Jane and the Barque of Frailty jam-9 Read online

  A stir filled the closely-packed room as the black-clad figure of the maid moved heavily towards Thomas Whitpeace. She kept her eyes trained on the floor, and was followed by one of the men who had accompanied the Russian Prince.

  “I am Count Kronsky,” this personage said, with a dramatic bow and clicking of his heels, “and I will speak for the maid, as she does not understand the English.”

  His own accent was so impenetrable that the coroner had to request him to say his piece again, before comprehending it, Druschka following the exchange all the while. When it came to the swearing of the oath, the maid refused, as being contrary to her Orthodox faith; and at length, exasperated by the complexities of multilingual persuasion, the coroner proceeded to his questions.

  The story that unfolded was a simple one. Druschka had been raised from a child on the estates of the Pirov family, and was employed as the Princess’s personal maid at the time Evgenia turned fifteen, and was presented to the Tsar’s court. At the Princess’s wedding — which occurred when Tscholikova was seventeen — Druschka had accompanied her mistress to the home of her husband; and from thence she had journeyed to Vienna, later to Paris, and lastly, to London. The maid’s fierce loyalty and love for the dead woman was transparent, even through the voice of her interpreter.

  “On the night in question,” Mr. Whitpeace said, “you last saw your mistress … when?”

  At eight o’clock, Count Kronsky relayed, when the Princess had entered a hackney bound for Covent Garden.

  “She did not return home that evening?”

  No indeed, tho’ Druschka had waited faithfully in the hall from midnight onwards, intent upon undressing her mistress and seeing her to bed. She had still been sitting in the hall of the house in Hans Place when the Runner had come from Bow Street, and taken her to view her mistress’s corpse.

  The coroner had only one further question to put — and this was of so curious a nature, as to give rise to speculation among the audience. He held aloft a fragment of porcelain, perhaps as large as a man’s hand, jaggedly broken, and asked whether the maid recognised it.

  The elderly Russian turned the fragment over in her fingers, her lined face crumpling. She gave way to racking sobs, quite horrible to hear — and no further communication was possible. Count Kronsky spoke sharply in his native tongue, and seemed on the point of striking Druschka; but Mr. Whitpeace ordered him to let the maid stand down.

  As she did so, she raised a streaming countenance and said in guttural English, “It is milady’s.”

  Count Kronsky put a short and brutal question, received his answer, and said, “This porcelain box once held the Princess’s jewels.”

  If a flush suffused my entire body at this, my discomfiture was lost in the general murmur of interest that swept o’er the publick house at the Russian’s words. Henry, being too captivated by the drama, paid no heed to my momentary lapse of composure.

  “I now call one Joshua Bends,” Whitpeace said, “watchman of the Berkeley Square district, to be duly sworn.”

  Joshua Bends was an elderly person, much afflicted with rheumatism, and so nearly bent double that I wondered how he managed to sit in the narrow wooden box that served the charleys for shelter. He placed a palsied right hand on the coroner’s Bible and spoke his oath from a toothless mouth; and when he turned to face the room, I detected the hallmark of senility in his bleared and ill-focused eyes.

  “How did you come to be present in Berkeley Square on the morning in question?”

  “Hey?” Joshua Bends muttered, his hand cupped around his ear. “What’s that, Yer Honour?”

  Mr. Whitpeace repeated his query with commendable patience; and Bends lisped through his toothless mouth, “Doing me work, Yer Honour, as is expected. Allus walks right round the square I do, and calls out the hour, as regular as church bells. I’ve been charley in the square coming on thirteen year, and there’s some as says I’m like to die in my box, I am — but I hope as the Good Lord preserves me from the sort o’ death that there Princess had. Pale as snow she was, in a crumpled heap on the paving-stones, and me thinking she was in a dead faint, until my boot slipped in the deal o’ blood she’d lost in dying.”

  Mr. Whitpeace made a moue of irritation — his witness had got well beyond him — and said abruptly, “Let us begin as is proper, with the first hour of your labour, my good man. When did you relieve your colleague in the watchman’s box near Berkeley Square?”

  “At midnight, same as allus. I clapped old Amos Small on the shoulder and woke him from a sound sleep, I did, and sent him off home to his daughter’s. The bells of St. George’s had just called out the hour. I’m a prompt man. I don’t like to keep a fellow waiting, even if he do be asleep.”

  “And so you took up your place in the box near Berkeley Square as close to midnight as makes no odds,” the coroner underlined. “Did you make note of the carriage and foot traffick that passed during your watch?”

  “Not partickular,” Bends said, once the question had been repeated in order to satisfy his indifferent ears. “I may have seen a deal o’ carriages, in and around the square, but as to most of ’em — they lets their cargo off at the door, and pulls to the stable yard. I don’t pay no mind. There’s allus a gentleman or two on foot, but they comes nearer to dawn, from they hells and clubs in Pall Mall, and the gentlemen is allus jug-bitten — et of Hull cheese — bless ’em.”

  When asked to explain this descent into the vernacular, the good Bends explained that he meant drunk as a wheelbarrow.

  “Did you not observe one equipage, at least, to pull up before No. 45, Berkeley Square, and discharge its occupants?” Mr. Whitpeace enquired.

  “That’d be his lordship’s residence,” Bends said, with an eye cast shiftily at Castlereagh. “Happen I did see his lordship’s coach at a stand afore No. 45.”

  “At what time was this?”

  “Nigh on one o’clock, by the bells. They rang out but a notion afore the coach came clattering over the stones and pulled-to.”

  “And did you observe anyone to quit the coach?”

  “I saw her ladyship step down from the carriage, and a gentleman I took to be his lordship,” Bends said carefully.

  “Took to be his lordship? Are you suggesting Lady Castlereagh was accompanied into her house in the small hours of morning by a gentleman not her husband?” Mr. Whitpeace enquired smoothly.

  The foreman, Samuel Hays, let out a hoot of laughter; and Lord Castlereagh half-rose from his chair, as tho’ to fling a protest — or perhaps a glove— in the offending blacksmith’s face. A hand from Charles Malverley, however, eased his lordship back into his chair; tho’ I observed his entire form to stiffen with outrage.

  “I can tell a lady from a hundred paces,” Bends volunteered affably, “from her way o’ dressing the hair and carrying herself — and Lady Castlereagh is allus so outlandish in her modes, I’d never mistake. Known for it, she is — makes a point of drawing notice to herself. It’s her way o’ cutting a dash, I reckon.”

  If Castlereagh was not already purple with indignation, I should be greatly surprised; for it is true that Emily, Lady Castlereagh, is known for her outré habits and eccentricities of dress; but as she is perhaps the foremost political hostess of our day, much is forgiven her. The quiet propriety and elegance that characterise her husband’s habit are not for Lady Castlereagh; she prefers to shock.

  “Let us say that you observed a gentleman we may presume to be Lord Castlereagh enter his lordship’s abode in company with his lady,” Mr. Whitpeace said evenly, “at a little after one o’clock in the morning. And did you observe anyone to quit the Castlereagh residence later during your rounds?”

  “I cannot say as I did.”

  “Did you observe a second equipage to pull up before No. 45, Berkeley Square, at any later hour?”

  “I did not,” Bends said quaveringly, “and how that pore lady came to be a-laying there at the foot of his lordship’s steps, with her throat cut and her great
dark eyes beseeching of the heavens—”

  “Joshua Bends!” the coroner said with great decision, “If you cannot confine your remarks to the questions put, I shall not allow you to offer testimony! Pray tell us what else you observed during the course of your rounds, in the interval between the Castlereaghs’ arrival home, and your discovery of Deceased.”

  In a series of verbal perambulations, the aged charley related how he had discouraged a woman of the streets from plying her trade on the corner of Charles Street; how he had watched Mr. St. John Westbrook weave his inebriated course from Lord Sutherland’s private card party to his lodgings in the Albany; how he had walked round the square at three o’clock by St. George’s bells, and heard what he took to be a pair of lovers in extremis in a closed carriage, pulled up in the mews behind No. 43; and how, having taken a catnap between the hours of three and four, he set out after the sounding of the church bells with his lantern raised, to call out the weather and the o’clock, among the shuttered houses of Berkeley Square.

  “What direction did you then take?” Mr. Whitpeace enquired.

  “Towards Covent Garden — me meaning to nip over for a can of ale and a bit of bread and cheese, like, as is my custom, afore the breaking of the day. A man can get a bite and sup in Covent Garden all night long, if he’s so inclined, what with the carts coming in from the country and the folk setting up for market day. I allus have my bread and cheese after St. George’s tolls four o’clock, I do, me being bred up in the country and used to them hours.”

  Joshua Bends stared defiantly in the direction of the magistrate, as tho’ he expected a reprimand from Sir Nathaniel; but the fact of a charley’s playing truant in search of sustenance was as nothing to the grosser crimes with which such men are usually charged — everything from the taking of bribes, to the abetting of thieves and the corruption of young women. Sir Nathaniel made no sign he had noted a dereliction of duty.

  “You walked to Covent Garden at four of the clock,” Mr. Whitpeace observed, “and cannot have been returned to the square much before five.”

  “Heard the tolling of the bells, I did,” Bends retorted triumphantly, “and went about my rounds to call the weather.”

  “In what direction?”

  “Clockwise, Yer Worship. Walked right round the square, I did, on the pavings that runs alongside they great houses. And there she were lying, like a heap of old clothes.”

  A murmur of unease ran through the room, and Lord Castlereagh shifted in his chair.

  “Where, exactly, did Deceased lie?” Mr. Whitpeace asked.

  “Across the paving, slantwise, in front of No. 45,” Bends replied. “His lordship’s house.”

  “Was Deceased lying on her face, or on her back?”

  “Her back. I went to her, o’ course, and felt for her life — but as soon as I knelt down beside her I knew it was no use. The blood was that thick on the ground—”

  “Was it liquid?” Mr. Whitpeace demanded. “Or congealed?”

  Bends stared, uncomprehending.

  “Was it thick upon your hands,” the coroner amplified, “or akin to water? Speak, man.”

  “Her neck was wet, but not so wet as to be like water.” The charley glanced about the publick room, as tho’ in search of aid.

  “She had not, then, died in the last few seconds.”

  Bends shrugged.

  “Did you observe any sort of weapon near the Princess?”

  “No-o,” Bends said falteringly, “but for the piece of china.”

  Thomas Whitpeace leaned towards the charley avidly. “What sort of china?”

  “It looked like the lid of a dish. Or maybe a lady’s box,” Bends offered, “such as she might keep treasures in. About the size of a loaf of bread, it was. I’ve never seen the like afore, except in the windows of they shops on Jermyn Street. Very fine, with gilt edging and all manner of birds painted on top.”

  “Where did you find this … lid?”

  “Smashed on the ground beside the lady.”

  “Smashed? How, then, did you know it for a lid?”

  “It was broken in three great pieces, and when the Runner come, he fitted ’em together and showed me what it was. One of the pieces had blood along the edge.”

  I glanced at Henry. His countenance was very pale: imagining the scene, as I had done, of the Princess Tscholikova standing in the night, and dragging the jagged edge of porcelain across her luminous white neck. A lady’s box, such as she might keep treasures in. The emerald brooch, gryphon and eagle, rose before my mind’s eye.

  “There was no sign of jewels scattered about the pavement?” the coroner demanded sternly.

  “Yer Honour!” Bends cried. “As God is my witness—”

  Count Kronsky rose smoothly from his place. “Prince Pirov would assure the coroner that his sister’s jewels are in his possession.”

  “Very well,” Mr. Whitpeace said. “What did you then, Joshua Bends?”

  “Set up a hollerin’ fit to bust.”

  “And the result?”

  “The lights went up in No. 45. Fair deal o’ candles they must’ve lit — sparing no expence even for the serving folk. That’s a gentleman’s household, that is.”

  “Who appeared first from No. 45?”

  “His lordship’s man.” Bends gestured towards Charles Malverley. “Full dressed he were, as tho’ ’twere broadest day!”

  “You may step down, Bends,” Thomas Whitpeace instructed. “The coroner calls Mr. Charles Malverley!”

  CHARLES MALVERLEY’S BEATIFIC FACE WAS QUITE pale under his fashionably-disordered curls as he swore his oath. But his gaze did not waver as he submitted to the coroner; he was a self-possessed creature, schooled from infancy in matters of conduct. I judged him to be in his early twenties — a man just down from Oxford or Cambridge, perhaps, with no inclination for Holy Orders. Younger sons of earls can be dreadfully expensive; bred up to the world of ton with only the slimmest of expectations, they face a life of sponging on their more affluent relatives — or the distasteful prospect of a profession. Charles Malverley must be breathlessly expensive; but rather than descending into debt and vice, he had done the honourable thing — and put himself out for hire.

  “You serve Lord Castlereagh in the capacity of private secretary, I believe?” Mr. Whitpeace said.

  “I do.”

  “And for how many years have you fulfilled that office?”

  “A matter of months, rather. His lordship was good enough to take me on in the autumn of 1809.”

  “The autumn — that is a vague term, Mr. Malverley. Was this before or after his lordship resigned from the Cabinet?”

  “I cannot see that it makes the slightest difference,” Malverley rejoined with asperity, “but if you will know — it was perhaps a fortnight after his lordship determined to enter private life.”

  I glanced around the room for Mr. Canning: He was seated a little in front of me. His countenance betrayed no undue sensibility regarding Lord Castlereagh’s retirement: the private accusations of misconduct and stupidity Canning had circulated in Cabinet, and the furious culmination of pistols at dawn.

  “Let us say, then, that you went to Lord Castlereagh’s in mid-October, 1809,” Mr. Whitpeace persisted.

  “By all means, say so,” Malverley returned impatiently.

  “Thus you have been very much in his lordship’s confidence, I collect, for full a year and a half?”

  “I have attempted to serve Lord Castlereagh to the full extent of my abilities,” Malverley said, as tho’ the coroner had uttered an impertinence. “I aspire to nothing more.”

  “Very well. We shall return to the exact nature of your services in due course. On the evening in question, Mr. Malverley, you were first to answer the watchman’s summons.”

  “I was.”

  “And yet, it was past five o’clock in the morning. Do you reside in Lord Castlereagh’s establishment?”

  A wave of colour rose in the young man’s cheeks. �
��I have rooms at the Albany. But on the evening in question I … had not yet found occasion to return there.”

  “You were working on his lordship’s behalf until dawn?” Mr. Whitpeace’s expression was politely incredulous.

  “In a manner of speaking.” Malverley shot a quick look in Castlereagh’s direction. “His lordship required me to escort Lady Castlereagh home after the conclusion of the play at the Theatre Royal, as her ladyship was greatly fatigued. His lordship, I believe, intended going on to one of his clubs. I saw

  Lady Castlereagh home in her carriage. At our arrival, the hall porter informed her ladyship that the Princess Tscholikova had called a few moments before our arrival, asking for his lordship, and had been refused the house — owing to the lateness of the hour, the imperfect understanding the porter had of the Princess’s standing, and the family being from home.”

  “The Princess Tscholikova had called in Berkeley Square? But the watchman said nothing of this!”

  Malverley shrugged. “I can only relate what the porter told me.”

  “Had the Princess been much in the habit of calling on Lord Castlereagh in the small hours of the morning?”

  “She had never done so, to my knowledge.” Malverley’s eyes dropped. “I do not believe she was on terms of acquaintance with either of the Castlereaghs.”

  “And yet, the porter would have it that she came to the house after midnight — for so it must have been — but a few hours before her death!”

  “That is so. I cannot account for it.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Lady Castlereagh glanced at the Princess’s card, and declared herself ready to retire. When she had ascended to her room, I told the porter to secure the front door and go off to bed.”

  “—Tho’ his lordship was not yet returned?”

  “His lordship possesses a key,” Malverley said.