Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

The heels of her half-boots rang on the paving above my left shoulder; involuntarily, I ducked, and felt Lord Harold’s hand in warning at my waist.

“That accounts, I suppose, for the air of sadness,”

Ord said. “It is far more oppressive within the Abbey than in standing upon the walls. There one might have an idea of the old days, when the abbot commanded one of the finest views of the Solent, and welcomed visitors from every part of the world.”

“Oh, why does mon seigneur not come?” Sophia Challoner demanded tautly, as though she had heard nothing of his wistful speech. “We have been waiting here full half an hour — and still he does not appear.”

“There might be a thousand causes for delay. Do not make yourself anxious, I beg.”

“I am always anxious,” she muttered, low. “I eat and sleep and breathe anxiety. It has become my habit, since Raoul was killed.”

Lord Harold’s hand tightened on my waist.

“You merely take the grief from these old stones,” Mr. Ord replied gently. “Let us go out and look for mon seigneur on the path. I am persuaded you will benefit from the air.”

She said nothing by way of reply; but the rapping heels made their way across the room, and faded out of earshot. With stealthy grace, Lord Harold drew me back down the stone passage. Although we moved with haste, I did not stumble, and neither of us spoke until we stood once more at the tunnel’s mouth. Then Lord Harold smiled faintly.

“How close we came to discovery, Jane! And what, then, should I have said to Sophia?”

“That you share her opinion of King Henry as a thief and a vandal, and should be charmed to make her companion’s acquaintance.”

“He speaks with a pronounced American accent. Mr. Ord, I presume?”

“But who is this mon seigneur they expected? A man in a long black cloak, perhaps?”

“Mon seigneur,” Lord Harold repeated. “ My lord , in the French. A nobleman of the present regime—

one of the Monster’s able minions? And does he serve as Sophia’s agent — or her master? I pity the fellow. Tho’ he command the greatest of temporal powers, he will yet shudder to encounter Sophia’s wrath. She is more terrible even than Napoleon when she suffers a disappointment.”

“You are very hard upon the lady, sir.”

“It is my habit, Jane, with regard to all the fair sex — excepting yourself.”

“She betrays a marked preference for lost Papist glory.”

“In this, as in everything, she is squarely at odds with England. I believe I shall position the long-suffering Orlando in this tunnel, for the nonce, and charge him with listening well at trapdoors. We might learn much of the Enemy’s plans, from a pair of ears well-placed.”

I recollected the footprints on the tunnel floor — the prints not of Orlando’s making-and my heart misgave me. “What if the French lord uses this passage as his method of approach? The evidence of Mr. Hawkins’s boat on the strand may have warned him of our presence today, and turned him back from his appointment — but what if he were to happen upon Orlando?”

Lord Harold thrust open the grilled door. “So much the better,” he answered grimly. “Orlando might slit the villain’s throat, and save us all a world of pain.”

Saturday, 29 October 1808

... Mamma is hourly torn between raptures over the pretty little village of Wye, and the contemplation of what it should mean to possess full six bedchambers without the necessity of filling them all. For my own part, I should like to see us settled in Hampshire — near enough to our friends and relations for the sake of society, but without feeling too great a dependence, as we might in such proximity to Godmersham as Wye offers. Kentish folk in general are so very rich, and we are so very poor, that I fear the temptation to comparison would improve the opinions of neither.

I raised my pen and stared in dissatisfaction at the letter to my sister. I had come to a full stop from an inability to convey what was chiefly in my mind: Lord Harold Trowbridge, and the business that had brought him to Southampton; Lord Harold, and the veil that had been torn from my eyes in the confines of his carriage. I could say nothing to Cassandra of the interesting Mrs. Challoner, or her assignations among ruined stones — nothing of the young American on his lathered black mount, or of cloaked and sinister strangers. I ought not even to mention his lordship’s name, in fact; Cassandra feared his influence over my heart.

You are most unlike yourself, Jane, when that man is near, she had chided me once in Derbyshire. When admitted to his sphere, you grow discontented with your lot — and he is the very last gentleman on earth to improve it. By such attentions, he exposes you to the ridicule of the world for disappointed hopes, and himself to charges of caprice and instability .

Cassandra is so thoroughly good — so determined to greet each day with an equal propriety of demeanour and ambition — that she invariably puts me to shame.

And yet, I cannot see Lord Harold again without my whole heart opening — to him, and to the prospect of a far wider life than I have ever dreamt of enjoying.

I drew forth a second sheet of foolscap and scrawled, for my own eyes alone: — If I am a wild beast I cannot help it—

Then I threw both sheets of paper into the fire, and hurried downstairs to breakfast.

“FOUR HOURS in a closed carriage with a gentleman of Lord Harold’s reputation — and you still have not received an offer of marriage?” my mother demanded as she sipped her tea from a saucer. “He should never have served you so ill, Jane, had your father been alive! Mr. George Austen, Fellow of St. John’s College and Rector of Steventon, should have made his lordship understand his duty quick enough! I ought to forbid Lord High-and-Mighty the house.”

“Recollect, Mamma, that Lord Harold cannot be thinking of marriage at present. He is in mourning.”

“As are you, my dear — as are we all! But one cannot bury oneself in the grave with the deceased! One must, after all, cling to life!”

“More toast, ma’am?” Martha suggested.

My mother selected a slice of beautifully browned bread from the plate that was offered. “I cannot think what the two of you find to talk about. Men are never much interested in the opinion of ladies — and his lordship, in the opinion of anyone but himself. It is not as though he calls for the sheer pleasure of gazing at your countenance — which you will admit, my dear, has grown rather coarse of late. You will not take my advice, and make use of Gowland’s Lotion, though Martha has found it infinitely beneficial. Do you not, Martha?”

“Oh — certainly, ma’am. There is nothing to equal Gowland’s.”

“Even our Mrs. Frank said, before she went off, ‘Only think, Mother Austen, how thankful I am for your recommendation of Gowland’s Lotion! See how it has entirely carried away my freckles!’ ”

“Rubbish,” said a brusque voice from the breakfast room doorway, “Mary has never sported a freckle in her life — so do not be telling such shocking great fibs, Mamma, purely for the sake of bubble reputation.”

My brother Frank strode cheerfully into the breakfast parlour amid exclamations of surprise.

“Fly!” I cried, “my intelligence was correct! I was informed on Tuesday that you were not three days out of Portsmouth — and here you are in Southampton, the very day after!”

“Who could possibly know so much of my business?”