from Canterbury; picked up and set down a bit of mending the light no longer permitted me to see; and at the last, went up rather earlier than was my habit, to bed.

I
T WAS THE DOG,
L
INK, THAT WOKE ME: STARTING UP FROM A
sound sleep and barking furiously into the night. His small, sinewy body trembled with indignation; his attention was fixed on a disturbance below; his outrage filled our ears.

“Link!” Cassandra hissed. “Lie down, boy! There’s a good fellow!
Link!
”

I threw back the bed linen and reached for my dressing gown. The terrier dashed to the window, his forepaws on the sill.

“What is it, lad?” I whispered. “What do you see? Another burglar, perhaps, come to steal into the household?”

A low growl escaped his quivering throat; I hushed him with a hand to his head.

The full moon of the previous week—which had allowed Julian Thrace to ride out at midnight, Shafto French to be murdered, and Jack Hinton to make his way from Surrey despite the befuddlement of his senses—was nearly gone. The night was dull as a blown candle, and heavy shadow lay about the fields surrounding the house. Chawton Pond was barely a gleam on the edge of my vision; no figures swayed in desperate combat beside it tonight. I strained to pierce the darkness of our yard, and could make out nothing; no furtive movement of man or beast could be detected near the henhouse or the privy. It might be any hour between the tolling of St. Nicholas’s curfew bell and dawn; I could not undertake to say.

“What is it, Jane?” Cassandra demanded in a hushed voice; there was anxiety in her accent.

I lifted my hand for silence, and Link growled again.

Perhaps he had seen what I had: a faint wisp of light bobbing down the sweep from Prowtings.

It was, I guessed, the pale glow of a candle encased in a lanthorn—the kind that might be shielded from prying eyes by the fall of a cloak or wrap. Someone was setting out through the darkness on an errand that did not admit of scrutiny; and as the fugitive achieved the Gosport road, I thought I understood why. In the form and height of the figure—the hesitant, half-furtive movement—I recognised a woman.

Catherine Prowting.

I have found it difficult to sleep of nights for some weeks past.

Where was she going, alone and at such an hour?

Her errand was not an open one. She did not intend her family to know of it.

With all the country alive against him, how can he hope to obtain so much as a cup of water?

I had been wrong. One friend at least in the neighbourhood Julian Thrace had no need to buy.

I might follow Catherine, I thought, as Link strained against me.

I might rouse the neighbourhood and her father, bring a man to justice, and ruin forever the reputation of a young woman rather like myself—restless for life, bounded by country lane and glebe, her prospects lowering with each passing year. A starling beating against the bars of its cage.

Lady Imogen. Shafto French.

Justice.

“Jane?” Cassandra repeated. “Is anything amiss?”

I shut the window.

“Nothing at all, Cass. Your dog must have scented a hare on the wind.”

I lay sleepless long into the night, listening for Catherine Prowting’s return.

Chapter 23

An Unexpected Visitor

Monday, 10 July 1809
~

“M
AJOR
S
PENCE?
”
I
CALLED, PEERING HESITANTLY FROM
behind a marble column; and then I observed him, motionless and upright at the far end of the room.

It was Rangle who conducted me to the library, a handsome apartment in the very heart of the great pile that was Stonings. I had not glimpsed it during my previous visit, and once led through a series of passages by the chapfallen butler, could hardly have found my way out again. But the space in which I now stood was in better repair than any other part of the ramshackle estate; indeed, it was a delightful room, and perfectly suited to study. The chamber’s ceiling was painted indigo blue, and an array of stars and planets swam across its firmament; the walls were full two storeys in height, lined with bookshelves and myriad volumes; at the far end was a bank of tall windows, undraped at present, through which flowed the dull green light of a rainy summer’s morning.

Charles Spence was posed with his back to me, his gaze fixed on the landscape. The prospect here gave out onto high woody hills, rather than the lake that sat to the south; he could not have noticed the arrival of the gig, but I was certainly expected. Rangle had instructions to convey me to the steward the moment I arrived.

Of Lady Imogen’s remains there was no sign. I had half-expected a bier in the hall, surrounded by candles and bouquets of summer flowers; a few domestics bent in prayer by her ladyship’s side. Certainly I had thought to find Charles Spence in an attitude of suffering—on his knees, perhaps, on the stone floor, while the hours passed unnoticed around him. But one cannot cry without ceasing, I must suppose; and there were all the duties of the estate still to be attended to. Not to mention the inconvenient supplications of chance acquaintance.

I had received the gentleman’s reply to my letter at breakfast.

Miss Austen—

It seems we have much to discuss. Pray wait upon me at your convenience today, as I expect to quit Stonings on the morrow.

Your most obedient servant,

Spence

A brief note, imparting little of the man’s mood or intentions. I determined to go to him immediately, however, and walked into Alton in search of my brother.

It was no very great matter to prevail upon Edward to drive me to the Earl of Holbrook’s estate. Being as yet in black clothes for his wife, he had no desire to break in upon Charles Spence’s mourning; however, I impressed upon him the idea that a call of condolence was unexceptionable at such a time, and indeed a most necessary form of notice from the Chawton Squire.

“It will be those papers you are after,” Neddie retorted, “and no call of condolence, I’ll be bound, Jane. All the same—I should like to see a place of which I have heard so much; and who knows whether the Earl will ever come there in future? We might take in the Vyne on our way home; Chute is sure to be in residence during the summer months, and I have not seen the man this age.”

I told my brother nothing of Rosie Philmore’s tale, or the conjectures I had formed regarding the Major’s integrity. I had determined, in the magnanimity of last night’s sleepless reflections, that I should not press Spence for particulars. They should better be sealed in Lady Imogen’s tomb—provided Lord Harold’s chest was returned to me. And so I preserved a notable silence on our road to Sherborne St. John, and allowed Edward to talk of the improvements he intended for the Chawton estate.

The storm had broken at dawn, and thus a closed carriage was preferred; we hired one from Barlow at the George. The going was very heavy, and I blessed Heaven for the forbearance native to my brother, and his sportsman’s indifference to any kind of wet. It had been some days since Neddie had been privileged to drive alone; and simply having the ribbons in his hands, a light curricle and a tolerable pair of horses at his command, seemed to have raised his spirits remarkably. A bit more than two hours was required to cover the fifteen miles between Chawton and Sherborne St. John; but my brother remained cheerful despite the quagmire of the country lanes and the ruts to which the carriage was subjected. He was even now seeing to the horses’ stabling with Robley the groom.

At the sound of my voice, Major Spence turned away from the storm-swept prospect. His tall figure suited the proportions of the room, and I had an idea of the kind of comfort he must have found here during the long winter months after Vimeiro. There would have been his wounded leg to attend to—all the repairs to the various wings, and the architect’s designs; the plans for the grounds; the management of Lady Imogen’s affairs. Frequent meetings with the lady herself, perhaps, and a growing intimacy with her ways. And then Thrace had appeared to destroy his peace.

“Miss Austen.” Spence moved around the great desk that fronted the rain-swept windows and bowed.

I curtseyed in return.

I was struck by the alteration two days’ time had made in his appearance. The great dark eyes I had so frequently remarked were sunken in their sockets; his brow was careworn and lined. He must hardly have slept in the interval since Saturday morning, and his expression suggested the chronic invalid—a man’s whose war wound was likely never to entirely heal, and never to be forgot. I knew from bitter experience the ravages grief may do; and deeply pitied him.

“You are well, I hope?” he enquired.

“Very well, I thank you. I was grateful to receive your letter this morning, and came as soon as may be. I hope I do not intrude,” I added, as he preserved a distracted silence.

He motioned towards a chair that sat near the great desk, and I sank down into it. He remained standing, however, his gaze fixed upon me; the persistent staccato of storm upon windowpane was all the sound in the room.

“You are a curious woman, Miss Austen,” he observed. “You write to importune me for a meeting—you cast the grossest aspersions on the character of a most beloved lady, as that lady lies in death elsewhere in this house; and yet you apologise for
intruding.
Is this intended as a pleasantry? A sad kind of joke?”

“Major Spence—”

He turned from me abruptly and limped painfully towards the door through which I had lately passed, some thirty feet behind; and for an instant, I thought he intended to show me out—that he had summoned me all this distance for no other purpose than to deliver his crushing rebuke, and be done. But as I watched, he secured the lock with a key, and tried the knob to be certain the door was immovable.

An unaccustomed thrill of fear ran through me, and I rose from my seat. Two additional doors stood at either hand, on opposite sides of the great desk; these, too, were closed.

“You need not eye the passages so hungrily,” Spence told me. “I am not so ill-prepared. When I wish to be private with a woman, and have ample notice of the fact, I undertake certain precautions. No one will come except at my express summons, and no one will hear you, Miss Austen, should you cry out. Pray do me the honour, therefore, of answering my questions—and do not be wasting your time on a fit of hysterics.”

“You clearly do not know me, sir,” I informed him coldly.

Of Edward, even now walking up from the stables—of which Major Spence could have no view—I chose to say nothing. I merely preserved my position before the desk, and faced him.

“In your letter of yesterday you mentioned a certain article stolen from your cottage in Chawton, Miss Austen.”

“A Bengal chest of curious workmanship, filled with a quantity of papers. Yes, I did mention it—and still believe it to be in your possession.”

“
My
possession?” he repeated, in an incredulous accent. “From Lady Imogen you have passed to
me
as your thief? I shall take care in future to guard my acquaintance most carefully, if the result of every dinner among friends is to be a criminal accusation.”

“A man who had nothing to hide should have no need of locking doors.”

He laughed bitterly, and leaned against the massive desk. “Did you think to malign the Dead, Miss Austen—and be paid off for your silence? Was that your object in petitioning the lady’s steward in such frank terms? What is the price to be put upon scandal? How much, to preserve my poor darling’s frail name, in the hours remaining before her interment?”

“You misunderstand me, sir.”

“Do I?”

“I wish only for the return of my property.”

“And if it cannot be found?” He thrust himself away from the desk and approached me menacingly. Despite my best intentions, I shrank back before his advance. “Tell me about this chest. Describe it. For I have looked in her ladyship’s apartment—have set her maid to searching high and low—and nothing can I find but what accompanied the Earl’s daughter from London.”

“It was quite large and heavy,” I replied, “and should certainly be obvious. Perhaps two feet wide by three feet long—with a curved lid and massive hinges. There was a lock set into the front, which could only be opened by a key in my possession—unless force were used against it. The contents were a quantity of papers.”

“And why should Lady Imogen care for this thing?”

“Because she thought to find the truth in it.”

His brows came down in a heavy frown. “The truth? What truth?”

“The details of Julian Thrace’s parentage.”

“Why should the slightest clue to that renegade’s origins be held in a chest of your keeping, Miss Austen?” he demanded contemptuously.

“The papers it contains were penned by one who may have witnessed Mr. Thrace’s minority—a friend of the Earl’s, Lord Harold Trowbridge.” I offered my replies as the commonplaces they were. I did not doubt that Spence already knew the answers to his questions. Why, then, did he pose them? —To suggest, in my mind, an ignorance I could not believe he harboured?

“You have read these papers, then?” he demanded. “You interest me greatly. I have long wondered where Thrace sprang from. Tell me, Miss Austen, if you know.”

“But surely, sir, Lady Imogen shared the fruit of her researches? From her easy manner on Saturday, I had assumed that she learned from the documents that Thrace was a fraud—and had informed him of as much. That seemed the only possible compulsion under which the man should act to murder her ladyship: so as to suppress her proofs, before they should be communicated to the Earl.”

Spence threw up his hands in an attitude of bitterness. “I was not her ladyship’s confidant. And I will tell you, Miss Austen—there is no chest here—and there never was! The existence of such a chest, I put it to you, is entirely a fabrication of your own—devised for some mischievous purpose!”

“And yet,” I returned quietly, “the man who stole it from my cottage is sitting even now in Alton gaol—and names
you,
sir, as his employer.”

For an instant, gazing at Spence’s grim features, I quailed. But then his figure lost its air of tension, and he appeared once more in command of his usual calm.

“Impossible,” he said. “I know that for a lie.”

What certainty had he grasped? What knowledge could so reassure him in the midst of self-righteous rage?

Old Philmore,
I thought.
Spence believes me to refer to Old Philmore. And he knows the man is missing.

A deliberate knock resounded on the door at the far end of the room. Charles Spence called savagely, “I asked not to be disturbed!”

“I beg your pardon, sir.” Rangle’s reply was muffled by the heavy mahogany. “I thought the present circumstance an exception. The Earl of Holbrook is only now arrived from Brighton—and is most anxious to speak with you.”

I
WAS SAVED A MOST UNCOMFORTABLE PERIOD BY THE
descent of Freddy Vansittart on the scene.

Charles Spence, after standing frozen for several seconds, advanced hurriedly to the library door and threw it open.

“Major!” barked a massive figure looming in the doorway. “What the
deuce
do you mean by closeting yourself with a female when Imogen’s but two days dead? Where’s my poor girl to be found? Must see her, when all’s said and done. Dreadful business. Thrown from her horse—and Immy a neck-or-nothing gal from the time she could walk! Don’t make sense. Mark my words, I told that banking chap as brought the news—mark my words, they’ll find the Devil was in the business. And so it proved! Poor Julian! A wolf in sheep’s clothing—or a wolf in a coat cut by Stultz, come to that! Poor boy. I should not have thought him capable of such an offence. So where’ve you put her, Spence? Must be a rum thing, this time of year, what with the heat. We’d better see the rites observed, and no delay.”

The speaker was a bluff, florid-faced man in his early fifties, clearly a martyr to gout and the claims of a voracious appetite. The brim of his beaver glistened with the wet, and, as I watched, he handed it carelessly to Rangle along with his many-caped driving coat of kerseymere. The Earl’s frame must once have been powerful, but was now sadly gone to fat. The charm so marked by Lord Harold in his youth, could be only a memory preserved in the barking impetuosity of his speech. I thought I detected in Lord Holbrook’s lively eye, however, a ghost of the rake he had once been; and tho’ he betrayed no excessive sensibility at the loss of his only child, I noted a quality of strain in his countenance, as might suggest a sleepless night, and the hard travel born of necessity.