Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Or am I merely comforting myself with the thought that he chooses Miss Delahoussaye for her fortune, rather than any preference over myself? Stupid, stupid Jane! Your vanity rises again, even in the hour of its most thorough defeat.

Can such a man, whose fine appearance and good humour suggest all that is pleasing, be so infinitely dissembling? I declare his charm, and think him a murderer; I encourage his attentions, and find him promised to another. Were I acquainted with his person a twelvemonth, and had ample scope for observation, I should believe myself still as likely to be deceived. No, I shall not begin to understand it, be Miss Fanny Delahoussaye turned Mrs. Tom Hearst, and her third child on the way.

3 January 1803

I SENT FOR MR. CRANLEY EARLY THIS MORNING, AND WAS gratified to see that gentleman arrive with alacrity not an hour later. To stem his apparent disappointment at Fanny Delahoussaye's absence — she was even then standing before Madame Henri, the Bond Street modiste — I bent myself briskly to business.

“Let us talk, Mr. Cranley, of evidence,” I began, closing the study door behind us, the better to guard against a servant's ears. “The presence near the paddock gate of Isobel's handkerchief, we may count as nothing. Any person desiring to throw blame upon the Countess, might readily have obtained her linen, monogrammed as it is, for the purpose; access to her apartments is not even necessary. I myself have observed Isobel leave her kerchiefs behind her wherever she goes.”

Mr. Cranley nodded. “I had assumed as much.”

“And what of Fitzroy Payne? Have you intelligence of his writing habits?” I perched on the edge of a chair, and Mr. Cranley did the same, leaning towards me in his eagerness.

“Your excellent understanding, Miss Austen, is cause for rejoicing,” he began.

“Capital!” I cried, clasping my hands together. “You have learned something to their advantage!”

The barrister nodded. “As you are no doubt aware, Fitzroy Payne was engrossed in resolving the business affairs of his uncle at the time of the maid's murder. He remained closeted in the library for days on end, over a quantity of papers, and much correspondence passed between Lord Scargrave and his London solicitors,”

“Well I remember it. The solicitors appeared at Scargrave immediately upon the Earl's death, but stayed only a few hours; thereafter all matters were conducted by post. And what a quantity of post! Madame Delahoussaye undertook several times to tidy the Earl's library, and was all agog at the mess.”

“According to Lord Scargrave, he never varies from routine in matters of business. In writing a letter, he painstakingly draws up a draft, and then copies it for clarity's sake onto another sheet of paper. It is the final copy which he sends to the recipient.”

“He has copies of all his correspondence?”

“He does. I think it possible that the phrase in question was torn from just such a draft —left lying about the Earl's library desk, to which everyone might have access — and the rest of the sheet destroyed.” The barrister slapped his knees in excitement, and sat back in his chair.

“But how to find the very letter?”

“I am directed to Fitzroy Payne's valet,” Mr. Cranley said, looking about him as though the man were hiding in one of the corners, “who retains a list of the Earl's correspondence, as well as his personal papers. If the draft of a letter is missing, we may discover to whom the final copy was sent, and search for the incriminating phrase in its text.”

I wished to partake of the barrister's evident satisfaction, but a doubt assailed me. “Do we look among the Manor household as you suggest, Mr. Cranley — where any might have access to the Earl's library and his drafts — or must we consider that the letter's recipient might also be the murderer?”

The barrister looked thoughtful at this, and rose restlessly from his chair. “If the maid's murderer received a letter from the Earl containing the incriminating language, he should have no need of a draft; it required only to tear the phrase from the letter itself and send it to the maid. If that is the case, we cannot hope to locate the damaged letter itself.” “But we may learn the murderer's identity, from finding the phrase of the maid's note in a draft of the letter in Danson's possession,” I observed.

Mr. Cranley beamed at me in approval. “If, however, the murderer is a member of the household — who searched among the Earl's drafts, and tore the incriminating phrase from the page — then the draft itself should be absent from Danson's collection.”

“This cannot show the Earl's innocence,” I mused, “but it may demonstrate that anyone familiar with the household — and Fitzroy Payne's habits of correspondence — might readily have secured a sample of his handwriting, and without his knowledge.”

“We are of one mind, Miss Austen,” the barrister said. “Our best hope of securing the Countess's freedom, as well as that of Fitzroy Payne, is to show the guilt of another. There is no avoiding that. But until we may locate our murderer, I shall send for Danson.”

I rose as Mr. Cranley made for the door. “And do you know where he is to be found?”

“Fitzroy Payne sent him on to his London establishment near his clubs in Pall Mall. Danson awaits his master's trial there in solitude — and, one assumes, some measure of despondency. For if the Earl is condemned, his valet's chances of obtaining a suitable new position must be very slim.”

“Danson should be active, then, in assisting us,” I replied. “For his future, too, hangs upon it.”

MR. CRANLEY BELIEVED THAT HIS ONLY DEFENCE LAY IN attacking Sir William on narrow points of law; but it seemed to me a wiser course to present an equally plausible case for the guilt of another — and though I felt myself to be taking on the crushing role of the Divine Creator, in assaying to mete out punishment or pardon, I felt it incumbent upon me to exert myself to that end. While the barrister was about locating Danson, I determined that I should visit Jenny Barlow's sister — and discover why her name had been the cause for such passionate vituperation between the incipient curate, Mr. George Hearst, and his uncle. I suspected it was due to righteous outrage on that gentleman's part at the late Earl's seduction of one of his own servants; but proof was nonetheless necessary.

Did I arrive in the Scargrave carriage, with its arms emblazoned on the doors, I should probably turn Rosie's humble establishment all aflutter; and so I deemed it best to secure a hackney carriage, the better to progress unknown, and thus made my way across Westminster Bridge to South London.

THE ADDRESS JENNY BARLOW HAD GIVEN ME WAS SUCH AS did not disgrace her sister. From the appearance of their exteriors, the homes of many estimable families sit in Gracechurch Street — modest tradesmen, no doubt, and men of profession, whose means have not yet ascended to the West End. I observed many a marble stoop scrubbed clean, and doors pulled wide to the milkman by fresh-faced young maids in starched aprons and mob caps; and felt assured that Rosie Ketch's fortune had been less melancholy than it might.

The hackney pulled up to a well-kept lodging house, with a doorman ready to hand me down; and to him I conveyed my card, and directed that it should be sent to Number 33, in search of Miss Rosie Ketch, and waited for what I might learn. The vestibule of the establishment revealed it to be of modest pretensions and circumstances, as befit the neighbourhood and its inhabitants’ means; and I confess myself as ever more puzzled as to how the girl came to be placed there.