Jane and the Wandering Eye: Being the Third Jane Austen Mystery Page 26

  Harnley nodded. “So he told me himself this morning.”

  “Then I wonder if you might tell us something about this one.” I displayed the image so violently defaced with red. “It is a striking countenance, is it not?”

  Harnley’s young face darkened visibly. “That’s the witch what keeps him up of nights,” he muttered, and taking a step backwards, he crossed himself. “Always crying and plaguing him in his dreams. Draws her over and over, he does, to rid himself of her evil charms—but it’s no use. I’ve destroyed a dozen or more like that, and still she comes by night.”

  I glanced at Lord Harold, chilled and perplexed at once.

  “How very singular,” he said indifferently. “And Mrs. Pope admits the lady to Mr. Lawrence’s presence?”

  “Admits her? Lord, sir—she’s been dead these six or seven year! That’s the youngest Miss Siddons, what Mr. Lawrence intended to marry.”

  The parlour door was thrust open hard upon the heels of this extraordinary remark, and our three heads turned as one—to perceive none other than the painter himself, preceded by Mrs. Pope and her beaming face. The landlady brought with her a tray of tea and warm cakes whose heady scent quite filled the room; and as she set her burden down upon the table, and bustled about with napkins and cutlery, the unfortunate Harnley advanced upon his master. With a deft and silent movement observed only by myself, Lord Harold turned the drawings to the wall—though not all, I believe, for one at least was secreted in his coat.

  “Miss Austen!” Thomas Lawrence cried, with an agitated look. “And Lord Harold Trowbridge, indeed! This is a pleasure quite unlooked-for, I assure you! Harnley will have informed you, I suspect, that we are called away this very evening—upon urgent business.” He was almost prostrate with the effect of his haste; and I observed the marks of his late misfortune everywhere about his person. Mr. Lawrence’s head was bound round with a neat linen bandage, one eye was purple, and his expressive lips were bruised and swollen. When he moved, it was with a hesitancy that suggested a cracked rib or collarbone. “We cannot delay an hour.”

  “So we understand, sir,” Lord Harold replied with a bow, “and we should not presume upon your time were it not a matter of some gravity that brings us thither.”

  Mr. Lawrence was all impatience. “If it is about Lady Desdemona’s portrait, I assure you it shall be attended to the moment she is returned to London. For though I may attempt a drawing with tolerable success at some remove from my studio, I cannot undertake a finished portrait anywhere but in Town.”

  “I entirely comprehend. The matter on which we would consult is wholly unconcerned with my niece.”

  Mr. Lawrence looked from Lord Harold to myself, and an expression of ennui overlaid his handsome countenance.

  “Very well,” he replied, gesturing to the table, “I shall spare you a quarter-hour. Pour out the tea, Mrs. Pope, and then be so good as to leave us. I shall ring for you presently. Harnley, see to the stowing of my dunnage in the chaise, there’s a good fellow.”

  The landlady bobbed her way to the door, in company with Master Harnley, and when they had gone, Mr. Lawrence settled himself at the table with a cup at his elbow. “How may I be of service?”

  Lord Harold withdrew the eye portrait from his coat and placed it upon the table. “This, I believe, was done by your hand.”

  An indrawn breath, and Mr. Lawrence turned white.

  The painter reached out and dashed the stormy grey eye to the floor. “Where in God’s name did you find that thing?”

  “You know it for your own?”

  “Cursed be the day I painted it—yes,” he cried. “I have had neither peace nor happiness since Maria Siddons died; and if I had never met, nor believed myself to love her, I should be a better man today.”

  “Maria Siddons?” I enquired eagerly. Was this, then, the Maria Richard Portal had named in his final agony—the Siddons girl beloved of Hugh Conyngham?

  A swift glance from Lawrence, while Lord Harold stooped to retrieve the pendant. “The same. She was the younger of the Siddons daughters; and I was so foolish as to engage to marry her.”

  Lord Harold sought the ruined sketch of the spectral lady, and held it up to the light. Even at the distance of several feet, I could perceive the likeness of the eyes.

  “I must entreat you to tell me how you came by this thing,” Lawrence said again, with obvious trepidation. “I had thought it buried with her.”

  Lord Harold turned. “It was found on the breast of a murdered man,” he replied, “who whispered Maria as he died. We may presume that whoever stabbed him, uttered the name with conviction as the blade went home. A killing of revenge, perhaps, but visited upon the wrong person. For it was you, Mr. Lawrence, the assassin intended to kill.”

  “I?” The unfortunate painter looked all his bewilderment.

  “You were dressed in the guise of a Harlequin at the Dowager Duchess’s rout, were you not?” I observed.

  “I was,” Lawrence said, comprehension dawning, “and I shuddered when another, so similarly garbed, was murdered in that hideous fashion. I gather you were also present that unfortunate evening.”

  “I was,” I replied; and saw again in memory Mr. Lawrence’s Red Harlequin, conversing with Madam Lefroy.

  “Then I may tell you that I quitted the house before the constables arrived. But you cannot mean that Portal’s end was meant for me?” The horror of the truth overcame him, and he threw his head in his hands. “Then the attack upon my chair—the gang of ruffians—was occasioned by a far more malevolent purpose than I had supposed.”

  “There can be no other satisfactory explanation.” Lord Harold set the eye portrait before Lawrence; but the painter started with revulsion, and thrust his chair from the table.

  “This is madness!” he cried. “It cannot be otherwise. We are cruelly imposed upon—for I know this portrait to have been held as sacred by one who should never have given it up.”

  Lord Harold’s eyebrow rose, and he glanced at me. “Pray explain yourself, Mr. Lawrence.”

  The painter stabbed a finger in accusation at the offending miniature. “You must know that Maria was for many years plagued with the consumption that ultimately proved her ruin. I painted this portrait of Maria for her mother, Mrs. Siddons, who feared the girl’s sudden end. The great lady’s talents being so much in demand, and her family generally in want of funds—as who is not?—Mrs. Siddons was frequently burdened with engagements abroad. It was a comfort to carry some token of her daughter about her person.”

  Lord Harold retrieved the miniature and turned it delicately in his fingers. “And while painting Maria’s grey eye—you fell in love with the lady?”

  Lawrence shrugged and averted his gaze. “I was, at the time, pledged to Maria’s sister—Miss Sally Siddons, the elder of the two. But you will understand, my lord, that Sally was a gentle creature, of unassuming aspect and mildest disposition—her temper was unmoved by storms of passion. Maria was … utterly different.”

  “Her gaze alone is smouldering,” I observed.

  “It is. Or was.” Lawrence swallowed convulsively, his eyes averted from the pendant. “Maria was jealous of her sister—jealous of what she believed was Sally’s stronger constitution and happier fortune—and she set about to ruin her life.”

  It was fortunate the young lady was prevented from any reply, I thought, since Mr. Lawrence saw fit to so abuse her in death. I could not like or approve him; but he was clearly never without torment—and in this, I deeply pitied him.

  “Under the most desperate infatuation, I broke off my engagement to Sally, and caused there the greatest pain a lady may know,” he continued. “Within a very few months, however, I realised the folly of my impulse. I begged dear Sally to forgive me, and attempt to love me again; to Maria I explained the whole—but the result was most unsatisfactory. From disappointment or pique, Maria went into a decline from that day forward—and died not long thereafter.”

  “How dreadful!�
�� I whispered. “And was she very young?”

  “But eighteen.” He was silent a moment, and touched the blazing pendant. “There was worse than mourning to come, however. For with her dying breath Maria exacted a promise of her sister, Sally—a sacred promise that must endure beyond the grave—never to unite her life with mine. And Sally agreed.”

  “A formidable girl, indeed,” Lord Harold said drily, “like a figure from Greek tragedy.”

  “I will confess I felt it to be so, when I learned the truth in a letter from my beloved. I was never to see Sally Siddons the more—and though I raved, and went nearly mad for a time; threatened suicide or murder or both—she stood firm in her resolution. Maria had exacted her promise, and to Maria at least Sally might be true.”

  “She has never wavered?” I said, appalled.

  “Never for an instant,” he retorted, with a bitter smile. “I threatened, I cajoled, I wounded her with silence and attentions to others, including even her childhood friend, Maria Conyngham—but never a word did I receive. And last year, in the full blush of summer, Sally followed her sister to the grave, a victim of the same infirmity. The physician who attended her believes that she contracted the disease while nursing the dying Maria.”3

  We were silent some moments in horror. Mr. Lawrence’s head was sunk in his hands. But at last Lord Harold broke the stillness. “Tell me, Mr. Lawrence, of Miss Siddons’s childhood friend—Maria Conyngham,” he said. “You attempted to secure her affections?”

  “Attempted—and succeeded,” the painter retorted with contempt.

  “But surely you must have known that her brother was once in love with the younger Miss Siddons?” I cried.

  “I did not,” Lawrence said, with faint surprise. “Maria Siddons would have it that she had never loved anyone before myself.”

  “And perhaps, indeed, she did not,” I mused. “For certainly she gave up Hugh Conyngham without a pang. In the gentleman’s breast, however, there were stronger emotions.” I regarded the pendant eye portrait with mounting trepidation, as the murderous scheme declared itself in my mind. “Forgive me, Mr. Lawrence, for so invading your privacy—but can you tell us when you ended your attentions to Miss Conyngham?”

  “The moment I learned of Sally’s death. In August, perhaps, of last year.”

  Nearly eighteen months ago.

  “And did she meet the affair’s end with composure?”

  “Tolerably so. There was a period of recrimination—of tears and threats—but I am accustomed to these of old.” The first horror of revelation being now past, Mr. Lawrence smoothed his dishevelled locks with a hand that barely trembled. “I have recently vowed, Miss Austen, to pay my respects in future to married ladies alone; they are far steadier in their attachments, and demand of one a great deal less.”

  Was Isabella Wolff, then, so retiring? I considered the turbanned beauty, and thought it rather unlikely. Mr. Lawrence’s callousness should have enraged me, had I not seen evidence of its extent throughout the conversation; but for an instant, at least, I understood the emotions that had moved the Conyngham pair. The torment of brother and sister—the desire for revenge so heated in the bosoms of both—had grown and festered with time. They had waited for the proper moment; had secured their positions in Bath; and had plotted the scene of Lawrence’s destruction, with the pendant eye as silent witness.

  “You are aware, sir, that the Conynghams were raised in the bosom of the Siddons family,” I observed. “Is it so unlikely that certain of Mrs. Siddons’s possessions might have passed to Hugh or Maria?”

  “With both of her daughters claimed by the grave, Mrs. Siddons might well regard the Conynghams as even dearer than before,” the painter replied with a shrug. “It should not be remarkable for the lady to convey some memento mori into their keeping.”

  One thing only remained a puzzle. Given their intimacy with Richard Portal, how had the Conynghams mistaken one Harlequin for another?

  “I wonder, Mr. Lawrence, whether you have recently received any communication from Miss Conyngham?” Lord Harold interposed.

  “A single note, nothing more.” Lawrence stood up, and fished among a pile of papers scattered upon a table. “Harnley has made a poor job of packing, I see—but he is greatly distressed about the attack in Cheap Street a few nights ago, and should have bolted to London before this, had I not restrained him. Ah, yes—here it is.”

  He held out an unsealed letter, crossed with a feminine hand. “Miss Conyngham required me most urgently to attend Her Grace’s rout,” he said, “so that we might converse privately. She was most pressing in her request that I should meet her in the little anteroom, while the attention of all was engrossed with her brother’s recital.” As he spoke the words, a look of comprehension came into his eyes. “The anteroom—but it cannot be that Maria—”

  “And did you meet her there?”

  “I did. But as soon as I entered the room, I perceived Miss Conyngham slipping behind a door in the corner opposite, and so I followed her there. She returned to the drawingroom by a back hallway, and I did the same, on the assumption that she no longer wished to speak with me.”

  “And did you observe Mr. Portal in your passage through the room?”

  “I did. He lay in a heavy slumber upon the settee.”

  Lord Harold pocketed the actress’s letter, and retrieved the pendant. “Whatever Miss Conyngham’s duplicity or malice, they can be as nothing to yours, Mr. Lawrence. Were I even remotely attached to the lady, I should be compelled to demand satisfaction. Your behaviour to one in her circumstance and position is nothing short of outrage; though it is of a piece, I collect, with your general treatment of the fairer sex.”

  He reached for his hat and gloves, intent upon taking leave of the painter. His hooded eyes were inscrutable as ever, but in his tone I detected an admirable command of anger.

  “But it is of no account,” Trowbridge continued, as he escorted me to the door. “The lady has others to act in my stead. And much as I should like you to relate the whole to Mr. Wilberforce Elliot, the magistrate, I must undertake to speak on your behalf. Make for London with the greatest possible speed, by all means, Mr. Lawrence—for your life is not worth tuppence in Bath.”

  1 Angerstein’s extraordinary collection was purchased by the nation following his death, and formed the basis of the National Gallery in the structure newly built for that purpose in Trafalgar Square. The Lawrence portrait of Angerstein—a friend and patron of many years’ duration—was painted between 1790 and 1795. It hangs in the National Gallery, London.—Editor’s note.

  2 The portrait of Isabella Wolff, begun in 1802, is patterned after the pose of the Erythraean Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It now hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.—Editor’s note.

  3 The details of the Siddons girls’ love affairs with Thomas Lawrence, and their untimely ends—as well as the supposition that he sought them both out of a thwarted desire for their mother—can be found in The Kemble Era: John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons, and the London Stage, by Linda Kelly (New York: Random House, 1980).—Editor’s note.

  Chapter 16

  The Importance of Appearances

  19 December 1804, cont.

  ~

  “IT IS CLEAR, MY DEAR JANE, THAT WE HAVE BEEN CHASING the wrong hare,” Lord Harold said, as we regained the street. “For all his ingenuity at blackmail, Mr. Portal was never the object of murderous attack. It was another Harlequin—a Harlequin arrayed in red instead of white—who was meant to end on the knife.”

  “But who, my lord, struck the murderous blow? For though he surely spoke Maria as he died, Portal could not have meant to name Miss Conyngham. She should have known him regardless of disguise; and Mr. Lawrence did not discover a murdered man in following her through the passage. Maria must refer to the eye portrait of Miss Siddons.”

  “So much is obvious,” Lord Harold replied. “It was merely Miss Conyngham’s role to lure the painter to the anteroom. She may hav
e panicked, in finding a slumbering Portal already in command of the place, and fled immediately—Lawrence followed hard on her heels—but the man intended to kill Lawrence could not know of the mistake. He merely stabbed the Harlequin at hand, and left the portrait on his breast.”

  “Lord Swithin, perhaps, or the man Smythe,” I said.

  “But without a confession from one of them, we cannot hope to prove it.” Lord Harold shook his head. “I intend, however, to place Miss Conyngham’s letter in the magistrate’s keeping, and divulge to him the whole of this extraordinary interview.”

  “Mr. Elliot is returned, then, from Portsmouth?”

  “He is. It was to hear the summary of his labours that I was called away from Laura Place this morning.”

  “Do not keep me in suspense, Lord Harold, I beg! What of Swithin’s ships? Was either the man or his hired tilbury remarked upon the quay?”

  “They were not,” the gentleman replied. “From the experience of your brothers, Jane, I must assume you to be cognizant of the traffic about the Portsmouth slips—the embarkation of passengers and crews—the sudden mooring and as sudden sailing of a multitude of vessels. A wearisome business Mr. Elliot found it; and all for naught. At least three Indiamen had put in last week, but all belonged to the Honourable Company; their crews being dispersed on a hard-earned shore-leave, Mr. Elliot could discover nothing of whether any bore news of Swithin’s ships. And of the gentleman himself, and his flying visit to the town, our magistrate saw no sign; for Swithin did not put up at an inn, and one fellow among so many is unlikely to be remembered.”

  “That is very bad for the Earl,” I said.

  “Mr. Elliot had other news, as well. His man Warren discovered something in London of the discarded tiger pin.”

  “And from the turn of your countenance, I should judge it equally unfortunate for Swithin’s case.”

  “The brooch was fashioned for his lordship’s mother, by Thomas Grey, the jeweller in Sackville Street, a very reputable old firm. It has been in the family’s possession some thirty years.”