The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen

by Lindsay Ashford

  Her fingers had flown to her cap and she was pulling at her curls; twisting them round and round till they stuck out like horsehair from a mattress. I reached out for her hands and drew her to me, saying: ‘Is there any other doctor that you know of?’

  I felt her head move against my shoulder. ‘There is someone,’ she replied. ‘He’s very expensive but Henry can afford it. His name is Doctor Baillie; he is one of the court physicians.’

  We waited three tense hours for the arrival of this new doctor. Henry had begun raving again, throwing out his arm as if he was pointing to some evildoer who was about to attack him. We could not tell what he was saying, although I thought I heard the word ‘notes’ at one point and an oftrepeated phrase that sounded like ‘mustn’t tell him’. Doctor Baillie managed to get some sort of sleeping draught down him and he advised both of us to get some rest while we could. He said that until the fever broke there was no way of telling which way Henry would go, and it could be another twenty-four hours before the crisis came.

  I suggested to Jane that we should take it in turns to watch Henry so that each of us could sleep in a proper bed rather than a chair. I said I would take the first turn, so that she could be with him when the effects of the drug wore off. She reluctantly agreed to my plan, although she would not leave the chamber until she was sure that he was sound asleep.

  That evening, as she lay sleeping, we received an unexpected visitor. It was Lizzy, Edward’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who had apparently been allowed out of school for an evening at the theatre with her uncle and was quite unaware of his illness. Uncertain what to do with her, Madame Bigeon came to tell me that she was waiting downstairs and had begged to be allowed to see Henry, even though he was sleeping. I decided that there could be no harm in it and bid the housekeeper show her upstairs as long as she cautioned the girl to be quiet.

  Lizzy had been just five years old when I last saw her, so I hardly knew the beautiful creature who came tiptoeing round the bedroom door. Her dark brown curls were just like Jane’s and she had the most enchanting eyes; not hazel but a pure shade of emerald. She gave me a worried smile of recognition then crept across to the bed. She lowered herself slowly onto the chair Jane had vacated and stretched out her hand to stroke Henry’s arm, which hung over the side of the bed. I held my breath for a moment, worried that she might wake him, but he slumbered on quite peacefully.

  ‘Go and rest a while,’ she mouthed at me. ‘I’ll stay with him.’

  At this point I had been without proper sleep for nearly forty hours. I declined her offer at first, but soon found my eyelids beginning to droop. My head slumped forward and I almost fell out of my chair, making a noise that startled Lizzy and brought me to my senses. Henry moved his head on the pillow but, mercifully, did not open his eyes. I decided then that I should quit the chamber for fear of undoing Doctor Baillie’s good work.

  I slipped into bed beside Jane, moving as slowly and quietly as I could. I need not have worried. She was in a deep sleep, having been awake the best part of three days. I lay there a while, unable to drop off despite my fatigue. I must have slept eventually, for when I opened my eyes the candle I had left on the bedside table had burned down to a stub. Jane had her back to me, her breathing slow and regular. I decided not to wake her, but crept out of the room, back to Henry’s chamber. As I neared the door I heard a young voice talking in a conversational way about a meal enjoyed at some London restaurant. It was Lizzy. She was addressing Henry, who was sitting up in bed with a sort of bemused smile on his face and a faraway look in his eyes. As I stood on the threshold I heard her say: ‘James-Edward is very clever, you know; he’s going up to Oxford soon. When he took me out to lunch he said I could visit him there next year, if I wanted.’

  She turned then and saw me standing there. With a smile she beckoned me in. If Henry was aware of my presence he showed no sign of it. ‘He’s in a world of his own,’ Lizzy said softly, ‘but he seems quite composed; do you think he’s getting better?’ I replied with my eyes rather than my mouth, still fearful of breaking the tranquil spell the doctor had cast. We sat in silence then for a while and eventually Henry closed his eyes and slid back onto the pillows. ‘I should go now,’ Lizzy whispered. ‘It’s quite late, isn’t it?’ I nodded, though I had no idea what the time was. She said that she would call again soon and asked me to give her regards to her aunt. After a few minutes I heard the clatter of hooves in the street below.

  I went to straighten the covers, which had fallen to one side of the bed. As I did so, Henry gave me a fright by suddenly opening his eyes and grasping my wrist. He stared wildly at me for a moment, as if he couldn’t fathom who I was. Then, in a perfectly clear voice, he said: ‘Keep her away from him! Do you hear me? Don’t let him touch her!’

  I crouched over the bed, afraid to move a muscle, for I really feared that he was going to strike me. But suddenly he loosed his grip and his arm fell away from mine, as if he had lost the use of it. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed until his chest was rising and falling quite peacefully again. I tiptoed back to my chair, wondering what on earth had prompted this alarming episode. The drugs, most probably, I thought; no doubt they had sucked up some long-buried memory that burst from his brain as a fragment of lucid speech.

  I didn’t mention it to Jane when she appeared at the door an hour or so later. I went off to bed and slept soundly until the doorbell woke me next morning. It was Cassandra, who arrived at the same time as Doctor Baillie and quickly took over the duties Jane and I had shared. The next night I was back with Mrs Raike in Cheyne Walk and by the end of the week Jane sent me a note to say that Henry seemed to be over the worst. We were due back in Yorkshire the following Tuesday but she asked if I would come and take tea with her before I departed.

  She looked a little less tired than when I had last seen her, but she had recovered none of her colour. Madame Bigeon fussed over her when she brought in the tea things, telling me what a marvel she had been, and how lucky Henry was to have two such devoted sisters. When she had gone Jane gave a wry smile.

  ‘The French are wonderful cooks but they do exaggerate so,’ she said. ‘She paints me as a selfless nurse when, in fact, I have benefited enormously from poor Henry’s misfortune.’

  ‘Whatever can you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you remember me telling you that Doctor Baillie is one of the court physicians?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, on his third visit, when Henry seemed to be recovering a little, he asked me if I was the author of Pride and Prejudice. I was very surprised that he had heard of it – and even more amazed when he told me that the Prince Regent admired it greatly.’

  ‘I am not surprised,’ I clapped my hands with delight, ‘but it is a wonderful compliment, all the same.’

  ‘You’ll never guess what: he wants me to dedicate Emma to him – the Prince Regent, I mean, not the doctor – and I’ve been invited to the library at Carlton House!’ We rolled about at this, for she had always reserved her wickedest barbs for the Prince Regent, whom she despised for his gluttony, his extravagance and his shameless adultery.

  ‘Will you still speak to the likes of me afterwards, I wonder?’ I was pleased to see that laughter had brought a little colour back to her cheeks. She swiped at me with her tea plate, sending a shower of cake crumbs onto my lap. For this she attempted to apologise and ended up on her knees, brushing at my gown in a fit of helpless giggles.

  The sound of Henry’s voice put a sudden stop to her mirth. He was calling from the landing, asking Cassandra to fetch him the newspaper. Jane stuck her head out of the parlour door. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder, ‘Cass is on her way up now.’

  ‘He sounds much better,’ I replied, ‘quite like his old self.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ She settled herself back on the sofa beside me. ‘I was so worried, though: that night when Lizzy called and I was asleep – do you remember – that was the worst. When you w
ent to bed he started raving again. I really thought he was going to die. He was staring at me as if he didn’t have a clue who I was, then he’d shout out; the same thing again and again: “Keep her away from him! Don’t let him touch her!” It was horrible. I told the doctor the next morning and he said it was the laudanum – but Mama takes that all the time and I’ve never heard her raving; not like that, anyway.’

  I told her he had said exactly the same thing in my hearing. ‘It was just after Lizzy left,’ I said. ‘I was worried that she’d disturbed him when she sent me off for a rest.’ I related what had happened, and how I had returned to find her talking to Henry.

  ‘What exactly was she saying to him?’

  ‘Oh, just ordinary things: she was telling him about a restaurant she’d been to for lunch. She mentioned James-Edward; he took her, I think. And she said something about going to visit him when he goes up to Oxford. That was all I heard.’

  She was staring at me intently, as if devil’s horns had sprouted from my forehead.

  ‘What’s the matter, Jane? What have I said?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head violently, as if she was casting out an idea she wouldn’t own. ‘It must have been the laudanum, like Doctor Baillie said.’

  Chapter Twenty-­Four

  The memory of the way Jane had looked at me that afternoon in the parlour at Hans Place came back to me many times over the next few months. I would have pressed her for an explanation had not Cassandra come into the room with the news that Edward and the family were going to call in on the invalid on their way home from Paris. As it was, I had to take my leave of her without discovering why the mention of Lizzy’s developing friendship with her cousin had disturbed her so.

  On the journey back to Yorkshire I began to form my own theory. While Mrs Raike dozed fitfully, her head tipped back against the velvet banquette, I pieced together everything I could remember about James-Edward and his parents. I could not help recalling my first glimpse of his mother in the Pump Room at Bath; my instinct then had been that Mary and Henry were lovers and the sight of her son later that same day had intensified that feeling. Henry’s stinging warning at the White Hart Inn had strengthened my resolve to keep my nose out of the affairs of Jane’s family. But what if I was right? What if Henry had been dallying with not just one sister-in-law but two? What if the reason James-Edward looked so much like Henry was because he was his natural son? Had Henry fathered bastards on both of his elder brothers’ wives?

  It sounded preposterous, but it would explain Henry’s violent reaction to the news that James-Edward and Lizzy were becoming close. What if they were to marry, as cousins so often did? The union would be that of a half-brother and half-sister. No wonder Henry had clung to me like a drowning man when Lizzy left the room. I would have dismissed his anguished pleas as the senseless ranting of a fevered brain had it not been for one thing: Jane’s reaction. She must have suspected what I was now thinking.

  I began remembering other little details: Mary’s annoyance when Henry declined her invitation to dance at the ball in Bath and her subsequent hasty departure; her lack of surprise when he appeared unexpectedly at the Great House in Chawton; his decision to go and spend the night at Steventon, where James was confined to his sick bed. All these things seemed to point to just one conclusion: Mary and Henry were engaged in an illicit liaison that had been going on for many, many years. No wonder he does not choose to marry again, I thought: It is as I suspected – he is only interested in forbidden fruit.

  As the coach rattled along, leaving London far behind, I attempted to divine the workings of Henry’s mind. Was there some peculiar attraction in seducing the wives of his brothers, as opposed to the wives of any other men of his acquaintance? Was there an element of jealousy involved? I reminded myself of the relative fortunes of Jane’s older brothers; of the fact that Henry had seen Edward plucked from obscurity to be showered with all the advantages money could buy, while James had the automatic right to their father’s living and the family home, with the promise of great riches to come when the Leigh-Perrots died. It wasn’t hard to imagine a bitter resentment taking root in Henry’s heart. Was it a kind of revenge, I wondered, to pursue the women his brothers chose to marry; to defile what they held most dear?

  I longed to know if my theory was correct but it was the kind of subject that could only be embarked upon with the greatest subtlety and in the utmost privacy. Certainly I could not write to Jane about it. I knew that it must wait until our next meeting, which I hoped would occur soon after the publication of Emma. I decided that I would use the gold pocket watch as a starting point. She had been so reluctant to tell me that it was a gift from Henry and it struck me that there may have been an ulterior motive for his generosity: I could never believe Jane to be susceptible to a bribe, but I could imagine the watch being presented as a sort of peace offering…his way of saying that the thing she had accused him of would not be repeated.

  The first letter I received from Jane after my return from London contained some shocking news. It seemed that the sudden breakdown in Henry’s health had not been due merely to a chance infection: his business empire had crumbled, leaving him bankrupt and his backers with monstrous debts. The signs of impending disaster had been evident for several weeks, Jane said, but he had kept his fears to himself. On the afternoon we had arrived in London he had received devastating news – the exact nature of which he still could not bring himself to divulge – and had literally collapsed under the weight of it.

  ‘Nearly everyone in the family has lost money,’ she wrote. ‘Edward must bear the brunt of it, of course: he has lost twenty thousand pounds himself and the Crown has ordered him to pay twenty-one thousand in installments on Henry’s behalf over the next twelve months. Uncle Leigh-Perrot is similarly afflicted: he lost ten thousand and must pay the same amount as Edward in installments to the Crown. James lost several hundred pounds, as did my brothers Frank and Charles. Cass had invested one hundred and thirty-two pounds of the legacy left to her by her fiancé and I put in twenty-five pounds and seven shillings, which was my profit from Mansfield Park.’

  The losses meant that her mother would no longer receive the allowance her brothers had been making to keep them in comfort at Chawton Cottage, so any plans for travel had had to be curtailed. We had talked of her coming to stay in Yorkshire in the spring but that would not now be possible.

  ‘Henry has had to give up his house and move in with us,’ the letter went on. ‘Poor Madame Bigeon and Marie Margeurite have returned to France, although they are very despondent about their prospects there. Henry feels wretched about them, of course, but despite everything that has befallen him he has come to Chawton as cheerful as ever. He talks of taking Holy Orders and has already written to the Bishop of Winchester on the subject. He hopes to get the living of curate at St Nicholas, which would give him a stipend of fifty-two guineas a year and allow him to keep a horse.’

  The old Jane would have made some joke about the absurdity of Henry’s new-found vocation; the fact that she did not revealed just how sombre was the mood at Chawton Cottage. I wondered why, with all the chambers at the Great House, Henry did not reside there. I could only conclude that the jovial brotherly relationship I had witnessed on my last visit had been brought to an abrupt end by the collapse of Henry’s bank.

  Subsequent letters from Jane and other members of the family gave few clues as to the cause of Henry’s misfortunes. Fanny hinted that the crisis had come about because a major backer had suddenly pulled out but she did not name the man nor state the reason why. I wondered if it was Warren Hastings, whom Henry himself had named as one of his chief investors. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him harbouring a grudge towards Henry in the wake of Eliza’s death, a grudge that might turn into outright war if he received some solid evidence of Henry’s misdeeds.

  Fanny’s letter made clear her annoyance at Henry’s apparent ability to bounce back from disaster with a beatific smile on his fac
e: ‘The idea of his becoming a curate worries me,’ she wrote. ‘I can think of no one less suited to the role of guiding the spiritual life of other people, yet the Bishop accepted his application without the slightest objection, not even bothering to test his competence in Greek – which, I’m sure, must be very rusty indeed.’

  Anna was a little less sanctimonious: ‘Uncle Henry will no doubt be as charming in the pulpit as he is elsewhere. My father and stepmother have invited him to stay at Steventon in the coming weeks so that he may observe the running of a parish at close quarters. It is to be hoped that Reverend Papillon will reap the benefit of this when Uncle Henry returns to Chawton as curate – which he hopes will happen before next Christmas.’

  So Henry is under Mary’s roof again, I thought. Would she find him quite so attractive now his money had gone? I wondered if his dramatic fall from grace had chastened him. Did he see it as divine retribution? Perhaps it was not just the promise of a living that led him to embrace the church with such enthusiasm: perhaps Salvation was his quest.

  The next letter from Jane brought more bad news but this time it was about her, not Henry. She reported that she was feeling sick and faint and had been confined to bed for a week. She was trying to finish her new novel but found that the slightest exertion fatigued her. ‘Forgive me for making this so very brief,’ she wrote. ‘I promise to write again as soon as I am recovered.’

  I had begun writing a reply when a loud cry summoned me to Mrs Raike’s side. She was doubled over on the sofa, clutching at the bodice of her gown and fighting for breath. Rebecca, who had heard it from the kitchen, was beside me in a moment. She didn’t need me to tell her how serious it was. She ran outside to send her father for the doctor.