Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas: Being a Jane Austen Mystery Page 25

  IT WAS A REMARKABLY pleasant evening. James-Edward and Miss Wiggett were charmingly coupled as the King and Queen of Misrule; their court enacted a series of tableaux, to the general admiration of their parents, and quitted the drawing-room for a juvenile feast above-stairs, complete with an entire Twelfth Night cake.

  My mother was discovered in a comfortable coze with the elderly Sir William Heathcote, who proved the ideal escort for Lady Lavish. Mary was happy in avoiding the Archbishop and his frowns, by dancing several dances with Mr. Harwood, who must regard the rector’s wife as the safest object of a ruined young man’s affections. Lady Gambier held pride of place near the fire, where she clutched a handkerchief and spoke to nobody. Cassandra solaced her disappointed hopes by sitting quietly in a window embrasure and sketching the colourful company; I observed Raphael West to join her there, and gently offer his opinion of her drawing, which brought a blush to Cass’s careworn cheek and a brighter light to her eyes. He had no notion she nursed a tendre for him, of course, and behaved only as a gentleman ought; but I silently blessed his good manners and sensibility.

  I had been whirled about the Stone Gallery myself on two occasions—once by Thomas-Vere and a second time by my nephew, James-Edward. I had refreshed myself with pasties and Naples biscuit and William Chute’s champagne. The hour wanted but a few minutes until eleven o’clock, and some of our guests with children in their keeping had begun to make their adieux. Eliza, wrapt in a sable stole, had taken up her post near the South Porch to press their hands in farewell. She looked contented and at peace, as tho’ the unpleasantness that had marred The Vyne were at last banished.

  And then, among the welter of carriages drawing to the South Porch door to carry away the departing guests—one arrived, and drew up at the door.

  It was a post-chaise, not a private carriage, and the postboy so chilled at this hour of the night that the occupant opened the carriage door himself. He stepped out, fitting his tricorn hat to his head, his cloak swirling about him.

  “Oh, Lord, Jane,” Eliza breathed as she clutched at my arm. “It is the Admiral. I had hoped we should not see him here until morning.”

  I did not reply; my gaze was riveted by the figure descending from the carriage behind Lord Gambier.

  Amy Gage.

  In her arms she carried her son.

  The Admiral guided her through the maze of carriage wheels at the door and hurried into the foyer, sweeping off his cloak. “Mrs. Chute, ma’am? Well met. You had my letter, I hope? Had no notion we should be interrupting a rout!”

  “Admiral,” Eliza said breathlessly. “You are very welcome. Pray come into the warm. And … your companion?”

  “Well,” said Edward Gambier behind me. “If it isn’t Dismal Jimmy and his bit of French muslin. I didn’t think you would try it on, sir, in a house where your wife was staying—and before half the county, too!”

  29

  MISS CANDOUR MAKES HER CASE

  Thursday, 5th January 1815

  The Vyne, cont’d.

  Jimmy. Jem. The boy was named for his father—and it had never been John Gage.

  Much that I had not understood, fell into place as a latch slides into a hasp. But this was not the time or place for brutal declarations; Eliza had already suffered indignities enough.

  “What brought you to Hampshire, Edward?” Lord Gambier demanded in bewilderment.

  “Not only I, sir, but my aunt as well,” Edward returned grimly. “She is even now in the drawing-room, if you wish to know which room to avoid.”

  “Let me escort you upstairs,” I suggested to Amy Gage, “so that you might turn your child over to Nurse. She is an excellent woman and will know just how he should go on; and he will enjoy the company of my niece—a trifle older, to be sure, but ready enough to comfort the boy, should he be wakeful in the night.”

  “By all means, Jane,” Eliza said thankfully, “and pray require Nurse to make up a bed for this young woman in the schoolroom as well, so that she might be near her son.”

  I extended my arm to Amy Gage, who was shivering in the draughts of the foyer, and said over my shoulder to Edward Gambier, “A little conduct, sir, if you please. You owe your hosts some civility, if not your uncle. Pray carry him up to the library and provide him with brandy. You may give him a piece of your mind there.”

  Edward had the decency to look abashed, and nodded. “You’re correct, of course. I forgot myself. Sir—if you would be so good as to follow me above-stairs.”

  Our little cavalcade hurried off, without half the county, as Edward had suggested, being aware. The child was starting up a wail of exhaustion—the journey from Portsmouth was a long one—but Mrs. Gage muffled him with her cloak. In short order he was established by the schoolroom fire, being petted by Nurse and fussed over by Jemima and Caroline. Amy Gage gave me one grateful look, and I left the small party to its own devices.

  “Who is that girl, Jane?” Eliza asked as I once more descended the stairs.

  “Lieutenant Gage’s widow,” I supplied.

  “Then I do not understand anything at all,” she said, and threw up her hands.

  IT WAS NEARLY AN hour before the last of the Twelfth Night guests had departed The Vyne. As the rest of us mounted the stairs in search of our beds, Edward Gambier came to the library door.

  “Aunt Louisa,” he said. “My uncle is here. I have told him about Mary.”

  Lady Gambier was being supported up the stairs by my mother—despite the fact that Mrs. Austen was the senior of the two women by roughly fifteen years. She achieved the landing as her nephew spoke, and raised her head to stare at him.

  “Very well,” she said. “We have achieved our purpose. We return to Bath in the morning.”

  “Do you not wish to speak to him?” Edward asked.

  She hesitated. “What is there to say?”

  “You might comfort him in his distress.”

  To my horror, her ladyship managed a wintry little smile. “Let him have his fill. It may be some recompense for the injuries he has done to me.”

  She turned away from the library door. The rest of us collected on the landing—my sister and brother, Thomas-Vere, Mary, the Chutes, Raphael West—stared after her.

  “No,” I said firmly. “It will not do, my lady. It is not justice to your niece—and what is left to any of you, now, but Justice?”

  She turned her basilisk stare upon me and said, “You are impertinent, Miss Austen. It is both vulgar and unbecoming. Much may be forgiven youth—but not a woman of your age.”

  “Call me Candour,” I suggested, “for I mean to speak the truth, Lady Gambier. It has been sadly lacking—both in your family, and in this house. Mary Gambier died for want of truth, and you carry that on your soul.”

  Her face coloured, then went dead white. I thought she might swoon. Edward Gambier leapt forward and supported her.

  “Bring her into the library,” William Chute ordered, “and lay her upon the sopha.”

  Edward did as he was told. We all followed—even James the Archbishop, who might have been expected to urge privacy.

  The Admiral looked up as we entered, and rose from his seat by the fire. He was an imposing figure of a man, despite his weathered countenance and thinning hair—a number of years younger than his wife, and more youthful in health and vigour. Where she had retreated into age, he had defied it; and their worlds seemed similarly parted.

  “Good evening, Chute,” he said courteously; but his eyes bore about them the signs of weeping. “Edward has told me of the tragedies you have witnessed here. I learnt of Gage’s death, of course, from your letter—but no word … no word—”

  He put his face in his hands. After an instant, he recovered himself.

  “I do not know the rest of your party.”

  Chute made the introductions.

  Eliza ministered to Lady Gambier with a vinaigrette.

  “Her heart is not strong,” Edward said. “Aunt always looks the Tartar—but the leas
t shock might carry her off.”

  “It is a wonder your sister’s death did not do it,” Eliza murmured.

  “But that was no shock to her ladyship,” I observed. “Was it, Edward?”

  He stared at me, and rose from his position by the sopha. “What did you mean, when you said Aunt Louisa should have Mary’s death upon her soul?”

  “I meant that your sister need not have died, had she not been burdened with your aunt and uncle’s secret,” I returned.

  “Not another word!” Lady Gambier cried hoarsely from her supine position. “I forbid it.”

  “And you, Admiral?” I enquired. “Would you have your family fester in continued doubt, now you have already lost your dearest girl?”

  He shook his head. “Not for any price.”

  “Why did you bring Mrs. Gage to The Vyne?”

  “I discovered her in Portsmouth upon landing there two days ago from Ghent,” he said. “Gage’s death left her in desperate circumstances. There was nothing to keep her in Portsmouth any longer. I intended to carry her and the child to Bath, where she might find employment—as a seamstress, or in service. That is all.”

  “And how did she come to be married to John Gage?”

  The Admiral studied me a moment. “I arranged the marriage for their mutual benefit. Mrs. Gage received the protection of the Lieutenant’s name, and the Royal Navy—and Gage … earned my gratitude.”

  “And the promise of eventual advancement, I presume?”

  “He should have had his next step this year.”

  “That plum must have palled in his mouth, however,” I suggested, “once he met your niece in Brighton last summer.”

  “Fool,” Louisa Gambier muttered from her sopha. “He should not be talking so. He should not have thrown that sailor in her way.”

  “John Gage fell in love with Mary Gambier,” I said carefully, “at the very moment he might have earned the step that should enable him to marry her—only he was married already, to a woman he did not love! Tell me, Admiral—who is Jem’s father?”

  There was a brief silence. “I am,” he said.

  A little sigh ran through the room.

  “Good God, sir!” Edward Gambier cried. “Dismal Jimmy, of all people in the world, to have got a by-blow! It might almost be cause for laughter—were it not gross hypocrisy!”

  “You cannot say anything to me that I have not said to myself,” the Admiral retorted. “A period of madness—of heedless judgement in a distant port … and then I, who never had a son, am suddenly the father of a natural one—and dare not acknowledge him!”

  “The joke of Providence,” Edward observed bitterly.

  “Or of Benedict L’Anglois’s charade,” I suggested. “He was excessively sly, Christmas night, in circulating his riddle—which the Gambier ladies could not fail to notice.”

  Edward held up his hand. “Of what concern is our family scandal to such a man? What can a child of two or three have to do with Gage’s murder? Much less Mary’s?” He wheeled upon me. “Do you merely satisfy your desire to know our family secrets, Miss Austen—or is there a purpose to your interrogation?”

  I might have answered, but Raphael West spoke for me.

  “It is not only Miss Jane who is concerned with Justice,” he said. “I am a guest at The Vyne in part to paint its owner—but also on behalf of the Crown. Mr. Chute, you see, has been harbouring a French spy. It was to seize him that I came into Hampshire.”

  Eliza let out a little cry. “William! Whom have we been harbouring?”

  “Poor old Ben. He’s a wrong ’un, I’m afraid.”

  “Mr. Langles!” Eliza moaned. “But he was always so polite. So very distinguished, seemingly.”

  “What Frenchman is not, my dear?” Mamma offered kindly.

  “Explain yourself, West,” Edward Gambier said impatiently. “You believe Langles killed Gage?”

  “I am almost certain of it. Tho’ the gentleman having fled, he cannot defend himself. I believe he exited The Vyne through an ancient bolt-hole that begins near the Chapel, and ends at the ice house, not a dozen yards from where Gage was found. He used the tunnel to set up his snare the night of Gage’s arrival, and again on the morning of his death—to break Gage’s neck and steal the Ghent Treaty.”

  “But why kill Mary?” Edward asked in perplexity. “I thought the fellow had a tendre for her.”

  Raphael West looked at me. “Miss Jane?” he said.

  “I overheard Miss Gambier arguing with a man I suspect was Mr. L’Anglois in the passage outside our bedchamber doors, in the early hours of the morning of Lieutenant Gage’s death,” I supplied. “He demanded something of her; she refused. He parted from her with a threat. You know what ensued.”

  The Admiral spoke. “But why do my darling violence, if he wanted something from her?”

  I lifted my brows. “Because she was adamant in refusing L’Anglois. She chose to betray your secret, my lord, rather than prove the ruin of John Gage and his career.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Please understand: She tried to shield you for long and long. John Gage told your niece last summer, I suspect, that you had persuaded him to give his name to your child. He probably did so to explain why he could not marry your niece. Perhaps he intended, recklessly, to sue for divorce. He might have exposed your sins in the process. Mary negatived that plan. She would not win John Gage at the expence of your reputation, Admiral. You are everywhere respected as a Christian gentleman, I am told.”

  Lady Gambier let out a cackle of bitter laughter.

  “But how did L’Anglois know what John Gage had told her?” the Admiral demanded.

  “He knew,” I replied, “because you married John Gage to Aimée L’Anglois—Benedict L’Anglois’s sister.”

  “The Devil you did!” Edward Gambier cried. “Lord, Uncle, you did make a mull of it!”

  “How could I know the girl’s brother was a spy?” the Admiral spluttered indignantly.

  “The wages of sin,” Lady Gambier said distantly, “are Death.”

  This silenced the little murmur of interest that had run round the room.

  “His sister, Miss Jane?” Raphael West asked. “Are you certain?”

  I nodded. “We might ask her directly now—it is of no consequence. His wife must have believed Benedict L’Anglois dead, to marry another; but his sister was in communication with Mr. L’Anglois, and he with her. She shall probably admit to the correspondence frankly; it is possible she does not share his treason.”

  “Mary,” Edward Gambier said with dogged despair. “I still do not understand why she had to die.”

  “It is painful to contemplate, is it not?” I said softly. “A young woman of principle and affection, torn between rival loyalties. Mr. L’Anglois wished her to obtain the Treaty from John Gage—so that he might have his intelligence without violence. He blackmailed Mary with the Admiral’s illegitimate child. He expected her to fear publication of the family scandal, and steal the Treaty in exchange for silence. But Mary loved John Gage—and she would not violate his trust. She expected a publick shaming upon her return to Bath—the revelation of Admiral Gambier’s amours. She could not have known, however, that her refusal to take the document Lieutenant Gage carried, sealed his death.”

  “Poor woman,” Raphael West mourned. “How she must have felt it, when his body was carried into the Chapel that day!”

  “And how she spent the ensuing hours on her knees,” I added, “in an effort to wring forgiveness from Gage and God.”

  “So you think L’Anglois gave her laudanum,” Edward Gambier said, “because she knew he had murdered Gage and stolen the Treaty? Why in Heaven did she not accuse him, and save herself?”

  “She might have done so at the inquest,” I suggested. “But first she had to wrestle with her conscience on her knees. To accuse Benedict L’Anglois, she must admit the blackmail—and her family’s scandal—to a Coroner and his jury empanelled at the Angel. I believe
she had decided to do so. She may even have communicated her decision.”

  “And so she died.”

  I walked slowly over to Lady Gambier as she lay upon her couch. “You could not bear to have the truth known, could you, Lady Gambier? In all candour, now—you would rather have Mary die, than have the world know your shame.”

  She stared at me from her pallid face, her eyes two glittering stones. “I never gave him children,” she said. “Never. Tho’ I tried. So he went and got them himself. Do you have any notion of the humiliation? The agony of that? To be denied as a mother—and see another woman fill your place?”

  “You emptied your laudanum bottle into Mary’s coffee, that final night,” I said relentlessly, “and when, in her stupor, she had gone down once more to lie by John Gage’s bier in the Chapel—you let her lie. You left the empty bottle by her outstretched hand.”

  Admiral Gambier gave a choking cry, and fell from his chair onto his knees, his head bowed. Edward went to him.

  “What life had she, in any case?” her ladyship said indifferently. “The man she loved was dead. She was determined to drag our name through the muck. No one should have offered for her then.”

  “However empty a spinster’s days may be,” I said harshly, “she has the right to live them.”

  “Not at my expence,” Lady Gambier retorted. She raised herself on her couch and turned to the Admiral and her nephew. “Look at them. Crying for love. Do they not realise what a cheat it is? There, Miss Austen. A bit of candour for you.”

  She pulled herself to her feet and walked to the door.

  “Lady Gambier!” William Chute said sternly. What did he intend? To charge her with murder?

  But she did not even bother to pause in her stride.

  “You’ll never prove it,” she said contemptuously. “Tho’ you try the rest of your life long. There is no proof.”