Jane and His Lordship's Legacy Page 9

  “I should’ve known,” she said dully, “when he didn’t come back. A bit o’ light-skirt, I thought it was—Shafto always having been a man for a doxy. It was pride, ma’am, as prevented me speaking; but pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, as my mother used to say, being a great one for quoting Proverbs.”

  “Had you any reason to think your husband at risk of injury, Mrs. French?”

  She stared at me fixedly; but it was not a look of incomprehension—of indecision, rather, as tho’ she could not determine to trust me.

  “Had he an enemy?” I persisted. “Some person you knew of, who wished him ill—or who might perhaps profit from his death?”

  A slow flush o’erspread her features, and her gaze fell. “No, ma’am. Nobody could want my man dead.”

  “But someone clearly did. The coroner is convinced your husband did not meet his death by chance.”

  She turned her head restlessly. “He’d been talking wild for days, about the blunt he was going to have off some’un as was plump in the pocket; blood money, he called it, as’d set us up forever. Silk gowns, Jemima my girl, he said, and no worrying about wood for the fire when the cold winds blow.”

  “Was he often given to publishing hopes of that kind, when he had lately been paid for work?” I enquired with an unstudied air.

  She shook her head. “It was a rare struggle for us to make one end meet the other, ma’am, and how I am to manage now I cannot think.”

  “Have you any family?”

  “A brother, with a good number of his own to feed. But I can ply a needle, ma’am, and may find piecework at the linendraper’s. I have worked all my life, and am not afraid of it.”

  I preserved a tactful silence. Between the demands of war and the limits to commerce we suffer at the hands of Napoleon, times are very hard in this country. I myself have felt the pinch of articles too dear for my purse, and I had not Mrs. French’s encumbrances.

  “You have no further expectation of these funds your husband spoke of?—He gave you no hint of the person from whom he expected his money?”

  “Not a word, ma’am. And who should it be, when all is said? I’ve known Shafto’s mates since we were all little ’uns together, running through Robin Hood Butts of a spring morn.1 None of our kind of folk would come into a treasure; and none owed him money. ’Twas too often t’other way round. My man had no head for business, ma’am.”

  “And yet—Bertie Philmore asserted that when he parted from your husband, Mr. French was intending to meet with a man. You have no notion of who this man might be?”

  “His murderer,” she rejoined in a voice creased with misery. “Shafto thought to make his fortune, and met his end! Blood money! I’ll give ’im blood money!”

  “It is a curious phrase,” I observed, “potent with violence.”

  “He always was a fool, my Shafto—but that kindhearted. He’d never raise his hand to me or the little ’uns,” she said hastily.

  “That is not what I meant. I meant that the words blood money suggest payment for a killing—or, perhaps, for your husband’s silence regarding one. He expected to gain from guilty knowledge, that much seems certain. —Tho’ the guilt may not have been his own.”

  This time her confusion was evident.

  “Did he say anything else that might help us, Mrs. French?”

  “Only that it was the air as would pay.”

  “The air?” I repeated blankly.

  “Yes, ma’am. Someone as stood to inherit a good deal, and could afford to buy Shafto’s silence.”

  The heir as would pay.

  I had heard two men described in such terms in as many days—Julian Thrace and Jack Hinton. Both had witnessed the inquest. I felt a sudden longing to seize the gentlemen’s boots and make a trial of both pairs on the cellar floor.

  “Was your husband well known in these parts?”

  “He’d lived here all ’is life.”

  “So he would be quite familiar to any number of people in both Chawton and Alton—the Prowtings, perhaps, or the Middletons; even the Hintons, I suppose.”

  Her reaction to this gentle query was swift as a viper’s. “Why should the Hintons care? Who’s been talking about Shafto and Mr. Jack?”

  “Nobody,” I replied, bewildered. “Has there been talk before?”

  “Among his mates, there was always a kind word for Shafto,” she retorted defiantly, “whatever that Bertie Philmore will say.”

  “And Mr. Hinton? Did he also think well of your husband?”

  “Mr. Hinton be blowed!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed pitifully. “Oh, God, Shafto, me lad—I should’ve known when you did not come back! I should have looked for you myself!”

  “You could have done no good, had you roused the entire country,” I told her gently, and placed my hand on her shoulders. “A thousand men in search of your husband could not have saved him. If he was killed by the man he went to meet at midnight on Saturday, he found his end before you even understood he was missing. And no one but a tenant of this house could have discovered the body.”

  She lifted her visage, blue eyes all but drowned. “A proper wife would’ve known he was gone.”

  “Indeed, you take too much upon yourself.” I grasped the lanthorn in one hand and put the other carefully on the young woman’s shoulder, drawing her towards the stairs. “Your duty now is to preserve your children from exposure to the malice of your neighbours, and to fix in their memories a picture of their father in life, such as shall comfort and support them the rest of their days. Have you both boys and girls?”

  And in speaking of her children, Jemima French discovered some fleeting comfort; enough to carry her into my kitchen, and sustain her for the length of time required to drink my tea.

  Excerpt from the diaries of Lord Harold Trowbridge, dated 26 February 1785, on board the Indiaman Punjab, bound for Portsmouth out of Bombay.

  … I walked about the quarterdeck this morning at Captain Dundage’s invitation, glad for the freedom it afforded from the seamen holystoning the decks and the constant activity of the Indiaman. It is as nothing, of course, to the relentless toil of His Majesty’s Navy—two such ships of the line hovering in escort just off our port and starboard bows; but such a knot of bodies is constantly passing to and fro amidships that I should be hard pressed to achieve any sort of exercise without the Captain’s kind intervention. There is very little society, either. Freddy Vansittart has made a friend of the First Lieutenant, Mr. Harlow, and spends his hours in firing a gun off the stern rail at any creature that moves; tho’ well enough to look at without his powdered wig, and possessed of high courage that makes him a fine fellow in a fight, Freddy was never one for discussing philosophy, and is certain to prove tedious company in a voyage so long as this. My esteemed employer, Governor-General Hastings, being a prey to seasickness and in no mood for conversation—the politics of my friend Fox having succeeded in cutting up his peace and requiring his resignation from a post the Governor prized above all others in life—I am left to my own devices more often than not. I find I can bear the solitude quite cheerfully. It affords me the opportunity to consider of my future.

  In four months’ time I shall be five-and-twenty. Which is to say that, despite my father the Duke’s concerted effort to thwart every impulse of my existence, I must come into my late uncle’s fortune under the stipulations of his Will. With sudden wealth, any number of avenues are opened to me: I might establish a high-flyer in Mayfair and offer her carte-blanche; I might squander my yearly income in a fortnight at picquet, as Fox himself has done; or I might spurn the obligations of a Man of Fashion and Birth, and throw the lot into the India trade. The Governor himself has told me the recent India Act is designed to clip the wings of the Honourable Company, as its profits are too great and its threat of dominion over the Subcontinent, with Mr. Hastings as its king, all too feared. Hence his departure in high dudgeon for the English coast. I see in my employer’s
present fall an opportunity: I shall take my money and become part-owner in a ship—an opium trader bound for China. Like any gaming hell, the China trade has all the appeal of high risk and rich return, with the added attraction of being deeply offensive to His Grace the Duke of Wilborough. But as his lordship the Viscount St. Eustace once observed, I was born a commoner and a commoner I shall always be.2

  I have profited from my turns about the quarterdeck in conversing on certain points with Captain Dundage, who is a veteran of these seas for the past decade. What he does not know of Indiamen and tea and the fortune to be made in poppies is not worth asking. And there is an added incentive in this: the Captain has in his safekeeping a young lady of retiring habits and infinite charm—a virtuous and well-born French girl of eighteen, reared in Madras and bound for a betrothal in England with my very enemy the Viscount St. Eustace—a man she has never met.

  How has it come about, this bizarre and distant proposal from a stranger nearly twice her age? She cannot have an idea of his lordship’s depravities—of the Beauty he has already crushed beneath his fist. She cannot know his dangerous proclivities, his desire for mastery, his miserly clutch on the riches he claims, his delight in other people’s misery; she cannot understand the Hell her life is to become. I must know more of this girl and her history.

  I confess on this page that the temptation to ruin St. Eustace’s hopes is fierce upon me like a fever. But the Captain is scrupulous in shielding his charge from all eyes, and when Mam’selle takes the quarterdeck air, I am not permitted to ascend.

  There are months yet to surge through the southern seas, in fair weather and foul, and months may work a wondrous change. In the meanwhile I strive to impress old Dundage with my air of industry, my keen questions regarding triangular trade, my well-bred manners and unimpeachable connexions.

  We shall see how long is required for the French citadel to fall.

  Chapter 10

  The Joiner’s Tale

  6 July 1809, cont.

  ~

  “IT IS DECIDEDLY A GENTLEMAN’S BOOT,” MR. PROWTING agreed as he peered at the footprints in the cellar’s dirt, “and most decidedly not mine. I wonder, sir, if we might compare your apparel to these?”

  Henry obediently held out his shoe for the magistrate’s observation. Mr. Prowting placed a pair of tongs from heel to toe, and then applied the span to the mark in the dirt. Henry’s foot was a full inch longer and perhaps a quarter-inch wider.

  “It will not do,” our neighbour decreed sadly. “Clearly there has been a third set of well-made boots in this place that cannot be accounted for. I do not regard the marks of the labourers who removed French’s body—they are all about, but clearly distinguishable in their heavy soles and hobnails from this. It is as Mr. Munro observed—tho’ I did not like to credit it at the time. Shafto French was brought here already dead, and hidden of a purpose. And by a gentleman! It does not bear thinking of, Miss Austen. I had made certain the drowning was an accident—a terrible mishap born in the heat of fisticuffs between French and one of his fellows.”

  “—Bertie Philmore, perhaps?”

  “—Tho’ his wife was prepared to lie about the business. I made certain we should have the truth from Philmore in time. But it will not do.”

  I almost pitied Mr. Prowting as he crouched with his tongs in his hands, ample stomach uncomfortably swelling over the band of his breeches; he had certainly comprehended the trouble that the marks presaged. Only a handful of persons in the neighbourhood of Chawton and Alton could be described as gentlemen—and most of these should have known of the cottage’s desertion. The magistrate was faced with the unhappy duty of suspecting some one of his neighbours—or subjecting all of them to an examination of their footwear.

  “Mr. Prowting, are you aware of any dispute that may have existed between French and some one of the gentlemen hereabouts? A small thing, perhaps, that grew to ugliness over time?” I enquired.

  The magistrate preserved a thoughtful silence, his fingers loosely grasping his tongs. “I should have thought nobody in these parts could have put a name to the fellow’s face! French was a common labourer, merely, and much of a piece with all the rest—shiftless, drunken, of no particular account. I confess, Miss Austen, that I am at a loss to explain the entire episode.”

  “And yet: he must have held enormous significance to one of our neighbours,” I persisted gently. “Shafto French was fearsome enough to be lured to the pond, and violently killed there.”

  “What I do not understand,” Henry said, “is why the fellow was put in the cellar at all! Why not leave him, as Mr. Prowting has suggested, exactly where he lay? It is probable French was drowned after midnight, and that no one was abroad to observe the deed. Why not allow the body to be discovered in the morning?”

  “Perhaps,” I said thoughtfully, “because the murderer required time.”

  Mr. Prowting looked at me with a frown. “What do you mean to say, Miss Austen?”

  “Perhaps the murderer wished French’s body to be discovered several days after death, to confuse the public knowledge of exactly when murder occurred. Perhaps he was safely distant from Chawton for most of the period in question—the period of French’s disappearance—and by hiding the body, wished to delay discovery and thus divert our attention from the Saturday night in question. It is unfortunate for our murderer, then, that the last sighting of French at the Crown Inn should have been so exact, and his absence throughout the Sunday and Monday noted. Our murderer cannot have anticipated this.”

  Mr. Prowting was staring at me in an incredulous fashion. “Miss Austen,” he said accusingly, “I do believe you are a bluestocking!”

  “Certainly not, sir!” I protested in an outraged accent.

  “But her understanding is regrettably excellent,” my brother added with a sigh. “It is to this we may attribute her refusal to enter the married state, despite the many opportunities that have offered.”

  I chose to ignore his impudence. “Mr. Prowting, you have long been a neighbour of Mrs. Seward’s. Can you tell me whether she entrusted a spare set of keys to this cottage, to you or any other friend in the village?”

  “Good Lord,” he muttered. “Worse and worse. You cannot even allow it to be Dyer’s fault!”

  “In the interest of furthering the truth,” I admitted delicately, “I cannot. You will admit the appearance of the body in this place becomes more explicable if someone other than simply Mr. Dyer was in possession of a set of keys.”

  “The Sewards did not honour me with their confidence. Being your brother’s steward and a close man by nature, Bridger Seward was jealous of his trust. But his widow may have given the means of entry into other hands, after her husband’s death, and forgotten to retrieve them once she quitted the cottage.”

  “Then I suppose I must speak to Mrs. Seward. I do not like to think of a set of keys to this house continuing to wander about the countryside. I should sleep far better if they all came home to roost.”

  Henry’s eyes met mine over Mr. Prowting’s head with a sombre expression. Both of us were thinking of the same thing: Lord Harold’s Bengal chest, now hidden beneath my bedstead.

  “Pray tell me, sir— Where does Mrs. Seward now reside?”

  “In Alton, with her daughter Mrs. Baverstock. The Baverstocks have long been brewers, and their establishment sits on the High, just opposite the Duke’s Head.” The magistrate rose, dusting off his hands. “I cannot say that this is a happy discovery, Miss Austen. I should rather these marks to have remained obscured. The suspicion of a neighbour in so grave an affair as murder must be a most distasteful business.”

  “But justice, my dear sir, is owed to the lowly as well as the great.”

  From his looks as he parted from my door, I doubted that Mr. Prowting agreed with me.

  AFTER A BRIEF NUNCHEON, HENRY INFORMED ME THAT HE was required in Alton that day, and had already tarried too long.

  “Would you allow me to ride pillion, He
nry? I feel it incumbent upon me to pay a call of mourning.”

  “But you’ve already seen the widow, Jane!”

  “And had Shafto French no friends to grieve at his sudden passing?” I demanded indignantly.

  “More likely creditors filing to the door in search of payment. No wonder his unfortuate wife fled to Chawton this morning as soon as may be.”

  “Very well—if you are so unfeeling and so selfish, I will walk to Alton.”

  “Of course you may ride pillion,” he retorted impatiently. “Only do not be clutching at the poor horse’s neck in that odious way. You look such a flat when you do.”

  “I have never been a horsewoman,” I admitted despairingly.

  “Have you a riding habit?”

  I shook my head. A made-over gown of Lizzy’s had served to carry me through Canterbury Race Week four years before, but that was long since consigned to the scrap basket, and should probably form a part of my mother’s scheme for a pieced coverlet before long.

  “I daresay you are going to force an acquaintance on the Widow Seward, as well. You mean to pursue this murder,” Henry said, his gaze narrowed. “You will not let matters rest. I blame Lord Harold, Jane—he has had a most unfortunate influence on your headstrong nature.”

  “Bertie Philmore knows more than he admitted.”

  “Undoubtedly. But must you be the one to tell him so? Why cannot you allow our neighbour Mr. Prowting to do his duty?”

  “Because he shall undoubtedly do it so badly, Henry! Jemima French deserves some justice, does she not? Consider all she has lost!”

  “A lout of a husband who drank, and boasted, and owed the world his living before it reached his pocket.” My brother looked away, a muscle in his jaw working. “There has never been any justice for people of French’s class. You know that, Jane.”

  “But I cannot stand idly by, and watch a wrong go unrighted. Recollect, Henry—I saw the dead man’s face. Or what remained of it.”