Jane and the Barque of Frailty jam-9

by Stephanie Barron

  “I have trespassed on your goodness too long,” Miss Radcliffe said, rising.

  “Not at all.”

  There was a frailty to her figure that must burn the sight of any who regarded her; I wished that she had partaken of the macaroons. Impulsively, I said, “Before you go — I have no right to enquire of you— save the interested concern of one who must sincerely wish you well — can you not endeavour, with time, to heal the breach between yourself and your family? Surely, if you possess independence of means, there can be no loss of face in extending an olive branch. Is not a quiet retreat in solitude, preferable to the risks you undoubtedly invite, in your present mode of life?”

  She stared at me, her impassive countenance a shade of remotest marble.

  “When I was but fourteen years old, Miss Austen,” she said in a voice low with passion, “I was forced to intimacy with a cousin some eight years my senior. I resisted, for I had always regarded him with terror and revulsion; but I was as a fly beneath his hand — crushed. When I went to my father in pain and shame — my mother being then dead some years — he regarded me with horror. I do not think he was able to look me in the face from that day forward; some flaw in me had invited my rape. My father and his cousin — whose son my attacker was — agreed that at all costs the affair should be suppressed; I must and should be married to my predator. Can you have an idea of it? To be chained, my whole life long, to one I regarded with loathing? I should rather have died—”

  She paused, and pressed her hand to her mouth.

  “So great was my parent’s insistence, that I required only a little time to know my cousin better, that I was powerless to withstand him. I agreed to see my cousin again. He chose to regard my pliancy as invitation to a second rape. I found myself, a few months past my fourteenth birthday, pregnant and unwed — the object of my father’s cordial hatred. My obdurate refusal to accept my cousin in marriage, he called undutiful; and gave my cousin orders to beat me with his hunting whip.”

  “Good God,” I whispered.

  “I fled at night to the home of my old nurse — who had removed some thirty miles distant from my family — and from thence I refused to be moved, until the child was brought to bear.” Her fingers clenched on her reticule. “My implacable dread of this man, my cousin, led to a breach between our families. He was sent away; and I, too, was denied all further admittance to my childhood home. In short, my name was struck from the Radcliffe rolls. I determined, at the age of fifteen, to fulfill the very worst assumptions of my life — to pursue a course so glittering, so heady, that no man should ever again have the power to disturb my peace or command my heart. I am certain of the evils attached to my situation, Miss Austen — but I am equally sure they will never approach those I suffered in the bosom of my family; and for this, I must be thankful.”

  “Forgive me,” I said, and held out my hand.

  She took it in her gloved one, and pressed it an instant. “Why? What sin have you committed?”

  “—That of vulgar curiosity. I encroached on ground that must forever be private.”

  “Not at all,” she returned. “You enquired because you care — and for that, I must always honour you, Miss Austen.”

  I SAW JULIA RADCLIFFE INTO HER PHAETON — THE groom had been walking the horses some time — and watched her drive smartly away; and observed, with misgiving, the black-clad figure of Bill Skroggs loitering near the lamps of Cadogan Place.

  Chapter 27

  The Jarvey’s Tale

  Wednesday, 1 May 1811

  “THERE IS NOTHING LIKE THE EXERTION OF DINING in Hans Place,” Eliza observed as we closed the door last night on Mr. James Tilson, who had escorted us from his home to ours, “to make me feel truly good, Jane — for if I were not, how should I possibly support the tedium of Fanny Tilson’s conversation?”

  The engagement was less onerous than it might have been, had Fanny presided over her table alone; but Mr. Tilson being prevented from joining Henry in Oxford, due to an indisposition of three of the little girls, which tied him to London, the circle had gained in liveliness and interest. Eliza, however, could not be brought to own it; she had been placed at Fanny Tilson’s right hand.

  “I confess I was very proud of you,” I said as I helped Eliza remove her hat. “You never once permitted yourself to gape, when she spoke so earnestly of her charitable works among the females held in Newgate prison. Indeed, I believe you posed your questions quite prettily. One might almost have believed your whole dependence hung upon the improvement of those unfortunate souls.”

  “And I never betrayed the slightest hint that I might end in Newgate myself! I do think I carried it off tolerably well, Jane — even when she would discourse on the subject of ablutions, and the best methods of treating lice. You may say what you will of Mrs. Latouche and her Bluestocking daughter, but do admit they never bore one to tears! And Jane—” Eliza stared at me tragically. “Fanny is increasing again! As tho’ seven daughters were not more than enough to dispose of! And the last one as yet a babe in arms!”

  “Perhaps her condition will keep her quietly at home for a period.”

  “Then she will be less likely to detect us in our cells,” Eliza said decidedly, “when once we have been handed over to the warders. Tuesday is already gone! And we have but two days left before that dreadful man is to return on Friday!”

  “I have the matter in hand, Eliza,” I told her gently. “Do not be troubling your head about it.”

  “It is my head that is troubling me. It aches frightfully. I believe I shall go up to my room — if you will send Madame Bigeon with a glass of Henry’s brandy … ”

  The Tilsons are abstemious folk; they do not regard claret or burgundy as contributing to the elegance of their table — particularly as such luxuries must still be got from France, through the intermediary of a Free Trader.[28] Ladies are to be served with ratafia, or perhaps a small amount of Madeira; and Mr. Tilson was left in solitary state to nurse his decanter of port. I quite sympathised with Eliza’s desire for a snifter in the bedchamber.

  I went towards the kitchen, and discovered Manon loitering in a passageway.

  “Madame Henri requires a little brandy,” I told her.

  “Oui, mademoiselle. On the instant. And you should know,” she added as she turned away, “that I spoke to Druschka this morning. The gentleman whom her mistress found occasion to visit at the Albany was the Earl of Tanborough’s son … one Charles Malverley—”

  IT WAS OF MALVERLEY I WAS THINKING THIS MORNING, as I alighted from my hackney in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Sylvester Chizzlewit had summoned me to his door with a missive delivered by courier — an apology and an invitation at once, which I perused in silence over breakfast.

  Mr. Chizzlewit could not undertake to bring his interlocutor to Sloane Street, in deference to Mrs. Austen’s delicate health; but if Miss Austen would deign to step round to Mr. Chizzlewit’s chambers, she might learn such intelligence as would shed light on the problem presently under consideration, and every accommodation would be made for her comfort …

  On this occasion there was no confusion on the part of the clerks as to my merits or precedence among Mr. Chizzlewit’s clients. I was met in the doorway, relieved of my wrap, and escorted immediately to the private parlour where I had previously gone through Lord Harold’s papers. A fire burned brightly in the grate, tho’ the first of May had banished yesterday’s rain and the weather was fine. I stood near the warmth, and saw in memory Charles Malverley’s face as it had appeared in the publick room of the Brown Bear, Covent Garden.

  The classic purity of his features — the beauty of his form — the impression he generally gave, of being one whom the gods favoured … could not the Earl’s son be the very object of Princess Tscholikova’s ardent passion? But he had denied her utterly in death. One might meet her often in certain circles, and perhaps exchange a few pleasantries, he had assured the coroner. I should never say that we were well acquainted.

&n
bsp; Malverley had lied — or he had told the truth, and the Princess’s visits to the Albany were a blind for interests she held in another quarter. If the Earl’s son had deliberately uttered a falsehood, however … the construction to be placed upon such reserve could only be a guilty one.

  I had remarked the pallor of his looks that morning, but also his extraordinary self-possession before the coroner’s panel. Little could dismay that well-bred gentleman; but then again, Mr. Whitpeace had not troubled to press Malverley too closely on his movements during the hours between one and five o’clock in the morning of Tuesday last. He claimed to have been at his desk during the small hours, diligently pursuing his employer’s interests; but what if he had gone home to the Albany — and found Princess Tscholikova waiting for him in the courtyard? Julien d’Entraigues had seen her there, and remarked upon the desolation of her countenance.

  But if Malverley were the Princess’s lover — how, then, to account for the correspondence published in the Morning Post? My limbs burn with the desire to lie once more entangled in your own … There is nothing I would not sacrifice, would not risk … I can hardly write for anguish … It was unlikely the lady should have addressed such phrases to two gentlemen. I must be mistaken. Perhaps the private secretary had seen— and copied — and sold — Lord Castlereagh’s intimate letters for personal gain! Sylvester Chizzlewit had said Malverley was fond of deep play; and thus the young man might have considerable debts of honour that must be satisfied. Had the Princess, shamed before the eyes of the ton, confronted her enemy at his lodgings in the Albany that fateful night — and had Malverley cut her throat?

  Why, then, should he have left the body on Castlereagh’s doorstep?

  “I cannot make it out at all,” I murmured vexedly. “I require more information.”

  “And you shall have it,” Sylvester Chizzlewit said behind me.

  I turned, and surveyed the individual he ushered into the room: A man of indeterminate age and weather-beaten appearance, who might have served as Ordinary Seaman on one of my brother’s ships. His stooped shoulders were clad in a patched and faded coat of kerseymere; his trousers were black; and his boots were worn. He nodded deferentially as my eyes swept over him, and turned a round felt hat in heavily-knuckled hands.

  “This is Clayton,” Mr. Chizzlewit informed me, “who drives a hackney coach, and is desirous of telling you his story, Miss Austen.”

  “Are you the fellow who carried two ladies from Portman Square on Sunday evening?” I enquired eagerly.

  Clayton shook his head. “I don’t work Portman Square, miss. That’d be a covey o’ mine named Davy. It was Davy as took you off that night, and when the gentleman come asking his questions, Davy thought o’ me — my story being just as odd, seemingly, as his.”

  I looked enquiringly at Mr. Chizzlewit, who gestured towards a chair set at a comfortable distance from the hearth; I sank into it.

  “The man Davy did, indeed, convey you and Mrs. Austen from Portman Square to Sloane Street, but he failed to observe anything subsequently but the coins Mrs. Henry pressed into his palm, the night being one without moon, and the vicinity imperfectly lit. He can tell us nothing of the misfortune that befell your sister. In the course of my enquiries among the jarveys, however, I thought to ask whether any man had taken up a fare in Berkeley Place, on the evening of Monday last. I was interested, Miss Austen, in the interval between Princess Tscholikova’s leaving her card at the Castlereaghs’, and the hour in which her corpse was discovered in front of No. 45— a period of some four hours. I had an idea that the lady might have engaged a hackney.”

  “Naturally,” I agreed, “it being unlikely she should have walked the streets of London in her evening dress for so long a time.”

  “The locale being somewhat infamous, due to the unfortunate death of Princess Tscholikova, I did not have to put my questions very long. Davy — your jarvey — had heard a story of his friend, Clayton, here; and Clayton was very soon introduced to my acquaintance. Pray tell the lady what you saw and heard, Clayton.”

  “It did ought to have been brought before the crowner,” Clayton said belligerently, “but that I couldn’t get a place inside the Brown Bear; the house was that full of gentry, an honest man couldn’t set foot over the jamb. I’d have spoke to crowner himself, if I’d found the time — but what with one thing and another, and me not knowing how to find the gentleman, and the press of work — and the panel saying it were self-murder … ”

  “You took up a lady in Berkeley Square last Monday night?” I asked.

  “Took her up in Covent Garden,” he corrected, “when the play was done at the Royal. Half-past twelve o’clock that would have been, near enough as makes no difference — and her walking the length of Bow Street alone, in search of a hackney. Most of those as goes to the Royal has their own carriages, you see, and the street was that full of them. But I lit on her quick enough — a dimber mort if ever I seen one, and full of juice I reckon.”

  By this, I concluded that Clayton regarded the late Princess as attractive enough, and wealthy in appearance; a likely prospect for a fare. “You saw her into the hackney,” I suggested, “and took her … where?”

  “Lord Castlereagh’s,” Clayton replied glibly. “She told me to wait. I walk my horse if the party’s longer than ten minutes, naturally. But she weren’t long inside, and the porter handing her back up in my coach, and telling me as I was to take the party to the Albany, Piccadilly.”

  “—Where she went in search of Charles Malverley,” I murmured. “Perhaps it was always Malverley who brought her to Berkeley Square in the first place, and not Castlereagh, as we had thought.”

  “Eh?” Sylvester Chizzlewit enquired, with a startled air. “Malverley was acquainted with the Princess?”

  “Her maid says she was in the habit of visiting him at his lodgings. It was Malverley, no doubt, who was the object of her earnest and steadfast gaze at Castlereagh’s box, during the interval of Macbeth; and the Fashionable World read in her regard a confirmation of scandal — the letters published in the Morning Post. I begin to believe they were always letters written to Malverley — which he sold, and passed off, as his employer’s. Why should he run so high a risk of dismissal, in serving Lord Castlereagh such a brutal trick?”

  “Because he bears him no love,” Mr. Chizzlewit answered abruptly. “You will recall that I apprehended as much, when he spoke of his lordship over dinner in my rooms. Malverley’s reserve then was uncharacteristic; and the heat with which he later referred to insults — that he had been asked to do what no man should, even for hire — may suggest a repugnance, a disgust of his employer, that might well have led him to mischief. Did Malverley wish to be rid of Princess Tscholikova, and revenged upon Castlereagh, he found in the lady’s correspondence ample scope for both.”

  “Very well,” I said. “We shall accept, for the moment, that he did as you say; and leave aside the motivation for his actions. It is possible, I suppose, that a desire for revenge might lead to murder. But how did the two encounter one another that night? Malverley would have it he remained at Castlereagh’s the whole of the morning.”

  “He maintains it without witnesses, however; the coroner’s panel merely relied on his word.”

  “True.” I glanced at the jarvey, who stood in respectful silence, comprehending perhaps one word in five of our conversation. “Clayton, what did you then at the Albany?”

  “Stood to, as before, while the lady spoke to the porter. I reckon she got no satisfaction from the lad, for she waited in the courtyard a deal o’ time, looking up at the darkened windows. It don’t do for a lady alone to enter the Albany; the porters won’t have it. She gave up after a bit, and mounted into my hackney. That was when we drove to Russell Square.”

  “Russell Square!” I cried, astounded. Whatever I had been expecting, it was hardly this. “And the number to which you were sent …?”

  “The lady didn’t seem rightly to know. She told me to drive right
round the square — alongside of the parts of it that are finished, where people are living— and stop in front of one that had carriages waiting, and torches burning at the entry. All lit up it was, something lovely.”

  “Having heard Clayton’s story already, I required him to drive me to Russell Square,” Mr. Chizzlewit put in quietly, “and point out the residence Princess Tscholikova visited. I shall not surprise you, I think, Miss Austen, when I say that it is the house presently leased by Miss Julia Radcliffe.”

  “But Miss Radcliffe would have it that Tscholikova called upon her the day before her death,” I said in puzzlement. “Why should she then have been ignorant of the house’s direction?”

  “Perhaps we are mistaken,” Mr. Chizzlewit returned, “in crediting Miss Radcliffe’s account.”

  A faint chill stirred along my spine; I had accepted much of what the Barque of Frailty told me, and held in reserve only the knowledge that she had not told me all. But if duplicity there was — must it not have been in the service of a great deceit?

  “The lady quitted your hackney before the door with the flaming torches?” I persisted.