Jane Austen Mysteries 08 Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (8 page)

56 ~ Stephanie Barron

The woman's gaze fell. "Take the loaves ye have, and wel-come, sir," she said, and without another word, she turned back inside her cottage and firmly latched the door.

"Well," I said into the silence. "I must be glad that Martha Lloyd's culinary accomplishments include baking."

"There, Libby," interjected a breathless accent, "I've mis-placed my key
again,
and what Old Philmore will have to say to me if it is not found, I do not like to think!"

A lady of middle age and neat tho' shabby appearance was exiting the cottage adjacent to Mrs. Cuttle's. She patted her shawl and reticule with one gloved hand as she spoke, as if much distracted; in her other hand was clutched a posy of flow-ers; a pair of spectacles perched on her sharp nose, and what was visible of her hair was quite gray.

"Three shillings
he demanded for the copy last time, and
where
such a sum is to be found I'm sure I
cannot
say. Is it possi-ble, my dear, that one of your
delightful
children has made away with it as a prank?"

She surveyed us without recognition, somewhat surprised to find that Mrs. Cuttle--for so I assumed
Libby
to be--was nowhere in sight.

"May I be of assistance, ma'am?" Henry cried, approaching the distracted lady with a satiric light in his eye I knew too well.

"Perhaps you set down your key when you took up your flowers."

"My flowers?" she enquired, blinking about her doubtfully.

"So very
kind . . .
but I do not think we are acquainted . . . or per-haps I am being
foolish
again . . . is it Mr. Thrace?"

"Mr. Henry Austen at your service." He raised his hat oblig-ingly.

"Austen?" she repeated, and peered from Henry to me.

"Did you say
Austen
?"

"I did, ma'am. And you are . . . ?"

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 57

"Miss Benn." Her faded blue eyes travelled the length of my brother's form with that same expression of doubt.2

"May I beg leave to present my sister?" Henry's glance was eloquent of mischief. "Miss Jane Austen, lately arrived at the former bailiff's cottage."

"Bailiff's cottage?" Miss Benn echoed vaguely. "I do not think . . ." Comprehension broke upon the lady's countenance.

"The corpse! So very silly of me, and the whole village talking of nothing else. Then you will be the
Squire's
family! The ones who have come into a quantity of jewels! I
had heard
something to the effect that you would be arriving this summer--I am not sure--from Mrs. Prowting, perhaps, or Mr. Baigent?--"

"Shall I hold your flowers while you search for that key?"

Henry enquired.

"My flowers . . . ? I only intended to step across to the church--dear St. Nicholas's, but of course you will
know
that is the church's name, if you are indeed a member of the Austen family--I often do the flowers of a morning, I think it makes such a
difference
to the air of a church, do not you?--My brother, Mr. John Benn, Rector of Farringdon, has often wished he could summon
my
posies to his vestry--so of course I don't really
require
the door to be locked, as I am sure Mrs. Cuttle will kindly keep an eye on the cottage for me; tho' Old Philmore is
terribly
particular, quite the
ogre,
Mr. Austen, if you understand my meaning, and much given to
threats
if he believes his prop-erty is liable to come to harm--tho' how such a disreputable and
sad
little place could possibly deteriorate further, is quite difficult to say . . ."

She plucked at her shawl as she spoke, as though conscious 2 Miss Benn is held to be the original from which the character of Miss Bates was drawn in
Emma.--Editor's note.

58 ~ Stephanie Barron

of a draught despite the July heat, her nearsighted gaze roaming distractedly from myself to the half-open door to the basket of loaves before Mrs. Cuttle's door; and of a sudden, I pitied her.

"We are walking that way ourselves," I said, "and should be glad to accompany you into the church."

"That is excessively kind of you, Miss Austen! Let me just leave the door off the latch--and if perhaps Libby would not
mind
casting her eye over the place now and again while I am away--and perhaps
fibbing
on my behalf if Old Philmore should materialise . . ."

The steady clip-clop of a pair of horses put paid to this speech, and a beatific smile suffused Miss Benn's withered fea-tures. "And there is Mr. Middleton! Such an
excellent
man," she informed us, "and so exceptionally considerate, despite the
nu-
merous
cares of the children. The Squire is indeed fortunate in the
character
of his tenant."

Two gentlemen were approaching from the direction of the Great House, their horses--a young chestnut, and a strengthy grey--progressing at a walk. One I judged to be in his middle fifties: stout, ruddy of feature, and a model of deportment in the saddle. The other was a gentleman of perhaps half his com-panion's age. Beautifully arrayed in the best Bond Street fash-ion, he possessed the easy seat and careless grace of a punishing rider to hounds. This must be Mr. Middleton and his son; I had understood from Neddie that there were several children, left motherless some years before.

Beside me, Henry let slip a low and speculative whistle.

"Devil take it!" he muttered. "What has Julian Thrace to do in Chawton, of all places?"

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 59

Letter from Lord Harold Trowbridge to Eugenie, Duchess of
Wilborough, dated Eton College, 23 January 1767; three leaves
quarto, wove; no watermark.

(British Museum, Wilborough Papers, Austen bequest)

My dear Mamma----

Benning will say that I ott not to adress you in so Informal a
Way, you being amung the Grate of the Land; but he is a Prig
and a Swot and I do not care for his vews on what is owd to a
Duchess, tho I must serve him as Fag. I shall give one of the
soverains you left me to Wilkins at the Gate, and he will post
this letter without Benning having to know.

I miss you eckseedingly, after all the happy times of the
holydays, and I cannot help crying at night in my cot when the
others have gone to sleep. I recall the noise of the streets around
home, and the fires in the Park, and the smell of rosting chestnuts,
and the good steemy smell of Poll my pony when we have had a
run in Rotten Row, and I feel such a desire to leave this place and
be back with you and Nanny that I have three times tryed to run
away. My efferts have not been graced with success. After the
last, I could not sit down for two days, Mr. Pilfer being librul
with his switch and Benning having topped the whole with a
slipper aplyed to my backside. I hate Benning but my brother says
he is a Great Gun and I must do as he says. I hope he gets the Pox
as some of the older boys have got it and two have died. Perhaps
if you are fearful of the Pox you will send for me? Pilfer says he
shall write to Papa if I run away a forth time, so I shall not.

It seems an age until the end of term. You will not forget me?

When I am grown I shall take you back to live in Paris and
you will never cry in the evenings when Papa is away again, and
I shall never cry for missing you.

Your loving son,

Harry

y4141414141414141 t

Chapter 7

The Bond Street Beau

5 July 1809, cont.

~

Mr. Julian Thrace, as Henry later informed me, is the latest sensation of the
ton:
a gentleman who appears to have sprung from exactly nowhere as recently as January, breaking upon Fashionable London with all the force of a thunderclap: his looks, his air, his manners, and his social graces being of the finest. For a young man of two-and-twenty, who possesses nei-ther title nor fortune, to gain the kind of introductions Mr.

Thrace everywhere obtained, was no less extraordinary than it was wondered at; he was carried into Carlton House on the arm of the Earl of Holbrook; was proposed for membership at White's by as many as half a dozen of its standing members; was admitted to the most exclusive assemblies without hesitation; and was no more suspected of seduction by the careful mam- Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 61

mas parading their daughters in the Green Park of an after-noon, than was the local man of the cloth.

"But who
is
he, Henry?" I demanded, as my brother regaled me with the tale during our return to the cottage.

"An orphan, reared for some years abroad," my brother replied. "His history is a delicate one--and thus discourages the impertinent from delving too far into Mr. Thrace's busi-ness. It is said that he is the illegitimate son of a peer, and will shortly be proclaimed that gentleman's heir, as the nobleman in question has no legitimate male issue; and on the basis of ru-mour and his expectations alone, Thrace has been living on tick for the past six months.1 I admire the fellow's audacity; but I wonder at his prospects. Those of us in the banking profes-sion--and any number have been applied to, Jane, for the sup-port of Mr. Thrace's debts--have taken to calling him the South Sea Bubble, from a belief that he is just such an object of speculation, and likely to leave any number of his current back-ers awash in future."

Mr. Middleton had reined in his horse, and deigned to recognise the brother of his landlord in a very abrupt but kind-hearted fashion; had suffered an introduction to myself, and welcomed me stoutly to Chawton; had offered up his young friend Thrace to the notice of the Austen party; and avowed that he intended that very morning to call upon my mother and offer his deepest congratulations on her present fortunate state, in possessing the cottage.

"--Tho' I cannot admire the manner of your welcome," he observed with a sober look. "My deepest sympathies, Miss Austen, on the distress of your discovery in the cellar. A most unfortunate business--quite unaccountable."

1 To "live on tick" was to live on credit.
--Editor's note.

62 ~ Stephanie Barron

"And certain to be much talked of," Miss Benn added in a sprightly fashion.

"We must suppose, however, that the affair will be con-cluded with despatch. Mr. Prowting is a commendable magis-trate when necessity affords him occasion to act; he will already have communicated with the coroner, whom I believe must be summoned from Basingstoke." The invocation of so august a town conferred a certain weight to Mr. Middleton's words, and we all fell silent in contemplation of Death and its exigencies.

Mr. Thrace, I observed, looked suitably grave; but as he uttered not a syllable, I had no opportunity to judge of his sense.

The gentlemen of the Great House went on their way, being bound for Alton and some trifling errands among the trades-men, but not before Mr. Middleton recollected to issue a gen-eral invitation to dine with his party the following evening. As the gratifying notice included Henry and the simpering Miss Benn, we parted in the middle of the Street with satisfaction on all sides.

"I am determined to return to the George with all possible haste," Henry breathed, "so as to be certain that my partner, Mr. Gray, refuses Julian Thrace's depredations on the Alton branch. Burglary and corpses are as nothing, I assure you, Jane, when compared to the demands of a Bond Street Beau."

"You are too cruel, Henry. I suppose many a warm man must be similarly stingy."

"I am sure I do not wish penury on any of my fellows," my brother protested as we parted before the cottage door, "but I should feel more sanguine regarding the monies disbursed to Mr. Thrace's account, did I have an inkling of
which
peer he purports to belong to."

"Surely the rumour-mills have supplied a name."

"They have supplied two, Jane," Henry returned. "--The Earl of Holbrook, who carried Thrace into Carlton House; and Jane and His Lordship's Legacy ~ 63

the Viscount St. Eustace, who is so ill and bedridden he is said to rarely quit Eustace House in Berkshire. Both men have sired only daughters, and both are as rich as Croesus. Rather than pass their titles and wealth to distant cousins, they think to le-gitimate babes born on the wrong side of the blanket."

"Thrace himself lays claim to no one?"

"What would be the sport in it, if he did? The betting-book at Tattersall's is offering odds of seven-to-one for the Viscount; but at Brooks's Club they will have it all for the Earl."

It was extraordinary, I thought as Henry rode off in the di-rection of Alton, what men could adopt as the point of a wager.

Lord Harold's visage rose suddenly before my eyes--an inti-mate of Brooks's Club these thirty years, perhaps. I missed him then sharply and inconsolably; for the Rogue would have taken Mr. Thrace's measure in an instant.

The day passed swiftly in all the business of unpack-ing, my sole relief from the incessant chatter of my mother hav-ing come in the form of a visit from Mr. Prowting and his eldest daughter. He came to be important and grave; Catherine brought a gift of eggs and cheese and a palpable desire for con-versation.

"I bear sad tidings, Mrs. Austen," the magistrate pro-nounced. "Mr. Munro--Coroner of Basingstoke, and no mere surgeon, but a most accomplished physician in his way, and a creditable player at whist--has arrived in Alton not half an hour ago. He is even now engaged in an examination of the un-fortunate person discovered by myself and Miss Austen"--this, with a bow for me--"in your cellar."