Death of a Dowager (13 page)

Chapter 25

Shortly thereafter, Waverly dismissed us and left with the Marchioness. Once Lucy had looked in on the Dowager Lady Grainger, we left as well.

“How was she?” I asked when we were in the coach.

“Asleep. That dog was her whole world. I know it may seem silly, but Mags provided Olivia with all the love her husband denied her. The dog was always merry, always thrilled to see her mistress after she returned home, and entirely sensitive to her moods. While I am sorry for the Ingram girls, I do not know them well, but I know what devastation poor Mags’s death will mean to Olivia. Especially on the heels of her sister-in-law’s death.”

“I am very sorry for her.” I watched the line of stately houses go by. “How curious it is. Now Lady Ingram’s snub is the least of our worries.”

“Oh yes,” said Lucy with a bitter laugh. “Is it really possible Lady Ingram was poisoned?”

“I’ve turned this over and over in my head, and there can be no other explanation. Her demise came so suddenly, and with poor Mags gone at the same time, it has to be thus.”

“But why didn’t Blanche die as well if it was the coffee?” Lucy said. “Could it have been in the cream? I don’t take it in my tea, do you?”

“No. I grew up without it, since they were too mean at Lowood to allow us the luxury. Does Lady Grainger add cream to her tea?”

“Yes, she does. So that can’t be it, either. Could it have been the sugar?”

“Nearly all of us indulged in that. The Marchioness heaped piles of cubes in her tea. She would have collapsed first if the sugar was the culprit.”

“But,” reasoned Lucy, “I don’t think that all poison acts upon the victim immediately. I recall Augie telling me about men in his company who supped with a temptress who slipped an herb into their tea. They came back to their barracks, seemingly in fine health, but two days later, they sickened and died.”

“But then how do you explain Mags’s death? I mean, the dog’s demise gave away the game; otherwise, we would have surely concluded that Lady Ingram’s heart gave out. That happens.”

“With regularity,” Lucy said. “But you are right. Someone somehow administered poison to Lady Ingram—or Mags would never have died immediately after lapping up the coffee!”

Chapter 26

Once back at #24 Grosvenor, Lucy sent word to Boodle’s and asked that Bruce and Edward come back right away. Amelia heard our arrival and carried my darling down the stairs so I could kiss my son hello. “Isn’t it a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Rochester? I believe the fresh air today did his appetite good. See? There’s your mum.”

Ned reached for me, and I held him tightly, brushing my chin against his silky hair and taking joy in the undisguised love that radiated from his face.

In front of others, Amelia called me “Mrs. Rochester” as was proper, but when talking about me to Ned, she slipped into the informal “Mum.” In a more formal household, that would never do, but I was loath to criticize the girl. I had not chosen Amelia for her rigid propriety. No, I had selected her for her warm heart, her extensive experience with young siblings, and her unfailing cheerfulness. The loving way she kissed my son made up for any lack in her understanding of society’s expectations.

Back upstairs, Polly helped me tidy up. “The young lady is helping Cook in the kitchen,” she said with a wry grin, referring to Adèle.

“Oh? Is she causing mischief?”

“Lands, no. Cook has had young ’uns of her own. She loves ’em. Last I saw, your girl was having a go at sprinkling sugar on top of biscuits.”

“Did any of the sugar land on its target?”

Polly erupted with an unrestrained guffaw. “Some! Only some!”

Once refreshed, I sought my hostess. Lucy paced the length of her library, a walnut-paneled sanctuary filled with leather-bound volumes. The cracks along the spines and the uneven spacing on the floor-to-ceiling shelves told me these books were not decorations but old friends with whom Lucy conferred regularly. Against the northwest wall, under a magnificent painting, the “Shipwreck of the Minotaur,” by Turner, sat a wonderful polished oak desk where Lucy wrote her letters. Whereas most ladies used a piece of furniture that was little more than a small table with one drawer, Lucy had procured a robust piece with a middle drawer that was flanked by three more drawers on each side.

“I have nothing here on poisons.” Lucy sighed as she stared up at row after row of books on shelves approaching the ceiling. “At least, I think not. Will you help me look?”

But before we could drag over the wooden ladder, a brisk banging of the door knocker told us that her brother had arrived with my husband.

While Edward offered me a kiss on the cheek, Mr. Douglas asked, “Sister? What crisis demanded our immediate arrival? Edward and I were engaged in a rousing discussion of the inequities in our justice system. We’d almost won our argument, too, by persuading Lord Nottingham that to mete out the same hanging punishment for the theft of a ha’penny as well as for a murder was ludicrous!”

“Lady Ingram is dead.”

Lucy’s lack of preamble startled both the men.

“How did she die?” asked Edward, reaching behind him to be sure he was close to a chair before sitting down.

“It might be poison,” I said.

“That’s a right turnup for the books.” Mr. Douglas sank into a burgundy leather wingback chair and moved it closer to the fireplace.

“Mr. Waverly was there as an escort to Lady Conyngham—she was also a caller—and a doctor was called in after the fact. Your young Mr. Lerner, in fact,” I said.

“Indeed? Well, Lerner has certainly had a busy day,” Edward mused. I bit my tongue and decided to wait and tell him in private about the spat I’d witnessed in the park between Mr. Lerner and Mary Ingram.

“Both men were convinced?” Mr. Douglas rubbed his hands together over the coals. “Poison can be hard to trace under the best of circumstances.”

Lucy sighed. “Admittedly, their decision is not conclusive, but both harbor grave suspicions. Lady Grainger’s dog also lapped up some of the same coffee as Lady Ingram drank—and also died.”

“I’d say that’s as clear an indication as any magistrate might need. No wonder Waverly has his suspicions,” said Edward.

“Not that they’ll act on them.” Mr. Douglas stirred the coals on the hearth with a poker. “Unless they suspect the culprit is a member of staff. No society woman has been hanged in London for years. In fact, if Waverly assigns the crime on Lady Grainger or one of the young Ingram ladies, he’d find it very rough going, indeed. No, his station precludes any sort of a real investigation, since the Ingram women are daughters of a baron. I’d say that someone got away with murder.” To emphasize his point, he brushed a bit of coal dust off his hands.

“I have sympathy for the Ingram girls, but I am also relieved,” admitted Edward. “At least Lady Ingram won’t be going around town blackening Jane’s name and casting doubt on you, Lucy. Ladies, Bruce and I visited the Grainger home before you arrived, on our way to the interview with Mr. Lerner. I planned to offer my heartfelt apology to Miss Ingram for any slight she received at my instigation.”

“I heard. Lady Grainger gave the impression Miss Ingram did not receive you kindly.”

“No, not kindly at all. I stood there, hat in hand, as she plumbed the depths of her vocabulary to call me all sorts of names. When she paused to catch her breath, I suggested that I might also address her mother with an apology, and Lady Ingram joined us, but her response was little better.”

“Ha!” Lucy smirked. “I can just imagine the justification for their behavior. Mother and daughter promised Olivia to treat us—Jane and me—in a polite manner, but neither Ingram agreed to speak politely to Edward.”

“Oh, civility was not on the program, dear Sister,” said Mr. Douglas. “Trust me. The Ingrams used the visit to their full advantage to excoriate Edward. Their words would have ripped the hide off a less sturdy fellow.”

A wry smile twisted my husband’s lips, giving me a glimpse of the young man he once was, a preview of our son at a later age. Edward continued, “Bruce was waiting for me in the entryway, and after Stanton walked me downstairs, I found my friend on the floor, clutching his sides with laughter. Stanton could scarcely control himself, and in short order, we all had to step outside lest our guffaws reach the still-fuming ladies.”

He paused. “And now she is dead. The mother at least. If anyone here thinks I ought to say I’m sorry for this turn of events, he or she should think again. That woman has caused much mischief over the years, but I chose to overlook her troublemaking ways for the sake of harmony among neighbors. Furthermore, whatever the Dowager did not instigate, her daughter Blanche did. Without her mother’s whispers urging her on, perhaps Blanche will marry and obey a husband with better sense than she.”

“That might be hard,” Mr. Douglas said. “The wags at Boodle’s say that the Ingram family is nigh desperate for an infusion of funds.”

Edward cleared his throat. “When the Baron Ingram died, he left an entailed estate. Young Lord Ingram stays at Ingram Park. I believe he’s trying to be a good steward, but the debt the land carries is crushing, in part because so much was borrowed for Blanche’s coming-out Season. And she has continued spending every Season since.”

“Now that their mother is gone, when Lady Grainger dies, the three Ingram children will be her heirs. In the meantime, she has offered to help them along until the girls marry. Of course, no one expected that Blanche would still be single nearly ten years after her debut,” Lucy mused.

“It’s been so long that people have started to talk,” said Mr. Douglas. “While at the club, Edward and I learned that the Ingrams had succeeded in ginning up a bit of sympathy with their outrageous actions last night. I believe that they snubbed Jane as a way of trying to claim a moral high ground, although they were also happy for the chance to punish Edward for deceiving them about his fortune. The gambit paid off, because onlookers wondered what Jane had done to deserve such a rebuke. Happily Edward and I set many of them straight.”

“The interlude in the King’s box did much to dispel their one-sided version of events.” Edward held out his good hand, a signal to me to come nearer.

“But wasn’t that risky?” I asked. “For the Ingrams, I mean. Certainly there are those who know Lucy as all of us do. They would reject any aspersions cast her way.”

“Even so, you were an easy target, Mrs. Rochester,” said Mr. Douglas. “You have no sponsors here in London except for ourselves. As the newcomer, you were vulnerable. Furthermore, they had the element of surprise. On the battlefield, I observed that a straightforward attack often so confused the enemy that they scattered, and as a result, the battle was lost to them. I believe that’s exactly what they hoped to achieve last evening.”

Edward chuckled. “That shows how little they know of you. Imagine! They thought they could force you to retreat, to run home and never show your face in public again!”

“I had no intention of going home until I was ready,” I said.

Lucy stood and went to her desk. She pulled a stack of notes from under the box of blotting sand. “And I have here letters from Olivia Grainger confirming that the Ingrams promised her to be on their best behavior! Such perfidy! And subterfuge!”

Before I could reply, Higgins announced the arrival of Mr. Waverly, who burst into the room and said, “Mrs. Rochester, I desperately need to speak with you!

Chapter 27

“What problem with my wife so concerns you, Mr. Waverly?” Edward half rose from his chair.

“I prefer that she and I talk in private, Squire Rochester. This is a matter of grave importance,” Waverly said, as he tugged at his waistcoat and stood a little straighter. I could see the beads of perspiration on the man’s forehead.

“I have no secrets from my husband or my friends,” I said. “Furthermore, if this matter to which you refer is so worrisome, then it stands to reason that my husband, and my hostess, might need to hear about it as well. As for Mr. Douglas, you know him to be a resourceful ally. Therefore, pray continue.”

“How cool you are, Jane.” Mr. Rochester covered my hand with his and gripped my fingers hard. “By the gods, I have always suspected you have the warrior heart of Boudicca herself, and here you prove it.”

“There is no other course, dear husband. I am no coward. I will not turn tail and run like a scalded dog. So tell me, Mr. Waverly, what have you come to say?”

Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Waverly took a breath and said, “Could I trouble you for a drink, Mrs. Captain Brayton?”

“Certainly. I think we could all use something stronger than tea,” Lucy replied. She poured us tumblers of whiskey. Waverly took his glass and upended it. “Thank you, ma’am. This whiskey is excellent. From the Auchentoshan distillery in Scotland, I take it?” She nodded. “Yes, so I thought. There’s no taste of peat in it. Delicate and sweet.”

I had never had whiskey before. I thought to decline it but instead chose to sip mine carefully, while Lucy poured Waverly another helping. Before meeting Lucy, I’d never had anything other than wine with a meal. But once in a while, stronger beverages with curative powers seemed necessary. This was definitely one of those times. All of our party seemed to study the amber liquid, searching for answers or fingerposts to direct our actions.

“You all know about the letter Jane holds? And that there are those eager to possess it?” We all nodded, and Waverly continued. “Although I profess to be offering protection to Lady Elizabeth, the Marchioness of Conyngham, in truth I train my attention on her because she’s capable of much mischief. You’ve seen how she offers the King laudanum and spirits. He is incapable of keeping secrets from her. When the Marchioness is not watching the King like a hawk, her husband trains a falcon’s eye on their prey. The magistrate is well aware that she accepts bribes and furthers only those who find a way to reward her. She needs leverage over the King. Recently, she proposed that he make her husband part of the Privy Council, and her son Master of the Robes and Groom of the First Chamber. Don’t you see? His Majesty will never escape their influence. Her husband and son will be the most powerful men in the realm.”

“Well!” said Mr. Douglas, giving the coals a poke that caused a storm of sparks to fly. “Sounds like Lady Conyngham will get exactly what she wants!”

But Waverly frowned. “Not exactly. The King is giving her every indication that he refuses to follow through on her desires.”

“So she wants Jane’s letter to hold over his head? And she will go to any means to get it? Then I say, hand it over to Conyngham, my darling. Let the King take responsibility for what he has wrought. Let him buy or lie or fight his way out of this, and leave you alone,” Edward said quietly. “We can go back to Ferndean. There are cottages, simple hovels, where we can live quietly until this blows over.”

“I wish it were that simple,” said Waverly. “In short, our King clutches a viper to his chest, which is the real reason I have been ordered to stick by her side.” He put down his tumbler and studied it sadly. Lucy moved to fill it once more, but the Bow Street Runner waved her away. “When we returned today from Lady Grainger’s house, the Marchioness told me she was tired and wanted to retire to her chambers to be alone. But I had a suspicion, and following suspicions is a part of my success. As Mr. Douglas will tell you, a man who faces danger learns to listen to his gut. Instead of walking away, I secreted myself outside her rooms. As I suspected, she never intended to rest. No, after five minutes, she came down the hallway. I followed her into St. James’s Park. I had wondered why she had been so eager to quit Lady Grainger’s house. Usually any sort of drama captures her interest. But very soon, I understood . . . she had been eager to leave because she had a meeting, an assignation. I saw her there in the shadows, talking to someone.”

“Out with it, man,” barked Edward. “Who was her contact? What did he want?”

“She was talking to the Duke of Cumberland.”

“Oh!” Lucy raised her hand to her mouth. “The King’s brother? What can they be in league over?”

“This meeting with the Duke of Cumberland is ominous.” Mr. Douglas took the cut-glass decanter from his sister and poured himself another drink. “Waverly? You and I know what he’s capable of. While the Duke of York, the King’s other brother, adores Mrs. Fitzherbert, and has openly stated he considers her a dear friend, his brother Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, is a staunch defender of the faith and violently anti-Catholic.”

“That’s right,” said Waverly. “And Mrs. Fitzherbert is a member of the Catholic Church. Since the King becomes the head of the Anglican Church after his coronation, there is a timeline here. One that concerns me gravely.”

“So the letter I have would not only destroy the King’s right to ascend the throne . . .” I let my voice trail off.

Mr. Douglas picked up my thought and saw it to its natural conclusion. “It could also be used to rally crowds in the street. Protestant crowds. Crowds that already think Caroline was badly used. Masses who would be furious if they knew our King had married a Roman Catholic widow ten years before he married the Queen.”

“While George IV has the Bow Street men and the palace guards to protect him, Maria is alone in the world,” said Lucy. “What’s more, she’s due to return to London from Brighton any day now, as she usually does, with Minney, and she has no idea that they are in danger. And they certainly could be, if the Duke of Cumberland is plotting to expose his brother’s bigamous marriage!”

“I believe he is,” said Waverly. “While the Lady Conyngham relies on her wits, the Duke could easily stoop to violence to achieve his aims. At least, that is what I’ve been told—and I hear it from reliable sources. So I worry that if the Lady told him that Mrs. Rochester has a letter he could use . . .”

Without going further, his concerns became quite clear. I said, “I understood the situation to be turbulent, but I must confess that the full gravity escaped me.”

“Please know, Mrs. Rochester, that I heartily wish the seriousness was lost on me as well. Instead, I find myself in the awkward position of safeguarding a blackguard from his own paramour.”

At some point Lucy had rung for Higgins, but her action escaped my notice because I was too deep in thought. The memory of being alone—orphaned and without benefactors—had shaped my character in such a way that my sympathies were easily won by those who were friendless or without resources or who fought to survive against great odds. I knew what that was like, and I had vowed never to forget it. In fact, I prayed I never would, because it seemed to me that to forget was the first step along the road to foisting the same harm on other innocents.

“Cook is preparing sandwiches. They’ll be up directly.” Higgins noted the nearly empty decanter. “I shall be pleased to bring up more whiskey from the Captain’s barrels.”

Lucy thanked him, and a few minutes later, Sadie carried in a tray laden with egg and watercress sandwiches, slices of ham and mutton, thick wedges of cheese, and a warm loaf of bread. We helped ourselves to the foodstuffs, and I admit they revived my acuity.

“Where is the letter?” asked Waverly, as he helped himself to more ham.

“In a safe place,” I said.

“How could the British Empire have come to this? You jest with us,” said Edward to the Bow Street Runner. “At the very least, you indulge in exaggeration. Are you in fact here to fetch the letter?” he asked. “Is that why you really came, Waverly?”

Of late I’d noticed that Edward had grown more and more abrupt, which I determined was a natural consequence of his burgeoning sense of vulnerability. As his faulty vision caused the world around him to shrink, my husband became agitated. I couldn’t blame him, but his moodiness worried me. Even so, I appreciated him asking Waverly the question that had preyed upon my mind.

“No, no, Mr. Rochester. Quite the contrary. I think your wife is safer with the letter than without. No one would believe her if she said she destroyed it. It is too valuable! As long as she has it, or as long as people believe her to have possession of it, then she is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Are you entirely confident that the contents are so inflammatory?” Edward asked. “Perhaps your impression of the message has overshadowed its real substance.” He turned to me. “Jane, perhaps you should show it to Mr. Waverly and let him judge for himself.”

I agreed—I felt I could trust Phineas Waverly and reassure him about the secure lodging of the papers. I looked at Lucy and nodded.

“Bruce? A little help, please.” Following his sister’s direction, Mr. Douglas lifted the Turner seascape from its spot on the wall. The painting had disguised a niche in the wall, a cubbyhole where a strongbox fit neatly. Bruce lifted out the metal receptacle and set it on the far end of the large polished oak desktop.

“Thank you, Brother. All I need is the key.” Lucy leaned over to open a bottom drawer. We waited as she searched blindly with her hand. “There’s a trick to opening the secret compartment where I keep the key,” she explained. We heard a satisfying click and Lucy held up a silver key. After turning the lock in the strongbox door, she withdrew an oilcloth pouch and handed it to me.

Unwrapping the protective covering revealed the six pieces of thick ivory stationery, each embossed with the red imprint of the Crown. I read the message aloud to my friends:

My Darling Pansy,

I miss you more than I can say. My love for you threatens to burst my heart! Never have I met such a woman as you! What a treasure you are. Hearing that you are with child worries me. Will your husband treat you well? I hope so, because as you might guess it is beyond my power to intercede on your behalf at the present time. Not when my own situation is so distressful!

As you might have heard, I am estranged from that loathsome creature who pretends to be my wife. God knows that our marriage is naught but a sham. Had I not been wholly desperate with my debtors pressing on me from every side, I would never have consented to a public spectacle. But my father was quite out of his mind, as you know, so I had no choice but to proceed and bow to his wishes, for the good of our nation, by agreeing to an alliance that would help me preserve my ascension to the throne—even if it cost me my immortal soul. Such a humble servant I am to our nation! But as I told you before, and as you well know, I had already honestly sworn before God and in the presence of a priest to love and honor another woman. A woman I met in my younger days before my father met his end, a death that could not cede the throne to me soon enough.

Together she and I have had a daughter, a darling girl, who is the joy of my life. Although
circumstances have forced that lady and me to live apart, she and she alone is my true wife. So as you can see, as much as I care for you, I am already bound to another. If that were not true, I would certainly spend every resource at my disposal to elevate you to the status you deserve, and to provide for you.

On the last page, he had dropped down to the center and scribbled a few last lines above his signature:

Pity the poor head that wears the crown! No one can imagine what dangers and pressures assail me on every side. The dreams I have of my time on the battlefield! The terror I relive! Sometimes I fear that I am every bit as mad as my father!

George

“What an extraordinary document,” said Mr. Douglas. “His admission that he lied under oath when marrying Caroline is almost as damning as the admission that he committed adultery while receiving the sacrament of holy matrimony.”

“And at his coronation this man is to be named head of the Anglican Church!” said Lucy.

I had never seen a graver look than the one on Bruce Douglas’s face as he said, “One of my friends, Bootle Wilbraham, is fond of saying that ‘Radicalism has taken the shape of affection for the Queen.’ Caroline’s ‘acquittal’ was greeted by the firing of muskets and cannons in the street. A general roar of approval amidst cheering and hurrahs. The government realizes how close a call the monarchy endured because the Queen’s lawyer, Henry Brougham, had managed to possess a will written by George IV when he was but a prince. In it, our King named Maria Fitzherbert his wife. It has since been destroyed, or so I presume, for the safety of the realm. The populace is already enraged at the King’s extravagant spending while they suffer so much poverty and hunger. To know that he also has committed both adultery and bigamy, when he’s soon to be named the head of the church, would further incense them! There are many who worry that just like our neighbor France, we are poised on the brink of a bloody revolution.”

“And if Lady Conyngham has her way . . .” I started, but the specter was too frightening.

“And if the Duke of Cumberland gets his hands on this document . . .” Lucy said.

“Then rather than parading through Westminster Abbey with a crown on his head, King George IV might lead a march to a guillotine where he and his head part company,” said Waverly.

Mr. Douglas spoke in a hoarse whisper, “While the rest of the aristocracy find themselves following in His Majesty’s footsteps!”