Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

The candle flame wavered twice before my eyes; and beyond it, in the gloom, I made out the handle of my door slowly turning. It must be thrust open by a spectral hand in a moment, and I should have screamed; but my throat was utterly constricted with fear, and only a breathy gasp escaped. A crack of darkness against the jamb, widening inexorably as the door swung inwards with a groan — and the spectral First Earl stood before me, in all the splendour of the Sun King, his glorious clothes grimed with dust and tarnished with years, the cobwebs hanging from his curls and the tips of his beringed fingers.

But the cobwebs were made of grey thread, and the Earl was neither man nor ghost; I remembered the spectre's visitation to Fitzroy Payne's room at the Manor, so many weeks ago, and knew of a sudden who had placed the damning Barbadoes nuts in his gun case.

“Madame,” I whispered, seeing the glitter of her eyes in the candle flame; and she returned a hideous grin. Swift as a cat she sprang to my bedside, the door thrust closed behind her, and wrapped a silken scarf twice around my neck. Though my fingers clung to the fabric, and strained against her force, she was made stronger still by violent rage; she would squeeze the life from me, and I must resist. Bursting flowers of light flooded my eyes even as darkness overcame them; my desperate fingers scrabbled at hers, drawing sharp nicks of blood; but we were both of us almost silent, save for my laboured breathing and her animal grunts of exertion — a deadly intensity robbed us of pleas and triumphs altogether.

I began to sway where I sat, too cushioned by the feathered mattress when I most needed hard purchase, and she profited from my weakness to thrust me down on my back, her knee drawn up and braced cruelly against my chest. I could not move her; and the advantage of her position should finish me in a very little time. I prayed as I have never prayed before — a single refrain only, dear God dear God dear God —even as I felt my strength begin to ebb. As from a great distance, I saw her grotesque fancy dress thrown by the candle in shadows upon my wall, and felt an absurd desire to laugh; but what emerged was nothing more than a pitiful sob.

With a harshness magnified by the silent absorption of our deadly contest, the door burst open, and a man's form was abruptly outlined against the darkened hall. Mr. Cranley , I thought, with rising hope — and then saw that all hope was lost. For it was Harold Trowbridge who stood there, with his evil profile and hooded eye; and that he came to finish what Madame had begun, I felt with all the certainty of despair. The room whirled; I gasped for air; and gave way to a pounding darkness that would not be gainsaid.

• • •

“Miss Austen,” a gentle voice repeated in my ear; “Miss Austen!”

As my eyelids fluttered open, I found the earnest gaze of Mr. Cranley bent upon my own. I sat up suddenly, consciousness regained; saw Madame Delahoussaye bound to a chair and staring at me malevolently; and would have started from the bedclothes in my wildness to be free of her presence, did not the barrister restrain me.

“Do not try to speak,” Mr. Cranley said; “I fear your throat is badly bruised.”

“You came,” I croaked, turning my eyes with relief to his.

“Try to give her some brandy,” said a voice suffused with concern; and I knew with gladness that it belonged to Sir William Reynolds. Mr. Cranley raised me on one arm, and turned to receive the flask from an outstretched hand — which was attached to none other than Lord Harold Trowbridge.

I thrust the brandy away and reeled backwards, choking and spluttering. “Murderer!” I cried. “That man would have killed me! He is in league with Madame!”

“Lord Harold was your salvation, Jane,” Sir William said gently, as he hastened to my side. “He overpowered that woman with not a moment to spare. For I fear we should have arrived too late.”

“Trowbridge was closeted in my chambers, divulging much that you should know, when I received your note,” Mr. Cranley added. “He understood your danger immediately, and flew to your side while I went for Sir William. We deemed it best that a man of the King's Bench be present to receive Madame's confession — did we arrive in time to catch her in another act of murder.”

“I do not understand,” I said, in my strange new voice; “if Lord Harold is become a friend, why has he endeavoured so long to send the Countess to the gallows? Why lie , as he so clearly did, before the Royal Gallery Bar?”

Mr. Cranley gazed across my head at Sir William, and Sir William at Lord Harold. “She shall have to be told, my lord,” the magistrate said. And so the man I had thought a rogue pulled a chair close to my bedside.

“My dear Miss Austen,” Harold Trowbridge began, “I told you once that I was a dark angel, and you a light one. But I should better have said that we both used our wits to similar ends — only I bend mine to deceive, and you to illuminate.”

I raised myself to my elbows in protest. “You claim now to have no interest in the Countess's property? Or in the fortuitous death of her husband?”

“In her property, I remain as desperately interested as ever,” he replied, with amusement in the heavily-lidded eyes, “but for reasons that shall soon be made plain; and as for the late Earl, it has been many years since I have thought of Frederick as anything but a friend. I did not kill Lord Scargrave, Miss Austen; indeed, I should more easily have killed myself. For it was the Earl who directed my every movement.”

I confess to a confusion of the senses at this revelation. “You must speak more plainly, Lord Harold.”

He sighed deeply, betraying for the first time some emotion other than languor, and fixed his eyes upon my own. “A second son — even the second son of a duke — must have a profession, Miss Austen; and I have made mine what the French call espionage.”

“You are a spy,” I breathed.

“If you will. I work only for those whose sacred reputations forbid all mention of their names; I serve the Crown from time to time; and always I go where the law may not — or will not.” Trowbridge paused a moment for reflection, as if choosing his words to suit his audience.

“These many months past — for almost a year; indeed — I have been in the Earl's employ,” he resumed, “for the purpose of divining the true nature of his wife's financial difficulties. Frederick, Lord Scargrave, had long been a friend of her father, John Collins; and at that gentleman's death, he received a sealed letter from his solicitors, begging him to look after John Collins's only child. Isobel came to the Earl at her arrival in England; he was immediately enchanted with her beauty; and his duty to a late friend soon became the necessity of a man in love.

“In very little time he learned of Isobel's financial difficulties; and in her innocence of business, she told him much that caused suspicion in him. Frederick believed her to be the victim of duplicity within her own family, but could not determine how it was done; and I may plainly state that he also feared for her life, and thought to protect her most by offering marriage and himself as a champion for her cause. The late Earl would not see that he alone should prove the greatest threat to her enemies, though I made the point on several occasions; Frederick was possessed of much strength and resolve, and foolishly could not believe himself likely to fall victim to anyone.

“At the Earl's direction and with his funds, I purchased Crosswinds’ debt, then held in various hands about the Continent, and approached the Countess in the guise of her chief creditor, pressuring her to make over the property in my name in order to cancel her heavy obligation. It was the Earl's hope that my appearance should force her true enemies into the clear, and expose their purpose; and to my great chagrin, he was correct. I was summoned by him to Scargrave on the night of the ball; I made an obvious advance upon the Countess, in the hearing of her family and friends — and that night, her main protector was foully murdered.”