Jane and the Sins of Society

by Sarah Waldock

  Chalky melted into the shadows to sidle up alongside the coachman, and hit him with an economy of motion with a small cudgel, which drew approving smiles to the two false mutes. He was stowed inside the carriage well trussed with his own muffler and neckcloth, and Chalky undid the horse from its traces and gave it a good slap on the rump.

  Free from the confines of the harness, the horse did what any sensible horse will do on a drizzly March evening, and headed smartly for home.

  Will came pelting round the corner at this point, along with the other watcher who had not been fired by Fowler, a youth known as Peewee for his small size.

  “Bessies,” said Chalky.

  The five of them slid quietly inside the door. Chalky and Peewee slid off towards the back door, at a hand signal from Will, Johnny headed down to the servants’ quarters, hefting the shotgun he had had strapped to his wand, and Will ran quietly upstairs. With a maniacal grin, Dusty picked up the striker for the huge gong loaned to the family by Sir William, and hit the three-foot bronze gong as hard as he could.

  The sound reverberated through the house like the knell of doom, making the soldiers jump. There was no way the house would sleep through that!

  “Cor!” said Dusty, impressed, as he readied his own shotgun.

  “Loud,” said Jackie, coming out of the butler’s pantry. “Right, we got a pair of housebreakers trapped. The capting can’t pin murder on them, but if they’re dead, they can’t get off.”

  There was the sound of pistol fire from above, and a rather falsetto scream.

  Jane awakened at the sound of her bedroom door opening.

  She slid her pistol out from underneath her pillow and under the bedclothes and sat up.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, sharply.

  “Someone who would rather not kill you, Lady Armitage,” said the voice of Hillborough Ferrant. “Too many deaths in one family get ... suspicious. However, children die all the time, and unless you promise me that you are going to keep your silence, my associate is going to smother one of your children. And believe me, he can get in any time to kill one at a time if you happen to forget.”

  “Mr. Ferrant, I think you overestimate his chances,” said Jane. Quietly she shifted herself across the bed, and off it on the far side.

  At that moment there was a loud bell-like detonation of sound. Jane used the masking reverberations to finish her move.

  “What the devil?” Ferrant had jumped.

  “How splendid, it works,” said Jane. Almost immediately she heard a quick bark, and then a pistol shot, and a thin, male falsetto scream. “Ah, I think your confederate has encountered my children’s nurse.”

  “I’m going to kill you now, you bitch,” said Ferrant, lunging for the bed.

  There was not much light from the sky through the window, but Ferrant had kindly placed himself between the window and Jane.

  She shot him.

  “What a mess you are going to make on my sheets, worse than birthing,” said Jane, with distaste. She found a tinderbox by feel, and lit a candle.

  “Mrs. Jane!” Ella tore into the room, waving her own pistol.

  “Ella, dear, cover Mr. Ferrant while I check if he’s alive or not,” said Jane.

  “Jane-girl!” Caleb’s anguished voice called. He was sleeping in the dressing room, on a truckle behind a screen, with Ella to tend to any needs he was unable to fulfil on his own.

  “I’m perfectly well, my dear, which is more than I can say of Mr. Ferrant,” said Jane. “I appear to have killed him. Lucky shot.”

  “Mrs. Jane, you shot right through his neck,” said Ella.

  “I was aiming for his chest,” said Jane, apologetically.

  “Well don’t admit to that, Mrs. Jane,” said Ella, indignantly.

  “It was dark,” murmured Jane. “I am going to the nursery.”

  She lit another candle, and hurried upstairs. There was the sound of several babies wailing, Annie having hysterics, a pistol still in her hand, and the sobbing, gulping cries of a wounded man, clutching where his manhood had been before Annie, unable to bring the pistol up high, had shot him. Toby and Nat were growling at him, teeth in each wrist, and Cecily was kicking him. Simon had another pistol trained on him, and so did Charlie and Smitty.

  “Ma, good, did you kill the other one?” said Simon.

  “How did you know there were just two?” asked Jane.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was looking out of the window and saw the two of them come in, so I woke Cecily and Annie, and the men, and one of the murderers came up here real quick, before one of our men could sound the gong, and he laughed at her and said she wouldn’t shoot, and I didn’t think she would, only then there was the gong, and she did,” said Simon. “Annie’s got more pluck than I thought.”

  Jane personally suspected that the gong had caused Annie to convulsively tighten her finger on the trigger, but she would praise the girl for her fortitude.

  And for now she would give Annie into the care of her sister, and let Molly cuddle her while she went to Frances, Joseph and Susanna.

  “Help me with the babies, Cecily; and you too, Simon, Charlie and Smitty may guard him well enough.”

  Halliwell was the officer of Bow Street who was sent to make a report. Ferrant was found to have a knife in his hand, and had ripped the pillow with it. His valet, who looked enough like Ferrant to be a relative of some kind, died of blood loss by the time Halliwell had arrived. The coachman was a witness to their arrival, and the only one who would be tried for conspiracy to murder. Halliwell put in his report that he suspected that desperate criminals meant to silence Lady Armitage, believing her widowed, to get their hands on Sir Caleb’s Occurence Book. Sometimes, having no imagination was useful, but the good man sobbed with relief to learn that Caleb was not dead, and that it was a ruse to try to prevent an attack on him.

  It never occurred to him that the mutes might be a ruse as well, to get more men in the house. And the extra mutes and Will’s recruits melted away below stairs, out of sight before Halliwell arrived.

  There would be an inquest, of course; but it would be a matter of form.

  Jane sent for Beau Popham first thing in the morning.

  “Will you head the search of Ferrant’s house?” she said.

  “Probably, it has been my own project,” said the Beau. “Why?”

  “If he kept records, can you lose anything about a murder of a Mr. William Devlin?” said Jane. “Devlin used him to kill his father-in-law, and he was a most abusive husband to his wife, and was beginning to turn his cruelty onto her older daughter. I cannot think it does anyone any good to see her prosecuted for protecting her own life and that of her children, even if the law calls it murder.”

  Popham nodded.

  “Consider it done,” he said.

  There were a large number of arrests made amongst impeccable seeming members of society. The charges would not, of course, stick; it could hardly be made illegal to make a bet, after all, such a thing would be unthinkable. But it meant that their names were published, and everyone knew who had arranged for those convenient accidents. The idea that they had misused gambling was almost as bad as if they had cheated at cards or dice. It was a kind of cheating, decreed the leaders of society. Those involved would never hold their heads up in society again.

  Caleb received a substantial award from the Duke of Braxstrode, in the form of shares in the funds, since the duke knew that a gentleman would accept money quite happily if he was offered it in the right way. Caleb was much gratified, as he had not expected it, since Ashall had been killed. Braxstrode also wrote of his personal thanks for saving the lives of Ashall’s servants. The duke was finding the displaced servants positions in his household or with friends, and also sent his thanks to Sir William for his timely aid to the women, and offering the protection of his roof to the men servants too. The duke also wrote to Caleb that his duchess was blooming, but that he had no intention of naming their offspring, at the suggestion o
f his daughters, ‘Archibald, Bartholemew Charles David Edgar.’ Caleb laughed.

  “Remind me, Jane-girl, to never permit any of our offspring have any say in naming children,” he chuckled.

  “Considering that Simon named the barn cat’s kittens ‘Antigone’, ‘Ismenia’, ‘Nemo’ and ‘Philoctetes’, you may be sure that I will avoid doing so,” said Jane.

  Chapter 27

  Nothing was as easy as Jane hoped, of course.

  They could scarcely leave town without royal permission, having once been commanded there, and the regent wanted, moreover, to meet the boy Simon, who had featured in anecdotes told by Beau Popham, and his gallant sister.

  “I can’t meet a royal prince, I don’t talk swell whids enough!” wailed Cecily, when Caleb read out an invitation to breakfast at Carleton House with his excellent son and daughter as well as his wife, of course, when his wound was sufficiently healed to permit this.

  “Just smile a lot, with your mouth closed, and say ‘yes, your highness,’ or ‘no, your highness,’” said Caleb. “He’ll assume you are shy and tongue-tied, which is the way most young girls would be, so he won’t wonder at it.”

  Breakfast at Carleton House was at an hour Jane would have designated as late luncheon, almost afternoon tea, but then, the upper ten thousand lived their lives to a different reckoning of time to most of the regent’s subjects. Simon regarded the house with disfavour while they sat in a reception room waiting.

  “Draughty, and looks like a brothel,” he muttered.

  “Hush,” said Caleb. “And I don’t want to know how you think you know what that looks like.”

  When ushered into the royal presence they made such courtesies as were appropriate; a bow which owed more to military efficiency than courtly elegance from Caleb, a curtsey which was a thing of exquisite grace from Jane, a bow with an entirely unnecessary flourish to it from Simon, and a rather schoolgirlish bob from Cecily, mostly hidden behind Jane’s skirts to disguise her deficiencies in the matter.

  “Ha, splendid,” said the prince. He was sharing breakfast with his brother Frederick, the Duke of York, who waved a cheerful acknowledgement whilst rising for ladies, as of course did the regent. They were seated and Prince George turned to Simon.

  “Hear you’re torn between the bar and the more profitable legal larceny of being a solicitor?” he said.

  “The Beau has ratted me up, sir,” said Simon. “I am torn, because there’s enough of the showman in me to feel drawn to posturing in court.”

  “Young shaver!” laughed Prince Frederick.

  “You ain’t got plans to be Prime Minister, then?” asked the regent.

  “No, sir, I have my pride,” said Simon. “I don’t have a long enough spoon to go into politics.”

  The regent gave a shout of laughter.

  “Oh, my dear boy, I am glad to have a loyal subject with so much integrity,” he said. “I beg you to satisfy my curiosity, how is it that you have a droop to the side of your face? If it is impertinent, I will withdraw the question.”

  “Oh, it is no secret, sir, I was born lopsided. It’s thought that I suffered a seizure in the womb, and it left me damaged on one side. But I can ride, and fish, and fire a gun if I have an arm brace on my weak arm, so what more does a gentleman need? Other than an illegible hand with which to plague his tutor.”

  The regent laughed again.

  “Very droll, very droll. I am sure you are a good scholar.”

  “Well, sir, I am twelve, and I am covering everything I would need to enter Oxford in September, as my friend Gregory is sixteen, and I keep up with him. But Henry, my tutor, says that I may be ready for Oxford, but Oxford is not ready for me. He feels I need a few years to become distracted by women so I spend less of my time and energy devising pranks and japes to entertain the dons.”

  “Sounds a wise man,” said York.

  “Undoubtedly,” laughed the regent. “And Miss Cecily Armitage. Funny, I’ve only seen that shade of hair before on the Earl of Strathbreckon.”

  “Cecily is adopted, your highness,” said Caleb. “Her mother was a maidservant, and I knew her father was a gentleman who did not take ‘no’ for an answer. I was hoping to discover her father one day and explain to him the duties of a gentleman to his dependants, as he appeared to have the rapacity normally found only outside Covent Garden.”

  “I will be speaking to him about his responsibilities,” said the regent. “A mutually agreeable arrangement is one thing, violation is another.”

  “Thank you, your highness,” said Caleb.

  “Now I hear you’re my byblow,” said York.

  Caleb almost choked on his coffee.

  “I have never claimed so, sir,” he said. “But I also have to confess not having denied it too hard when it got gentlefolk to be civil enough to answer questions.”

  “How did the rumour start? I’m interested, don’t be afraid to speak up.”

  Caleb looked at Jane.

  “How did it start?” he asked.

  “It was in Highbury, my aunt Hetty said that you were every inch the gentleman and one might take you for the son of anyone of distinction. Mrs. Cole took that and declared to all and sundry that you were definitely the son of Somebody, and with such a noble and military air, someone like the Duke of York no less. And we weren’t going to refute it in front of Mrs. Elton, who is a nasty-tongued, nasty minded woman, your grace, who has nothing but malice in her, as well I know from the time I have lived in Highbury. She is a woman who drops sly hint and innuendo, and makes up out of whole cloth a scandal from a chance meeting.”

  The duke nodded.

  “You need say no more; there are plenty of those at court, too. Should be drowned at birth, if you only knew which ones to drown.”

  “The next bit was Fowler’s and Henry’s and my fault. Faults? Is that singular or plural, Ma?” asked Simon.

  “Fault, for ‘the next bit’ is singular,” said Jane.

  “By Jove, you’d have caught me out,” said the regent. “Go on, young Simon.”

  “Well, sir, we dropped a lot of hints, or rather, used misdirection, like mentioning that Pa didn’t rely on influence in the army, along with pointing out that the royal dukes have too many sons to take a personal interest in all of them, and things like that,” said Simon. “Mostly it was to irritate that Elton female, but it did really come in useful, you should have seen the way sneers and scowls turned to sudden sycophantic fawning, it was perfectly sickening, but then, if it got the job done, it did what it was supposed to do.”

  “Well, I never, I feel a bit like a voucher to Almack’s,” said York.

  “I’d have been proud if you had been my father, for I’ve followed your career with interest,” said Caleb, “But I am also proud of my own father, who was a poor man, yet he took on my mother when she was with child, being in a similar situation to Cecily’s mother, except that Sukey’s, that’s my sister’s, brother is trying to track down all his family. I’ve a lot of respect for Wulcombe.”

  “Felix Lovell, Earl Wulcombe?” asked the regent.

  “Yes, sir. A good man and a good friend,” said Caleb. “He said he wished he might have shaken my father, my sister’s stepfather as you might say, by the hand for raising her to be a good woman. I am proud of my father and I’m not ashamed to say so.”

  “Sir Caleb, I’ve more respect for you for admitting your pride in your father, and in telling me you have made use of me outrageously,” said the Duke of York. “My brother and I have put our heads together, and we wanted to thank you for your stepping aside to deal with this little problem, which may not have been a Jacobite plot, but proving it was not a Jacobite plot is as valuable as foiling one. We would like you to accept a small stipend, which I have asked Parliament to grant you in my name from my civil income. Now, I’m not acknowledging you any more than you’ve acknowledged me, but word will drift down, and I have to say, I’m not ashamed to have a clever, resourceful and courageous man like yours
elf misnamed as my son. So we shall misdirect and enjoy it without a single acknowledgement, hmm?”

  “Thank you, sir; you are more than generous.”

  “You haven’t asked how much it is.”

  “To tacitly accept the false rumour is generous, sir, were it a stipend of a guinea a year.”

  “By Jove, you are a gentleman worthy of being born of any royal prince,” said York.

  Jane privately thought that Caleb was more of a gentleman than any of the royal princes or their offspring, but it would be most impolitic to say so, so she just smiled.

  “So, you’ve followed my career, and you were at Corunna; 1809 was not a good year for either of us, hmm?” said the duke.

  “No, sir, and all of us cursed that woman and her rapacity for forcing you to resign, and being so corrupt, we were all impressed by the reforms you were bringing in,” said Caleb. “I for one was glad to see the scandal die down so you could get back to it. And I’d like to see a training establishment for officers of Bow Street based on your training academy for officers of the army, which will teach good deductive methods based on facts, how to question suspects for the best effect, and how to fight bare-handed against weapons as well as teaching marksmanship, and how to act in groups against mobs. Bow Street is a shambles, sir, and if you ask me, because of the scandals attached, needs to be swept away entirely, and replaced with a new entity, to remove the stigma of the corruption which is still attached to it. I don’t much like people assuming I’ve made my way up in the world by taking bribes.”

  “No, I can quite understand that,” said the Duke. “You’d like to see the officers of Bow Street more like soldiers?”

  Caleb frowned in thought.

  “No, sir, not exactly. That would be putting his majesty’s troops against his majesty’s people, and that would be wrong. But I’d like to see them trained to the level of precision any of his majesty’s troops have, knowing their jobs, using training as second nature. I’ve trained my men to do things like learn the lie of the land so they can get around an area they’ve visited blindfold, or in the dark; and to glance around a room and meticulously list everything they have seen there in detail. Sometimes you come upon a crime, and for some reason when you have a proper chance to examine it, things have been moved. Drawing a crime scene is also useful. My wife does this for me, and it’s very useful to look over after a body has been moved.”