Jane and the Barque of Frailty Read online

  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 uncomprehendingly. “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 proper 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 ITSpublisher 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 characters. 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.

  The chief biographer of both Canning and Castlereagh is Wendy Hinde, whose workmanlike studies of the celebrated Regency statesmen, George Canning (London: William Collins Sons, 1973) and Castlereagh (London: William Collins Sons, 1981) are well worth reading.

  Stephanie Barron

  Golden, Colorado

  September 2005

  A Flaw in the Blood

  by Stephanie Barron

  Coming soon from Bantam

  If you enjoyed Stephanie Barron’s Jane and the Barque of Frailty, you will want to read all of her bestselling Jane Austen novels, as well as all of the thrillers she writes as Francine Mathews. Look for them at your favorite bookseller.

  And read on for an exciting early look at Stephanie Barron’s newest historical novel,

  A Flaw in the Blood

  COMING SOON

  Chapter One

  The carriage made little sound as it rolled beneath the iron portcullis of Windsor; the harness and wheels were wrapped in flannel, the paving stones three inches deep in sawdust. But its arrival fell upon the place like an armed attack, shaking the ostlers out of their torpor. They sprang to the horses’ heads before the equipage had even pulled to a halt, as though Patrick Fitzgerald brought tidings of war.

  Fitzgerald made no move to step down into the sawdust. His hands were thrust in his coat pockets for warmth, his eyes fixed on the flaming torches and silent men beyond the carriage window. Once before, he had been to the great stone pile west of London— summoned, as tonight, by the woman who ruled there. But he was thinking less of the Queen now than of the man who lay in her private apartments, shuddering with fever.

  “Let me come with you.” Georgiana’s gloved hand—that supple hand, so deft with the knife blade—reached for him. “I want to come with you.”

  “No.”

  Darkness filled the carriage. Only the gleam of her eyes suggested a presence; she had drawn the hood of her cloak close about her face, like a thief.

  “It may have nothing to do with you, Georgiana. You cannot always presu
me—”

  “And what if I have something to do with it?” she interrupted. “With him?”

  “Georgie—”

  But she’d turned her head away, her profile outlined against the squabs. She was biting down hard on her anger, as though it were a haft of iron between her teeth.

  “And she’d never let you near him,” he attempted. “You must know that.”

  “Then she’s a fool!”

  The coachman stumbled as he jumped from the box; the noise reverberated against the chilled stone like a gunshot, and the ostlers stared in outrage. Silence in the Old (Quadrangle, in respect of the dying. Fitzgerald caught the coachman’s indrawn hiss of breath, ripe with fear, as he pulled open the door.

  “Wait,” he told Georgiana. “I shan’t be long.”

  She didn’t attempt to argue. She would be freezing soon, he thought, despite her layers of petticoats. But Georgie would never ask for a hot brick, a brazier of coals. Her pride would kill her one day.

  A footman led him into Windsor by the lower entrance, and there, too, the stone floor was blanketed with sawdust. The castle was known for its menacing silence—the vast, carpeted halls absorbed every footfall, and its people trafficked in whispers. Fitzgerald neither spoke nor offered his hand to the man who awaited him—William Jenner, court physician and eminent man of science.

  “You took your time,” the doctor snapped.

  Fitzgerald handed his gloves and hat to the footman before replying. “I was in Dublin but two days since.”

  “And you stink to high heaven of strong spirits.”

  “Would you have had me miss my dinner, then? I only received your summons at five o’clock.”

  “It is nearly ten! As I say—you took your time.” Jenner’s eyes were small and close-set, his jowls turned down in perpetual disappointment. He surveyed the Irishman’s careless dress, his unkempt hair, with disfavour. “It may be that she will not receive you, now.”