The coroner paused, his gaze fixed now upon the men of the panel, some of whom were shifting in their seats. It was likely any number had been acquainted with Shafto French from birth; and from the knowing glances being thrown about the room, the man was no stranger to a publick house.
“Deceased’s clothes were doused with a quantity of gin,” Mr. Munro continued in his clear and imperturbable fashion, “and inebriation may have contributed to the clouding of senses that led to his death. But it is my duty to inform this panel that however deeply Shafto French may have drunk before his demise, it was not of alcohol alone. I discovered Deceased’s lungs to be filled with water — a discovery with which the surgeon Mr. Curtis agrees. Deceased met his death by drowning.”
In my mind’s eye I saw with clarity the muddy surface of Chawton Pond, so close to the house in which I had spent the night — its smooth, dark waters not very deep, perhaps, but sufficient to kill a man. Involuntarily, I shuddered.
“How French came to be found in the cellar of a stranger’s house is indeed a mystery,” the coroner continued serenely, “but we must conclude he did not arrive there under his own power.”
A murmur of excited interest surged through the room. Beside me, Mr. Prowting uttered a short bark of dismay and sat up the straighter in his seat. “But that is utter nonsense!” he protested. “Why should someone carry Shafto French to the cottage cellar? Why not leave him in the road for all to see, if he had gone and drowned himself?”
“Is it not obvious, sir?” I enquired gently. “Because someone killed him.”
Letter from Lord Harold Trowbridge to Eugenie, Duchess of Wilborough, dated 2 November 1783; one leaf quarto, laid; watermark device coronet over escutcheon containing post-horn (see Heawood Nos. 2752–62); marked Calcutta to Southampton, by Grace of the Royal Navy.
(British Museum, Wilborough Papers, Austen bequest)
My dear Mamma—
You will be pleased to learn that I received your last bundle of letters — spanning full six months, I perceive, of industrious quill- mending on your part — in one fell swoop, all of them having arrived by various routes about the globe in the hull of the same ship, which put in to Calcutta and disgorged its burdens of Staffordshire dishes, Lancaster woollens, China tea, and good English salt beef to the admiring multitude. The letters found their way to me only after a plodding journey of several weeks, the Governor having trundled us all off to Madras to deal with one Lord George McCartney, a man whose head is as thick as a spotted dog pudding. He stiles himself President of Madras, and has the support of our good Company; but his idiocy in the handling of his subordinates and the native Nawabs alike surpasses all belief. Lord George is everywhere known in London and everywhere liked; but his knowledge of India could not be fitted into my little fingernail, despite which fact he has presumed to interfere in the Governor’s negotiations with the Marathas, in the conduct of the Mysore War, and in the dismissal of General Stuart for systematic disobedience. McCartney went so far as to have the good General bodily removed from his quarters and bundled upon a ship bound for London, complete with his cork leg and some fifty packages. As the General holds his commission at the will of the King, not the Company, Lord George is regarded as having dangerously overreached himself; and the officers under Stuart’s command have threatened to mutiny. Naturally, the Governor was at his most subtle in defusing the situation; but I daresay he shall have to send his lordship packing before too long — or sail for London himself.
I tell you of these trivial matters, by the by — which cannot amuse you a ha’porth, who will be thinking instead of the latest ton on-dits and scandal among your friends — because in truth my heart is breaking. And only you must know that, Mother dear, and repeat the fact to no one. You alone have my counsel, and must forget everything I tell you as soon as the words are read. While travelling in the Governor’s train I chanced upon Freddy Vansittart, en route from a trading expedition in Madras; he looked as well as ever, and is groaning with wealth, as should be natural for one of his wit and luck. He tells me of news from London — in truth, that Horatia is dead in childbed, and the babe with her. I can see it all: St. Eustace grinning like the Devil’s own dog as the screams of labour were torn from her, convinced he had found his revenge at last. O, God — that I had never seen her face! Or touched a hair of her head. I have been the ruin of several lives, Mamma, as I own to my sorrow; my soul is black. Horatia died in torment, and I had no knowledge of it for months after — I sat in the sun while she died, and gazed at the women of Pondicherry.
And still I cannot leave off hating him. It was he who kissed her cold cheek when she breathed her last; and it is in his tomb she will lie forever. She cannot have achieved her twenty-first birthday.
Freddy could tell me nothing of the babe — whether it was boy or girl. Write what you can, when you can — and believe me ever your loving son,
Harry
Chapter 9
What the Cellar Told
Thursday, 6 July 1809
“And so,” my brother concluded, “a verdict was returned of death at the hands of a person or persons unknown?”
“It was — with Mr. Munro adjourning the proceeding, and placing matters in abeyance until Mr. Prowting should inform him otherwise.”
“It is a curious business.” Henry drained his dish of tea and pushed back from the breakfast table. He had appeared at the cottage early this morning agog with the news of yesterday’s inquest, which had spread rapidly throughout the town and was subject to every kind of exaggeration. Henry had been unable to attend the proceeding himself, detained by that bank business which had occasioned his descent on Hampshire; but knowing Jane far better than Mr. Prowting, he was confident I should acquaint him with the particulars.
“Drowning and murder might arise in a country village from any number of causes,” he mused, “jealousy, petty hatreds, a dispute of long-standing between two parties. A woman might come into it — or several women, if you like. But why not leave the body with a great stone tied to its neck, sunken in the pond, to be discovered a twelvemonth hence? Why stow the poor fellow in our cellar, deserted as it may have seemed, to be found the very moment the new tenants turned the key in their door?”
“In order to give as much trouble as possible,” my mother replied with indignation. “I am quite sure there was some deliberate design in the business. The mortification is all ours; I do not regard even the unfortunate wife as having any claim to greater misery. It was we who had the trouble of finding the corpse, and suffering the agonies of carters and magistrates and public notice; the widow is merely called upon to bury it.”
“Mamma!” Henry cried in mock terror. “You cannot be so heartless!”
“But design, Henry, there certainly was,” I insisted.
“Whether to bring shame and suspicion upon the name of Austen — as we may believe some in Chawton village should like to do — or merely to employ the most convenient method of hiding an unwanted corpse, there was a good deal of thought in the business. Recollect the matter of the keys.”
The final witnesses Mr. Munro called the previous afternoon, to conclude his panel’s education, were illuminating — and must give rise to further comment and rumour in the neighbourhood. Kit Duff, publican of the Crown, stated simply that Shafto French had drunk deep of his house’s best ale Saturday night on the strength of a week’s pay, had kept entirely to himself, and appeared disinclined for sociable conversation. Some small dispute had arisen between French and his fellow labourer Bertie Philmore — “what is Shafto French’s cousin on his mother’s side” — and the two men’s argument had stilled most of the public room, with Philmore accusing French of an unpaid debt, and French asserting that he should be a warm man before very long, and would settle all his debts with enough left over to rule them all, besides. The two had quitted the inn just before midnight, when the Crown closed in deference to the advent of the Sabbath. Bertie Philmore was next called — and admitted i
n a surly fashion that Shafto did owe him near to five pound, unpaid this year or more. He insisted that the two had parted at his door, with Bertie bound for his wife and bed, and Shafto saying as he had a man to meet—“tho’ who should be abroad at such an hour but thieves and footpads, I dare not think.” Mr. Munro attempted to divide Bertie Philmore from his assertions — to intimate, indeed, that the two men had carried their dispute so far as Chawton Pond a mile distant, and that death by drowning had occurred as a natural result of a drunken mill — but Philmore was not to be led. He offered his virtuous helpmate as sworn witness to his boots having crossed the threshold at the stroke of twelve, and could not be swerved from his purpose. Mr. Dyer the builder proved most edifying in his communications. He was a square-bodied, powerful individual with a lean and weathered face. He commanded instant respect before Mr. Munro’s panel, as a tradesman with the livelihood of half Alton’s labourers in his pocket. He was little inclined to talk, and answered the questions put to him with a brevity that bordered on the pugnacious. He had indeed used Shafto French in various odd jobs of work that required brute strength but little sense; he could not rely upon the man’s appearance from one day to the next; he had thought nothing of a failure to report for work on the Monday, as no doubt French had been drunk of a Sunday. In these opinions, Mr. Dyer seemed to speak for the entire town.
At Mr. Munro’s further questioning, however, matter of a more serious import was gleaned. Shafto French had been set to work at Chawton Cottage the week immediately preceding our arrival, in digging the new cesspit. Three other labourers, including Bertie Philmore, were engaged, under the direction of Mr. Dyer’s son, William, in blocking up the unfortunate front parlour window and throwing out the new bow overlooking the garden. The keys to Chawton Cottage had thus been in Mr. Dyer’s possession — which the builder purported to have returned to Mr. Barlow at the George, according to previous arrangement with my brother, at the conclusion of his firm’s work.
“And the work was complete on what day?” Mr. Munro then demanded.
Mr. Dyer looked all his discomfort. He had intended the repairs to Chawton Cottage to be finished on Saturday, as his men were expected in Sherborne St. John on Monday; but work on the cesspit, or French himself, had given some trouble. Rains and indolence delayed the business’s conclusion. When Shafto French did not appear as expected Monday morning, Mr. Dyer’s son painted the privy himself and set all in order before handing over the keys to the publican Mr. Barlow’s safekeeping — much relieved to learn that we had arrived at the inn from Kent only that day.
“Your son noticed nothing untoward as he was locking up the house? — A suggestion, as it were, that someone had entered the premises prior to himself?”
“Bill had no cause to go down cellar, nor any of my men neither, being that no repairs were to be done in that part of the cottage,” Mr. Dyer said sharply. “Don’t you be accusing my boy of murder, Mr. Crowner, when all he’s done is another man’s honest day of work.”
Mr. Munro had soothed the builder’s injured feelings, and reverted instead to the matter of the keys. Had Mr. Dyer been assured of their possession throughout the interval between Shafto French’s disappearance on Saturday, and the conclusion of work on Monday?
Mr. Dyer thought that he had. An impression of reserve was given; and at Mr. Munro’s persistence, the builder confessed that it was his son, Bill, who’d been the keeper of the keys — and that Bill was at work today in the aforementioned parish of Sherborne St. John, and must answer later for himself.
“Bertie Philmore or young William Dyer killed the man and hid his body in the cellar,” Henry told me thoughtfully, “or someone unknown to us obtained the builder’s keys through stealth with the intention of committing, and hiding, murder. We can be certain, however, that the deed was done between midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the keys were apparently once more in the publican’s possession.”
“If,” I rejoined to Henry’s chagrin, “there is only one set of keys.”
When he had breakfasted, I prevailed upon my brother to descend the cellar stairs and study the floor there, with a lanthorn held high against whatever spectres might haunt a place of violent death.
“Not a happy part of the house,” Henry observed feelingly as the dank coldness of the air hit our faces, despite the warmth of the summer morning above. “It wants a number of casks and wooden crates of smuggled claret — sawdust on the floors to take off the damp — and a spot of whitewash on the stone walls.”
“If you know of a single man in Alton or Chawton courageous enough to undertake the labour of painting this deathroom, I beg you will send him to us directly,” I retorted. “Not even Mr. Prowting can discover a person of the serving class willing to enter the cottage. Like all ill-gotten gains, it is tacitly understood to be cursed.”
“I shall have to speak to young Baigent’s father. The boy ought to be horse-whipped.”
“So ought Neddie. I shall whip him myself, for having ignored the claims of Widow Seward and Jack Hinton alike.”
The lanthorn, swinging in Henry’s hand, threw wild shadows against the ceiling and walls; I tried not to find in the flickering shapes the humped menace of rats.
“Munro was interested, you say, in any disturbance — or the stain of dried water?” Henry asked.
“—Tho’ Mr. Prowting insisted he saw neither.”
“Then he did not observe the ground closely,” my brother objected. He held the lanthorn perhaps a foot above the dirt floor and moved it in an arcing sweep over the surface. “Look, Jane. Faint footprints, and a poor effort at scrubbing them out.”
He was correct, as Henry must always be: in the stronger light of the burning oil, I could discern what a candle flame had not revealed: The impressions of a boot in the dirt, near the corner of the room where Shafto French had lain. They were partial and indistinct, and ought to have been obliterated by the careless feet of Mr. Prowting and myself, not to mention those who had removed Shafto French’s body. I gathered my skirt in both hands and crouched down, the better to observe them. The mark of a right heel, broad and flat; and two impressions of a boot toe.
“Henry,” I murmured as I studied them, “do these appear to be the marks of a labourer’s shoe?”
“They do not,” he replied grimly, “tho’ I should certainly believe them a man’s. There are no impressions of hobnails, as one would expect from a heavy working boot, and look, Jane—
the leather sole was so fine as to leave an imprint in one place of the fellow’s left toe. I should judge these marks to have been left by a good pair of leather boots such as... ”
“... a gentleman should wear.”
We looked at each other, both of us frowning.
“Could they be Prowting’s?” Henry demanded.
“Perhaps. But I imagine Mr. Prowting’s impression might be found here, at the foot of the stairs” — I motioned for my brother’s lanthorn — “where he stood an instant with the full weight of the chest in his arms. Observe how distinctly the marks are left, Henry.”
“And of an entirely different size,” he added. “There is another set of those marks beneath the hatch, where Prowting stood to unbar the doors.”
“We must invite our neighbour the magistrate to test his footwear in this room, and I myself shall sketch the remaining impressions,” I said soberly. “We ought not to delay. Mr. Prowting may have an idea of Shafto French’s enemies among the gentry of Chawton.”
“Then why did he not offer them at the inquest, Jane?”
A slight sound from the cellar stairs drew my head around, and forestalled my answer.
“Mamma? Is that you?” I called upwards.
A woman’s face swam in the darkness at the head of the stairs: white, frightened, with large clear eyes and a trembling lip. A knot of red-gold hair crowned the whole.
“It is Mrs. French, is it not?” I said in surprise. “How may I help you, my dear?”
She stood in s
ilence at the foot of the stairs, glancing about the ugly stone walls and the scuffed dirt of the floor. Henry had bowed to the woman and murmured a word of sympathy; but he did not tarry in his errand to Prowtings. I could hear his heavy tread even now above our heads, making for the front door.
“The lady said as I might come down,” Jemima French muttered, “and should be in no one’s way. I had to see this place, if you understand me, ma’am. I had to see where my Shafto died.”
I might have told her he could have met his end in any horse trough between the Crown Inn and Chawton; but I did not like to seem so unfeeling. I considered of this girl — for, indeed, she was little older than Ann or Catherine Prowting — lying alone in her bed with the little ones breathing softly beside her, and seeing in memory again and again the ravaged face of her husband. They had asked her to view the body and name it for Shafto French. Had she gone alone to that interview with the surgeon, Mr. Curtis?
“It is dark down here, in’it?” she murmured, tho’ Henry had left us the lanthorn. “You will tell me where he lay?”
I nodded assent, and pointed towards the corner of the room. “Just there. I must ask you not to touch the place. There are marks we should like the magistrate to observe.”
Her eyes were once again wide with horror, as though she imagined the trail of a convulsive fit, or perhaps the traffic of a legion of rodents emanating from the walls. “What marks?”
Caution, and a knowledge of the habits of country folk — of the impossibility of any fact remaining private — made me deliberately chary. “The marks of your husband’s form, of course. Shall I carry you upstairs, my dear, and fix you a cup of tea?”
“I should’ve known,” she said dully, “when he didn’t come back. A bit o’ light-skirt, I thought it was — Shafto always having been a man for a doxy. It was pride, ma’am, as prevented me speaking; but pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, as my mother used to say, being a great one for quoting Proverbs.”
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