Jane and the Ghosts of Netley Read online

  Would I, in a spirit of sacrifice, exchange my ardent pulse for Lizzy’s silent tomb? If a bargain could be made with God—a bargain for the sake of young Edward and George, or the little girls so soon to be shut up at school—a bargain for dear Neddie, crushed in the ruin of his hopes—would I have the courage to strike it?

  I cast my eyes upon the flat grey sheen of Southampton Water—on the smoking chimneys of Hound, tumbling towards the sea; on the distant roofs of Southampton town, glinting within its walls. Dear to my sight, who am selfish in my grasp at life. Forgive me, Lizzy. Though I loved you well, I cannot wish our lots exchanged.

  The boys’ voices had grown faint. Thunder pealed afar off, from the easterly direction; the unsteady day had dimmed. I descended the turret stair, grasping with my gloved hands at outcrops of broken stone, and sought my charges in the ruined refectory.

  This was a groined chamber seventy feet long, lit by windows on the eastern side. For nearly three hundred years the Cistercians had dined here in silence, with their abbot at their head. The remains of a fresco adorned one wall, but the fragile pigments had worn to nothing, and the saints stared sightless, their palms outstretched. The refectory was empty.

  Or was it?

  Just beyond the range of vision, a shadow moved. Light as air and bodiless it seemed, like a wood dove fluttering. My heart in my mouth, I swiftly turned; and saw nothing where a shade had been.

  The sound of a footfall behind me—did a weightless spirit mark its passage in the dust?

  “Have I the honour of addressing Miss Austen?”

  I whirled, my heart throbbing. And saw—

  Not a ghost or envoy of the grave; no monk concealed by ghoulish cowl. A man, rather: diminutive of frame, lithe of limb, with a look of merriment on his face. A sprite, indeed, in his bottle-green cloak; a very wood elf conjured from the trees at the Abbey’s back, and bowing to the floor as he surveyed me.

  “Good God, sir! From whence did you spring?”

  “The stones at your feet, ma’am. You are Miss Austen? Miss Jane Austen?”

  “You have the advantage of me.”

  “That must be preferable to the alternative. I am charged with a commission I dare not ignore, but must require certain proofs—bona fides, as the Latin would say—before I may fulfill it.”

  “Are you mad?”

  He grinned. “I am often asked that question. Would you be so kind as to reveal the date of your honoured father’s death?”

  Surprise loosed my tongue. “The twenty-first of January, 1805. Pray explain your impudence.”

  “Assuredly, ma’am—but first I crave the intimate name of Lady Harriot Cavendish.”

  “If you would mean Hary-O, I imagine half the fashionable world is acquainted with it. Are you quite satisfied?”

  “I should be happy to accept a lady’s word.” He bowed again. “But my superiors demand absolute surety. Could you impart the title of the novel you sold to Messrs. Crosby and Co., of Stationers Hall Court, London, in the spring of 1803?”

  I stared at him, astonished. “How come you to be so well-acquainted with my private affairs?”

  “The title, madam.”

  “—Is Susan. The book is not yet published.”3

  “Just so.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a letter, sealed with a great splotch of black wax. “I hope you will forgive me when you have read that.”

  I turned over the parchment and studied the seal. It was nondescript, of a sort one might discover in a common inn’s writing desk. No direction was inscribed on the envelope. I glanced at the sprite, but his raffish looks betrayed nothing more than a mild amusement.

  “I have answered your questions,” I said slowly. “Now answer mine. What is your name?”

  “I am called Orlando, ma’am.”

  A name for heroes of ancient verse, or lovers doomed to wander the greenwood. Either meaning might serve.

  “And will you divulge the identity of these … superiors … for whom you act?”

  “There is but one. He is everywhere known as the Gentleman Rogue.”

  Lord Harold Trowbridge. Suddenly light-headed, I broke the letter’s seal. There was no date, no salutation—indeed, no hint of either sender’s or recipient’s name—but I should never mistake this hand for any other’s on earth.

  From the curious presentation of this missive, you will apprehend that my man has been instructed to preserve discretion at the expense of dignity. I write to you under the gravest spur, and need not underline that I should not presume to solicit your interest were other means open to me. Pray attend to the bearer, and if your amiable nature will consent to undertake the duty with which he is charged, know that you shall be the object of my gratitude.

  God bless you.

  I lifted my gaze to meet Orlando’s. “Your master is sorely pressed.”

  “When is he not? Come, let us mount the walls.”

  Without another word, he led me back to the turret stair, and up into the heights.

  “There,” he said, his arm flung out towards Southampton Water. “A storm gathers, and a small ship beats hard up the Solent.”

  I narrowed my weak eyes, followed the line of his hand, and discovered the trim brig as it came about into the wind.

  “Captain Strong commands His Majesty’s brig Windlass. My master is belowdecks. He asks that you wait upon him in his cabin. He has not much time; but if we summon your bosun and the two young gentlemen, and make haste with the skiff, we may meet his lordship even as the Windlass sets anchor.”

  “You know a great deal more of my movements, Orlando, than I should like.”

  “That is my office, ma’am. He who would serve as valet to Lord Harold Trowbridge, must also undertake the duties of dogsbody, defender—and spy.” He threw me a twisted smile; bitter truth underlay the flippant words.

  “His lordship does not disembark in Southampton?”

  “He is bound for Gravesend, and London, with the tide. You will have read of the family’s loss?”

  I reflected an instant. “The Dowager Duchess?”

  Lord Harold’s mother, Eugenie de la Falaise, formerly of the Paris stage and wife to the late Duke of Wilborough, had passed from this life but a few days ago. I had admired Her Grace; I mourned her passing; but I could not have read the Morning Gazette’s black-bordered death notice without thinking of her second son. It had been more than two years since I had last enjoyed the pleasure of Lord Harold’s notice; and though I detected his presence from time to time in the publicity of the newspapers, I have known little of his course since parting from him in Derbyshire.

  “Had the dowager’s death not intervened, his lordship should have come in search of you himself. But Fate—”

  “Fate has determined that instead of Lord Harold, I am treated to an interview with his man,” I concluded. “Pray tell me, Orlando, what it is that I must do.”

  Chapter 2

  Beauty’s Mask

  25 October 1808, cont.

  I CANNOT SAY HOW ORLANDO HAD ACHIEVED NETLEY Abbey, for I espied no stranger’s dory hidden along the shingle as we hurried in the direction of Mr. Hawkins. The falling dark and spitting rain hastened our footsteps, but still the old seaman was there before us, in attendance upon his sturdy craft—George having blown his whistle manfully for the better part of our descent. The Bosun’s Mate’s surprise at finding a fourth among our party was very great. He glowered at the green-cloaked sprite, and said by way of greeting: “I’d a thought you had more sense, miss, than to take up with strangers.”

  “Mr… . Smythe … is a very old acquaintance—fortuitously met on our road to the Abbey.”

  Orlando bowed; the Bosun’s Mate scowled.

  “We have suffered an alteration in our plans, Mr. Hawkins,” I said. “Would you be so good as to intercept that naval vessel presently dropping anchor in Southampton Water? I should like to be swung aboard.”

  “Swung aboard!” George cried. “Oh, Aunt—may we bear you comp
any? I should dearly love to set foot in a fighting ship!”

  “It is not to be thought of,” I replied briskly. “Your grandmamma will be every moment expecting you.”

  “But—Aunt!”

  “The young gentlemen, Mr. Hawkins, should be conveyed at once to the Water Gate Quay, and thence to Castle Square.”

  Edward and George groaned with disappointment; the Bosun’s Mate stared keenly across the Solent. “That brig is never the Windlass? She didn’t ought to be in home waters; ordered to the Peninsula in July, she was, and not expected back ‘til Christmas.”

  “You know the better part of the Captain’s orders,” Orlando observed quietly, “but not, I think, the whole of them.”

  Mr. Hawkins cleared his throat and spat. “It’s a rum business, all the same. Get into the boat wi’ ye, Mr. Smythe—and haul an oar if ye’ve a mind to reach that brig by nightfall.”

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK AS THE SKIFF PULLED ALONGSIDE the Windlass, and though a brig will never equal a ship of the line, the sides of the vessel soared above our tiny craft. Edward stared; George’s mouth was agape; and at a blast of Mr. Hawkins’s whistle, a lanthorn appeared at the rail. The bosun’s chair was let down. From the speed and efficiency of these movements, I judged that we were expected—nay, that we had long been observed in our passage up the Solent, and the chair readied against my arrival.1

  “Shall you be quite safe, Aunt?” George’s voice quavered.

  “Safe as the Houses of Parliament, my dear.”

  Edward frowned. “What must we tell Grandmamma?”

  “That an acquaintance of your Uncle Frank—an officer of the Royal Navy—had news of him that could not wait.”

  “You’re bamming,” George scoffed.

  “I shan’t be above an hour; but you are not to put off dinner.”

  I had suffered the bosun’s chair before, in being swung aboard my brother’s commands; but never had I attempted the exercise in darkness. Orlando hastened to assist me.

  “I’ll see the young gentlemen safe at home,” Hawkins said, “but I’ll return, miss, to ferry you to shore. Friends or no friends, I’m loath to leave you with this crew. Lord knows what they might get up to.”

  A jeering laugh from above put paid to his sentiments; at a word from Orlando, I was borne aloft. I gripped the chair’s rope in one gloved hand, and with the other, waved gaily to my nephews; but in truth, I was wild for them all to be gone. I could think only of the man who waited within, by the light of a ship’s lanthorn.

  “MY DEAR MISS AUSTEN.”

  He received me quite alone, in Captain Strong’s quarters, where a handsome Turkey carpet vied for pride of place with a folding desk. He had been absorbed in composing a letter, but rose as though he had long been in the habit of meeting me thus, and not a stranger these two years. His grey eyes were piercing as ever, his silver hair as full and shining, his looks more engaging than I had seen them last—and his whole figure such a blend of elegance and arrogance, that I felt I had never been truly admiring him before with justice.

  He grasped my gloved hand and raised it to his lips. “How fortunate that Orlando should have chanced to find you.”

  “I suspect that Orlando does nothing by chance.”

  “But for a lady to answer such a summons so swiftly must be extraordinary. I am in your debt, Jane. Are you well?”

  “As you see. I need not enquire after your health, my lord. The Peninsula clearly agrees with you.”

  His eyes glinted. “The Peninsula? Have you busied yourself with researches? What else have you learned?”

  “Nothing to the purpose. I was as astonished at your man’s appearance as anyone could be.”

  “And yet you hastened aboard—to my infinite relief.” He lifted my chin and studied my countenance. “You are a trifle peaked, Jane, even by lamplight. I cannot approve the shadows under your eyes.”

  “I have had a good deal on my mind of late.”

  “So have we all. You should not wear black, my dear—you are far too sallow to support the shade. Willow green, I think, or Bishop’s blue.” His gaze roved over my figure. “Bombazine! But surely you are not in mourning?”

  “My brother Edward has been so unfortunate as to lose his wife.”

  “Not Mrs. Elizabeth Austen? Of Godmersham Park?”

  I inclined my head. Lord Harold had been privileged to meet Lizzy once, during a flying visit to Kent in the summer of 1805; she had bewitched him, of course, as she had everyone who knew her.

  “Such a pretty woman! And hardly out of her youth! It does not bear thinking of. Childbirth, I suppose?”

  My countenance must have turned, for he said abruptly, “Forgive me. I ought not to have pried. But I was never very delicate where you were concerned.”

  “I understand that you have lately suffered a similar bereavement. I was most unhappy to learn of Her Grace’s passing.”

  “It was not unexpected, Jane—but it could not have occurred at a more troubled season.”

  “My lord, why are you come to Southampton?”

  “In pursuit of a woman,” he replied thoughtfully. “A beautiful and cunning creature I should not trust with a newborn kitten. I am hard on her heels—and but for this matter of death rites, should have subdued her long since.”

  Whatever I might have feared—whatever I might have expected—it was hardly this. I was overcome, of a sudden, by foolish anger; hot tears started to my eyes.

  “You asked that I dance attendance—cut short my nephews’ pleasure party, confound my friends, and be swung aboard your ship—so that you might boast of your conquests? Good God, sir! Have you no decency?”

  “What a question for Jane to pose,” he replied brusquely. “You must know that I abandoned decency for necessity long ago. My every thought is bent upon Sophia. When you have seen her, you will comprehend why. She is magnificent—she is perilous—and I shall not rest until I have her in my grasp.”

  I turned for the cabin door. “It is no longer in my power to remain, sir. Be so good as to summon a party of seamen to convey me to the Quay.”

  “Have you heard of the Treaty of Tilsit, Jane?”

  My hand on the latch, I stopped short.

  “—the document forged last year between the Tsar of All The Russias, and the Emperor Napoleon? The treaty sets out, in no uncertain terms, the division of Europe between the two powers. It describes the destruction of England.”

  “I have heard the name.”

  “It is for Tilsit I was sent to Portugal. It is for Tilsit that good men have died—nay, shall yet die in droves—on the Iberian Peninsula. Are you not curious to learn more of such a potent subject?”

  “My brother convoyed the English wounded from Vimeiro,” I said faintly. “He delivered French prisoners to Spithead as recently as September.”2

  “It shall not be the last time.” Lord Harold’s voice was sharp with weariness. “Come away from the door, Jane. We have much to discuss.”

  IT IS NOW NEARLY A TWELVEMONTH SINCE NAPOLEON Buonaparte placed his brother Joseph upon the throne of a unified Iberia—a move occasioned by the sudden descent of French soldiers on their trusted allies’ soil. At the close of last year, the Spanish king fled to Paris; and though the Portuguese crown declared war on England, Buonaparte pronounced the kingdom null and void regardless. The Portuguese royal family chose exile in Brazil, their fleet escorted by Britain’s Royal Navy—which did not care to see good ships fall into the Monster’s hands.

  The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley, urged our current government to challenge the French on behalf of the Iberians.3 The decision to invade was seconded by the Navy, which yearned to deny Buonaparte use of Lisbon’s deep-water harbour. Thirdly, the lives of British subjects were at issue, for the town of Oporto is overrun with Englishmen engaged in the Port wine trade. The idea that purveyors of domestic comfort—so vital, now that the wine from French vineyards is denied us—should be abandoned to the Enemy, ar
oused indignation in every breast.

  Public sentiment on behalf of ports, Port, and the Portuguese ran so high that Sir Arthur sailed from Cork in July and touched first at Corunna and Oporto, where the British and natives alike regarded him as a liberator. I know this not merely from official accounts forwarded to London newspapers, but from my brother Frank, who escorted Sir Arthur’s troopships to the Portuguese coast.

  By the first week in August, however, Wellesley’s fortunes were in decline. He found himself at the head of some thirteen thousand men, but short of cavalry mounts and supply waggons—and on the very eve of Vimeiro, superseded in his command by the arrival of no less than six superior generals, despatched by a nervous Crown.

  Frank’s ship, the St. Alban’s, stood out to sea off the heights of Merceira, and witnessed the French attack on the twenty-first of August. In the event, Sir Arthur proved too clever for Marshal Junot, who was thoroughly routed; but Generals Burrard and Dalrymple, Wellesley’s superiors, declined to pursue the retreating Enemy. As the St. Alban’s carried off the wounded English and the French prisoners, the British commanders signed a document of armistice, allowing the defeated Junot to send his men, artillery, mounts, and baggage back to France—in British ships.

  Public reaction to this infamy was so violent, that Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley were called before a Court of Enquiry in September. King George censured Dalrymple; Parliament denounced the armistice. My brother fulminated for weeks against the stupidity of landsmen. Sir Arthur Wellesley, though protesting that he deplored the armistice, had signed the document—and thus shared his superiors’ disgrace.

  Nothing would answer the public outcry so thoroughly as a re-engagement on the Peninsula, with the Honourable General Sir John Moore, a celebrated soldier, at the head of a stout army. The General is presently encamped with twenty-three thousand men somewhere near Corunna; and we live in daily expectation of victory.