“It’s not my place to mind.”
“We intend, moreover, to hire a manservant, if one can be found who shares your spirit of defiance. It is probable that he will be living out.”
Her eyelids crinkled merrily. “That will suit me very well, ma’am.”
“You’ll do.”
Sally grinned at me again; and the thought occurred that I should often find the freedom of her good humour a welcome relief from the moods and oppressions of a household full of women.
“Pray go through the yard to the pump,” I told her. “You will see the kitchen door on your right. We should be greatly obliged if you would undertake a thorough cleansing of the scullery area, Sally—and then proceed to dusting the parlour.”
When she had bobbed in my direction once more, and made her way through the outbuildings towards the rear of the house, I turned to Catherine Prowting with a smile. “You are very good to think of us, my dear. I hope you will convey our deepest thanks to your excellent father.”
“I shall certainly do so,” she returned, in a voice of some trouble; “when next I see him. Father went very early to Alton, on this dreadful business of Bertie Philmore. Papa will not consider that the man may be innocent of murder.”
“A predisposition towards guilt is a definite flaw in a magistrate,” I observed.
“I own that I am of your opinion.” Catherine lifted her hands to her temples, as tho’ yet plagued by the head-ache. “Is it true that we are all invited to visit Stonings tomorrow, Miss Austen?”
“So Major Spence and Mr. Thrace informed me, when I encountered them this morning.”
“Mr. Thrace … ? I had not the pleasure of seeing the Great House party.” She lowered her head. “Do you know whether … whether Mr. Hinton is also invited to Stonings?”
“I do not,” I replied, “although from something Miss Beckford said, I believe he is otherwise engaged.”
“That is a relief, indeed!” she burst out. “I may now look forward to all the charms of a great estate, without the oppression of spirits under which I have laboured these several days!”
I frowned at her. “Catherine, has Mr. Hinton given you cause for uneasiness?”
She glanced at me, on the brink of confidence. “I hardly know what I should say. I fear my duty is to my father, first. But perhaps, Miss Austen—if you are free—we might walk in the direction of Alton together? I should like to unburden myself. I should feel clearer in my mind.”
“Of course,” I murmured. “Do but wait, while I fetch my bonnet.”
“Well, Jane,” my mother said as I nearly collided with her in the back passage, her face dewy with exertion and the hem of her old green gown six inches deep in mud, “I have made a fair start on the excavations. I cannot report that I have encountered success, however. It will require some days, perhaps.”
“You are planting potatoes, Mamma?”
“Potatoes?” She stared at me incredulously. “What do I care for potatoes, you silly girl, when there is a priceless necklace of rubies to be found? Mr. Thrace was most adamant. The booty of Chandernagar is ours for the taking, Jane! You might assist me, if you can but find another shovel—”
“Pray enlist Cassandra, Mamma,” I said firmly. “I am engaged to walk with Miss Prowting. Her father has hired a maidservant for us—one Sally, who is even now established in the kitchen.”
“That is excellent news!” she cried, brightening. “You might inform her, Jane, that I prefer a simple nuncheon of bread and cheese at eleven o’clock. She may bring it out to the field, so as not to interrupt the excavations. And if she has any ability with a trowel or hoe—”
I delivered the first part of this message to the scullery, my bonnet dangling from my hand.
“Sally,” I said as almost an afterthought, “you are acquainted with Bertie Philmore, I collect?”
“All my life, ma’am.”
“And also his wife—one Rosie Philmore?”
“Rosie’s sister to my elder brother’s Nell.”
“Where in Alton does she reside?”
“The Philmores live in Normandy Street. Rosie takes in washing—you can’t miss the linen and small clothes hanging in the yard.”
“Thank you, Sally.” The girl, I reflected, had already earned her day’s wages.
CATHERINE WAITED UNTIL WE HAD PASSED THROUGH THE village and put the Great House Lodge behind us—the Lodge, where even now Jack Hinton might be gazing out his sittingroom window, and observing our progress—before she undertook to speak.
“You said last evening that the path of duty must always be clear, Miss Austen. And that it is the path of the heart that descends into obscurity.”
“So I have found it.”
“I lay awake some hours in my bed, considering of your advice.”
“It was not intended as such. I could not undertake to advise you, knowing you so little. I merely made an observation, based upon my own experience of life.”
“But that has been considerably greater than my own,” she returned in a low voice, “and as such must command my respect. I have known for some time where my duty lay. It was the urgings of my heart that counselled otherwise.”
“Can you perhaps explain the circumstances?” I suggested. “I have no right to force a confidence, of course; and if you believe the particulars are better left unsaid, I will certainly understand.”
“No, no—” she cried. “It was to make a full confession that I begged you to accompany me. I feel, Miss Austen, that I have been a reluctant party to a very great injury that has been done to you and your family!”
I had expected some flutterings of the heart over Mr. Hinton; had expected to be consulted in a painful affair of unrequited passion for Julian Thrace; but never had I considered myself as the object of Catherine’s avowal.
“In what manner?” I enquired cautiously.
“As regards the corpse of that poor man discovered in your home.” She came to a halt in the middle of the Alton road, the wide expanse of Robin Hood Butts stretching beyond her. “You see, Miss Austen—I know who placed him there.”
Chapter 15
Damning Evidence
7 July 1809, cont.
~
“I SHOULD EXPLAIN, MISS AUSTEN, THAT I HAVE FOUND IT difficult to sleep of nights for some weeks past. The heat, perhaps, of July—”
Catherine broke off, and began to walk slowly once more in the direction of Alton. I studied her averted countenance, and recognised the marks of trouble; the girl had not been easy in her mind, I should judge, for too many days together. I had an image of her lying alone in her bedchamber, a picture of stillness beneath a white linen sheet, while a furious tide of thoughts swelled and resurged within her brain.
Resolutely, Catherine began again. “On the evening of Saturday last, I went to my room at ten o’clock, as is my habit. I was not conscious of the passage of the hours as I lay wakeful in my bed, the usual sounds of a summer night drifting through the open window; but I recollect with the sharpest clarity the tolling of the St. Nicholas church bell at midnight. I sat up, and counted the strokes, and told myself that this wretched want of peace must end, or utterly destroy my pleasure in life. I lit my candle and took up the book that sits always near my pillow, and read for a little; and when the heaviness of my eyes suggested I might at last find rest, I first got up, and fetched a drink of water from the washstand. I was returning to the tumbled bedclothes once more—when I heard the most dreadful noises arising from the darkness.”
She glanced at me appealingly, as tho’ wishing to be spared the next few words. “It was the sound of men fighting. I went to the window and lifted the sash so widely that I might lean out into the summer’s night. The moon was almost at the full, and the scene below was as clear to me as daylight. In the distance, well beyond the reach of our sweep and the angle of your cottage, two men were locked in a furious embrace, grappling.”1
“Could you distinguish their faces?”
She shook her head in the negative. “I could not. The distance at which they moved prevented me from recognising their features.”
“But I thought you said …”
“Pray hear me out, Miss Austen,” she demanded. “This is difficult enough.”
I inclined my head, and so she continued.
“They were emitting the most horrid noises imaginable. Or I should say: one of the men was doing so. Grunts, hoarse cries, squeals of pain. The other—the taller of the two—preserved an awful silence, as tho’ so intent upon his object, that he could not spare a thought for his injuries. As I watched, he o’erwhelmed his adversary and drove the man down towards the earth. I heard nothing more. I believe, now, that he had succeeded in thrusting Shafto French’s head—for so I guess the lesser man to have been—beneath the waters of Chawton Pond. After an interval, all grappling ceased; and the victor rose.”
“Good God,” I said. “Why did you not scream? Why did you not sound the alarum, and rouse your father?”
“I was paralysed by the violence and horror I had witnessed,” she returned quietly. “Fear pressed so heavily upon my breast that I do not believe I could have spoken, had I tried; and my trembling arms could barely support my frame as I leaned without the window. It is fortunate I did not swoon entirely away. And there was also this, Miss Austen: the quality of the scene, in its flood of moonlight, was so spectral as to convince me I had witnessed nothing but a dream, a nightmare of my own mind’s fabrication. Altho’ terrified, I could not be convinced in that moment that what I saw was real.”
I could, in truth, comprehend the disorder of her wits, and the cruel doubt of her mind. “And the rest of the household heard nothing?”
“My sister Ann is a sound sleeper, and her room—like my parents’—is at the rear. We are all so accustomed to the noise of coaches passing along the Winchester Road of nights, that little can disturb our slumbers. I believe I overheard the scene by the pond solely because I was already awake.”
“I understand. And what did you then?”
She shook her head furiously, as if she might shake off the hideous memory. “I could not move. I remained by the window, staring out in an agony of indecision and disbelief. The man rose—the man whom I now comprehend was French’s murderer—and moved into the shadows of the trees bordering the pond. He must have untethered a horse at that point, for the only sound I subsequently heard was that of hoofbeats, as his mount made its way down the road.”
“Did he ride south, in the direction of Winchester—or north, past your sweep, towards Alton?”
“South,” she replied. “He did not pass within my sight at that time.”
I was silent an instant, revolving the intelligence. Julian Thrace had admitted to riding out of the Great House a little after midnight, but would claim that he had gone north in the direction of Alton. Had he indeed murdered Shafto French, this declaration was no more than wisdom. Thrace must assume that Mr. Middleton would freely disclose his presence in Chawton on the night of the murder and his departure at very nearly the hour of French’s death. Had Thrace quitted the Great House by previous arrangement with his victim? Was Thrace the heir as would pay, in Shafto French’s words?
“It was as I stood there, drawing shuddering breaths and attempting to calm my disordered wits,” Catherine persisted, “that the sound of hoofbeats returned.”
“Returned?”
“Even so. The horse drew up near the pond, and after an interval of silence—which might have encompassed a minute or an hour, Miss Austen, I scarcely know—I observed a figure to dismount, and bend over a dark object lying like a felled tree in the grass. Next I knew, the living man was struggling across the Winchester Road with the ankles of the other in his grasp, dragging that mortal weight in the direction of your cottage. I stared through the darkness, my heart in my mouth, for I knew the place to be deserted. I lost sight of them both at the hedge enclosing your property.”
I gazed at Catherine Prowting, aghast at such a want of resolution: “And even then, you did not go to your father with a cry of murder?”
“I did not yet know that French—for it must have been he—was indeed dead, Miss Austen. He might only have been insensible, from the effects of his beating or the drink that might have inspired it. How could I know? I merely stood, in the most dreadful suspense imaginable, by the open window. And presently, the second man returned.”
She paused at this point, as tho’ summoning strength for what she must now say.
“He approached his horse and mounted; and this time he rode in the opposite direction—towards the Great House, and Alton beyond. As he passed by the end of our sweep, I discerned his profile clearly in the moonlight, and knew in an instant whose it was. No other gentleman’s could be so immediately recognisable.”
The path of duty, versus the urgings of the heart.
“You saw Julian Thrace?” I whispered.
“Mr. Thrace?” She blushed with a swift and painful intensity. “No, no, Miss Austen—it was Mr. Jack Hinton I observed in the Street that night.”
I COULD NOT CONTAIN MY ASTONISHMENT AT THIS revelation, and must be thrice assured of its veracity before I could take it in. Mr. Hinton! Mr. Hinton, who had professed disdain for the coroner’s proceeding, tho’ sitting pale and silent through the whole; Mr. Hinton, who had affected to abhor violence and the pollution of Chawton’s shades. Mr. Hinton, who called himself the heir of the Hampshire Knights, and who thus might reasonably be styled the object of Shafto French’s greed, did the blackmailing labourer know somewhat to the gentleman’s discredit. And there was the fact of Hinton’s blood tie to James Baverstock, who might have provided a key to our cottage. But Mr. Hinton—the indolent poet of my imagining—seemed the unlikeliest candidate for murder in all the countryside. What could be the meaning of it?
“Why should Jack Hinton kill Shafto French?” I demanded of Catherine.
“I do not know. Perhaps it was … a mistake of some kind.”
“You did not describe a mistake, but an episode of deadly intent. What you witnessed from your window that night was a deliberate act of murder.”
“I know! I cannot account for it! Do you not apprehend that the scene has arisen in my mind hour after hour until I thought I must go mad? Why does one man ever take the life of another?”
“—From jealousy. From greed. From hatred or fear. But Shafto French? Can you think of any reason why Jack Hinton the gentleman should hate or fear the labouring man?”
She was silent, lips compressed. “Only what may be found in the idle talk of any tavern in Alton,” she said at last. “The whole countryside would have it that the child Jemima French now bears is in fact Jack Hinton’s.”
“Good God!” I cried. “There is a motive for murder if ever I heard one. The dead man a cuckold—and no one sees fit to mention it to the coroner?”
She turned scandalised eyes upon me. Cuckold, I must suppose, was the sort of word that should never be mentioned around the dining table at Prowtings.
“I do not credit the story,” she rejoined firmly, “and no more does any sensible person in Alton or Chawton. Jemima was once in service at the Lodge, and was dismissed over some disagreement with Miss Hinton. But rumour has followed her, as it will any pretty girl; and French did nothing by his manners or treatment of his wife to discourage it.”
I have worked all my life, Mrs. French had told me, and am not afraid of it. Brave words for a woman with no more reputation to preserve. Improprieties, Miss Beckford had said, and ill-usage. And so the gossip had come round in a circle: from the Great House to Alton and back again to Prowtings, to form a noose for Jack Hinton’s neck.
“You must assuredly speak to your father,” I told Catherine, “and endeavour to explain why you have waited nearly a week to do so.”
“I know that I am much to blame,” she muttered brokenly, “but pray believe me, Miss Austen, when I declare that it was from no improper desire to shield Mr. Hinton from the full
weight of the Law!”
Her accent in pronouncing this final word was so akin to the dignity of her father’s, that I very nearly smiled. “I had thought it possible that you preserved a tendre for the gentleman.”
“A tendre! Indeed, the esteem—the appearance of interest or affection—has been entirely on Mr. Hinton’s side. I may like—I may have respected him once, before I knew— That is to say, any sentiment of regard has been thoroughly done away by Mr. Hinton’s repulsion of my efforts to make all right.”
“Your efforts—? My dear Miss Prowting, do not say that you have informed the gentleman that you observed him to drag a body towards my cottage!”
“But of course I have! I could not so expose him to the censure of his neighbours, or indeed the risk of his very life, without taxing him with all I had seen, and begging him most earnestly to make a clean breast of his guilt to my father in private!”
I stopped short on the very edge of Alton, my feelings almost incapable of expression. “Do you not realise, you silly girl, that where a man has murdered once, he may easily do so a second time, merely to save his own neck? Your life should not have five seconds’ purchase in Mr. Hinton’s company! I only pray God you have not encountered him alone!”
“No,” she admitted, “I had not that courage. Indeed, I have loathed Mr. Hinton’s very presence since the discovery of French’s body in your cellar, and my comprehension of what it must mean. I have pled the head-ache, and taken to my room, excepting the necessity of social obligations that could not be overborne. I spoke to Mr. Hinton in the Great Hall at Chawton last night, and by way of reply, was given to understand that if I preserved any regard for his reputation, I must reveal nothing of what I had seen. He did not go so far as to threaten me—”
“Then he is not so stupid as I believed him.”
“—but neither did he reassure my darkest fears with an explanation that could soften me. He intimated—if you will credit it!—that if I might offer this proof of loyalty and esteem—if I could go so far as to shield him with my silence—that I might reasonably expect to be mistress of the Lodge one day.” She laughed abruptly; no fool Catherine. She should value such an offer as she ought, and know it for a bribe.
Jane and His Lordship's Legacy Page 16
