Jane and the Stillroom Maid jam-5

by Stephanie Barron

  Lord Harold sighed heavily and passed a thin hand over his brow. “I’d hoped the witch had died in agony. Hart hated the girl, Tess Arnold, because he thought her remedies killed his mother. Is that what you would say, Jane?”

  “I would go further, my lord. I believe that the Marquess suspects the maid and Lady Elizabeth between them of having colluded to murder his mother — so that Lady Elizabeth might be Duchess in Georgiana’s stead.”

  “Impossible!” Lord Harold’s eyes blazed darkly in his pallid face. “You may suspect poor Bess of every indelicacy — of a want of tact, and a self-absorption that may border on the criminal — but she was honestly devoted to Georgiana. Whatever remedies she purchased on Her Grace’s behalf, were purchased at Georgiana’s insistence. You may be assured of that.”

  “But I am not fifteen. I am not destroyed by the severest grief. I have not the spectre of illegitimacy to haunt me — I need never regard my father’s despised mistress as being quite possibly my parent. I need never know the agony of being twice dispossessed: once, of the mother I adore; and yet again, of the certainty that I may rightly call her mother. When I consider the burdens under which Lord Harrington has laboured, I must find it surpassing odd that he has not done violence before — to himself, or another. Indeed, he has been an example of restraint.”

  Lord Harold stared. “You mean to say, Jane, that it was not Hart who savaged the girl’s body among the rocks?”

  “Not at all. That horror belongs entirely to another; for it was not the Marquess who summoned Tess from Penfolds Hall; he can have had no reason to look for her that night above Miller’s Dale. You have not heard, my lord, of the robbing of graves, or the uses the maid found for a gentleman’s clothing — but as we have time and road enough for a story, I will consent to tell you all.”

  IT WAS WELL AFTER THREE O’CLOCK WHEN WE REACHED the valley of the River Wye, and the splashing white of the miller’s weir; all was peacefulness, as it had been nearly a week before, and I might almost have looked to find George Hemming’s upright figure etched against the trees. But no one stood with rod and tackle — only the miller’s wife, her hands perpetually twisting in her threadbare apron.

  “He’s not ’ere,” she called from the doorway before we had even thought to step out of the carriage, “he’ve gone out Buxton way.”

  “Thank you, my good woman,” Lord Harold replied. “We require only your consent to leave our coach under your eye. We intend to walk up into the hills. A party of men under the Duke of Devonshire’s direction may presently appear; pray afford them every refreshment in your power, and conduct them towards that path above the weir.”

  He pointed in the direction I had taken now twice before, and the miller’s wife closed her palm over Lord Harold’s coin. As we turned away, however, I observed her to cross herself with averted eyes; here was one who would believe the stories of Satanic sacrifice.

  We hurried along the path that rose towards the crags above the river, neither of us speaking for some time. Lord Harold cupped his hands to his lips, and called out the Marquess’s name; at the sound of his harsh voice, birds rose out of the surrounding brush with a clatter of wings. The sound had the power to raise gooseflesh along my arm, and curl the hairs at the back of my neck; the urgency of disaster sped our footsteps. Though Lord Hartington might not be guilty of murder, he might yet have done himself violence from despair: I dreaded to think what we might find among the rocks above.

  “Hart!”

  Lord Harold paused at the brow of the last hill. The grey tor where I had found the maid’s body rose jaggedly in the distance. He peered at it, eyes narrowed, and discerned the figure sprawled at its foot; and then, without a word, he began to run.

  THE SCENE WAS THE SAME, AND YET NOT THE SAME, as it had been five days before. I stood gasping at the foot of the tor, my gloved hand to my mouth, and stared at the figure dressed all in black, the welter of blood about the rocks. There was the mark of a lead ball in the forehead, and the staring eyes; but the birds had not yet descended. He clutched a fowling piece in one hand, and a scrap of paper in the other. But this time Charles Danforth’s clothes were properly his own.

  His brother knelt in the dust, hands covering his face, and wept with the horrible, tearing sound of a man unaccustomed to tears. A horse whinnied; I turned, and saw the two gentlemen’s mounts tethered side by side under a tree some thirty yards distant. The same tree, I noted with half my mind, beneath which Lord Harold had found the marks of hoofprints on Friday.

  “Good God,” Lord Harold murmured. He bent to Andrew Danforth and gripped his shoulder firmly. “What has happened here?”

  Danforth raised a streaming countenance and failed to utter a word. If he saw us clearly, I should be greatly surprised.

  “Speak to me, man!”

  He shook his head brokenly. “I was … over there. Towards Penfolds. In the copse.” He drew a shuddering breath and mopped at his eyes with a glove. “Charles was before me. We had come out with the intention of looking for Hart. He suggested we traverse the ground separately, in order to cover the better part of the terrain—”

  “Why here?” Lord Harold enquired sharply. “The Duke had no notion of sending you, surely.”

  “Charles said that he believed the Marquess was much in the habit of coming here. It was his idea to search the place. I heard the shot — I feared for Hart’s life — I spurred my horse down the path and emerged to see—this.”

  We stared down at Charles Danforth. His dark eyes gazed sightlessly at the blue August sky; his mouth was slack. All the power for good or ill that had been etched in that countenance, was fled; only the pitiful shell of the man remained. Slowly, Lord Harold reached out and took the scrap of paper from the corpse’s hand.

  He read it aloud.

  31 August 1806

  Chatsworth

  I, Charles Edgar Danforth of Penfolds Hall, do hereby testify that I am guilty of having killed the stillroom maid Tess Arnold on Monday night, the 25th of August 1806. I followed her into the hills above Tideswell with the intention of shooting her, because I was convinced that she had murdered my children and my wife. Her reasons for so doing I will not name, lest they embroil the innocent; but having lost all that held meaning for me in the whole world, I have no longing for anything but the grave. I am sorry for having caused unpleasantness for anyone; and hope, most sincerely, that Mr. George Hemming will find it in his heart to forgive me. A truer gentleman never lived.

  CHARLES EDGAR DANFORTH

  A General Caution

  In the use of these family cordials, we thought it proper to begin with a general account of their use, and the needful caution. Without such care, a book of Medicines may become a book of Poison. …

  — Martha Bradley,

  The British Housewife, or

  Cook, Housekeeper’s and

  Gardiner’s Companion, 1756

  Chapter 27

  Dr. Bascomb of Buxton

  31 August 1806, cont.

  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON, WHETHER HE WERE above Miller’s Dale or no, was no longer our object. Lord Harold sent Andrew Danforth at a run to the miller’s cottage, where he found a party of men despatched by the Duke of Devonshire. Danforth tarried only long enough to send a message to His Grace, before urging the better part of the search party back up into the hills. It was a sober company that soon appeared, with a makeshift litter among them, to bear Charles Danforth home.

  He was placed on the litter, and his eyes closed; and then, with a heave, six men lifted the body high upon their shoulders. Andrew Danforth loosed his brother’s horse, and led it in tandem with his own behind the grim procession. They would walk thus, down the path Tess Arnold had so often trod, towards Tideswell and Penfolds Hall.

  I had remained in Lord Harold’s company while the men were summoned; but I did not wish to make another of the melancholy group struggling through the fields. My heart was at present too full. I turned to his lordship, who lingered only
long enough to watch the men out of sight, before hastening to the tree where the Danforth mounts had been tethered. He studied the ground, nodded once, and then made his way back to me.

  “Do you wish to return to Bakewell this evening, Jane?”

  “Not at all. Where do you intend to proceed, my lord?”

  “To Penfolds! However indolent His Grace may appear in the general way — however consumed with worry for his son and heir — he remains Lord Lieutenant of the County. He will know exactly how to act. If I am not greatly mistaken, Sir James Villiers will presently make his way to the Hall; and I should wish to be on hand when he appears.”

  “Then I shall accompany you.”

  His lordship nodded distractedly. In his hand he still held the last words of Charles Danforth; he folded the piece of paper and tucked it inside his coat. “At the very least, I must be sure to give Sir James this. For it is certainly in Danforth’s handwriting.”

  “Of course. He was a man to do a thing properly, if he would undertake it at all,” I observed.

  Lord Harold’s gaze raked over me keenly; but he said nothing — and so we descended the hills above Miller’s Dale for the last time in silence.

  HALFWAY TO PENFOLDS, THE RAIN THAT HAD THREATENED all day burst in a great roar over our heads, so that the patient Devonshire horses, so long pressed into Lord Harold’s service, were steaming with wet at our arrival. We found the great door thrown open, and a miscellany of carriages standing before it; more than one bore the crest of serpent and stag. Naturally, Lady Harriot would come at the first word of tragedy. Before the wheels of our own conveyance had ceased to turn, Lord Harold had thrust back the carriage door and alighted.

  Mrs. Haskell stood grim-faced and silent in the front entry. Under the livid glare of the summer storm, the old stone of Penfolds closed in like a tomb. I shuddered, my eyes on the housekeeper’s rigid form. She took his lordship’s hat and stick without a word, and waited for me to untie my bonnet strings. “His Grace the Duke is in the parlour, my lord.”

  We followed a footman through one of the doors leading from the hall. A fire had just been lit in a massive hearth, against the chill of the sudden rain; the Duke stood with bent head, staring into the flames. In a chair drawn close to the fire sat Lady Harriot; the Countess of Swithin clasped her hand. I could detect no tears on Hary-O’s face; her countenance was terrible in its self-possession. Andrew Danforth stood by the window, framed in the red folds of a velvet drapery; Sir James Villiers, resplendent in a lavender waistcoat and buff pantaloons, had adopted a place on the sofa. The Justice appeared the most easy of the party. All five looked around as the footman threw open the door, and revealed us to their sight; and I discerned immediately that we were not the persons expected.

  “Uncle! And Miss Austen!” Lady Swithin cried; she squeezed Hary-O’s hand and came swiftly across to us. “Is everything not dreadful! I still cannot believe it possible of Charles!”

  Lord Harold touched his niece’s cheek; she gazed at him imploringly, as though even now he might be capable of restoring Charles Danforth to life. “Stay with Hary-O, Mona — there’s a good girl.”

  The Countess nodded once and returned to her position by Lady Harriot’s chair.

  “Your Grace,” Lord Harold said formally. “Any word of Lord Hartington?”

  “Young fool stumbled home an hour since,” the Duke of Devonshire muttered, “with some tale of poachers in the woods near Haddon Hall. Gun was fired — mount threw him — dashed his head against a rock. Slept off the worst and walked twelve miles back. Lucky he wasn’t left for dead. Teach him to go hunting on another man’s turf.”

  “That is excellent news,” his lordship replied.

  The Duke peered around at the assembled company. “Bess’s with him now. Do the boy a world of good.”

  No one vouchsafed a reply.

  The drawing-room doors were thrust wide again, and a stranger was admitted to our midst.

  “Well, Bascomb?” Andrew Danforth enquired. “What is your opinion?”

  “Life was extinct from the instant the ball was fired,” the gentleman replied with a bow. “I cannot think that he suffered. The shot was certainly fired from the fowling piece.”

  “Are you Dr. Bascomb?” I cried. “Of Buxton?”

  “The same. But I confess that you have the advantage of me, madam, for I do not recall our meeting.”

  “My name is Jane Austen. You are come into the neighbourhood at my summons, I think.”

  “Ah!” the doctor returned, with a look of quickened interest. “The very lady. I looked for you first at The Rutland Arms, and was told that you were thought to have gone to Chatsworth. No sooner did I arrive there, than the Duke informed me of the sad events above Miller’s Dale. I have often served as physician to the Danforth family — as well you know; and so I availed myself of His Grace’s kind invitation, and made another of the party. Did you chance, Miss Austen, to carry with you the interesting stillroom book?”

  “I did. It is even now in the carriage. But you will wish, I think, to peruse the letter Charles Danforth left at his death.”

  Lord Harold reached for the paper he had thrust into his coat and handed it to Dr. Bascomb. The rest of the party were staring at us in obvious perplexity; Andrew Danforth abandoned his position by the window and came to stand near Hary-O’s chair.

  “Forgive me,” I said hastily. “Your Grace, Mr. Danforth — I beg your pardon. I requested Dr. Bascomb’s opinion regarding the Danforth children, and he has been so kind as to sacrifice his Sunday to my benefit. You will not protest, I hope, if he satisfies our curiosity?”

  “Eh?” the Duke replied. “Oh — of course. Very well. Proceed, man — proceed.”

  Dr. Bascomb gazed keenly around the room. He nodded once, then adopted a position by the fire.

  “I see from this letter,” he began, holding it aloft, “that Charles Danforth suspected the nature of his children’s deaths. Miss Austen has already discerned that I was in attendance upon little Emma, the eldest of the three; so much is noted in the stillroom maid’s book. I was called, as well, when Lydia Danforth was thrown into labour two months before her time; but in that case, I could do nothing. At the Duke’s insistence, a London doctor was called when Miss Julia fell ill in February; and though I looked in upon John d’Arcy in March, lie was already too far gone for my physick to save him.”

  Lady Harriot’s countenance twisted; she threw her face in her hands.

  “I was troubled by what I observed in Emma’s case. The child suffered a series of feverish attacks, each worsening in nature, over the course of a month; a slight indisposition became a gradual wasting; vomiting and violent purges ensued; and at the end, dehydration and death. In the intervals between these attacks, however, she appeared in complete health.”

  “Our Hary-O had a similar passage,” the Duke observed, “and three nursemaids were dismissed on the strength of it, until Georgiana discovered the child surfeiting on sweetmeats in the pantry corner. Greedy little minx.”

  “It was possible that the girl suffered from the sort of wasting complaints that every childhood is prey to,” Dr. Bascomb continued with a deferential bow. “I cannot number the young lives taken suddenly off, by a host of ills that plague every town in England. It is not even unusual for entire families to be lost. But in Emma’s case I suspected poison — arsenical poisoning, to be exact. I confided my fears to Charles Danforth. He was greatly disturbed in his mind, as should only be natural; but to his wife, who suffered greatly from her daughter’s death, he imparted nothing of my fears.”

  “Were you well acquainted with the late and lamented Lydia,” said Andrew Danforth, “you would not question my brother’s decision. His wife was excessively fearful for the health of her children.”

  “With cause,” murmured Lady Harriot.

  “Danforth undertook to search out any supplies of arsenic that might be lying about the Hall, and ordered them destroyed,” Dr. Bascomb said. “The g
ardener’s shed was the most obvious culprit, as arsenic is often employed in the control of rats and other vermin; but the gardener himself could not be suspected of malice towards any of the children. He had been first employed in old Mr. Danforth’s time, and was a great favourite; his grandchildren, the Arnold girls, had grown up on the estate. I believe that Danforth was inclined to regard my words as fanciful — or worse, as the result of my unwillingness to accept responsibility for having lost the child. Mr. Danforth destroyed the poison he found, and ceased to consult or confide in me. I heard nothing further of the Penfolds household, until word was received of the second daughter’s death.

  “It is significant, I think, that Charles Danforth was absent in London when Julia became ill. He was absent when John d’Arcy died suddenly, as well. The person responsible for their deaths made certain that she was unobserved by the one most likely to suspect her.”

  “Are you saying,” Andrew Danforth broke in, “that you believe my brother’s claim that poor Tess intended to murder his family? I must regard that accusation as nothing more than the delusion of a broken mind — a mind destroyed by the effects of grief and unaccountable misfortune. Surely the maid can have had no reason to wish my nieces and nephew dead?”

  Dr. Bascomb made no reply. His gaze, however, drifted over the room and came to rest upon me.

  “Tess Arnold did not kill the children with arsenic,” I told Danforth, “but with a common solution that has been used for time out of mind in the administration of medicinal draughts to children. Black cherry water, Mr. Danforth — the distilled essence of cherry bark boiled in spring water. It has a palatable taste, and may disguise whatever is given to the patient; but I believe I am correct in thinking, Dr. Bascomb, that it has only lately been judged a poison in its own right?”