Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

“Capital!” Mr. Cranley cried; “it is as you thought, Miss Austen. A draft was written during one of those difficult days following the late Earl's demise; it was copied, and mailed; and before Lord Scargrave's man had time to file it with the other papers that evening, it was seized and used to form the note found on the maid Marguerite.”

“Or the draft may simply have been discarded,” I warned, feeling some restraint was necessary; “one may not always conform to habit or rule.”

We set to comparing the drafts to the Earl's list, and saw that the missing letter was one of several sent to his solicitors, in Bond Street; it but required a glance from Mr. Cranley to his watch, and a call for a hackney carriage, and we were on our way to their door.

MAYHEW, MAYHEW & CRABB WAS A RESPECTABLE ESTABLISHMENT, as befit men of business who cater to the peerage; the plate secured to the deep green door was of brass, and the marble stoop was well scrubbed. Upon seeing the firm's name so declared, I remembered with a start Isobel's last injunction before leaving the Manor — that I deliver her testament to one Hezekiah Mayhew. I had tarried in doing so, in the hope that all such matters might be deferred some decades, once Isobel's freedom was secured; but now that we stood before the solicitors’ door, I bethought me of the document, which I kept safe in my reticule, and placed beneath my pillow at night. I should deliver the deed to Mr. Mayhew immediately, should he be within.

We were ushered to a snug parlour, where a bright fire cast its glow on several easy chairs; and Mr. Cranley's card had barely been delivered, than Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew appeared to place himself at our service. He was a portly gentleman of some seventy years, quite stooped, with a shining pate that had long since lost its hair, and two bushy white eyebrows that attempted to supply the difference.

“Mr. Cranley,” the solicitor said, with a deep bow in the barrister's direction; “it is a pleasure to welcome you to my humble office.”

“The honour must be mine,” Mr. Cranley rejoined, “as well as my thanks, for having placed the Countess's trouble in my hands.”

“This firm has had the management of the Scargrave family's business for eighty years, at least,” Mr. Mayhew observed, with an eyebrow cocked for Cranley, “but never have we witnessed so terrible a passage as this. I merely chose the best and most reliable barrister I knew.” The grave brown eyes turned upon my face. “And you, Madam, would be—?”

“Miss Jane Austen. I am a friend of the Countess's.”

“Miss Austen is ungenerous in her own behalf,” Mr. Cranley interrupted smoothly. “She is the greatest friend the Countess could hope to have, and no less energetic in the new Earl's defence.”

“That is very well — very well, indeed.” Mr. Mayhew's glance was penetrating. “Friends, in my experience, are like ladies’ fashions, Miss Austen. They come and go with the seasons, and are rarely of such stout stuff as bears repeated wearing. I am glad to find you formed of better material.” With that, he led us to his inner rooms.

Mr. Cranley offered me a chair, and took one of his own before the solicitor's great desk.

“You are here on the Countess's behalf?” Mr. Mayhew enquired, with a glance that encompassed us both.

“Not directly,” I replied, “though I am charged with placing this in your safekeeping, Mr. Mayhew.” I handed him the sealed parchment that contained Isobel's final directions, and felt the lighter for having passed the burden to another. “I would ask that you address the matters it contains when we have presumed upon your time no longer.”

“Having other, more pressing matters, to discuss?” the solicitor surmised, his bushy eyebrows lifting.

“We come to you on the Earl's behalf today,” Mr. Cranley said.”

“Though, indeed, the two can hardly be separated,” I broke in. “What may serve to prove the innocence of one, cannot help but assist the other.”

“Indeed. Indeed. Pray enlighten me as to your purpose. “Mr. Mayhew drew forth a pen and a sheet of paper and set a pair of ancient spectacles upon his nose.

We explained the business of Fitzroy Payne's correspondence, and were gratified to discover that old Mayhew's wits were swift. He seized the importance of our questions directly; a correspondence file was ordered, and the final copies of several letters, whose rougher selves we had previously perused in Danson's desk, were produced for our examination.

And to our great joy, we found that one of them was utterly strange to us. No draft of it had we seen.

Scargrave Manor,

Hertfordshire,

22 December 1802

My dear Mayhew—

I should wish to consult you on a matter pertaining to the Countess's Barbadoes estate, Crosswinds. You will remember that my uncle, the late Earl, was at his death engaged in combating Lord Harold Trowbridge's financial assault upon his wife's plantations. His demise, and the Countess's concern for her material welfare, has caused her to abandon hope of staving off Lord Harold — and she lately signed a document presented by that gentleman which ceded him the property in exchange for a discharge of considerable debt.

I have recently learned from perusing my uncle's papers — which included the Countess's marriage settlement — that there exists a probable legal incumbrance upon her actions. That she was unaware of this when she submitted to Trowbridge's demands, you may fully comprehend, knowing how little women understand of legal matters. In sum, the plantations in question passed to the Countess through her mother's line, though managed and overseen by her father, and are to revert to her surviving maternal relatives — in all probability Miss Fanny Delahoussaye — in the event of her death. In fact, the property was placed in the condition of separate estate [44] Separate estate, or separate property, was a term in the marriage settlement drawn up at a woman's engagement, particularly if she was an heiress. This set certain property — investments or land — in trust, with the income available to the woman, but the property itself beyond the reach of herself, her husband, or his creditors. Such property customarily passed to her female children at her death. — Editor's note. under the terms of the marriage settlement, with trustees to oversee its security in marriage as they had in the Countess's minority. All such transfer to Lord Harold must, accordingly, be null and void; but he may have bent the law to his purpose in ways that overcome even this obstacle. I should dearly love to hear your sense of the matter.

I intend to be in London the day after Christmas; let us meet in our accustomed place — the library of the Forbearance Club. We shall have luncheon, and talk over these and other matters, and hope to put paid to Lord Harold's schemes.

I remain respectfully yours,

Fitzroy, Earl of Scargrave

I glanced up at Mr. Cranley as I finished the letter; let us meet in our accustomed place was there, certainly, and crying out for comparison to the fragment found in the maid's bodice. But it was the content of the letter itself that struck me forcibly — Lord Harold had imposed upon Isobel so entirely, that he had outwitted even himself.

“Are you of the Earl's opinion, Mr. Mayhew?” I asked the solicitor. “Is it so impossible for the Countess to make over her West Indies property?”

The rheumy brown eyes blinked at me shrewdly, and Hezekiah Mayhew cleared his throat. “I have examined the problem narrowly, Miss Austen, and I may say it is indeed a pretty one. A very pretty problem for the Countess and the Earl.” He paused, and looked from Mr. Cranley to myself.

“My good sir,” Mr. Cranley said urgently, “all these matters may bear upon his lordship's survival; we cannot know until all the information is ours. Pray continue.”