Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Barque of Frailty

In the swirling wisps of fog and rain below, a black carriage had misjudged its pace and run full-tilt into a cart; the team of horses — also black as pitch— had broken the traces, and the leader was plunging wildly in the shafts; the driver was struggling to rein in the beast, while a groom reached for its tossing head; and the carter abused all within hearing for the quantity of sacks that had spilled into the carriageway, several of which had split open, and strewn grain onto the rain-wet paving.

This might have been enough to engage my interest and arrest my sight, had such incidents not proved wearisomely familiar after six weeks’ habitation in the Metropolis; but my quickened senses detected another reason to linger by the casement: the jet-black coach and its midnight horses were clearly agents of mourning. I glanced the length of Sloane Street, and understood from the procession of sombre carriages and dusky teams that what I witnessed, on this day of fog and rain, was a funeral procession. It must — it could only be — Princess Evgenia Tscholikova’s.

The weather alone — the sulphurous glow of side-lamps — the plunging leader snorting with terror — rendered the aspect positively spectral, as tho’ the equipages and all their occupants should be swallowed up in a cloud of hellish vapour. I shuddered, and drew the drapes against the scene — and wondered into what ground the poor creature’s body should be laid. The wretched woman had been adjudged a suicide, and might rightly have been refused consecrated ground — buried instead at a crossroads without even a marker, so that her blasted soul might wander the earth in endless lamentation — but I hoped that Prince Pirov had found the proper palms to cross with silver. I did not like to think of a woman I believed to have been cruelly murdered, left in a pauper’s grave. To be scorned even in death—!

I dressed hurriedly and went in search of Manon.

“Druschka tells me the Duke of Norfolk — who is a Papist, vous savez — has offered to take the Princess’s remains in his family’s burial ground.” The maid glanced over her shoulder, and despite years of habitation in England, crossed herself hurriedly against the Evil Eye. “Not the ancestral vault, of course, but a plot near the home chapel. Prince Pirov was most grateful.”

“The Prince is capable of amiable feelings, then?”

“Towards men of standing, who show him favour — but of course! To Druschka he is a monster. He has ordered her to be ready to quit London on the morrow; they are all to be off for Paris, and then by degrees to Moscow, and I think she will break her heart with crying, me. She does not believe she will survive the journey.”

“Could she not secure a suitable position here, in London?” I enquired.

Manon shook her head. “The Prince will not allow it. That woman is almost a slave, mademoiselle— it is the nature of things in Russia. She does not command her own life, she has no power to determine her future; she must wait upon the will of her master. The Prince finds it imperative that Druschka leave the country.”

“I wonder,” I mused as Manon set a tea cup by my place, “what exactly is he afraid of?”

“The Tsar, no doubt.”

“Manon — I wish you will put a question to Druschka before she is whisked away.”

“Certainly. I shall walk in Cadogan Place at three o’clock. What would you know?”

“—Which gentleman Princess Tscholikova was in the habit of visiting, at the Albany,” I said.

I FILLED THE NEXT HOUR IN ANSWERING A LETTER from Cassandra I had received that morning — two pages of sun and spring air and Kentish nonsense, for she is in the midst of a visit to my brother Edward at Godmersham. She is full of enthusiasm for our musical evening, and requires further particulars of my dress: How had I done my hair? Did I mean to trim my old pelisse fresh? 'The cleric, Mr. Wyndham Knatchbull, had sent a report of the evening round his Kentish relations, and thus by degrees his judgement arrived at Godmersham: Miss Jane Austen is “a pleasing looking young woman.” I must be satisfied with such tepid praise — at five-and-thirty, one cannot pretend to anything better. I have not yet sunk, it seems, to looking ill; and in truth, the notice of a man who may talk only theosophy at one of Eliza’s evenings should never be necessary to my happiness.

“There is a lady who wishes to see you, mademoiselle,” Manon said from the book room doorway.

I set aside my correspondence — it was rather tedious in any case, as so many topics of interest are embargoed, being too perilous to communicate. “It will be Mrs. Tilson, I suppose. We are to dine with her this evening.”

“No, mademoiselle — a Miss Radcliffe. She has sent in her card.”

I rose hastily from the writing table and smoothed my gown. “Pray, Manon — show her directly into this room. We may be assured of privacy here.”

The careful control of expression Miss Radcliffe had maintained, while I fenced with her in the anteroom in Russell Square, was less perfect this morning. Her face, framed by a dashing bonnet with a short and upswept poke, was paler than ever; the delicate bloom of peach and rose had fled her cheek. I imputed the cause to an unhappy night, and guessed that a period of uneasiness had been capped with a failure to eat during the interval. “Miss Austen,” she said as she curtseyed, “I am thankful to find you at home.”

“The pleasure must be entirely mine. Won’t you sit down? Manon — be so good as to bring some refreshment for Miss Radcliffe.”

The Barque of Frailty glided towards one of Eliza’s French chairs, and sank onto it — ramrod straight, as I remembered. Did the child never allow herself to unbend? The picture of perfection she presented was surely purchased at the cost of rigid self-control — and I found a phrase of my acquaintance, Miss East’s, lingering in the mind. Not self-control, she had said, but self-reliance ought to be the theme of Mrs. Brunton’s novel. Self-reliance. Julia Radcliffe could presume upon no one’s disinterested support — and thus had made of her slender frame a column of steel.

Manon appeared with wine and cakes upon a silver tray. Miss Radcliffe refused a macaroon, but accepted a glass of ratafia, and sipped a little before she spoke.

“I have been thinking almost continuously of what you said,” she began after an interval, “and I believe I ought to help you ward off that terrible man, Bill Skroggs, to the utmost extent of my power. As you so rightly observed, Skroggs will be satisfied only with a victim — and if you are determined it shall not be yourself I am equally determined he shall not settle upon me.”

“So far, our interests are allied.”

“I cannot answer all the questions you might pose — indeed, for many of them I have no answer— and in some cases, I freely state that I will not supply the solution to your puzzle, for not only I am encompassed in it. Others there may be whose well-being must be injured by any communication of mine. But one matter at least I might illuminate — Princess Tscholikova’s visit to me, on the Sunday morning prior to her unfortunate death.” Miss Radcliffe’s blue eyes rose to meet mine. “I am right, I think, in apprehending that she did not die by her own hand — as has been reported in the newspapers?”

“The coroner’s panel returned a verdict of self-murder, but I cannot credit it.”

“Why not? She was certainly miserable.”

“You felt as much, on your sole meeting?”

“I did.” Miss Radcliffe swayed a little in her seat, as tho’ she would dearly love to lean against the back of the chair, and let down her guard a little; then she recovered, and went on.

“She appeared in Russell Square at half-past two o’clock that Sunday, in a state bordering on strong hystericks, and would have it that she came on an errand of mercy. She had heard somewhere, I must suppose, that I am so fortunate as to have any number of gentlemen dancing attendance upon me, Miss Austen — you will apprehend, no doubt, that I am in no position to discourage any one of them … ”