Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor Page 33

“Good God, sir! From whence did you spring?”

  “The stones at your feet, ma’am. You are Miss Austen? Miss Jane Austen? “

  “You have the advantage of me.”

  “That must be preferable to the alternative. I am charged with a commission I dare not ignore, but must require certain proofs—bona fide’s, as the Latin would say—before I may fulfill it”

  “Are you mad?”

  He grinned. “I am often asked that question. Would you be so kind as to reveal the date of your honoured father’s death?”

  Surprise loosed my tongue. “The twenty-first of January, 1805. Pray explain your impudence.”

  “Assuredly, ma’am—but first I crave the intimate name of Lady Harriot Cavendish.”

  “If you would mean Hary-O, I imagine half the fashionable world is acquainted with it Are you quite satisfied?

  “I should be happy to accept a lady’s word.” He bowed again. “But my superiors demand absolute surety. Gould you impart the tide of the novel you sold to Messrs. Crosby & Co., of Stationers Hall Court, London, in the spring of 1803?”

  I stared at him, astonished. “How come you to be so well-acquainted with my private affairs?”

  “The title, madam.”

  “—Is Susan. The book is not yet published.”3

  “Just so.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a letter, sealed with a great splotch of black wax. “I hope you will forgive me when you have read that.”

  I turned over the parchment and studied the seal. It was nondescript, of a sort one might discover in a common inn’s writing desk. No direction was inscribed on the envelope. I glanced at the sprite, but his raffish looks betrayed nothing more than a mild amusement

  “I have answered your questions,” I said slowly. “Now answer mine. What is your name?”

  “I am called Orlando, ma’am.”

  A name for heroes of ancient verse, or lovers doomed to wander the greenwood. Either meaning might serve.

  “And will you divulge the identity of these … superiors… for whom you act?”

  “There is but one. He is everywhere known as the Gentleman Rogue.”

  Lord Harold Tmwbridge. Suddenly light-headed, I broke the letter’s seal. There was no date, no salutation— indeed, no hint of either sender’s or recipient’s name— but I should never mistake this hand for any other’s on earth.

  From the curious presentation of this missive, you will apprehend that my man has been instructed to preserve discretion at the expense of dignity. I write to you under the gravest spur, and need not underline that I should not presume to solicit your interest were other means open to me. Pray attend to the bearer, and if your amiable nature will consent to undertake the duty with which he is charged, know that you shall be the object of my gratitude.

  God bless you.

  I lifted my gaze to meet Orlando’s. “Your master is sorely pressed.”

  “When is he not? Come, let us mount the walls.”

  Without another word, he led me back to the turret stair, and up into the heights.

  “There,” he said, his arm flung out towards Southampton Water. “A storm gathers, and a small ship beats hard up the Solent.”

  I narrowed my weak eyes, followed the line of his hand, and discovered the trim brig as it came about into the wind.

  “Captain Strong commands His Majesty’s brig Windlass. My master is below decks. He asks that you wait upon him in his cabin. He has not much time; but if we summon your bosun and the two young gentlemen, and make haste with the skiff, we may meet his lordship even as the Windlass sets anchor.”

  “You know a great deal more of my movements, Orlando, than I should like.”

  “That is my office, ma’am. He who would serve as valet to Lord Harold Trowbridge, must also undertake the duties of dogsbody, defender—and spy.” He threw me a twisted smile; bitter truth underlay the flippant words.

  “His lordship does not disembark in Southampton?”

  “He is bound for Gravesend, and London, with the tide. You will have read of the family’s loss?” I reflected an instant “The Dowager Duchess?” Lord Harold’s mother, Eugenie de la Falaise, formerly of the Paris stage and wife to the late Duke of Wilborough, had passed from this life but a few days ago. I had admired Her Grace; I mourned her passing; but I could not have read the Morning Gazette’s black-bordered death notice without thinking of her second son. It had been more than two years since I had last enjoyed the pleasure of Lord Harold’s notice; and though I detected his presence from time to time in the publicity of the newspapers, I have known little of his course since parting from him in Derbyshire.

  “Had the dowager’s death not intervened, his lordship should have come in search of you himself. But Fate—”

  “Fate has determined that instead of Lord Harold, I am treated to an interview with his man,” I concluded. “Pray tell me, Orlando, what it is that I must do.”

  1. A third-rate ship carrying 74 guns, this was the most common line-of-battle vessel and a considerable number were built during the Napoleonic Wars; by 1816, the royal navy possessed 137 of them. They weighed about 1,700 tons and required 57 acres of oak forest to build.—Editor’s note.

  2. The opinion given here is a rough paraphrase of sentiments Jane first expressed at the age of sixteen in her History of England, by a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian.—Editor’s note.

  3. Austen wrote the manuscript entitled Susan in 1798 and sold it to Crosby & Co. for ten pounds in the spring of 1803. The firm never published it, and Austen was forced to buy back the manuscript in 1816. It was eventually published posthumously in 1818 as Northanger Abbey.—Editor’s note.

  Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

  A Bantam Book

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1996 by Stephanie Barron.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

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  publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48651-6

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  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Editor’s foreword

  1

  2

  1.

  2.

  Jane’s Introduction

  About the Author