Jane And The Unpleasantness At Scargrave Manor Part 2

"Jane!" Isobel exclaimed, sitting straighter on her chaise, "you have managed marvellously! I might almost think you wrote this letter yourself."

"Indeed, I did not. But I may venture to guess who did."

"By all means, share your apprehension." My friend's voice trembled with eagerness.

"Your maid Marguerite," I said soberly. "Have you seen her since this letter arrived?"

The Countess's face was suffused with scarlet, then overlaid with a deathly pallor. "I have not," she answered unsteadily. "Marguerite attended me this morning and has been absent ever since. I a.s.sumed she felt all the burden of this unhappy house's misery, and would leave me to endure it in solitude."

"I fear she had worse in train." I glanced at the travelling clock on Isobel's mantel; it was close to the dinner hour of five in the afternoon, and the December dark had already fallen. "We shall not find her in the neighbourhood by this time."

"But, Jane, what can have caused Marguerite to charge me with such cruel deceit?" Isobel's warm brown eyes filled with tears. "I, the murderess of my husband! It is impossible!"

"She does not lay the blame upon you alone, my dear," I said slowly. "There is another to whom she refers."

"The tall lord," Isobel said, faltering. "It must be Trowbridge she speaks of."

"To what purpose?"

"To what purpose is any of it?"

"She cannot have been thrown very much in his way," I said reasonably.

"Indeed, she has not."

"Then, my dear, we must consider her as indicating another." My tone was brisk, but I awaited the effect of my impertinence with some trepidation.

There was an instant's silence as Isobel sought my meaning. Then she raised her eyes to mine with perfect composure. "Fitzroy Payne?" she said.

"I think it very likely. He is more of the household, and thus more likely to have encountered the maid."

"You may have the right of it." The Countess's fingers worked at the fine lace of her dressing gown, as though by sorting its threads she might untangle this puzzle. "It is like Marguerite to add the small aside of Fitzroy having 'looked through her.' I more than once observed her make the gesture against the evil eye when his gaze chanced to fall upon her; she mistrusted grey hair in one as yet young, and avowed that it was the Devil's mark."

"Was the maid so susceptible to fancy then, Isobel?"

"Marguerite was ever a superst.i.tious, foolish child, the result of her island upbringing." My friend's eyes met mine, and her gaze was troubled. "I suppose the violence of my husband's last illness has given her some misapprehension, which, with time, has become a terrible conviction of evil."

"Undoubtedly the case," I said gently, "but the result may be no less injurious to your reputation and well-being, Isobel. The maid threatens to inform one Sir William. And who is he, pray?"

"Sir William Reynolds," Isobel said. "The magistrate."6 "Not Sir William Reynolds, formerly of the King's Bench?"

Isobel shrugged and looked bewildered. "I cannot undertake to say, Jane. The man is a stranger to me. Have you known such a gentleman?"

"Indeed, and all my life," I declared with eagerness. "The barrister I would mention is a dear friend of my father's-the acquaintance having been formed while both were yet unmarried, and but novices in their respective professions. Though the name is so very common, my my Sir William and Sir William and yours yours may be strangers to one another. Has he been resident very long in the neighbourhood?" may be strangers to one another. Has he been resident very long in the neighbourhood?"

Isobel frowned in thought. "I do not believe that he has. His current office, indeed, is of only recent conference. Frederick-my late husband-was Lord Lieutenant of the County,7 and appointed Sir William to the post a twelve-month ago. But, Jane, if the justice is so very well known to you, is it possible that he might be moved to consideration on my behalf?" and appointed Sir William to the post a twelve-month ago. But, Jane, if the justice is so very well known to you, is it possible that he might be moved to consideration on my behalf?"

"Were I an utter unknown to Sir William, I should still look to him for consolation in time of trouble," I replied without hesitation, "for any who seek justice may be sure to find it at his hands."

"What would you have me do, Jane?" the Countess asked simply.

"We cannot stop the maid from sending a note as poisonous as this to the magistrate, and so I would advise that we antic.i.p.ate her actions, and call Sir William to us without delay. It is within his province to halt such evil rumour before it may do further harm-or to investigate the case for just cause, if any there might be."

"Jane! Can you think it?"

"Of you, my dear, never." I folded the maid's note and offered it to her. "But of others? Anything may be possible in this world, where the fortunes of men are at stake; and the Earl's fortune, you will own, was considerable."

"But only Fitzroy Payne may benefit by it," she argued, crumpling the betraying letter in her hand; "and for Fitzroy to act with violence is unthinkable."

"Isobel," I said gently, "I fear you have not told me all all where that gentleman is concerned." where that gentleman is concerned."

Silence and an averted look were my reward, but a flush had begun to overtake the paleness of my friend's complexion.

"If you fall in with my plan of apprising Sir William of the nature of this letter, he will undoubtedly enquire as to the maid's meaning," I observed.

Isobel reached for my hand, her face stricken. "Jane, Jane-you must protect me! It is too much. The pain of Frederick's death-this horrible letter-and now, to expose Fitzroy so dreadfully-I cannot bear it!"

"If I am to help you, my dear," I said, kneeling at her feet, "I must know where I am. You must tell me what you can, Isobel, for everything may be of the greatest importance."

"You fear for me, Jane?"

"I fear for us all."

1. For twentieth-century readers, some explanation may prove useful. Apoplexy was the common nineteenth-century term for stroke, while dyspepsia signified indigestion.-Editor's note.2. At the death of Frederick, Earl of Scargrave, Fitzroy Payne became the eighth Earl in his stead. As such, Austen now addresses him as Lord Scargrave, rather than Lord Payne, as he was when merely a viscount.-Editor's note.3. It was customary for ladies to adopt dark mourning clothes for varying periods of time at the death of family members-at least a year upon the death of a husband or child, and as little as six weeks for more distant relations.-Editor's note.4. Le Beau Monde Le Beau Monde was simply one of the fashionable journals avidly read by members of select Georgian society; its fashion plates presented the latest in ladies' and gentlemen's clothing.- was simply one of the fashionable journals avidly read by members of select Georgian society; its fashion plates presented the latest in ladies' and gentlemen's clothing.-Editor's note.5. Mantua-maker is a Georgian term for dressmaker, after the mantua, a type of gown worn in the eighteenth century. It gradually fell out of use, to be replaced by the French modiste modiste, and eventually by dressmaker.-Editor's note.6. The Countess's use of the term magistrate magistrate may confuse some readers, who are aware that magistrates were generally salaried individuals appointed to keep order in large cities. The correct term for Sir William Reynolds's office is may confuse some readers, who are aware that magistrates were generally salaried individuals appointed to keep order in large cities. The correct term for Sir William Reynolds's office is justice of the peace justice of the peace-an unsalaried position usually accorded a member of the country gentry. In rural areas, however, the two t.i.tles were often used interchangeably, since the unpaid justice of the peace performed the essential duties of a magistrate. -Editor's note.7. The Lord Lieutenant of the County was an office usually accorded a high-ranking peer; his chief duties were to commission the various local justices of the peace, or magistrates, and to call out the militia in time of invasion.-Editor's note.

Chapter 4 - The Widow's Lament.

14 December 1802, cont.

"YOU WILL HAVE OBSERVED HIS REGARD FOR ME."

Isobel had abandoned her chaise and was standing before the grate, her hand on the mantel and her lovely eyes fixed upon my face. In the fine dressing gown of Valenciennes lace, her dark red hair burnished by the light of the fire, she was magnificent. How could Fitzroy Payne help but adore her?

"There is a measure of warmth in Fitzroy Payne's manner beyond what a man might accord his aunt by marriage," I replied carefully.

"Even an aunt four years his junior?" Her laugh was bitter. "Can ever a family have been so discordantly arranged!"

"You understood the Earl's age when you married him, Isobel. A man twenty-six years your senior must be allowed to have acquired a nephew or two along the way."

"But such a nephew as Fitzroy? The paragon of men?" She began to turn back and forth before the fire, her arms wrapped protectively across her breast, her aspect tortured. "The man I might have encountered sooner, Jane-and having met, married as I should have married, for love and not simply the security of means?"

"I had not known you accepted the Earl from mercenary motives, Isobel." I confess I was shocked; but our conversation regarding the married state, in the little alcove the night of the ball, returned forcibly to my mind.

"But then you cannot have understood the state of my father's affairs at his death," the Countess said, wheeling to face me. "You will recall that he pa.s.sed from this life but a year before my arrival in England. In truth, his fortunes were sadly reduced. The plantations at Cross-winds-my childhood home-have suffered numerous reverses, due in part to the poor price of coffee, in part to disease among the bushes, and not least owing to unrest among the slaves who work the estate. Lord Harold Trowbridge's shadow has been thrust upon this house because our holdings are at their final extremity."

"You have recent intelligence of the plantation's affairs?"

"I have it from Trowbridge himself. He is returned but six months from a survey of his West Indies investments, of which he hopes to make Crosswinds a part. He had not been in England a week when he obtruded painfully on my notice."

"But what can be his power over you, Isobel, that he chose not to exert over your father?"

"Lord Harold is my princ.i.p.al creditor, Jane. He has bought up all my father's debts, at a considerable discount, and has chosen now now to call in loans of some thirty years' duration-at an exorbitant rate of interest," my friend said, wringing her hands in despair. "I have no recourse, so Trowbridge tells me, but to hand him the land in exchange for a discharge of my father's debt." to call in loans of some thirty years' duration-at an exorbitant rate of interest," my friend said, wringing her hands in despair. "I have no recourse, so Trowbridge tells me, but to hand him the land in exchange for a discharge of my father's debt."

"I had no notion that your affairs were in such a state."

"How could you?" Isobel said, with some distress. "It is a fact I would not have broadly known. But the fear of losing Crosswinds has directed my endeavours since my father's death. My determination to remove to England two years ago was formed with the primary purpose of finding a suitable husband-a man of solidity and fortune who could revive my faltering affairs. I believed I had found him in dear Frederick." Isobel gazed up at her late husband's portrait, her face suffused with tenderness.

"That he knew of my troubles when he married me, Jane, I may freely own," she continued, with a look for me. "I would not join my poor fortune to one such as his without revealing all. Lord Scargrave bore me such great love"-at this, she suffered an emotion that impeded her speech for an instant-"that he was willing to undertake my cause without a second thought. All that it was in his power to do, he would do; even to the extent of entertaining Trowbridge the very night of our bridal ball."

"And you, Isobel? Did you bear him equal love?"

"I thought that what I felt might be called by that name," my friend replied faintly, her hand going to her throat. "Perhaps I deluded myself from a wish to obtain that security he so n.o.bly offered. Oh, how to explain the man that was my husband, Jane?" She sank once more to her chaise, her att.i.tude all despondency.

"He seemed a respectable gentleman," I observed.

"Jane! Jane! Such coldness for poor Frederick!" Isobel's eyes filled with tears. "Lord Scargrave was not young, as you saw, except in his vivacity of spirit and the energy he brought to each of his dearest projects. He was a man of great warmth and good humoui; yet could betray the iron of his ancestors when pressed. I admired Frederick, I respected him, I felt towards him a depth of grat.i.tude I could not help but express-I esteemed esteemed him, Jane, as a daughter might esteem a father. Indeed, I wonder ofttimes if it was not a second father I sought when I threw myself upon the marriage market." him, Jane, as a daughter might esteem a father. Indeed, I wonder ofttimes if it was not a second father I sought when I threw myself upon the marriage market."

"But love, Isobel?" I persisted.

She was silent, reflecting, her eyes upon the flames. Of a sudden she shivered, and I hastened to draw her lap robe over her. "You must not get a chill, my dear; for we have had too much of violent illness."

The Countess smiled sadly and shook her head. "It is not the cold that would carry me off, dear Jane, but an enormity of regret."

"For your husband?"

"And myself," she replied softly, her eyes finding mine. "I had not known love as a girl. Silly flirtations I had by the score, of course-one could not help it. But the day I married the Earl I knew what it was to feel a deeper emotion, and G.o.d help me, it was not for the man I married."

All speech was impossible at so painful a revelation. There can be no proper answer to such anguish-and anguish Isobel clearly felt, had felt during the brief tenure of her marriage, and could not silence even at her husband's untimely end. I could well imagine that the Earl's death had increased, rather than absolved, her sorrow, by heightening her sense of having done him a terrible wrong-a wrong now past all repair.

"The Earl had no notion?" I settled myself on a chair opposite her chaise and took comfort in the heat of the flames. The parkland beyond the Countess's windows was now utterly dark, and the sharp December cold pressed against the house.

Isobel shook her head. "I pray G.o.d he did not. Such a betrayal of his best impulses he could not have borne. For his sake, I adopted the strictest propriety; and Fitzroy did the same. No dishonour should come to the man he revered almost as a father while his actions could prevent it.

"That we may have betrayed our sensibility in countless small ways, I do not doubt, when I read that despicable letter," she continued, gesturing towards Marguerite's note. "Not least among the emotions it causes is fear for my husband's sake. If she she saw, who is but a servant, what may saw, who is but a servant, what may he he not have seen, and kept to himself in silence?" not have seen, and kept to himself in silence?"

I hastened to rea.s.sure my friend. "A lady's maid may be even more in her mistress's company than her husband, Isobel. You know it to be true. Marguerite may conjecture only, and her stab in the dark has gone home. From your husband's easy good humour two nights past, I must believe he thought himself the happy man who had won all of your affection."

"You speak with conviction, Jane." Isobel's accent was eager. "Did you yourself believe it?"

"I did, until the very moment when Lord Payne dismissed the devil Trowbridge. The Viscount then betrayed a concern for your welfare beyond what is usual in a nephew towards a newly-met aunt. Oh, Isobel, how could two such people as yourselves, possessed of probity and good sense, forget what is due to propriety?"

A log burst of a sudden upon the hearth, scattering glowing embers at our feet, and Isobel started, her eyes on her husband's portrait. I bent for the poker and busied myself at the grate.

My friend touched a trembling hand to her lips. "It does seem mad, I will own," she replied, "as only such love can be." She drew breath, and with it perhaps, courage to go on.

"Fitzroy is the true companion of my soul, Jane; we think as with one thought, and when deprived of the chance to speak, may find converse in a look enough to sustain us."

Her words had a particular power to strike at my heart, being virtually the same as those I had uttered once to myself, about another young man forever out of reach.1 Clumsily, I dropped the poker, and covered my confusion in retrieving it. Clumsily, I dropped the poker, and covered my confusion in retrieving it.

Isobel perceived my dismay, and misinterpreted its cause. Her next words were accordingly sharp. "But I cannot possibly make you you know this with all the force of sensibility I feel; not for our practical Jane an indulgence in emotion. It will be enough to make you understand how it came about." know this with all the force of sensibility I feel; not for our practical Jane an indulgence in emotion. It will be enough to make you understand how it came about."

I was wounded, I will own, for there was a time when such feeling was all I lived for; but that time is past. I resolved not to reproach Isobel for words spoken in the midst of trouble, and endeavoured to put aside self-interest. "Indeed, my dear, I would hear it," I told her, retrieving my chair, "if it be that you wish to speak."

Isobel had the grace to look abashed at my kindness, and turned without further preamble to her unfortunate history.

"I first met Fitzroy during the height of the London season, when my engagement to the Earl was already fixed, and my aunt and cousin f.a.n.n.y had joined me at rooms in Town," she began.

"I recall your letters of that period. They betrayed no unhappiness, but rather excited expectation of the months ahead."

"How could they do otherwise?" my friend cried. "We were to embark upon that most frivolous and light-hearted of ladies' enterprises-the purchase of my wedding clothes. My aunt is well-acquainted with the best warehouses, as you may imagine from having heard her discourse on mourning; and she was invaluable to me in the acquisition of a Countess's wardrobe. I should not have denied her the pleasure in any case; such a venture was to be but the rehearsal for her daughter's wedding, her dearest concern."

"I may be thankful my own mother's inclinations are in a less material direction," I said dryly, "for I should a.s.suredly be the ruin of her hopes."

Having met with my mother frequently while in Bath, Isobel could not repress a smile; but her sad tale reclaimed her attention. "Lord Payne was newly resident in his uncle's Town home, having left his estate in Derbyshire for the season. Fitzroy immediately became the object of my aunt Delahoussaye's excited speculation; for where one union is effected in a family, and the respective members thrown much together, another may well be formed; and to see her daughter as heir apparent to the t.i.tle I was to a.s.sume, by marrying my husband's husband's heir, became my aunt's primary object." heir, became my aunt's primary object."

"It reigns unabated among her schemes," I could not refrain from saying; "I was nearly pulled from die dance die other evening in Madame Delahoussaye's eagerness to secure Lord Payne as her daughter's partner."

"And that, after I had already asked Fitzroy to lead f.a.n.n.y in the first dance, behind his uncle and myself. He detests nothing so much as dancing, however he excels at it; and he regards standing up with f.a.n.n.y as a punishment. He should rather have partnered you, my dear Jane-he told me so himself."

"I am flattered. But we digress."

"In London, my husband-to-be was frequently attended by his men of business, and prevented from escorting me to the season's gaieties as often as he might like. Frederick found it no difficulty, however to send Fitzroy in his place, and my aunt was ready enough to have f.a.n.n.y make a third." Isobel stopped short, overcome by memory.

"How many hours the three of us strolled Bond Street, Jane, a lady on Fitzroy's either side; or took the air of the Park in our carriage, Fitzroy seated opposite with f.a.n.n.y at his right hand. It gradually became a torment; his mind and mine were too much alike not to leap at the chance to converse; we found much in common that thrilled and moved; and yet behind the growing felicity in one another's company, there was a burgeoning despair. The inevitability of my fate approached-and to dishonour the man who had done so much for each of us was impossible. That we thought severally in this vein, without speaking of it to the other-that we had never spoken of the feeling that overcame us in one another's presence-I need not a.s.sure you. Such a speech could not but harm." She fell silent, lost in despondency.

"Until?" I prompted.

The Countess hesitated, as if unwilling to repeat in speech the indiscretions of the past. "Until the day f.a.n.n.y suffered a slight indisposition, due to her greediness for cold stuffing at dinner the previous evening."

"It prevented her from accompanying you the next day?"

"It did. We had formed the design of a visit to Hampton Court, by barge up the Thames, and visit we did-though the party was formed of but two." My dear friend's face was suddenly transformed. "The delight in those few hours, Jane! The carefree happiness of our day! What laughter, what meaning in silence, what trembling in my hand as I took his arm to promenade! We moved through stately rooms and terraced gardens as though they were ours and we had come into our kingdom. A marvelous charade. For a time, we might play at what we never could be."

A little of Isobel's emotion affected my senses, and I strove for calm. "And you spoke, then, of the future?"

"How could we not?" Her glad aspect dimmed. "But it was a discourse saved for the waning of the day, when the long shadows proclaimed our liberty at an end, our paradise lost. In contemplating the necessity of a return, the duplicity it meant, Fitzroy found that he could not bear it; and in the shadow of a great tree in the Court gardens, he seized me in his arms and...kissed me, Jane."

I was silent with pity and horror.

"The memory of it burns upon my lips still," Isobel said, reaching a finger to her mouth. "It was to burn in my heart all that night, as I dined with poor Frederick; and dined with Fitzroy, who sat opposite as though turned to stone."