Jane Austen Mysteries 08 Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (13 page)

. . . I walked about the quarterdeck this morning at Captain
Dundage's invitation, glad for the freedom it afforded from the
seamen holystoning the decks and the constant activity of the
Indiaman. It is as nothing, of course, to the relentless toil of His
Majesty's Navy--two such ships of the line hovering in escort
just off our port and starboard bows; but such a knot of bodies is
constantly passing to and fro amidships that I should be hard
pressed to achieve any sort of exercise without the Captain's kind
intervention. There is very little society, either. Freddy Vansittart
has made a friend of the First Lieutenant, Mr. Harlow, and
spends his hours in firing a gun off the stern rail at any creature
that moves; tho' well enough to look at without his powdered
wig, and possessed of high courage that makes him a fine fellow
in a fight, Freddy was never one for discussing philosophy, and is
certain to prove tedious company in a voyage so long as this. My
esteemed employer, Governor-General Hastings, being a prey to
seasickness and in no mood for conversation--the politics of my
friend Fox having succeeded in cutting up his peace and requiring
his resignation from a post the Governor prized above all others
in life--I am left to my own devices more often than not. I find I
can bear the solitude quite cheerfully. It affords me the
opportunity to consider of my future.

In four months' time I shall be five-and-twenty. Which is to
say that, despite my father the Duke's concerted effort to thwart
every impulse of my existence, I must come into my late uncle's
fortune under the stipulations of his Will. With sudden wealth,
any number of avenues are opened to me: I might establish a high-
flyer in Mayfair and offer her carte-blanche; I might squander my
98 ~ Stephanie Barron

yearly income in a fortnight at picquet, as Fox himself has done;
or I might spurn the obligations of a Man of Fashion and Birth,
and throw the lot into the India trade. The Governor himself has
told me the recent India Act is designed to clip the wings of the
Honourable Company, as its profits are too great and its threat of
dominion over the Subcontinent, with Mr. Hastings as its king,
all too feared. Hence his departure in high dudgeon for the
English coast. I see in my employer's present fall an opportunity:
I shall take my money and become part-owner in a ship--an
opium trader bound for China. Like any gaming hell, the China
trade has all the appeal of high risk and rich return, with the
added attraction of being deeply offensive to His Grace the Duke
of Wilborough. But as his lordship the Viscount St. Eustace once
observed, I was born a commoner and a commoner I shall
always be.2

I have profited from my turns about the quarterdeck in
conversing on certain points with Captain Dundage, who is a
veteran of these seas for the past decade. What he does not know
of Indiamen and tea and the fortune to be made in poppies is not
worth asking. And there is an added incentive in this: the
Captain has in his safekeeping a young lady of retiring habits and
infinite charm--a virtuous and well-born French girl of
eighteen, reared in Madras and bound for a betrothal in England
with my very enemy the Viscount St. Eustace--a man she has
never met.

How has it come about, this bizarre and distant proposal from
a stranger nearly twice her age? She cannot have an idea of his
2 According to the practice of primogeniture, only the first-born son and heir of a peer was considered ennobled at birth; the rest of the Duke of Wilborough's children, like Lord Harold, were considered commoners, and accorded courtesy titles of lord or lady only during their lifetimes.

Their children, in turn, were plain Mr. or Miss.
--Editor's note.

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 99

lordship's depravities--of the Beauty he has already crushed
beneath his fist. She cannot know his dangerous proclivities, his
desire for mastery, his miserly clutch on the riches he claims, his
delight in other people's misery; she cannot understand the Hell
her life is to become. I must know more of this girl and her
history.

I confess on this page that the temptation to ruin St.

Eustace's hopes is fierce upon me like a fever. But the Captain is
scrupulous in shielding his charge from all eyes, and when
Mam'selle takes the quarterdeck air, I am not permitted to
ascend.

There are months yet to surge through the southern seas, in
fair weather and foul, and months may work a wondrous change.

In the meanwhile I strive to impress old Dundage with my air of
industry, my keen questions regarding triangular trade, my well-
bred manners and unimpeachable connexions.

We shall see how long is required for the French citadel to fall.

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Chapter 10

The Joiner's Tale

6 July 1809, cont.

~

"It is decidedly a gentleman's boot," Mr. Prowting agreed as he peered at the footprints in the cellar's dirt, "and most decidedly not mine. I wonder, sir, if we might compare your apparel to these?"

Henry obediently held out his shoe for the magistrate's ob-servation. Mr. Prowting placed a pair of tongs from heel to toe, and then applied the span to the mark in the dirt. Henry's foot was a full inch longer and perhaps a quarter-inch wider.

"It will not do," our neighbour decreed sadly. "Clearly there has been a third set of well-made boots in this place that cannot be accounted for. I do not regard the marks of the labourers who removed French's body--they are all about, but clearly dis-tinguishable in their heavy soles and hobnails from
this.
It is as Mr. Munro observed--tho' I did not like to credit it at the time.

Shafto French was brought here already dead, and hidden of a Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 101

purpose. And by a
gentleman
! It does not bear thinking of, Miss Austen. I had made certain the drowning was an accident--a terrible mishap born in the heat of fisticuffs between French and one of his fellows."

"--Bertie Philmore, perhaps?"

"--Tho' his wife was prepared to lie about the business. I made certain we should have the truth from Philmore in time.

But it will not do."

I almost pitied Mr. Prowting as he crouched with his tongs in his hands, ample stomach uncomfortably swelling over the band of his breeches; he had certainly comprehended the trou-ble that the marks presaged. Only a handful of persons in the neighbourhood of Chawton and Alton could be described as gentlemen--and most of these should have known of the cot-tage's desertion. The magistrate was faced with the unhappy duty of suspecting some one of his neighbours--or subjecting all of them to an examination of their footwear.

"Mr. Prowting, are you aware of any dispute that may have existed between French and some one of the gentlemen here-abouts? A small thing, perhaps, that grew to ugliness over time?"

I enquired.

The magistrate preserved a thoughtful silence, his fingers loosely grasping his tongs. "I should have thought nobody in these parts could have put a name to the fellow's face! French was a common labourer, merely, and much of a piece with all the rest--shiftless, drunken, of no particular account. I confess, Miss Austen, that I am at a loss to explain the entire episode."

"And yet: he must have held enormous significance to one of our neighbours," I persisted gently. "Shafto French was fear-some enough to be lured to the pond, and violently killed there."

"What I do not understand," Henry said, "is why the fellow was put in the cellar at all! Why not leave him, as Mr. Prowting 102 ~ Stephanie Barron

has suggested, exactly where he lay? It is probable French was drowned after midnight, and that no one was abroad to ob-serve the deed. Why not allow the body to be discovered in the morning?"

"Perhaps," I said thoughtfully, "because the murderer re-quired time."

Mr. Prowting looked at me with a frown. "What do you mean to say, Miss Austen?"

"Perhaps the murderer wished French's body to be discov-ered several days after death, to confuse the public knowledge of exactly
when
murder occurred. Perhaps he was safely distant from Chawton for most of the period in question--the period of French's disappearance--and by hiding the body, wished to delay discovery and thus divert our attention from the Saturday night in question. It is unfortunate for our murderer, then, that the last sighting of French at the Crown Inn should have been so exact, and his absence throughout the Sunday and Monday noted. Our murderer cannot have anticipated this."

Mr. Prowting was staring at me in an incredulous fashion.

"Miss Austen," he said accusingly, "I do believe you are a
blue-
stocking
!"

"Certainly not, sir!" I protested in an outraged accent.

"But her understanding is regrettably excellent," my brother added with a sigh. "It is to this we may attribute her re-fusal to enter the married state, despite the many opportunities that have offered."

I chose to ignore his impudence. "Mr. Prowting, you have long been a neighbour of Mrs. Seward's. Can you tell me whether she entrusted a spare set of keys to this cottage, to you or any other friend in the village?"

"Good Lord," he muttered. "Worse and worse. You cannot even allow it to be Dyer's fault!"

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 103

"In the interest of furthering the truth," I admitted deli-cately, "I cannot. You will admit the appearance of the body in this place becomes more explicable if someone other than sim-ply Mr. Dyer was in possession of a set of keys."

"The Sewards did not honour me with their confidence. Be-ing your brother's steward and a close man by nature, Bridger Seward was jealous of his trust. But his widow may have given the means of entry into other hands, after her husband's death, and forgotten to retrieve them once she quitted the cottage."

"Then I suppose I must speak to Mrs. Seward. I do not like to think of a set of keys to this house continuing to wander about the countryside. I should sleep far better if they all came home to roost."

Henry's eyes met mine over Mr. Prowting's head with a sombre expression. Both of us were thinking of the same thing: Lord Harold's Bengal chest, now hidden beneath my bedstead.

"Pray tell me, sir-- Where does Mrs. Seward now reside?"

"In Alton, with her daughter Mrs. Baverstock. The Baver-stocks have long been brewers, and their establishment sits on the High, just opposite the Duke's Head." The magistrate rose, dusting off his hands. "I cannot say that this is a happy discov-ery, Miss Austen. I should rather these marks to have remained obscured. The suspicion of a neighbour in so grave an affair as murder must be a most distasteful business."

"But justice, my dear sir, is owed to the lowly as well as the great."

From his looks as he parted from my door, I doubted that Mr. Prowting agreed with me.

After a brief nuncheon, Henry informed me that he was required in Alton that day, and had already tarried too long.

104 ~ Stephanie Barron

"Would you allow me to ride pillion, Henry? I feel it incum-bent upon me to pay a call of mourning."

"But you've already seen the widow, Jane!"

"And had Shafto French no friends to grieve at his sudden passing?" I demanded indignantly.

"More likely creditors filing to the door in search of pay-ment. No wonder his unfortuate wife fled to Chawton this morning as soon as may be."

"Very well--if you are so unfeeling and so selfish, I will
walk
to Alton."

"Of course you may ride pillion," he retorted impatiently.

"Only do not be clutching at the poor horse's neck in that odi-ous way. You look such a flat when you do."

"I have never been a horsewoman," I admitted despairingly.

"Have you a riding habit?"

I shook my head. A made-over gown of Lizzy's had served to carry me through Canterbury Race Week four years before, but that was long since consigned to the scrap basket, and should probably form a part of my mother's scheme for a pieced cov-erlet before long.

"I daresay you are going to force an acquaintance on the Widow Seward, as well. You mean to pursue this murder,"

Henry said, his gaze narrowed. "You
will not
let matters rest. I blame Lord Harold, Jane--he has had a most unfortunate in-fluence on your headstrong nature."

"Bertie Philmore knows more than he admitted."

"Undoubtedly. But must you be the one to tell him so? Why cannot you allow our neighbour Mr. Prowting to do his duty?"

"Because he shall undoubtedly do it so
badly,
Henry!

Jemima French deserves some justice, does she not? Consider all she has lost!"

"A lout of a husband who drank, and boasted, and owed the Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 105

world his living before it reached his pocket." My brother looked away, a muscle in his jaw working. "There has never been any justice for people of French's class. You know that, Jane."

"But I cannot stand idly by, and watch a wrong go un-righted. Recollect, Henry
--I saw the dead man's face.
Or what re-mained of it."