Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Stillroom Maid

“What use does Mr. Tivey intend to make of the sensation he has caused?” my cousin enquired.

Sir James pursed his lips. “He may simply enjoy the discomfiture of his betters. Or hope to see an institution destroyed, that determined to reject him.”

“So you regard his malice as having a general, rather than a particular, target in view?” I observed.

The Justice lifted a satiric brow. “Miss Austen, where Michael Tivey is concerned, I cannot profess to apprehend anything. If you believe he hopes to discredit one person — I will not say you nay.”

“Mr. George Hemming was very loath to carry the body into Bakewell,” I said slowly. “I rather wonder if he expected Mr. Tivey’s accusation.”

“Mr. Hemming is a Freemason as well as a solicitor; and highly regarded in both realms.”

“But he was not in attendance at the lodge Monday evening — for he took tea with us in this very room that night! Something of ritual murder he must suspect, however. I can think of no other objection, no other explanation for his anxiety towards a stranger.”

“He did not recognise the maid?” Sir James enquired searchingly.

“Emphatically not. He was at great pains to underline that the young man — as we then believed Deceased to be — was foreign to him.”

“I confess I am surprised to hear it. George Hemming has served as Charles Danforth’s solicitor for many years, and old Mr. Danforth before him; he must be familiar with every person attached to Penfolds Hall.”

Sir James’s intelligence must be such as to astonish. If Michael Tivey had known the girl at a glance, then George Hemming could not be excused by the fact of men’s clothes and a fearful mutilation. His every action must now be weighed in light of this deceit. I glanced at my cousin, but Mr. Cooper’s countenance revealed nothing of anxiety.

“Has the wretched girl any family?” he asked the Justice.

“Yes, indeed. Once Tivey had put a name to the corpse, Tess Arnold’s mother besieged the Snake and Hind with a demand for the girl’s body, and no amount of explanation on Tivey’s part — no mention of inquests or the mysteries of the Law — would satisfy her. She was required to be physically restrained, and uttered all manner of abuse.”

“How dreadful!” I replied. “But it is to be expected, perhaps, that a mother should wish to see her child in such a circumstance. Her distress does not bear thinking of.”

“Mrs. Arnold is blind,” Sir James returned succinctly, “and has seen nothing for a score of years. I rather think her object in display was to make as much trouble as possible for all concerned. You may imagine how the townsfolk relished the scene. I was very nearly struck down this evening in my passage through the streets, with cries of ‘Murderer!’ and ‘Vengeance against the Dark Brotherhood!’”

My cousin looked all his indignation. “We shall believe ourselves in France by and by, if order is not established. When I consider what Sir George Mumps, my noble patron, would say—”

“Could Mrs. Arnold offer an account of the girl’s movements, Sir James?” I broke in hastily. “Could she explain her daughter’s extraordinary mode of dress?”

Sir James replied in the negative. “Betty Arnold knew little of Tess’s life at the Great House. The woman lives with her younger daughter in a tenant cottage, while Tess shared a bed with two other maids in the servants’ wing of Penfolds Hall.”

“Did the other maids observe the girl’s direction Monday night? Could they name, perhaps, the owner of her borrowed feathers?”

Sir James paused in the act of replying, and eyed me dubiously; and only then did I recollect that a Justice should never share his knowledge before an Inquest, particularly with a person so wholly unconnected to the neighbourhood as myself.

“Pray forgive me,” I managed. “My interest borders on the unseemly. It is only that having discovered the poor girl, I am naturally anxious—”

“I do understand. But I must beg you to await the Coroner’s panel.”

“When is it to meet?” Mr. Cooper enquired.

“Thursday morning — and it cannot be too soon for my liking,” Sir James said frankly. “Tivey made no effort to conceal the extent of the girl’s wounds; and the mood of the townspeople is grown quite ugly. The savagery of her end has given rise to fear and speculation; both will work a hideous change in the quietest folk. All manner of accusation and rumour fly about.”

“A good deal of it must concern ourselves,” I observed. “Though I assure you we know little of Freemasonry, we are nonetheless strangers in the neighbourhood, and must consequently draw every eye.”

“Nonsense!” my cousin cried; but his colour had heightened unhealthily.

“I fear you view the matter only too clearly, Miss Austen,” the Justice replied. “It is to your benefit that Mr. George Hemming — a local man of some consequence — was of your party, but suspicions will remain. The corpse was found at such a remove from the gentlemen’s position on the riverbank, and a good deal of time elapsed from its initial discovery to its eventual appearance in Water Street—”

“But this is absurd!” Mr. Cooper protested. “Would you have it that Miss Austen despatched the abominable maid? Miss Austen , who never laid eyes on the girl in her life, and should have no cause to murder, if she had?”

“Pray contain yourself, sir,” I begged him. “You would not wish to awaken my mother.”

“I rather think,” Sir James assured my cousin, “that not the slightest suspicion has been visited upon Miss Austen’s head. Recollect that her gloves and gown were entirely free of blood.”

Unlike Mr. Cooper’s own, which were splashed with the maid’s gore by the time he achieved Water Street. My cousin considered of this; took the point that the respectable George Hemming should not be the object of local calumny — and his countenance drained of colour.

“But I am a man of God!”

“And may undoubtedly prove that you were in your hired bedchamber at the exact hour of the maidservant’s end,” Sir James concluded briskly. “You will, however, be required to speak to the disposition of the body. Whatever misunderstandings are presently in circulation, must be silenced by the Inquest. Have you sufficient courage, Miss Austen, to face the Bakewell worthies? You shall not be charged with Freemasonry, at least.”

“I think I may say that I am equal to Bakewell’s worst, Sir James,” I replied.

“I fear you have not yet seen it; but, however, a few days of patience, Mr. Cooper” — this, to my apoplectic cousin — “and the matter should be resolved.”

“Miss Austen certainly shall not appear before a Coroner’s panel,” Mr. Cooper protested. “To stand in front of Mr. Tivey and the very lowest sort of folk, in a public inn, and answer all manner of impertinent questions! It does not bear thinking of.”

“I have done so before,” I observed.

“Have you, indeed?” Sir James bestowed upon me a penetrating look.

“You were not then under my protection,” my cousin replied. “I cannot allow it. What condemnation should I justly merit, from Sir George Mumps, for so exposing a young lady to the public eye!”

“But the matter, Cousin, is hardly in Sir George’s keeping,” I reminded him. “And if you will insist upon using such words as protection , in the absence of your excellent wife, I do not know what Sir James will think of us!”

This final declaration — carrying with it all manner of scandalous implication, as though the discomfitted clergyman had offered me carte blanche in return for my favours — so shocked Mr. Cooper, that he was speechless for several minutes.