Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Barque of Frailty

“—Tho’ his lordship was not yet returned?”

“His lordship possesses a key,” Malverley said.

“You did not then quit the house for your own rooms?”

“I went into my office — an antechamber to his lordship’s study. The room gives onto the square — which is how I came to hear the charley so distinctly.”

“Your office?” Mr. Whitpeace repeated, a fine line between his brows. “What did you there?”

“I set about answering some of his lordship’s correspondence.”

“What hour would this have been?”

“Perhaps … half-past one o’clock in the morning.”

“You undertook to answer his lordship’s correspondence in the middle of the night?”

Malverley’s gaze met the coroner’s without hesitation. “I was not at all tired; and I find the quiet of the household at such an hour conducive to work.”

“I see. How long were you at your writing desk?”

“I hardly know. Several hours, I should think.”

“His lordship accords you a great deal of responsibility!”

“I am gratified to say that he does.”

The secretary was very much on his dignity now; the implausibility of his story, and the publick imputation that should be put to it — that he was in Lady Castlereagh’s service, rather than her lord’s— appeared so far beneath his notice, as to be unworthy of question.

My brother Henry leaned towards me. “This begins to grow interesting, Jane.”

“And dangerous,” I whispered.

“Please describe for the panel what happened next, Mr. Malverley,” Mr. Whitpeace said drily.

“I had just risen from my desk, preparatory to seeking my own lodgings, when a cry went up from the paving-stones below my window. I heard a cry for help, quite distinctly, and recognised the charley’s voice. Thinking that perhaps he had been set upon by footpads, I unbolted the front door and peered out. It was then I saw old Bends kneeling on the paving, and the Princess.”

“You knew her for Princess Tscholikova?” Mr. Whitpeace demanded sharply.

“Not immediately. I went to the charley’s assistance, of course — saw from the great cut in the throat that the lady was dead — and summoned a footman from his bed, in order to despatch him to the magistrate in Bow Street. Only then did I have occasion to look again on the corpse’s countenance, and understood that it was the Princess Tscholikova.”

Malverley’s pallor was remarkable now, and his lips compressed; but he did not falter, or raise his hand to his eyes. He was indeed a young man of considerable resolution — the sort who should have made an excellent cavalry officer, or a loyal aide-decamp. I found occasion to wonder just how far his loyalty might extend, to those he loved — or feared.

“Were you acquainted with the Princess?” the coroner enquired.

“Only slightly. One might meet her often in certain circles, and perhaps exchange a few pleas- antries — but I should never say that we were well acquainted.”

“In the course of your duties, Mr. Malverley, did you have occasion to answer the Princess’s letters to his lordship?” Mr. Whitpeace asked it mildly.

Castlereagh started from his chair, with no restraining hand to save him. “I’ll answer that, Charles,” he said sharply. “You never answered the woman’s letters, because she never wrote to me! It’s all a pack of damned lies!”

The room went still. An hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on his lordship, except my own — which profited from the appalled silence, in a survey of my fellows. George Canning’s looks were alert; Lord Alvanley’s intrigued; the Comte d’Entraigues’s— oddly exultant.

“You may step down, Mr. Malverley,” Thomas Whitpeace said. “The coroner calls Robert, Lord Castlereagh!”

Friday, 26 April 1811, cont.

I WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO REPEAT LORD CASTLEREAGH’S testimony here in my journal; it is enough to say that he delivered it with his usual arrogance, coldness, and appearance of contempt for all the world. A lesser man than Mr. Thomas Whitpeace should have quailed before the duty of interrogating such an one, who has been accustomed to stare out of countenance the most formidable orators in the Kingdom — but the coroner proved equal to the task. He demanded to know where Castlereagh had gone, after quitting Mrs. Siddons’s play at the Theatre Royal — and Castlereagh refused to tell him. His lordship produced no friend who might vouch for his presence at one of his numerous clubs; no hackney coachman who might swear he had delivered his lordship to a reputable address; and no explanation of his apparently solitary pursuits throughout the small hours of Tuesday morning. Castlereagh proved as impenetrable as the walls of Copenhagen he’d once ordered bombarded — and invoked the honour of his reputation, in his refusal to disclose his movements.

Mr. Whitpeace then turned to the matter of the Princess’s appearance at his lordship’s town house, and was informed, in scathing accents, that no intimacy whatsoever existed between his lordship and the unfortunate woman. When the matter was pursued— and the pregnant business of the lady’s correspondence raised — Castlereagh displayed the hot temper for which he is justly famous, and insisted that he had never corresponded with the Princess. He went so far as to suggest that Tscholikova had merely sought attention in throwing herself at a fashionable household— and that this mania for the world’s notice had ended in madness and suicide.

When queried as to the cause of the Princess’s despair, Castlereagh could offer no explanation — save that she had received no vouchers from his wife for admission to Almack’s Assembly Rooms. As the better part of those present understood how exalted was the favour of inclusion at Almack’s, and how rarely and whimsically it was bestowed by the Assembly’s patronesses— among whom was numbered Lady Castlereagh — this notion appeared almost plausible. But it was my brother Henry who supplied a surprising bit of intelligence.

He was called to bear testimony before the panel, to my shock and consternation. I believe he must have expected the summons — that he had, indeed, attended the inquest in order to satisfy it — but had kept mum, rather than excite Eliza’s interest.

There is nothing like the pair of them for shielding each other.

“You are Henry Austen, of Austen, Maunde and Tilson, a banking establishment in Henrietta Street?” Thomas Whitpeace enquired.

“I am.”

“And you reside at No. 64, Sloane Street, in the area of Hans Town?”

“That is correct.”

“Pray explain to the panel the terms of your acquaintance with Princess Tscholikova.”

I studied my brother’s countenance, which was unusually guarded, and felt the depths of my bowels twist with dismay. Henry! Acquainted with the Princess! When Bill Skroggs, the Bow Street Runner, had intimated as much the evening before — and I had rushed to disprove the very idea! My brother was a dark horse, indeed — and there was no knowing, now, what hidden paths he might pursue, when he was far from Eliza’s society.

“My partner in business, Mr. James Tilson, was a near neighbour of the Princess in Hans Place. About a week since, she approached him with the request for a loan.”

A murmur of interest rippled through the pub-lick room. Mr. Whitpeace’s eyes narrowed.

“And did your partner satisfy the Princess’s needs?”

“He was loath to do so. Mr. Tilson is a most circumspect man. He lends money only when he is certain of securing its repayment.”

“—He regarded the Princess as uncertain, then?”