Jane and the Stillroom Maid jam-5

by Stephanie Barron

  Madness. Madness born of grief and despair, madness born of unrequited love. Which had stirred in the Marquess’s breast with those final, fatal words?

  A madman is loose in the hills. And Lord Harold, it seemed, was afraid that the madman was the Duke of Devonshire’s heir. It was for this he had begged me to observe the household; not for Lord Harold the unhappy duty of naming Georgiana’s son a murderer. He would leave that to strangers.

  I sighed in exasperation. Impossible, to consider any part of the whole with clarity. I was too much unsettled in my mind — too little familiar with the habits of Whigs — too greatly troubled by the secret Lord Harold’s countenance had lately betrayed. The Gentleman Rogue was in love with his oldest friend’s daughter. Did he find Georgiana’s bewitching charms revived once more in Lady Harriot?

  And what did she think of him?

  Or say rather — what did Lady Harriot think of any man?

  Charles Danforth was marked in his reserve; yet there had been meaning in all his words to Hary-O. He had told her, in effect, that his will was hers to command. But so much dignity and suffering — such a weight of years and loves already outworn — might well terrify a girl of one-and-twenty. Andrew Danforth — the maid’s seducer — had no such reserve; his back was unbowed by sorrow, he had charm and looks enough. He was ambitious in the field of politics, which Hary-O’s entire world had taught her to admire. Andrew sought the Duke’s patronage, and he desired the Duke’s daughter. It would be a brilliant match for the younger son of an un titled family, however respectable. He would gain everything — a formidable Whig hostess, practised in Parliament and Society; a considerable fortune; and the sponsorship of one of the greatest Powers in the land. She would escape from the misery of living under Lady Elizabeth’s reign, and acquire a gentleman with pleasing manners, an air of affection, and the best humour in the world.

  But Tess Arnold had stood, quite possibly, in the way of it all—

  By the time the carriage achieved The Rutland Arms, I was in the grip of a severe head-ache.

  “AND SO YOU HAVE RENEWED YOUR ACQUAINTANCE with the Countess of Swithin, Jane,” my mother observed as I entered the parlour. “And how did you find her? Wasting away from a life of dissipation and vice?”

  “Indeed not, ma’am. Lady Swithin is presently increasing,” I remarked, as I removed my hat and spencer. “She was in excellent looks, I assure you, and begged to be remembered most fondly to yourself and my sister.”

  “Increasing! And so she gets on, does she, with her scoundrel of a husband?”

  “As to that, I cannot say. The Earl did not put in his appearance.”

  “He leads her a merry dance, I’ve no doubt,” observed my mother in satisfaction. “It is some comfort to reflect, Jane, that however sad your situation in being as yet unmarried, you have not chosen a man solely to disoblige your family. It is a great thing, now I am in my failing years, to find you are not the mother of ten children, and all ill-provided for.”

  “And Lord Harold?” enquired Cassandra, as though the word scoundrel had given rise to an idea of that gentleman. “He is well, I trust?”

  “Not so well as I could wish.” I settled myself in a chair and observed the linen Cassandra was embroidering. “He is presently in mourning for the Duchess of Devonshire. She was a great friend of his youth, it seems.”

  “Great is but the first of the superlatives to describe her,” intoned my cousin Mr. Cooper from his chair in the corner. “One cannot escape hearing her spoken of in this town. Her death has been most deeply felt; and yet, I rather wonder at such a figure being held in high esteem by the common folk! My noble patron, Sir George Mumps, was a little acquainted with Her Grace — such people of Fashion are always aware of one another, you know — and Sir George assures me that the Duchess owed no less than an hundred thousand pounds at her death — and all, debts accrued at the gaming tables!”

  “A gamester!” cried Cassandra, horrified. “How is half such a sum to be repaid?”

  “Very readily,” I murmured, “if the riches of Chatsworth are a token of the Duke’s wealth. I suspect he should no more regard the debt than you should moan over your laundry bill, Cassandra.”

  “I am sure that the Duchess was everything that is pleasing,” my mother observed, “but she was a Whig, my dear, and you know they cannot be respectable.”

  “It is dreadful, indeed,” my cousin reflected, “to consider the course of her life. Such great gifts, and so little principle; such riches, and yet such a squander of what might have gone to the greater Glory of God! I hope you were sensible, Cousin, that in entering that house you visited a place of lamentation — a place where Death has taught the most awful lesson it may bestow: that of waste, and misery, and a life struck down in its very prime!”

  “I am afraid, sir, that I observed only the natural grief for a beloved parent gone too early to the grave,” I rejoined. “And as I have endured a similar loss myself in recent months, it could not seem extraordinary.”

  “Was the estate very grand, Jane?” enquired Cassandra eagerly.

  “What little I saw of the house was almost oppressive in its grandeur,” I said thoughtfully, “and not what I should consider a home. But for a family of Whigs I am sure it would do very well. And the grounds are magnificent. I could wish for a week together to ramble over the estate; a phaeton and a pair of ponies would be the very thing.”

  “And may you hope for a second invitation?”

  “I have already received one. Lady Harriot Cavendish has asked me to dine at Chatsworth on Saturday, in respect of her twenty-first birthday; and I have agreed to go.”

  “Saturday!” Mr. Cooper cried in horror. “But I had intended to quit this dreadful place as early as tomorrow, or Saturday morning at the very latest!” He waved an unsealed letter in the air. “My dear Caroline writes that the whooping cough has taken hold of the entire family; several of the little ones are in a most parlous state. Her mother urges draughts of black cherry water, but the apothecary, Mr. Greene, will have none of it, and abuses the good woman for her interference. It is imperative that I return to Staffordshire immediately. I am certain that Sir George Mumps would wish it.”

  “But has Sir James given us leave to go?” I enquired, surprised.

  My cousin flushed. “I have not the least intention of conducting my affairs at that gentleman’s behest,” he retorted. “It lends a most unseemly air to my conduct, to kick my heels in Bakewell like a guilty party when I might better be in attendance upon my family.”

  “If you do mean to throw yourself in Lord Harold’s way again, Jane, you had better have the wearing of Cassandra’s grey silk,” my mother observed in a resigned accent. “Its tone should soften the ill effect of your blushes, and pay some deference to mourning. Unhappily, it can do nothing further for your complexion; you are most disgracefully tanned!”

  “Such contrivings shall hardly be necessary,” Mr. Cooper broke in. “You must refuse the invitation, Cousin. Express all that is proper to Lady Harriot — show yourself sensible of the very great honour you have been done — but refuse it in any case.”

  “I could not deprive Cassandra of her silk—”

  “Fiddle!” my mother cried. “You will never get Lord Harold, Jane, in a washed-out muslin! With Mr. Hemming fled in fear of his life, it cannot matter what Cassandra wears!”

  “Fled?” I repeated. “Not truly?”

  Mr. Cooper was approaching apoplexy in his looks. “If Jane were to dine at Chatsworth on Saturday, we should be incapable of quitting this miserable place until Monday at the earliest — for I trust you are not intending to subject me to Sunday travel.”

  Sunday travel, the horror of every person who professed to keep the Sabbath — and an opportunity, did we force my cousin to it, for an unremitting martyrdom of hymn singing. “Certainly not,” I replied. “We might perfectly quit this place on Monday. Have you communicated your intentions, Cousin, to Sir James?”

  Mr. C
ooper slapped his wife’s missive down upon the table. “I have no opinion of Sir James Villiers. He does not deserve such attention. I am certain that he has led the people of this despicable hamlet to believe the very worst sort of nonsense. In moving through the streets today, Cousin, I felt as though an hundred eyes were upon me, and the most malicious falsehoods whispered in my train.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Cooper, I am sure you take too much upon yourself. The unsettled nature of events has given rise to unnatural fears. You must endeavour to calm yourself, and consider where your duty lies.”

  “My duty! My duty!” Mr. Cooper’s countenance was purple with rage. “Let us better consider of Sir James’s duty, Jane! Any person of sound understanding would counsel the Justice to lay that villain Charles Danforth directly by the heels! If Sir James does not effect it soon, the local folk will achieve justice in his stead!”

  “Of what are you speaking, Mr. Cooper?” My entire body felt suddenly cold, although the heat had not yet faded from the day.

  “Of that cursed and misbegotten soul,” my cousin retorted, “the maid’s employer! It was Danforth’s clothes she wore at the moment of her death; and he is everywhere acknowledged as a Freemason, and an excellent shot. Clearly he was sent to destroy the girl when she would have published the dark secrets of the Masons’ lodge!”

  “Good Heaven, Edward, do you truly believe such rank nonsense? What would your noble patron, Sir George Mumps, say if he did hear you? He should reconsider his pressing invitation to join the Staffordshire lodge!”

  My cousin faltered an instant, then summoned energy for a final retort. “Charles Danforth has the mark of the Devil upon him, Jane, and he shall be strung up on a tree before the night is out. There are the torches in evidence!”

  I looked through the windowpane at Mr. Cooper’s direction. A grim band of local men was assembled at the head of Matlock Street. There were thirty of them at least, some mounted and some on foot, with burning staffs raised high. At their head was Michael Tivey, the coroner and surgeon; and it was clear from all aspects they meant nothing but mischief.

  “Are they bound for Penfolds Hall?” I enquired in a breathless accent.

  “As soon as darkness will descend.” Even my cousin had left off his bluster, at the sight of the milling men.

  “Then someone,” I said with decision, “had better send word to Chatsworth. The Danforths are from home tonight, and would not wish their house burnt down in their absence.”

  “But it is none of our affair!” my cousin cried. “We are strangers to Bakewell and everyone in it. If these vicious fellows would string one of their company from the nearest tree, then I for one shall not risk my neck to stop them.”

  “And is this the issue of a day spent humbly on your knees, Cousin?” I enquired with scorn. “You had better have devoted the hours to your fishing rod. If you do not chuse to sound the alarm, when all of Bakewell must know what these ruffians are about, then I shall do so.”

  “I beg you will not,” snapped Mr. Cooper, now white-faced. “You will bring the whole town in arms to the inn, and then who shall save us all? Charles Danforth is entirely unknown to us, and very likely a murderer. He can be nothing to you.”

  “Nothing, sir, but a fellow creature and a gentleman,” I cried. “If Mr. Danforth is a murderer, let an English court pronounce him so! Come, come, Mr. Cooper! Do you think that rabble below has any notion of justice? They are moved solely by superstition and the most appalling ignorance. I despise that sort of public tyranny!”

  My cousin had the grace to look somewhat ashamed. My sister Cassandra, who had overheard the whole, turned her gaze intently from one to the other of us, her troubled countenance betraying her dismay at family discord. I am always firm, however, when I know myself to be in the right. I reached for the inn’s supply of paper and searched among my things for a well-trimmed pen.

  “Rough justice made a mockery of peace in France,” I told Mr. Cooper. “I shall not stand idly by while it has its way with England, sir!”

  Remedies for Whooping Cough

  Stew one gill sliced onion and one gill sliced garlic in one gill sweet oil, until the juices are rendered. Strain, and add one gill honey, a half-ounce paregoric[8], and a half-ounce spirits of camphor. Bottle and cork tightly. For a child of two to three years, the dose is one teaspoon three or four times daily, increasing with the severity of the attack or the age of the child.

  — From the Stillroom Book

  of Tess Arnold,

  Penfolds Hall, Derbyshire, 1802–1806

  Chapter 13

  A Sinner in the Night

  28 August 1806, cont.

  SALLY, OUR PARLOUR-MAID, WAS DEEMED WORTHY OF bearing secrets; and so she was summoned, and requested to despatch two missives, hastily penned and sealed up with wax. The first bore the name of Lord Harold Trowbridge; he should know better than anyone how to convey the news of a hanging party to the Danforth brothers, without alarming the Duke’s entire household. I did not feel secure in communicating directly with Charles Danforth — did the bearer read his name upon the letter, even one despatched to Chatsworth, Mr. Danforth might never receive it.

  The second letter was directed to Sir James Villiers, at his ancestral home near Monyash. If violent men were abroad in Derbyshire at night, the local Justice was the most proper person to rout them; but I chafed at the delay necessitated by so indirect an approach. Could I have sent immediately to Penfolds Hall, and warned the steward, I should have done so; but the likelihood of a messenger’s being prevented from travelling the same road as the men he hoped to forestall, argued against that course of action.

  Sally solemnly assured us that she would see the letters into the hands of her male relations, who might be trusted to carry them safely through the dusk. I pressed three coins into her palm, and offered fervent thanks; and so, with a wide-eyed impression of her own importance, Sally ventured forth on an errand whose nature remained obscure to her. Those of us privileged to know the evil that men may do, were forced to wait in painful suspense, while the darkness gathered and the company of ruffians increased in the streets below.

  “I fear there is a poisonous quantity of gin in circulation,” observed my mother resignedly. “They will all be wanting coddled eggs in the morning.”

  THE TORCHES MADE THEIR WAY OUT OF BAKEWELL along the road I had last travelled in Mr. George Hemming’s pony trap, towards Ashford-in-the-Water and Miller’s Dale and the small town of Tideswell just beyond, where Penfolds Hall was said to be situated. It was a considerable distance for such a party, a fact that Mr. Tivey the surgeon must have anticipated — for several drays and waggons were pressed into service, and those without mounts of their own obliged to crouch in the springless bottoms of their fellows’ equipages. I watched them quit Matlock Street in silence, for Mr. Cooper had abandoned his post by the window and was now established over his writing desk. My mother and Cassandra had gone to bed. I was considering of a sleepless night myself, when a small tap came at the parlour door, and Sally peered into the room.

  “Please, miss, and I thought I did ought to tell Tha’ as me broother Jack is come home.”

  “And what has he to say?”

  Sally grinned. “He’s been nearly run off his legs, the past three hour. First he took the road to Chatsworth, while Nate undertook the road to Monyash — Nate’s me cousin, and fair put out about his dinner he were, but I don’t pay no mind to that, he were happy enough to have the coin, and Sir James paying him handsome to boot—”

  “Sir James was at home?”

  “He were,” Sally said carefully, “and at his dinner, too, but Nate says as how he seemed fair flummoxed and called for his horse direckly. The whole country is wanting their nags tonight — it’s like an army moving, miss.”

  “And your brother Jack?”

  “He never laid eyes on the gentleman as Tha’ were wanting,” Sally said doubtfully, “but gave the note to the housekeeper and was asked to wait for a reply
. He sat in the servants’ hall at Chatsworth, miss, and his eyes were fair round as cups when he did describe it, so grand as it were! Like a fairy castle, Jack says, and they’m gave him bread and cold chicken—”

  “Did he carry a reply?”

  “Tha’ll never guess!” Sally grinned, triumphant. “Sent out in a great carriage, he were, to the constables in Buxton, with a letter penned by the Duke himself! Jack’s not likely to get over it! He’s strutting like a gamecock, he is, down in me moother’s kitchen, and telling anyone who’ll listen about the Duke’s horses.”

  “Thank you, Sally. You have prevented a very grievous harm, you and your family, and I am sure that the Duke himself would thank you. But I would urge young Jack not to crow too loudly. There are violent men abroad tonight, and some of them may resent your part in thwarting their plans. Tell your brother he has done a noble thing, and that it is a very great secret. Important gentlemen rely upon his silence. That should guard his safety.”

  “Aye, miss,” said the girl, bobbing a curtsey. She pulled the door closed behind her.

  I was relieved enough in my mind to seek my own bed, and lay there in fitful slumber nearly three hours. If Sir James Villiers and the Duke’s men could not deter the rabble of Bakewell from firing Penfolds Hall, then Jane Austen’s attempts should be hopeless. Yet sleep remained elusive, a haze of impressions half-dreamt and half-understood, in which the figures of Chatsworth moved with the grace of knights and queens, across a chessboard of mown lawn and gravel.

  THE TOWN CLOCK HAD JUST TOLLED THE HOUR OF two, when a clatter in the hallway and a stifled oath brought me bolt upright in the darkness. Someone was attempting to lift the latch on my bedroom door.

  Heart pounding wildly, I reached for a taper, and then recollected that I had no embers in the summer grate by which to light it. Thoughts of the masked men in the square — of the quantity of gin they had consumed — of Sally’s brother Jack boasting of his errand behind the Duke’s horses — flitted rapidly through my brain. I weighed the merits of screaming for aid, or retreating into the clothes cupboard, where my four muslin gowns now hung limply; neither course, upon reflection, should do me credit. The person seeking entry might be none other than my sister, Cassandra. But she should have knocked first, and called out my name; and in over thirty years of living, I could not recall a time when she had emitted a drunken oath.