Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

by Stephanie Barron

  Mr. Crowse, the coroner, looked very hard at Dr. Jarvey as he concluded his diffident speech; then he turned to the twelve men of the panel and said, “I must now require you to rise, and accompany me into the side closet, so that you might observe the corpse as is your duty, and testify that life is extinct.”1

  With varying degrees of alacrity, the panel shuffled from their benches and through the doorway indicated by Mr. Crowse, who waited until the last man had exited the room before closing the door behind the entire party.

  A tedious interval ensued, during which Frank shifted in his chair and folded his arms belligerently across his chest. He was uneasy with the degree of duplicity in the proceedings, though I doubted he had perceived its logical end.

  The closet door opened, and the men—sober of countenance but in general composed—regained their seats. Mr. Crowse ignored the craning of heads from the assembly as several tried to glimpse what lay beyond the closet door.

  “The coroner calls Mrs. Hodgkin!”

  A plump, kindly-faced matron in a bottle-green gown with outmoded panniers made her way to the box. She curtseyed, then seated herself stiffly on the edge of the chair.

  “You are Elsie Hodgkin?”

  “I am. Housekeeper at the Dolphin Inn since I were eighteen year old, and I’m nigh on eight-and-forty this Christmas, as I don’t mind saying straight out.”

  “Very well,” replied Mr. Crowse. “Please inform the men of the panel what you know of Deceased.”

  “She were a lot better acquainted with that there Lord Harold than he’s admitting,” Elsie Hodgkin said immediately. “Two or three times the girl’s come asking for his lordship at the Dolphin, and once she spent an hour or more waiting on his pleasure in our parlour.”

  Lord Harold held himself, if possible, more erect in his chair; I had an idea of how his expression should appear—eyes narrowed, every feature stilled.

  “Indeed? Have you any notion of the girl’s business?”

  “She seemed respectable enough,” the housekeeper said, “but I’m not the sort to send a girl that age into a gentleman’s room for any amount of pleading.”

  “Did you observe Lord Harold to meet with Deceased?”

  Elsie Hodgkin’s small eyes shifted shrewdly in her face. “Sent that man of his down, he did, to have a word; and I’m that busy, I cannot rightly say whether his lordship followed the valet or not.”

  “Do you recall the last time you saw Flora Bastable in the Dolphin?”

  “The day before her death,” Mrs. Hodgkin said with relish. “Waited in the parlour, Flora did, while his lordship fired those pistols in the yard, as though he hadn’t left the poor young thing cooling her heels above an hour.”

  A murmur of comment stirred the assembly, and I espied a few heads turn in his lordship’s direction.

  “Were you aware that Lord Harold quitted the inn quite early yesterday morning?”

  “He were gone before I was out of my bed,” she said flatly, “and quiet about it, as though he hoped a body wouldn’t notice. Furtive and stealthy, like.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hodgkin. You may step down. The coroner calls Miss Rose Bastable!”

  A frightened young face under a mobcap—a pair of hands twisting in a white apron—and Rose Bastable took her place at Crowse’s right hand. She stared at him fearfully, a sob escaping her lips.

  “Now, Rose,” the coroner said gently, “you have lost your sister in the cruelest manner, and that is a dreadful thing. Be a good girl, and tell us what you know.”

  “Just that Flora went to that monster, and he were the death of her! I told her not to go—I told her she didn’t ought to meet with strange gentlemen like a coming straw damsel; but she thought to make her fortune, Flora did—and it were her ruin!”

  A sigh escaped me—brutal and despairing. What in God’s name had Flora Bastable wanted with Lord Harold, in all those visits to the Dolphin?

  And then it came to me. Flora Bastable had never learned her letters. She required someone to write her notes of blackmail to Mrs. Challoner. But why Lord Harold?

  “Your sister’s name was Flora Bastable?” Mr. Crowse continued.

  Rose nodded from the depths of a crumpled cambric handkerchief. “Sixteen she would’ve been, this January. She were in service at Netley Lodge as housemaid.”

  “A boarder?”

  “Aye—but Sunday night she come home, dismissed for failing to satisfy. Mrs. Challoner’s a strange woman, and Flora had some tales to tell. She thought the lady might pay for her silence—but the idea weren’t Flora’s own. She’d had it from his lordship.”

  “How can you be certain?” Mr. Crowse enquired, leaning forward avidly.

  “After dinner that night, Flora told me private-like as how she had a call to pay in Southampton, on a high-and-mighty lord from Town, and that she thought to make her fortune by it. ‘We’ll never have to fetch and carry again, Rose,’ she said, ‘when I’ve struck my bargain.’”

  Several ejaculations from the crowd met this declaration.

  “Miss Bastable, did you accompany your sister to her meeting with Lord Harold?”

  She shook her head.

  “Was your sister … a good girl, Miss Bastable?”

  “She were an angel,” Rose declared pathetically, “and certainly not the sort to act as she shouldn’t, if she were properly looked after. But some devils will stop at nothing, sir! I begged her not to go back, when the note come from his lordship Thursday!”

  I straightened in my chair. Had he written to the child? That must look very bad—

  Mr. Crowse was frowning at the weeping Rose. “Pray collect yourself, Miss Bastable. Your sister received a note from Lord Harold Trowbridge?”

  “That she did, sir. I read it myself. Asked her, bold as brass, to wait upon his pleasure at Butlock Common just after cock-crow yesterday.”

  The public reaction to this intelligence was of an alarming turn. One man actually rose from his seat and cried, “The scoundrel! Hanging’s too good for ‘im!”

  I whispered agitatedly in Frank’s ear. “The note must be the grossest fabrication! Lord Harold, to my knowledge, had no notion of Flora Bastable’s direction—any more than I did myself!”

  “Did your sister keep this letter?” Mr. Crowse demanded of Rose.

  “I saw her throw it on the fire. She was afraid, I suppose, that if my mother saw it, she would be forbidden to go.”

  “Would that her mother had,” the coroner said heavily. “She might be yet alive today.”

  At this, the wilting Rose—who was hardly more than a child herself—cast her face into her hands and wailed aloud. One could not help but feel the deepest pity; and Mr. Crowse, with an air of benevolence quite unsuited to his relative youth, commanded that the proceeding should be adjourned for a period, to allow the young woman to collect her faculties.

  Every person in the Coach & Horses, I am sure, must regard such an interlude as unbearable in its suspense. We rose, and watched the panel of twelve directed to an antechamber, where they should be safe from any untoward suasion of gossip or commentary. More than one cast a look of indignation at Lord Harold before quitting the room.

  “Jane,” my brother whispered anxiously, “I do not like the complexion of this affair. Lord Harold could well hang!”

  “We must speak to him, Frank.”

  I forced my way against the current of Southampton folk intent upon procuring a tankard of ale from the publican before the proceedings should recommence—and saw that a wide berth had been left about the position of Lord Harold and his man.

  The former rose, and bowed to me courteously.

  “Have you gone mad?” I demanded. “Are you determined to place your neck in a noose? Sophia Challoner is not worth such circumspection!”

  “No, my dear,” he said with acid precision, “but she has managed my fate with admirable skill. Whoever killed that girl—and I cannot doubt it was one of the Netley party—the outcome must be the same.
The duel is prevented, Mr. Ord is safe—and Sophia’s chief enemy, Harold Trowbridge, is consigned to oblivion!”

  “And so her despatching of French agents may proceed unimpeded,” I said thoughtfully. “It is a masterful stroke, to be sure. But, my lord—”

  “Orlando—pray go in search of refreshment, there’s a good fellow. I am perishing of thirst.”

  The valet turned without a word and thrust his small frame into the surging knot of humanity.

  “My lord—”

  “While I cool my heels in the Southampton gaol,” he continued in a goaded tone, “yet another port town shall be set alight. The thought is such as to inspire rage—and yet, my friends, what else may I do, but heel to the present course? I cannot escape the charge of murder, by claiming an attempted duel: the latter merely establishes my credentials as a bloodthirsty rogue. You see how they have routed me, with this business of the girl’s visits to the Dolphin—”

  “You must not allow it, my lord,” Frank said hotly. “Your notions of honour—of shielding the innocent—do you the greatest credit, to be sure; but the impulse towards discretion is ill-placed in the present circumstance.”

  “My lord,” I said urgently. “Did you never speak to Flora Bastable when she sought you at the inn?”

  “I had no notion that she did so. I must consider the housekeeper’s testimony a complete hum.”

  “But I certainly saw her there—on two occasions at least, and once with Orlando. That was the very day before the duel.”

  His eyes, which had been roving fitfully about the room as though in search of some means of escape, came to rest suddenly upon my own.

  My brother snorted. “What does that signify, Jane? The valet did his duty, and sent the girl about her business! Lord Harold had better have the fellow sworn, and admit his evidence to the coroner—and then we might tell all the world how little his lordship knew of the maid!”

  “What of the letter her sister claims that Flora received of you?” I persisted. “The missive summoning her to Butlock Common?”

  “I sent no such letter. What are you suggesting, Jane?”

  “That the note was a ruse! Flora told me herself: she never learned her letters. She could neither write nor read.”

  “And so she must exhibit the paper to one who could tell her what it said—and thus the summons to Butlock, and the name of the man who signed it, must be recalled with clarity later.” Lord Harold’s voice was grim.

  “—Once the girl was dead. Such coldness and calculation! It is beyond my ability to credit! But which of the Netley party penned that note?”

  Lord Harold, however, was gazing beyond me now, at the doorway of the inquest chamber. The sound of commotion behind suggested that the panel was on the point of reconvening—but it was not this that had drawn his attention.

  I turned, and glimpsed a blond head above a black cloak. A countenance serene as a god’s. And a look of resolution about the set mouth.

  Mr. Ord, it seemed, had determined to speak his part.

  Chapter 26

  The Confession

  5 November 1808, cont.

  AS THE YOUNG MAN APPROACHED THE CORONER, Lord Harold held up his hand, as though to forestall disaster.

  “Stay, Mr. Ord. Do you apprehend what you are about? The consequences of any admission—to yourself and others—must be grave.”

  “Would you like me to keep silent,” the American drawled, “when suspicion of murder rests on your head? I consider myself as good a judge of conscience as any man. Mr. Crowse, I cannot swear your oath, as I am a Catholic; but I pledge to you, on this Bible I hold, that I shall speak the truth.”

  “Very well.” The coroner gazed doubtfully from Lord Harold to Mr. Ord, then motioned the latter towards a chair. “State your name and your direction, my good sir—and then be seated.”

  The American complied—supplying the words “student at the College of Georgetown” for occupation—and took the witness chair. The room had begun to fill once more with the curious, and I hastened to take my seat between Frank and the Bosun’s Mate—who now smelled strongly of spirits, I am sorry to say. Lord Harold, his expression set, resumed his position at the head of the room; but the valet’s chair beside him, I noted, remained empty.

  “Mr. Ord, you have pled the indulgence of this inquest in hearing your evidence,” Mr. Crowse began briskly. “Pray inform the panel of any matter that you believe may bear upon the death of Flora Bastable.”

  “I am happy to do so. It is merely this: that on the morning in question, I was present at the discovery of the girl’s body at Butlock Common. I was there to fulfill a challenge I had offered Lord Harold Trowbridge, and which he agreed to defend. Dr. Jarvey appeared solely as witness.”

  Like a rising wind, the stir of public comment rippled through the chamber. Heads turned in excitement: an affair of honour must always draw sensation.

  “Are you suggesting, sir,” Mr. Crowse said sternly, “that a duel was in contemplation?”

  “I am.”

  “—Though such affairs run counter to the laws of England?”

  “Indeed.”

  Mr. Crowse glanced soberly about the room. “I must consider whether this places the entirety of the previous testimony in question! Charges of perjury, on the part of gentlemen sworn before God and this panel, must be weighed! The matter increases in gravity, Mr. Ord. However—be so good as to describe your recollection of events.”

  “I and my party—”

  “You were not alone?” Crowse interrupted. “How many people were assembled at this dawn meeting, pray?”

  “It is customary, in such affairs, to appoint a second—or perhaps two—to act on the challenger’s behalf.”

  “You will forgive me if I profess an ignorance of the habits of hot-headed gentlemen,” the coroner returned austerely. “You were accompanied by two others, I collect, who have chosen to remain unnoticed by this panel?”

  Mr. Ord inclined his head. “My party arrived at Butlock Common just as the sun was rising. Lord Harold and his party, which numbered four in all”—Mr. Crowse expelled a sigh of annoyance—“had already arrived, in two separate conveyances. Dr. Jarvey was not yet upon the scene. As the sun rose, we observed what appeared to be a pile of discarded clothing lying in the centre of the common. We approached, and I saw to my horror that it was in fact Flora Bastable. Her position and injuries are entirely as have been described.”

  “You knew the girl?” Crowse demanded in surprise.

  “In the course of my stay in Southampton, I have frequently been a guest at Netley Lodge. The girl was employed there as serving-maid.”

  “A position, I understand, which she lost but a few days prior to her death.”

  “That is true.”

  “Can you account for the maid’s dismissal, Mr. Ord?”

  For the first time, the American hesitated. He was willing enough to offer frankness when the truth touched upon himself—but the direction of the coroner’s questions must surely implicate Sophia Challoner.

  “I believe the maid was subject to fits,” he answered at last, “and moreover, was regarded as … unreliable.”

  “Unreliable?”

  “I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, Mr. Crowse.”

  “Flora Bastable has been murdered, sir. You must offer this panel what intelligence you possess.”

  “Very well. Her mistress and I, in walking for exercise in the direction of Netley Abbey, on several occasions surprised Flora Bastable with a man.”

  “A man?” At this, the coroner turned and stared suggestively at Lord Harold. “Can you put a name to the person she met?”

  “I can, sir. He is valet to Lord Harold Trowbridge—a fellow known as Orlando.”

  Frank stiffened in his chair. “Good Lord, Jane!” he exclaimed softly. “The tale is better than anything mounted in the theatre in French Street!”

  “He never means that Mr. Smythe?” demanded the Bosun’s Mate.

 
Lord Harold half-rose from his position near the front of the room, and glanced over his shoulder. His gaze sought out the figure of his valet: but he was unlikely to find the man. Having escaped the threat of a noose on one occasion, Orlando had no taste to dance attendance upon another. He had been sent in search of refreshment a quarter-hour since; and I knew now he had seized his chance—and fled Southampton.

  Much was suddenly explained: Flora’s visits to the Dolphin Inn; her recourse to the Abbey ruins after the fit of hysterics; even Orlando’s familiarity with the direction of the girl’s cottage. Had he fallen into a dalliance with the maid while standing guard upon the subterranean passage? I suppose it must be natural enough. They were both of them in positions of servitude; Flora was pretty, and Orlando, perhaps, as restless as any man of seven-and-twenty.

  “It’s never true!” cried Rose Bastable hotly. She sprang from her seat and thrust an accusing finger in Mr. Ord’s direction. “You saw her dead, and now you’ll see her good name ruined! It was you as came to our cottage, knocking at the door in your fine clothes and asking to speak with Flora! Fie upon you!”

  Mr. Crowse took up his gavel and struck it several times. “Pray contain yourself, Rose Bastable. You impede sworn testimony! Mr. Ord: were you on such terms with Deceased as to call at her home?”

  “I did so only once,” the American replied evenly, “on the day the girl was dismissed from her position.”

  “That would have been—”

  “Sunday, the thirtieth of October, six days ago.”

  Mr. Crowse peered at Ord. “And why did you seek out the maid?”

  “I felt some concern regarding her fate. She had left the Lodge in considerable distress. I told her that her mistress was sometimes hasty in her temper, and that matters might be improved with the passage of a few days. I then gave her a few shillings, and quitted the place. I should judge I did not remain in the cottage above a quarter-hour.”

  And in that period, Orlando had been abducted and conveyed to Portsmouth by an unknown: Monsignor Fernando da Silva? I craned forward, the better to observe Mr. Ord’s face. It shone, as ever, with sincerity. Did he speak the truth? Or did he spin a subtle web designed to ensnare us all?