Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (41 page)

“Have we any hope?” I said, faltering.

He hesitated, his eyes upon my face. “There is always hope. Did I not believe that, I should have quit the Bar altogether, and long before this.”

“Do not coddle me, Mr. Cranley; I am not a child.”

“Very well,” he rejoined. “There is very little hope, Miss Austen. But even that is reason to persevere.”

IT WAS A POOR SORT OF EVENING IN PORTMAN SQUARE;
I dined with Mr. George Hearst—who is sunk in more than his usual melancholy in the wake of his brother's suicide—and the Delahoussayes. All were silent but for Fanny, who had heard herself admired at her seat in the Gallery, and could not contain herself; for the author of the compliment was a marquess, and the silly girl valued the opinion in a fashion commensurate with his rank. Did she earn the glances of a duke or two on the morrow, I should be forced to take my meals in my room.

When we had left Mr. Hearst to his solitary Port and his lonely cigar, and repaired, as ladies must, to take tea in the sitting-room, Fanny declared herself a trifle indisposed—as well she might be, with the burden I knew she carried—and tripped gaily to her room, visions of peers in ermine-trimmed robes no doubt lighting her way to bed. I seated myself over some needlework, the better to marshal my thoughts; for I had formed a dangerous resolution at dinner, and should never have a better opportunity to act upon it.

“Madame,” I said.

She looked up from her book with a coldness that must give one pause. “Yes, Miss Austen?”

“Have you any views as to today's events?”

Madame Delahoussaye's lips compressed and she returned to her book. “I do not think too little can be said upon the subject.”

“That is indeed unfortunate,” I rejoined, “for I had hoped you might shed some light on Lord Harold's extraordinary behaviour.”

“What can I know of Lord Harold that you do not? From your surprising display upon the witness stand, I should have thought you the man's intimate these several months at least.”

“What
can
you mean, Madame?”

The covers of her-volume came, together, with a snap. “That you had no business embroiling such a man in this affair,” Madame Delahoussaye declared, “and that your impudence is far beyond your station, my girl.” She rose with alacrity, as though to depart.

“But Lord Harold is embroiled in it of himself,” I said, feigning bewilderment.

“So
you
would have it.” Madame crossed to the sitting-room door and laid her hand upon the knob.

I sat back in my chair and surveyed such haste with amusement. “I wonder at your defending a man of whom you profess to know nothing, Madame.”

She turned her head as rapidly as an adder. “It is not Lord Harold I would defend, Miss Austen, but my dear Isobel; and I fear her friends are become her worst enemies.”

I snorted my contempt. “I rejoice to hear that protecting the Countess is now become your aim.”

“It is the dearest consideration of my heart,” she rejoined stonily, and took up again the doorknob.

I drew my needle swiftly through my canvas. “It was on
her
behalf, then, that you visited Lord Harold at Wilborough House but a few days ago?”

Her fingers dropped from the doorknob as though suddenly made nerveless. “I did no such thing. What use have I for such a man?”

“I wondered at it myself. You have always professed yourself his enemy. And so when my sister Eliza remarked upon your having met with him—she is, as you know, an intimate of the Duchess's—I could not satisfy my curiosity. But as you say you did not visit, she must have been mistaken. I dare say it was the card of
some other
Madame Delahoussaye she saw.”

Madame did not honour me with a reply, but drew a shuddering breath, and for an instant I thought she might cross to where I sat and seize my throat in her two hands. But her self-mastery was admirable; she merely nodded frigidly, and swept from the room.

I liked her too little to care for her good opinion; I wished only to frighten her into some exposure, and was very well pleased with the effect of my questions.

I
HAD NOT HAD A MOMENT'S REST ALL DAY
—had not even sought my room to change before dinner, the interval between Mr. Cranley's departure and the bell having been too short. So I mounted the steps now in Madame Delahoussaye's wake with a sense of crushing weariness, fearful of the morrow and my own place in it—and found that, to my glad joy, a letter from my brother Frank awaited my eager eyes.

My dearest Jane—

Your letter arrived by this morning's post, and I was made so happy by its receipt, I little cared that it proved brief and barely legible upon first reading. When I divined, however, that your sole concern was the nature of deep-water ports in the colonies—no word of your gaieties or writing, and not a question spared as to the health and happiness of your brother—I felt certain you must be taken ill. I had nearly resolved to apply for leave, and hasten to London and your deathbed, when I read the letter again. Whatever the cause of your request, it has a certain urgency that will not be denied; and so I shall leave off raillery and offer a straight reply.

You believe that Lord Harold Trowbridge wishes to purchase the port for some nefarious purpose, and that the woman in whose power it remains desires only to discharge the estate's debt, without questioning the reason for his interest in its acquisition. That Trowbridge has journeyed to France is of singular interest, for it has come to my knowledge—and this must remain our secret, Jane—that a naval engagement may shortly arise in the very waters of which you write, should Buonaparte's forces sail from Martinique, and our own fleet from ports in the Barbadoes. If Trowbridge is aware of this, as well—and with his access to the higher circles, it is entirely possible—he may be plotting some effort on behalf of His Majesty's government, in which event the woman's port should prove essential. More than this, I cannot say; but you know, dear Jane, that the truce between Buonaparte and our King was nothing more than a pause to draw breath. The blow shall come, and on several fronts, I fear; the Corsican would test our Navy's right to rule the seas, and we must not fail.

Write to me again when you have something else in your head besides military strategy; but know that you have, as always, the love of your dearest brother—

Frank

9 January 1803, cont.

˜

I
HAVE A MIND AMAZED AT ITS OWN DISCOMPOSURE—FOR
I know, now, why Lord Scargirave had to be killed—why Isobel and Fitzroy must be sacrificed; and it is so that high treason might be done. It is impossible that Lord Harold should act on behalf of His Majesty; he is too much of a charlatan, too readily the property of the highest bidder. No, Trowbridge must be in the employ of Buonaparte himself, and means to betray the Barbadoes—and England's Navy—with Madame Delahoussaye's willing assistance.

Frank had said that the French might well sail from Martinique, the island from which Buonaparte's consort, Josephine, sprang. The Delahoussayes themselves had been a powerful family in that French colony, and I doubted little that Madame's sentiments still veered towards France, however English her frivolous daughter had become. Madame had conspired to wrest Crosswinds from Isobel, burdening the property with heavy debt, diverting the income from the estate to her own pockets, and finally—when Isobel's marriage promised fair to save her from financial ruin—with murder. The maid Marguerite was herself a Creole of French extraction—and had come to Isobel from Madame's household, to serve as spy in her niece's camp. That she owed Madame more loyalty than her mistress, need not even be stated; and for her services to the former she had, no doubt, been well-paid. Marguerite proved useful when it came time to place poison in the Earl's dish; and then had dutifully kept her rendezvous with death.

I remembered Madame's alacrity in assuming the duties of chatelaine at Scargrave Manor—how she had banished Mrs. Hodges and even Danson from the Earl's library, and insisted upon tidying its wealth of papers herself. She had certainly seen the new Earl's letter to Hezekiah Mayhew, informing the solicitor of Lord Harold's triumph over Isobel. Fearing exposure, Madame had taken the paper away, not perceiving, perhaps, in her eagerness to hide her duplicity, that it was but a copy, and the final draft already posted.

Later, Madame had seized her opportunity to dispatch the meddlesome Fitzroy by placing a fragment of his letter in the maid's bodice after she was dead, and removing the note Madame herself had written to arrange the fatal meeting. For good measure she had dropped Isobel's handkerchief by the paddock gate.

It had not been necessary for Lord Harold to remain at Scargrave, or even in the country; his confederate should manage quite well in his absence. Better that he inform Buonaparte that the port was in his grasp; and receive from him the payment for such betrayal.

I cast about me for pen and paper, and scribbled a note to Mr. Cranley; then I pulled on my dressing gown, hastened down the stairs, and dispatched a footman as messenger to the barrister's lodgings.

I had only, now, to wait.

I
SHOULD NOT HAVE SLEPT EASILY IN ANY CASE, BUT TO
-night the noises of the ancient house seemed magnified by the reverberation of my heartbeat, the quickened sound of my breath; I hesitated even to move, curled up in my elegant bed, lest the rustling proclaim my certainty of Madame's heinous guilt. Could I have drunk a potion, and become invisible, I should have swallowed it down in a single draught; but I was consigned to feel instead the complete exposure of those who know too much.

Utter darkness, wrapped round by heavy silk draperies, I could not abide, however; and so I pulled back the bed hangings and lit my single candle, ears straining for the sound of a carriage in the dark.

The bells of Westminster rang out in the stillness twelve times; I had come to the witching hour.

And it was then that I heard it—the muffled drag of a high-heeled step, pacing slowly down the corridor. Every nerve in my body froze as completely as though the January wind had swept through my chamber, and I was powerless to move. I knew this sound of old. Could ghosts, then, exchange houses? Had the First Earl as much right to haunt Town as he did country? Or was Tom Hearst returned from his unmarked grave, despite the stake which pierced his heart, to demand another moonlit kiss?

The candle flame wavered twice before my eyes; and beyond it, in the gloom, I made out the handle of my door slowly turning. It must be thrust open by a spectral hand in a moment, and I should have screamed; but my throat was utterly constricted with fear, and only a breathy gasp escaped. A crack of darkness against the jamb, widening inexorably as the door swung inwards with a groan—and the spectral First Earl stood before me, in all the splendour of the Sun King, his glorious clothes grimed with dust and tarnished with years, the cobwebs hanging from his curls and the tips of his beringed fingers.

But the cobwebs were made of grey thread, and the Earl was neither man nor ghost; I remembered the spectre's visitation to Fitzroy Payne's room at the Manor, so many weeks ago, and knew of a sudden who had placed the damning Barbadoes nuts in his gun case.

“Madame,” I whispered, seeing the glitter of her eyes in the candle flame; and she returned a hideous grin. Swift as a cat she sprang to my bedside, the door thrust closed behind her, and wrapped a silken scarf twice around my neck. Though my fingers clung to the fabric, and strained against her force, she was made stronger still by violent rage; she would squeeze the life from me, and I must resist. Bursting flowers of light flooded my eyes even as darkness overcame them; my desperate fingers scrabbled at hers, drawing sharp nicks of blood; but we were both of us almost silent, save for my laboured breathing and her animal grunts of exertion—a deadly intensity robbed us of pleas and triumphs altogether.

I began to sway where I sat, too cushioned by the feathered mattress when I most needed hard purchase, and she profited from my weakness to thrust me down on my back, her knee drawn up and braced cruelly against my chest. I could not move her; and the advantage of her position should finish me in a very little time. I prayed as I have never prayed before—a single refrain only,
dear God dear God dear God
—even as I felt my strength begin to ebb. As from a great distance, I saw her grotesque fancy dress thrown by the candle in shadows upon my wall, and felt an absurd desire to laugh; but what emerged was nothing more than a pitiful sob.

With a harshness magnified by the silent absorption of our deadly contest, the door burst open, and a man's form was abruptly outlined against the darkened hall.
Mr. Cranley
, I thought, with rising hope—and then saw that all hope was lost. For it was Harold Trowbridge who stood there, with his evil profile and hooded eye; and that he came to finish what Madame had begun, I felt with all the certainty of despair. The room whirled; I gasped for air; and gave way to a pounding darkness that would not be gainsaid.