Jane and the Barque of Frailty (30 page)

“He is certain to believe them fabricated, if they come without a neck for his noose. Let us wait a little, if you please.”

The hackney was of the usual run of such vehicles—an outmoded town chariot originally designed for the accommodation of only two persons abreast, with a facing seat and a coachman’s box upon the top; a single horse was required to draw this vehicle, and the poor beast looked as tho’ it had descended by degrees from a gentleman’s stable, much as the carriage itself had.

“When we come to Berkeley Square,” Clayton said, “I turned in at the mews and pulled up before No. 43.

The sidelamps were burning, naturally, and the party asked as if I’d douse ’em—the lady being yet ill, and him being wishful to rest her a bit, before attempting to escort her to the house.”

“I see. You did so?”

“Aye. We sat there in the dark maybe half an hour, maybe more, until the bells rang four; and him talking low to the lady all the time, in that soft foreign voice of his, as tho’ he were talking to a child.”

“You heard him speak from within the carriage?” Surprised, I studied the jarvey’s countenance. “Did the lady reply?”

“She might have groaned, like. Being foxed out of all reason.”

“And what did you then?”

“The Frenchie asked me to stand lookout, as he was worried for the lady’s reputation—didn’t want her seen, while he got her to the door. I climbed down from the box, and went right out into the square, but there weren’t nobody about—not even the charley.”

“Old Bends, on his quest for ale and bread,” I murmured. “That would be the moment to effect it.”

“When I got back to the cab, they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Aye. The Frenchie left a guinea on the box for my trouble. He took her the back way, I reckon—but how she ended on the street with her throat slit, I cannot say, and that’s the truth. I never saw no murder done, miss—nor self-murder, neither, as God is my witness.”

It was possible that what the jarvey saw as inebriation, had been nothing less than the nervelessness of death; the Princess might well have been extinct from the moment she was carried from Russell Square. D’Entraigues would have chosen the mews behind No. 43 for its proximity to Castlereagh’s residence—the scandal of the published correspondence, perhaps, providing him with inspiration. But I said nothing of my speculation to Clayton. “May I glance within your hackney?”

Upon his throwing open the door, I observed the springs to be negligible, and the squabs dirty; but the jarvey had taken pains to provide a lap-robe for his passengers’ use. This was folded neatly on the facing seat.

“You have employed this equipage for your trade in the week since Princess Tscholikova’s death?” I enquired.

“All but Sunday—the horse and I always have our bit o’ rest, tho’ there’s some as work even on the Lord’s day.”

“You carry how many fares each day, Clayton?”

“Upwards of thirty, miss. London’s a rackety enough place.”

“And have you found occasion to clean the interior in recent days?”

“Clean?”he repeated, staring.

We were unlikely to discover anything of value, but I leaned within and sniffed expectantly. The odour of old leather, dust, and mould from yesterday’s rain met my nostrils—but no lingering note of an animal nature, the curdling smell of blood.

“Mr. Chizzlewit, have you a lantern?”

While he went in search of one, I unfolded the lap-robe and surveyed it narrowly. The faded wool exhibited a quantity of brownish stains, but these I adjudged to be dried mud—hardly capable of exciting interest.

“Here you are, Miss Austen,” Mr. Chizzlewit said behind me, and handed over a square-paned lantern. “Allow me to help you inside.”

I took his proffered hand and mounted the single step. The light shone brightly on the smudged and raddled interior, illuminating a score of years’ adventures in traversing the streets of London—with bandboxes, giggling girls, foxed gentlemen and women of the streets all packed within—but I could not discern a blood-stain anywhere.

It must be impossible that a throat so torn as the Princess’s—which the watchman, old Bends, had declared to be still wet with blood when discovered at five o’clock—should fail to daub everything it encountered. I was forced to conclude that Princess Tscholikova had entered the hackney alive.

“What do you make of it, Miss Austen?” Mr. Chizzlewit enquired.

“Very little,” I admitted. I set down the lantern on the floor of the chariot, drew off my gloves, and felt with bare hands between the cushions of the seat.

My fingertips encountered a scrap of paper. I snatched at it eagerly, and drew it forth.

“A fragment of correspondence,” I said. “The sheet has been torn in pieces.”

“Princess Tscholikova’s?” Mr. Chizzlewit thrust his head into the coach.

“No,” I admitted. “This hand is strange to me. I have read the Princess’s words before, you know, in the private journal I spoke of—”

“Stay,” Sylvester Chizzlewit ordered, his voice taut with excitement. “I may name the author. I saw his hand almost daily, during my years at Oxford.”

“Charles Malverley,” I concluded. “It was, I suppose, to be expected. But I confess, Mr. Chizzlewit, that having spoken with your jarvey, I understand this affair even less than before. Why should this scrap, alone among its fellows, be thrust down into the seat cushions? Why should d’Entraigues have carried the Princess to Berkeley Square? And most puzzling of all—why did she exit the coach alive, only to be found dead by the watchman?”

“Because d’Entraigues chose to do murder?”

I shook my head in perplexity. “We shall have to confront the gentleman.”

“Which gentleman? D’Entraigues—or Malverley?”

“I cannot tell. The former was in possession of the Princess’s jewels, and her person; the latter, merely of her heart.”

“Perhaps it is Miss Radcliffe we should interrogate.” He spoke the words unhappily; I recollected too late that there was an interest there—Mr. Chizzlewit was susceptible, as I own myself to have been, to the Barque’s charm.

“Are you willing to play escort?” I enquired. “I should feel less of a traitor to the poor child, did I have you to bear me company.”

“I should be most happy.” He reached into his smart coat, and drew forth a purse of coins. Handing the jarvey a guinea, he said, “Thank you, Clayton. That will be all for now. I may find you, I suppose, in Portman Square?”

“At any hour, any day but Sunday,” the hackney driver said cheerfully, and bobbing his head in my direction, took himself off.

“We shall have need of that fellow, to give evidence,” Mr. Chizzlewit said thoughtfully. “I ought, perhaps, to have invited Bill Skroggs to listen to the man—but that I was desirous you should be before him, Miss Austen. I wished to learn the construction you should place upon his information; tho’ Skroggs is cunning, he lacks your subtlety of mind.”

“You have spoken with him?”

“Indeed. I sought him where one must always seek the Bow Street Runners—in his cups, at the Brown Bear.” Mr. Chizzlewit smiled, and I reflected that despite his youth, he had a remarkable gift for inspiring trust.

“Mr. Skroggs admitted that he was, indeed, in Hans Town observing No. 64 when Mrs. Henry Austen was struck from behind with a cobblestone. Her attacker fled, with Skroggs in pursuit; but the Runner was at a distance, and the lady escaped his clutches, by hastening down Cadogan Street and mounting into a carriage kept waiting there for the purpose. He never saw her face.”

“A lady,” I mused. “That might be anyone—but at a guess, I should call her Anne de St.-Huberti, Comtesse d’Entraigues. Julia Radcliffe should have attempted to murder me, not my sister.”

“I am happy to hear it. That is one less painful episode we must address in Russell Square.”

“Shall we go there immediately? We ought to have retained Clayton—and had the jarvey drive us to the door!”

Mr. Chizzlewit hesitated. “I should not advise it. The hour is already advanced—nearly two o’clock— and the day is hardly auspicious for paying calls.”

I stared at him. “Whatever can you mean?”

The solicitor’s smile deepened becomingly. “I collect that for all your worldliness, you are yet in ignorance of the significance of the First of May, my dear Miss Austen. Among certain circles, it is most notable for being the annual date of a glittering event never patronised by the most elegant ladies of the ton, but to which every male member of Society is sure to be invited. We refer to it as the anti-Almack’s.”

“Anti-Almack’s?” I repeated, bewildered. “But Almack’s is the most exclusive private assembly in London! Would you mean that this is a publick rout?”

“Hardly. But just as Almack’s is called, by the knowledgeable, The Marriage Mart, so the Cyprians Ball must be acknowledged as Almack’s opposite—the very death of respectability, in fact!”

“The Cyprians Ball … An assembly presided over by … ”

“ … The Muslin Company,” he returned cordially. “They will have engaged the publick rooms of Limmer’s; it is the dirtiest hotel in London, to be sure, but also the most sporting—and the Demi-reps shall feel entirely at home there. Among the members of White’s and Watier’s, Brooks’s and Boodle’s, no other event is anticipated with such enjoyment as the Cyprians Ball. Miss Wilson and her sisters, Mrs. Johnstone and Moll Raffles, Julia Radcliffe and Desirée Moore—all shall be in attendance. I must believe Julia Radcliffe to be recruiting her strength, before such an evening—she will certainly not be at home to visitors. We must endeavour to call upon her tomorrow, Miss Austen—well after one o’clock.”

“The Cyprians Ball,” I murmured. “The Comte d’Entraigues shall certainly be at Limmer’s this evening.”

“—And firmly under my eye. I hold a card of invitation, and shall certainly dance.”

“Will Charles Malverley be there?”

“I should be greatly surprised, were he not. Castlereagh must certainly be in attendance, and George Canning—there is not a gentleman who would risk offending the Patronesses, any more than they should snub Lady Jersey at Almack’s.”

“But Malverley, Mr. Chizzlewit—that buck of the first stare, who is up to every rig, the greatest go in the ton— Have you ever chanced to meet him in Russell Square?”

“Never,” he replied.

“And yet … and yet … we presume Princess Tscholikova to have sought him at Julia Radcliffe’s on the night of her death. Why, Mr. Chizzlewit?”

“He was undoubtedly absent. The Princess certainly did not meet him there, no matter how long she waited.”

“And if Malverley alone, of all his set, neglects to pay court to Julia Radcliffe,” I said slowly, “that fact in itself must be considered significant. I shall take my leave of you, sir—and must thank you for putting me in the way of considering this tangled business in an entirely new light.”

I
RETURNED TO
S
L
OANE S
TREET, AND FOUND
E
LIZA
gone out—our Chawton neighbour, Miss Maria Beckford, having called with her Middleton niece to take my sister for an airing in the Park. I had an idea of the petulant Miss Middleton, forced to sit opposite two elderly ladies, in a hired barouche that must be accounted insufferably dowdy; and sighed for the lost ambitions of girlhood.

I whiled away an hour in perusing a guide to the peerage I discovered among Henry’s books, paying especial attention to those lateral branches and degrees of cousinage obtaining among the most elevated families in the land; and then I penned a firm note of my intentions to Sylvester Chizzlewit. Manon was so good as to carry it to Lincoln’s Inn Fields—but my second letter, to William Skroggs, she refused to accept. She regarded Bow Street and all its kind as the worst of London’s evils; and so, in the end, I was forced to run that errand myself.

Chapter 29
At Limmer’s Hotel

Wednesday, 1 May 1811, cont.

∼

A
S IT HAPPENS,
I
WAS FORCED TO PLACE ALL MY
confidence in Eliza—as is so often the case. Who else should know better how a Fashionable Impure must look, in order to gain admittance to the Cyprians Ball?

“Ring for Manon,” my sister instructed briskly, “and Madame Bigeon as well. We shall have to alter one of my gowns on the instant! I am not so tall as you, Jane, but I daresay we may contrive a lace flounce to make up the difference—and it will do very well if your ankles are exposed, and your stays rather tighter than not, as display must be the order of the evening.”

“Must it, indeed?” I faltered. “But Julia Radcliffe always appears so elegant!”

“Be assured that rather more of her elegance will be visible tonight. A ball-dress, off the shoulder, with considerable décolleté—and your hair dressed with diamonds!”

“But I have no diamonds!”

“Then let them be paste! I am sure quite half the Snug Armfuls will be wearing nothing but such trumpery—and will be clad in the most shocking peacock colours! I can do nothing about that, I am afraid; you will have to go in straw-coloured silk, for it is just the gown to suit the purpose—and quite eighteen months old, so I shall not mind a bit if we must cut it to shreds.”

Manon and her mother appeared in the doorway of Eliza’s boudoir. Manon, as should not be surprising, had begun to look a trifle weary.

“Mademoiselle is attending a fancy dress party this evening,” my sister said, in a voice that brooked no argument, “and will require a little contrivance in her gown. Manon, have you time to step round to the Pantheon Bazaar?”

“Naturally, if madame wishes it.”

“We require quantities of false diamonds for the dressing of our hair, and loo masks—as we shall have to go disguised.”

“We?”I repeated, thunderstruck.

“I adore masquerades,” she said comfortably, as she lifted the straw-coloured silk over my head. “It puts me quite in mind of the old days, at Versailles. I should not submit to being left behind for anything, Jane—and I daresay I shall give some of those Demireps a run for their money.”

She stepped back to survey my appearance; I felt both naked and foolish, and could not meet her scrutiny.