Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (37 page)

“And did the Lieutenant read
novels
, Madame?” I enquired in exasperation, and bent to bestow my interest on a more worthy subject. Poor Fanny clung pitifully to me, and quite stained my grey wool gown with the force of her tears; her mother snorted in contempt, and rose without another word.

“I can do nothing with her, Miss Austen,” she said, forcing a passage through the maids; “perhaps you shall have better luck. I shall be in my room, if Fanny returns to her senses.”

I patted the poor creature's back, and spoke such soothing nonsense as succeeds in quieting a child, and instructed the servants and their basins to depart. Presently Fanny's lamentations subsided, with a hiccup and a sniff, and she wiped her plump fingers across her eyes.

“Whatever shall I do?” she said, in a breaking whisper. “I fear; Miss Austen, that with Tom dead, I am truly lost!”

Seeing in her blue eyes that a fresh cloud threatened to burst, I determined to speak briskly, and offer the only help I knew. “We shall make the best of events, Fanny my dear; and hope in Isobel's speedy release. With the Countess restored to freedom, you shall have a support before your mother, and can divulge to her the entirety of your wrongs. Do not scruple to lay them at Tom Hearst's door; he has imposed upon you most disturbingly, and must bear the guilt for his deeds, however dead he might be. But say nothing to Madame at present, and trust in Isobel's excellent understanding, whenever she is returned to us. Something shall be devised for your comfort, and the preservation of your reputation.” I assessed the fullness about her stomach. “The interlude at the mantua-maker's you survived without discovery?”

Fanny nodded disconsolately. “I am to have some lovely things, Miss Austen, though they
are
in black.” Her eyes welled anew. “And though Tom shall never admire me the more!”

I
SAW FANNY SAFELY TO HER ROOM, AND BADE HER TO REST
if she might; and then in some distraction, I sought the patient Mr. Cranley below.

“Mr. Cranley!” I cried, as he started from a brown study at my entrance, “was there ever a truer gentleman? And was he ever treated to a house in greater disarray? But share with me your news.”

He drew forward a chair without preamble. “I have obtained from Danson the Earl's correspondence. With it should be a list of letters sent on certain dates, with the names of their recipients—for Lord Scargrave is most meticulous in accounting for his postage debts,” the barrister added, as an afterthought.
¹
“Do I ask too much, Miss Austen, or may I beg your assistance in the task? I should like to have a witness to whatever I may find.”

“I shall bend myself to your will, Mr. Cranley,” I assured him.

“The Earl's letters are kept locked in this portable desk.” Mr. Cranley crossed the room to a small wooden cabinet, whose lid folded back to reveal a writing surface suitable for one's lap. “Danson allowed me to carry it hither.”

There were nineteen letters in all, written carefully in a strong, even hand, and dating from the day of the ball at Scargrave—a day that might have occurred in a different lifetime. That they were solely letters of business, we readily perceived; and from a hasty comparison of the Earl's list and his extant drafts, we learned immediately that one more letter had been sent than the little desk now contained.

“Capital!” Mr. Cranley cried; “it is as you thought, Miss Austen. A draft was written during one of those difficult days following the late Earl's demise; it was copied, and mailed; and before Lord Scargrave's man had time to file it with the other papers that evening, it was seized and used to form the note found on the maid Marguerite.”

“Or the draft may simply have been discarded,” I warned, feeling some restraint was necessary; “one may not always conform to habit or rule.”

We set to comparing the drafts to the Earl's list, and saw that the missing letter was one of several sent to his solicitors, in Bond Street; it but required a glance from Mr. Cranley to his watch, and a call for a hackney carriage, and we were on our way to their door.

MAYHEW, MAYHEW
&
CRABB WAS A RESPECTABLE ESTABLISHMENT
, as befit men of business who cater to the peerage; the plate secured to the deep green door was of brass, and the marble stoop was well scrubbed. Upon seeing the firm's name so declared, I remembered with a start Isobel's last injunction before leaving the Manor—that I deliver her testament to one Hezekiah Mayhew. I had tarried in doing so, in the hope that all such matters might be deferred some decades, once Isobel's freedom was secured; but now that we stood before the solicitors’ door, I bethought me of the document, which I kept safe in my reticule, and placed beneath my pillow at night. I should deliver the deed to Mr. Mayhew immediately, should he be within.

We were ushered to a snug parlour, where a bright fire cast its glow on several easy chairs; and Mr. Cranley's card had barely been delivered, than Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew appeared to place himself at our service. He was a portly gentleman of some seventy years, quite stooped, with a shining pate that had long since lost its hair, and two bushy white eyebrows that attempted to supply the difference.

“Mr. Cranley,” the solicitor said, with a deep bow in the barrister's direction; “it is a pleasure to welcome you to my humble office.”

“The honour must be mine,” Mr. Cranley rejoined, “as well as my thanks, for having placed the Countess's trouble in my hands.”

“This firm has had the management of the Scargrave family's business for eighty years, at least,” Mr. Mayhew observed, with an eyebrow cocked for Cranley, “but never have we witnessed so terrible a passage as this. I merely chose the best and most reliable barrister I knew.” The grave brown eyes turned upon my face. “And you, Madam, would be—?”

“Miss Jane Austen. I am a friend of the Countess's.”

“Miss Austen is ungenerous in her own behalf,” Mr. Cranley interrupted smoothly. “She is the greatest friend the Countess could hope to have, and no less energetic in the new Earl's defence.”

“That is very well—very well, indeed.” Mr. Mayhew's glance was penetrating. “Friends, in my experience, are like ladies’ fashions, Miss Austen. They come and go with the seasons, and are rarely of such stout stuff as bears repeated wearing. I am glad to find you formed of better material.” With that, he led us to his inner rooms.

Mr. Cranley offered me a chair, and took one of his own before the solicitor's great desk.

“You are here on the Countess's behalf?” Mr. Mayhew enquired, with a glance that encompassed us both.

“Not directly,” I replied, “though I am charged with placing
this
in your safekeeping, Mr. Mayhew.” I handed him the sealed parchment that contained Isobel's final directions, and felt the lighter for having passed the burden to another. “I would ask that you address the matters it contains when we have presumed upon your time no longer.”

“Having other, more pressing matters, to discuss?” the solicitor surmised, his bushy eyebrows lifting.

“We come to you on the Earl's behalf today,” Mr. Cranley said.”

“Though, indeed, the two can hardly be separated,” I broke in. “What may serve to prove the innocence of one, cannot help but assist the other.”

“Indeed. Indeed. Pray enlighten me as to your purpose. “Mr. Mayhew drew forth a pen and a sheet of paper and set a pair of ancient spectacles upon his nose.

We explained the business of Fitzroy Payne's correspondence, and were gratified to discover that old Mayhew's wits were swift. He seized the importance of our questions directly; a correspondence file was ordered, and the final copies of several letters, whose rougher selves we had previously perused in Danson's desk, were produced for our examination.

And to our great joy, we found that one of them was utterly strange to us. No draft of it had we seen.

Scargrave Manor,

Hertfordshire,

My dear Mayhew—

I should wish to consult you on a matter pertaining to the Countess's Barbadoes estate, Crosswinds. You will remember that my uncle, the late Earl, was at his death engaged in combating Lord Harold Trowbridge's financial assault upon his wife's plantations. His demise, and the Countess's concern for her material welfare, has caused her to abandon hope of staving off Lord Harold—and she lately signed a document presented by that gentleman which ceded him the property in exchange for a discharge of considerable debt.

I have recently learned from perusing my uncle's papers—which included the Countess's marriage settlement—that there exists a probable legal incumbrance upon her actions. That she was unaware of this when she submitted to Trowbridge's demands, you may fully comprehend, knowing how little women understand of legal matters. In sum, the plantations in question passed to the Countess through her
mother's
line, though managed and overseen by her father, and are to revert to her surviving maternal relatives—in all probability Miss Fanny Delahoussaye—in the event of her death. In fact, the property was placed in the condition of separate estate
²
under the terms of the marriage settlement, with trustees to oversee its security in marriage as they had in the Countess's minority. All such transfer to Lord Harold must, accordingly, be null and void; but he may have bent the law to his purpose in ways that overcome even this obstacle. I should dearly love to hear your sense of the matter.

I intend to be in London the day after Christmas; let us meet in our accustomed place—the library of the Forbearance Club. We shall have luncheon, and talk over these and other matters, and hope to put paid to Lord Harold's schemes.

I remain respectfully yours,

Fitzroy, Earl of Scargrave

I glanced up at Mr. Cranley as I finished the letter;
let us meet in our accustomed place
was there, certainly, and crying out for comparison to the fragment found in the maid's bodice. But it was the content of the letter itself that struck me forcibly—Lord Harold had imposed upon Isobel so entirely, that he had outwitted even himself.

“Are you of the Earl's opinion, Mr. Mayhew?” I asked the solicitor. “Is it so impossible for the Countess to make over her West Indies property?”

The rheumy brown eyes blinked at me shrewdly, and Hezekiah Mayhew cleared his throat. “I have examined the problem narrowly, Miss Austen, and I may say it is indeed a pretty one. A very pretty problem for the Countess and the Earl.” He paused, and looked from Mr. Cranley to myself.

“My good sir,” Mr. Cranley said urgently, “all these matters may bear upon his lordship's survival; we cannot know until all the information is ours. Pray continue.”

“Separate property is, of necessity, comprised of assets,” Mr. Mayhew replied. “And as we know, assets may suddenly lose their value, against all expectation. Securities may plummet, banks and their holdings fail; and property—particularly property valued for the crops it produces—lose much of its value. Under the terms of the trust established at the death of the Countess's mother, Amelie Delahoussaye Collins, once Crosswinds is so reduced in value as to bring bankruptcy upon the trust, the trustees may consider the sale of the property itself to satisfy creditors.”

The solicitor shifted his considerable girth and reached for a clay pipe. Then eyeing me—it would not do to smoke before a lady—he returned it to its place upon the polished surface of his desk, with a soft sigh and an irritable frown. “And that is very nearly what has happened,” he said, for Mr. Cranley's benefit.

“Can the Countess's land be so lacking in value?” the barrister enquired.

“The land is not, but the crops it produces assuredly are,” Mr. Mayhew answered bluntly. “In ^he time of the Countess's father, John Collins, a decision was made to turn from sugar cultivation to coffee.” The large white eyebrows came down alarmingly, and Hezekiah Mayhew turned to enlighten me. “Coffee bushes, Miss Austen, take several years to mature; and if they are blighted in their youth—as these unfortunately were—they must be destroyed and replanted. Twice this happened to John Collins; and twice he sought additional capital to supplement his losses. When he finally produced a saleable crop, the world price had dropped due to a rise in production in Brazil; and Collins's beans were hardly worth the blood money he had paid to grow them. The revolts among the slave populations have caused great losses as well—in human capital, and in the destruction of crops and outbuildings by fire; the cost of rebuilding and replanting again required Mr. Collins to seek capital from investors, and at his death, his assets were found to be insufficient to satisfy his creditors. Although the property in trust remained so legally in the Countess's marriage settlement, it is an open question whether her trustees might not be prevailed upon to sell the property itself.” He sat back in his chair, which creaked in protest, his hands upon his watch chain.

“But the Countess herself may not do it?” Mr. Cranley pressed.

“She must have the agreement, in writing, of the trustees.”

“And who are these men?” I enquired, in an eager accent.

The parched old face creased into a smile. “I fear I misspoke, Miss Austen, from long habit,” the solicitor said. “There is only
one
trustee, and she is hardly male—an unusual circumstance, certainly, but reflective of the wishes of the Countess's family. They were originally French bankers, you know, who set up the first bank in Martinique, and they remained a clannish sort of set, never trusting their business to outsiders. As trustees—all family members—died, they could not be replaced; and so only one now remains, a woman and the Countess's aunt, Madame Hortense Delahoussaye.”

“And it is solely her permission, Mr. Mayhew, which Lord Harold must secure?”

“It is,” the solicitor gravely replied.

I leaned forward in my anxiety. “But he has not yet obtained it?”

Something of interest flickered in Hezekiah Mayhew's shrewd eyes. “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “With the Countess's fate hanging yet in the balance, it is probable Madame Delahoussaye will defer any business some little while.”