Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas: Being a Jane Austen Mystery Read online

  It was only when we had all assembled in the drawing-room over coffee that Chute made a sort of speech, brief and to the purpose, which must astonish those who knew him as a garrulous sportsman. I began to apprehend the talents that recommended him to such an exacting Cabinet member as Castlereagh.

  My brother James had just announced his intention of removing the Austen party to Steventon in the morning, “provided the carriageway and surrounding lanes are tolerably clear; for we cannot allow ourselves to add to your burdens at present. I shall, of course, be most happy to return and preside over funeral rites in the Chapel for the unfortunate Deceased—always supposing that his family do not wish the disposition otherwise.”

  “So kind,” Lady Gambier murmured.

  “I must ask you to remain here until I have spoken with Lord Bolton,” Chute replied. “I expect him to pay us a morning call.”

  “Bolton?” James’s countenance brightened visibly. “I should be happy to meet his lordship at any moment. I did not know he intended to spend the holidays in Hampshire.”

  “In the usual way, he should have gone into Leicestershire, for the hunting,” Chute agreed, “but Lady Bolton is in daily expectation of her confinement. Indeed, I should like all of you—including Mr. West,” he added with a particular bow, “to remain at The Vyne until the inquest should be over. I do not think we can properly avoid one, now.”

  James frowned; Thomas-Vere was startled, and Gambier confused.

  “Inquest?” he repeated. “Over poor John? Why the Devil should a Coroner be called, because a fellow is thrown from his horse?”

  “It is customary when the Deceased is in the employ of the Crown,” Chute replied.

  I did not think this was true; but it satisfied a number of those present. William Chute meant to play a deep hand. He might have informed his house party that a trap had been laid—foul play suspected—that the Ghent papers were missing—but how should it avail him? He did not wish to alarm the innocent, or put the murderer on guard. And even did Chute order a thorough search of The Vyne and its outbuildings, he should discover nothing of the stolen Treaty in that vast and ancient pile. Whoever had killed for the spoils, would be certain to hide them well.

  It remained to decipher which among the Christmas guests the murderer might be. I did not for a moment believe the servants to be implicated; they had been enjoying their freedom on St. Stephen’s Day, and could hardly have known even of Lieutenant Gage’s arrival. The idea that one of them would lay a trap for his horse—or steal the Treaty—was absurd.

  “Lord Bolton!” Mary murmured with satisfaction as we mounted the stairs to bed an hour later. “He is excessively handsome, Jane, and very good ton. James and I are forever meeting him and his lady—a sweet creature!—when we are gone into Basingstoke. Such a gentleman will not have come in your way before this. You will wish to be loitering in the Staircase Hall when he is announced, I am sure, to see what a Great Man looks like. I wonder the Chutes did not invite Lord and Lady Bolton to dine whilst we were here. It might have been just that select and intimate party one could expect from a Member of Parliament. But we find only the Gambiers and Mr. West.”

  It appeared that Raphael West’s éclat had worn thin in Mary’s eyes. I suspected his indifference to her sketchbook—and her poses—was largely to blame.

  “Lady Gambier, you know, is not truly genteel,” she persisted in an undertone, “for her husband’s title was only got through the Navy.”

  And worse still, I thought, she is cousin to poor dead Anne.

  “James says a clergyman’s wife ranks higher than a duchess,” Mary concluded, “in being closer to God.”

  “I wonder you can bear to live with the man,” I replied, and bid her goodnight.

  I LAY AWAKE FOR some hours, my mind a welter of ideas. A treaty was naturally of importance to the parties involved—in this case, Britain and the United States. But why should an individual resort to murder to steal it? When the principal negotiators must be cognizant of the details, and preparing to present them to their respective governments for vote and ratification, surely the paper—even signed—was a matter of form. If one wished to alter the outcome of events, better to kill the negotiators themselves!

  And why should anyone beyond the two Governments involved, wish to know the Treaty’s terms?

  I exerted my wits to puzzle it out.

  The negotiations at Ghent were to end the present war. That should alter relations between the United States and Britain in numerous ways. Trade, for example, should resume unfettered by both parties. American territorial rights should proceed unhindered by British claims. And the British Army—His Grace the Duke of Wellington’s crack Peninsular troops—should be returning home …

  What had William Chute said, over Christmas dinner? —that with the troops elsewhere engaged, England was vulnerable?

  Who might value such intelligence?

  A foreign government, of course.

  Foreign agents, who could wish to delay the news of an end to the American War. Or the issuance of new orders, for those same crack troops.

  Russia’s Czar, I recalled, had wished for British military support during his late conflict with Napoleon—who had foolishly penetrated so far as Moscow, only to see it burnt by its inhabitants. French losses in the retreat had been terrible; the Russian winter accomplished what British troops could not. We had been deaf to Russian pleas in 1812—because our armies were two continents distant. Now that Napoleon was exiled to Elba, and the Czar was rebuilding his city—the disposition of Wellington’s men could no longer be of interest to him. Unless the Czar’s future designs affected England’s interests.

  Surely no one at The Vyne might figure as a Russian agent?

  Thomas-Vere?

  The idea was laughable. Which argued for its consideration.

  Edward Gambier?

  He was in a position to know something of politics, through his uncle, but seemed to have little aptitude for the subject; and he was not yet even of age. At merely twenty, he thought more of the shine on his Hessians than of England’s vulnerabilities. Or was this merely a pose, intended to bamboozle the credulous?

  Mr. L’Anglois? His name was French enough.

  Raphael West?

  Here my thoughts slowed in their whirl. One had been secretary to the Comte d’Artois, with connexions to the new Bourbon King. The other was an American—tho’ to all outwards appearances, as English as myself. West’s celebrated father had been a friend to French radicalism. Did any of this argue for the murder of Lieutenant Gage? France was now England’s ally—was she not?

  And then there were the women. I could not undertake to think about them now.

  I tossed and turned on Eliza Chute’s comfortable pillows. For aught I could apprehend, the Treaty’s theft had but one effect: it slowed the end of the war with America. Until a fresh copy of the signed document could be obtained, no treaty should be ratified in Parliament—or in the American Congress. Hostilities, therefore, would continue. Word passed slowly, in any case, across the Atlantic. It might be a full six months before Wellington’s crack troops came home.

  Who, at The Vyne, wished England vulnerable?

  LORD BOLTON ARRIVED IN a chaise-and-four at half-past eleven o’clock. Cassandra and I observed his appearance from the upstairs landing, as he exited his coach in a curly-brimmed beaver and redingote; he was a gentleman of medium height and spare appearance, not much above thirty years old. His father had been simple Tom Orde, of a numerous Hampshire family. Mr. Orde married the illegitimate daughter of a duke; upon her inheritance, remarkably, of the duke’s estates, Orde was created Baron Bolton of Hackwood Park. His son, in turn, married the eldest daughter of Lord Dorchester—the Hero of Canada and the Victor of Quebec. The vicissitudes of Fortune are indeed marvellous.

  James’s Mary had been loitering about the Staircase Hall since breakfast, and hurried forward almost in step with the butler, Roark, who must have been astonished to fin
d his office of taking the great man’s coat and hat usurped; but Mary remembered herself just in time, and contrived to put a question to the butler as he was on the point of pulling open the massive front door.

  “Oh, Roark!” she cried. “Does Mrs. Chute require any assistance in the hothouses? For it must be proper to bestow a few flowers about the Chapel. The odour of Death might otherwise prove offensive with time. A clergyman’s wife may be a fund of knowledge in such cases, you know.”

  “I shall inform my mistress,” Roark replied with dignity. He stood with his hand upon the door, waiting for Mary’s withdrawal. She did not move. Lord Bolton lingered in the cold on the doorstep. Mary’s determination and Roark’s concern for his lordship’s health won out; he opened the door.

  “Why, Lord Bolton!” Mary said, with infinite condescension. “Do hurry within doors—the cold this morning is dreadful!”

  Cassandra and I leaned carefully over the balustrade to glimpse the top of the curly-brimmed beaver.

  It was removed and handed to Roark, who possessed himself of the redingote as well. His lordship’s mild brown curls inclined towards Mary.

  “Indeed it is … ma’am,” he said doubtfully.

  Mary simpered. “Mrs. James Austen,” she supplied.

  “Delighted to …”

  “—Of Steventon Parsonage. I daresay you must have hunted with my husband on countless occasions. We were introduced, once, in Basingstoke! At Ring Brothers, I believe it was. Your lady was so kind as to admire my cloak. How does she get on? Is she in good health?”

  “Excellent health, I thank you,” Lord Bolton replied in tones of bewilderment. So Mary had scraped an acquaintance with that sweet creature in the middle of a Basingstoke shop!

  Cassandra’s hand was pressed to her lips and her eyes brimmed with mirth. I could not look at her.

  “If your lordship will allow me,” Roark said. “Mr. Chute is expecting you.”

  “Thank you, Roark,” Lord Bolton said, and followed the butler with what we could only imagine was relief.

  Cassandra and I scurried off to our bedchamber, and buried our heads in our pillows. Absurdity is a blessing that is best shared.

  12

  A CATALOGUE OF MOVEMENTS

  Wednesday, 28th December 1814

  The Vyne, cont’d.

  I could not presume upon my brother’s patience with the Law—he should no doubt declare himself to follow a higher authority than Mr. Chute’s, in any case—but I might expect him to remain at The Vyne so long as Lord Bolton did. He should hover with scarcely more aplomb than his wife about the threshold of the book room, in the hope of a chance encounter with the Baron; for there is no doubt that Lord Bolton has many valuable livings within his gift, and for all his Evangelical phrases, James should never miss an opportunity to secure his livelihood. But perhaps I wrong him there; he once refused two hundred pounds per annum for holding a curacy, merely because he could not travel the necessary distance to the parish of a Sunday. Perhaps James is not so much a mercenary as an admirer of the Great. He will want to be returned to Steventon in good time to prepare his sermons for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day; on the morrow, therefore, we must certainly depart.

  That afforded me little time to learn, as best I might, where each of The Vyne’s people was during the period—so brief as half or three-quarters of an hour—between Lieutenant Gage’s departure yesterday and the return of his horse to the stables. Most of the guests had no inkling, as yet, that Lieutenant Gage was murdered. All but the guilty party should own their whereabouts frankly, if properly approached.

  Three of the Austens—Mary, Cassandra, and I—were entirely excluded from suspicion. We had been seated together in the morning room, debating the merits of puits d’amour and sack cream with Eliza Chute. To this list of irreproachable females I must add my mother, for I refuse to credit that a lady of five-and-seventy, who is subject to occasional gout, should be capable of breaking a strong young Naval officer’s neck. Thomas-Vere Chute might also be absolved—except that he had quitted our conference in the morning room for an interval, to search for Raphael West. Admittedly, he had not been gone very long—and at his return his clothing showed no signs of his having been out in the snow—but a good coat and pair of boots might have disguised the signs of violence; and he was decidedly out of breath when he burst upon us once more.

  If Thomas-Vere had turned traitor, it must be for want of funds. He had not the passion for a political polemicist. He was likely an expensive creature, however—Taste being a fierce master in the realm of Dress, Art, and the pleasures of the Theatre—and a clergyman’s means are slim. For all I knew, he might frequent gaming hells; the Dandy Set often did. As William Chute’s brother, with unquestioned intimacy in the Member’s household, he should be a ready tool for any foreign power willing to pay his fees; and he was silly enough to find the rôle of spy amusing.

  I decided to go in search of the gentleman.

  The house party had arranged itself in groups this morning. My mother and Lady Gambier were in the Saloon, a comfortable and brightly-lit space with an entire wall of windows giving out onto the lake. The Chutes’ pianoforte was here, a lovely rosewood instrument with bronze caryatid mounts on the legs; I longed to practise my polonaises—Mr. L’Anglois had been as good as his word, and left his sheet music in my keeping—but I profited from circumstance, and directed my attention to Louisa Gambier. At the hour the Lieutenant had been killed, she was taking breakfast on a tray in her room; once the body was recovered and Miss Gambier overcome, Eliza had sent a servant to her ladyship, to advise her to attend to her niece. I must ask Eliza if Lady Gambier had indeed been discovered in her room. She might, however, have been anywhere during the interval between Lieutenant Gage’s departure and his sad return. For none of us had seen her. Implausible as Lady Gambier’s guilt must seem, it behooved me to talk to her.

  “I am glad to find you at ease here, ma’am, and recovered enough from your indisposition to join the rest of the party,” I said.

  “So kind,” she murmured, and adjusted her spectacles to peer more closely at her embroidery. Lady Gambier’s frequent resort to her bedchamber and her smelling salts would lead one to believe her a fragile creature, but she is stout enough in appearance, with a heavy knot of grey hair and a thick body expensively clothed. I studied her profile and could find nothing of James’s late Anne in its lineaments. And yet they were cousins.

  “I have been telling her ladyship about Anna’s wedding,” my mother confided. “She remembers our dear Anne from General Mathew’s day, but never chanced to meet with her daughter. My first grandchild, married! I cannot count how many I must own, now—nearly thirty, but for the loss of Charles’s poor mite only a few months ago.” She lowered her voice in a confiding way and leaned towards Lady Gambier. “My son’s wife died a week after being brought to bed at Sheerness, and the child survived only a fortnight.”

  “Very sad,” her ladyship murmured.

  I could not think this a happy choice of subject. Lady Gambier, as my mother should have considered, had never borne a child. But she surprized me by offering a confidence in her turn.

  “I could never bear to live aboard,” she declared, “and to his credit, the Admiral has never asked it of me. Such filth and sickness! Such a coarse mode of life, among low sailors! The situation is not fit for a lady.”

  “With such opinions of the Service, you must have been very attached to the Admiral to marry him,” I observed.

  Her ladyship glanced at me contemptuously. “I had been on the shelf for any number of years, Miss Austen, when James Gambier paid his addresses. It was unlikely another offer would ever be made to me. Mary feels a similar urgency—but the Navy would not have answered. So I told her. But so it ever is. The Young do not wish to profit from the experiences of their elders.”

  “Was there … an attachment between Miss Gambier and Lieutenant Gage?” I suggested diffidently.

  “If there was,
” Lady Gambier said, “it is all at an end, is it not? Miss Gambier is in no danger of throwing herself away, now.”

  She set down her embroidery and looked me full in the face. Her dark eyes were pitiless.

  “You are to be congratulated, ma’am, on having preserved her from a folly worse than death,” I said.

  My mother, I am sure, detected my bitterness.

  I FOUND THOMAS-VERE CHUTE in the billiards room, at the far end of the house—a place I had never had occasion to enter before, as it lay beyond the drawing-room and a small anteroom between, which Eliza liked to call her China Room. Having failed to find the elegant clergyman in the library—where my brother was loitering in some agitation and the hope of a chance meeting with Lord Bolton—I abandoned the upper floor. The sound of clicking ivory balls led me through the drawing-room and porcelain displays beyond, and there, to my satisfaction, was not only Thomas-Vere, but Edward Gambier and my nephew, James-Edward.

  Thomas-Vere was dressed all in black, as became a man of the cloth; but this was so unusual—he was an addict of sartorial splendour—that I must assume it was in respect of the Dead. His wig this morning was steel grey, a sombre hue, tied with black satin ribbon.

  “Miss Austen!” he cried. “How delightful! We had hoped to make West stand as our fourth, but he is nowhere to be found. Pray, take up a cue and we shall set the balls afresh.”

  “Aunt does not play,” James-Edward broke in. “There is no table at Chawton Cottage.”

  “But happily,” I replied as I took down an idle cue from the rack, “there is a handsome one at your Uncle Edward’s house in Kent. I have long been in the practise of playing there, James-Edward, so be careful what you are about. I shall claim Mr. Chute as my partner, and we shall give you two young exquisites a drubbing. Win? Lose? Or Carombole?”4

  “All three,” James-Edward said, his chin lifting dangerously. “It would be devilish flat, otherwise.”