Jane and the Barque of Frailty jam-9 Page 9

  Clem Black snorted derisively. I observed Bill Skroggs’s hands to clench.

  “You require our help as much as we require your mercy,” I declared. “Come, Mr. Skroggs — shall we strike a bargain?”

  Chapter 11

  Lord Castlereagh Condescends

  Friday, 26 April 1811

  THE MORNING OF THE PRINCESS’S INQUEST DAWNED fair and bright, more May than April, with a frivolous breeze that set the horse chestnut leaves to fluttering. I had no share in the innocence of the day, however; I was wrapped around in deceit, the chief object of it my brother.

  Upon Henry’s return from his bank, Eliza and I had said nothing of the Bow Street Runners’ calamitous call. We had enjoined poor Madame Bigeon and Manon to secrecy, and their love for Eliza was so great, that at length they acquiesced — tho’ Madame was all for recruiting Henry’s wit and stoutness in foiling the brutal intent of the Law. The Frenchwomen’s experiences in their native country, and the troubles that occasioned their flight to England, had taught them to trust neither in plots nor constabulary — but to avoid all such authority as might sever their heads from their necks. In this I detected good sense and hard courage, and resolved to employ the two ladies’ talents whenever my own should fail me.

  I had managed, in the end, to bring Bill Skroggs neatly round my thumb. The Runner had been taught to see the sense of my argument — that Eliza and I should penetrate where he should be barred— and had agreed to accord us our liberty for the space of one week: a mere seven days to defeat the object of a most cunning and subtle killer. I found the constraint of the brief period immaterial; I had always intended to quit London by the end of the month in any case. The imperative to clear my name in the interim merely added a fillip of interest to the waning days of my Season. I had much to do, if I were not to hang.

  While Manon ushered the two men to the door, and Skroggs issued his final cold-blooded warnings, I was busy enumerating in my mind the chief points that must be addressed, in an undertaking such as this:

  Firstly, did Anne, Comtesse d’Entraigues, know to whom her jewellery in fact belonged, or was it a treasure that had fallen into her lap as chancily as she deposited it in ours?

  Secondly, had the Comtesse participated in either the theft of the Princess Tscholikova’s jewels, or her murder?

  Thirdly, if the Princess had been killed — or her dead body deposited — on Castlereagh’s doorstep, who should most benefit from the ruin of his lordship’s reputation?

  And fourthly, were that person and the Princess’s murderer in league — unknown to each other — or were they one and the same?

  Eliza went up to her room directly the outer door was closed on the offending emissaries of Bow Street. She pled her tiresome cold — and when at length Henry returned, he forbore to disturb her. I uttered falsehood after falsehood as we two sat down to a cold supper, furnished without apology or explanation by Madame Bigeon. Henry drank his wine, enquiring idly of my afternoon, and I was free to divert my anxiety by imparting every detail of Chizzlewit’s chambers — for my brother had known of Lord Harold’s Bengal chest nearly as long as I.

  “It would seem, from what you say, Jane, that his lordship was most unhappy with Sir John Moore’s conduct of the Swedish campaign,” Henry observed. “I believe that gallant general was in fact arrested by King Gustavus, and only escaped Stockholm by donning a peasant’s clothes, and making his way through the gates of the city in a labourer’s cart.”

  “Lord Harold utters no criticism of Moore,” I said thoughtfully, “and indeed, I have always reflected that Moore’s subsequent death in the retreat from Corunna would have deeply grieved his lordship, had he lived to know it.[12] I took the import of his text to mean, rather, that he disapproved of the Government’s diversion of force and attention from Peninsular affairs, to those in the Baltic.”

  “That is perhaps the case,” Henry said cautiously, “but I cannot find that troop dispositions made two years since, can have any bearing on the death of a woman in Berkeley Square. Recollect, Jane, that the Prince — rather than serving as unofficial leader of the opposition — now holds the reins of government as Regent; that Mr. Perceval’s government is in flux; that Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning came to such blows that they are no longer invested with considerable powers in the Cabinet — as they were when Lord Harold wrote his entry — and thus, that the case is entirely altered! You cannot be forever seeking illumination in those old papers, my dear — tho’ it pains me to say as much.”

  “All the same — I should like to have a little conversation with Lord Moira, Henry. I would be most grateful if you could put me in the way of speaking to him, as soon as may be.”

  “I should be very happy, Jane.” My brother appeared startled. “But why this impatience?”

  An idea of the gallows rose in my mind. “My time in London … grows short.”

  “As does mine.” He glanced at me ruefully. “I am expected in Oxford on militia business for much of next week. I quit London on Sunday — but rest assured that Egerton will proceed with his printing whether I am present to spur him, or not. Eliza shall be Egerton’s taskmaster in my absence.”

  Would that my novel were all that occupied my heart in the interval!

  “You are very good, Henry.” I kissed his cheek as I rose from the table. My brother clasped my hand a moment in his before releasing it.

  “I need not say how much your presence at such a time must gratify me, Jane. I cannot like leaving Eliza alone when she is in such a case.”

  A tremor of guilt suffused me. “You would mean … her cold? But it is very trifling.”

  He thrust his chair from the table. “She is hardly as young as she once was. Her indispositions of late have only increased, no matter how many remedies she seeks for them. I will not scruple to disclose that our removal to this house in Sloane Street was due in part to a desire for a more salubrious neighbourhood. The air in Hans Town is very fresh — it might almost remind one of the country.”

  “Indeed it might. And now that May is upon us—”

  “You do not find Eliza much altered?” my brother demanded. “I tell myself it is only the ravages of the winter, but her health has always been indifferent, Jane — you know her for a most delicate creature.”

  I perceived that this trouble had been growing upon him, in the quiet evenings of early dusk, through December and January; such is the fate of a man who marries a lady ten years his senior, to be staring always at the prospect of a grave.

  “Nonsense,” I said. “Eliza is very stout. And I am here to nurse her, with mustard plasters and flannel if necessary. Go to Oxford.”

  When he would have smiled, and turned for his library door, I added swiftly, “But make my introduction to Lord Moira first, I beg!”

  “Is it so important?” The satiric twinkle of my Henry of old was returned once more to his eyes. “I might almost believe you in fear for your life, Jane— so ardent is your desire for instruction in politics! We might look for Lord Moira to attend the inquest into Tscholikova’s death on the morrow. Most of the Upper Ten Thousand[13] will have squeezed into the publican’s rooms before nine o’clock has tolled.”

  “Then I shall certainly accompany you,” I said swiftly, and bid him goodnight.

  I confess I was relieved to learn that my brother would be absent for the better part of next week; I had too much to accomplish in those swiftly declining days, and too little guile to manage the business without a full confession. I might expect Eliza to emerge from her sickroom the very moment her husband’s hired mare had clattered away from Sloane Street; we would all of us move in greater ease once the ignorant were absent from the house.

  For my part, I employed a quarter-hour in writing a brief missive to Sylvester Chizzlewit, Esquire, before snuffing out my candle. It should be sent round to the solicitor’s chambers no later than eight o’clock in the morning, with a discreetly-worded plea for his attendance upon me in Sloane Street. I fo
resaw the need of a gentleman in the coming days — one with an acute and subtle mind — and my brief acquaintance with the Chizzlewit family assured me that the youngest scion should possess such qualities.

  As for the inquest itself — I had no fear of being called as witness by the coroner, to account for my dubious brokering of a dead woman’s jewels. Bill Skroggs had assured me that the magistrate would permit no mention of the curious theft to be introduced at the proceedings. Death alone was the panel’s province; Lord Castlereagh’s subtle investigations into a murder were a matter of stealth, to be conducted in the shadows.

  THE BOW STREET MAGISTRATE’S OFFICE SITS DIrectly opposite the Theatre Royal, where Monday evening I had obtained my sole glimpse of Princess Tscholikova in life. It is also aptly located hard by a publick house: the Brown Bear, capably run by one Steptoe Harding. On these premises the Runners are wont to rest their weary limbs at the close of the day, and trade tales of the ardours of crime, under the influence of a can of ale or a measure of Blue Ruin. This morning, however, as Henry and I made our way towards Covent Garden, the narrow passage of Bow Street was clogged with carriage traffick that all but prohibited entry to the Bear. It was as my brother had predicted: the cream of London Society had come to learn why a Russian princess had breathed her last on Lord Castlereagh’s doorstep.

  It was but half-past eight o’clock in the morning, and the inquest was not to be opened until the hour of ten; yet already seats were claimed towards the front of the publican’s main taproom, and the knot of persons by the door was five deep, all of them discoursing at the top of their lungs on every subject from movements in the Peninsula to a nobleman’s losses in one of the more fashionable gambling hells. Most of the interested parties were gentlemen: some of their faces I recognised. None were of Henry’s intimate circle — indeed, these were the Great of London Society: Lord Alvanley, who was extremely wealthy and deplorably intimate with the Prince Regent; Earl Grey, who might hope to lead a government in time, if the Regent deigned to remember his Whiggish friends; Henry, Lord Holland — another Whig, but one for whom I held an indescribable fondness, as having been the object of Lord Harold Trowbridge’s trust and esteem for thirty years at least. I have no acquaintance with Lord Holland or his fashionable lady; I shall never dine among the twenty or thirty Select who are summoned nightly to take potluck at Holland House; but I shall always bear him a depth of affection, for having supported Lord Harold in his darkest days.

  The scene should have been offensive, were it not so benignly familiar: a crowd of elegant clubmen conversing at their ease in the Brown Bear, while beyond the door of the publick room, the body of Princess Tscholikova must even then await the scrutiny of the coroner’s panel: blue and cold, her neck ravaged by a knife or a razor, the remains already giving off a putrid smell at the passage of four days’ time. I felt a wild impulse to go to her — to protect this unknown woman from the callous riot of hunting and pugilism, on-dits and cockfights, the formation of governments and Perceval’s discomfiture … I thought to look for Earl Moira, in the hope that I might profit from this interval in furthering acquaintance — but as Henry squeezed politely past a gentleman who must, who could only be the ambitious Tory minister, George Canning, I glimpsed the Comte d’Entraigues.

  He did not observe me; indeed, I am certain the Comte believed himself ignored. He was standing at Canning’s elbow, like an acolyte or a servant; his hands clasped behind his back, his head humbly bowed. I remembered something Henry had said: that Canning and d’Entraigues were intimate once, until la belle cocotte, Julia Radcliffe, had divided them. It did not appear as tho’ they were divided now.

  It was possible the Comte d’Entraigues would offer the cut indirect to so insignificant a person as his despised wife’s acquaintance, regardless of the fact that we had met only two days before in Hyde Park— but as I gazed at his raddled countenance, I perceived that the piercing eyes were studying an image behind me. I turned, and saw the sleek black head of the nobleman who had peered from the carriage window through the rain of yesterday morning: the Russian Prince who must be Tscholikova’s brother.

  He wore black, as did all those in his party — two gentlemen and a figure I recognised as the maid Druschka. All four might have been alone in the room, for all the notice they gave the curious. I did not wish to betray a vulgar interest, and looked instead for my brother.

  Henry was already surging forward to claim a pair of seats at the middle of the room. He had no reason to find a foreign grandee of particular note; his attention was drawn, rather, to the suddenly paralysed clubmen behind us. They stood as tho’ cast in stone, all their eyes riveted upon a single figure as he paused in the now empty doorway: a tall man, with a pronounced nose and penetrating eyes, and the disordered locks of a fashionable exquisite: Robert, Lord Castlereagh, the dread object of a dead woman’s love.

  Chapter 12

  Dead Letters

  Friday, 26 April 1811, cont.

  SIR NATHANIEL CONANT IS MAGISTRATE AT THE Bow Street office, and it was he who brought the pub-lick room of the Brown Bear to order.

  “Gentle-men,” he sonorously intoned, pounding with the flat of his hand on a scarred oak table, “gentlemen … and ladies, silence if you please. The enquiry into the shocking and lamentable death of Princess Evgenia Tscholikova in the early hours of Tuesday last, is now called to order — Thomas Whitpeace, coroner for the districts of Covent Garden and Queen Square, presiding.”

  I settled myself in the seat Henry had procured for me, aware that the better part of the fashionable bucks arrayed in the doorway would be forced to stand for the duration of the proceedings. But Robert, Lord Castlereagh, ignored the crush of gawkers and strode regally to the very front of the room, where a scarlet-faced individual promptly offered his own seat to the former member of the Cabinet. His lordship looked neither to left nor right, and might have been alone in the assembly for all the notice he gave his fellows — including particularly George Canning, and the old French nobleman who lingered in his shadow. Castlereagh was exquisitely dressed in a coat of dark green superfine that even I could judge was cut by one of the first tailors of the day — Weston, perhaps, whose quiet elegance should exactly suit his lordship — and kerseymere breeches. His boots shone; but it was his lordship’s bearing that inevitably drew the eye.

  “I must say, Henry,” I whispered to my brother, “he is exceedingly handsome, even for one well past his first youth. Such compelling dark eyes! Such a sensitive line to the mouth! And the turn of countenance, tho’ haughty enough, is not unpleasing. It suggests a high courage — which must serve his lordship well in such a place.”

  “I should give a good deal to learn his knack of tying a cravat,” Henry returned. “He wears the trône d’amour, Jane. You will observe the creases to be sublime — and requiring no absurdity in the collar-points to achieve the first stare of fashion. His lordship disdains the dandy set, being rather a Corinthian in his tastes — that is to say, that he prides himself on matters of sport. His ability to drive four-in-hand, his patronage of the Fives Court, his precision at Manton’s with a pistol … ”

  My brother’s confidences died away. Castlereagh’s talent for marking his targets was already too well known.

  He was followed at perhaps a half-pace by a gentleman in the neat dress of a political servant. But here all resemblance to the common herd must end — the gentleman’s countenance called to mind the angels; his form, the Greeks. A paragon of beauty, where most men might prefer to be called handsome — and I noted more than one indrawn breath, of surprise and admiration, as his figure made its way in Castlereagh’s wake.

  “And who, Henry, is that?” I murmured.

  “Charles Malverley — third son of the Earl of Tanborough. He is devilish astute in the upper works, I understand — serves his lordship as private secretary. Ambitious, and a great favourite with gentlemen and ladies alike.”

  At that moment, a communicating door from the far side
of the publick room opened, and a man I judged to be Thomas Whitpeace paced swiftly towards the coroner’s chair. He was diminutive and spry, a balding man of middle years blessed with the bright eyes of a bird; and I observed him survey the august crowd with a slightly satiric look.

  He cleared his throat, well aware of the devices of theatre — and there it was again, I thought: the sensation of being played to, in a grotesque drama whose ending was beyond my knowledge. Whitpeace offered no welcome, no recognition that this was an inquest quite out of the ordinary way — but announced the names of the panel without further ado. These appeared to be men of trade for the most part— citizens of the neighbourhood surrounding Covent Garden, and thus purveyors of market goods, or the labour that sustained them: wheelwrights, carters, a butcher, and a poulterer. Several looked decidedly ill-at-ease; but one, a squat, red-haired individual with powerful arms, glared contemptuously at the lot of us. Samuel Hays was a smithy, and foreman of the panel, and hewas not to be put out of countenance by a deal of ton swells, up to every grig.

  I was interested to see whether the man’s expression altered after he was conducted, along with his fellows, to view the Princess’s decaying corpse— which must have been placed in the room Thomas Whitpeace had just quitted — but upon his return Hays appeared, if anything, more defiant than ever. He was alone in this; the rest of his panel looked quite green.

  “Let it be known that Deceased is one Princess Evgenia Tscholikova, so named and recognised by two persons here present who have sworn before the magistrate as to Deceased’s identity. We are to consider,” Thomas Whitpeace said quietly into the well of expectant faces, “in what manner Deceased came by her death, in the early hours of Tuesday, the twenty-third of April, 1811—whether by mishap, by malice aforethought, or by her own hand. The coroner calls Druschka Molova!”