Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

“Only think whom one might meet there!” Fanny cried. “The entire peerage of England assembled in one place! And certain to be moved to tender pity by the interesting circumstances in which we find ourselves. I could not devise a scheme more delicious. You must come along with me to Madame Henri's, my dear Miss Austen. You cannot afford to look less than your best, at your age.”

Madame Henri, indeed! It should never occur to Miss Delahoussaye that I lacked the funds for such an establishment — nor that my mantua-maker of choice was my dear sister Cassandra, and I hers. The price of fine muslin is too dear to make added expense of its fashioning; I should rather spend my shillings on a bit of braid, the better to trim my bodice. But Miss Fanny could know as little of economy as she might of tact.

Somewhat nettled, I spoke with asperity. “And so you have abandoned completely Lord Scargrave as your object, and would now seek a husband among the broader ranks of the great?”

“It was never my object to secure Fitzroy,” Fanny replied with a careless shrug; “such a cold fellow as he is, all erudition and puff! And in any case, I do not intend to injure my prospects by appearing allied to a man under such a cloud.” She dropped her eyes in the way of modest misses, and coloured prettily. “No, Miss Austen, I have long given my heart to another; I am sure you cannot mistake whom I mean. If things should fall out badly — if Fitzroy is to hang and Isobel with him — why, then, my choice will be proved aright! For in that case, it is certain that George Hearst should inherit the earldom.”

“The Payne family being possessed of no other direct heirs?” I enquired, with a stirring of interest.

“Unless the late Earl has got himself a bastard hidden away,” Miss Delahoussaye said, shrugging, “and between you and I, Miss Austen, that is hardly likely — he was an awfully respectable old stick. Did he get a son on the wrong side of the blanket, all the world should know it, and the boy be yet at Eton. No, Miss Austen, the Hearsts are at present the Earl's closest male relations — and who should have a greater claim to Scargrave than Mr. Hearst, who has lived all his life here, and his mother before him?”

“But can he inherit through the female line?”

“I understood from Tom that there is just such a provision in the conferment of the title. George has but to exchange the name of Hearst for Payne, and all shall be settled happily. You will have heard of such things before, I am sure.”

And so Tom Hearst has been calculating his brother's prospects— aloud, and to one so lacking in discretion as Miss Fanny — a very little time after Fitzroy Payne was charged with murder. Or was the deadly charge the Hearsts’ objective all along, with the seizure of an earldom their primary purpose? Murder has been done, and the innocent made to suffer, for far less.

Fanny was humming a little tune, lost in delightful fancies; I deemed it best to learn as much of the matter from her as possible, and thus turned the subject to her dearest concern.

“And so you would have Mr. Hearst?” I said, with conscious stupidity.

“Miss Austen!” she cried, with a new asperity in her eye. “I will not answer when you tease — for I see that you would sport with me. Mr. Hearst, indeed! You are a sly creature.”

I perfectly understood her meaning, and wondered at Fanny's ability to grasp some facts, while remaining ignorant of so many others. Should Fitzroy Payne be condemned, his cousin George Hearst would accede to an earldom, and the Lieutenant's prospects might very well improve. Tom Hearst should find a convenient ear for all his troubles, and perhaps an open hand to make his fortune — although, from knowing a little of Mr. Hearst's poor opinion of the Lieutenant, I would hesitate to consider his purse entirely his brother's to command. But the direction of Miss Fanny's thoughts should brook no disappointment; it was her fondest hope that with George Hearst's good fortune and high estate to add to his honourable commission, Tom Hearst should merit all the felicity that Fanny Delahoussaye's thirty thousand pounds could bring.

Both brothers, I mused as I buttered my toast, had reason enough to want their uncle dead, and their cousin judged guilty of his murder.

But I had no time for such dreadful thoughts, much less for Fanny's idle chattel; I left her calculating the proper length of sleeve for a murder trial among the peerage, and turned my attentions to poor Isobel, a prisoner in her very home.

“JANE,” THE COUNTESS GREETED ME BRISKLY, AS I BRAVED the guardsman at her lintel and slipped through the door, “you are just in time. But was ever a friend so faithful in her attendance? Another should have been long returned to the bosom of her family, unhappy Scargrave forgotten.” The Countess sat at her writing desk, head bent over paper and pen, her breakfast tray untouched.

“None could forget, Isobel, though well they might flee. But I am neither so timid, nor so indifferent to your goodness.”

“Dear Jane!” she cried, and reached a cold, pale hand to my own. She looked remarkably ill this morning, her haggard countenance hardly improved by the rusty black of her gown; I judged her to have endured a sleepless night, and felt numb at the terrors she must yet face. “Would you perform one last office on your friend's behalf, before we must part?”

“Anything, Isobel, that you would command.”

“Place your signature at the foot of this page,” she told me, her voice low and trembling. “It represents my final wish in this world.”

I looked all my amazement, but Isobel pushed her pen towards me with resolution. “I beg of you, sign.”

I could not speak, nor read the provisions of her dreadful will, but affixed the name of Austen to the deed. I saw with sadness Daisy Hodges's awkward scrawl — she who was the Countess's young maid — in the place of second witness.

“Thank you, my dear,” Isobel said when I had finished, and folding the heavy sheet, she placed it in my hands. “It is yours, now, for safekeeping. Do you take it to my solicitor^ Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew of Bond Street, at the first opportunity.”

“My darling girl,” I said, deeply affected, “it cannot yet be time for such despair! Much may occur before this paper is wanted.”

“It is best to prepare for the worst, Jane, since the worst is all that is left to me. Unhappy Isobel! God be praised that Frederick's eyes are closed! The horror, did he see me so reduced to infamy — and by one that he had loved,” she cried, her hands clutching at her hair in distraction. “Faithless Fitzroy! Blackest of men, who can wear such a noble face!”

“Isobel.” I reached for her tearing fingers and held them firmly in my own. “How can you speak so? The Earl's fate is as desperate as yours, and he suffers it with like innocence. Surely you do not believe otherwise?”

“I saw the note myself, Jane,” my friend said contemptuously. “I saw what he had written, I saw it was in his hand. You found it yourself on poor Marguerite's mangled body. Do not you see what he has done? The maid was right all the while. Fitzroy is my husband's murderer. Fitzroy was discovered by Marguerite, who endeavoured to make his treachery known. And Fitzroy ensured that the maid should speak no more.”

“Do not believe it, Isobel,” I cried.

“Are you mad, Jane?” The Countess rose restlessly from her desk and commenced pacing before the fire. “What else would you have me believe? That I am guilty of their deaths myself? You need not assay the longer. Know that I feel as guilty as though my very hands extinguished their lives. It was my blind partiality for Fitzroy — my vanity, my desire for admiration, my weakness in the face of passion — that encouraged him in evil. He saw my fatuous trust, and he used it to his ends. / was the one intended for blame in Frederick's death, while he took all my husband's wealth. But Marguerite confounded Lord Scargrave's plans, by keeping his deadly letter on her person.”