Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor Page 19

  “None could forget, Isobel, though well they might flee. But I am neither so timid, nor so indifferent to your goodness.”

  “Dear Jane!” she cried, and reached a cold, pale hand to my own. She looked remarkably ill this morning, her haggard countenance hardly improved by the rusty black of her gown; I judged her to have endured a sleepless night, and felt numb at the terrors she must yet face. “Would you perform one last office on your friend’s behalf, before we must part?”

  “Anything, Isobel, that you would command.”

  “Place your signature at the foot of this page,” she told me, her voice low and trembling. “It represents my final wish in this world.”

  I looked all my amazement, but Isobel pushed her pen towards me with resolution. “I beg of you, sign.”

  I could not speak, nor read the provisions of her dreadful will, but affixed the name of Austen to the deed. I saw with sadness Daisy Hodges’s awkward scrawl—she who was the Countess’s young maid—in the place of second witness.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Isobel said when I had finished, and folding the heavy sheet, she placed it in my hands. “It is yours, now, for safekeeping. Do you take it to my solicitor^ Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew of Bond Street, at the first opportunity.”

  “My darling girl,” I said, deeply affected, “it cannot yet be time for such despair! Much may occur before this paper is wanted.”

  “It is best to prepare for the worst, Jane, since the worst is all that is left to me. Unhappy Isobel! God be praised that Frederick’s eyes are closed! The horror, did he see me so reduced to infamy—and by one that he had loved,” she cried, her hands clutching at her hair in distraction. “Faithless Fitzroy! Blackest of men, who can wear such a noble face!”

  “Isobel.” I reached for her tearing fingers and held them firmly in my own. “How can you speak so? The Earl’s fate is as desperate as yours, and he suffers it with like innocence. Surely you do not believe otherwise?”

  “I saw the note myself, Jane,” my friend said contemptuously. “I saw what he had written, I saw it was in his hand. You found it yourself on poor Marguerite’s mangled body. Do not you see what he has done? The maid was right all the while. Fitzroy is my husband’s murderer. Fitzroy was discovered by Marguerite, who endeavoured to make his treachery known. And Fitzroy ensured that the maid should speak no more.”

  “Do not believe it, Isobel,” I cried.

  “Are you mad, Jane?” The Countess rose restlessly from her desk and commenced pacing before the fire. “What else would you have me believe? That I am guilty of their deaths myself? You need not assay the longer. Know that I feel as guilty as though my very hands extinguished their lives. It was my blind partiality for Fitzroy—my vanity, my desire for admiration, my weakness in the face of passion—that encouraged him in evil. He saw my fatuous trust, and he used it to his ends. / was the one intended for blame in Frederick’s death, while he took all my husband’s wealth. But Marguerite confounded Lord Scargrave’s plans, by keeping his deadly letter on her person.”

  The Countess halted before her late husband’s portrait and gazed upward in contrition. “I betrayed you, Frederick, if only in my heart; but in my heart, I have already died for it.”

  I felt behind me for some support, overcome by the breadth of her apprehensions, and found it in her bedpost. I leaned against it with relief. “I fear that you are sadly mistaken, my dear, and will regret these words with time. Bite them back, I beseech you—recall them if you can—before they lodge too bitterly in your heart.”

  Isobel gazed at me with feverish eyes. “Tell me, Jane! Tell me why you place your trust in Fitzroy, when your friend’s is all blasted. Has he worked his charms upon you, while Isobel mourned for Frederick?”

  “You know it to be impossible!” I exclaimed. “As impossible for one of his honour, as the murder of which you would now accuse him! Isobel, Isobel—were Fitzroy Payne capable of planning such a deed, he should never have left his note on the maid’s person. He should be a fool to incriminate himself so publicly. The maid’s true murderer would have us think otherwise; but I feel certain of the note’s falseness.”

  Isobel brushed by me with a strangled laugh. “I know his hand, Jane. Too often have I received it, in words of love as false as Fitzroy’s character. No, my friend,” the Countess said, calmer now, “I will not share your foolish hopes. For where I am going, hope itself is more foolish still.”

  1. In 1801, George Austen, Jane’s father passed his Steventon living (or parish appointment), its rectory, and most of its furnishings to his son James, a clergyman like himself, and moved with his wife and daughters to Bath.—Editor’s note.

  28 December 1802, cont.

  ˜

  I LEFT ISOBEL ALONE, THOUGH I FELT A SICK HORROR AT her despair; and tried to ease my unhappy spirits in preparation for our London journey. In the midst of directing Martha about the packing, I was surprised by a gentle knock upon the chamber door. It opened to reveal Mrs. Hodges, an expression of anxiety on her features; and from her next words, I judged it to be the fear of committing an unwonted impropriety.

  “I’m that sorry to disturb you, Miss Austen, and if you’ve not time for Jenny Barlow, I’ll be pleased to tell her so. I cannot think what she can be about, seeking a lady at the kitchen garden door, and not to be put off by the news as you were leaving, but stubborn as a mule about having her say. I’ve left her in the butler’s pantry, but will send her about her business at the least word.”

  “Indeed, do not, Mrs. Hodges!” I cried. “You did right in seeking me out. Have her come to the little sitting-room directly, and I shall wait upon her there.”

  The good woman did as she was told, though not without surprise; and giving some last direction to Martha, I hastened below.

  Jenny Barlow looked less at ease, though frankly more suited, in the grandeur of even the little sitting-room, than she had appeared in her own smoke-filled hut; her golden hair looked well against the gilt of the picture frames, her eyes picked out the cornflower of the carpet, and, indeed, she might have posed forever; the very soul of a Dresden shepherdess, had I not disturbed her stillness.

  “You’re that good, miss, to see me, as I can never properly thank you for;” she said.

  “Considering that you have undoubtedly defied your husband in coming to me, Mrs. Barlow, it is I who must consider myself the obliged,” I replied. I thought of seating myself and her; but foresaw the distress she might feel at adopting ease in such a room; she should perch on the corner of a chair; concerned lest her nankeen gown dirty its silk, and her anguish at being treated as her betters would forestall all conversation. I remained standing.

  “Have you something to tell me?” I enquired gently.

  “Yes—that is, no, ma’am.” She looked her distress and doubt of mind, then drew courage with her breath. “It’s a favour as I would ask of you.”

  “A favour?”

  “Not on my own account, really, but on account o’ my poor sister Rosie, ma’am. Have you sisters of your own?”

  “I have one sister;” I replied, “who is dearer to me than any in the world. How may I help you, Mrs. Barlow, that your husband cannot?”

  “Ted won’t have the knowing of Rosie,” she said in a low voice, “on account o* her trouble.”

  “Her trouble? She is—to have a child, then?”

  Jenny Barlow looked at me swiftly, then dropped her eyes to her own condition, which was increasingly apparent. “She’s only seventeen, miss. Same as me when I had my first. But Ted stood by me, while Rosie … ‘tis a terrible misfortune for the girl.”

  “She is not lodged here?”

  Jenny shook her head. “She’s gone off to London, as the Earl would have it. I’ve not heard word of her these many months; she never learned to read nor write, and the postage is that dear I couldn’t send by her anyways. But you go to London today, I hear; and might have the seeing of her, did you take the trouble.”

  “I should be glad to,
Mrs. Barlow,” I assured her warmly, “and I will send word to you as to your sister’s condition at the nearest opportunity. I take it,” I said uncertainly, “that you did learn your letters?”

  She nodded. “Pa would have me do so. But Ma died of the having of Rosie, and he placed the pore mite with a woman here at Scargrave when he went into service elsewhere. She was that neglected in her schooling.”

  “Let me know then where she is lodged,” I said, “and I shall do my best to seek her out.”

  The young woman gave me the address—a not unrespectable street in South London—and consented to take my hand in farewell.

  I know little more about Jenny Barlow’s fate than I did at our last meeting by her own hearth, but judged it unwise to press her as to its particulars; she has the natural reticence of a born lady, and in the face of such dignity further enquiry would be in very poor taste. That I might hope to learn more of her history from her sister, is a possibility that did not escape me; and if I harbour such a stratagem, I hope it may not flavour too strongly of deceit towards such an unfortunate girl.

  I saw Jenny to the housekeeper’s rooms, where she was received with an air of doubt by Mrs. Hodges; and returned swiftly to the resolution of my packing. We were to leave just after the noon hour; and I intended yet to walk into Scargrave Close in search of Lizzy Scratch.

  THE DAY WAS FINE AND CRISP WITH A LIGHT LAYER OF NEW-fallen snow whitening the road as I made my way into the village. I should spend the greater part of the afternoon in a carriage bound for London, but my legs at least should not feel cramped; and my heart rose with the exercise. The sound of an approaching horse and gig made me turn, and I espied Sir William Reynolds’s equipage bent upon my way. That he had noticed me as readily, I discerned by the gig’s slowing to a halt by my side.

  “Miss Austen!” he cried. “I should have thought you engaged in packing!”

  “I make such a sad muddle of it, that I determined to leave it to the kindness of a housemaid,” I replied. “Are you already under way for the Assizes, then?”

  “I mean only to stop at the Cock and Bull, and then shall be turned towards the post road,” Sir William answered. He eyed my pelisse, which I must confess is very much worn. “I take it you have a similar object. Would you care to ride?”

  “Indeed, sir,” I said, intent that he should not divine my errand, “I relish the prospect of a walk; and so late in the season, one must seize fine weather when it offers.”

  “It brings the roses to your cheeks,” he said fondly, though with misplaced gallantry; I have ever been possessed of a redness in the face, to my horror as a young girl and my grudging resignation as a woman. But I took the compliment in the spirit it was meant; returned his nod, and watched him on his way.

  In exchange for a copper, a village lad directed me to the home of Lizzy Scratch. It was scarcely more than a hovel, with a great iron pot set to boil in back; here, I supposed, she did her washing. A tide of young humanity milled about the lintel, separated in age by a very few months, and united in their squint-eyed resemblance to their mother, and by the blackness of their skins and clothing; presumably Lizzy only laundered when she was paid to do so. I enquired whether the good lady was yet abroad, and was directed by several jerked thumbs towards the cauldron in the back; and there I found her, red-faced and perspiring in the chill air, turning linen in boiling water with a long ash stick.

  “Mrs. Scratch,” I said.

  “And who would you be?* She wiped a broad arm across her forehead and peered at me narrowly. “Washin’s three shillings the week, less a shilling if you iron it yourself. Leave it on washday—that’s Monday—and you can ‘ave the fetchin’ of it by Thursday morn.”

  “I have not come about the washing,” I said, “but about Marguerite Dumas.”

  She stuck her chin forward, the better to make out my face—I fear she is much in need of spectacles—and her expression abruptly turned belligerent.

  “Yore from up t’a big house. I saw you in the thick of ‘em at the Cock and Bull.”

  “I am a guest at Scargrave Manor; assuredly,” I said, “and it is for that reason I have come. The family is desirous of returning the maid Marguerite’s possessions to her family in the Barbadoes, and I am here to fetch them.”

  “You be wantin’ ‘er things,” the laundress said, in a tone of high hilarity.

  “I do.”

  “For to have the sendin’ of ‘em?”

  “It appears the least that one could do.”

  Lizzy Scratch threw back her head and laughed uproariously. “Pore Margie,” she said, wiping her eyes, “if she’d a knowed folk set such ‘igh store by ‘er few bits, she’d a took ‘em with ‘er!”

  “Have others enquired after the maid’s things?” I asked curiously.

  “Let’s jist say as yore not the first,” she replied. “That magistrate fellow ‘us by, after the inquest, with Mr. Bott alongside o’ him; right put out they was, to find as ‘er things was gone. Made as if to say I’d stolen ‘em, they did, which they’d no right to, no right a’tall. Margie put ‘er bit in the pot while she ‘us ‘ere, she did, and I’ll not be robbin’ ‘er after she’s cold in the ground.”

  “But who could have taken them?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Fellah from up t’a big house.”

  “A gentleman?”

  “Not ‘im as did the murdering of ‘er, if that’s what yore askin’,” she said shrewdly. “Twas the servin’ man of that soldier as lives betimes at t’a cottage.”

  “I had not known Lieutenant Hearst considered the welfare of the maid,” I said, “but, of course, it is properly the duty of a gentleman of the household.” That it was more properly Isobel’s concern, I did not feel it right to impart to the laundress; but I wondered at the Lieutenant’s swiftness of action. “When did his man call for the things, did you say?”

  “I didn’t,” Lizzy retorted, “but I don’t mind sayin’. ‘Twas the day Margie met ‘er Maker, that it was; and if I’d a knowed who killed ‘er then, I’d never ‘ave sent ‘er things back to that place.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Scratch,” I said; “you have been more than helpful, and in the midst of your duties as well.” I reached into my purse and retrieved a shilling, which she quickly palmed, eyeing the remaining coins hungrily. My purse is ever slim, and my finances scrupulous—but in such a cause, I felt an added expense well worth my trouble. I drew out another shilling, and held it with an idle air.

  “I wonder, Mrs. Scratch, if you recall a pendant locket among the items turned over to the servant.”

  “Margie’s locket? What you want with that?”

  “I understood she prized it highly, and so should especially wish her family to have it. In the jumble of handing her things to the Lieutenant’s man, such a small treasure might easily be lost.” I reached for Lizzy’s palm and dropped the coin in her hand; in the blink of an eye her fleshy fingers closed over it, and she shrugged.

  “‘Tweren’t worth much, far as I could see,” she said. “If’n ‘twere, I’d probably a kept it. But since she’d ‘ad it of a man in the ‘ousehold, I figured ‘twas wise to send it back. He might’ve come lookin’ for it, and the questions ‘ave turned nasty.”

  “Assuredly,” I replied, though scarcely recovered from this added revelation. “You knew, then, the identity of the giver?”

  “I didn’t say that” Lizzy Scratch’s eyes narrowed. “Any more than I reckin you do, miss. Margie was very close about her man. Always thought he was an upper servant, I did—that Mr. Danson, as valets the new Earl maybe, or one of the head footmen. But I’m thinkin’ now as it’s the new Earl himself, ‘im that was the death of ‘en It makes good sense, don’t it?”

  MAKING MY WAY BACK TO SCARGRAVE MANOR, I HESITATED before the gate of the cottage in the lane, searching for some sign that the occupants were abroad. I should not wish to meet either Mr. Hearst or his brother; but it was very likely that the one was out walking the lanes, moodily sur
veying the abyss of human nature, while the other was schooling his hunter over the nearest hedge. Summoning my courage, therefore, I opened the gate and walked purposefully up the path.

  Scargrave Cottage was intended as a dower house,1 but the late Earl having no use for such a place, his mother having long since departed this life when he achieved his title, Frederick Payne turned it over to his sister Lady Julia, as a refuge from the faithless Mr. Hearst. The Hearst boys had grown up under its Tudor eaves; and the Lieutenant spoke with the greatest affection of boyhood rambles among the cottage’s blackberry vines. Neatly whitewashed and half-timbered, the place was no doubt picturesque in spring, for a rosebush clung to its lintel, and a fragrant boxwood hedge flourished beneath its leaded panes. In the depths of December however, the garden looked unloved and forlorn.

  The housemaid, one Joan by name, bobbed me a curtsey, and informed me that Mr. George Hearst was within. I immediately regretted my impropriety—a woman alone, calling upon a single male acquaintance—but there could be no turning back, and I suffered myself to be led into the cottage’s parlour. It bore all the signs of a bachelor’s abode—books lining the walls and prints of grouse hanging above the mantel. A distinct smell, part pipe tobacco and part wet dog, hung in the air, despite the crackling fire. Mr. Hearst had been comfortably ensconced over a book, and rose with an air of consternation I fear my own features mirrored.

  “Miss Austen!” he cried. “I did not think to see you until the coach should bear us all hence. Has some further calamity befallen the Manor, that you have hastened here in search of aid?”

  “Pray calm yourself, Mr. Hearst,” I replied. “I have nothing of an alarming nature to report.”

  “Then may I ask you to sit down, and take some tea?” He gestured vaguely about the room, as though to indicate any number of chairs.