Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Barque of Frailty

I twitched the typeset proofs together with impatient fingers.

“Mademoiselle,” Manon said from the doorway. “Do I intrude on your peace?”

“Not at all. I was just considering of my toast.”

“Monsieur is already in the breakfast parlour. Madame Henri takes her tea in bed today.”

“Thank you, Manon.”

She glanced over her shoulder, then shut the book room door very quietly behind her so that we should not be disturbed. “While the house was yet asleep, I walked in Cadogan Square for nearly half an hour. The maid Druschka was there.”

“Indeed?”

“She would not at first discuss the Princess or her death. But after a little — a period of quiet sympathy— she chose to confide.”

I waited for what would come.

“Druschka would have it that the Princess Tscholikova would never se suicider,” Manon said firmly. “She insists that her mistress was killed by another.”

“Deliberate murder?”

“The most deliberate, but yes. Druschka vows she will not rest until justice is done.”

I thrust aside the small table on which I had been writing and rose from my chair. “This might be the loyalty of a devoted servant, Manon — one who cannot bear the Princess to be dragged through the mud.”

“A servant so devoted, mademoiselle, that she was admitted to her mistress’s confidence.”

“We cannot know that! The woman might claim anything in her grief!”

“One truth Druschka holds as absolute, look you: that Princess Tscholikova knew milord Castlereagh not at all.”

I stared. “But the Princess’s intimate correspondence with that gentleman was published in the Post!”

Manon shrugged. “Simply because a thing is printed, it must be true? In France we know better than to believe this. The principals were never named, in any case. A matter of initials only.”

I revolved the maid’s words in my mind. All lies. Not just the manner of her lady’s death, but the scandal that led up to it: a fabrication entire. Impossible to say whether the scandal was invented to pave the way for murder — or whether murder was the inadvertent result of a botched attempt at scandal. Certainly the notion of the lady’s suicide— and the plausibility of its occurring on Castlereagh’s doorstep — were accepted solely because of those damning letters. But if Evgenia Tscholikova had never known the minister …?

Why was it necessary for a Russian princess to die in so sordid a way? And whose hand had held the knife that cut her throat?

“What you say interests me greatly,” I told Manon.

“Like a vignette from a novel, is it not?” she said.

I WAS COLLECTED FROM THE BREAKFAST PARLOUR BY a sister so divinely habited as to appear every inch the Countess, from her spencer of willow green embroidered with cream knots, to her upturned poke bonnet. Gloves were on her hands, half-boots on her feet, and a reticule dangled from one arm. Eliza held a square package wrapped in brown paper; she did not quite meet Henry’s gaze as she said, “I cannot waste another moment, my love, before returning this wretched soup tureen to Mr. Wedgwood’s establishment; I declare I was miserable last evening, for being unable to place it in a position of honour on the supper table. It must and shall be repaired.”

“Eh?” Henry replied, glancing up from his morning newspaper. “Ah, yes — the tureen. Very proper you should attend to it yourself, Eliza; I daresay Madame Bigeon has much to do this morning, in clearing the household of last evening’s effects. But is your cold improved enough to permit of going out? Are you wise to expose yourself to the ill-effects of this spring wind? I had expected you to keep to your room this morning, and had quite resolved to dine at my club, rather than incommode the weary household.”

“Dine at your club by all means,” Eliza said hurriedly. “Jane and I shall step round to Ludgate Hill, and feel no compunction as to the hour of our return. We may content ourselves with the remains of last evening’s supper, and perhaps some cold chicken.”

“But does Mr. Wedgwood’s shop lie in Ludgate Hill?” Henry enquired, rather puzzled. “I had thought it to be in St. James’s.”

“To be sure,” Eliza amended, her gaze fixed on the Turkey carpet. “I am forever confusing the two. Come along, Jane.”

My brother opened his mouth in bewilderment, but I silenced him with a look. Eliza’s eyes were feverish and her nose quite red, but I knew her determination of old. Had the heavy box not already apprised me of the nature of our errand, her slip of the tongue confirmed it: We were bound for the elegant premises of Rundell & Bridge, jewellers to His Majesty the Regent and other sordid characters — to haggle over an opera singer’s baubles.

LUDGATE HILL WAS USED TO BE THE SITE OF ONE of the City’s ancient gates, before these were demolished to ease the passage between the tradesmen’s square mile of London and the gentry’s fashionable quarter. Here the ways are narrower than in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park, and the hired hack that served as our conveyance was jostled by carters and draught horses. The City, as it is known, is not a part of Town the Comtesse de Feuillide is accustomed to frequent; but the pollution necessarily derived from such quarters is as nothing to the privilege of entering Mr. Rundell’s select establishment.

“He is a spare little man,” Eliza said as we jostled over the cobbles in our coach, “much ridiculed as a miser, who rose from the merest silversmith’s apprentice to the foremost goldsmith of our day. Do not expect a gentleman’s manners, Jane — but pray treat him with absolute courtesy. He has the Regent’s ear. I have it on excellent authority that Rundell provides His Majesty with the diamond settings for the Royal portraits — which you must know Prinny bestows upon each of his mistresses, at the outset of an affaire.”

“Does His Majesty consider his image a form of payment?” I enquired drily.

Eliza’s nose wrinkled. “His flirts are always gently-born, Jane, and possessed of husbands capable of franking their households. I should not call it payment. The Regent himself refers to Rundell’s confections as trinkets — and is forever showering his female acquaintance with jewels, even those among them who are entirely respectable. It is his way, you see. He is rather like an overgrown child, delighting in the distribution of presents.”

Overgrown is a kindness in Eliza; for the Regent is immensely fat, so gross indeed that he may no longer mount his horses. But something in her tone — half-awed, half-indulgent — brought to mind James Tilson’s confidences of last evening, and his anxiety at Henry’s reckless loans.

“Are you intimate with the Regent, Eliza? I cannot like the connexion. His way of life — indeed, that of the circle he supports — is utterly dissolute.”

My sister gave a shrill little laugh. “Now you are the country cousin, Jane! To be sure the Prince is wont to gamble, as are all the members of the Carlton House Set, and their morals are not too nice; but where the hand is lavish and the taste of the very best, there will always be a need for funds. Funds are precisely what a banker provides, my dear. Old Thomas Coutts made a fortune in backing the highest names in the land — and I have advised Henry to take Coutts for his model.”

“But Henry cannot command a particle of Coutts’s resources,” I exclaimed. “To urge him to lend to Coutts’s extent is to goad Henry to ruin!”

“One must start somewhere,” Eliza observed reasonably. “Coutts was not born to an easy competence, of that you may be sure — and no more was Henry. Indeed, none of you Austens have a farthing between you — else you would not be making such a push for independence, Jane, in the publication of your novel! Are we all of us to settle for uneasy penury, when with a bit of speculation we might be comfortable?”