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

  He pushed it open and drew me into the small space beyond it: low-roofed, its batten walls lined with shelves, sawdust beneath our feet. The room was windowless. Directly opposite was a second door. This had a square pane of glass at its top, and I could glimpse daylight. Oblongs of black and white. Patches of snow against bare tree trunks.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “The ice house,” he said.

  6 Jane refers here to the account of her experiences published as Jane and the Stillroom Maid.—Editor’s note.

  15

  DIVIDED ALLEGIANCES

  Wednesday, 28th December 1814

  The Vyne, cont’d.

  “The ice on the lake is not yet thick enough to cut and stack in blocks in this room,” Raphael West observed, “or we should not have found space to enter.”

  “You were here when John Gage met his death?” I said stupidly. “Then you must have seen his murderer! Or—”

  “—Or killed him myself.” His gaze was satiric. “Pray believe, Miss Austen, that I did not.”

  “Then—”

  “I was not standing inside this building when Gage’s horse went down.” He unlatched the far door and stepped out into the snow. “I suspect, however, that his murderer was. As he—or she—waited for the horse to spring its trap, I was searching diligently for the passage we just traversed. I did not find it yesterday morning; I had been convinced the entrance was hidden in the linenfold panelling of the Oak Gallery, when, with a very little thought, I should have perceived that it was far more likely to be near the Chapel. Those escaping their enemies will either bolt from a house or claim sanctuary; and our tunnel is ideally situated for either.”

  “I had heard that you were seen in the Chapel,” I observed, “in conversation with Miss Gambier.”

  “—Who, if interrogated, may be able to recall my appearance there.” He gave me a wry look, well aware of my motive in discovering his whereabouts. “Her presence inhibited my search; I withdrew by the East Corridor, probably at the very moment Mrs. Chute led your party in search of Miss Gambier. I heard a cavalcade of ladies’ feet, but did not stay to learn what the bustle was about. That intelligence came later—from Chute himself.”

  I followed West from the ice house. The shadows were long on what little of the snow remained; where Lieutenant Gage’s body was found, a bare and muddy patch marred the landscape. The tree where I had discovered one end of the entrapping wire was not five yards from where I stood, by the edge of the carriageway. “Sanctuary,” I repeated. “To what can you possibly refer?”

  “To William, Third Baron Sandys,” he said. “The Sandys family owned this place in Elizabeth’s time, long before the Chutes were thought of. The Third Baron committed the grievous error of joining the Earl of Essex in his rebellion against Elizabeth, and when Essex failed, Sandys was imprisoned in the Tower. He lost his fortune and his life as a result; Elizabeth seized The Vyne, and used it as a sort of royal lodging-house when the Duc de Biron came from France to call. The Vyne has long been rumoured to hide a bolt-hole. Colonel Henry Sandys, who fought for the Crown against Cromwell, certainly employed it to come and go unnoticed, during the Siege of Basingstoke.”

  I looked from the muddy ground to the tree trunk, to the ice house, and back again. “In any event, it is an admirable means of fetching ice to the kitchens in summer. Only think how conveniently situated!”

  “Did you not wonder,” West said chidingly, “how Gage’s murderer came and went in such a depth of snow, without appearing inside The Vyne with his breeches wet and his boots rimed with ice? The murder was well-planned; he probably adopted his coat in the tunnel, and changed his boots on the return journey. Both coat and boots might be restored to their rightful wardrobe during the night, for he expected no one to follow his footsteps underground.”

  “But you were looking for the passage before you even knew the Lieutenant was dead,” I protested. “It will not do!”

  “That is true.” That calmness again, almost a weariness. “I had been told to look for it.”

  “Mr. West,” I said carefully, “my toes are exceedingly cold. You will escort me back to the house now, if you please. And along the way, you will explain exactly who you are.”

  “I WAS REARED BY my father—I am his firstborn son—to cultivate what talent I had for drawing,” he said, as we strode briskly along the muddy carriageway in the fading light, “but I must acknowledge that I spend only a part of my hours in the pursuit of Art. My father chides me continually for this; he regards me as wasting a God-given talent equal to his own. But I assure you, Miss Austen, that I do not possess the gifts of Benjamin West. They are unique to his genius.

  “For years, I chafed under the perceived necessity of being worthy of him; of equaling or surpassing his achievements; of proving myself my father’s heir. I will add that it is a burden my younger brother felt even more acutely, bearing as he does my father’s name. He parted from our parent in an unfortunate fit of temper, with rebukes and harsh words on both sides, and in ten years has seen my father only once—at my mother’s funeral rites, ten days ago.”

  “I am sorry to hear it,” I said.

  West hesitated. “I should perhaps explain a little of my father’s circumstances, which will in turn help you to apprehend my own. Benjamin West was born in the colony of Pennsylvania, the tenth child of an innkeeper. He received no formal education; he learnt to mix paints from the Indians, who showed him as a child how to blend clay and bear grease to form a crude pigment. Even now, he stands as an autodidact—his genius lies entirely in his ability to represent the world on canvas and paper, for he can barely spell when asked to put down his thoughts in print. In 1763, he came to this country already a success in his own. My mother joined him a year later, and they were married at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. My parents reared their children in an odour of success created chiefly by the patronage of His Majesty, George III—who so admired my father’s Death of Wolfe that he appointed him Court Painter.”

  “I have seen it,” I observed. “It is a remarkable picture—tho’ not equal, in my opinion, to his Death of Nelson. But my preference for the Navy may influence me there.”

  West smiled. “I was raised, as a result, in a luxury the innkeeper’s son cannot have dreamt of. I have lived as an English gentleman, and have never been expected to own a profession or earn my keep, other than as my natural talents incline me. Being freed of the necessity to make my way in the world as Benjamin West did, I never achieved his degree of ambition or dedication to art.”

  “But this burden—your belief that you ought to follow your father’s path—”

  “—was one I cast off when my brother broke with our family,” he replied. “I determined that it were better to be deemed a failure in my father’s eyes, than to sunder myself from him forever.”

  “I see.” The bulk of The Vyne’s east wing—the kitchens and the Chapel—loomed before us as the carriageway curved towards the house, and I was conscious of a desire to slow our walk, despite my chilled body, so that I might hear the whole of West’s confidence.

  “My father never returned to Pennsylvania, as I believe you know. He endured the political stings of residing in this country during the war between his colonies and the Crown; his success became all the greater, and His Majesty’s patronage only increased; he was named President of the Academy, succeeding Joshua Reynolds. And yet … something of the colonist remained.”

  I glanced at him sidelong. His footsteps slowed; he came to a halt and faced me in the gathering dusk. “The rise of Buonaparte, and what my father regarded as a noble experiment in enlightened government in France, won all his interest. When his ardour was met with suspicion and contempt in Government circles, he broke with His Majesty’s court and removed us all to Paris. I was then married, and a father myself. From 1801 until 1804, during the Peace of Amiens, I lived with my young family in France. Because of my father’s fame, I came to know many of the principal fi
gures in Buonaparte’s circle. My father was celebrated by the French as an American, a friend of Democracy and the Citizen, rather than an Englishman—which is what I have always considered myself to be. He painted any number of portraits of the newly-Great in Paris, while I grew more and more disillusioned with the abyss between their professed beliefs and their actions. When Buonaparte crowned himself Emperor in 1804—thereby embracing the corrupt tradition he had pledged to overthrow—my disgust was complete. The Treaty of Amiens was broken; England undertook to blockade the Continent, as Buonaparte commenced the building of a vast invasion fleet intended for Kent.”

  “I was in Kent during the Great Terror of 1805,” I broke in soberly. “I shall never forget the oppressive expectation of French troops. And to know, daily, that my brothers were sailing on the blockade!”7 I could not continue; my fear for Frank’s and Charles’s lives has always coloured my perception of Buonaparte.

  “I went to my father and told him I had no choice but to remove with my family to England,” West continued. “He begged to join me.”

  My feet were entirely numb; but I would not have quitted the carriageway for a King’s ransom. “His disgust, then, was equal to your own?”

  “It was. My father experienced a complete reversion of feeling against Buonaparte, and upon his return to England, threw his support entirely behind the British cause. He was an old man, and his sins were forgiven him. He became once more President of the Royal Academy. He painted his Nelson. But I found that I, Miss Austen—as a younger man, an American by blood if not by education, and a person of some note in Society—remained suspect in the eyes of Government. I had moved too easily among our enemies whilst in Paris; I was known to be intimate with those whose chief object was our annihilation. I appeared, like every other indolent gentleman of easy circumstances, to have very little employment and far too much time on my hands. I was tasked, therefore, by men of power, to provide evidence of my loyalty.”

  “You were required to give information,” I said slowly.

  He nodded. “I see you are familiar with the game.”

  “I was schooled by one of its proficients.”

  “Lord Harold?”

  “He stiled himself the consummate man-about-town, and was everywhere received as a gentleman and a Rogue—but it is understood by very few that he was one of the Crown’s most trusted spies,” I said. “He reported to the Admiralty—which directs such intrigues against the Enemy, through the employment of the Secret Funds.”

  “I know,” West returned drily. “They have supported me for a considerable period. I am certain there are those who would regard the tactics employed against me as nothing short of blackmail. I did not wish my family—young or old—to be shunned as traitors. I did not wish to move through the streets of a country I loved, under the constant eye of suspicion. And so I acquired, over a period of time, a second avocation.”

  “You became a spy. Against the French? Or the Americans?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I studied his face. “Of course! An important treaty with the Americans has gone missing; its emissary is murdered. Did you know John Gage intended to break his journey at The Vyne, Mr. West? Is that why you chose Christmas to complete your sketches of the Honourable Member, William Chute?”

  “I did not anticipate it,” he said bleakly. “Neither Gage’s arrival, nor his violent death. Indeed, the events of the past few days have been so unexpected that I cannot account for them.”

  I frowned in perplexity. “From the frank disclosures of your narrative, I am convinced you were sent here—not solely by your father, but by the Admiralty. You were told to search The Vyne for a bolt-hole. What, then, is the object of your intrigues?”

  “To find and expose a dangerous French spy,” he replied. “If I am not mistaken—the very person who killed John Gage.”

  7 Jane refers to events previously disclosed in Jane and the Genius of the Place.—Editor’s Note.

  THE FIFTH DAY

  16

  GHOSTS

  Thursday, 29th December 1814

  The Vyne

  Early this morning when I crept into the nursery wing to lay Jemima’s latest offering at her feet, I nearly stumbled over the figure of young Caroline, wrapt in a blanket, and slumped in a sleepy huddle near the bedroom door.

  “My dear girl!” I whispered, as I attempted to gather up the formless mass and carry it to the empty bed. “You will catch your death! How long have you been lying there—and why, in Heaven’s name?”

  The fire had long since gone out; there was ice in the washstand basin; and Caroline’s fingers, where they emerged from the blanket, were deadly cold. But she was wide awake in an instant. I do not think she had slept soundly all night.

  “Aunt,” she croaked.

  I held my finger to my lips and glanced round sharply, to know whether she had awakened Miss Wiggett in the other bed. That young lady was far too old to be sleeping in the nursery wing, but I suspected she had been displaced from her usual room to make way for her mother’s guests.

  “Is it morning?” Caroline demanded.

  “Yes. Although still dark outside, at this hour. Why were you not in your bed?”

  I sank down onto the cot beside her. She had pulled the clothes up to her chin and was attempting, without success, to disguise her shivering. “Because I meant to be brave,” Caroline said. “James-Edward says there is a murderer about, and that he cuts off a person’s head with a length of wire. If the murderer were to come here, Aunt, I should not like to be in my bed. I should prefer to be hit by the door when it swings open, so that I might awaken the household with my screaming.”

  “What a heroine you are,” I returned, admiringly. “You should do very well in one of Maria Edgeworth’s novels. Her ladies are always possessed of stout lungs. But I do not think you need fear a murderer, poppet. James-Edward is merely trying to frighten you. It is what brothers do, when they are home from school and bored.”

  “Truly? But Lieutenant Gage—”

  “—did not have his head cut off with wire. Beheadings are only for Royals, as you well know.”

  She shivered in earnest. “I wish we were not sleeping so near the Chapel,” she said forlornly.

  I understood, then. The nursery wing is two flights above the Chapel itself, and does not extend over it—but it is true that of all the inhabitants slumbering in The Vyne, young Caroline should be nearest to a ghost, if Lieutenant Gage’s unquiet spirit chose to walk abroad. I had an idea James-Edward might be responsible for this unfortunate notion as well, and resolved to speak to the odious boy about it.

  “Miss Gambier has been holding vigil at the Lieutenant’s bier for hours, Caroline,” I said reprovingly. “If she may endure it without fear—she who truly knew and valued him—certainly you may do so.”

  Her expression cleared. “Then that is why there were so many footsteps.”

  “Footsteps?”

  “Outside my door last night. In general it is very quiet, for nobody comes up here, you know—it is only us children and Crokie. Miss Crokehart—she is Miss Wiggett’s governess. But now you mention Miss Gambier, perhaps it was she who came and went so often. I felt sure it was a ghost.”

  “Miss Gambier retired rather early last night.”

  “But perhaps she could not sleep—and did not like to go through the Staircase Hall, lest anyone saw her. There is a stair at the Chapel end of this corridor, you know, for the servants—they come from the kitchens that way.”

  I wondered very much whether Mary Gambier had spent the night on her knees in the Chapel. Such penitence must augur an unquiet mind. As if divining my thoughts, Caroline added, “Miss Gambier may have been afraid that the poor Lieutenant was lonely. Or cold. Or perhaps she had a secret to tell him.”

  A secret to tell.

  “Try to stay warm in bed until the fire is laid,” I told my niece briskly, “and only when it has been lit and has warmed the room, may you get up. I shall sa
y nothing to Mamma about how I found you—but pray promise to sleep in your bed tonight.”

  “I promise.”

  I rose to leave her. One chilled hand grasped my arm.

  “Did you not bring me a present?”

  The child had a refreshingly human failing—one moment going in fear of her life, the next considering of material gain.

  “I did.” I reached into the pocket of my dressing gown and withdrew Jemima’s costume. This was a frilly bit of nonsense intended for a night rail and a dressing gown. Cassandra had been its chief author; she had chosen a fine gauge of cream-coloured lawn and trimmed it lavishly with lace. I had merely embroidered rosebuds at the neck and hem of both pieces. But Caroline was in transports.

  “The very thing!” she said, holding the night rail up to her doll. “For you know, Aunt, I did not like her sleeping in her fine clothes, and it would not do to remove them. We cannot have Jemima take an inflammation of the lungs.”

  MY BROTHER JAMES’S WIFE had sent word that she was far too ill to appear before us last evening, and took her dinner in bed on a tray. Mary Gambier, on the other hand, had not hid herself away, but joined us in the dining parlour, where she sat wan and silent throughout the meal. Her brother chose to sit by her, and spoke to her once and again in a lowered tone. I was glad to see that she ate a little of Eliza’s excellent dinner.

  Later, when we repaired to the Saloon, she avoided the slightest chance of a tête-à-tête with any of our party by seating herself beside her aunt. As my mother was the only creature capable of enduring Lady Gambier’s society for more than five minutes, Miss Gambier was safe from scrutiny or questioning by the impertinent.

  I sat at the pianoforte. I had been assured that no one expected a brilliant performance; we were all overshadowed by the knowledge of the inquest on Friday, and most of The Vyne’s guests were disposed this evening to read or converse quietly. For my part, I welcomed the chance to lose myself in music. I managed a little respectable Mozart, the new polonaises Mr. L’Anglois had shewn me being too boisterous in a house of mourning. Music provided a mental screen for more important activity—I had much to consider, of all Raphael West had disclosed. I wished to trust him, for the simple reason that he recalled the intelligence and spirit of a gentleman now several years gone; but the awareness of my little fever of admiration for Raphael West rose in my mind as a kind of warning. I could not know what he was. I was too susceptible to flattery. He had singled me out as confidante—and such discernment on the part of a gentleman was rare enough that I must be susceptible! I could not, therefore, trust the power of my reason. I had too few sources of objective information about the painter. Was West, as he claimed, in search of a French spy—or was he an agent of the Americans, intent upon destroying the fragile peace lately achieved in Ghent, before news of it should ever reach Washington City?