Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor Page 5

  I should do Fanny Delahoussaye an injustice if I did not set down that she styles herself very fine, indeed. Having spent hours poring over the pages of Le Beau Monde,4 she is never seen in anything less than the most breathlessly current of gowns. Though given to riotous colour in her evening dress, she prefers a young lady’s natural choice for day—white muslin or lawn—in the knowledge that it renders her pink-and-gold perfection even more angelic. And since pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked, I have resolved to thrust my own white lawn to the side for the duration of my Scargrave stay. Such an invitation to comparison between myself and Miss Delahoussaye must be invidious.

  Born like Isobei in the Indies, though schooled in London, Fanny’s chief business at nineteen appears to be the getting of a husband. She and her mother must needs be at cross purposes in this: Madame Delahoussaye favours the newly-titled Earl, Fitzroy Payne, as any mother should do, while Fanny displays a clearer preference for the penniless scapegrace Tom Hearst. Whether she is likely or able to captivate either gentleman is never laid open to question; it is assumed that her loveliness will conquer. I cannot be so sanguine. Fanny’s pretty gowns and her fortune aside, she looks very much like any other young woman with a quantity of yellow hair, vacant eyes, and an expanse of exposed bosom. She inclines her head with exquisite grace, but fails to utter a sensible word; such an excess of elegance can only be imputed to the most fashionable of finishing schools. No doubt she speaks Italian and is highly accomplished—in the art of painting screens, making fringe, and standing before the mantua-maker5.

  I dare say that my words are peevish and cross—and I recognise my demon, jealousy. To have Fanny Delahoussaye’s fortune and looks, and hone of my own sense and wit, would be an unbearable exchange; but when I see her ready assumption of marriage, her effortless reaching towards that estate, I must own that I should like to stand in her place for a few hours together. I cannot know what it is to be beautiful and possessed of easy means; my conquests have ever been made against the better instincts of the men in my acquaintance, a tribute to my lively mind and good humour. But what woman is willing to accept such a victory as this, unmarried as I remain, in the face of good looks and fortune?

  Later that day

  ˜

  I HAD NOT BEEN IN THE SITTING-ROOM AN HOUR WHEN a footman appeared with a summons from Isobel. I hastened to her side.

  “Dear Jane!” my friend cried, reaching a white hand to me from her chaise longue; “I begged you to remain at Scargrave, only to desert you for the comfort of solitude. I fear I have made a sad hostess.”

  I glanced around Isobel’s bedchamber in some surprise; in this room, at least, Scargrave’s musty ghosts were banished. In anticipation of his bride, the Earl had refurbished the apartment with elegance and taste; its furniture was light and pleasing, fresh paper graced the walls, a fire burned brightly in the grate, and the image of Frederick, Lord Scargrave, gazed down upon his wife from a gilt frame above the mantel. A book and a saucer of tea stood companionably on a table at Isobel’s side; all was quiet and order. I understood, now, her unwillingness to appear in the chilly rooms below. But the comfort of her boudoir had done little to raise her spirits; indeed, an unaccustomed languor spoke from every limb, and by her ravaged looks, I knew sleep had escaped her these few nights past.

  “Never could I reproach you in such an hour” I said, dropping to the floor at her side. “Do not trouble yourself about me. Your nearest relations have been at pains to ensure my comfort. But tell me, Isobel, how may I be of service to you? May anyone hope to relieve such melancholy as this?”

  “Jane, do not tempt me to thrust aside my sorrow,” the Countess replied bitterly. “It is the last honour his wife may offer poor unfortunate Frederick.” She turned her eyes upon the hearth, her red hair undone and hanging in a curtain about her face, and suffered in silence a moment. Then she sought my hand with her own and gripped it fiercely. “But to melancholy, dearest Jane, I fear I must add a greater burden. And in this, I fondly hope, you may indeed be of service.”

  My aspect was all curiosity.

  Isobel handed me a slip of paper. “This misbegotten note arrived by the morning post. I hardly know what it is about; and I would have your opinion.”

  The letter bore Isobel’s direction, was sealed with such cheap wax as the taverns provide, and written remarkably ill.

  It may plese you to think that you are free of the soupçon, milady, you and the tall lord who is so silent and who looks thru me; but the hanging, it is too good for you. I must keep myself by the side of my Saviour; and no one is safe in your company; and so I have gone this morning and you shall not find me out ware. The next leter, it will go to the good Sir William; and then we will see what becomes of those who kill.

  “There is no signature,” I said.

  “That is not the least of its oddities.”

  “Putting aside, for the moment, the accusations it contains,” I said, glancing at Isobel over the paper’s edge, “we must endeavour to learn what the note itself may tell us. It is clearly written by a person of the serving class, on common paper with cheap ink; a person of little application in the art of writing, to judge by the formation of the letters, and for whom English is not the native tongue. From the tenor of the message, we may conclude that the author is of French origin; the word soupçon, inserted for suspicion, being the strongest indicator. From the reference to the Saviour, I must infer that the writer is female, and probably of the Church of Rome—for a man is hardly likely to be so pious when accusing his mistress of murder.”

  “Jane!” Isobel exclaimed, sitting straighter on her chaise, “you have managed marvellously! I might almost think you wrote this letter yourself.”

  “Indeed, I did not. But I may venture to guess who did.”

  “By all means, share your apprehension.” My friend’s voice trembled with eagerness.

  “Your maid Marguerite,” I said soberly. “Have you seen her since this letter arrived?”

  The Countess’s face was suffused with scarlet, then overlaid with a deathly pallor. “I have not,” she answered unsteadily. “Marguerite attended me this morning and has been absent ever since. I assumed she felt all the burden of this unhappy house’s misery, and would leave me to endure it in solitude.”

  “I fear she had worse in train.” I glanced at the travelling clock on Isobel’s mantel; it was close to the dinner hour of five in the afternoon, and the December dark had already fallen. “We shall not find her in the neighbourhood by this time.”

  “But, Jane, what can have caused Marguerite to charge me with such cruel deceit?” Isobel’s warm brown eyes filled with tears. “I, the murderess of my husband! It is impossible!”

  “She does not lay the blame upon you alone, my dear,” I said slowly. “There is another to whom she refers.”

  “The tall lord,” Isobel said, faltering. “It must be Trowbridge she speaks of.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “To what purpose is any of it?”

  “She cannot have been thrown very much in his way,” I said reasonably.

  “Indeed, she has not.”

  “Then, my dear, we must consider her as indicating another.” My tone was brisk, but I awaited the effect of my impertinence with some trepidation.

  There was an instant’s silence as Isobel sought my meaning. Then she raised her eyes to mine with perfect composure. “Fitzroy Payne?” she said.

  “I think it very likely. He is more of the household, and thus more likely to have encountered the maid.”

  “You may have the right of it.” The Countess’s fingers worked at the fine lace of her dressing gown, as though by sorting its threads she might untangle this puzzle. “It is like Marguerite to add the small aside of Fitzroy having ‘looked through her.’ I more than once observed her make the gesture against the evil eye when his gaze chanced to fall upon her; she mistrusted grey hair in one as yet young, and avowed that it was the Devil’s mark.”
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  “Was the maid so susceptible to fancy then, Isobel?”

  “Marguerite was ever a superstitious, foolish child, the result of her island upbringing.” My friend’s eyes met mine, and her gaze was troubled. “I suppose the violence of my husband’s last illness has given her some misapprehension, which, with time, has become a terrible conviction of evil.”

  “Undoubtedly the case,” I said gently, “but the result may be no less injurious to your reputation and well-being, Isobel. The maid threatens to inform one Sir William. And who is he, pray?”

  “Sir William Reynolds,” Isobel said. “The magistrate.”6

  “Not Sir William Reynolds, formerly of the King’s Bench?”

  Isobel shrugged and looked bewildered. “I cannot undertake to say, Jane. The man is a stranger to me. Have you known such a gentleman?”

  “Indeed, and all my life,” I declared with eagerness. “The barrister I would mention is a dear friend of my father’s—the acquaintance having been formed while both were yet unmarried, and but novices in their respective professions. Though the name is so very common, my Sir William and yours may be strangers to one another. Has he been resident very long in the neighbourhood?”

  Isobel frowned in thought. “I do not believe that he has. His current office, indeed, is of only recent conference. Frederick—my late husband—was Lord Lieutenant of the County,7 and appointed Sir William to the post a twelvemonth ago. But, Jane, if the justice is so very well known to you, is it possible that he might be moved to consideration on my behalf?”

  “Were I an utter unknown to Sir William, I should still look to him for consolation in time of trouble,” I replied without hesitation, “for any who seek justice may be sure to find it at his hands.”

  “What would you have me do, Jane?” the Countess asked simply.

  “We cannot stop the maid from sending a note as poisonous as this to the magistrate, and so I would advise that we anticipate her actions, and call Sir William to us without delay. It is within his province to halt such evil rumour before it may do further harm—or to investigate the case for just cause, if any there might be.”

  “Jane! Can you think it?”

  “Of you, my dear, never.” I folded the maid’s note and offered it to her. “But of others? Anything may be possible in this world, where the fortunes of men are at stake; and the Earl’s fortune, you will own, was considerable.”

  “But only Fitzroy Payne may benefit by it,” she argued, crumpling the betraying letter in her hand; “and for Fitzroy to act with violence is unthinkable.”

  “Isobel,” I said gently, “I fear you have not told me all where that gentleman is concerned.”

  Silence and an averted look were my reward, but a flush had begun to overtake the paleness of my friend’s complexion.

  “If you fall in with my plan of apprising Sir William of the nature of this letter, he will undoubtedly enquire as to the maid’s meaning,” I observed.

  Isobel reached for my hand, her face stricken. “Jane, Jane—you must protect me! It is too much. The pain of Frederick’s death—this horrible letter—and now, to expose Fitzroy so dreadfully—I cannot bear it!”

  “If I am to help you, my dear,” I said, kneeling at her feet, “I must know where I am. You must tell me what you can, Isobel, for everything may be of the greatest importance.”

  “You fear for me, Jane?”

  “I fear for us all.”

  1. For twentieth-century readers, some explanation may prove useful. Apoplexy was the common nineteenth-century term for stroke, while dyspepsia signified indigestion.—Editor’s note.

  2. At the death of Frederick, Earl of Scargrave, Fitzroy Payne became the eighth Earl in his stead. As such, Austen now addresses him as Lord Scargrave, rather than Lord Payne, as he was when merely a viscount.—Editor’s note.

  3. It was customary for ladies to adopt dark mourning clothes for varying periods of time at the death of family members—at least a year upon the death of a husband or child, and as little as six weeks for more distant relations.—Editor’s note.

  4. Le Beau Monde was simply one of the fashionable journals avidly read by members of select Georgian society; its fashion plates presented the latest in ladies’ and gentlemen’s clothing.—Editor’s note.

  5. Mantua-maker is a Georgian term for dressmaker, after the mantua, a type of gown worn in the eighteenth century. It gradually fell out of use, to be replaced by the French modiste, and eventually by dressmaker.—Editor’s note.

  6. The Countess’s use of the term magistrate may confuse some readers, who are aware that magistrates were generally salaried individuals appointed to keep order in large cities. The correct term for Sir William Reynolds’s office is justice of the peace—an unsalaried position usually accorded a member of the country gentry. In rural areas, however, the two titles were often used interchangeably, since the unpaid justice of the peace performed the essential duties of a magistrate. —Editor’s note.

  7. The Lord Lieutenant of the County was an office usually accorded a high-ranking peer; his chief duties were to commission the various local justices of the peace, or magistrates, and to call out the militia in time of invasion.—Editor’s note.

  14 December 1802, cont.

  ˜

  “YOU WILL HAVE OBSERVED HIS REGARD FOR ME.”

  Isobel had abandoned her chaise and was standing before the grate, her hand on the mantel and her lovely eyes fixed upon my face. In the fine dressing gown of Valenciennes lace, her dark red hair burnished by the light of the fire, she was magnificent. How could Fitzroy Payne help but adore her?

  “There is a measure of warmth in Fitzroy Payne’s manner beyond what a man might accord his aunt by marriage,” I replied carefully.

  “Even an aunt four years his junior?” Her laugh was bitter. “Can ever a family have been so discordantly arranged!”

  “You understood the Earl’s age when you married him, Isobel. A man twenty-six years your senior must be allowed to have acquired a nephew or two along the way.”

  “But such a nephew as Fitzroy? The paragon of men?” She began to turn back and forth before the fire, her arms wrapped protectively across her breast, her aspect tortured. “The man I might have encountered sooner, Jane—and having met, married as I should have married, for love and not simply the security of means?”

  “I had not known you accepted the Earl from mercenary motives, Isobel.” I confess I was shocked; but our conversation regarding the married state, in the little alcove the night of the ball, returned forcibly to my mind.

  “But then you cannot have understood the state of my father’s affairs at his death,” the Countess said, wheeling to face me. “You will recall that he passed from this life but a year before my arrival in England. In truth, his fortunes were sadly reduced. The plantations at Crosswinds—my childhood home—have suffered numerous reverses, due in part to the poor price of coffee, in part to disease among the bushes, and not least owing to unrest among the slaves who work the estate. Lord Harold Trowbridge’s shadow has been thrust upon this house because our holdings are at their final extremity.”

  “You have recent intelligence of the plantation’s affairs?”

  “I have it from Trowbridge himself. He is returned but six months from a survey of his West Indies investments, of which he hopes to make Crosswinds a part. He had not been in England a week when he obtruded painfully on my notice.”

  “But what can be his power over you, Isobel, that he chose not to exert over your father?”

  “Lord Harold is my principal creditor, Jane. He has bought up all my father’s debts, at a considerable discount, and has chosen now to call in loans of some thirty years’ duration—at an exorbitant rate of interest,” my friend said, wringing her hands in despair. “I have no recourse, so Trowbridge tells me, but to hand him the land in exchange for a discharge of my father’s debt.”

  “I had no notion that your affairs were in such a state.”

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p; “How could you?” Isobel said, with some distress. “It is a fact I would not have broadly known. But the fear of losing Crosswinds has directed my endeavours since my father’s death. My determination to remove to England two years ago was formed with the primary purpose of finding a suitable husband—a man of solidity and fortune who could revive my faltering affairs. I believed I had found him in dear Frederick.” Isobel gazed up at her late husband’s portrait, her face suffused with tenderness.

  “That he knew of my troubles when he married me, Jane, I may freely own,” she continued, with a look for me. “I would not join my poor fortune to one such as his without revealing all. Lord Scargrave bore me such great love”—at this, she suffered an emotion that impeded her speech for an instant—”that he was willing to undertake my cause without a second thought. All that it was in his power to do, he would do; even to the extent of entertaining Trowbridge the very night of our bridal ball.”

  “And you, Isobel? Did you bear him equal love?”

  “I thought that what I felt might be called by that name,” my friend replied faintly, her hand going to her throat. “Perhaps I deluded myself from a wish to obtain that security he so nobly offered. Oh, how to explain the man that was my husband, Jane?” She sank once more to her chaise, her attitude all despondency.

  “He seemed a respectable gentleman,” I observed.

  “Jane! Jane! Such coldness for poor Frederick!” Isobel’s eyes filled with tears. “Lord Scargrave was not young, as you saw, except in his vivacity of spirit and the energy he brought to each of his dearest projects. He was a man of great warmth and good humoui; yet could betray the iron of his ancestors when pressed. I admired Frederick, I respected him, I felt towards him a depth of gratitude I could not help but express—I esteemed him, Jane, as a daughter might esteem a father. Indeed, I wonder ofttimes if it was not a second father I sought when I threw myself upon the marriage market.”