Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

I had never considered Lord Harold in this light; to me, he was the paragon of understanding. He offered my intelligence the respect it demanded, and my feelings a wordless empathy. But perhaps, in the thrall of passion, he might behave as any man: with the cruel desire to exert his influence. I remembered, of a sudden, his words of yesterday: Have I ever attempted to exert that kind of power over you ? — Though I may often have been tempted?

Her voice broke through my thoughts. “But you will understand the reason for my violence of feeling when I say that he has destroyed every hope of happiness I once held in the world.”

“That is a heavy charge, indeed!”

“There was a gentleman in Oporto — Raoul, Comte de Trevigne — whom I might have consented to marry. He was killed not long before I quit the Peninsula forever. Indeed, his death is the chief reason I could no longer remain.”

“Was he killed at Vimeiro?”

She shook her head. “He was found in his bed, with a ball in his temple. Suicide, they called it. But I believe — I am virtually certain — that it was Lord Harold’s hand that took Raoul’s life.”

“Good God!” I ejaculated. “But what reason could his lordship find for outright murder?”

“Jealousy — rivalry — the hatred of another too good to comprehend his lordship’s evil.”

“But have you proofs?”

“None that might stand in a court of law. I only know that Lord Harold challenged my love to a duel of honour. And when the Comte would not accept — he was forced to kill him by subterfuge and intrigue.”

“How dreadful,” I breathed.

She pressed her fingers to her brow. “To think that I should encounter that man, all unlooked-for, in Southampton!”

“You certainly were not happy in the meeting,” I faltered. “I felt all the awkwardness of it! And admired your forbearance.”

“Forbearance? Is that what you call it?” She laughed harshly. “When I attempted the cut direct — and could hardly keep a civil tongue in my head thereafter? I believe, my dear Miss Austen, that you must be an angel.”

“Pray, Sophia,” I returned with feeling, “if you would praise my sensibility — do not hesitate to call me Jane.”

• • •

I quit the pastry shop with my head full of what I had just learned. The more I saw of Sophia Challoner, the more perplexed I became — for if she played a subtle part, and merely affected the emotions she paraded for my benefit, then she did so with an artistry that defied detection. I found that I could not consider Lord Harold — or his theories regarding the lady — with my usual equanimity. I valued him too well, and had been acquainted too long with his ways, to credit the degree of malevolence and calculation Sophia Challoner accorded him. But what if my lord was blinded?

What if his former passion for the lady — unrequited, or indeed spurned in deference to the love she gave her French count — had swayed his opinions? What if he saw treason where mere rage and sorrow warred for dominance?

What if Sophia Challoner was innocent?

“You are very serious today, Miss Austen.”

I stopped short at the head of Samuel Street. He was on the point of exiting a tobacconist’s shop, with a paper parcel under his arm; if I closed my eyes, I might breathe in the subtle scent of the pipe he sometimes indulged, though never in my company. An odour of shaved wood and cherries clung on occasion to his clothing; I had caught the ghost of it once, and missed, sharply, my departed father.

“I merely seem pensive and distracted, from the ugliness of my apparel,” I replied.

“And I had thought it the effects of the company you keep.”

Such penetration! I could not immediately answer him.

“May I have the honour of escorting you to Castle Square?”

“Thank you. That would be most kind.”

He fell into step at my side. We passed a stationer’s, a poulterer’s, and a linen draper’s shop, without exchanging a word even as to the encroaching coldness of late autumn. An unaccustomed awkwardness grew between us; but I determined not to be the first to break the silence. I could not be entirely sure of my tongue.

“You did very well at Mrs. Lacey’s,” he observed at last. “I hoped that you might avoid exclamation — a too-ready notice of me, that might betray our acquaintance. It is vital that Mrs. Challoner believe us strangers to one another. I should not like her to comprehend our degree of intimacy.”

And what exactly is that, my lord? Am I as much in thrall to your whims as Mrs. Challoner is to her French masters?

“—But in the event, you were the soul of deceit. You bid fair to make an admirable spy, Jane.”

“I suppose I must bend to the spirit of such compliments, since you will bestow them.”

“Mrs. Challoner’s reception of me bordered on the uncivil.”

“On the contrary, sir — she had long since overstepped the border of that country, and stood firm in its very heart. She blames you, I gather, for the death of a Frenchman in Oporto; and she is not the sort of woman to embrace forgiveness.”

“The Comte de Trevigne.” He pronounced the name as an epithet. “The man was a scoundrel — and wholly worthy of her.”

“She claims that you shot him dead, my lord.”

“Then she deludes herself! I may have charged the fellow with cheating at cards — an assertion that twenty or so others might easily support — but the Comte refused, point-blank, to defend his honour.”

“You did not ...” I hesitated. “You did not despatch him in cold blood?”

“Do you believe I would lie about such a thing?”

Lord Harold glanced sidelong. “Can it be that Jane has begun to doubt my word?”

“Not your word,” I said hastily. “If you were to give me your word as to events — then naturally I should accept it. But it is not solely the course of events, in Oporto and elsewhere, that we must consider. There is the construction you place upon that history, as opposed to Mrs. Challoner’s. I find that I am quite torn, my lord, between you both. You each of you bring such conviction — and passion — to your accounts.”

“Torn, between truth and deceit?” he demanded indignantly. “Was it but four nights ago, Jane, that I unburdened myself to you aboard the Windlass ? Have you forgot a tenth part of what I then said? Nay — have you forgot the deadly peril in which the fate of this war hangs? In which the fate of your brothers may be decided? Good God, woman! Are you so lost to sense?”

“I merely hesitate to condemn another on such slight evidence as you have offered regarding Mrs. Challoner.”

“Very well,” he said bitterly, “then you must await the issue of events. Await the burning of ships and the murder of good men and the destruction of all our hopes. Take the burden of guilt upon your own head — for I confess I am weary of bearing it.”

“My lord,” I said determinedly, “you are overhasty. I must enquire whether a sense of injury, inspired by Mrs. Challoner’s attachment to another, has. . clouded. . your interpretation of events.”

His footsteps slowed as we approached Castle Square. “—Whether, in fact, I have wronged Sophia Challoner, out of a hatred born of thwarted love?”

“Exactly so.”

“My dear Jane,” he answered wearily, “if you have not understood, by this time, that I love but one woman in the world — then we have nothing further to say.”

With that awful remark, he bowed — and departed in the direction of the High.

Sunday, 30 October 1808