Jane and the Wandering Eye: Being the Third Jane Austen Mystery

by Stephanie Barron

  “He merely takes my likeness for a portrait, Lord Swithin, at His Grace’s commission. It is, after all, Mr. Lawrence’s path in life.”

  The Earl laughed harshly and threw himself into a chair near the fire. “Would that he followed his path with greater fidelity. But instead Mr. Lawrence has chosen to play the man of fashion—adopted all manner of intrigue and display—and is sadly embarrassed for funds. He must very soon contract an advantageous marriage, Mona, if he is to survive. Old Coutts—his banker in Town—has pled his case these three years at least, to little purpose. The man’s creditors are at his throat. He will presume upon the acquaintance, do you allow him.”

  “I believe, Lord Swithin, that it is you who presume upon acquaintance,” Lady Desdemona replied evenly. Two spots of colour burned in her cheeks, and her eyes were dark with rage. “It is a presumption familiar now these many months; but hardly one I wish to prolong.”

  I reached for my reticule hastily. “I have trespassed already upon your kindness, Lady Desdemona. I hope—”

  “—that Lord Swithin’s unexpected arrival will not deter me from our plans of walking out?” she hurriedly supplied. “Not at all, Miss Austen. I shall attend you directly. Only stay for the exchange of my gown, and we shall pursue our scheme as planned. My apologies, Lord Swithin, but it is quite beyond my power to—”

  “Don’t be such a fool, Mona,” the gentleman replied wearily. “We have a great deal to discuss. I have been to your brother’s inquest.”

  Lady Desdemona sat down abruptly upon a settee, the wind quite gone from her sails. Though propriety instructed I should take myself off, I lingered for Lord Swithin’s intelligence.

  “Why is not my uncle come?” Lady Desdemona said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I have been expecting him this half-hour. Well, Swithin? What was the verdict?”

  “The jury returned a charge of wilful murder against Lord Kinsfell. He is to be conveyed to Ilchester in a few days’ time.”

  She uttered a cry, and covered her face with her hands; and silently abusing the Earl for an oaf and a fool, I hastened to her side.

  “The jury could hardly do else,” Lord Swithin added brutally. “Death by misadventure—or wilful murder by persons unknown—just aren’t in it. But nothing more shall happen to Kinny until the Assizes, my dear—and they cannot sit until the middle of January at the earliest. That gives your brother several weeks.”

  Unbidden, the portrait of a smouldering grey eye revolved in memory. “Was any new evidence presented, my lord?” I enquired.

  His cold blue gaze rested pensively upon me. “I cannot undertake to say, having been absent from the rout myself, and thus ignorant of what passed that evening. Lord Kinsfell was called, and questioned about his discovery of the body; and then a Dr. Gibbs, a physician in Milsom Street, who attended the deceased; two of Her Grace’s guests, who seized poor Kinsfell as he attempted to revive Mr. Portal—and one of the chairmen, dragged in off the street by your uncle, Mona, and quite put out at the interruption of his commerce.”

  “A chairman!” Her head came up, and surprise warred with hope upon her countenance. “Whatever can Uncle have been thinking?”

  The Earl shrugged with exquisite grace. “He thought to show that a murderer might have dropped from the Dowager’s window to an open carriage—which was then driven out of Bath. The chairman professed to have seen a like equipage in Laura Place that night—but could not swear to the time, nor vow that a man had entered it by any other means than the carriage door; could tell us nothing of the occupants, and was indeed of so little credit in his appearance and expressions, that he rather weakened Lord Kinsfell’s case than improved it. I am afraid the intelligence was all but dismissed.”

  “Poor Kinny,” Lady Desdemona murmured. “And had he nothing to add in his own defence?”

  “The coroner did enquire rather narrowly regarding the nature of his dispute with Mr. Portal,” the Earl said, his regard fixed steadily on Lady Desdemona, “and could get nothing from him but a disquisition on his sacred honour.”

  “Kinny? Honour?” Lady Desdemona started from her place and began to turn before the fire, in a manner so like her uncle, Lord Harold, that I half-expected to hear that gentleman’s voice. “Then there must be a lady in the case.”

  Swithin smiled; but the expression was quite devoid of good humour. “The lady would not, perhaps, be yourself, my dear?”

  Lady Desdemona’s head came up magnificently, and she stared him down in turn. “You are despicable, Swithin. Do you think that if I might aid my brother with any intelligence in my power, that I should hesitate to do so? Your ill nature cannot do you credit. It leads you into folly.”

  “Gentlemen are wont to speak of honour when they are bound by oaths or pledges, are they not?” I hastily submitted.

  “They are,” Lord Swithin replied, “and are ready, more often than not, to defend such pledges with their lives. So I take Lord Kinsfell’s determination in the present case. I very much fear that he will go silently to the gallows, rather than betray his sacred trust.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Lady Desdemona breathed, and pressed a hand to her brow. “Where, oh, where, is my uncle?”

  “You have but to enquire, my dear, and he appears.” Lord Harold spoke from the drawingroom doorway. To my most active surprise and interest, Mr. Wilberforce Elliot stood at his back. “Miss Austen—a pleasure. Lord Swithin—an honour I had hardly expected. You are not, I think, acquainted with Mr. Wilberforce Elliot, a magistrate of Bath.”

  Introductions were made, and then Lord Harold continued, “You have disdained the wares of the hot-house this morning, Swithin. But perhaps your restraint is intended to pay tribute to my niece’s unassuming simplicity. She is not the sort to take pleasure in gaudy display. You are quite right, I think, to bestow your flowers elsewhere. Others may be less nice in their tastes than Mona.”

  “—Except, one supposes, when she is sitting to her portraitist,” Lord Swithin replied.

  Lord Harold’s eyebrow shot upwards. “Really, my lord, is that intended as an insult, or a rebuke? Were the lady affianced to you—or even, forgive me, did she regard you with favour—this little display of temper should be accorded as your right. But in the present circumstances it is entirely untoward.”

  “Then you may name your day, my lord, and I shall name my second with pleasure.”5

  Lord Harold smiled condescendingly. “You are remarkably quick to offer a challenge, Swithin—but perhaps you expect me to jump at the chance to show my mettle, like poor Colonel Easton. In this, I fancy, you suffer from a misapprehension. I would never make sport of a fellow young enough to be my son—particularly when I have been as intimate with his mother as I have been with yours.”

  The Earl paled, and stepped back a pace. “I would beg you to remember where you are, my lord. Your niece—”

  “Oh, will you both have done,” Lady Desdemona cried in exasperation. “What have I to do with matters in any case? You circle each other like two schoolboys on the green, while Kinny sits festering in gaol!”

  “And he is unlikely ever to emerge, Mona, if your uncle will have the handling of his affairs,” the Earl retorted contemptuously, and reached for his hat and gloves. “I have no wish to remain where I am served with such incivility. Good day to you, Lord Harold. Your servant, Miss Austen. I trust I will not find you in the Lower Rooms this evening, Lady Desdemona?”

  “Whyever not?”

  “Would you dance, then, while Lord Kinsfell is deprived of liberty?”

  “I am sure I cannot hope to assist him by remaining quietly at home! In such a pass, it behooves the Wilborough family to comport itself with style! Besides—poor Easton is most pressing in his desire to dance.”

  Lord Harold smiled, the Earl snorted—and quitted the room without another word.

  “Capital!” Lord Harold cried, and gestured the magistrate towards a chair. “We have rid ourselves of a dangerous distraction. Mona, darling, would you be so
good as to fetch your grandmother—I require her presence immediately.”

  “Uncle,” she said, hastening to his side, “the inquest—! It is in every way horrible!”

  “Yes, my dear; but I hope all is not lost. You will observe I have brought the magistrate in my train. His interest has been exceedingly piqued by the notion of an open carriage halted some moments beneath the anteroom window; and though the proofs of a murderer jumping to safety in its depths are impossible to gather, Mr. Elliot is nonetheless willing to reconsider the case.”

  “Your servant, my lady,” Mr. Elliot said with an affable smile; and then retrieving a handkerchief from his breast pocket, he blew his nose most energetically.

  Lady Desdemona went in search of the Dowager Duchess; and roused from her letter-writing, Eugenie proceeded slowly to the drawingroom with Miss Wren for support. Not five minutes had elapsed, before an expectant circle gazed silently at Lord Harold.

  “You remember Her Grace, I am sure, Mr. Elliot,” the gentleman said, “but I do not think you are acquainted with Miss Austen or Miss Wren.”

  The magistrate peered at me narrowly, and nodded once. “The Shepherdess,” he said.

  “Miss Austen is a particular friend of my niece’s. Miss Wren is so kind as to serve as Her Grace’s companion.”

  “Indeed, it is an honour, not a kindness, Lord Harold,” Miss Wren simpered. “When I consider the extent of Her Grace’s affability—”

  “Now, then.” Lord Harold clapped his hands together with energetic purpose. “I would propose the amusement of a novel parlour game—an amateur theatrical, if you will. Let us set about the staging of Mr. Portal’s murder.”

  “I cannot think that even one performance of a similar tragedy is necessary for our amusement, Harry,” the Dowager protested sternly. “How should I seek another?”

  “For the purposes of science, dear ma’am. Mr. Elliot has allowed the seed of doubt to enter his formidable soul, and we must do everything in our power to ensure the seed will grow. Miss Austen!”

  “My lord.”

  “Please to adopt the attitude of Hugh Conyngham before the drawingroom fire. Desdemona! You shall play at Miss Conyngham. Her Grace shall be, as ever, Her Grace. I shall be Portal. Mr. Elliot will merely observe, I beg, and draw what conclusions he may. And you, Wren—you shall be poor Simon.”

  “I shall do no such thing!” she countered hotly. “A more decided want of taste I have never observed. And the Marquis deprived of all freedom, while we sport with his circumstances!”

  “Do as Lord Harold bids you, Wren,” the Dowager commanded. She grasped her cane firmly with her left hand, and Lord Harold with her right. “You should endeavour to stumble, Harry, when I lead you to the anteroom.”

  “Stay, Mamma—I must speak a word to Mona.” Lord Harold drew the lady aside, and whispered a few phrases; at which she nodded, and grew pink with excitement. “Very well, Your Grace—lead me to my doom.”

  The Dowager conducted her son unsteadily to the little salon done up in Prussian blue—and left him reclining in apparent stupor upon the settee.

  Delighting in my role, I advanced to the head of the room, adopted a pose by the fireplace, and set about declaiming from Macbeth, with many an inadvertent stumble and fault.

  Lady Desdemona made her way to the anteroom door, and effected an entry; Lord Harold emitted a ponderous groan; and before I had accomplished even half the length of Hugh Conyngham’s speech, the lady stood before me once more, to all appearances enraptured by my art. She had achieved the drawingroom by the panelled door’s passage.

  At that moment, urged by the Dowager, Miss Wren advanced upon the anteroom; and in all the horror of exclamation and dismay, fell upon the dying Lord Harold as he lay stricken on the blue and gold carpet.

  “It is done,” he said briskly, springing to his feet and adjusting the set of his coat, “and with admirable efficiency. I do not think we need enquire whether a lady pressed for time, with agitation to give her wings, could not have managed it better.”

  “And the crowd of guests must disguise even Maria Conyngham, despite her costume of red,” I mused. “For I confess that on the night in question, I did not observe Lord Kinsfell’s approach to the anteroom door.”

  “Nor did I,” Lady Desdemona supplied. “I was unaware of it until a hue and cry broke out, and I turned to observe Kinny standing over Portal’s body. Any number of guests might have passed from room to room without the majority remarking upon it. But why would you have it be Miss Conyngham, Uncle? Was not she in love with Mr. Portal? She can hardly have served him with violence!”

  “Only Miss Conyngham may know the truth of that conjecture,” he replied, his hooded eyes inscrutable. “But I would suggest, Mona, that her precipitate appearance at Mr. Portal’s feet, before the regard of all the assembly—her wanton weeping, and her costume of red—may have been intended to fix in observers’ minds, the fact of her presence in the drawingroom itself. Miss Conyngham forced her person upon our attention only after Portal’s body was discovered—and at such a moment, the scene she played must be intriguing.”

  “That’s all very well, my lord,” Mr. Elliot interjected benignly, “but you cannot prove the lady guilty without you extract a confession. And the use of the passage does nothing to advance your scheme regarding the open carriage.”

  “True, my good man—but I could not be happy with the descent from the window, until I had tried the passage and found it wanting. I have not found it so. There was time enough and to spare, for the effecting of the deed; and for a lady accustomed to moving about on a darkened stage, the exit along a poorly-lit back hall should be as nothing. She might accomplish it at twice Desdemona’s speed.”

  “You cannot prove it, my lord,” Mr. Elliot said again, and scratched determinedly at his club of black hair. “And consider of the risk! For Miss Conyngham could not presume her movements should be disregarded; any one of the guests might have turned in the midst of her brother’s speech, and observed her to enter the anteroom.”

  “But you forget, my dear Elliot. Nor could she have anticipated Lord Kinsfell’s passage through the room. Miss Conyngham expected the deed to remain obscure some hours, with Mr. Portal discovered when the rout should have been accomplished and the last of the guests departed.”

  “I remain unpersuaded, my lord,” the magistrate said with a smile, “and though I’ve no formal training in the barrister’s art, I cannot believe you’ll find a jury as will agree with you. Do you hold to your open window, and the carriage below, if you will have it the Marquis ain’t guilty—but leave Miss Conyngham in peace, I beg!”

  “Would you care to adventure the passage, Miss Austen?” Lord Harold said, ignoring Mr. Elliot’s gibes. He took up a candle and pushed open the door.

  We paced the length of the passage connecting anteroom to back hall, and observed the choice of direction—to the left, the servants’ quarters and stairs to the kitchen; to the right, the drawingroom’s far door. Then we returned the way we had come, our eyes intent upon the passage’s floor. Nothing to be seen; not even dust.

  “You had hoped for a scrap of fabric, perhaps?” I enquired.

  “Preferably in scarlet.”

  Lord Harold swung the panelled door closed—and there in the space between door and passage wall, winking in the dim light of the taper, was a small figure in gold.

  Lord Harold whistled softly beneath his breath, knelt to retrieve it—and the taper went out, with a parting scorch to his fingers. He muttered an oath and pulled open the door once more, freeing us both from the oppressive dark.

  “I must beg your indulgence, Mamma,” he said indolently. “Does this brooch form a part of the Wilborough stones?”

  The Dowager turned the pin over in her palm, a slight frown between her eyes. “It does not, my dear Harry. I have never seen it before.”

  “Mona?”

  She looked at the brooch—paled—and sat down abruptly on the anteroom settee. “Good
Lord, Uncle, what does this mean?”

  “Perhaps we should enquire of your friend,” Lord Harold replied; but the gravity of his looks betrayed his careless tone.

  For what he held in his hand was a snarling gold tiger, its eyes formed of rubies—the device of the Earl of Swithin.

  1 John Wood (1704-1754) was Bath’s principal architect. He and his son of the same name (died 1782) envisioned and built the city’s principal landmarks, the crescents of houses constructed of similar materials and designed to appear as a single great estate. Laura Place, however, was constructed in 1788, well after Wood’s time, according to plans laid out by Thomas Baldwin.—Editor’s note.

  2 Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) would actually have been closer to thirty-five in 1804. Although Austen describes him as having a fine head, and a surviving self-portrait suggests he was quite handsome, he eventually went bald.—Editor’s note.

  3 This description of Sir Egerton Brydges’s Arthur Fitz-Albini is very similar to one Jane gives of the novel in a letter to Cassandra written soon after its publication, in 1798. The Reverend George Austen had purchased the book, and Jane felt a little guilty in reading it, given Madam Lefroy’s poor opinion of the work. See Letter No. 12, Jane Austen’s Letters, Deirdre LeFaye, ed., London: Oxford University Press, 1995.—Editor’s note.

  4 Thomas Lawrence’s 1801 portrait of Lady Caroline Upton, coiffed fashionably àla grecque, hangs in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.—Editor’s note.

  5 A man involved in a duel always appointed a “second” who negotiated the terms of the duel with his opponent’s second and, in extreme cases, might be expected to fight on his behalf.—Editor’s note.

  Chapter 9

  Into the Labyrinth

  14 December, 1804, cont.

  ~

  HAD LORD HAROLD BEEN ADEPT IN THE ARTS OF THE CONJURER, he could not have produced a more stunning effect. For a full thirty seconds, no one spoke a word, while he observed us all in sardonic silence; and then Mr. Wilberforce Elliot stepped forward.