Jane and the Stillroom Maid

by Stephanie Barron

  I stared at Lady Harriot, my breath suspended. Surely she must apprehend the cruel force of such a speech?

  “He should not be allowed to wander alone,” she went on, in a fretful tone. “It would never have been permitted in my mother’s time. He should be forced to keep a groom at his heels—”

  “I cannot think that Hart would thank you for your concern,” Danforth told her lightly. “No lad of fifteen wishes to be followed by a nursemaid.”

  “If Lord Hartington was abroad on Monday night, how thankful you must have been to discover him safe—when first you learned of Tess Arnold’s death,” I added. “In so vast a house as this, I imagine it must be possible for a legion to come and go unnoticed.”

  “I should never know if Hart had found his bed or slept in the stables,” Lady Harriot confirmed. “Fifteen is such a trying age! I will not scruple to admit that the boy has run completely wild this summer, Miss Austen.”

  “Perhaps when he has got over the worst of his grief,” I suggested delicately, “you may observe a change. Perhaps if he were sent away to school—”

  “Now that is a remedy I cannot hear of, without the most strenuous objection in the world,” Andrew Danforth declared with heat. “Whoever first conceived of an exile among schoolboys, far from the comforts of all that is familiar, as a remedy for grief, can never have known what beasts young boys may be.”

  “You speak with all the force of experience, Mr. Danforth.”

  “I do. My brother, Charles, saw fit to send me to Winchester, when my parents died; and it was many years before I could forgive his interference.”

  “And yet,” I persisted, “a man must receive an education.”

  “But why he must be educated at so great a distance from his home—alien to everything that must have a claim on his heart—is something I will never understand,” he replied, with less of anger than he had previously shown. “When I reflect that a woman may be schooled in her own attics, by the comfort of a fire, at the hands of domestics she has known all her life—I might almost exchange my Hessians for stays, Miss Austen!”

  We all laughed; but Mona could not allow the argument to rest in Danforth’s hands. “It will not do, Mr. Danforth—you know that it will not do. The chief purpose in attending a school such as you describe, is not to be found in the Latin or Greek that is beaten into your head; but in the acquaintance one forms and the relations of friendship or reliance that may extend a lifetime. Hart must certainly benefit from these.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Danforth,” I enquired, “did you regret your exile to Winchester so deeply, once you had been there the length of a term?”

  “I hated it without qualification or exception for the whole three months I endured,” he retorted. “Had poor old Hemming not appeared as my saviour, I should hate it still.”

  “Hemming?—Not Mr. George Hemming?”

  “Naturally. Whom else should I mean? It was always Hemming Charles employed whenever anything distasteful had to be faced; and rather than come in search of me himself, and answer to the Headmaster, he sent his solicitor in his stead.”

  “I see.” His solicitor, it would seem, was yet serving in that capacity; and having faced a Headmaster of Winchester, and stood his ground, perhaps George Hemming could find nothing very awful in the gallows after all.

  “But I was forgetting,” Danforth continued. “You are a little acquainted with Mr. Hemming, I think, Miss Austen.”

  “I was in his company on the day I found Tess Arnold,” I told him starkly, “and still cannot credit that Mr. Hemming is languishing in Bakewell gaol, on a charge of murder.”

  “Not because of the maid?” Lady Harriot cried. Her isolation within the grounds of Chatsworth, it seemed, had extended so far as a complete ignorance of events that had animated all Derbyshire. “But why should he have done her any harm?”

  “Even now, I cannot support the idea,” Danforth said. “It is in every respect impossible.”

  “Because Mr. Hemming has been your saviour?” enquired Desdemona with interest, “or because you regard his character as incapable of violence? I merely ask as a student of human nature, and one who has witnessed murder done before. In this, you may observe the foundation of my friendship for Miss Austen.”

  “When the maid’s body was first discovered, and believed to be that of a young gentleman,” I said, “George Hemming was astonished to find a corpse above Miller’s Dale. On this basis alone I do not believe him when he claims to have shot Tess Arnold; and I shall never be convinced of his having mutilated her body.”

  “My father has invited Mr. Hemming to dine in our company some once or twice,” Lady Harriot said. “He seemed an amiable and decent fellow. But I cannot profess to know him well; and how may any of us claim to know of what another is capable? I should not admit such knowledge of my dearest relations. Indeed, if my family is to serve as example—then we may safely state that each of us is capable of the greatest good, and the deepest harm, in the world.”

  “Hemming sustained me through a most difficult period,” Danforth said with diffidence. “He has been a steady friend to all my family. But I cannot profess to know his conscience. I cannot profess to know my own, if it comes to that.”

  “This is serious speaking, indeed!” Lady Swithin cried, with a satiric look for Lady Harriot; “if you may command half so much eloquence on behalf of slavery or taxation, Mr. Danforth, your success in Parliament is assured! But perhaps we cannot hope for so much. It is rare for our English gentleman to summon much love for matters of finance.”

  “What reason do you find for Mr. Hemming to have murdered the maid?” I asked.

  He shook his head with a fine expression of distaste. “I wonder that they were even acquainted! I am as amazed as all of Bakewell, Miss Austen.”

  “And this is how steadiness is repaid!” observed Lady Swithin tartly. “If ever I stand in need of stout defence, Mr. Danforth, pray remind me not to look for it from your quarter.”

  “I shall be only too happy to speak to Hemming’s excellent character at the Derby Assizes,” Danforth returned. “Unless it be that he enters a plea of guilt. That is certainly the course that Sir James believes he will adopt, for I have spoken with the Justice regarding the case. He has never seen a man so determined, he says, to assume responsibility for his crime. Hemming appears to having nothing further in view, than a swift judgement.”

  Lady Harriot heaved a troubled sigh. “How dreadful, to have your good opinion of the man entirely overthrown! It is wretched, indeed, to feel that all one’s ideas of childhood—the happy innocence of one’s earliest associations—must be destroyed with age! The more I know of the world, the less I am pleased with it. There are few people I really love; and even fewer of whom I think well.”

  “That is because you are formed for discernment,” Andrew Danforth told her gently. “You are made of such unblemished gold yourself, that all the rest of the world must appear as base, and tarnished.”

  Lady Harriot closed her instrument with a gesture of impatience. “Pray do not toad-eat me this evening, Andrew! I have not the temper for it.”

  “He is merely practising, Hary-O, for his career in politics.” Lady Swithin made this observation with amusement. “You must know, Mr. Danforth, that the road to greatness is paved with seduction. You must endeavour to be the toast of all the great ladies in the Whig establishment, for it is they who wield the true power! Their husbands merely effect it.”

  The Countess’s tone was lighthearted; but I detected something of her uncle’s irony in its depths. The easy expression on Desdemona’s face must belie the cutting edge to her words. She was a subtle creature—a playful and charming girl, whose manners had always been captivating. But she was nonetheless a Trowbridge. And I saw, with an inner exulting, that she did not intend her friend Lady Harriot to throw herself away. However desperate the case of the Duke’s daughter—however miserable she might find herself in the prison of her home—Lady Swithin should e
nsure that she made a brilliant match. And Andrew Danforth was too ambitious—too insinuating in his ways—and too duplicitous for Mona’s taste.

  He flushed under the silken lash of her words. “A head that is turned by mere flattery cannot be made for Influence. Allow me to believe, Countess, that your long familiarity with the Great has misled you—it has jaded you to bitterness. I may hope that when Lady Harriot comes into her reign—when she is the queen of the ton, as her mother was before her—that she will not be swayed by hypocrites. We who wish for nothing but her happiness, cannot consign her to so miserable a fate.”

  “Hary-O may spot a hypocrite at thirty paces,” agreed Mona with relish, “having learned to despise them from her birth. I daresay you have been fortunate, Mr. Danforth, in the ease of your Derbyshire conquests; but London-bred ladies may prove a difficult case.”

  “My Derbyshire conquests,” he repeated, with an air of puzzlement. “I cannot think what you would mean.”

  Lady Harriot gathered her music with a petulant little slap, her countenance averted. “Let us have no more of this sparring, Mona. You both make my head ache.”

  “I believe you dropped this, Mr. Danforth, in your haste to lead Lady Harriot from the dining parlour.” The Countess held out a small gold jeweller’s case with an air of offering a beggar tuppence. “The lady who presented it should never wish you to leave it on the carpet, disregarded.”

  Mr. Danforth took the token from her and caressed it with his fingertips. “No,” he said slowly, “I am sure she would not.”

  He snapped open the case and showed us what it held—a bit of ivory, two inches wide. The miniature of a lady, painted in watercolours.

  “My late mother,” he said simply, and snapped the case closed. He left the music room without another word.

  Desdemona stared after him, for once bereft of speech. There was an expression of calculation on her countenance, however, very like to what I had observed in Lord Harold. It was probable that the Countess of Swithin suspected her uncle’s attachment to her friend; and with the best heart in the world, would further his suit. Whatever knowledge he possessed of Andrew Danforth, Mona probably comprehended as well.

  Except, it would seem, the most intriguing fact of all. That intelligence belonged to me alone. For I knew, now, why George Hemming languished in the Bakewell gaol. The lady in Danforth’s portrait—with her golden hair, her high cheekbones, and her slanting eyes of green—was the selfsame one he kept close to his heart, the miniature let slip on the night of his confession. I had thought then that the portrait was his wife’s. I was wrong.

  A Remedy for Inward Bruises

  oil half an ounce of ivy leaves and half an ounce of plantain in three pints of spring water, until it has boiled away to four cups. Then add an ounce of white sugar. The patient is to take a cup three times each day, warmed. It is very restringent, and will stop inward bleedings.

  —From the Stillroom Book

  of Tess Arnold,

  Penfolds Hall, Derbyshire,

  1802–1806

  Chapter 24

  Motives for Murder

  Sunday

  31 August 1806

  ∼

  I DID NOT FIND MY OWN BED UNTIL NEARLY THREE o’clock in the morning. Lady Harriot would have had me stay the night at Chatsworth, but I declined the honour most vociferously—being little disposed to tarry too long in Paradise, lest it make me ill-suited to my usual realm. Besides, I had brought no change of clothing, and could not appear at the breakfast table in evening dress.

  His Grace the Duke was so kind as to send me back into Bakewell behind his own horses, the moonlight being strong enough to permit of driving, even at so advanced an hour. Dawson the coachman having been summoned from his bed, he vented his grievance in pounding soundly at the broad front door of The Rutland Arms. Stumbling and weary, I mounted the stairs behind the candle of the unprotesting Mr. Davies—who must be said to possess experience of Dukes and their shocking hours. I do not think I was suffered even to dream.

  But I awoke with a start at seven o’clock, as though the presence of a stranger in the room had unnerved me. All was still; only birdsong and sunlight crept through the window-curtains. Without hesitation I reached under my pillow for the stillroom book of Tess Arnold, and began to read where I had left off Friday evening.

  23 January 1806. Met LH above Miller’s Dale.

  LH: Lord Hartington? Lady Harriot? Or—Lord Harold Trowbridge? The appearance of no one among Tess Arnold’s patients should surprise me now. I suspected, however, that LH signified one person only; and though Tess offered no hint of what she had supplied or charged for her services, there was reason for secrecy in their meetings.

  1 February 1806. LH with tutor. Saw one hour above Miller’s Dale.

  Of course the boy possessed a tutor, one who might go with him from London to Derbyshire and back again; one more suited to the instruction of a pupil with impaired hearing, than a host of Eton masters should be. I did not need Andrew Danforth’s indignation to fear Lord Hartington’s fate among schoolboys; they should despise him for his awkwardness, and taunt him cruelly for infirmity. But what a lonely life the Marquess seemed to have led! No small matter, then, the attentions of a worldly young woman; and well worth a winter ride to the heights of Miller’s Dale.

  14 February 1806. Ten draughts against the Gravel to Lady Elizabeth, of burdock root, vitriolated Tartar, and syrup of Marshmallows, five shillings. Also one for liverish complaints, of celandine, turmeric, madder, and bruised woodlice, to which added, twenty-five drops morphia from Michael Tivey, one guinea.

  Bruised woodlice? I shuddered. Lady Elizabeth appeared to have suffered from a variety of ailments, and to have dosed herself most liberally; there were further entries for the liverish concoction, each with increasing amounts of morphia. I had not thought she should have found occasion to visit Chatsworth during the London Season; but in fact I knew very little of her movements.

  27 February 1806. Master John seized with vomiting and a bloody flux. Mistress hysterick. Administered salt of wormwood in lemon juice to the child, with hartshorn and diascordium against the stools; to the Mistress, asafetida in rue-water. Urged Dr. Bascomb be called.

  3 March 1806. Master John wasting in fever. Dr. Bascomb bled him to reduce the heat of the blood. I applied the leeches.

  5 March 1806. John d’Arcy Danforth, aged two years, five months, and nineteen days, died this morning of a malignant fever.

  14 March 1806. To Lady Elizabeth, by post, Tincture of Bitter Almonds in Juniper Water, one shilling.

  By post. The malingering Bess had not, then, been in residence at Chatsworth. No mention of what use might be found for Tincture of Bitter Almonds.

  28 March 1806. Mistress thrown this morning into early labour, several weeks before she expected. Placed Tansy steeped in Sack in cloth bag against the navel, and gave posset of milk and Oil of Sweet Almonds. As Master was absent on business in London, askt Mrs. Haskell to send to Buxton for Dr. Bascomb. Doctor came, and at eight o’clock in the evening, Mistress brought to bed of a dead child. Gave Mistress bruised millipede in white wine against sore breasts, and Hartshorn water against histericks.

  How sick Lydia Danforth must have been, of these useless draughts for ills no human hand could cure! How desolate that last, and most dreadful, lying-in, with her faint hopes of happiness staring sightless from the eyes of a stillborn babe!

  There was a further episode in the Danforth tragedy; and I found it not long thereafter.

  8 April 1806. Mistress taken today with malignant fever. Gave powder of Bark and Virginian Snakeroot in strong cinnamon water. Dr. Bascomb called, and bled her.

  10 April 1806. At a quarter past one o’clock this morning, Mistress taken to God. Mr. Charles has shut himself up in his room and sees no one.

  There were entries enough after this—Tess Arnold’s careful hand ran all the way up to the twenty-second of August, when she had applied a poultice of elderberries
against a scullery-maid’s burn; but none of them afforded me so much interest. It was singular, I reflected, that Andrew Danforth had suffered not the slightest indisposition in nearly four years of record-keeping; and Charles Danforth had been ill only once. The entry that referred to him was the very last one contained in the stillroom book.

  23 August 1806. Master seized with vomiting after dinner. Offered red surfeit water but he would have none of it.

  Charles Danforth had refused the maid’s physick; and Charles Danforth was still alive.

  I sat upright in bed for close to an hour, while the light and birdsong of morning strengthened beyond my window, and considered of the nature of the Danforth ailments. Of Lady Elizabeth’s peculiar combination of liverish complaints and blocked menses. Of Lord Hartington’s loves and Lord Hartington’s silent rages.

  I thought of Michael Tivey, and how useful a friend he had proved; I thought of the lies Tess Arnold had told her sister, of Freemasons and sacrifice in the hills above Miller’s Dale.

  Lastly I considered of George Hemming. There was but one reason I could think of for his perilous course towards judgement and execution—for if Tess Arnold had blackmailed the solicitor, she had taken his secret to the grave. The stillroom book betrayed not the slightest hint of the reasons for his shame and misery. But I thought I could conceive of explanation enough.

  I closed the quarto volume at last and set it carefully to one side. Then I got up and went in search of paper and a pen. Before I might dress for Sunday service—before I might do up my hair, or petition Mr. Davies for hot tea—there was a letter to be drafted to Dr. Bascomb of Buxton. The innkeeper must certainly know the physician’s direction; and Sunday or no, I would have the answers I required.

  “YOU WILL BE SURE TO OBSERVE THE TOMBS IN THE Vernon Chapel, Jane,” observed my cousin Mr. Cooper as we toiled up the hill to All Saints Church.