Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

She turned her head as rapidly as an adder. “It is not Lord Harold I would defend, Miss Austen, but my dear Isobel; and I fear her friends are become her worst enemies.”

I snorted my contempt. “I rejoice to hear that protecting the Countess is now become your aim.”

“It is the dearest consideration of my heart,” she rejoined stonily, and took up again the doorknob.

I drew my needle swiftly through my canvas. “It was on her behalf, then, that you visited Lord Harold at Wilborough House but a few days ago?”

Her fingers dropped from the doorknob as though suddenly made nerveless. “I did no such thing. What use have I for such a man?”

“I wondered at it myself. You have always professed yourself his enemy. And so when my sister Eliza remarked upon your having met with him — she is, as you know, an intimate of the Duchess's — I could not satisfy my curiosity. But as you say you did not visit, she must have been mistaken. I dare say it was the card of some other Madame Delahoussaye she saw.”

Madame did not honour me with a reply, but drew a shuddering breath, and for an instant I thought she might cross to where I sat and seize my throat in her two hands. But her self-mastery was admirable; she merely nodded frigidly, and swept from the room.

I liked her too little to care for her good opinion; I wished only to frighten her into some exposure, and was very well pleased with the effect of my questions.

I HAD NOT HAD A MOMENT'S REST ALL DAY — had not even sought my room to change before dinner, the interval between Mr. Cranley's departure and the bell having been too short. So I mounted the steps now in Madame Delahoussaye's wake with a sense of crushing weariness, fearful of the morrow and my own place in it — and found that, to my glad joy, a letter from my brother Frank awaited my eager eyes.

8 January 1803

Ramsgate

My dearest Jane—

Your letter arrived by this morning's post, and I was made so happy by its receipt, I little cared that it proved brief and barely legible upon first reading. When I divined, however, that your sole concern was the nature of deep-water ports in the colonies — no word of your gaieties or writing, and not a question spared as to the health and happiness of your brother — I felt certain you must be taken ill. I had nearly resolved to apply for leave, and hasten to London and your deathbed, when I read the letter again. Whatever the cause of your request, it has a certain urgency that will not be denied; and so I shall leave off raillery and offer a straight reply.

You believe that Lord Harold Trowbridge wishes to purchase the port for some nefarious purpose, and that the woman in whose power it remains desires only to discharge the estate's debt, without questioning the reason for his interest in its acquisition. That Trowbridge has journeyed to France is of singular interest, for it has come to my knowledge — and this must remain our secret, Jane — that a naval engagement may shortly arise in the very waters of which you write, should Buonaparte's forces sail from Martinique, and our own fleet from ports in the Barbadoes. If Trowbridge is aware of this, as well — and with his access to the higher circles, it is entirely possible — he may be plotting some effort on behalf of His Majesty's government, in which event the woman's port should prove essential. More than this, I cannot say; but you know, dear Jane, that the truce between Buonaparte and our King was nothing more than a pause to draw breath. The blow shall come, and on several fronts, I fear; the Corsican would test our Navy's right to rule the seas, and we must not fail.

Write to me again when you have something else in your head besides military strategy; but know that you have, as always, the love of your dearest brother—

Frank

9 January 1803, cont.

I HAVE A MIND AMAZED AT ITS OWN DISCOMPOSURE — FOR I know, now, why Lord Scargirave had to be killed — why Isobel and Fitzroy must be sacrificed; and it is so that high treason might be done. It is impossible that Lord Harold should act on behalf of His Majesty; he is too much of a charlatan, too readily the property of the highest bidder. No, Trowbridge must be in the employ of Buonaparte himself, and means to betray the Barbadoes — and England's Navy — with Madame Delahoussaye's willing assistance.

Frank had said that the French might well sail from Martinique, the island from which Buonaparte's consort, Josephine, sprang. The Delahoussayes themselves had been a powerful family in that French colony, and I doubted little that Madame's sentiments still veered towards France, however English her frivolous daughter had become. Madame had conspired to wrest Cross-winds from Isobel, burdening the property with heavy debt, diverting the income from the estate to her own pockets, and finally — when Isobel's marriage promised fair to save her from financial ruin — with murder. The maid Marguerite was herself a Creole of French extraction — and had come to Isobel from Madame's household, to serve as spy in her niece's camp. That she owed Madame more loyalty than her mistress, need not even be stated; and for her services to the former she had, no doubt, been well-paid. Marguerite proved useful when it came time to place poison in the Earl's dish; and then had dutifully kept her rendezvous with death.

I remembered Madame's alacrity in assuming the duties of chatelaine at Scargrave Manor — how she had banished Mrs. Hodges and even Danson from the Earl's library, and insisted upon tidying its wealth of papers herself. She had certainly seen the new Earl's letter to Hezekiah Mayhew, informing the solicitor of Lord Harold's triumph over Isobel. Fearing exposure, Madame had taken the paper away, not perceiving, perhaps, in her eagerness to hide her duplicity, that it was but a copy, and the final draft already posted.

Later, Madame had seized her opportunity to dispatch the meddlesome Fitzroy by placing a fragment of his letter in the maid's bodice after she was dead, and removing the note Madame herself had written to arrange the fatal meeting. For good measure she had dropped Isobel's handkerchief by the paddock gate.

It had not been necessary for Lord Harold to remain at Scargrave, or even in the country; his confederate should manage quite well in his absence. Better that he inform Buonaparte that the port was in his grasp; and receive from him the payment for such betrayal.

I cast about me for pen and paper, and scribbled a note to Mr. Cranley; then I pulled on my dressing gown, hastened down the stairs, and dispatched a footman as messenger to the barrister's lodgings.

I had only, now, to wait.

I SHOULD NOT HAVE SLEPT EASILY IN ANY CASE, BUT TO-night the noises of the ancient house seemed magnified by the reverberation of my heartbeat, the quickened sound of my breath; I hesitated even to move, curled up in my elegant bed, lest the rustling proclaim my certainty of Madame's heinous guilt. Could I have drunk a potion, and become invisible, I should have swallowed it down in a single draught; but I was consigned to feel instead the complete exposure of those who know too much.

Utter darkness, wrapped round by heavy silk draperies, I could not abide, however; and so I pulled back the bed hangings and lit my single candle, ears straining for the sound of a carriage in the dark.

The bells of Westminster rang out in the stillness twelve times; I had come to the witching hour.

And it was then that I heard it — the muffled drag of a high-heeled step, pacing slowly down the corridor. Every nerve in my body froze as completely as though the January wind had swept through my chamber, and I was powerless to move. I knew this sound of old. Could ghosts, then, exchange houses? Had the First Earl as much right to haunt Town as he did country? Or was Tom Hearst returned from his unmarked grave, despite the stake which pierced his heart, to demand another moonlit kiss?