Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Lady Bess blew out a gusty breath, impatient for attention, and at that moment Fanny reappeared, unconscious of my presence, and slipped back through the gate towards the house. Her entire aspect declared her errand a furtive one.

There was no gate in the fence before me — just the one, well around the field. I looked about to see that I was unobserved, swiftly mounted the lower rail, and swung myself, skirts and all, over the fence to stand beside a surprised Lady Bess. Then I set off across the snow-crusted grass, holding my hem above my ankles, the horse trotting alongside in evident enjoyment of the lark.

It was a small outbuilding, no more than a storage shed for hay, really, and possessed of nothing in itself that might appeal to Fanny Delahoussaye. I bent my head to peer inside, and saw immediately what she had left — a small leather pouch tied with a string. I picked it up, and from the weight and jingle knew the purse to contain a quantity of coins.

Fanny, leaving money for an unknown? How very singular. She was not the sort to engage in eccentric philanthropy, of an anonymous kind; more the reverse. Was this a payment for services — of a sort better unpublished in the light of day? There was no note, no sign of the intended recipient; and I did not like to open the pouch itself. I set it back upon the straw in some perplexity. It must remain another mystery, to be resolved another day.

UPON REGAINING THE GREAT HOUSE, I WAS CAUGHT UP in a whirl of maids and footmen toing and froing; a strange carriage was at the door, with a coat of arms upon it, and baggage was being stowed behind I entered the house in haste, fumbling at the strings of my bonnet, and was in time to see Isobel exiting the Earl's study.

I was not, however, allowed to rejoice in her presence, fully dressed in her sombre widow's weeds and becomingly coiffed; for from her expression, the Countess was in great tumult of mind.

“My dear,” I cried, all concern for her distress, “whatever can be the matter?”

She halted in the chill hall, the only still figure in the midst of her servants. Then, with neither a word nor a look, she brushed past me for the stairs.

“Isobel—” I began, but she continued silently on her way, never heeding me. I turned towards the library door in consternation. What could Fitzroy Payne have done to so destroy my friend?

But it was not the Earl who was the agent of Isobel's misery. Lord Harold was within, standing by the fire with a cigar and a glass of Port. One look at his face told me he had triumphed finally in his relentless pursuit of Isobel's Barbadoes plantations; Crosswinds was hers no more. I understood, now, the flurry about the coach drawn up to the door. Having gained his object, Harold Trowbridge had no further use for Scargrave.

“Lord Harold,” I said, crossing to face him, my fear of his power banished, “I see that the dark angel has triumphed.”

He raised his glass to me in mocking salute and tossed back its contents. “Was there ever a doubt?” he said.

“Lucifer was possessed of just such certainty, my lord, and his prospects in the end were hardly sanguine.”

“I would disagree, Miss Austen. Lucifer inherited a kingdom, assuredly, and one of his own design. Many men would wish to claim as much.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “You talk but to hear yourself speak, my lord, and I have no time for the cultivation of vanity. I am come to bid you good-bye, but not farewell and hardly adieu. I should rather wish you to fare poorly and go straight to the Devil.”

Such language, I admit, is shocking in any woman, and particularly in a clergyman's daughter; but the blood was upon me, as my dear brother Henry would say, and I was careless of effect. The one I produced, however was the last I should have anticipated. Rather than smiling in scorn, or throwing back his head in outright laughter, Harold Trowbridge took his cigar from his lips, and studied me speculatively.

“Your aspect gains something in the liveliness of anger, Miss Austen. Had I anticipated such, I should have provoked you to it sooner, simply for the enjoyment of the effect.” His dark eyes actually danced , with all the impudence of a man who has never known scruple.

“How can you speak so, my lord, when you have been the ruin of one of the gentlest, the best, and certainly now the most suffering of women?”

“ You would have it that I find pleasure in my achievements, particularly when they are won at the expense of such.”

“You are in every way despicable,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he rejoined, “but I am nonetheless successful, and the Countess is merely noble and poor.”

“How,” I began, my voice unpleasantly strident to my own ears, “did you prevail upon her? She was in every way opposed to your purpose. It can only be that the weight of her recent afflictions has enervated her, and that she gave up the struggle rather than contest with one such as you.”

“I merely pointed out that she is penniless,” Trowbridge said calmly, “and that her creditors have called in their debts. While her husband was alive, I chose to bide my time, and learn what the cost of clearing the estates’ encumbrance was worth to him; but with Scargrave gone, there is no point in delaying further.”

“Scargrave is gone, but Scargrave is yet with us,” I pointed out. “The Earl has an heir, possessed of all the potency of his estates.”

“And a healthy debt of his own,” the rogue said mildly. “Even if the Countess were to rush in unseemly haste, and marry her lover” — at this demonstration of his knowledge, I gasped, but he took no notice — ”Fitzroy Payne must look to his own accounts first. Half of London are his creditors; his own holdings in the Indies are beset with difficulties, and should his uncle not have died, Payne should soon have been hauled into court, or killed in a duel by one of the many men to whom he owes debts of honour.”

“Debts of honour?” I was aghast.

“Miss Austen,” Lord Harold said with a condescension that made my blood run hot, “I understand you are more accustomed to the ways of the country than of Town. Doubt cannot be in your nature, nor suspicion in your character. But let me assure you that Fitzroy Payne keeps up with a very fast set. Indeed, he forms its chief ornament. The cost of his establishment — his clothes, the maintenance of his Derbyshire estate, the gambling to which he is all too partial — exact a heavy toll on a fortune that is not above three thousand pounds a year. He has wagered heavily on the expectation of his inheritance, and his creditors, recognising his prospects, have been content to give him more line with which to hang himself. But he has reached the end of his rope, and I fear there is no slack for your friend the Countess to grasp.”

I was struck by all the power of Trowbridge's words, so carelessly bestowed, and clearly without a suspicion that the Earl might have died by other than natural causes. That Fitzroy Payne had a motive to murder — and well before the Earl should get himself a son, and thus disinherit his nephew — was patently obvious. The image of Fitzroy Payne's noble face rose in my mind; could such a man be capable of killing? But certainly his appearance gave no hint of the pressure of his circumstances; he had never betrayed the desperation that must haunt his every thought. I understood better now, why he had not pressed Isobel to break off her engagement to the Earl, and marry him instead; the wrath of his uncle should have blasted his future prospects entirely. Better to win the Countess's heart from her husband — and so guard against the possibility of an heir and the loss of an immense estate.

What had seemed noble, in retrospect was revealed as vilely mercenary. But my thoughts were interrupted by Lord Harold's implacable voice.