Jane and the Stillroom Maid Page 11

  To Beautify the Hands

  ake two ounces of Venice soap and dissolve it in two ounces of lemon juice. Add one ounce of the oil of bitter almonds, and a like quantity of oil of tartar. Mix the whole, and stir it well, until it is like to cream; then use it as such for the hands.

  —From the Stillroom Book

  of Tess Arnold,

  Penfolds Hall, Derbyshire,

  1802–1806

  Chapter 10

  Among the Serpents and the Stag

  28 August 1806, cont.

  ∼

  A FOOTMAN IN SKY BLUE AND BUFF LIVERY LED US from the West Entrance through an open colonnade, to a great hall with a painted ceiling and branching twin staircases.1 I should have liked, at that moment, to be a stranger even to Lord Harold—a mere pleasure-seeker escorted by the Chatsworth housekeeper, who might be expected to stare boldly upwards at the vivid frescoes. A multitude of classical figures—in the usual state of undress—reclined on a swirling bed of painted clouds, without taking the slightest notice of my existence far below: a metaphor, one might say, for the entire Whig view of Society.

  “You shall gaze upon Caesar until you are sick of him, my dear Jane,” murmured Lord Harold at my ear, “once you have been properly introduced. The State Apartments, too, are not to be missed; but they are well above, on the second floor. Pray attend to the footman!”

  I tore my eyes from the Painted Hall and hurried resolutely after the servant. He led us through a passage to the rear of the great house and from thence to a stone terrace. Beyond it lay a sweep of lawn, more verdant and inviting even than the formal parterres that lay to the east of the building; and there, like the Muses themselves, were arranged the figures of three ladies.

  “Uncle! And my dear Miss Austen! It has been an age!”

  It was the Countess of Swithin who first distinguished me, as should be only natural—rising from her chair beneath a spreading oak, where she had been disposed with an easel and crayons, intent upon capturing the scene. Lord Harold drew me forward across the flags, up a short flight of steps to the lawn, past several flower beds, where some late blooms were charmingly grouped among the lavender—and bowed low upon achieving the ladies.

  “I dared not dream that Uncle would prevail upon you to pay a call today,” said Lady Swithin. “It is very good of you, and far more than we deserve, after all that you have been through. You must be utterly fagged!”

  Lord Harold’s niece was considerably altered since I had last seen her—for two years, in the life of such a young lady, must make a distinct change. Her countenance was less open, less touched by innocence, but still as glowing; her figure, though full with the burden of her approaching child, yet managed a youthful grace. Her hair was as golden, and her gown as before the fashion, as ever they had been; but where once her attire had possessed the simplicity of youth, there was now an elegance and refinement due entirely to her familiarity with the Great. I was pleased to detect no sign of weariness or sorrow about the eyes, no suggestion of a private pain. The Earl of Swithin was always a difficult companion, and the love that united him to Desdemona of a jealous and fitful kind; but it appeared that the two had learned to suit, and that no spectre of unhappiness could dog their union.

  Two other ladies were seated near the Countess, on chairs set out upon the lawn. One was fast approaching middle age, and wore the decent but unadorned dark grey cambric of a lesser relation or superior domestic; the other was a strong-boned, fresh-faced, alert young woman of middle height, with a figure fully-formed, and a wild cascade of gingery curls about her nape.

  How shall I relate my first impression of Lady Harriot Cavendish, second child of the Duke of Devonshire? She is not a beauty by any means, but her face has a certain intelligent distinction; it shall be called “handsome” with time, and her character will stamp it. The nose is a defiant blade, the chin square and stubborn; her round eyes and full lips, I later learned, she received from the Cavendish side of the family, but her temperament is entirely Spencer.2 I should judge her to be of an age with the Countess of Swithin, but being yet a dependant in her father’s home, she wants Lady Desdemona’s easy assurance. Her countenance, too, is bereft of Mona’s happy glow; she is altogether a more subdued and reflective companion than I should look to find at the Countess’s side.

  Lady Harriot’s gown was of sheer grey Alençon lace, over a dark grey underskirt; it was trimmed in white soutache, which offered some relief from the austerity of mourning. But the languor of grief clung about her still—she moved with the weariness of a spent child.

  Lord Harold drew me forward. “Lady Harriot, may I have the honour of introducing Miss Jane Austen to your acquaintance? Lady Harriot Cavendish.”

  The Duke’s daughter closed the volume she had been reading and nodded austerely. Those round eyes, deeply shadowed, swept the length of my person. “Welcome to Chatsworth, Miss Austen. You find us in a melancholy state, I own, but we are glad you are come to lighten it.”

  “You have my deepest sympathy, Lady Harriot, and my gratitude for allowing this trespass upon your kindness at such a time.” I curtseyed deeply.

  Lady Harriot made an impatient little movement—a plucking with one hand at the lace of her gown—and then recovered her countenance. If she had heard my words, she had already dismissed them as a commonplace—the muttered decencies of the Polite World—and accorded them no other significance beyond an irritant. I had not known her mother; I could not possibly comprehend what Georgiana Duchess, nor her passing, had meant in this household, and every attempt at condolence must be regarded as the grossest impertinence. I wondered if Harriot Cavendish was often prone to dismiss the goodwill of others. Her life must be full of sycophants and toad-eaters.

  “May I introduce Miss Trimmer to your acquaintance?” Lord Harold directed my steps towards the creature in grey cambric and inclined his head with a certain fond deference. “Miss Jane Austen—Miss Selina Trimmer. Miss Trimmer has been Lady Harriot’s governess from her earliest years, and now serves by way of companion.”

  “It is a pleasure,” Miss Trimmer said, with a nod of her head. “Any friend of our excellent Lord Harold must always find a welcome at Chatsworth.”

  “Do you make a long visit in the neighbourhood, Miss Austen?” enquired the Countess of Swithin. “Do say that you intend a few weeks, at the very least!”

  “I fear it is beyond my power to name the length of my stay, Lady Swithin,” I replied with a smile, “since I remain at the pleasure of my cousin Mr. Cooper, who was so good as to bring me into Derbyshire.”

  “I do not know that name,” Lady Harriot observed with a frown. “Is he a gentleman of Bakewell? I do not believe that we have ever met.”

  “Mr. Cooper is a clergyman, Lady Harriot, with a living in Staffordshire, and I fear his interest in this county does not extend beyond its trout streams! I have seen very little else, I assure you, during the three days I have spent at Bakewell.”

  “Then you must remain another week complete,” Desdemona said warmly, “and allow us to show you the wonders of Derbyshire. There are said to be at least seven, are there not, Uncle?”

  “Only by the county’s detractors, Mona. I could name an hundred, and never tire of discovering more.”

  “There is Cresswell Crag, and the Heights of Abraham,” she began, numbering them upon her fingers, “and the Nine Ladies—they are monstrous great stones, Jane, rather like to the Henge—and the Blue John Cavern! Have you ever descended into the depths of the earth, and seen stone carved by nature into the semblance of a cathedral?”

  “I confess that I have not.”

  Lady Swithin clapped her hands. “Then we shall make up a party and spend the day. You must and shall see the Blue John!”3

  “If your cousin is an angler, Miss Austen,” Lady Harriot interposed, “then you may assure him that the very best streams are on the Chatsworth estate. Mr. Cooper must come one day and fish with the other gentlemen, before he quits the neighbourh
ood.”

  “You are very good, my lady,” I replied, “but I fear Mr. Cooper is lately surfeited with trout streams. I do not think he will be fishing very much in future. Miller’s Dale has put paid to his passion.”

  She gazed at me in some little puzzlement, then said, “Why, of course! You are the lady who stumbled over the dead maidservant!”

  “If Miss Austen was so unfortunate, Hary-O,” said Miss Trimmer briskly, “I cannot think she would wish to be reminded of it.”

  The governess’s words barely checked her former charge. “Mona informed us of it only yesterday! An extraordinary business, was it not?”

  “Extraordinary,” I murmured in assent, though there were many other words I might have chosen to describe Tess Arnold’s end.

  “I cannot remember the like in all my days in Derbyshire! And the Inquest was held this morning, I believe. Did the panel put a name to the murderer?”

  “Unhappily, they could not. The Inquest was adjourned.”

  “I cannot recall that I ever encountered that maid,” Lady Harriot mused, “though I have often been at Penfolds Hall.”

  “Have you, indeed?” I enquired, with a quickening of interest.

  “Of course. A tie of the deepest respect subsists between Chatsworth and the Danforth family. Its basis is nearly two hundred years old. I feel this … misfortune of theirs … quite deeply.”

  “I understand that they have suffered much in recent months.”

  Her head came swiftly round, and she studied me acutely. “Have you been listening, then, to gossip in the streets of Bakewell, Miss Austen? I would not credit everything you hear. More superstition is bred in those stone cottages than miners’ whelps, and ignorance is the commonest form of barter. We trade in everything but charity, in these wretched hills.”

  Startled, I glanced at Lord Harold. For a lady nearly ten years my junior, the Duke’s daughter had a tongue swift as a viper’s. I must be on my guard in future, did I hope to pry any secrets from Chatsworth’s walls.

  “It was Sir James Villiers who first repeated something of the Danforths’ history,” I replied.

  “Mr. Charles Danforth but lately lost his wife—having lost, in turn, the four children she had borne,” Lady Harriot informed me. “First little Emma was taken, in the midst of a virulent fever, when she was but five years old. That would be last November. She was a beautiful child—very pretty in her ways.”

  Lady Harriot rose restlessly from her chair and began to pace about the lawn, her eyes fixed upon the grass and her tone growing ever more strident. “Then Julia died suddenly in February, of acute gastric attacks. Mr. Danforth was from home at the time—and the illness came on suddenly. My father called a physician from London, and sent the man express at his own expense. Everything was done for her—purges, draughts, bloodletting.” Lady Harriot shook her head. “Nothing could save the child.

  “John d’Arcy Danforth died in March. He was no more than two, the darling of his father. And in the midst of her grief and despair, Lydia Danforth was brought to bed of a stillborn son in April, several weeks before she expected.”

  A gasp from Lady Swithin; I looked, and saw that she was unwontedly pale. Lady Harriot was too engrossed in her tale to notice its effect on her friend. She stared at me hotly.

  “Do you know what the townspeople said of Lydia Danforth, with all her children dead about her? They declared that she was cursed. That she had mated with the Devil, and must reap her reward. And when she followed her babe to the grave a few days after, they mouthed pious comforts, assuring all and sundry that her death was the will of God!”

  Unable to contain her rage, Lady Harriot took refuge in mimicry. “‘The pore missus is at peace, now, wit’ ’er little ‘uns,’” she spat out in a broad Derby accent; and turned her furious gaze upon Lord Harold. “We may give thanks at least that she is beyond the spite of her neighbours!”

  “So many children. It does not bear thinking of,” whispered Lady Swithin. Her right hand was pressed against her stomach, as though she might protect the babe within, and her grey eyes—so like Lord Harold’s—were wide with fear. It would be as well, I thought, did Lady Harriot consider of those who were present, as well as those who were gone.

  Something in Mona’s voice must have alerted her; Lady Harriot summoned a smile, and reached for the Countess’s hand. “If you do not sleep a wink this night, Mona, you may lay the account at my door. Swithin will pillory me for putting such dreadful notions in your head. Forgive your Hary-O, my darling—if I am a wild beast sometimes, I cannot help it.”

  Lady Swithin pressed her friend’s hand and attempted something of her usual manner. “No beast ever had such a heart, my dear. Yours is the largest in the world, as I have cause to know.”

  Lady Harriot glanced diffidently away, as though to disguise her emotion, and said in a lowered tone, “One always feels the sufferings of the bereaved, when one has lost the dearest creature in the world! It pains me to see this fresh cloud hanging over the Penfolds family. I could shake that stillroom maid until her teeth fell out, for having brought this misfortune upon Charles!” Her jaw was set so fiercely I felt I glimpsed for an instant the spirit in Lady Harriot’s blood that had moved her forebears to Whiggish revolt.

  “I believe your warm heart urges a greater anxiety for the Danforths than is necessary, Hary-O.” Lord Harold’s tone was unaccustomedly gentle. “The girl was probably despatched by a spurned lover. Sir James will have the villain out in a fortnight, and all will be forgot.”

  It was something to catch Lord Harold in a barefaced lie.

  “Yes,” she replied with effort. “I am sure that you are right, Lord Harold—you always are, it is your special talent.”

  Lady Harriot turned to me with the ghost of a smile. “I do not need to tell you, Miss Austen, that Sir James Villiers is an excellent man—far less frivolous than his appearance would suggest, and shrewder than his friends will allow. He holds his commission at my father’s request. But I cannot help thinking that the Justice moves rather slowly. What is your opinion, Lord Harold?”

  “I believe Sir James moves no faster or slower than the pace of a one-horse dray, Lady Harriot; and as that is the accustomed pace of a country town, he is exactly suited to his company. His mind, however, is formed of swifter stuff; and I should be very much surprised to learn that Sir James was not before events.”

  Miss Trimmer set aside her needlework and, with a severe look for Lady Harriot, said, “Remember your duties as a hostess, Hary-O. I am gone in search of Lady Elizabeth.”

  “Go, then,” her charge muttered at Miss Trimmer’s departing figure, “and if such is your errand, my dear Trimmy, I cannot wish you back again. Are you perishing for a glass of iced lemon-water, Miss Austen? For if you are, pray advise me at once and have done. I cannot abide the sort of people who stand upon ceremony, as though I were a bit of porcelain, and might break when handled.”

  “Who can possibly have mistaken your character so completely, Hary-O, as to think you fragile?” enquired Lord Harold.

  She flashed him a look of scorn meant entirely for another. “Forget my duties as a hostess, indeed! As though I could forget them now, when they have been utterly usurped—”

  He shook his head once; she bit her lip, and struggled for self-control.

  “I should very much enjoy a glass of iced lemon-water,” I said, in an effort to turn the conversation, “for Lord Harold loves nothing better than an open carriage, and you must know the dust on the roads at such a season is dreadful. I shudder to think how I must appear to you all.”

  “Heaven-sent, I assure you”—Lady Swithin laughed, her colour recovered—“for the gentlemen have been riding all the morning, and two women cannot endure an entire day’s tête-à-tête together without coming to blows. You must sit between us, Miss Austen, and tell me all your news since last we met. Do you still find Bath as disagreeable as ever? I have not set foot inside the town, you know, since my marriage!”


  And thus in sparkling reminiscence, with many introductions of her own adventures and good jokes, did Desdemona contrive to amuse us all for a half-hour together, while the shadows lengthened on the verdant lawn. A chair was brought for my comfort, and the promised lemon-water; Lord Harold tossed his hat aside and threw his length along the grass, resting carelessly at Hary-O’s feet, and adding a word or two when the conversation required it. He bent his efforts to peeling a series of peaches, the long, curling, golden skin lengthening under the ministrations of his pocket-knife; and I watched the subtle movements of his hands, the delicate fingers roaming over the surface of the fruit, while attending to Desdemona’s chatter with half my mind. There was trouble here in Paradise, something greater even than the grief of mourning; the anxiety behind all their looks revealed it.

  I was the first to perceive Charles Danforth as he made his way across the lawn; and Lord Harold, in following my gaze, rose abruptly to his feet.

  “It would appear that Trimmy has found someone besides Lady E.,” he observed to Hary-O. “I thought Charles Danforth should have arrived well before myself and Miss Austen; but perhaps he had an errand along the way.”

  “Charles!” Lady Harriot cried, an unsuspected warmth in her voice; and she ran forward to seize his hand, as unaffected as a girl. “I am so glad you are come! I cannot bear to think of you, alone in that house on such a fine summer’s day! You will stay to dinner? I do not think you have been at our table three times this summer—and yet Andrew is never absent!”

  “And thus we manage to achieve a balance,” Mr. Danforth replied, “Andrew, by his excess, and I in my restraint. In this you may read the nature of our characters, Lady Harriot.” The judgement was offered coolly, but there was a smile about the gentleman’s lips; whatever his inward trouble, he could not regard Lady Harriot’s eager countenance and remain unaffected.

  “And were you always so measured, Mr. Danforth?” enquired Lady Swithin with a tearing glance, “or was your youth as ardent, and as misspent, as your brother’s? Come and meet my very great friend, Miss Jane Austen. She is travelling through Derbyshire, to our good fortune.”