“Capital, Miss Austen! Parry stroke for stroke. I would that the Countess Scargrave were so deft in her opposition.”
“Lord Harold,” I said, summoning my courage, “I cannot profess to know all the particulars of what is toward between yourself and Lady Scargrave. It is right that I should remain in ignorance of affairs so delicate and so disputed. But I would ask you, my lord, why you persist in your efforts, having professed them to be ranged on the side of the Devil? In saying as much, are not you bound by honour, by better feeling, by all that is in your power as a peer and a gentleman, to desist? *
In reply, he threw back his head and laughed, and at that moment Cobblestone entered upon the scene, my venerable deliverer. Behind the butler stood Sir William Reynolds and Isobel.
“Lord Harold,” Sir William said, bowing towards the fireplace, “Miss Austen. The Countess and I would speak with you alone, my dear Jane, and so I must ask Lord Harold to leave us.”
“I believe I have outworn Miss Austen’s patience in any event,” Trowbridge said, with a mocking smile, and bowed low in my direction. “I look forward to trying it again, when opportunity serves.” And with a nod for Sir William, and a courtesy to Isobel, he achieved the hall, to my mingled relief and chagrin.
“A more teasing man I have never encountered!” I exclaimed, when he had gone. “He finds his sole diversion in tormenting and vexing others, as a cat will toss a bird between its paws before the kill.”
“An apt image, my dear Jane,” Isobel murmured, looking towards the door through which her enemy had vanished; “I have reason to know well its meaning. But I would that you had been spared his company.”
I gathered up my silks and canvas, and patted the seat beside me. “If I served to keep him from your door a little while, Countess, I may count the tedium as nothing.”
“Is Trowbridge making a nuisance of himself, my lady?” Sir William enquired, as though our discussion of that gentleman yesterday in the magistrate’s chariot had never occurred. Sir William hovered by the door, waiting, as he should, for Isobel to take her seat before seeking one of his own; and his lined face was all innocence.
He wishes to know exactly how far the Countess trusts him, I thought.
Isobel ‘smiled faintly and settled herself by my side. “Lord Harold cannot be other than a nuisance, Sir William, but I fear that that is gossip for a different day. Your note suggested some urgency. What can have caused you to quit your pleasant abode on such a wintry morning?”
Something fluttered across Sir William’s countenance and departed—a hope for Isobel’s confidence, perhaps. He crossed the room slowly, his hand in his pocket and his gait marked by what I judged to be the effects of gout. “I have received an anonymous letter, my lady,” he replied, handing a slip of paper to Isobel, “and having no reason to hope that its author would be discovered by delay, I hastened to acquaint you with its contents.”
For Isobel’s perusal, was required but a moment; she then offered the letter to me, and I bent my head to my purpose.
Greetings to the most Grayshus Sir,
I am late of the Scargrave house and would tell you of the evil there. I do this not for my own gayne, but for la justice for the poor man layde in the ground. Milord he was murdered by poyson and it was the grey-hared lord as did so, at the wish of my Ladie. For the love of God I have said it. I trust in your goodness and hand.
As Sir William had informed us, the missive was unsigned; and it asked for no payment in return for silence—an unfortunate circumstance, given my assertions of the previous evening.
“The grey-haired lord,” Isobel murmured, pressing a handkerchief embroidered with her monogram to her lips; against the rusty black of her widow’s weeds, her skin was so pale as to appear almost translucent. “She might mean either Fitzroy or Trowbridge.”
“So she might.” Sir William’s manner was grave and the humour I had been wont to see in his kindly face, banished from his features. “I confess, my lady, that I am puzzled. How do we explain the persistence of this girl, who appears to seek no personal gain?”
A swift look passed between Isobel and myself. The Countess swallowed and dropped her eyes. “I had not understood how much she hates me. Some great wrong I must have done her, Sir William, tho’ all unwittingly; for nothing less than wounded resentment could move her to such malice.”
There was a silence as Sir William considered my friend’s wan countenance. I wished, of a sudden, that I had kept my needlework within reach; a lady’s canvas may always prove her friend, when anxiety would render idle hands a burden. I clasped my fingers together in my lap in an effort at composure.
“She has been in your service how long, my lady?” the magistrate enquired.
“Marguerite came to me from my aunt Delahoussaye’s establishment in the Barbadoes, when I was seventeen and the maid some three years my junior.” Isobel made a hurried calculation. “I would put it at some five years.”
“And your relations were always cordial?”
“Always—or at the least, always before our arrival in England. That is now eighteen months past.”
Sir William began to pace about the room, the better to order his thoughts; but his attitude had the unfortunate aspect of a lawyer before the bar; interrogating a reluctant witness.
“And so Marguerite travelled with you from the Indies?” he prompted.
“Indeed,” Isobel replied, her eyes following his passage across the rug. “I would not embark on such a journey, Sir William, without my maid. She was the sole person of my household I permitted myself to take, the rest being discharged—but for the few who remained in my overseer’s employ.”
“And was the maid grateful to be so retained?”
“I assumed so.” Isobel’s fingers worried at the fine Swiss lawn of her handkerchief, crumpling it to a wrinkled ball. “How does one know the true feelings of one’s servants? I confess her behaviour is so strange to me, I must believe I have never known her.” My friend paused, as if in thought, and then turned her eyes unwillingly to Sir William’s careful face. “But when I consider her manner these past few months, I would declare that she seemed unhappy. She missed her native climate, perhaps, in the coldness of England; snow she had never seen, for example, any more than I had myself; but where I found wonder, she found a strangeness to disturb. That it shook her, as being the opposite of all that was natural and familiar, I may fairly declare. She became quite superstitious and seemed to suffer from a condition of nervous excitement, starting at a sound and taking fixed dislike to what could do her no harm.”
“Such as Lord Scargrave, perhaps?” Sir William all but pounced.
“My husband she showed only deference.”
“I meant to indicate the present Lord Scargrave, Viscount Payne that was,” the magistrate said silkily.
Isobel coloured and started, her handkerchief dropping to the floor. “You have put your finger on it, Sir William. She did not like my nephew at all—something I ascribe to his hair greying overly-young. Marguerite would see in it the Devil’s mark. She did not suffer herself to be alone in the same room with him.”
“A curious child,” Sir William murmured, and looked at me. I read his intention in his eyes, and willed him not to ask of Isobel the true nature of her relations with Fitzroy Payne.
“Lady Scargrave,” he began, and then stopped, as though debating with himself. “Have you any reason to believe your husband’s death was other than it seemed?”
“None whatsoever,” Isobel said. Her chin came up and her beautiful brown eyes met the magistrate’s.
“You say this, recognising I in no way accuse you of having any hand in its achievement?”
“I know you could not believe it possible, sir; any more than I may believe an intimate of this household—servant or relation—capable of such monstrous evil.”
Sir William sighed gustily and turned his back upon the Countess, his brow furrowed and his hands clasped behind his back. He paced th
e full length of the room again before he suffered himself to reply.
“My lady,” he said, wheeling to face us in his best barrister’s manner, “I cannot for the life of me say what is to be done. The girl is not to be found, and her defamation, it would appear, is but meant for an audience of one—myself. Your reputation remains untarnished in the surrounding country.”
“But how long may we presume upon the maid’s restraint?” I broke in.
Sir William raised an eyebrow. “She says nothing in that note, my dear Miss Austen, about any more letters. I suggest we do little for the present beyond our efforts to locate the maid, and pray God that her malice withers of itself with time.”
“You are very good, Sir William.” Isobel rose and extended her hand. “I will trust my welfare completely to your care.”
“MY DEAR JANE,” SIR WILLIAM SAID BRISKLY, AS I WALKED with him to his carriage, “I would know the name and direction of the London physician. Have you any recollection?”
“He was a Philip Pettigrew,” I replied, “and I believe his offices were in Sloane Street. His fees should certainly support such an establishment.”
“Excellent! Excellent! You are a jewel among women, my dear.” And to my surprise, Sir William bent low to kiss my hand.
And so he was gone, on purposes and with intents he chose to keep to himself, but that I believe I divined nonetheless.
1. Austen’s tone in this passage evokes the breathless morbidity of the Gothic novels that were quite popular in her day. Such authors as Ann Radcliffe and Charlotte Smith penned ghoulish tales intended to titillate and alarm their largely female audience. Though Austen often poked fun at such literature—Northanger Abbey is in part a spoof of these novels—she did read them, and on this night at least, appears to have been somewhat influenced by their powerful fantasies.—Editor’s note.
16 December 1802, cont.
˜
THE COUNTESS HAVING RETIRED, AND THERE YET remaining several hours before I must dress for dinner, I bethought myself of exercise—prohibited heretofore by the heavy fall of snow—and donned my pelisse. With the aid of my pattens,1 my boots might escape complete ruination; but, in truth, I do not care a fig for the fate of my boots, when weighed against the claims of sanity. Another hour’s confinement among Scargrave’s grey walls, with Isobel’s poor spirits and the Delahoussayes’ poor wits, should render me fit only to play the part of madwoman in one of Fanny Burney’s novels.
I nodded to Fetters, the footman, and slipped through the heavy oak doors he drew back for my passage, feeling immaterial as a shade in the pale wintry sunlight. The air was fresh and sharp, and smelled bitingly of snow; we should have another fall before dawn, I surmised. I breathed deeply and felt a pressure ease within my chest; my sight cleared, and a pounding at the temples I had suffered for some hours began to recede. The world, however bleak I have found it in the last few weeks, must nonetheless be formed of goodness, if but a few moments in Nature’s company may suffice to renew one’s health and mental aspect.
The grand flight of steps that spilled before me had been swept clean of snow; and a passage of sorts cleared by carriage wheels along the drive. I hesitated an instant, considering the security afforded by an adjacent shrubbery, but suspecting it to be still enshrouded in drifts, I set off determinedly down the lane. A walk that has served daily to relieve a mind so sunk in melancholy as Mr. George Hearst’s, should undoubtedly offer excellent advantage to the happier spirits of Miss Austen. But after a little I stopped short, and turned back to survey the Manor; a gloomy picture in the afternoon light it made, with the Scargrave hatchments2 mounted above its many windows. Fully forty-five of these I counted off, in three storeys of fifteen, marching across the facade with a glint of glass and leading; but the effect remained merely dismal where it intended to be imposing. Built, so Isobel informs me, in the reign of Elizabeth, Scargrave Manor has been “improved” within an inch of its life on too many past occasions; it is now such a mixture of Tudor and Jacobean, with a bit of Inigo Jones thrown in for good measure, as to be a veritable Tower of architectural Babel.
I put the Manor to my back, and, since an aimless walk cannot hope to please, determined to make Scargrave Cottage my object—though with no intention of disturbing its occupants, the Hearsts; I desired some solitude, the better to consider the import of the maid Marguerite’s latest letter. But I had no sooner summoned the Hearsts to my thoughts, than I espied a lonely black figure some distance before me, all but indistinguishable from the darker ranks of trees that lined the drive. The very Mr. Hearst, engaged in his habitual ramble! I faltered, and strained to make out his features; but his head was bent in thought, his countenance obscured. Should I turn back, or attempt to converse with the gentleman? I had little relish for the latter task. But I recalled the gravity of Sir William’s parting look, and considered Isobel’s unhappiness—two thoughts that could not but hasten me along my way. Did the Earl meet his end by violence, all within the Manor’s walls must be suspect; and Mr. Hearst, at least, had quarrelled with his uncle the very night of that gentleman’s untimely end. His low spirits were assuredly fled on that occasion; for something very like passion had animated Mr. Hearst’s bitter gibes.
The incipient curate’s strides outstripped my own, and the way being decidedly encumbered by mud and wet snow, I progressed but poorly. And so, thrusting propriety to one side, I drew up my skirts and set off at a brisk trot in pursuit of Mr. Hearst. As I approached the gentleman, the ringing of my clumsy pattens upon a stone alerted him to my presence, and he turned to meet me with some surprise.
“Miss Austen!” cried he. “I did not take you for an ardent walker.”
“Indeed, sir, it is my chief enjoyment. As it appears to be your own.”
He removed his hat, and bowed, and turned back to accompany me towards the Manor. “It is very healthful, assuredly, for mind as well as body. Particularly in this season, when one is confined so much within doors. I fear that too much sitting plays poorly upon my spirits.”
“You do not ride, as your brother does?”
“I find, Miss Austen, that my brother’s passions instruct him to perfection in their pursuit. And thus I cede him whatever employment he chooses to master—I do not wish to attempt to emulate him, and suffer by comparison.”
A silence then ensued, and I cast about for a means of introducing the subject of Mr. Hearst’s quarrel with the Earl. How to attempt it with tact and decorum? Impossible! I should be forced to lower myself in his eyes, by appearing a malicious gossip. But what was the adoption of the meaner arts against the preservation of Isobel’s peace of mind? A mere nothing.
“And are you equally passionate, Mr. Hearst, though in pursuit of that which your brother spurns? For on one occasion at least, I have heard you argue with energy.”
My words, I fear, were too oblique; and rather than respond to their import, he merely used the opportunity to distinguish himself from the Lieutenant.
“I have so far learned from my brother’s example, Miss Austen, as to spurn passion in anything. It is too often the means of unmastering a sober mind. Better to approach all that one can in life, with probity and discretion. Reason is my beloved tool, as ardour has become my brother’s.”
“I commend you, sir—though I might consider a judicious mixture of the two, as the best guarantee of happiness.”
He merely nodded, his thoughts apparently elsewhere, and left me as desperate for an opening as before. We laboured on in silence a few moments, but at the broad face of Scargrave approaching, I forced myself to the purpose.
“I suppose the Earl’s death has only heightened the attractions of the out-of-doors,” I observed, “for to sit by the fire in contemplation of his sudden exiting from this life, should do little good to anybody.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Hearst replied, his eyes upon the muddied path at our feet.
“I suppose you held the Earl in deep affection?” I persisted. At his expression of surprise,
I added lamely, “It is just that I had so little opportunity to study his lordship’s character—the Countess having married so recently, and the Earl departing his life almost upon the moment that I entered it.”
“And are you a student of character; Miss Austen?” Mr. Hearst enquired, avoiding the necessity of answering my question.
“Oh! But of course!” I exclaimed, with greater enthusiasm for the game than I felt; “is there anything more worth the study?”
“In my opinion, there is little that is less worthy of your penetration. The character of a man is formed for disappointment, I believe; the more one knows of one’s fellow beings, the less one is inclined to cherish them—or oneself.”
“Mr Hearst! I am all amazement! Are these the sentiments of a man of the Church? You must seek to reform your views, if Holy Orders remain your object.”
“But perhaps it is my poor opinion of my fellows that spurs my aspirations heavenwards, Miss Austen.”
“I dare say,” I rejoined, “your contempt for the human condition leaving you no alternative. But it cannot serve to improve your parishioners’ lot. As a clergyman’s daughter; I must advise you to choose the solitude of the cloister; Mr. Hearst, rather than the pulpit. Its lofty height cannot preserve you from the disaffection of your flock, if you offer them only scorn.”
“You think me ill-suited to the office?” he enquired, with an anxious look.
Rather than crush him entirely, I took refuge in a lady’s prevarication. “I should never attempt to judge a gentleman’s ambition,” I replied circumspectly.
Mr. Hearst appeared to hesitate, as if in debate with himself, and then stopped in the lane, the better to hold my attention. “That is, perhaps, an answer to my question, though not one I should wish to hear—for had you unreservedly believed me fitted for the Church, I believe you should as readily have affirmed it. I fear my uncle was of your opinion, Miss Austen. He told me I should make a sorry clergyman. He would not hear of Holy Orders, and urged me to take instead the part of gentleman farmer.”
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor Page 9