by Lucy Worsley
Six months ago, Fanny would have been confounded. But now she couldn’t help but feel that he had paid her something of a compliment in speaking so freely. There was truth in what he said. Yes, her mother – perhaps all the mamas – could be a bit ridiculous.
‘Ah, but she does it out of love,’ Fanny said, in a rush of fondness.
‘As is only right,’ he said gallantly, ‘for she must be proud of her daughter. But will she let you marry that parson dog? That’s the question. I haven’t seen him about much, and he’s not here tonight, is he? Where has he got to?’
Fanny turned away. She could not answer these questions, did not want to, did not feel that they should even have been asked.
She’d been feeling so sophisticated as she’d danced with the lord, but now the bottom seemed suddenly to have fallen out of the evening.
She mumbled something to Lord Smedley and stumbled away from him, trying to lose herself in the swirling crowd. Had she really made herself seem unobtainable, off the market? Did the neighbourhood really think that she was destined for the one man she could never marry?
Fanny sank down on to the bench for young ladies, pretending that she was tired and was just enjoying watching.
But her mind was busy.
Lord Smedley seemed to believe that it was at least possible that she might marry Mr Drummer, that her parents might conceivably say yes. She must think that over carefully, because perhaps there would never be anyone else. Soon she was lost to the world, not at all embarrassed to be sitting and gazing into space instead of dancing. She had something much more delicious to think about instead.
Chapter 24
Aunt Jane’s bedroom, Godmersham Park
The next morning, Fanny couldn’t wait to find out what might happen next with Anna and Mr Terry. It would take her mind off her painful conversation with Lord Smedley, and the half-awful, half-delightful turmoil in her thoughts.
She and her cousin had come home so late they’d fallen asleep immediately, like baby Cassie did after bolting one of her milky meals. Yet Anna was already up and gone when Fanny opened her eyes. Where was she? Was she tackling Mr Terry? Or was she making it up with him again?
Fanny groaned and stretched and scratched her back under her nightgown, properly and satisfyingly.
But her own situation came creeping back into her mind. Her reputation was at risk! People had gossiped about her!
‘Completely untrue!’
Fanny said the words out loud stoutly, almost as if practising saying them to her mother. ‘There’s nothing in what Lord Smedley said about me and Mr Drummer having an understanding. It’s nonsense.’
Yet something deep in her bowels felt out of place. Almost as if she were lying to herself. They’d never spoken, but they’d … looked.
She put on her dressing gown and went to give her usual tap at Aunt Jane’s door.
‘Come in, Fanny,’ Aunt Jane called from within. ‘I warn you I’m still in bed.’
Aunt Jane had been dancing too, last night at the Chilham Ball. As Fanny entered, she lifted herself up on her elbows.
‘Come on, my poor little waif,’ Aunt Jane said, ‘jump in.’ She lifted the cover invitingly.
Fanny hurled herself across the room. It was true that her feet were cold.
She hadn’t been in her aunt’s bed since she was little. She tucked herself in and folded down the counterpane neatly over their two bodies. They lay there, side by side, like figures on a tomb in a church, looking up at fringes on the canopy over the bed’s head. It occurred to Fanny that her aunt had quite a fancy bed for a spinster with no fortune.
‘So, Fanny,’ Aunt Jane said after a while. ‘Tell me all your secrets.’
‘Well, Anna says that she can’t marry Mr Terry after all, because of his eyebrows.’
‘His eyebrows!’ Aunt Jane burst out laughing.
‘Well, you know, his tufty eyebrows, and all the other annoying things too.’
‘Good,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘So that’s settled. Poor Anna, though, having to break it to him. Was that what you two were talking about last night? I saw all that winking and whispering. You’re as thick as thieves again, aren’t you? And what did the fascinating young lord have to say? You came away looking all pink. You want to watch out with him, you know. He’s dangerous.’
‘Well,’ Fanny began, uncertain how much to tell. Then she decided that there was no point in holding anything back. It would be such a relief to talk about Mr Drummer.
All her confusion seemed suddenly to drain away, and she felt much refreshed, lying peacefully there in bed with her aunt. The sun was coming up outside, she saw, the golden sun of September. She tried to think how to begin.
‘Aunt Jane,’ she said. ‘I really, really like Dominic Drummer. And I think that he likes me.’
‘Fanny!’ said Aunt Jane. ‘Tell me at once. Are you in love?’
Fanny couldn’t answer. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘What does it feel like?’
‘Does it hurt?’ said Aunt Jane. ‘Can you think of nothing else in the whole world apart from him? Take your time, now. You might confuse love with infatuation, just at first. They feel similar.’
‘Well, perhaps it hurts a little,’ Fanny conceded. ‘But also I’m worried about what people might say, and then there’s the mess he’s in, you know, and I want to help him. But it’s all so difficult, knowing how to.’
‘Ah,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘He is difficult to help. Such a proud young man. The penniless often are, you know, proud I mean. I am very proud myself.’
‘If he only he were rich!’ Fanny groaned. ‘Then it would be easy!’
‘Being rich comes with problems too, Fanny,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I think it’s nicest to be comfortably in-between.’
‘Aunt Jane,’ Fanny began, taking advantage of the fact that they were in such a good situation for sharing secrets. ‘I know … that … well, I know you’re penniless, or something like. But I also know someone has paid for Mr Drummer to have better lodgings, and has been helping him with money. I think that … might … have been you?’
She did not dare turn her head on the pillow to look over at her aunt.
There was a big sigh.
‘Yes, I have been able to help him. I do have money,’ Aunt Jane admitted, ‘though not as much as your father and mother. It’s money I have earned myself, and I’m very proud of that.’
Now Fanny glanced across. Aunt Jane’s knife-like nose was pointing straight at the ceiling, as if she didn’t want to be asked any questions.
Of course Fanny felt desperate to ask how on earth Aunt Jane had earned this money. Earning money, her mother constantly told her, was the least ladylike thing she could possibly do.
That must be why Aunt Jane kept it so secret, because she lived here at Godmersham Park as Elizabeth’s guest.
Had Fanny’s aunt done it through sewing and embroidering? She was very skilled at such things, and made the most wonderful presents with her needle.
But Aunt Jane’s nose invited no questions, and Fanny decided not to address the issue. To talk about it would implicitly criticise her own mother.
‘So … if you helped him,’ she said slowly, feeling her way on to safer ground, ‘do you also think that Mr Drummer must be innocent? Could we perhaps … go to see him again?’
‘I think he is innocent,’ said Aunt Jane, ‘and that’s why I took you to the House of Correction, so you can see that sometimes innocent people end up there. For all Anna’s talk of justice and right and wrong, it’s money that speaks in this world.’
She sighed, and rolled her head so she was looking into Fanny’s face. ‘But there’s one thing, Fanny,’ she said very seriously. ‘If we go to see him, and if you eventually decide you don’t like him, you could lose your reputation. You’ve got to keep it safe if you’re to make the sort of marriage that your parents want for you.’
At that Aunt Jane gave Fanny a very sharp stare.
Fanny realised that h
er aunt hadn’t said ‘the marriage that you want’. There was a whirring sensation in her head. What did she want – for herself?
‘I promise,’ she said quickly, avoiding the unspoken question.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen about your Mr Drummer,’ her aunt said, propping herself up and reaching for her spectacles. ‘I’ve been reading in the newspapers about similar cases, and I have written to Mr Sprack the thief-taker for advice. We’ll go into Canterbury today, to meet him, and to see what he thinks. He is coming down on this morning’s stagecoach from London.’
Fanny gulped. Her aunt was in correspondence with the most famous thief-taker in London! Everyone had heard of the ingenious Mr Sprack!
‘How did you know where to write?’ she asked at once. ‘I really can’t imagine my father doing that.’
‘Oh, I met him once, in London,’ Aunt Jane said vaguely. ‘At a party.’ She was now unfolding and rereading a letter. ‘Yes, the meeting is at the Star,’ she said. ‘At midday.’
‘Huh,’ Fanny said.
She didn’t know quite what else to add. Aunt Jane going to parties in London! And knowing exciting people like thief-takers! It was almost as if she wasn’t quite the dry old stick George insisted that she was.
‘Better get dressed,’ Aunt Jane was saying. ‘Our business can’t wait.’ She swung herself bolt upright. In her long white nightgown, her thin figure looked like a corpse in its shroud arisen from its grave.
Fanny slipped out of the bed too, excited but nervous. To meet a real-life thief-taker! The very thought filled her with trepidation. Would he be greasy and dishonest, like the warder at the House of Correction?
But at least Aunt Jane would be there.
And a secret part of her was delighted that Aunt Jane had chosen Fanny herself for this work. Not Anna, but Fanny alone.
Chapter 25
The Star Inn, Canterbury
With practised smoothness – or so it now seemed to Fanny – Aunt Jane had talked her way into getting the carriage.
‘The children’s clothes,’ she’d explained, ‘and a few small errands of my own. Fanny and I can bring back that package of tea you wanted, Elizabeth, the one from London. It should arrive at the Star Inn on the midday stage, don’t you think?’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ Fanny’s father had said. ‘Enjoy yourselves. I can’t think how you have the energy after such a late night.’
Fanny now climbed into the carriage with an unusually straight spine. She could imagine the eyes of her brothers and sisters boring into her from their nursery window, wondering where she was off to.
She imagined them saying, ‘Look, Fanny’s going somewhere secret with Aunt Jane. Yet she’s always telling us that God will punish us if we deceive.’
But Aunt Jane hadn’t lied: she and Fanny truly were going to the Star Inn.
When they got there, Fanny headed for the staircase which led to the big dancing room.
‘Oh no,’ said Aunt Jane, ‘we’re not going up there. This way, Fanny, into the bar.’
Fanny had never been into such a smoke-stained, sticky, dark and noisy interior. Each seat was taken by a farmer with a foaming tankard who was engaged in shouting at his friends. Behind the bar a woman with hefty forearms was chopping ham, as vigorously as if she were chopping off the heads of her enemies.
There was a slight but noticeable dip in the volume as Aunt Jane and Fanny entered.
Fanny wished that she wasn’t dressed in such bright white muslin, and that her bonnet did not have such obviously expensive silk flowers on it. She caught the barmaid looking at her as if she were out of place.
Aunt Jane just gave a loud sniff, and forged forward into the crowd.
Near the window stood a particularly tall-backed bench, and on a bright day like this, the dazzle outside made anyone sitting upon it dark and shadowy to the eye.
But there was someone there. He wore a tall hat, and although she could only see his silhouette, Fanny could tell that there was a long cloak thrown back from his shoulders. Against the bench lay a staff. On the table before the man stood not a tankard of ale but a little conical goblet, and a bottle.
‘Jane Austen,’ he grunted, as Fanny’s aunt stood before him. ‘Good Lord, it’s Jane Austen, as I live and breathe. Fire and brimstone, the very lady. The battleaxe herself.’
He took off his hat and placed it over his breast, and stared at Fanny’s aunt as if in awe.
To her surprise, he was teasing Aunt Jane.
Fanny raised her eyebrows. People often sighed, or turned away, at her aunt’s somewhat intimidating approach. They did not stare at her in mock enraptured attention.
Aunt Jane never minced or smirked, but there was something about the set of her head that told Fanny she was pleased.
‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘and do me the honour of taking a drink with me.’ He fished another little glass out of the darkness at his feet, and poured Aunt Jane a rich golden cordial of some kind. He glanced at Fanny herself.
‘Too young,’ said Aunt Jane, seating herself on a stool and gesturing Fanny to take the place next to the thief-taker.
Fanny peered sideways, timidly, at his seamed skin, his silvery beard, his eyes that were buried deep in his face. His half-submerged eyeballs nevertheless had a bright glint to them, and his gaze swivelled across the taproom and back with intensity. She had the sense that if she’d suddenly blindfolded him, he could still have described everyone within the inn.
‘Light favours us,’ he said to Fanny. She was embarrassed that he’d noticed her scrutiny, but didn’t know what he meant.
‘They can only see the outline of the bench against the window,’ he explained. ‘And we’ve got both exits covered.’
Fanny now noticed that there was another little door opposite, leading directly out to the stable yard.
Fanny saw that Aunt Jane was giving her rare thin smile. She downed her cordial in one.
‘Now, Mr Sprack,’ she said in her abrupt way. ‘I don’t want to keep you from your work on the trail of those evil slave traders. I’ve been following your progress in the Times of London. Most impressive. I’m glad the matter brought you into Kent.’
He gave a grave and courteous nod to acknowledge her compliment.
It made Fanny think that he must respect her aunt’s opinion a good deal.
‘Anyway, here’s what’s happened in Canterbury,’ Aunt Jane was saying. ‘I think I can detect in it echoes of the recent trickery in Bath that I read about in the Gazette.’
She outlined events so far, explaining that Mr Drummer had gone to buy gloves yet had inexplicably found himself in possession of stolen lace. She stressed that to the best of her knowledge Mr Drummer was a straightforward, honourable young man.
‘Quite an ordinary young man,’ Aunt Jane said, ‘but definitely honourable.’
Fanny looked down at her fingers. What did Aunt Jane really think of Mr Drummer? Did she think that he was someone Fanny should marry? Fanny realised now that her aunt had somehow managed to keep her views very much to herself.
Mr Sprack picked up his staff and planted it on the floor between his knees, clasping it in both hands. He leaned forward, and cleared his throat.
Both Fanny and Aunt Jane leaned forward too. They didn’t want to miss a word, nor for Mr Sprack to have to speak so loudly that others might hear.
The din of the farmers had returned to normal, and no one appeared to be paying them any attention. Yet Mr Sprack did not immediately address the case.
‘This one here,’ he said in his breathy, whispering voice, cocking his head at Fanny. ‘I could use her. She’ll pass for quality, which is hard to find in my business. I can use her as bait, for messages, trick-work. Train her up, I would, Miss Austen. Does she need a bob or two?’
Aunt Jane laughed. The suggestion obviously pleased her.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Miss Fanny is quite the clever girl, certainly worthy of your training, but her parents have ot
her plans for her. Not to speak of any plans she may have for herself. Although, Mr Sprack,’ Aunt Jane added, as if she felt she ought to, ‘my niece is quality, you know. She won’t just pass for quality, she is the real thing.’
‘Worth more than rubies,’ Mr Sprack continued. Fanny looked at him again, and one of his black, currant-like eyes winked at her. All of a sudden, she felt comfortable with him and his stealthy ways. She could imagine him passing along the dark streets of a city like London as if he were a ghost, seeing, but not being seen.
‘So, Mr Sprack? Your verdict on the case?’
He sighed and went on, as if unaware of the tumult he’d awakened in Fanny. How exciting to be the assistant of such a man! What sights she might see, what adventures she might have! But then, how adamantly her mother would refuse to let her.
How shocked her mother would be, even just to see her here in the common barroom of the Star.
Now Mr Sprack spoke, and with confidence. ‘It’s a new trick that crooked shopkeepers have started playing just recently,’ he said. ‘They use it on customers who seem a bit dreamy, or not very wise about the world. People like your Mr Drummer. Was it known in the town that he had rich friends?’
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘It was known that he’d come here as parson to my brother Edward on his estate just outside town. Edward is one of the big men of the neighbourhood.’
‘The shopkeeper waits till a dreamy-looking customer buys something – and he did buy a pair of gloves, you said, Miss Austen? And then, while doing up the parcel, the shopkeeper slips in something else. Like this lace, in your case. The customer leaves, the shopkeeper “realises” that something’s gone missing, accosts the customer and hey-ho – the evidence is right there in his hands! Or her hands. Women have been victims of this trick too.’
‘But why would the shopkeeper want Mr Drummer to go to prison, or even be transported?’ Fanny asked.
‘Ah,’ said Aunt Jane, digging about in her little bag and drawing out a small piece of newsprint. ‘This is from the Bath Gazette, it’s the case I mentioned, Mr Sprack. It sounds similar. The idea, you see, is extortion.’