Jane Austen Mysteries 08 Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (12 page)

"And the work was complete on what day?" Mr. Munro then demanded.

Mr. Dyer looked all his discomfort. He had intended the re-pairs to Chawton Cottage to be finished on Saturday, as his men were expected in Sherborne St. John on Monday; but work on the cesspit, or French himself, had given some trouble. Rains and indolence delayed the business's conclusion. When Shafto French did not appear as expected Monday morning, Mr.

Dyer's son painted the privy himself and set all in order before handing over the keys to the publican Mr. Barlow's safekeep-ing--much relieved to learn that we had arrived at the inn from Kent only that day.

"Your son noticed nothing untoward as he was locking up the house?--A suggestion, as it were, that someone had entered the premises prior to himself ?"

"Bill had no cause to go down cellar, nor any of my men nei-ther, being that no repairs were to be done in that part of the cottage," Mr. Dyer said sharply. "Don't you be accusing my boy of murder, Mr. Crowner, when all he's done is another man's honest day of work."

Mr. Munro had soothed the builder's injured feelings, and Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 89

reverted instead to the matter of the keys. Had Mr. Dyer been assured of their possession throughout the interval between Shafto French's disappearance on Saturday, and the conclusion of work on Monday?

Mr. Dyer thought that he had. An impression of reserve was given; and at Mr. Munro's persistence, the builder confessed that it was his son, Bill, who'd been the keeper of the keys--and that Bill was at work today in the aforementioned parish of Sherborne St. John, and must answer later for himself.

"Bertie Philmore or young William Dyer killed the man and hid his body in the cellar," Henry told me thoughtfully, "or someone unknown to us obtained the builder's keys through stealth with the intention of committing, and hiding, murder.

We can be certain, however, that the deed was done between midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the keys were apparently once more in the publican's possession."

"If," I rejoined to Henry's chagrin, "there is only one set of keys."

When he had breakfasted, I prevailed upon my brother to descend the cellar stairs and study the floor there, with a lan-thorn held high against whatever spectres might haunt a place of violent death.

"Not a happy part of the house," Henry observed feelingly as the dank coldness of the air hit our faces, despite the warmth of the summer morning above. "It wants a number of casks and wooden crates of smuggled claret--sawdust on the floors to take off the damp--and a spot of whitewash on the stone walls."

"If you know of a single man in Alton or Chawton coura-geous enough to undertake the labour of painting this death-room, I beg you will send him to us directly," I retorted. "Not even Mr. Prowting can discover a person of the serving class 90 ~ Stephanie Barron

willing to enter the cottage. Like all ill-gotten gains, it is tacitly understood to be cursed."

"I shall have to speak to young Baigent's father. The boy ought to be horse-whipped."

"So ought Neddie. I shall whip him myself, for having ig-nored the claims of Widow Seward and Jack Hinton alike."

The lanthorn, swinging in Henry's hand, threw wild shad-ows against the ceiling and walls; I tried not to find in the flick-ering shapes the humped menace of rats.

"Munro was interested, you say, in any disturbance--or the stain of dried water?" Henry asked.

"--Tho' Mr. Prowting insisted he saw neither."

"Then he did not observe the ground closely," my brother objected. He held the lanthorn perhaps a foot above the dirt floor and moved it in an arcing sweep over the surface. "Look, Jane. Faint footprints, and a poor effort at scrubbing them out."

He was correct, as Henry must always be: in the stronger light of the burning oil, I could discern what a candle flame had not revealed: The impressions of a boot in the dirt, near the corner of the room where Shafto French had lain. They were partial and indistinct, and ought to have been obliterated by the careless feet of Mr. Prowting and myself, not to mention those who had removed Shafto French's body. I gathered my skirt in both hands and crouched down, the better to observe them. The mark of a right heel, broad and flat; and two impres-sions of a boot toe.

"Henry," I murmured as I studied them, "do these appear to be the marks of a labourer's shoe?"

"They do not," he replied grimly, "tho' I should certainly believe them a man's. There are no impressions of hobnails, as one would expect from a heavy working boot, and look, Jane--the leather sole was so fine as to leave an imprint in one place of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 91

the fellow's left toe. I should judge these marks to have been left by a good pair of leather boots such as . . ."

". . . a gentleman should wear."

We looked at each other, both of us frowning.

"Could they be Prowting's?" Henry demanded.

"Perhaps. But I imagine Mr. Prowting's impression might be found here, at the foot of the stairs"--I motioned for my brother's lanthorn--"where he stood an instant with the full weight of the chest in his arms. Observe how distinctly the marks are left, Henry."

"And of an entirely different size," he added. "There is an-other set of those marks beneath the hatch, where Prowting stood to unbar the doors."

"We must invite our neighbour the magistrate to test his footwear in this room, and I myself shall sketch the remaining impressions," I said soberly. "We ought not to delay. Mr.

Prowting may have an idea of Shafto French's enemies among the gentry of Chawton."

"Then why did he not offer them at the inquest, Jane?"

A slight sound from the cellar stairs drew my head around, and forestalled my answer.

"Mamma? Is that you?" I called upwards.

A woman's face swam in the darkness at the head of the stairs: white, frightened, with large clear eyes and a trembling lip. A knot of red-gold hair crowned the whole.

"It is Mrs. French, is it not?" I said in surprise. "How may I help you, my dear?"

She stood in silence at the foot of the stairs, glanc-ing about the ugly stone walls and the scuffed dirt of the floor.

Henry had bowed to the woman and murmured a word of 92 ~ Stephanie Barron

sympathy; but he did not tarry in his errand to Prowtings. I could hear his heavy tread even now above our heads, making for the front door.

"The lady said as I might come down," Jemima French mut-tered, "and should be in no one's way. I had to see this place, if you understand me, ma'am. I had to see where my Shafto died."

I might have told her he could have met his end in any horse trough between the Crown Inn and Chawton; but I did not like to seem so unfeeling. I considered of this girl--for, in-deed, she was little older than Ann or Catherine Prowting--lying alone in her bed with the little ones breathing softly beside her, and seeing in memory again and again the ravaged face of her husband. They had asked her to view the body and name it for Shafto French. Had she gone alone to that inter-view with the surgeon, Mr. Curtis?

"It
is
dark down here, in'it?" she murmured, tho' Henry had left us the lanthorn. "You will tell me where he lay?"

I nodded assent, and pointed towards the corner of the room. "Just there. I must ask you not to touch the place. There are marks we should like the magistrate to observe."

Her eyes were once again wide with horror, as though she imagined the trail of a convulsive fit, or perhaps the traffic of a legion of rodents emanating from the walls. "What marks?"

Caution, and a knowledge of the habits of country folk--of the impossibility of any fact remaining private--made me delib-erately chary. "The marks of your husband's form, of course.

Shall I carry you upstairs, my dear, and fix you a cup of tea?"

"I should've known," she said dully, "when he didn't come back. A bit o' light-skirt, I thought it was--Shafto always having been a man for a doxy. It was pride, ma'am, as prevented me speaking; but
pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit be-
Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 93

fore a fall,
as my mother used to say, being a great one for quot-ing Proverbs."

"Had you any reason to think your husband at risk of injury, Mrs. French?"

She stared at me fixedly; but it was not a look of incompre-hension--of indecision, rather, as tho' she could not determine to trust me.

"Had he an enemy?" I persisted. "Some person you knew of, who wished him ill--or who might perhaps profit from his death?"

A slow flush o'erspread her features, and her gaze fell. "No, ma'am. Nobody could want my man dead."

"But someone clearly did. The coroner is convinced your husband did not meet his death by chance."

She turned her head restlessly. "He'd been talking wild for days, about the blunt he was going to have off some'un as was plump in the pocket; blood money, he called it, as'd set us up forever.
Silk gowns, Jemima my girl,
he said,
and no worrying about
wood for the fire when the cold winds blow.
"

"Was he often given to publishing hopes of that kind, when he had lately been paid for work?" I enquired with an unstud-ied air.

She shook her head. "It was a rare struggle for us to make one end meet the other, ma'am, and how I am to manage now I cannot think."

"Have you any family?"

"A brother, with a good number of his own to feed. But I can ply a needle, ma'am, and may find piecework at the linen-draper's. I have worked all my life, and am not afraid of it."

I preserved a tactful silence. Between the demands of war and the limits to commerce we suffer at the hands of Napoleon, times are very hard in this country. I myself have felt the pinch 94 ~ Stephanie Barron

of articles too dear for my purse, and I had not Mrs. French's encumbrances.

"You have no further expectation of these funds your hus-band spoke of?--He gave you no hint of the person from whom he expected his money?"

"Not a word, ma'am. And who should it be, when all is said?

I've known Shafto's mates since we were all little 'uns together, running through Robin Hood Butts of a spring morn.1 None of our kind of folk would come into a treasure; and none owed him money. 'Twas too often t'other way round. My man had no head for business, ma'am."

"And yet--Bertie Philmore asserted that when he parted from your husband, Mr. French was intending to meet with a man. You have no notion of who this man might be?"

"His murderer," she rejoined in a voice creased with misery.

"Shafto thought to make his fortune, and met his end! Blood money! I'll give 'im blood money!"

"It
is
a curious phrase," I observed, "potent with violence."

"He always was a fool, my Shafto--but that kindhearted.

He'd never raise his hand to me or the little 'uns," she said hastily.

"That is not what I meant. I meant that the words
blood
money
suggest payment for a killing--or, perhaps, for your hus-band's silence regarding one. He expected to gain from guilty knowledge, that much seems certain. --Tho' the guilt may not have been his own."

This time her confusion was evident.

"Did he say anything else that might help us, Mrs. French?"

"Only that it was the air as would pay."

1 Robin Hood Butts was an area of open land between Chawton and Alton that served as the site of Alton's April Fair.
--Editor's note.

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 95

"The air?" I repeated blankly.

"Yes, ma'am. Someone as stood to inherit a good deal, and could afford to buy Shafto's silence."

The heir as would pay.

I had heard two men described in such terms in as many days--Julian Thrace and Jack Hinton. Both had witnessed the inquest. I felt a sudden longing to seize the gentlemen's boots and make a trial of both pairs on the cellar floor.

"Was your husband well known in these parts?"

"He'd lived here all 'is life."

"So he would be quite familiar to any number of people in both Chawton and Alton--the Prowtings, perhaps, or the Middletons; even the Hintons, I suppose."

Her reaction to this gentle query was swift as a viper's. "Why should the Hintons care? Who's been talking about Shafto and Mr. Jack?"

"Nobody," I replied, bewildered. "Has there been talk be-fore?"

"Among his mates, there was always a kind word for Shafto,"

she retorted defiantly, "whatever that Bertie Philmore will say."

"And Mr. Hinton? Did he also think well of your husband?"

"Mr. Hinton be blowed!" She buried her face in her hands and sobbed pitifully. "Oh, God, Shafto, me lad--I should've known when you did not come back! I should have looked for you myself !"

"You could have done no good, had you roused the entire country," I told her gently, and placed my hand on her shoul-ders. "A thousand men in search of your husband could not have saved him. If he
was
killed by the man he went to meet at midnight on Saturday, he found his end before you even un-derstood he was missing. And no one but a tenant of this house could have discovered the body."

96 ~ Stephanie Barron

She lifted her visage, blue eyes all but drowned. "A proper wife would've known he was gone."

"Indeed, you take too much upon yourself." I grasped the lanthorn in one hand and put the other carefully on the young woman's shoulder, drawing her towards the stairs. "Your duty now is to preserve your children from exposure to the malice of your neighbours, and to fix in their memories a picture of their father in life, such as shall comfort and support them the rest of their days. Have you both boys and girls?"

And in speaking of her children, Jemima French discovered some fleeting comfort; enough to carry her into my kitchen, and sustain her for the length of time required to drink my tea.

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 97

Excerpt from the diaries of Lord Harold Trowbridge, dated
26 February 1785, on board the Indiaman
Punjab,
bound for
Portsmouth out of Bombay.