Jane Austen Mysteries 08 Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (23 page)

I inclined my head, and so she continued.

"They were emitting the most horrid noises imaginable. Or I should say:
one
of the men was doing so. Grunts, hoarse cries, squeals of pain. The other--the taller of the two--preserved an awful silence, as tho' so intent upon his object, that he could not spare a thought for his injuries. As I watched, he o'er-1 The
sweep,
in Austen's day, was the term for a driveway.
--Editor's note.

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 181

whelmed his adversary and drove the man down towards the earth. I heard nothing more. I believe, now, that he had suc-ceeded in thrusting Shafto French's head--for so I guess the lesser man to have been--beneath the waters of Chawton Pond.

After an interval, all grappling ceased; and the victor rose."

"Good God," I said. "Why did you not scream? Why did you not sound the alarum, and rouse your father?"

"I was paralysed by the violence and horror I had wit-nessed," she returned quietly. "Fear pressed so heavily upon my breast that I do not believe I could have spoken, had I tried; and my trembling arms could barely support my frame as I leaned without the window. It is fortunate I did not swoon entirely away. And there was also this, Miss Austen: the quality of the scene, in its flood of moonlight, was so spectral as to convince me I had witnessed nothing but a dream, a nightmare of my own mind's fabrication. Altho' terrified, I could not be con-vinced in that moment that what I saw was
real.
"

I could, in truth, comprehend the disorder of her wits, and the cruel doubt of her mind. "And the rest of the household heard nothing?"

"My sister Ann is a sound sleeper, and her room--like my parents'--is at the rear. We are all so accustomed to the noise of coaches passing along the Winchester Road of nights, that little can disturb our slumbers. I believe I overheard the scene by the pond solely because I was already awake."

"I understand. And what did you then?"

She shook her head furiously, as if she might shake off the hideous memory. "I could not move. I remained by the window, staring out in an agony of indecision and disbelief. The man rose--the man whom I now comprehend was French's mur-derer--and moved into the shadows of the trees bordering the pond. He must have untethered a horse at that point, for the 182 ~ Stephanie Barron

only sound I subsequently heard was that of hoofbeats, as his mount made its way down the road."

"Did he ride south, in the direction of Winchester--or north, past your sweep, towards Alton?"

"South," she replied. "He did not pass within my sight at that time."

I was silent an instant, revolving the intelligence. Julian Thrace had admitted to riding out of the Great House a little af-ter midnight, but would claim that he had gone north in the di-rection of Alton. Had he indeed murdered Shafto French, this declaration was no more than wisdom. Thrace must assume that Mr. Middleton would freely disclose his presence in Chawton on the night of the murder and his departure at very nearly the hour of French's death. Had Thrace quitted the Great House by previous arrangement with his victim? Was Thrace the
heir as would pay,
in Shafto French's words?

"It was as I stood there, drawing shuddering breaths and attempting to calm my disordered wits," Catherine persisted,

"that the sound of hoofbeats returned."

"Returned?"

"Even so. The horse drew up near the pond, and after an in-terval of silence--which might have encompassed a minute or an hour, Miss Austen, I scarcely know--I observed a figure to dismount, and bend over a dark object lying like a felled tree in the grass. Next I knew, the living man was struggling across the Winchester Road with the ankles of the other in his grasp, drag-ging that mortal weight in the direction of your cottage. I stared through the darkness, my heart in my mouth, for I knew the place to be deserted. I lost sight of them both at the hedge en-closing your property."

I gazed at Catherine Prowting, aghast at such a want of res-olution: "And even then, you did not go to your father with a cry of
murder
?"

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 183

"I did not yet know that French--for it must have been he--was indeed
dead,
Miss Austen. He might only have been insensi-ble, from the effects of his beating or the drink that might have inspired it. How could I
know
? I merely stood, in the most dreadful suspense imaginable, by the open window. And presently, the second man returned."

She paused at this point, as tho' summoning strength for what she must now say.

"He approached his horse and mounted; and this time he rode in the opposite direction--towards the Great House, and Alton beyond. As he passed by the end of our sweep, I dis-cerned his profile clearly in the moonlight, and knew in an instant whose it was. No other gentleman's could be so immedi-ately recognisable."

The path of duty, versus the urgings of the heart.

"You
saw
Julian Thrace?" I whispered.

"Mr.
Thrace
?" She blushed with a swift and painful intensity.

"No, no, Miss Austen--it was Mr.
Jack Hinton
I observed in the Street that night."

I could not contain my astonishment at this revela-tion, and must be thrice assured of its veracity before I could take it in. Mr. Hinton! Mr. Hinton, who had professed disdain for the coroner's proceeding, tho' sitting pale and silent through the whole; Mr. Hinton, who had affected to abhor vio-lence and the pollution of Chawton's shades. Mr. Hinton, who called himself the
heir
of the Hampshire Knights, and who thus might reasonably be styled the object of Shafto French's greed, did the blackmailing labourer know somewhat to the gentle-man's discredit. And there was the fact of Hinton's blood tie to James Baverstock, who might have provided a key to our cottage.

But Mr. Hinton--the indolent poet of my imagining--seemed 184 ~ Stephanie Barron

the unlikeliest candidate for murder in all the countryside.

What could be the meaning of it?

"Why should Jack Hinton kill Shafto French?" I demanded of Catherine.

"I do not know. Perhaps it was . . . a mistake of some kind."

"You did not describe a mistake, but an episode of deadly intent. What you witnessed from your window that night was a deliberate act of murder."

"I know! I cannot account for it! Do you not apprehend that the scene has arisen in my mind hour after hour until I thought I must go mad? Why does one man ever take the life of an-other?"

"--From jealousy. From greed. From hatred or fear. But Shafto French? Can you think of any reason why Jack Hinton the gentleman should hate or fear the labouring man?"

She was silent, lips compressed. "Only what may be found in the idle talk of any tavern in Alton," she said at last. "The whole countryside would have it that the child Jemima French now bears is in fact Jack Hinton's."

"Good God!" I cried. "
There
is a motive for murder if ever I heard one. The dead man a cuckold--and no one sees fit to mention it to the coroner?"

She turned scandalised eyes upon me.
Cuckold,
I must sup-pose, was the sort of word that should
never
be mentioned around the dining table at Prowtings.

"I do not credit the story," she rejoined firmly, "and no more does any sensible person in Alton or Chawton. Jemima was once in service at the Lodge, and was dismissed over some disagreement with Miss Hinton. But rumour has followed her, as it will any pretty girl; and French did nothing by his manners or treatment of his wife to discourage it."

I have worked all my life,
Mrs. French had told me,
and am not
Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 185

afraid of it.
Brave words for a woman with no more reputation to preserve.
Improprieties,
Miss Beckford had said, and
ill-usage.

And so the gossip had come round in a circle: from the Great House to Alton and back again to Prowtings, to form a noose for Jack Hinton's neck.

"You must assuredly speak to your father," I told Catherine,

"and endeavour to explain why you have waited nearly a week to do so."

"I know that I am much to blame," she muttered brokenly,

"but pray believe me, Miss Austen, when I declare that it was from no improper desire to shield Mr. Hinton from the full weight of the Law!"

Her accent in pronouncing this final word was so akin to the dignity of her father's, that I very nearly smiled. "I had thought it possible that you preserved a
tendre
for the gentleman."

"A
tendre
! Indeed, the esteem--the appearance of interest or affection--has been entirely on Mr. Hinton's side. I may like--I may have respected him once, before I knew-- That is to say, any sentiment of regard has been thoroughly done away by Mr. Hinton's repulsion of my efforts to make all right."

"Your efforts--? My dear Miss Prowting, do not say that you have informed the gentleman that you
observed
him to drag a body towards my cottage!"

"But of course I have! I could not so expose him to the cen-sure of his neighbours, or indeed the risk of his very life, with-out taxing him with all I had seen, and begging him most earnestly to make a clean breast of his guilt to my father in pri-vate!"

I stopped short on the very edge of Alton, my feelings al-most incapable of expression. "Do you not realise, you silly girl, that where a man has murdered once, he may easily do so a sec-ond time, merely to save his own neck? Your life should not 186 ~ Stephanie Barron

have five seconds' purchase in Mr. Hinton's company! I only pray God you have not encountered him alone!"

"No," she admitted, "I had not
that
courage. Indeed, I have loathed Mr. Hinton's very presence since the discovery of French's body in your cellar, and my comprehension of what it must mean. I have pled the head-ache, and taken to my room, excepting the necessity of social obligations that could not be overborne. I spoke to Mr. Hinton in the Great Hall at Chawton last night, and by way of reply, was given to understand that if I preserved any regard for his reputation, I must reveal nothing of what I had seen. He did not go so far as to
threaten
me--"

"Then he is not so stupid as I believed him."

"--but neither did he reassure my darkest fears with an ex-planation that could soften me. He intimated--if you will credit it!--that if I might offer this proof of loyalty and esteem--if I could go so far as to shield him with my silence--that I might reasonably expect to be mistress of the Lodge one day." She laughed abruptly; no fool Catherine. She should value such an offer as she ought, and know it for a bribe.

"When I understood, a few hours later, that my father meant to charge poor Bertie Philmore with French's murder, I knew that I was left no choice but to act, since Mr. Hinton re-fused to do so."

I placed my arm within Catherine Prowting's as we passed the first of Alton's shops and houses. "You are possessed of sin-gular courage, my dear. I am determined all the same not to let you out of my sight until I have seen you safely into the care of Mr. Prowting. Let Jack Hinton do his worst--we shall be ready for him!"

We discovered, through the simple expedient of vig-ourous interrogation at the George Inn, that Mr. Prowting Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 187

had been observed to enter Mr. John Dyer's premises at Ivy House--a trim building not without charm, and the attraction of a series of Gothick arched casements. The magistrate was as yet engaged there. I accompanied Catherine to the builder's door, and tho' curious as to the nature of Mr. Prowting's busi-ness, declined to intrude. I had an idea of the conversation: the magistrate in his heavy, forthright way demanding to know whether Bertie Philmore could have stolen Dyer's keys to Chawton Cottage on the Saturday night of French's murder; and Mr. Dyer--in his succinct, pugnacious style--steadfastly re-fusing to allow it to be possible. Mr. Prowting was destined to suffer a revolution of opinion, and a disorder of all his ideas, when once his daughter's story was heard; but I did not like to witness his discomfiture. Let him endure the severest pangs of regret beyond the reach of his neighbours, and collect his fac-ulties during the brief walk home from Alton to Chawton.

Prowting would require the full measure of his sense for the coming interview with Mr. John-Knight Hinton, Esquire.

The murder of Shafto French might well be explained by Catherine Prowting's confession, but the disappearance of Lord Harold's chest was not. I made my own way to Normandy Street, and kept a keen lookout for a yard full of laundry.

Halfway up the lane, on the opposite side of the paving, I detected a quantity of white lawn secured by wooden pegs to a line of rope. A tidy picket preserved the yard from the ravages of dogs and children, and a few flowers bloomed near its pal-ings. No figure moved among the hanging linen, and the door of the nearby cottage was closed. I glanced upwards at the chim-ney, however, and observed a thin thread of smoke.

A girl of perhaps ten years answered my knock, and stared at me gravely from the threshold.

"Is your mother within?"

She nodded mutely.

188 ~ Stephanie Barron

"You may tell her that Miss Jane Austen is come to call."

"Bid the lady welcome, Mary," a voice commanded from the interior.

The child stepped back, pulling the door wide. I moved into the room, and saw that it was no foyer or front passage, but merely the cottage's place of all work, with a few benches drawn up to a scrubbed pine table, a hob with a great kettle boiling on the banked embers of the hearth, and several irons warming in the fire. A woman sat rocking an infant at her breast; she gazed at me with neither welcome nor trepidation on her features.

"Are you Rosie Philmore?"

"I am."

"Miss Jane Austen, at your service. It was at my home in Chawton, Mrs. Philmore, that your husband was . . ." I glanced at the silent little girl named Mary and hesitated.
". . . found,
last evening."