Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (14 page)

I encountered Caroline a while later in the Staircase Hall; she was sitting on the bottom step, staring thoughtfully at the burning Yule log. She had tied a black ribbon around Jemima’s arm. She knew nothing, to be sure, of murder—but sudden death will distress a child.

“James-Edward says we must leave The Vyne today,” she told me mournfully.

I sank down on the step beside her. “Shall you not like to be at home?”

She shook her head. “Nothing ever happens there. No one visits us. It is terribly dreary in wintertime. Even you will be leaving soon, Aunt.”

“Not until after Twelfth Night,” I promised. Thank Heaven no word had come to poor Caroline of the promised Children’s Ball! To be denied such a treat must cause anguish; and it seemed doubtful that Eliza should hold a revel, under the circumstances.

William Chute had proved himself a man of action in the hours after our meeting in his book room. Sparing no expence, he had despatched his letter to the Admiralty via an Express. A similar missive had been sent to Admiral Gambier in Ghent. A groom had ridden off through the drifts on one of Chute’s own hunters to Hackwood Park, home of the second Lord Bolton, who is a Justice of the Peace in the locality; he was expected to wait upon Mr. Chute this morning. Chute holds a similar title but recused himself from acting in the present case of murder. The little awkwardness of having hosted both victim and killer made the matter a delicate one.

Finally, he had tramped out himself to the scene of the Lieutenant’s death and overlooked the ground. There, with despairing hope, he set a party of gardeners to sweeping the drifts in an effort to secure the missing dispatch bag. After several hours, they succeeded in securing only the remainder of the cunning wire that had brought down the Lieutenant’s horse.

Miss Gambier took her dinner on a tray in her bedchamber last night. There were any number of questions I longed to put to her. Who was the person that had uttered threats at her door in the early hours of the morning? Did she suspect the same person of having written the mysterious charade? And if so—had either event anything to do with the Lieutenant’s murder?

What had driven Miss Gambier to her knees in the Chapel at the exact hour of Lieutenant Gage’s death?

I could not, with propriety, interrogate the lady in the depths of her grief. Indeed, I had no right to interrogate her at all. I could not even voice my suspicions to William Chute—Miss Gambier was a guest in his household, and he was preoccupied with the fate of his American Treaty. It was probable that Miss Gambier’s private affairs had nothing to do with an intrigue of State.

But the questions persisted, all the same.

Before the servants, Eliza was at pains to put a good face on events, and we brushed through dinner tolerably well—tho’ the tone of conversation was both subdued and tedious. Edward Gambier, in particular, was singularly inattentive, and without Mr. L’Anglois—who was gone on horseback to the Admiralty—we lacked one disinterested voice in our midst. It was left to James to introduce a topic of conversation—never to be preferred. He pontificated on the increasing numbers of Evangelicals in the Church, and his belief that the increase in piety must be the saving of us all. Thomas-Vere declared, in shocked tones, that he believed Evangelicals to frown upon so harmless an amusement as dancing. Beyond this, ecclesiastic debate did not venture.

It was only when we had all assembled in the drawing-room over coffee that Chute made a sort of speech, brief and to the purpose, which must astonish those who knew him as a garrulous sportsman. I began to apprehend the talents that recommended him to such an exacting Cabinet member as Castlereagh.

My brother James had just announced his intention of removing the Austen party to Steventon in the morning, “provided the carriageway and surrounding lanes are tolerably clear; for we cannot allow ourselves to add to your burdens at present. I shall, of course, be most happy to return and preside over funeral rites in the Chapel for the unfortunate Deceased—always supposing that his family do not wish the disposition otherwise.”

“So kind,” Lady Gambier murmured.

“I must ask you to remain here until I have spoken with Lord Bolton,” Chute replied. “I expect him to pay us a morning call.”

“Bolton?” James’s countenance brightened visibly. “I should be happy to meet his lordship at any moment. I did not know he intended to spend the holidays in Hampshire.”

“In the usual way, he should have gone into Leicestershire, for the hunting,” Chute agreed, “but Lady Bolton is in daily expectation of her confinement. Indeed, I should like all of you—including Mr. West,” he added with a particular bow, “to remain at The Vyne until the inquest should be over. I do not think we can properly avoid one, now.”

James frowned; Thomas-Vere was startled, and Gambier confused.

“Inquest?” he repeated. “Over poor John? Why the Devil should a Coroner be called, because a fellow is thrown from his horse?”

“It is customary when the Deceased is in the employ of the Crown,” Chute replied.

I did not think this was true; but it satisfied a number of those present. William Chute meant to play a deep hand. He might have informed his house party that a trap had been laid—foul play suspected—that the Ghent papers were missing—but how should it avail him? He did not wish to alarm the innocent, or put the murderer on guard. And even did Chute order a thorough search of The Vyne and its outbuildings, he should discover nothing of the stolen Treaty in that vast and ancient pile. Whoever had killed for the spoils, would be certain to hide them well.

It remained to decipher which among the Christmas guests the murderer might be. I did not for a moment believe the servants to be implicated; they had been enjoying their freedom on St. Stephen’s Day, and could hardly have known even of Lieutenant
Gage’s arrival. The idea that one of them would lay a trap for his horse—or steal the Treaty—was absurd.

“Lord Bolton!” Mary murmured with satisfaction as we mounted the stairs to bed an hour later. “He is excessively handsome, Jane, and very good
ton
. James and I are forever meeting him and his lady—a sweet creature!—when we are gone into Basingstoke. Such a gentleman will not have come in your way before this. You will wish to be loitering in the Staircase Hall when he is announced, I am sure, to see what a Great Man looks like. I wonder the Chutes did not invite Lord and Lady Bolton to dine whilst we were here. It might have been just that select and intimate party one could expect from a Member of Parliament. But we find only the Gambiers and Mr. West.”

It appeared that Raphael West’s
éclat
had worn thin in Mary’s eyes. I suspected his indifference to her sketchbook—and her poses—was largely to blame.

“Lady Gambier, you know, is not truly genteel,” she persisted in an undertone, “for her husband’s title was only got through the Navy.”

And worse still, I thought, she is cousin to poor dead Anne.

“James says a clergyman’s wife ranks higher than a duchess,” Mary concluded, “in being closer to God.”

“I wonder you can bear to live with the man,” I replied, and bid her goodnight.

I
LAY AWAKE FOR
some hours, my mind a welter of ideas. A treaty was naturally of importance to the parties involved—in this case, Britain and the United States. But why should an individual resort to murder to steal it? When the principal negotiators must be cognizant of the details, and preparing to present them to their respective governments for vote and ratification, surely the
paper—even signed—was a matter of form. If one wished to alter the outcome of events, better to kill the negotiators themselves!

And why should anyone beyond the two Governments involved, wish to know the Treaty’s terms?

I exerted my wits to puzzle it out.

The negotiations at Ghent were to end the present war. That should alter relations between the United States and Britain in numerous ways. Trade, for example, should resume unfettered by both parties. American territorial rights should proceed unhindered by British claims. And the British Army—His Grace the Duke of Wellington’s crack Peninsular troops—should be returning home …

What had William Chute said, over Christmas dinner? —that with the troops elsewhere engaged, England was vulnerable?

Who might value such intelligence?

A foreign government, of course.

Foreign agents, who could wish to delay the news of an end to the American War. Or the issuance of new orders, for those same crack troops.

Russia’s Czar, I recalled, had wished for British military support during his late conflict with Napoleon—who had foolishly penetrated so far as Moscow, only to see it burnt by its inhabitants. French losses in the retreat had been terrible; the Russian winter accomplished what British troops could not. We had been deaf to Russian pleas in 1812—because our armies were two continents distant. Now that Napoleon was exiled to Elba, and the Czar was rebuilding his city—the disposition of Wellington’s men could no longer be of interest to him. Unless the Czar’s future designs affected England’s interests.

Surely no one at The Vyne might figure as a Russian agent?

Thomas-Vere?

The idea was laughable. Which argued for its consideration.

Edward Gambier?

He was in a position to know something of politics, through his uncle, but seemed to have little aptitude for the subject; and he was not yet even of age. At merely twenty, he thought more of the shine on his Hessians than of England’s vulnerabilities. Or was this merely a pose, intended to bamboozle the credulous?

Mr. L’Anglois? His name was French enough.

Raphael West?

Here my thoughts slowed in their whirl. One had been secretary to the Comte d’Artois, with connexions to the new Bourbon King. The other was an American—tho’ to all outwards appearances, as English as myself. West’s celebrated father had been a friend to French radicalism. Did any of this argue for the murder of Lieutenant Gage? France was now England’s ally—was she not?

And then there were the women. I could not undertake to think about them now.

I tossed and turned on Eliza Chute’s comfortable pillows. For aught I could apprehend, the Treaty’s theft had but one effect: it slowed the end of the war with America. Until a fresh copy of the signed document could be obtained, no treaty should be ratified in Parliament—or in the American Congress. Hostilities, therefore, would continue. Word passed slowly, in any case, across the Atlantic. It might be a full six months before Wellington’s crack troops came home.

Who, at The Vyne, wished England vulnerable?

L
ORD
B
OLTON ARRIVED IN
a chaise-and-four at half-past eleven o’clock. Cassandra and I observed his appearance from the upstairs landing, as he exited his coach in a curly-brimmed beaver and redingote; he was a gentleman of medium height and spare appearance, not
much above thirty years old. His father had been simple Tom Orde, of a numerous Hampshire family. Mr. Orde married the illegitimate daughter of a duke; upon her inheritance, remarkably, of the duke’s estates, Orde was created Baron Bolton of Hackwood Park. His son, in turn, married the eldest daughter of Lord Dorchester—the Hero of Canada and the Victor of Quebec. The vicissitudes of Fortune are indeed marvellous.

James’s Mary had been loitering about the Staircase Hall since breakfast, and hurried forward almost in step with the butler, Roark, who must have been astonished to find his office of taking the great man’s coat and hat usurped; but Mary remembered herself just in time, and contrived to put a question to the butler as he was on the point of pulling open the massive front door.

“Oh, Roark!” she cried. “Does Mrs. Chute require any assistance in the hothouses? For it must be proper to bestow a few flowers about the Chapel. The odour of Death might otherwise prove offensive with time. A clergyman’s wife may be a fund of knowledge in such cases, you know.”

“I shall inform my mistress,” Roark replied with dignity. He stood with his hand upon the door, waiting for Mary’s withdrawal. She did not move. Lord Bolton lingered in the cold on the doorstep. Mary’s determination and Roark’s concern for his lordship’s health won out; he opened the door.

“Why, Lord Bolton!” Mary said, with infinite condescension. “Do hurry within doors—the cold this morning is dreadful!”

Cassandra and I leaned carefully over the balustrade to glimpse the top of the curly-brimmed beaver.

It was removed and handed to Roark, who possessed himself of the redingote as well. His lordship’s mild brown curls inclined towards Mary.

“Indeed it is … ma’am,” he said doubtfully.

Mary simpered. “Mrs. James Austen,” she supplied.

“Delighted to …”

“—Of Steventon Parsonage. I daresay you must have hunted with my husband on countless occasions. We were introduced, once, in Basingstoke! At Ring Brothers, I believe it was. Your lady was so kind as to admire my cloak. How does she get on? Is she in good health?”

“Excellent health, I thank you,” Lord Bolton replied in tones of bewilderment. So Mary had scraped an acquaintance with that sweet creature in the middle of a Basingstoke shop!

Cassandra’s hand was pressed to her lips and her eyes brimmed with mirth. I could not look at her.

“If your lordship will allow me,” Roark said. “Mr. Chute is expecting you.”

“Thank you, Roark,” Lord Bolton said, and followed the butler with what we could only imagine was relief.

Cassandra and I scurried off to our bedchamber, and buried our heads in our pillows. Absurdity is a blessing that is best shared.

I could not presume upon my brother’s patience with the Law—he should no doubt declare himself to follow a higher authority than Mr. Chute’s, in any case—but I might expect him to remain at The Vyne so long as Lord Bolton did. He should hover with scarcely more aplomb than his wife about the threshold of the book room, in the hope of a chance encounter with the Baron; for there is no doubt that Lord Bolton has many valuable livings within his gift, and for all his Evangelical phrases, James should never miss an opportunity to secure his livelihood. But perhaps I wrong him there; he once refused two hundred pounds per annum for holding a curacy, merely because he could not travel the necessary distance to the parish of a Sunday. Perhaps James is not so much a mercenary as an admirer of the Great. He will want to be returned to Steventon in good time to prepare his sermons for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day; on the morrow, therefore, we must certainly depart.