Jane and the Ghosts of Netley Page 12

“Indeed?” His lordship’s grey eyes glinted. He bent over her palm, then turned with deference to me. “Miss Austen—a distinct pleasure. You are not, by any chance, related to Mr. Henry Austen, of the Henrietta Street banking concern?”

  “Why,” I said in apparent astonishment, “he is my brother, sir!”

  “I am a little acquainted with him. An excellent fellow; and his wife is all that is charming. Good day to you!”

  He left Mrs. Lacey’s establishment directly, and I observed that my companion’s eyes followed his figure as he made his brisk way down the street.

  “Only fancy,” I observed, “that such a lofty-looking gentleman should be acquainted with my brother!”

  “I should not be surprised to learn that Mr. Austen refuses even to acknowledge his lordship, when they happen to meet in the street,” she retorted bitterly. “Lord Harold Trowbridge is everywhere known as the Gentleman Rogue—and no self-respecting member of the ton would deign to receive him. If it were not for his brother, the Duke of Wilborough, he should long since have been dropped by Society; but as it is—”

  “What has he done, to earn such disapprobation?”

  “What has he not done, you should better ask! Lord Harold has committed every conceivable kind of intrigue—seductions, duels, entanglements—the ruin of young women throughout the Continent; the destruction of happy families; the delusion of gamesters. Lord Harold is a rakehell of the worst order—and as to the men he chooses to keep about him! He has, in his employ, a valet who is criminal enough to have been hanged, had his lordship not bought off the Oporto justice.”

  “But that is scandalous!” I cried in horror. “And you know this to be true?”

  “I have met the valet in question, and am acquainted with his history from a source I should consider unimpeachable: the French officer charged with bringing the fellow to justice. The valet is a thief and an intriguer; a man as familiar with picklocks as he is with blackmail. He should steal a lady’s jewels one night, and pilfer her billets-doux the next—demanding the balance of her fortune, if not the gift of her favours, as the price of his silence. The number of my friends in Oporto who have been brought to the edge of despair by that cur’s salacious lies! I cannot begin to number the tales one might tell, of Orlando and his master!”

  “You believe, then, that the valet is goaded on by Lord Harold?” I enquired, in tones of shock.

  “I am certain of it. My lord may cant and prattle of Bombay traders—but his fortune is ill-got, Miss Austen. The two of them collude in every sort of thievery, if one may credit the stories from the Peninsula. But I care nothing for the injuries of others—I have suffered too much myself at Lord Harold’s hands.”

  I trained my voice to the deepest sympathy. “He is certainly a handsome gentleman, and might cause any amount of suffering. Did he toy with your affections?”

  “From the first moment I saw him, I hated him,” she muttered, low. “He is the sort of man who will never be happy until he has the world entire in his thrall. Earlier I vowed that freedom is a lady’s greatest prize—but I tell you now, Miss Austen, that with such as Lord Harold, no woman could ever be at liberty. He should demand subjection to his will—and take absolute mastery to himself. A woman’s soul should never be her own, within that man’s orbit. His brand of dominance is of a sort I cannot endure.”

  I had never considered Lord Harold in this light; to me, he was the paragon of understanding. He offered my intelligence the respect it demanded, and my feelings a wordless empathy. But perhaps, in the thrall of passion, he might behave as any man: with the cruel desire to exert his influence. I remembered, of a sudden, his words of yesterday: Have I ever attempted to exert that kind of power over you? —Though I may often have been tempted?

  Her voice broke through my thoughts. “But you will understand the reason for my violence of feeling when I say that he has destroyed every hope of happiness I once held in the world.”

  “That is a heavy charge, indeed!”

  “There was a gentleman in Oporto—Raoul, Comte de Trevigne—whom I might have consented to marry. He was killed not long before I quit the Peninsula forever. Indeed, his death is the chief reason I could no longer remain.”

  “Was he killed at Vimeiro?”

  She shook her head. “He was found in his bed, with a ball in his temple. Suicide, they called it. But I believe—I am virtually certain—that it was Lord Harold’s hand that took Raoul’s life.”

  “Good God!” I ejaculated. “But what reason could his lordship find for outright murder?”

  “Jealousy—rivalry—the hatred of another too good to comprehend his lordship’s evil.”

  “But have you proofs?”

  “None that might stand in a court of law. I only know that Lord Harold challenged my love to a duel of honour. And when the Comte would not accept—he was forced to kill him by subterfuge and intrigue.”

  “How dreadful,” I breathed.

  She pressed her fingers to her brow. “To think that I should encounter that man, all unlooked-for, in Southampton!”

  “You certainly were not happy in the meeting,” I faltered. “I felt all the awkwardness of it! And admired your forbearance.”

  “Forbearance? Is that what you call it?” She laughed harshly. “When I attempted the cut direct—and could hardly keep a civil tongue in my head thereafter? I believe, my dear Miss Austen, that you must be an angel.”

  “Pray, Sophia,” I returned with feeling, “if you would praise my sensibility—do not hesitate to call me Jane.”

  I QUIT THE PASTRY SHOP WITH MY HEAD FULL OF what I had just learned. The more I saw of Sophia Challoner, the more perplexed I became—for if she played a subtle part, and merely affected the emotions she paraded for my benefit, then she did so with an artistry that defied detection. I found that I could not consider Lord Harold—or his theories regarding the lady—with my usual equanimity. I valued him too well, and had been acquainted too long with his ways, to credit the degree of malevolence and calculation Sophia Challoner accorded him. But what if my lord was blinded?

  What if his former passion for the lady—unrequited, or indeed spurned in deference to the love she gave her French count—had swayed his opinions? What if he saw treason where mere rage and sorrow warred for dominance?

  What if Sophia Challoner was innocent?

  “You are very serious today, Miss Austen.”

  I stopped short at the head of Samuel Street. He was on the point of exiting a tobacconist’s shop, with a paper parcel under his arm; if I closed my eyes, I might breathe in the subtle scent of the pipe he sometimes indulged, though never in my company. An odour of shaved wood and cherries clung on occasion to his clothing; I had caught the ghost of it once, and missed, sharply, my departed father.

  “I merely seem pensive and distracted, from the ugliness of my apparel,” I replied.

  “And I had thought it the effects of the company you keep.”

  Such penetration! I could not immediately answer him.

  “May I have the honour of escorting you to Castle Square?”

  “Thank you. That would be most kind.”

  He fell into step at my side. We passed a stationer’s, a poulterer’s, and a linen draper’s shop, without exchanging a word even as to the encroaching coldness of late autumn. An unaccustomed awkwardness grew between us; but I determined not to be the first to break the silence. I could not be entirely sure of my tongue.

  “You did very well at Mrs. Lacey’s,” he observed at last. “I hoped that you might avoid exclamation—a too-ready notice of me, that might betray our acquaintance. It is vital that Mrs. Challoner believe us strangers to one another. I should not like her to comprehend our degree of intimacy.”

  And what exactly is that, my lord? Am I as much in thrall to your whims as Mrs. Challoner is to her French masters?

  “—But in the event, you were the soul of deceit. You bid fair to make an admirable spy, Jane.”

  “I suppose I mu
st bend to the spirit of such compliments, since you will bestow them.”

  “Mrs. Challoner’s reception of me bordered on the uncivil.”

  “On the contrary, sir—she had long since overstepped the border of that country, and stood firm in its very heart. She blames you, I gather, for the death of a Frenchman in Oporto; and she is not the sort of woman to embrace forgiveness.”

  “The Comte de Trevigne.” He pronounced the name as an epithet. “The man was a scoundrel—and wholly worthy of her.”

  “She claims that you shot him dead, my lord.”

  “Then she deludes herself! I may have charged the fellow with cheating at cards—an assertion that twenty or so others might easily support—but the Comte refused, point-blank, to defend his honour.”

  “You did not …” I hesitated. “You did not despatch him in cold blood?”

  “Do you believe I would lie about such a thing?” Lord Harold glanced sidelong. “Can it be that Jane has begun to doubt my word?”

  “Not your word,” I said hastily. “If you were to give me your word as to events—then naturally I should accept it. But it is not solely the course of events, in Oporto and elsewhere, that we must consider. There is the construction you place upon that history, as opposed to Mrs. Challoner’s. I find that I am quite torn, my lord, between you both. You each of you bring such conviction—and passion—to your accounts.”

  “Torn, between truth and deceit?” he demanded indignantly. “Was it but four nights ago, Jane, that I unburdened myself to you aboard the Windlass? Have you forgot a tenth part of what I then said? Nay—have you forgot the deadly peril in which the fate of this war hangs? In which the fate of your brothers may be decided? Good God, woman! Are you so lost to sense?”

  “I merely hesitate to condemn another on such slight evidence as you have offered regarding Mrs. Challoner.”

  “Very well,” he said bitterly, “then you must await the issue of events. Await the burning of ships and the murder of good men and the destruction of all our hopes. Take the burden of guilt upon your own head—for I confess I am weary of bearing it.”

  “My lord,” I said determinedly, “you are over-hasty. I must enquire whether a sense of injury, inspired by Mrs. Challoner’s attachment to another, has … clouded … your interpretation of events.”

  His footsteps slowed as we approached Castle Square. “—Whether, in fact, I have wronged Sophia Challoner, out of a hatred born of thwarted love?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “My dear Jane,” he answered wearily, “if you have not understood, by this time, that I love but one woman in the world—then we have nothing further to say.”

  With that awful remark, he bowed—and departed in the direction of the High.

  Chapter 14

  Domestic Arrangements

  Sunday, 30 October 1808

  “WELL, GIRLS, I HAVE DETERMINED TO ACCEPT MY dear Edward’s offer of a freehold, and shall write to him this very hour to convey my gratitude,” said Mrs. Austen as we removed our wraps in the front entry.

  The chill weather of the previous week had abated, and the walk from St. Michael’s Churchyard was positively spring-like. I regarded my reflection in the glass with disfavour, however, for it showed none of the good effects of a hopeful morning. My eyes were heavy-lidded and smudged with black; I had slept but little the previous night, being haunted by the implications of Lord Harold’s parting remark. Was it possible—did I delude myself in thinking—that I was somehow dear to him? Or when he spoke of loving but one woman in the world—did he refer to Lady Harriot Cavendish, who had spurned his advances two years since?

  “Jane,” my mother said sharply, “you are not attending. Martha kindly asked which freehold of your brother’s I intended to accept. Are you so devoid of interest regarding your future abode? Or do you hope to form no part in the establishment, being bound for the grandeur of London on that reprobate’s arm?”

  It must be impossible for a Lord Harold to love a mere Jane—she whom others had left on the shelf, a spinster of insignificant connexion and little beauty, whose purse did not extend even so far as the purchase of an Equestrian Hat. Consider the infinite charms of a Lady Harriot: daughter of a Duke, and child of his oldest friends; a member of the Whig set from birth; a girl of trenchant wit, no little beauty, and a comfortable independence. Even did I hold Lord Harold in my power, he should be filled with repugnance at my present disloyalty—my persistence in questioning his judgement—the swiftness with which I had championed Sophia Challoner, and on so trifling an acquaintance as three days.

  “I mean to settle in Chawton,” my parent persisted. Her gaze, fixed perplexedly on my face, shifted to Martha’s. “Can it be possible that the child is ill?”

  I shall never see him again, I thought. I shall learn presently that he is gone away, and that will be an end to all speculation—and sleepless nights.

  “Chawton shall suit us very well, Mamma. I am exceedingly happy in the choice.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” she exclaimed, and went off to write her letter.

  MARTHA AND I MIGHT HAVE SETTLED OVER A BOOK, or taken up our embroidery, or written letters ourselves to a numerous correspondence—but an unaccustomed restlessness had me in its grip. I paged listlessly through the latest newspapers, my eyes straying from reports out of the Peninsula, which were all cavalry regiments and quantities of cannon. The King had refused once more to consider the question of Catholic Emancipation; red waistcoats for gentlemen were very much worn; and the Prince of Wales had attended a rout at the London residence of Lord and Lady Hertford.1 If Mrs. Fitzherbert was also among the company, the fact was suppressed, from notions of delicacy.

  “It is such a lovely day, Jane, and the weather shall soon be dreadful—should you not like to take a ramble about the countryside?” Martha enquired wistfully.

  I looked up from my paper. My dear friend’s face was pale and sallow, her air as restless as my own. “That is an excellent thought! You have been too much confined of late. You want exercise, Martha—a good, long walk within scent of the sea.”

  “But can your mother spare us?”

  “We should only be a plague upon her time, otherwise. She is all plans and lists, sums and stratagems, in deference to the Chawton scheme.”

  “That is partly why I wish to go, Jane. We may not have occasion for such jaunts in future; and if we are to quit this place by spring, I must make my farewells.”

  “Shall you miss Southampton?”

  “What I know of the place,” she said with a faint laugh. “I have never once attended the Assembly at the Dolphin. I have barely set foot inside the theatre in French Street. And I have never ridden out in a chaise to view the villas of the surrounding country—”

  It was true: from a habit of self-denial, or deference to my aged parent, Martha had seen very little of the town during the year and a half she had been resident in Southampton. Once buried in the country, where every kind of society must be limited, her opportunities for enjoyment should be fewer still. I felt a great pity and gratitude towards my friend: for I realised that my own adventures had sometimes been bought at Martha’s cost.

  “Where should you like to go today?”

  “Netley Abbey,” she replied promptly.

  Of all directions, it must be the least favoured! I could not hear the name without conjuring the face of Mrs. Challoner—the cloaked stranger who waited in the ruins—or my knowledge of the curious tunnel, and the gold cross I had discovered there. Something of my surprise must have shown in my face, for Martha said, “I know you must be tired of it, Jane; but your enumeration of its beauties has made me long to see it again. And the day is so very fine—only think of crossing by the Itchen ferry! How the wind shall sweep our faces, scented with the spice of every Bombay trader sailing up the Solent!”

  “Of course we shall go,” I told her briskly. “I stay only to fetch my cloak.”

  WE WALKED ARM AND ARM ALONG SOUTHAMPTON’S walls, the
least trafficked resort for quitting the town. From the steps at the foot of our back garden we might ascend the ancient fortification, and circumvent the streets entirely, arriving with ease at the road for the Itchen ferry. I left the idea of Lord Harold behind, with the crumpled newspapers, in the stuffy Castle Square parlour; a little of vigour and happiness had returned. But my peace was short-lived.

  “I cannot help feeling that this offer of your brother Edward’s is highly propitious,” Martha ventured.

  “You refer to the cottage? How shall you like living there?”

  “Oh! Above all things! One is never so happy in town as in the country!”

  “A pretty little place set into a garden must have everything to recommend it—particularly when it costs nothing each year.”

  “And it comes at such an interesting time in your own affairs,” she persisted. “I am persuaded that you must feel yourself relieved of a considerable burden. You need not consider the fate of your mother and sister—or even my own situation, which is, I am happy to say, extremely comfortable, and should merely be improved by the hope of fulfilling a greater function, in attempting to supply your absence.”

  “Absence?”

  She came to a halt near one of the ramparts and leaned over it to gaze at the New Forest. “You cannot expect me to believe that you are so silent, Jane, from debating the merits of Wye over Chawton. You cannot be thinking that I have failed to see what is in your heart. You neither hope nor expect to remove from Southampton to live in your brother’s freehold. You have greater things in view.”

  “Indeed, Martha, you wrong me.”

  “Wrong you?” She gazed at me in limpid astonishment. “I can think of no one more deserving than my beloved Jane. You cannot ignore your heart’s desire! You have played the dutiful daughter long enough. Do not throw away a chance at joy, my dear, from fearing to live too well. You will be three-and-thirty next month; and the world is so uncertain! For all of us, as well as the men we love—”

  She broke off, and turned her head resolutely towards the sea. It had been many years since I had suspected Martha of an attachment for my brother Fly—her junior by nine years, and the husband of a charming girl half her age. That she took an abiding interest in his welfare—that she feared for his safety whenever he should put to sea—could not be surprising in one who lived almost as another sister among his family; but I knew a deeper motive sharpened her anxiety.