Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (25 page)

I threw back the covers and reached for my dressing gown, my eyes on Martha's tray. “Perhaps it was a fellow from her native island, encouraged through steady correspondence? “

Martha looked doubtful. “I don't think as it was a ferriner, miss, but I can't rightly say.”

“I suppose she might readily have formed an acquaintance during her months in London.”

“Come to think on it, miss, she did say as he'd took ‘er strollin’ of an evenin’ in Covent Garden.”

I took a sip of tea and studied the maid over the rim of my cup. “I wonder her mistress the Countess did not know of it. The entire affair is curious, Martha. As curious as Marguerite's friendship with Lizzy Scratch.”

“Old Lizzy's ‘avin’ the time o’ ‘er life,” Martha averred with scorn. “If she were any friend to the girl, I'm yer widowed aunt, I am. You ask anyone, you'll find that woman was chargin’ Margie dearly for ‘er keep when she took ‘er in. She's a warm woman, is Lizzy.”

I
BREAKFASTED WITH FANNY DELAHOUSSAYE, ARRAYED THIS
morning in a dove-grey gown and lace collar that gave the barest nod to the conventions of mourning, but appeared to decided effect against her blond curls and blue eyes. My own brown muslin looked as dull as clodded earth by comparison, and made me feel just as heavy. I sought refuge in silence and Mrs. Hodges's excellent chocolate, but peace was not a quality Miss Delahoussaye prized, and so I was soon forced to all the tedium of an early morning
tête-à-tête.
For Fanny was up early, impatient for her return to London, and possessed of complete equanimity as to its cause.

“For,” said she, turning a gold bracelet idly upon her wrist, “I cannot abide the
ennui
of a country existence. One's circle is so fixed, so little varied, that one might complete the sentences of one's neighbour with very little thought or effort. When I am married, I shall suffer myself to spend as little time as possible at my husband's country seat.”

“Then perhaps we should wish you the wife of a man who has none,” I replied, with perhaps more of acid in my tongue than I intended.

“How you do tease, Miss Austen!” Fanny cried. “What is a man, without an estate of his own? A poor sort of gentleman, I declare.”

“Perhaps—but he
is
very often a soldier, you know; for though it is the profession you prefer above all others, it is generally the province of
second sons.”

“Oh, piffle,” Miss Fanny said, returned to her good humour. “What is country life in any case, but shooting and billiards and the coarseness of country neighbours? An establishment in Town, such as an officer possessed of a truly good commission might claim, is far to be preferred. I long to be returned to Hyde Park, and the shops of Bond Street, and the theatre, and a hundred delightful schemes, even if London
will
be rather thin—until Easter at least. “

My patience for such a rattle was at an end. “I think it likely that we shall be so engaged, when in London, by matters of a sober and troubling nature,” I said stiffly, “that we shall have very little time for diversion.”

“One cannot be
always
going about with a long face,” said Fanny, intent upon adjusting her bodice. “It behooves us to meet adversity with a certain style. I intend to find Madame Henri—she is quite the most fashionable
modiste
, my dear Miss Austen—as soon as ever I arrive, and order a proper gown for the gallery at the House of Lords. It must be of black, of course, as we are in mourning for the Earl; a pity, for it was never a colour suited to my complexion.” Impervious to my disdain, she pursued her delightful fancies with clasped hands and uplifted eyes.

“Only think whom one might meet there!” Fanny cried. “The entire peerage of England assembled in one place! And certain to be moved to tender pity by the interesting circumstances in which we find ourselves. I could not
devise
a scheme more delicious. You
must
come along with me to Madame Henri's, my dear Miss Austen. You cannot afford to look less than your best, at your age.”

Madame Henri, indeed! It should never occur to Miss Delahoussaye that I lacked the funds for such an establishment—nor that my mantua-maker of choice was my dear sister Cassandra, and I hers. The price of fine muslin is too dear to make added expense of its fashioning; I should rather spend my shillings on a bit of braid, the better to trim my bodice. But Miss Fanny could know as little of economy as she might of tact.

Somewhat nettled, I spoke with asperity. “And so you have abandoned completely Lord Scargrave as your object, and would now seek a husband among the broader ranks of the great?”

“It was never
my
object to secure Fitzroy,” Fanny replied with a careless shrug; “such a cold fellow as he is, all erudition and puff! And in any case, I do not intend to injure my prospects by appearing allied to a man under such a cloud.” She dropped her eyes in the way of modest misses, and coloured prettily. “No, Miss Austen, I have long given my heart to another; I am sure you cannot mistake whom I mean. If things
should
fall out badly—if Fitzroy is to hang and Isobel with him—why, then, my choice will be proved aright! For in that case, it is certain that George Hearst should inherit the earldom.”

“The Payne family being possessed of no other direct heirs?” I enquired, with a stirring of interest.

“Unless the late Earl has got himself a bastard hidden away,” Miss Delahoussaye said, shrugging, “and between you and I, Miss Austen, that is hardly likely—he was an awfully respectable old stick. Did he get a son on the wrong side of the blanket, all the world should know it, and the boy be yet at Eton. No, Miss Austen, the Hearsts are at present the Earl's closest male relations—and who should have a greater claim to Scargrave than Mr. Hearst, who has lived all his life here, and his mother before him?”

“But can he inherit through the female line?”

“I understood from Tom that there is just such a provision in the conferment of the title. George has but to exchange the name of Hearst for Payne, and all shall be settled happily. You will have heard of such things before, I am sure.”

And so Tom Hearst has been calculating his brother's prospects— aloud, and to one so lacking in discretion as Miss Fanny—a very little time after Fitzroy Payne was charged with murder. Or was the deadly charge the Hearsts’ objective all along, with the seizure of an earldom their primary purpose? Murder has been done, and the innocent made to suffer, for far less.

Fanny was humming a little tune, lost in delightful fancies; I deemed it best to learn as much of the matter from her as possible, and thus turned the subject to her dearest concern.

“And so you would have Mr. Hearst?” I said, with conscious stupidity.

“Miss Austen!” she cried, with a new asperity in her eye. “I will not answer when you tease—for I see that you would sport with me.
Mr.
Hearst, indeed! You
are
a sly creature.”

I perfectly understood her meaning, and wondered at Fanny's ability to grasp
some
facts, while remaining ignorant of so many others. Should Fitzroy Payne be condemned, his cousin George Hearst would accede to an earldom, and the Lieutenant's prospects might very well improve. Tom Hearst should find a convenient ear for all his troubles, and perhaps an open hand to make his fortune—although, from knowing a little of Mr. Hearst's poor opinion of the Lieutenant, I would hesitate to consider his purse entirely his brother's to command. But the direction of Miss Fanny's thoughts should brook no disappointment; it was her fondest hope that with George Hearst's good fortune and high estate to add to his honourable commission, Tom Hearst should merit all the felicity that Fanny Delahoussaye's thirty thousand pounds could bring.

Both brothers, I mused as I buttered my toast, had reason enough to want their uncle dead, and their cousin judged guilty of his murder.

But I had no time for such dreadful thoughts, much less for Fanny's idle chattel; I left her calculating the proper length of sleeve for a murder trial among the peerage, and turned my attentions to poor Isobel, a prisoner in her very home.

“JANE,” THE COUNTESS GREETED ME BRISKLY, AS
I
BRAVED
the guardsman at her lintel and slipped through the door, “you are just in time. But was ever a friend so faithful in her attendance? Another should have been long returned to the bosom of her family, unhappy Scargrave forgotten.” The Countess sat at her writing desk, head bent over paper and pen, her breakfast tray untouched.

“None could forget, Isobel, though well they might flee. But I am neither so timid, nor so indifferent to your goodness.”

“Dear Jane!” she cried, and reached a cold, pale hand to my own. She looked remarkably ill this morning, her haggard countenance hardly improved by the rusty black of her gown; I judged her to have endured a sleepless night, and felt numb at the terrors she must yet face. “Would you perform one last office on your friend's behalf, before we must part?”

“Anything, Isobel, that you would command.”

“Place your signature at the foot of this page,” she told me, her voice low and trembling. “It represents my final wish in this world.”

I looked all my amazement, but Isobel pushed her pen towards me with resolution. “I beg of you, sign.”

I could not speak, nor read the provisions of her dreadful will, but affixed the name of Austen to the deed. I saw with sadness Daisy Hodges's awkward scrawl—she who was the Countess's young maid—in the place of second witness.

“Thank you, my dear,” Isobel said when I had finished, and folding the heavy sheet, she placed it in my hands. “It is yours, now, for safekeeping. Do you take it to my solicitor^ Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew of Bond Street, at the first opportunity.”

“My darling girl,” I said, deeply affected, “it cannot yet be time for such despair! Much may occur before this paper is wanted.”

“It is best to prepare for the worst, Jane, since the worst is all that is left to me. Unhappy Isobel! God be praised that Frederick's eyes are closed! The horror, did he see me so reduced to infamy—and by one that he had loved,” she cried, her hands clutching at her hair in distraction. “Faithless Fitzroy! Blackest of men, who can wear such a noble face!”

“Isobel.” I reached for her tearing fingers and held them firmly in my own. “How can you speak so? The Earl's fate is as desperate as yours, and he suffers it with like innocence. Surely you do not believe otherwise?”

“I saw the note myself, Jane,” my friend said contemptuously. “I saw what he had written, I saw it was in his hand. You found it yourself on poor Marguerite's mangled body. Do not you see what he has done? The maid was right all the while.
Fitzroy
is my husband's murderer.
Fitzroy
was discovered by Marguerite, who endeavoured to make his treachery known. And
Fitzroy
ensured that the maid should speak no more.”

“Do not believe it, Isobel,” I cried.

“Are you mad, Jane?” The Countess rose restlessly from her desk and commenced pacing before the fire. “What else would you have me believe? That I am guilty of their deaths myself? You need not assay the longer. Know that I feel as guilty as though my very hands extinguished their lives. It was my blind partiality for Fitzroy—my vanity, my desire for admiration, my weakness in the face of passion—that encouraged him in evil. He saw my fatuous trust, and he used it to his ends. / was the one intended for blame in Frederick's death, while
he
took all my husband's wealth. But Marguerite confounded Lord Scargrave's plans, by keeping his deadly letter on her person.”

The Countess halted before her late husband's portrait and gazed upward in contrition. “I betrayed you, Frederick, if only in my heart; but in my heart, I have already died for it.”

I felt behind me for some support, overcome by the breadth of her apprehensions, and found it in her bedpost. I leaned against it with relief. “I fear that you are sadly mistaken, my dear, and will regret these words with time. Bite them back, I beseech you—recall them if you can—before they lodge too bitterly in your heart.”

Isobel gazed at me with feverish eyes. “Tell me, Jane! Tell me why you place your trust in Fitzroy, when your friend's is all blasted. Has he worked his charms upon
you
, while Isobel mourned for Frederick?”

“You know it to be impossible!” I exclaimed. “As impossible for one of his honour, as the murder of which you would now accuse him! Isobel, Isobel—were Fitzroy Payne capable of planning such a deed, he should never have left his note on the maid's person. He should be a fool to incriminate himself so publicly. The maid's true murderer would have us think otherwise; but I feel certain of the note's falseness.”

Isobel brushed by me with a strangled laugh. “I know his hand, Jane. Too often have I received it, in words of love as false as Fitzroy's character. No, my friend,” the Countess said, calmer now, “I will not share your foolish hopes. For where I am going, hope itself is more foolish still.”

1. In 1801, George Austen, Jane's father passed his Steventon living (or parish appointment), its rectory, and most of its furnishings to his son James, a clergyman like himself, and moved with his wife and daughters to Bath.—
Editor's note.