Jane and His Lordship's Legacy Page 6

  Two gentlemen were approaching from the direction of the Great House, their horses—a young chestnut, and a strengthy grey—progressing at a walk. One I judged to be in his middle fifties: stout, ruddy of feature, and a model of deportment in the saddle. The other was a gentleman of perhaps half his companion’s age. Beautifully arrayed in the best Bond Street fashion, he possessed the easy seat and careless grace of a punishing rider to hounds. This must be Mr. Middleton and his son; I had understood from Neddie that there were several children, left motherless some years before.

  Beside me, Henry let slip a low and speculative whistle.

  “Devil take it!” he muttered. “What has Julian Thrace to do in Chawton, of all places?”

  Letter from Lord Harold Trowbridge to Eugenie, Duchess of Wilborough, dated Eton College, 23 January 1767; three leaves quarto, wove; no watermark.

  (British Museum, Wilborough Papers, Austen bequest)

  My dear Mamma——

  Benning will say that I ott not to adress you in so Informal a Way, you being amung the Grate of the Land; but he is a Prig and a Swot and I do not care for his vews on what is owd to a Duchess, tho I must serve him as Fag. I shall give one of the soverains you left me to Wilkins at the Gate, and he will post this letter without Benning having to know.

  I miss you eckseedingly, after all the happy times of the holydays, and I cannot help crying at night in my cot when the others have gone to sleep. I recall the noise of the streets around home, and the fires in the Park, and the smell of rosting chestnuts, and the good steemy smell of Poll my pony when we have had a run in Rotten Row, and I feel such a desire to leave this place and be back with you and Nanny that I have three times tryed to run away. My efferts have not been graced with success. After the last, I could not sit down for two days, Mr. Pilfer being librul with his switch and Benning having topped the whole with a slipper aplyed to my backside. I hate Benning but my brother says he is a Great Gun and I must do as he says. I hope he gets the Pox as some of the older boys have got it and two have died. Perhaps if you are fearful of the Pox you will send for me? Pilfer says he shall write to Papa if I run away a forth time, so I shall not.

  It seems an age until the end of term. You will not forget me?

  When I am grown I shall take you back to live in Paris and you will never cry in the evenings when Papa is away again, and I shall never cry for missing you.

  Your loving son,

  Harry

  Chapter 7

  The Bond Street Beau

  5 July 1809, cont.

  ~

  MR. JULIAN THRACE, AS HENRY LATER INFORMED ME, IS THE latest sensation of the ton: a gentleman who appears to have sprung from exactly nowhere as recently as January, breaking upon Fashionable London with all the force of a thunderclap: his looks, his air, his manners, and his social graces being of the finest. For a young man of two-and-twenty, who possesses neither title nor fortune, to gain the kind of introductions Mr. Thrace everywhere obtained, was no less extraordinary than it was wondered at; he was carried into Carlton House on the arm of the Earl of Holbrook; was proposed for membership at White’s by as many as half a dozen of its standing members; was admitted to the most exclusive assemblies without hesitation; and was no more suspected of seduction by the careful mammas parading their daughters in the Green Park of an afternoon, than was the local man of the cloth.

  “But who is he, Henry?” I demanded, as my brother regaled me with the tale during our return to the cottage.

  “An orphan, reared for some years abroad,” my brother replied. “His history is a delicate one—and thus discourages the impertinent from delving too far into Mr. Thrace’s business. It is said that he is the illegitimate son of a peer, and will shortly be proclaimed that gentleman’s heir, as the nobleman in question has no legitimate male issue; and on the basis of rumour and his expectations alone, Thrace has been living on tick for the past six months.1 I admire the fellow’s audacity; but I wonder at his prospects. Those of us in the banking profession—and any number have been applied to, Jane, for the support of Mr. Thrace’s debts—have taken to calling him the South Sea Bubble, from a belief that he is just such an object of speculation, and likely to leave any number of his current backers awash in future.”

  Mr. Middleton had reined in his horse, and deigned to recognise the brother of his landlord in a very abrupt but kindhearted fashion; had suffered an introduction to myself, and welcomed me stoutly to Chawton; had offered up his young friend Thrace to the notice of the Austen party; and avowed that he intended that very morning to call upon my mother and offer his deepest congratulations on her present fortunate state, in possessing the cottage.

  “—Tho’ I cannot admire the manner of your welcome,” he observed with a sober look. “My deepest sympathies, Miss Austen, on the distress of your discovery in the cellar. A most unfortunate business—quite unaccountable.”

  “And certain to be much talked of,” Miss Benn added in a sprightly fashion.

  “We must suppose, however, that the affair will be concluded with despatch. Mr. Prowting is a commendable magistrate when necessity affords him occasion to act; he will already have communicated with the coroner, whom I believe must be summoned from Basingstoke.” The invocation of so august a town conferred a certain weight to Mr. Middleton’s words, and we all fell silent in contemplation of Death and its exigencies. Mr. Thrace, I observed, looked suitably grave; but as he uttered not a syllable, I had no opportunity to judge of his sense.

  The gentlemen of the Great House went on their way, being bound for Alton and some trifling errands among the tradesmen, but not before Mr. Middleton recollected to issue a general invitation to dine with his party the following evening. As the gratifying notice included Henry and the simpering Miss Benn, we parted in the middle of the Street with satisfaction on all sides.

  “I am determined to return to the George with all possible haste,” Henry breathed, “so as to be certain that my partner, Mr. Gray, refuses Julian Thrace’s depredations on the Alton branch. Burglary and corpses are as nothing, I assure you, Jane, when compared to the demands of a Bond Street Beau.”

  “You are too cruel, Henry. I suppose many a warm man must be similarly stingy.”

  “I am sure I do not wish penury on any of my fellows,” my brother protested as we parted before the cottage door, “but I should feel more sanguine regarding the monies disbursed to Mr. Thrace’s account, did I have an inkling of which peer he purports to belong to.”

  “Surely the rumour-mills have supplied a name.”

  “They have supplied two, Jane,” Henry returned. “—The Earl of Holbrook, who carried Thrace into Carlton House; and the Viscount St. Eustace, who is so ill and bedridden he is said to rarely quit Eustace House in Berkshire. Both men have sired only daughters, and both are as rich as Croesus. Rather than pass their titles and wealth to distant cousins, they think to legitimate babes born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

  “Thrace himself lays claim to no one?”

  “What would be the sport in it, if he did? The betting-book at Tattersall’s is offering odds of seven-to-one for the Viscount; but at Brooks’s Club they will have it all for the Earl.”

  It was extraordinary, I thought as Henry rode off in the direction of Alton, what men could adopt as the point of a wager. Lord Harold’s visage rose suddenly before my eyes—an intimate of Brooks’s Club these thirty years, perhaps. I missed him then sharply and inconsolably; for the Rogue would have taken Mr. Thrace’s measure in an instant.

  THE DAY PASSED SWIFTLY IN ALL THE BUSINESS OF unpacking, my sole relief from the incessant chatter of my mother having come in the form of a visit from Mr. Prowting and his eldest daughter. He came to be important and grave; Catherine brought a gift of eggs and cheese and a palpable desire for conversation.

  “I bear sad tidings, Mrs. Austen,” the magistrate pronounced. “Mr. Munro—Coroner of Basingstoke, and no mere surgeon, but a most accomplished physician in his way, and a cre
ditable player at whist—has arrived in Alton not half an hour ago. He is even now engaged in an examination of the unfortunate person discovered by myself and Miss Austen”—this, with a bow for me—“in your cellar.”

  “And has he decided who the poor fellow is, Mr. Prowting?” my mother enquired with an expression of interest.

  “One Shafto French, as I understand—a nephew of Old Philmore, who is a tenant of Mr. Edward Austen and the freeholder of several cottages in the neighbourhood.”

  “Are the Frenches a respectable family?”

  “They are certainly a prodigious one. You cannot spit anywhere on the ground between here and Alton—begging your pardon, ma’am—without striking a French, or a Philmore, come to that. Good Hampshire stock, all of them, and long-established in the neighbourhood; but Shafto was given to drink and indigence. It is not to be wondered at, after all, that he should end as he did. Still, he leaves a hopeful family behind—and this death will go hard on his wife, Jemima.”

  “Can Mr. Munro say at all how French died?” I asked.

  “Not as yet.”

  “—Nor how he came to be in our cellar?” my mother interposed.

  “Such questions, dear lady, may be answered in good time,” the magistrate replied. “Due to the sad state of the corpse, Mr. Munro gives it as his opinion that the inquest into French’s demise should brook no delay. As magistrate, I should have liked to await the arrival in Chawton of Mr. Edward Austen, whom you have given me to understand is even now on his road from Kent; but in matters of physick I have no authority. I must give way. The inquest is to be held at two o’clock.”

  “Today?” I enquired.

  “Indeed. In less than three hours’ time, in the private parlour at the George. Naturally, I shall be present.”

  “I should like to attend,” I said firmly.

  Mr. Prowting’s eyes bulged from his head, and I am convinced he choked a little as he formed his reply. “My dear Miss Austen, there is not the slightest need. Not the slightest need. Naturally you feel some interest in the man’s history, having found him as you did—”

  “—And some responsibility, as well, to inform the coroner’s panel of what I observed,” I rejoined calmly. “You cannot dissuade me, Mr. Prowting—I am determined to go. I should be very much obliged, however, if you would convey me to Alton in company with yourself.”

  “My daughter, as you see, is a veritable ghoul when it comes to inquests and murder, Mr. Prowting,” my mother observed. “I cannot count the number of panels Jane has attended; and given evidence, too.”

  Catherine Prowting, who overlistened the whole, gave an audible gasp.

  “Many are the hours I have spent in enlarging upon the subject,” my mother continued, “but Jane will not see that no respectable man will take up with a lady who is so mad for blood. It is unnatural in a woman. But she will not understand me. She will not listen to reason. I am sure, Mr. Prowting, that you suffer similar trials yourself—being the father of daughters.”

  “An inquest cannot be the proper place for a lady,” Mr. Prowting said doubtfully.

  “In the present case, sir,” I replied with dignity, “I believe attendance to be my duty. The man was found in this house; and surely we must learn the truth, at all costs, of how he came here.”

  The magistrate looked for aid to his daughter; but such a recourse must be useless. Catherine Prowting was pale as death, her hand gripping the back of my mother’s chair; and in an instant she had slipped to the floor insensible.

  WE PREVAILED UPON MR. PROWTING TO LEAVE HIS daughter a little while in our care, and Catherine appeared—when consciousness was regained—not averse to the suggestion. We laid her upon the sopha in the sitting room, and my mother went in search of vinegar-water, while the magistrate patted her hand in loving awkwardness.

  “You will never be as strong as your sisters,” he told her fondly. “It is the head-ache, I suppose?”

  “Yes, Papa,” she said tearfully.

  “Well, well—rest a little in Miss Austen’s care, and then return to your mother. But do not be alarming her with talk of an indisposition. You know what her nerves are.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  I saw the magistrate to the door and closed it quietly, so as not to disturb my suffering neighbour; and indeed, tho’ returned to her senses, Catherine looked very ill. Had it been the talk of blood and corpses that had unnerved her so?

  “I understand you will be dining at the Great House tomorrow,” she managed as I dipped a cloth into the vinegar-water my mother had provided, and prepared to bathe her temples. “We are all to go as well, and my sister is devoting the better part of the morning to new-dressing her hair.”

  “At your sister’s age—a period of high spirits, charm, and natural bloom—one’s appearance is of consuming interest,” I observed.

  “Perhaps. There are four years’ difference in age between myself and Ann—she is but two-and-twenty; but I confess I have never wasted a tenth part of the hours that Ann believes necessary to the perfection of her toilette. Of course, I have not her beauty; but is it not remarkable, Miss Austen, that the more beauty one possesses, the more one is required to nurture and support it?”

  “A tedious business,” I agreed with a laugh, “that must make the disappearance of all bloom a blessing rather than a pity!—As I have reason to know.”

  “But you are charming,” Catherine protested.

  “I am in my thirty-fourth year, my dear, and must put charm aside at last.”

  “I have lived the better part of my life with Ann’s beauty and foibles as though they were quite another member of the family. There is more than enough of them to supply two women, I assure you—and when such a prospect as dinner at the Great House is in view, and in the company of a Bond Street Beau, there is hardly room for us both at Prowtings!”

  This was bitterness, indeed, let slip so readily to a virtual stranger; but not all sisters are happy in possessing that perfect understanding and cordiality that have always obtained between Cassandra and me. I gazed at Catherine—at the sweetness of expression in her mild dark eyes, and the nut-brown indifference of her hair; and understood that a lifetime of denial and self-effacement had been hers: supported almost unconsciously by the fond indulgence of parents whose collusion in their youngest daughter’s vanity, though perhaps at first unwitting, was now become the sole method of managing her.

  “That is enough vinegar,” Catherine said abruptly. “I am very well now, I thank you—indeed, I cannot understand how I should have come to be overpowered in the first place. It is so very silly—”

  “We were too frank in our conversation. We should have considered that you were not equal to it.”

  “I ought to have been, Miss Austen. I ought to be equal to … many things.” She turned towards the window and stretched out her arms, as though she would fly from its casement to a wider world. I had been that way myself, once, in a small vicarage in Hampshire; I had dreamt of crossing the seas—of being an Irishman’s wife—had exulted in hope of adventure and limitless skies, and chafed against the boundaries of glebe and turnpike. A surge of fellow-feeling from my breast to Catherine’s, then; a recognition of hopes blighted and dreams put away.

  “Is Ann your only sister?” I enquired.

  “Elizabeth, my elder, is long since married,” Catherine replied. “We were all so unfortunate as to lose my two brothers to illness and accident; William being carried off while at school in Winchester; and John but a year later at home.”

  I had carelessly used the very same names in my request for a manservant; how Mr. Prowting must have felt it, and misunderstood my levity’s cause! I felt a surge of colour to my cheeks. “You have all my sympathy. Were they very young?”

  “William was fifteen, and John but nine.”

  “How dreadful!” I thought of Mrs. Prowting—of the black-edged handkerchief that appeared to be wedded to her palm—with a deeper comprehension. Despair and grief may appear to
greater advantage when writ on an elegant form; but Mrs. Prowting’s large, comfortable bulk, though better suited to laughter, held as much right to suffering as my own.2

  I saw Catherine over the stile in the meadow, with profuse thanks for the gift of eggs and cheese; and as she walked slowly into her house—into that orgy of preparation and exhilarated transport in which she was expected to take no part—I went back to the cottage.

  If I hurried, I might just have time to read another of Lord Harold’s papers before I journeyed to Alton, and met the coroner.

  Excerpt from the diaries of Lord Harold Trowbridge, dated 12 December 1782, on board the Indiaman Delos, bound for Bombay.

  … it is no bad thing to be a young man of two-and-twenty, with the Paradise of the Subcontinent looming off the bow, and all the riches of a sultan’s court waiting to be plucked. There are the women lodged in all the acceptable quarters—no longer young, or lacking in fortune and looks, and in short the very dross of English gentility, sent out as brides to men they have never met and a life in a climate likely to kill them before very long. They are desperate for sport and fun before the voyage should be over—knowing, from the most ignorant of presentiments, that marriage to a stranger cannot be very agreeable, and seduction from a shipmate must provide present excitement and the comfort of stories for telling hereafter. I have lifted five skirts to date in the languid forenoon of a becalmed passage, and Freddy Vansittart is no less lucky—with his dark looks and his roguish smile, he can win any number of hearts. Stella from Yorkshire will have him, and he does not take care.

  We have sunk to betting on the women as we do at cards, the boredom of this voyage being almost insufferable; and on occasion, when I am feeling low, I am thankful to God for Freddy Vansittart—his wild laughter and neck-or-nothing heart are all that stand between me and a pistol ball in the head. Like me, Freddy is a scoundrel and a second son; and if we do not hang together we shall most assuredly hang separately.

  I believe I have borrowed that last sentiment from another, but cannot recollect whom.