Jane and the Barque of Frailty Read online

  The harsh words achieved their effect; the train of carriages slowly turned the corner into Hans Place. Would this potentate of the steppes bury his dead Princess with all possible speed? Or would he demand a full enquiry into the nature of her death?

  And why did I persist in believing the suicide was false—a bit of theatre for the credulous ton?

  Theatre. The Theatre Royal, where the Princess had sat, elegant and composed, her countenance earnest as she gazed at Lord Castlereagh’s box. But a few hours before her bloody end at his lordship’s door, the woman I’d seen was hardly on the brink of madness. I did not think she had ever been. I pulled the bed-curtains closed, and went back to sleep.

  “HENRY,” I SAID AS WE HASTENED UP THE STEPS OF the British Gallery a few hours later, intent upon the watercolour exhibition, “what do the members of your club say, regarding Princess Tscholikova’s death? How does the betting run—for or against Castlereagh, and murder?”

  “We do not have the kind of betting book you should find at White’s, Jane,” my brother tolerantly replied; it is Henry’s great virtue that nothing I may say will ever shock him. “Nor does it approach what you should discover at Brooks’s. Your Lord Harold was a member of both clubs, I believe—but such company will always be far above my touch. The members are more careful of their blunt when they have earned it themselves. All the same, I have laid ten pounds upon the outcome’s being suicide—and know the odds to be rising steadily in my favour.”

  “Had I ten pounds to wager, I should challenge you,” I instantly replied. “I had no notion you were such a pigeon for the plucking, Henry! There has been no mention of a weapon in the papers; and if none was found, depend upon it, the Princess was killed by another’s hand. It remains only to determine whether Castlereagh’s was that hand.”

  “By no means,” Henry countered, as we paused before a delightful picture of the sea that my Naval brothers should have roundly abused, for its ignorance of the properties of both warfare and nature. “It is probable that the coroner charged with the lady’s inquest prefers to keep the particulars of the case to himself, until such time as the panel is assembled.”

  “When is the inquest to be called? I have seen no mention of it in the papers.”

  “Ah! In this you will find the true worth of the clubman,” Henry replied with satisfaction. “Tho’ it was thought the affair would be hastily managed—a verdict easily returned—there was some little delay, I collect, at the request of the Princess’s family. A representative desired to be present; a brother, I believe. The inquest is called for ten o’clock tomorrow morning—in the publick house next to the Bow Street magistracy. Any number of bets ride upon the outcome; most of your Pall Mall loungers will be crammed into the room.”

  “Would you escort me there, Henry?”

  “Good Lord, Jane!” he cried, startled. “I cannot think it proper. However many panels you may have seen in recent years, they are as nothing to a Bow Street affair.”

  “But the magistracy is only a step from your bank! You know you will never resist the temptation to look in upon the proceedings.”

  “What has that to say to your presence?”

  “Do not play propriety with me, Henry,” I told him warningly. “I am no more broken to saddle than Eliza. If you do not agree to escort me to Bow Street, I shall walk the whole way by myself.”

  Henry stopped still in the middle of the gallery, the stream of visitors flowing around us like rainwater round a pebble. “Jane, I cannot think you a victim of vulgar curiosity. Why does the lady’s self-murder trouble you so?”

  “I cannot credit it.”

  “—Tho’ she was a stranger to you? Tho’ you are entirely unacquainted with her history, her morals, her character?”

  “I might learn more of all three from the coroner’s inquest,” I observed.

  Henry lifted his hands in amazement. “A formality, merely! The whole business cannot demand above an hour—and will conclude as it began, with the judgement of suicide!”

  “You do not credit Lord Moira’s opinion? —That the lady was killed by another, and Castlereagh must certainly fall under suspicion?”

  “I do not. The Earl is a Whig, Jane, and should wish calamity upon all Tories even had the Princess never been born.”

  I strolled towards a depiction of Attic ruins. “Tell me about Lord Castlereagh. What sort of man is he?”

  “Respected by many, but loved by few. A cold fellow of decision and despatch, but pig-headed by all accounts and incapable of compromise. Lord Castlereagh must and shall be judged correct, in all his dealings, and will brook no criticism. Such a man may command well enough in the field—but may swiftly bring disaster on his government colleagues at home.”

  “You describe the arbiter of policy, Henry. I would learn more of Robert Stewart, the man. What are his passions? His attachments? His loyalties?”

  My brother hesitated. “I cannot rightly say. I am hardly intimate with his lordship; I know only what I read of him in the papers, and what Eliza may tell me. She is a little acquainted with Lady Castlereagh, who is forever throwing open the house on Berkeley Square to all the world.”

  “Has he any children?”

  “None.”

  “Perhaps there is no love between the lord and his lady.”

  “I cannot undertake to say. The marriage has endured for many years, and no breath of scandal has attached itself to the principals—until the Morning Post chose to publish the Princess Tscholikova’s private correspondence. Indeed, had she written to anyone other than his lordship—George Canning, perhaps, or another Tory member—I might have been less surprised. It is a part of Castlereagh’s coldness to find little of beauty in any woman. He prefers the society of gentlemen.”

  “What! He does not frequent the Muslin Company?”

  “Jane!” Henry replied, with an expression of distaste. “What has Eliza been teaching you?”

  “Nothing I did not already know.”

  “To my knowledge, Castlereagh is singularly disinterested in women of that order.”

  “—And our Henry is all astonishment! Is a Barque of Frailty so necessary to a gentleman’s comfort?”

  “In one way, at least: the company such a woman attracts is vital to any man of policy. You can have no notion, Jane, of the gentlemen who assemble in Harriette Wilson’s salon each evening—both Whigs and Tories may be found there. Lady Cowper’s drawing-rooms—or Lady Castlereagh’s—are as nothing to it. Some of the most powerful movers in the Kingdom meet at Harriette Wilson’s feet; and I do not scruple to say that more decisions of moment are taken in her company than in the House of Lords. One is neither Whig nor Tory in Miss Wilson’s circle; one merely worships at the altar of the divine Harriette.”

  “I have it on excellent authority that her star is on the wane,” I said. “Julia Radcliffe has supplanted her.”

  “Now you would speak of Canning’s latest flirt,” Henry said.

  “Mr. Canning should never be adjudged cold, then, by his fellows?”

  “Far from it. No less exalted a personage than Princess Caroline was once the object of Canning’s gallantry, if you will believe; and tho’ he is spoken of as a devoted husband and father, his family does not reside in London. 1 The eldest son is sickly, and must be often in the care of a particular physician; Mrs. Canning is quite a slave to her child, and neglects her husband. Canning was used to be met with often at Harriette Wilson’s—and I understand it was she who introduced Julia Radcliffe to his society.”

  “Eliza would have it that Radcliffe is beloved of the Comte d’Entraigues.”

  “Indeed?” Henry stared at me in some amusement. “Canning and d’Entraigues were once great friends—tho’ I do not see them go about together so often now that Canning is out of government. Perhaps the Barque of Frailty has come between them.”

  “Princess Tscholikova was also acquainted with d’Entraigues,” I mused, “for his wife told us as much; but I cannot see how tha
t is to the point.”

  “None of this highly diverting gossip will have anything to say to the murder—self-achieved or otherwise—of the Princess,” Henry observed. “You had better seek for your information in Bow Street, Jane.”

  “And yet—the rumour surrounding a man may reveal so much of his character,” I returned. “I am endeavouring to make Castlereagh’s out. He is, after all, at the centre of this business. If all you say of his lordship’s probity and coldness is correct—then the idea of his entanglement with the Princess is absurd. But there on his doorstep she was found! Can this be Canning’s revenge, perhaps? Having been worsted in a duel, did he think to ruin Lord Castlereagh with scandal—and sacrifice the Princess to his ends?”

  Henry snorted. “George Canning’s ambitions are everywhere known, Jane—but not even Canning would risk hanging in the service of such a cause. You indulge the worst sort of lady’s fancy, and make of a gentleman an ogre.”

  “I wish it were more the fashion for ladies to study politics, Henry,” I said despondently. “I am persuaded the answer to the Princess’s death lies there— with the powerful men surrounding her—and yet the web of faction is so tangled, I cannot see how.”

  “You are missing Lord Harold, Jane.” My brother slipped my hand through his arm, and led me further into the gallery. “What do you think of that portrait? I cannot admire a likeness taken in watercolour; I am all for Mr. Lawrence, and his oils.”

  1 Princess Caroline of Brunswick was the estranged wife of the Prince Regent, later George IV.—Editor’s note.

  Chapter 8

  The Lumber-Room of Memory

  Thursday, 25 April 1811, cont.

  ∼

  HENRY HAD SPARED MORE THAN AN HOUR FROM his banking concern to guide me through the exhibition, which being newly mounted, was the object of the Polite World’s interest for a fleeting time; so numerous were the patrons, that I confess I was nearly crushed in navigating the narrower passages. Picturesque landscapes, and vignettes of the sea; portraits of beauty and youth—they each had something to recommend them; but in truth my attention was equally held by the personages I saw everywhere around me. In a Hampshire village as intimate as Chawton, the society is unvarying; its delights are to be found in the small but telling transformations of personal character over time. In London, however, the richness and variety of the spectacle—in dress, equipages, retinues, and remarks—is an endless enticement to the ear and eye. I could not divide my time equally between the gallery walls and the opulent crowd milling about me; and so at length professed myself exhausted, and ready to quit the place.

  Henry saw me safely into a hackney cab, being intent upon his offices in Henrietta Street; and tho’ the day was advancing, and I was a little tired, and considering of the last few pages of my book yet to be proofed, I let down the window of the coach and directed the driver in an entirely opposite direction to Hans Town.

  “Pray convey me to the chambers of Mr. Bartholomew Chizzlewit,” I told him, “in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

  Henry was correct. I was missing Lord Harold.

  I FIRST MADE THE REDOUBTABLE CHIZZLEWIT’S ACquaintance nearly two years ago, in the cottage at Chawton which is now my home. Mr. Chizzlewit had journeyed from London for the sole purpose of putting into my hands a strange and enduring legacy: the private papers, correspondence, and journals of Lord Harold Trowbridge, second son of the fifth Duke of Wilborough: intriguer, man-about-town, and government spy. The Gentleman Rogue, as I was wont to call him, had long been an acquaintance of mine—having fallen in my way some years before, at the home of a friend newly-widowed and beset by unpleasantness.

  Lord Harold progressed from an object of suspicion to one of profound attachment; his virtues being almost indistinguishable from his vices, his character one of iron tempered by great sorrow, his scruples unexacting as to means and almost wholly taken up with ends—he was, in short, the agent of my instruction in the ways of the Great World, and the most cherished friend of my heart. He was killed by a Buonapartist agent some three years ago; and I have not yet learned to supply his loss. But his papers, when I have the time and means to consult them, are a great comfort to me—reviving, for a little, the impression of his voice and mind, in the very signature of his hand.

  They are also, I may add, a dangerous repository of intelligence, which any number of personages might do violence to obtain. There is enough matter stored in Lord Harold’s Bengal chest to end careers, induce violent hystericks, urge divorce or pistols at dawn—and having encountered the murderous effect of his lordship’s legacy in my own quiet Chawton, I resolved to despatch the chest to the security of Bartholomew Chizzlewit, who had served as his lordship’s solicitor almost from the cradle. Mr. Chizzlewit accommodated me with alacrity, and refused all my attempts at payment—remarking, in his enigmatic way, that it was a privilege to serve one who had merited his lordship’s trust, there being so few yet surviving in the world.

  I drew a veil over my face—as behooved a lady reckless enough to consult the Law quite unattended even by her abigail—and paid off the driver at the door of the chambers. The rain had dwindled to a fine mist, but the aspect of the day was lowering and gloomy; Eliza would be dozing over her French novel, and never remark upon my absence. I was impatient beyond reason to settle down with a lamp, the panelled oak door thrust to behind me, and reach once more for the beloved wraith I had glimpsed by that Derbyshire brook only this morning.

  A clerk, dressed all in black, suspended his quill as I entered the chambers. These were sensibly, if not richly, furnished with mahogany bookshelves and high tables laden with ledgers; a fire burned merrily in the open hearth; and the scent of cloves, heated by the flames, laced the air. There was no sign of the footmen in green livery who had attended the solicitor in all his state, at his descent upon Hampshire; but perhaps they were employed in Chizzlewit’s domestic establishment.

  “How may I be of service, ma’am?” the clerk enquired.

  “Miss Jane Austen, if you please, to see Mr. Chizzlewit.”

  The fellow’s eyes ran from my bonnet to my boots. The coloured muslin I had chosen for the British Gallery was newly made up, a prize won of this trip to London; but I had been long enough in Town to learn that I presented a neat but hardly dazzling appearance. The usual run of the chambers’ patrons were of the cream of nobility, and quite above my touch. The clerk was not impressed.

  “Are you expected?” he demanded impatiently.

  “No. Is Mr. Chizzlewit within?”

  “I cannot undertake to say. If I may send in your card … ”

  The truth is that I possess none. Country ladies of modest means and uncertain age do not leave their cards at each other’s houses; all such formality belongs to Town, and the society of the fashionable select, or such gentlemen of trade as are required to offer their names as surety of respectability. I had never squandered the contents of my slim purse on hot-pressed squares engraved with black ink—but the insolence of this clerk was causing me to regret my providence.

  “Pray enquire whether Mr. Chizzlewit is at leisure to receive Miss Jane Austen,” I rejoined, my voice overly-loud, “and if he is not—I shall engage to appoint an hour convenient to us both.”

  “Is there some difficulty, Edmund?” a mild voice enquired—and I glanced over my shoulder to discover a gentleman younger than myself, in buff pantaloons and a well-made coat of dark blue superfine, his cravat dexterously tied. One of the noble patrons, no doubt—who possessed a card, and was expected, and should never be made to feel shabby-genteel by a person of little manners and less birth.

  “This lady is wishful to see you, sir,” the clerk answered woodenly. “I was informing her you was engaged.”

  “But happily you were mistaken,” the gentleman said, with the ghost of a smile in his eyes. “I am quite at leisure to consult with … Mrs ….?”

  “Miss Austen,” I said quickly. “But I believe there is a mistake. It is Mr. Chizzlewit I requir
e to consult.”

  “I am Sylvester Chizzlewit,” he returned. “But perhaps you are better acquainted with my grandfather— Mr. Bartholomew Chizzlewit?”

  “Indeed! He once informed me that the firm’s service to the ducal House of Wilborough dated from his grandfather’s time—and I perceive now that the tradition is an enduring one.”

  “Wilborough!” The lurking smile broke fully on the gentleman’s face, transforming it from polite indifference to the liveliest interest. “And your name is Austen. I believe I may divine your errand, ma’am. Pray allow me to convey you to the private patrons’ chamber.”

  BEFORE DESPATCHING THE BENGAL CHEST TO LONDON nearly two years ago, I had spent any number of hours in organising its contents. Lord Harold had pursued no particular method while amassing his accounts. He had merely tossed his correspondence and journals into the depths of the chest as tho’ it were a diminutive lumber-room. Over time his records of travels in India, his schoolboy missives from Eton, his maps of Paris scrawled with marginalia, and his passionate letters to ladies long mouldering in the grave, formed an incoherent jumble. During a succession of winter days in my Hampshire village, I had established my own system of classification as rigourous as any natural philosopher’s: at the bottom of the chest I placed the childish scrawls of letters written to his beloved mother; next, his first desperate entanglement with a lady and the dissolute accounts of young manhood: gaming hells, club debauches, meetings at Chalk Farm at dawn. 1 The squandering of a second son’s income could be traced in the piles of old debts, the dunning letters of tailors, wine merchants, chandlers, and gunsmiths; the sale of a string of hunters at Tattersall’s. The inevitable exile to India filled the next layer, and the layer after that; the fifth Duke’s death and his lordship’s accession to an uncle’s fortune; his investments in the Honourable Company; the Revolution in France and the demand for his talents as a secret government envoy. It was in this guise I had finally encountered him: the Gentleman Rogue at the height of his powers—polished, cynical, adept, and aloof. He caught and held my interest precisely because the greater part of his mind was always withheld from me—who had never found it very hard to understand everybody.