Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

by Stephanie Barron

  The solicitor shifted his considerable girth and reached for a clay pipe. Then eyeing me—it would not do to smoke before a lady—he returned it to its place upon the polished surface of his desk, with a soft sigh and an irritable frown. “And that is very nearly what has happened,” he said, for Mr. Cranley’s benefit.

  “Can the Countess’s land be so lacking in value?” the barrister enquired.

  “The land is not, but the crops it produces assuredly are,” Mr. Mayhew answered bluntly. “In ^he time of the Countess’s father, John Collins, a decision was made to turn from sugar cultivation to coffee.” The large white eyebrows came down alarmingly, and Hezekiah Mayhew turned to enlighten me. “Coffee bushes, Miss Austen, take several years to mature; and if they are blighted in their youth—as these unfortunately were—they must be destroyed and replanted. Twice this happened to John Collins; and twice he sought additional capital to supplement his losses. When he finally produced a saleable crop, the world price had dropped due to a rise in production in Brazil; and Collins’s beans were hardly worth the blood money he had paid to grow them. The revolts among the slave populations have caused great losses as well—in human capital, and in the destruction of crops and outbuildings by fire; the cost of rebuilding and replanting again required Mr. Collins to seek capital from investors, and at his death, his assets were found to be insufficient to satisfy his creditors. Although the property in trust remained so legally in the Countess’s marriage settlement, it is an open question whether her trustees might not be prevailed upon to sell the property itself.” He sat back in his chair, which creaked in protest, his hands upon his watch chain.

  “But the Countess herself may not do it?” Mr. Cranley pressed.

  “She must have the agreement, in writing, of the trustees.”

  “And who are these men?” I enquired, in an eager accent.

  The parched old face creased into a smile. “I fear I misspoke, Miss Austen, from long habit,” the solicitor said. “There is only one trustee, and she is hardly male—an unusual circumstance, certainly, but reflective of the wishes of the Countess’s family. They were originally French bankers, you know, who set up the first bank in Martinique, and they remained a clannish sort of set, never trusting their business to outsiders. As trustees—all family members—died, they could not be replaced; and so only one now remains, a woman and the Countess’s aunt, Madame Hortense Delahoussaye.”

  “And it is solely her permission, Mr. Mayhew, which Lord Harold must secure?”

  “It is,” the solicitor gravely replied.

  I leaned forward in my anxiety. “But he has not yet obtained it?”

  Something of interest flickered in Hezekiah Mayhew’s shrewd eyes. “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “With the Countess’s fate hanging yet in the balance, it is probable Madame Delahoussaye will defer any business some little while.”

  Assuredly she would, if I comprehended the character of Madame Delahoussaye. Her daughter; Fanny, should become the fortunate heir to Isobel’s property, however encumbered by debt, in the event of Isobel’s hanging for her husband’s murder; and if the family pride in property remained as fierce as Mr. Mayhew believed, Madame might throw all the weight of her material resources behind discharging the debt, and restoring the plantations themselves. But why had she not offered Isobel similar support, in the Countess’s dire need?

  The seed of an idea was taking shape. I stood up in haste. Though the hour was late, every minute was as gold; we lacked but four days until the trial should commence in the House of Lords.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Mayhew,” I said, with extended hand, “you have been kindness itself, and have greatly assisted our efforts; but Mr. Cranley and I have pressing business elsewhere that cannot wait. I am honoured to have met you, sir—and feel certain that with your penetration exercised on her behalf, the Countess shall escape the clutches of her enemies even still.”

  “She is unlikely to require my support, Miss Austen,” Hezekiah Mayhew said dryly, “when your own is already hers.”

  Mr. Cranley parted from me at the solicitor’s door; having procured a hackney carriage for my return to Scargrave, and hastening himself to his chambers at Lincoln’s Inn, the better to prepare his defence of my friends. It was but a few moments to Scargrave House, where I found Fanny as yet upstairs in a darkened room, and Madame Delahoussaye resting on the settee before the drawing-room fire.

  “My dear Miss Austen,” Madame said, sitting up briskly at my appearance, “I could not think where you had gone—and the house all at sixes and sevens. If you intend to run about by yourself in this manner, it would be well if you were to tell Cook when you expect to return, so that dinner at least is not a matter for conjecture.”

  “I was not alone, Madame,” I rejoined. “I was with Mr. Cranley, in a visit to the Scargrave solicitors.”

  “With Mr. Cranley” Madame’s expression dissolved in contempt, and she ran her eyes the length of my grey wool, as though it were transparent. “I suppose you have set your cap at him. He is not a bad sort of fellow, and quite suitable for one of your position in the world.”

  I felt myself colour. Setting my cap at him, indeed. “That is an expression, Madame Delahoussaye, that I particularly abhor,” I cried, perhaps too warmly. “Its tendency is gross and illiberal, and if its construction could ever have been deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity.3 I merely accompanied Mr. Cranley on a matter of business.”

  I turned away, intending to dress for dinner, being unequal to the maintenance of my temper if I retained the room any longer; but Madame called after me.

  “Business? What may a lady have to do with business, pray?”

  I revolved slowly and regarded her before answering. “It is Madame who must answer that, and not I.”

  Something of the sourness in her expression drained from her face, and was replaced by obvious caution. “Whatever do you mean, Miss Austen?”

  “I had understood that business was a peculiar province of your own, Madame. Particularly the business of your family fortune.”

  She started at this, and looked somewhat nettled; and seeing that she was for once deprived of speech, I determined to press my advantage.

  “Mr. Cranley and I were only now informed of your interest in the Countess’s affairs. It seems it is to you Isobel must look for financial protection.”

  “I!” the good lady cried, her composure regained, “she can find no protection from me, I assure you.”

  “That much is evident, from your disinterest in her troubles,” I said bitterly. “It is even possible she is past all such protection, in any case.”

  To these words of reproach, Madame answered me nothing. With glittering eyes, she rose from her place and swept by me, out of the room; and after a moment, I followed in her train. I was greatly fatigued, and looked forward to my dinner, and considered dispensing with the necessity of changing my dress; I should far rather enjoy a tray by my bedchamber fire, than a chilly hour in Madame’s company. But I had only gained the comfort of my room a few moments, and undone the quantity of horn buttons that run the length of my gown’s back, before the swift passage of footsteps in the corridor demanded my attention. I peered around my door, and observed Madame Delahoussaye disappearing down the stairs, arrayed in a cloak and a very fine hat, indeed. And since she should require the use of neither in the Scargrave dining room, I quickly surmised that she had determined to disregard the lateness of the hour, and undertaken to pay a call.

  Alone in the doorway, my gown undone, I debated with myself. Madame might do little more than fetch a physick for poor Fanny from the local apothecary; but no—in that case, she should dispatch a servant. Only the greatest need could send Madame forth at such a time—and I little doubted that it was my words, spoken angrily in the drawing-room below, that had done it. I reached for my pelisse and hat, and ran hurriedly for the stairs, clutching at my undone back. I was in time to observe Madame through the drawing-room window,
in an attitude of some urgency, as she stepped swiftly into the Scargrave carriage.

  SHE LED MY HACKNEY A MERRY CHASE, MADE ALL THE MORE difficult by my injunction to the driver upon engaging him, that he should be at pains not to be observed by our quarry. It is not that the way to Wilborough House was so difficult to find, but that the traffic at this hour, when merchants and gentlemen were bent upon finding their dinners at home or in the exclusive clubs of Pall Mall, should be decidedly snarled. The jostling of carriages and horses, of coachmen and waggoneers shouting invective as hallmarks of their masculinity and claim to place, made any passage a tedious if colourful one; and the anxiety of keeping the Scargrave carriage in sight, without ourselves being seen, was an added fillip of torture.

  Madame soon arrived at her destination, however; ordered the coachman to wait; and ascended the august flight of marble steps with alacrity. I recalled that during Lord Harold’s Christmas visit to Scargrave Manor she had particularly declared herself a stranger to the Duke and Duchess of Wilborough; and so such a call, at such an hour, was something to amaze. But having observed her flight, I had guessed she would fetch up here; and I had little doubt as to her object in paying homage to those so much above her station. Madame cared nothing for Wilborough, or his lady: it was his brother she sought, her partner in all her crimes.

  1. Postage was actually an expensive item in the nineteenth century, as letters were billed according to how many miles they traveled. No envelopes were used—the sheet of paper was folded and sealed with wax—and a letter comprised of two sheets of paper was billed double. Most important, the recipient paid the postage, not the sender; and so Lord Scargrave’s meticulous accounts may be taken as evidence of his scrupulousness in keeping track of his debts. —Editor’s note.

  2. Separate estate, or separate property, was a term in the marriage settlement drawn up at a woman’s engagement, particularly if she was an heiress. This set certain property—investments or land—in trust, with the income available to the woman, but the property itself beyond the reach of herself, her husband, or his creditors. Such property customarily passed to her female children at her death. —Editor’s note.

  3. Interestingly, Austen’s dislike of this phrase resurfaces in her novel Sense and Sensibility, in which Marianne Dashwood uses almost identical language to upbraid Sir John Middleton, when he jests that she has “set her cap” at Willoughby. —Editor’s note.

  7 January 1803

  ˜

  WHEN I CHARGED MY BROTHER HENRY TO DISCOVER ALL that he could of the finances of the Scargrave family, he set about his work with customary diligence; and so swiftly achieved results, that he waited upon me this morning with intelligence of no little import. As but two days remain before Isobel must appear in the Lords, I was in a fever of impatience to hear Henry’s news.

  “My dear Jane,” he began, seating himself in an easy chair in the late Earl’s study—the only room in which I feel completely safe from prying ears, due to its heavy wood panelling and walls lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves—”I find that you have taken up lodgings with a rather rum set.”

  “You surprise me, Henry,” I rejoined. “Is not murder merely one of the country house games a guest may expect at Christmas?”

  “Among our great families, I suppose anything may be made a game. They have certainly made a charade of robbing one another,” my brother replied gravely.

  “A fate to be considered worse than death.”

  “Or capable of precipitating it, assuredly.” Henry’s large grey eyes twinkled; he was enjoying his new-won role in the Scargrave drama.

  “Begin at the beginning, pray,” I commanded him, with some asperity.

  “Let us start with Fitzroy Payne.”

  “I am all attention.”

  “His circumstances are by no means as easy as he might wish, nor yet as distressed as you have been told.”

  “Sir William will not have it thus, you may depend.”

  “Sir William may have no choice. The facts are these: the new Earl is possessed of a considerable estate in the West Indies, acquired by his father and managed by a man who has done little to merit the trust placed in him by the Payne family. In short, the plantations are in reduced circumstances—”

  “As I understand many such holdings are, at the present time.”

  “Indeed. It is not the year to be in sugar production.”

  “Or coffee, so I understand.”

  “Jane! Are you become a shareholder in some venture I should know of? Are we to expect you to take a London journal upon your return to Bath, and make cryptic references to the ‘Change1 over breakfast?”

  I smiled at his banter and bade him go on.

  “The holdings remain, nonetheless, of substantial worth, and may require only an infusion of capital and a change in managers to make them a going concern. That the Earl hopes to use a part of his uncle’s estate for just this purpose, is a fact Sir William must underline before the House of Lords.”

  “And his personal debts?”

  “Fitzroy Payne lives on the interest from his father’s Derbyshire estate, to the tune of three thousand pounds a year—a respectable income, assuredly, but not of the level to cut a certain dash among the glittering set in which he is owned a confederate.” Henry hesitated, and eyed me dubiously. “Payne has habits of considerable expense, sister.”

  That he thought of the rumoured mistress, I readily discerned, and hastened to set him at his ease.

  “You may except the illustrious Mrs. Hammond,” I assured him. “I have met the lady.”

  My brother threw up his hands. “I am all amazement. I shall endeavour not to tell our mother of the company you now keep.”

  “Mrs. Hammond was his nursemaid,” I protested. “Lord Scargrave but cares for the woman in retirement.”

  “Dashed again! I had hoped for something more engaging from the scrupulous Earl. But no matter. His carriages, his horse, his rooms in Town, and the upkeep of the Derbyshire establishment, have strained his funds to the limit—and past it, I fear. I could not find out, however, that there were debts of honour, due to gaming; but I learned that he had discharged such on behalf of another, some few months back.”

  “Lieutenant Hearst?” I said, with a sudden, sharp pang.

  “The gentleman who most succeeded in robbing the family,” Henry returned, nodding. “That man’s affairs would make an amusing trial, but damme, he has deprived us of the pleasure. The Lieutenant exhausted what little his brother retained of their father’s estate—and did the poor Mr. George Hearst wish to buy a living somewhere, it must be impossible for one of his reduced resources. I hope he has come in for a Scargrave living under the late Earl’s will.”

  “I believe he has,” I replied, “but that circumstances might forbid his taking it.” To show his wife about Scargrave would be a form of purgatory on earth, given the acid tongues and long memories of the local people. But that was George Hearst’s affair. “Have you anything further regarding Lord Scargrave?”

  “He is everywhere recorded as a man of taste and decency, though adjudged somewhat proud and cold; though people respect him, they do not necessarily warm to him, and that may go against him in public opinion, however this trial turns out. There were once many hopes entertained of his heart, among the mothers and daughters of London’s select; but I gather he is now become an object of fearful suspicion, and his value has dropped on the marriage market. You might pick him up on the cheap, by the by, now you have vetted him, Jane; I give you my consent in lieu of Father’s, since you have made your brother your confidant.”

  “I feat; Henry, that the Earl’s affections are apportioned to another,” I told him, “and that all of society shall know of it in a very little while.”

  “Worse luck for you, Jane,” my brother replied; “did he make a go of the plantations, as his wife you might come in for quite a pretty amount of pin money—and Eliza will have it that there is nothing like being a Countess.” As al
ways, the mention of his vivacious wife’s name brought a smile to Henry’s lips. He had borne with Eliza’s retention of her title with good grace.

  “Now tell me of Madame Delahoussaye,” I urged, with a keener interest.

  Henry steepled his fingers before his nose, for all the world like our father, did he but know it. “Though her daughter possesses thirty thousand pounds in trust, the good Creole lady hasn’t a farthing in her purse, nor one she can borrow,” he said comfortably, little comprehending the effect his words should have. “She depends entirely upon the household of her niece, one reason she is so faithful a companion, and stands to lose much by the reversal in Isobel’s fortunes.”

  “But how can this be?” I cried. “I understood Madame to be a woman of easy circumstances.”

  “I fear that we may only speak of wealth in the past tense, Jane. In fact, her banker—old Robeson, of the London concern—is most desirous of investigating Madame Delahoussaye’s accounts more thoroughly, in what I may only term an audit. Robeson suspects some irregularities in the disposition of some trust income Madame oversees, but would say no more, in deference to the lady’s privacy, no matter how much I plied him with Port.”

  I THANKED HENRY PROFUSELY FOR HIS BENEVOLENCE ON my behalf, and vowed I should never do him recompense for such goodness; and he left me with much to consider. I do not begin to understand the motives for Madame Delahoussaye’s behaviour; they are all of a tangle, between her own need and her daughter’s prospects of fortune; from Henry’s words, Madame should only lose by placing Isobel in a noose—and yet, and yet! That she is concealing something of import, I am utterly convinced.

  I believe Lord Harold to be a party to Madame’s intrigue, and that neither is a friend to Isobel, or concerned with her fate. But how to force the matter? I am overcome with the proximity of the trial, which is to open the day after tomorrow; and must suffer Fanny Delahoussaye’s tirades over the state of her costume. She has emerged from mourning the gallant Lieutenant long enough to harry a bevy of shopkeepers, and my sole consolation in the trial’s fast approaching, is that it shall witness an end to such frippery—and to my tenure, for good or ill, among the intimates of Scargrave. I fear that I shall be returning to Bath with a heavy heart, and the knowledge that I have mortally failed a true and innocent friend.