Jane and the Barque of Frailty jam-9 Page 24

  “Put it away, my son,” said a lazy voice behind him.

  Chizzlewit moved to one side of the door, and Emmanuel d’Entraigues entered the room. Eliza was with him, her mask discarded.

  “Mon dieu, ”Julien whispered. “These Austens!”

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” Julia Radcliffe told Malverley. “You have insulted me in every possible way, from the first moment of our acquaintance. I say nothing of the outrage you visited upon my person; of the deplorable want of feeling and all decency you then exhibited, and forever after. In my infancy I knew you for a man to be feared— one whose honour is as hollow as his title. The world shall soon know you for a blackguard.”

  “Fine words, Julia,” Malverley said, “but my world does not regard the calumnies of a doxy! You can do nothing to me!”

  “I might accuse you of murder,” she returned quietly.

  Malverley threw back his head and laughed.

  “When that poor creature came to me last Monday night, and begged me to listen to her, I could not turn her away,” the Barque continued. “I knew your violence of old. She told me how you had made love to her — charming her in Paris, squiring and cajoling her — from a belief that her husband might be persuaded to pay you off. When you returned to England and discovered your mistake, you cut her utterly from your life.”

  “A moving story,” Malverley said. “Would that I knew to whom you referred!”

  “Princess Tscholikova. She showed me your letters.” Julia moved towards her cousin, her eyes fixed unflinchingly on his face, and Julien d’Entraigues let his sword fall to his side.

  “She begged me to have nothing to do with you. She claimed that I was first in your heart — that you had abandoned her love for pursuit of me — and I laughed in her face. I knew, as Tscholikova could not, why you were in Paris — where no proper Englishman should be in these days, paying court to Buonaparte. I knew why you were banished from Oxford in your final year — why your father the Earl nearly cut you off without a cent. Because you had tampered with me. Because you had got me with child.”

  “I was sent off in disgrace, my cunning jade, because you refused to marry as your father bid,” Malverley shot back through bitten lips.

  “I should sooner have died — and very nearly did die, rather than accept Tanborough charity. Thank God I may still command my own fortune; it is a preservative against torture.”

  Malverley moved, swift as an adder, and struck her a vicious blow across the cheek. Her head snapped sideways with such violence I thought her neck must have been broken, but she did not utter a sound.

  “Is that how you served your mistress?” she asked steadily, her palm nursing her cheek. “Is that how you killed Tscholikova?”

  “Julia,” said the old Comte d’Entraigues warningly.

  “I will not be silenced — and never by you,” she exclaimed, rounding on the Frenchman. “You promised to escort her, drunk with sorrow and self-pity as she was, back to Hans Town — and you carried her instead to Berkeley Square!”

  D’Entraigues smiled faintly. “That was a matter of politics,” he said. “I have never loved Lord Castlereagh — he would see me ruined if he could— and my loyalties are wholly Mr. Canning’s. Somewhere between Russell Square and Hans Town I saw my way clear to rendering George Canning a service — a way to ensure Castlereagh should never enter the Regent’s Cabinet. And so, yes, I gave way to politics. I left her on his doorstep, with her precious box of letters by her side. I thought it might amuse the oh-so-respectable Viscount to learn that he was betrayed to the Post by his own secretary — by that godlike young man for whom Lord Castlereagh has conceived, shall we say, a less than decent passion—”

  “That is a lie,” Malverley choked. “By God, sir, if I could get near you—”

  “But my son has a sword, voyez-vous,” d’Entraigues observed, “and this is not yet the night when my throat shall be slit. As no doubt you slit the poor Princess’s.”

  Malverley’s eyes widened. “Upon my honour, I did not!”

  D’Entraigues shrugged. “Your honour is not worth a sou in this room, monsieur. The Princess yet breathed when I left her at your door. She was found, perhaps a quarter-hour later, her ragged throat wet with blood. You alone were awake, of all the household. What is one to think, mon vieux? That she killed herself?”

  Malverley looked wildly around the room. “Sylvester!” he cried. “Youknow I should never — that I am innocent! For the love of Christ, man — tell them how it was!”

  Sylvester Chizzlewit did not reply, but put his back to the doors.

  Quite near me, behind the protective shield of the drape, Bill Skroggs shifted restlessly in hiding, on the point, as I guessed, of springing his trap — and taking Malverley in bonds.

  I thrust aside the drapery, and looked out at the astonished faces before me.

  Charles Malverley stared at me uncomprehend-ingly. “Who the Devil are you?”

  “Consider me a friend of the Princess,” I said gently. “I think it is time, Mr. Malverley, that you told us all about the box.”

  “The box?” he repeated, as tho’ stunned.

  “The porcelain box, which the Comte d’Entraigues left by the Princess’s side, and which La Tscholikova had filled with your letters — the box that was not retrieved by the charley, or mentioned as evidence at the inquest. The Princess gave it into your keeping, did she not?”

  “Yes,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I have it still. I suppose I must explain how it was.”

  “SHE RANG THE BELL OF LORD CASTLEREAGH’S residence a little before five o’clock,” Malverley told us, sitting like one beaten in battle on the settee before the fire, “and I answered the summons. I thought it was his lordship, returned from a debauch without his key, and I did not wish the porter to find him thus — I had become accustomed to waiting up for his lordship, long after the household was gone to bed, in order to preserve his reputation as much as possible. There was no saying in what state Castlereagh might return — not even his valet should be allowed to see him, on such occasions.

  “I went to the door, and discovered — when the bolts were thrown back — that I had erred, and my own indiscretion awaited me.”

  “Princess Tscholikova.”

  Malverley nodded. “She was thoroughly foxed— swaying as she stood — and she looked as tho’ she had traversed most of London in the interval between the Theatre Royal, where I had previously observed her, and this moment in Berkeley Square. ‘I loved you,’ she said. ‘I loved you. I would have died for you. And you regard me no more than a bit of refuse beneath a carriage wheel.’

  “I feared she might set up a screeching in the street — that she would rouse the household, if not the entire square — and so I urged her to hush, and said I should be happy to discuss our acquaintance in my rooms at the Albany, if she would but call there in a few hours’ time — but she refused. She was quite resolute, quite calm; but she told me she had been to Russell Square — that she had learned everything of my sordid past I had not told her, and from the very one I should have wished none of my friends to know — Miss Radcliffe.”

  Malverley’s eyes lifted malevolently. “Was it d’Entraigues who told the Princess your name, Julia? He bears the distinction of having enjoyed you both, I believe.”

  “I shall worship the Fair Julia to my grave,” the Frenchman said simply. “But it is my son who has won the lady’s heart. Wisdom and experience, vous savez, must always give place to youth and beauty.”

  Malverley smirked unpleasantly. “I fear that most of us must give way, where Julia is concerned; she has a habit of displacing one man for another — don’t you, my pet?”

  Julien surged violently towards the Earl’s son, but Sylvester Chizzlewit seized his arm, and held him back.

  “The porcelain box,” I reminded Malverley.

  “She was clutching it,” Malverley went on. “When I told her I would see her that very day, at a pr
oper hour, at the Albany or anywhere else she could name, she said — and I shall never forget the sound of her voice — It is too late. You have broken my heart before the world. You published my letters — sold them for a lie. Why, Charles? Why?”

  “You could not explain, I imagine, that you hated Lord Castlereagh,” I observed in a matter-of-fact tone, “as much for his treatment of you — his lascivious nature — as for his policy. Was it in Paris you became a Buonapartist?”

  Malverley regarded me steadily. “What kind of witch are you? How have you divined so much of my life, when I do not even know your name?”

  “What did the Princess do then?”

  “She threw the porcelain box at my feet. It shattered, of course. I was terrified of the noise — that she might rouse the household — and so I gathered up the wretched letters and slammed the door.”

  “We discovered a fragment of one of them in the hackney that carried d’Entraigues and the Princess to Berkeley Square. But I wonder, Mr. Malverley, why you did not simply quit the Castlereagh household immediately, and escort Princess Tscholikova home? That should certainly have been one way of silencing her.”

  The godlike countenance flushed. Malverley’s eyes darted towards the old Comte d’Entraigues, then to Sylvester Chizzlewit, but he did not answer. It was Eliza, oddly enough, who tumbled to the truth.

  “Of course!” she said brightly, as tho’ a clever child at a parlour game on a winter’s evening. “The business that kept you in his lordship’s study for so many hours of the morning! Were you copying his private papers, perhaps? Perusing his memoranda— his letters — his despatches from the Regent? I must imagine he is a gentleman often consulted on government policy, for all that he is not yet returned to Cabinet. An excellent patron for a spy … such as yourself.”

  Malverley rose, his eyes glittering. “I fear we are unacquainted, madam, and I will not even deign to answer you. Your insinuations are as false as they are impertinent; but happily, they do not bear on the matter at hand. I returned to pack up the necessary papers I had employed in answering his lordship’s correspondence, and threw my own — which Tscholikova had returned to me — on the study fire. It was then I heard the charley, old Bends, shouting murder from the street — and went to see what was amiss. I found her dead, as I have already told the coroner’s panel; and so I shall maintain to my final breath.”

  There was a silence, as all those collected in the anteroom weighed Malverley’s words. It was possible that the wretched creature, disabused of every cherished notion of her lover’s worth and fidelity — the door slammed in her face — had indeed done herself a violence. I had an idea of her shivering in the cold of an April dawn, and of the desertion and essential bleakness of the square in that hour; the sharp fragments of porcelain gleaming whitely at her feet. Such a little thing, to reach down and seize the agent of her death — the agent of her peace, at last …

  The remaining drapery was thrust aside, and William Skroggs stepped forward. “Mr. Charles Malverley, it is my duty to carry you before Sir Nathaniel Conant, of the Bow Street Magistracy, on suspicion of the murder of Princess Evgenia Tscholikova … ”

  Chapter 31

  End of the Season

  Wednesday, 29 May 1811

  AND SO I AM ESTABLISHED COMFORTABLY ONCE more in the sitting room at Chawton, where I may write my nonsense in peace at the Pembroke table, alerted to every advancing busybody by the squeak of the door-hinges. The countryside is in full bloom, the air is sweet, the considerations of each person in this village of so modest a nature, as to prevent the Kingdom’s survival from hanging upon them — tho’ equally consuming to the principals, as the Regent’s latest flirt must be to Him. I cannot regret anything I have left behind in London but the excellent society of Henry and Eliza, and the book room at Sloane Street, where I enjoyed so many hours in perusing Mr. Egerton’s typeset pages; even Mr. Chizzlewit is not entirely absent from my days, having adopted the habit of correspondence — in the guise of a respectful solicitor, regarding the affairs of a Lady Authoress. It was necessary to let him into the secret of Sense and Sensibility, as I foresee a time when I might require a smart young fellow’s offices in the matters of copyright, and payment.

  I have received a missive from Mr. Chizzlewit’s chambers only this morning, in a packet of letters from London and Kent; Cassandra, who remains in the bosom of Edward’s family, having sent the news of that country — and Eliza offering a full two pages, crossed, of gossip concerning our mutual acquaintance in Hans Town. The Tilsons have determined to become advocates of the Evangelical reform of our Church of England, and have left off serving even ratafia at their suppers; Lord Moira is deeper than ever in debt, but betrays not the slightest knowledge of having mistaken Eliza for a Woman of the Town; Miss East has decided to write a novel of her own; and the d’Entraigueses are, for the moment at least, reconciled — the Comtesse having lost a fortune in jewels she might have sold, and the Comte his Julia Radcliffe.

  That lady, contrary to expectation, did not capitalise on the ardent feelings of Julien d’Entraigues, by accepting his hand in marriage. She has chosen instead to continue much in the way she had begun: with independence, and strength of mind, and the lease of a cottage in Gloucestershire, where she might supervise the rearing and education of her son. The ruin of Charles Malverley having been achieved through no exertion of her own, she wisely determined that she need no longer make a display of her name and person — and has retired to a pleasant and comfortable obscurity. The comet of Julia Radcliffe, tho’ it blazed across London’s firmament for only a season, shall linger long in the memory of most of the ton; and such fame has been enough for her.

  Of Charles Malverley himself there is little enough to say. He maintained his innocence in the death of Princess Tscholikova to the last; but it being represented to him, by so pointed an intelligencer as Bill Skroggs, that his perfidy towards Lord Castlereagh, and the suspicion of his having betrayed his government to the French Monster, were so thoroughly and generally understood in government circles, that he could never hope to be noticed by the ton again — that the unfortunate young man shot himself while yet awaiting the Assizes. It is thought that his father conveyed the pistol to Malverley in his gaol — the Earl of Tanborough being concerned, first and foremost, with the appearance of a gentleman in all respects.

  Malverley’s death served to confirm the suspicions generally held, of his conduct towards the Princess — and cleared Lord Castlereagh of all scandal, without a word of denial having to be spoken by that gentleman. Lord Castlereagh’s name is still broached as a possible member of government— and Lord Moira’s with him; but of George Canning, I hear nothing.

  Henry tells me that Egerton hopes to produce my darling child — Sense and Sensibility — by the end of October at the latest, and that I am to submit Pride and Prejudice for his consideration. I am resolved to commence work, therefore, on an entirely new novel — a story of innocence enshrined in the heart of dissipation and debauchery; of a heroine invested with sound Evangelical principles, that shall put shame to the Fanny Tilsons of this world; of a charming young man thoroughly given over to vice, and the frivolous world of the ton that smiles upon him. I should call it A History of Julia Radcliffe, as Told by a Lady — but must settle for something less particular. Perhaps … Mansfield Park?

  Editor’s Afterword

  SENSE AND SENSIBILITY WAS FIRST ADVERTISED BY ITS publisher on October 31, 1811, and similar advertisements appeared for several weeks following. It was a modest success that was capped by general admiration and clamor for Pride and Prejudice, when that novel appeared in 1813; and although Jane Austen was not then revealed as the author, subsequent novels were promoted as having been “by the author of Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.” Jane’s career and reputation were in a fair way to being made — and have endured for all time.

  Readers of this detective amusement may be interested to learn the fates of some of its chara
cters. Emmanuel, Comte d’Entraigues, and his wife, Anne de St.-Huberti, were murdered at their home in Barnes, Surrey, on July 22, 1812. They were discovered in bed with their throats slit; and a household servant was charged with the crime. When the news of this horror reached Jane, she must have experienced a certain sense of what we would call closure. D’Entraigues’s biographer suggests that during his lifetime he was employed as a spy against England by several governments, Russia and France being among them; but he was also certainly employed by George Canning, to provide intelligence to England of those nations’ intentions. The confusion of motives, policy, and fact that Lord Harold Trowbridge described in his 1808 journal, while analyzing the turf battles between Castlereagh and Canning, probably resulted from the deliberate design of Canning’s chief spy — Comte d’Entraigues. Which of the governments and patrons d’Entraigues regarded as meriting his true allegiance — if he was capable of any — is difficult to know; but he certainly promoted distrust between Russia and Great Britain. Those who wish to know more of his life may consult Léonce Pingaud, Un agent secret sous la Révolution et l’Empire: Le Comte d’Antraigues (sic) (Paris, 1894).

  Julien, Comte d’Entraigues, lived out his life in London in a home in Montague Place, Russell Square, dying in 1861.

  Spencer Perceval, who led the government during Jane’s visit to London, was assassinated in Parliament May 11, 1812. The Regent asked the Tory Lord Liverpool to form a new cabinet, and Lord Castlereagh to serve as foreign secretary — a post he held until his death. George Canning, who had wished to be named to that portfolio, was given nothing in 1812; Lord Moira was named governor-general of Bengal, where he lived for nine years. In 1817 he was made Marquis of Hastings.

  Lord Castlereagh’s later career was not untouched by scandal. In 1822, having acceded to his father’s estates and title as Marquis of Londonderry, he began to receive blackmailing letters accusing him of homosexuality. Apparently, as Castlereagh told the story, he had been seen entering a brothel with a prostitute he later learned was a transvestite male. Whatever the truth of the situation, by mid-August of that year, Castlereagh was subject to a severe mental collapse and depression; he confessed his “crimes” to both the Prince Regent and the Duke of Wellington — two of his closest friends — and despite being under the watchful guard of his medical doctor, slit his throat with a razor.