Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

“Mamma,” I said with studied patience, “would you be so good as to fetch a glass of brandy for Lord Harold?”

“I should be infinitely obliged,” he concurred.

“Oh — certainly! And perhaps just a spot of ratafia for the ladies—”

She sped from the room, and in her wake I closed the door firmly. Frank, to my certain knowledge, had drained the last of the brandy before his removal to the Isle of Wight; and my mother should be forced to send Phebe to a local tavern in search of another.

“Orlando gave no indication of his direction in the note he left yesterday?” I enquired of Lord Harold.

“Not a word.” He took a restless turn before the fire, his expression troubled. “We had no need of messages, for the progress of our campaign was understood. At my arrival in Southampton last week, I let my man know that I was capable of valeting myself, and that his exertions were better devoted to work of a more subtle nature. Having spent most of Sunday secreted in the subterranean passage, Orlando was to follow Mr. Ord at his departure from Netley Lodge, and observe where the young man went — to whom he spoke — and all that he did in Southampton.”

“Mr. Ord!”

“Yes, Mr. Ord!” his lordship spat contemptuously.

“There can be no one else so well-placed to communicate Mrs. Challoner’s commands to a host of subordinates throughout the South. Ord was in Sophia’s company when I appeared, unwanted and illreceived, at her door — and he remained there until I quitted the Lodge two hours later. I have no notion of when that insufferable puppy was at length torn from his lady’s leading-strings, but I am certain that Orlando will have followed him. And Orlando has vanished.”

“Vanished!”

“Do not make a practice, I beg, of repeating my every word in tones of shock and admiration. There are ladies, to be sure, who regard such a ploy as the highest form of flattery — but you are not one of them.”

“I met Mr. Ord a few hours since, at Hall’s Circulating Library. He was so good as to escort me home.”

“And were his gloves stained with blood?”

“They appeared clean enough. His countenance, I may attest, was devoid of the desperate agitation that should characterise one who has kidnapped a blameless valet. But Mr. Ord is a perplexing fellow—

his appearance is angelic, yet his performance on horseback is suggestive of the very Devil; he looks the gentleman, and yet professes to spring from no higher a station than Able Seaman.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He claims to be the child of a widowed woman named Ord, long deceased, and to have been supported in infancy by her brother, also named Ord, whose rank in the Royal Navy was confined to Able.”

“I cannot credit such a tale! He looks — and conducts himself — as a man of Fashion!”

“I am perfectly of your opinion, my lord.”

“The presumptious young dog has received an education, Jane! He has done the Grand Tour — which comes at considerable expence, from so remote a locale as Baltimore!”

“Well do I know it. And yet he related this humble history this morning, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. He was born in Hampshire, and removed first to Spain, and then, at the age of four, to Maryland. His air of gentility we must impute to his mother’s patron, a certain Charles Carroll—”

“—of Carrollton?” Lord Harold interrupted.

“I believe that is what Mr. Ord said.”

“Good God!” the Rogue exclaimed. “Jane! Do you not comprehend what this means?”

“No, my lord. I do not.”

“Charles Carroll was the sole Catholic gentleman of the Colonies among the signers of the Declaration of Independence! Charles Carroll’s uncle was Archbishop John Carroll — a Jesuit, and the first head of the Catholic Church in America. I met the fellow some once or twice while he lurked in England — a great favorite of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s. She regarded him, I believe, in the nature of a confessor, and sought his absolution for her alliance with the Prince.”

“And did the Archbishop condone her moral abandon?”

“That must remain a secret of Maria Fitzherbert’s heart. I have it on excellent authority that she continues to attend Mass — and must do so with a clear conscience. Nonetheless, dear Jane, the Carrolls and their powerful friends, at home and abroad, represent the very heart of the Recusant Ascendancy. If Mr. Ord is in the confidence of Sophia Challoner — as we know him to be — then the whole affair assumes an entirely different complexion.”

“—Because the crime of treason is then aligned with the cause of Catholic Emancipation?” I suggested. Lord Harold gripped the mantel and stared into the fire. “Exactly so. The interests of France, and the interests of a powerful body of the Opposition, must be united against the aims of the Crown — and, indeed, if our assumptions of Napoleon’s plans are valid — against the survival of the Kingdom itself. If it is true, and the truth is published — then the Whig Party is done for, Jane.”

Lord Harold’s agile mind, formed for politics, had leapt immediately in a direction I should never have taken alone. The Whig Party, and the Prince of Wales, had long espoused Catholic Emancipation, against the King’s firm support of the Church of England. The Whigs, therefore, must stand or die by the cause. If the Recusant Ascendancy — which included such powerful figures as the Duke of Norfolk, a member of the Carlton House set and crony to the Prince of Wales — were accused of treason, even by implication, then a kind of warfare should erupt on the streets of London that might make the Gordon Riots of 1780 look like child’s play. The Prince’s future must surely turn upon the outcome.

I thought of Mr. Ord — of the genial young man who had carried my volume of Marmion from East Street — and shook my head. “The construction is possible, my lord, but quite improbable. If deception were his aim, why should Mr. Ord impart only facts that must incriminate him? There was no guile, no stratagem in his looks; he was the soul of innocence. Indeed, he ever is. I cannot believe him so accomplished an actor — so hardened a criminal — as to utterly disguise the violence of his passions. Is it possible, my lord, that your fears turn upon a misapprehension?”

“That is certainly your preferred interpretation!”

he returned with acerbity. “You believe me guilty in general, Jane, of assuming what is false — I appear in your eyes as a doddering old fool, beguiled by emotions beyond the reach of reason. What spell has Sophia worked upon you, that you credit her lies more readily than the counsel of a confirmed friend? Do you doubt me — nay, do you doubt yourself, Jane — so much?”

This last was uttered in almost an undertone, with a conviction I had never remarked in Lord Harold’s accent before. I stared at him; the grey eyes were piercing, as though he would see into my soul. He had asked, Do you doubt yourself? —but he had meant: Do you doubt your power over me?

“Spell, indeed,” I said slowly. “Did you know that Mrs. Challoner is credited for a witch? I had the story of her serving girl, in the ruins yesterday.”

He scowled. “Young Flora? The mere child, with the wide blue eyes? What can she know of witchcraft?”

“She has seen strange lights bobbing on the Abbey ramparts in the middle of the night, and heard muttered conjurings in a tongue she cannot recognise. Perfumed smoke burns in the parlour at certain hours, and a man in a long black cloak — whom Mrs. Challoner calls mon seigneur —is admitted to the coven. Mr. Ord is a member, too.”

His gaze narrowed. “Perfumed smoke? Mutterings in a foreign tongue? Could the language be Latin, Jane?”