Jane and the Ghosts of Netley jam-7 Page 21

  The Conte drew breath as though he would hurl Lord Harold’s claims in his face, but Sophia Challoner intervened. “His lordship knows everything that moves in England, Ernesto,” she said softly.

  “That is why you require his influence. Do not be a fool.”

  I recalled with a shudder the looming black form in the tunnel’s depths, and glanced at Orlando. He had suffered much at that creature’s hands. The valet’s countenance was pale and set; his eyes were fixed not on his master or the Portuguese Count, but on the lifeless form of Flora Bastable.

  I had very nearly forgot her.

  “This is all very well,” Dr. Jarvey declared, “but I would beg you to canvass your mutual acquaintance at another time! We must attend to a corpse! This unfortunate girl was your serving-maid, Mrs. Challoner?”

  “I turned her off,” the lady retorted, “almost a week since.”

  Dr. Jarvey stared down at all that was left of Flora Bastable. Her gentian blue eyes were fixed, unblinking, on the morning sky. “She is very young, is she not? Too young to wander the country alone at night. One must question how she came here— exactly here, on your intended dueling ground... ”

  “What are you suggesting, Doctor?” Mr. Ord enquired. The American’s eyes glittered dangerously in the waxing sunlight.

  “My dear sir — the girl was most certainly murdered, and murdered here. Her blood has soaked into the earth. It is as though she were left in this spot for a purpose. I must ask again: why? ”

  “Don’t you mean — which of us?” Lord Harold observed.

  It must be true. Only a select party had known of Mr. Ord’s challenge, and the isolated spot in which it should be carried out: the company presently assembled on Butlock Common — and Maria Fitzherbert, who awaited the duel’s outcome in suspense at the Lodge.

  “That is absurd,” Sophia Challoner said tautly.

  “The girl lived in Hound, but a half-mile distant. She might have wandered here for any number of reasons. A legion could have killed her.”

  “But in dying as she did,” Lord Harold countered, “she fulfilled a peculiar purpose. She forced the suspension of this duel for an indefinite period — and one at least of our acquaintance shall be heartily glad.”

  The lady threw back her head and laughed — a harsh, ringing sound in the silence that surrounded the lifeless girl’s body. “Did you fear to meet Mr. Ord so much, my lord?”

  “Not nearly as much as Mrs. Fitzherbert feared his meeting me, ” the Rogue returned. “I wonder which of us should consider murder a means of preserving a life?”

  Mrs. Challoner raised her whip as though she might cut him across the face — but the Conte da Silva grasped her wrist tightly in gloved fingers.

  “You are overwrought, my dear,” he said in his studied way. “You must return, now, to the Lodge.”

  I saw the wild rage surge into her countenance — saw her hand strain against her captor’s — and then her gaze fell before the Count’s implacable black eyes.

  “Yes, Ernesto... You are right. I believe I am ... overly sensible to the scene. Pray — would you be so good as to give James your horse, and manage the phaeton for me?”

  “I should be charmed, my dear.”

  The Conte released her whip hand with utmost gentleness, and helped her into the carriage; and never, until that moment, had I disliked Sophia Challoner so acutely. The murdered girl, with her grotesquely ravaged throat, might have been a fox thrown to the local hunt for all the concern her late mistress spared her. Indignation rose up in my breast, and I might have uttered ill-advised words — but Lord Harold spoke before me.

  “How did the maid come to lose her place in your service, Sophia?”

  “That is none of your concern,” she retorted.

  “Hold your tongue, my lord, lest you be visited with a second challenge!”

  “There shall be an inquest,” Dr. Jarvey interposed, his hand at the horses’ heads. “We shall all of us be called.”

  Without deigning to answer, the Conte da Silva lifted the reins, and immediately, the matched greys stepped forward. The doctor fell back, his gaze following the pair. Their action was sublime — almost as sublime as the insouciance of the lady who rode behind them, the black feather of her Cossack Hat bobbing merrily in the wind occasioned by the equipage’s passage.

  “My lord,” said Mr. Ord as he mounted the Conte’s horse, “I believe we should declare this matter between us at an end.”

  “It is no great sacrifice on my part.”

  “You have my full apology for the hastiness of temper with which I visited you; I accept complete responsibility for the consequences.” Ord raised his black hat, and bowed; then he kicked the gelding into a canter and caught up with the diminishing phaeton.

  “That is a waste of a fine seat,” observed Dr. Jarvey regretfully, as he stared after the self-destined priest.

  “What — do you think a Jesuit will have no cause to ride? I imagine nothing that young man does is wasted — except, perhaps, the hours he has devoted to Sophia Challoner.” Lord Harold gazed down at the serving-maid’s corpse. “I shall go in search of the girl’s people in Hound. Orlando is acquainted with the cottage.”

  “I shall accompany you.” Dr. Jarvey knelt down, and drew the edges of the Prussian-blue cloak about Flora Bastable’s frame. In places, blood had stained the cloth purple. All her young life, clotted in the wool. “We might carry her home in my hack”—the doctor had travelled to the ground in a hired conveyance, like ourselves—“if the driver does not protest.”

  “Take mine,” Frank said abruptly. “I drove it myself, and can have no objection.”

  “Excellent thought.” Lord Harold extended his hand, as though we parted from nothing graver than a rout at his brother Wilborough’s in London.

  “Captain Austen — be so good as to take charge of the doctor’s chaise, and convey your sister back to Castle Square. Pray accept my deepest apologies for the considerable inconvenience to which you have been put this morning.”

  “Not at all,” Frank replied. “You will supply us with the inquest’s direction?”

  “Provided I am at liberty so long,” the Rogue said.

  Chapter 25

  The Rogue’s Toss

  Saturday, 5 November 1808

  The inquest into the death of Flora Bastable was to be held at two o’clock today at the Coach & Horses Inn.

  “Another murder, Jane!” my mother cried. “And why must you go traipsing about the town in search of sensation, merely because a serving-girl has got her throat slit? You had much better remain at home, in expectation of a call from Lord Harold. I am amply supplied with brandy at present.”

  I had said nothing of the duel, or my earlymorning jaunt yesterday in Frank’s company to Butlock Common; and the three-quarters of an hour required for our return trip along the Netley roads had so restored our sensibilities that we might face our relations without the slightest evidence of deceit.

  At our return to Castle Square, at half-past seven o’clock, nobody else in the house was even stirring — but for Phebe in the kitchen. I found to my consternation that my hands would not cease shaking, and my brother’s countenance was unwontedly grave. Frank and I fortified ourselves silently with fresh coffee and bread, and greeted the others in their descent from the bedchambers with the virtuous air belonging to all early risers.

  Neither my mother’s protests, therefore, nor Martha’s anxiety, nor my fear of public display could prevent me from attending the coroner’s panel.

  “The maid was in service at Netley Lodge, Mamma,” I told her mildly, “and her death must cause considerable discomfort in Mrs. Challoner’s breast. I should not consider myself a true friend, did I fail to lend support at such an hour.”

  My mother declared that if I was determined to make a cake of myself, then she utterly washed her hands of me. My brother Frank said instantly, however, that he would bear me company — and dear Mary confessed herself glad of his dec
ision, in a gentle aside she imparted in the upstairs hall.

  “Frank is so restless when he is turned ashore, Jane, that I declare I can do nothing with him! Better that he should enjoy an hour of freedom about the town, and interest himself in all the doings of Southampton, than rebuke poor little Mary Jane for her irrepressible spirits.”

  I thoroughly agreed. At a quarter to the hour, therefore, I left Mamma prostrate in her bedchamber, smelling salts at hand, while I tied my bonnet strings unsteadily in the hall. I had not slept for most of the night, nor had I eaten more than a square of bread all day; I was in dreadful looks. I had considered of Lord Harold’s parting remark— provided I am at liberty so long—and concluded that he expected to be charged with murder. I understood the painful course his thoughts had taken. He did not like to admit to an affair of honour, which the law must frown upon; he refused to implicate Mr. Ord in a matter of bloodshed; and he hoped to shield me, my brother, and Dr. Jarvey, who had attended the meeting in good faith. Therefore, he was left with but a single course: to inform the authorities that he had discovered the girl’s corpse himself, in an isolated field, at half-past six o’clock in the morning. It was an unenviable position; but one from which Lord Harold was unlikely to shrink. Ever the gambler — and man of honour — he should surely cast his fate upon the toss of a die.

  “But why?” I demanded of my reflection. “Why must he bear the weight of so heinous a crime, and not Sophia Challoner?”

  “Are you ready, Jane?”

  Frank wore his full dress uniform, complete with cockade, to lend the proceedings an air of dignity.

  “You should not attempt to bear me company,” I warned him. “You will hear vile things said about everybody. It is the general rule of inquests, to contribute everything to rumour, and nothing to justice.”

  “You make it sound worse than the Royal Navy,” he observed mildly.

  The small dining parlour in the Coach & Horses was usually bespoken for dinner by wealthy merchants in the India trade, who put up at the inn while en route from London to Southampton. It was chock-a-block with local faces by five minutes before two: seamen reddened with exposure to the elements, retired officers of the Royal Navy, a few tradesmen I recognised from shops along the High. Frank bowed left and right to his large acquaintance, but kept a weather eye on me. My brother’s countenance was composed and unsmiling: much, I suspected, as he might enter into battle.

  Of Sophia Challoner there was no sign, nor of Mr. Ord; the entire Netley party had dignified the inquest by their absence. Lord Harold was seated near the front of the room, his valet at his side, but both were so sober in their mien, that neither turned his head to notice our entrance. The press of folk was so great, I did not like to force my way forward. Frank cast about for seats to the rear, and several men claimed the honour of offering theirs to me. One of them was Jeb Hawkins.

  The Bosun’s Mate pulled his forelock in my brother’s direction, and received a sturdy clap on the shoulder; they had long been acquainted, and knew each other’s worth. “This is a rum business, miss, and no mistake! Poor old Ned Bastable! His granddaughter served out like that — I’ve never seen Ned so shaken, not even when the French took his right leg with a ball!”

  I grasped his rough hand in my gloved one. “It gives me strength to see you here, Mr. Hawkins.”

  He harrumphed, and cast his eyes to the floor. At that moment, the coroner thrust his way to the front of the room and took up a position behind a broad deal table, much scarred from the rings of tankards.

  “That’ll be Crowse,” whispered the Bosun’s Mate knowledgeably. “Not a bad sort, though hardly out of leading-strings.”

  A hammer fell, a bailiff cried, and all in the assembly rose. “The coroner summons Mr. Percival Pethering to the box!”

  Frank snorted in derision beside me.

  Percival Pethering was a magistrate of Southampton — a pale and languid article, foppishly dressed. His great height and extreme thinness made of his figure a perpetual question mark. Stringy grey hair curled over his forehead, and his teeth — which were very bad — protruded like a nag’s of uncertain breeding. He seated himself at the coroner’s right hand, and took a pinch of snuff from a box he kept tucked into his coat.

  The mixture must have been excessively strong: he sneezed, dusting powder over the leaves of paper on which the coroner’s scribe kept his notations.

  “Mr. Pethering?”

  “At your service, Mr. Crowse.” The magistrate pressed a handkerchief to his nose.

  “You are magistrate of Southampton, I believe?”

  “And hold my commission at the pleasure of Lord Abercrombie, Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire.”

  “Indeed. And you have been in the commission of the peace how long?”

  “Full fourteen years this past July seventeenth.”

  “Very well. Pray tell the jury here impaneled, Mr. Pethering, how you came to learn of this sad case.”

  The magistrate grimaced at the twelve men arranged awkwardly on two of the publican’s sturdy benches, and tucked his handkerchief into his sleeve.

  “A sad case, indeed. One might even say a gruesome, not to mention a shocking business, had one less experience of the cruelty of the world in general than I have, and the depravity of the Great—”

  “The facts, Mr. Pethering,” the coroner interrupted impatiently.

  “Certainly, Mr. Crowse. I had just sat down to my breakfast yesterday — no later than seven o’clock, as is my custom — when a messenger arrived from the village of Hound, crying out that murder had been done, and I must come at once.”

  A murmur of excited comment rippled like a breeze through the assembly, and Mr. Crowse let his hammer fall. “Murder is a word grossly prejudicial to this proceeding, sir. Pray let us hear no more of it until the panel has delivered its verdict.”

  “Very well. I undertook to accompany the man — valet to Lord Harold Trowbridge — to the cottage of old Ned Bastable in Hound. There I found Dr. Hugh Jarvey, physician of this city, and Lord Harold — a gentleman of London presently putting up at the Dolphin — who had discovered the corpus of a young girl on Butlock Common earlier that morning.”

  “And what did you then?” Mr. Crowse enquired.

  “I examined the corpus, as requested by Dr. Jarvey, and agreed that the maid — Flora Bastable, by name, old Ned’s granddaughter — had died of a mortal wound to the throat. I informed the coroner that an inquest should be necessary, and arranged for the conveyance of the girl’s body here to the Coach & Horses.”

  “Thank you, sir — that will be all.”

  Mr. Pethering stepped down. “The coroner calls Lord Harold Trowbridge!”

  I discerned his figure immediately: straight and elegant, arrayed in black, striding calmly down the central aisle. His countenance was cool and impassive as ever; he looked neither to right nor left. Mr. Crowse, the coroner, might have been the only other person in the room.

  “Pray take a chair, my lord,” Crowse said brusquely, “and place your right hand on the Bible.”

  He swore to God that he should speak only the truth, and gazed out clearly over the ranks of townspeople arrayed to hear him. He espied my brother Frank, and the corners of his mouth lifted; his eyes settled on my face. I am sure I looked ghastly — too pale above my black gown, my features pinched and aged. For an instant I read his disquiet in his looks, and then the grey gaze moved on.

  “You have stated that you are Lord Harold Trowbridge, of No. 51 South Audley Street, London?”

  “I am.”

  “Will you inform the panel of the business that brings you to this city, my lord?”

  “Certainly. I have a considerable fortune invested in shares of the Honourable East India Company, and have been in daily expectation of the arrival of a particular ship out of Bombay — the Rose of Hin- doostan.” His lordship drew off his black gloves. Mr. Crowse raised an eyebrow. “I observe, my lord, that you are presently in mourning?”

&n
bsp; “My mother, the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough, lately passed from this life.”

  “Pray accept my condolences. She was interred, I believe, only a few days since? Surely your man of business might deal with an Indiaman at such a time, rather than yourself?”

  “I employ no man of business, Mr. Crowse; and I fail to comprehend what my affairs have to do with the subject of your inquest.”

  “Very well, my lord. Will you tell the members of the panel here convened, how you came to be at Butlock Common yesterday morning?”

  I held my breath. Would he admit to the affair of honour?

  “I had arranged to meet an old friend of mine — Dr. Jarvey, of East Street — in order to take a ramble about the countryside,” he said tranquilly.

  My heart sank. Lord Harold meant to bear the full brunt of suspicion.

  “A ramble?” the coroner repeated in surprise.

  “Yes. We are both of us fond of walking.”

  “You are presently lodging at the Dolphin, are you not, my lord?”

  “I am.”

  “And Dr. Jarvey, as you say, resides in East Street?”

  “He does.”

  “Then would you be so good as to explain why you chose to meet over four miles from the town, in an isolated field, where a corpse happened to be lying?”

  “We had a great desire to view the tumuli at Netley Common, nearly two miles distant, and thought that Butlock Common should make an excellent starting point. One might wander through Prior’s Coppice along the way; it is a lovely little wood at this time of year.”

  “I see.” Mr. Crowse looked unconvinced. “You arrived well before Dr. Jarvey?”

  “Perhaps a quarter of an hour, all told. It was yet dark as I approached the common.”

  “And what then occurred?”

  “I stepped out of my chaise for a breath of air—

  took a turn upon the meadow that borders the lane — and found to my great distress that a young woman had been left for dead upon the ground.”