The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen

by Lindsay Ashford

  ‘We have only one servant, I’m afraid,’ she whispered as she took me down the narrow hallway. ‘She is very old and smells of mothballs but she makes the best scotch collops I have ever tasted!’ Then, as she ushered me into the parlour, she asked me how I liked Bath. I replied that what I had seen thus far had impressed me very favourably. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘it is vastly well to be here for a short visit but I can assure you, you would not want to live here.’ She told me how much she had come to hate the place; how she despised the dandified gentlemen and rouged ladies who paraded up and down Royal Crescent and around the Orange Grove. ‘And most of them are so old,’ she said. ‘Bath has become God’s waiting room: full of retired admirals and whiskery widows.’ She stepped forward, seizing both my hands in hers. ‘How wonderful it is to see you! You look as fresh as a snowdrop.’

  I gave her a wry smile for her compliment. ‘Is your mama well?’ I asked, ‘and your sister?’

  She nodded. ‘They will be here presently. Mama is sleeping off one of her headaches and Cass has gone to fetch Fanny.’

  ‘Oh! She has come, then!’

  ‘Yes. She arrived yesterday. Henry brought her.’

  I tried to look surprised. ‘Where are they staying?’

  ‘Fanny is with my Aunt and Uncle Leigh-Perrot at their house in the Paragon. My brother James is there, too, with his wife and children. There was no room for Henry, so he lodges at the Sydney Hotel.’

  I breathed a small sigh of relief that he had not chosen the White Hart. How convenient for him, I thought, to be out of sight of his family while conducting this new affair.

  ‘We have only half an hour before Fanny comes,’ Jane said, ‘I want to hear all about your Mrs Raike – is she really as saintly as your letters would have me believe? I suppose you cannot tell the whole truth when she writes them at your dictation. I beg to hope she has at least one odious habit. Does she keep a little dog that she feeds from her plate? Does she pick her teeth with her fingernails? Perhaps she does both at the same time…’ she tailed off with a twisted grin.

  ‘No!’ I laughed, shaking my head at this horrible image, ‘I will not allow you to mock her! I would not be here now were it not for her goodness.’

  ‘Hmmm. Very well, then – we must drink to her health. Will you take a glass of orange wine?’

  We fell swiftly back into our old, easy manner of conversation and so absorbed did we become that we failed to hear the front door opening and the footsteps in the hall.

  ‘Miss Sharp!’ A human whirlwind hurled itself across the room. Fanny was now thirteen years old and seemed to have grown at least three inches in the few months we had been parted. Cassandra was not able to get in a word of greeting to me, nor was Mrs Austen when she came downstairs, for Fanny was intent on telling me everything that had happened to her since I left Godmersham. She had made only passing references to her new governess in her letters – mindful of my feelings, I have no doubt – but now she told me the woman had packed up and gone.

  ‘Mama sent her away last week,’ she said. ‘She pretended she knew French but she was hopeless at it: even worse than me. Someone else is coming when I get back. I wish I could go to school like the boys. Mama went to school; I don’t know why she won’t send me.’

  ‘I expect she had as bad a time as we did.’ Jane glanced at her sister. ‘Believe me, Fanny, you would not wish for school if you knew what it was like.’

  ‘We went to two schools,’ Cass nodded, ‘both run by women who were very proficient with a needle but knew next to nothing about the modern languages or Shakespeare. There was not enough to eat and we slept five or six to a bed. Your Aunt Jane nearly died of a fever at one of them.’

  ‘Were they really that bad?’ I asked. I had never attended school, having had the good fortune to be educated by my father, who, for all his other faults, was an excellent teacher.

  ‘They were terrible,’ Mrs Austen replied. ‘If we had known how bad they were we would never have sent the girls away.’

  Fanny, of course, wanted all the details about these dreadful establishments. She was only halted by the ring of the dinner bell, and even then she had difficulty keeping quiet long enough to eat the steaming palpatoon of pigeons with marrow pudding and apricot fritters set out before us.

  ‘You must forgive her,’ Cassandra whispered as she topped up my glass, ‘It is the first time she has travelled such a distance without her mother and she is over-excited. There is another baby on the way so Elizabeth has stayed at home.’ I nodded silently. Jane had not mentioned a baby. Perhaps, I thought, it is a subject still too painful for her to talk about.

  A little after eight o’clock we set out for Sydney Gardens, leaving Mrs Austen and Cassandra behind. ‘Neither one of them can stand the noise of fireworks,’ Jane said as we walked down Trim Street, ‘I myself find it greatly preferable to the sound of singing, which, thankfully, will be over by the time we arrive. Why the organisers of these events insist on holding a concert first is beyond my understanding: you never heard such a caterwauling; such a scraping of strings and squeaking of reeds. Thankfully the gardens are very large, which is just as well for the poor souls caught unawares: it is just possible to get out of earshot without quitting the place entirely.’ She stepped off the pavement to avoid a lamplighter, who was halfway up a ladder with his taper at the ready. ‘James and Mary said they would meet us on the bridge over the canal. They’re bringing Anna and James-Edward. Caroline is too young, of course.’

  ‘I am grown taller than Anna now,’ Fanny cut in, taking my arm as we crossed the river by the Pulteney Bridge. ‘And she is jealous because my Mama is going to have another baby and hers will not.’

  I set my gaze on the cobbles, fearful of catching Jane’s eye. ‘How exciting,’ I said, trying to sound bright. ‘Another baby! I wonder what it will be this time?’

  ‘Well, if it’s a girl she will be named Cassandra Jane, Papa says.’ Fanny beamed up at her aunt. ‘That’s very pretty, don’t you think?’

  How very telling, I thought: Cassandra Jane, not Jane Cassandra. It was a clear indication of the way the two sisters were regarded by Elizabeth.

  ‘Look!’ Fanny gasped, pointing down Pulteney Street. ‘Can you see the lights? Aren’t they amazing?’ As we drew closer I could see that the trees were hung with hundreds of tiny lamps with orbs of coloured glass that glittered like jewels among the foliage and blossom. Between the trees were strings of Chinese lanterns, glowing sunset red against the darkening sky. Throngs of people were gathered in the gardens, their clothes and faces dappled with a rainbow of colours.

  ‘I can’t see any sign of James,’ Jane said as we approached the little bridge that spanned the canal. ‘Will you stay here with Fanny, while I go and look for them?’

  We watched her disappear into the crowd, which was growing larger by the minute. ‘How do you like it at your great aunt Leigh-Perrot’s house?’ I said, batting away an insect that had settled itself on Fanny’s bonnet.

  ‘It’s all right, I suppose,’ Fanny replied, pushing out her lower lip. ‘But Aunt L.P. spoils James-Edward to death. He is her favourite and she never tires of telling Anna and me that one day he will inherit all her money.’

  ‘Oh?’ I smiled, ‘And is this aunt very rich?’

  ‘Not quite so rich as Papa, I think, but very nearly: they have a place in the country called Scarlets which is nearly as big as Godmersham, but not so fine.’

  ‘And how is it that young James-Edward will come into all this?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘Because Aunt and Uncle L.P. are very old and have no children.’ Fanny spoke slowly and clearly, as if I was the child and she the adult. ‘Uncle L.P. is Grandmama Austen’s brother, so Uncle James, being her eldest, gets all the money when they die and he, of course, will leave it to his son.’

  ‘Ah!’ I nodded, ‘What a fortunate young fellow!’ I couldn’t help thinking of Henry, growing up in the rectory at Steventon with the dawning knowledge that he h
ad lost out badly in the lottery of life. If he had only been born first or second he need never have worried about money. Edward was rolling in it and James had the prospect of plenty to come – and before very long if Fanny’s assessment of the Leigh-Perrots’ advanced age was anything to go by.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Fanny cried, ‘There they are! Aunt Jane must have missed them.’

  Coming through the crowds was a slight man in a coat with a collar so high it almost touched the brim of his black beaver hat. He held his head as if there was a bad smell beneath his nose and wielded his crystal-topped cane like a weapon. Behind him was Anna in a pink muslin frock with a tight-fitting bodice that showed off her burgeoning figure. She held the hand of a boy of about eight years old. As they grew closer I caught my breath, for the child looked like an exact miniature of Henry.

  ‘Where is Aunt Mary?’ Fanny demanded.

  ‘Just coming,’ Anna replied. ‘She stopped to buy some sweetmeats from a stall.’

  ‘There she is!’ The little boy turned and pointed to a figure in a pale, shimmering dress and black gauze cloak advancing across the bridge. Her bonnet shaded her features, but as she drew level with her husband the light from a Chinese lantern cast a red glow over her face. I stared at Mary Austen in utter confusion. There was no mistaking the masculine nose and jaw and the pitted marks on her skin. It was the woman in the Pump Room; the woman I had seen with Henry.

  There was an explosion of what sounded like gunfire from the canal bank below us. Plumes of jewel coloured sparks lit up the night sky. A flotilla of punts sent up fiery cascades that burst overhead with a fearsome crackle. There were cheers and sighs of awe as faces turned to the heavens. My thoughts were all disordered. Each soaring sky-rocket, each fizzing Roman candle and whirling Catherine wheel was a merciful distraction. While the fireworks sparkled and spat I was relieved of the burden of making polite conversation with Jane’s brother and his wife.

  I stole a glance at them as the crowd oohed and aahed at a spurting, many-coloured volcano. She had taken his arm and, although taller than him by an inch or more, he was reaching across with his other arm to grasp her wrist, as if offering protection from the raging firestorm. What had I been thinking of, to imagine that this woman was Henry’s latest amour? Was my judgement so awry that I saw flirtation where nothing more than familial friendship existed? What, after all, could be more natural than a man accompanying his sister-in-law to the Pump Room and keeping her amused while, perhaps, her husband took a warm bath next door?

  My eyes fell on young James-Edward, who was jumping up and down to get a better view. Yes, he had a definite look of Henry: the same nose, the same eager, smiling countenance. He looked nothing like his father or his mother. But that was not so unusual, was it? I had come across it before, a child more closely resembling the brother or sister of one of its parents than either of the parents themselves.

  As the firework display reached its finale, with a pergola of golden arrows arching across the canal, I determined to stop taking the least interest in anything involving Jane’s family, other than what politeness demanded. Let this be a lesson to you, I said to myself, thinking what a mercy it was that I had not told Jane of the encounter in the Pump Room.

  ‘Good evening Miss Sharp! I did not expect the pleasure of your company again!’ The voice was behind me, so close it made me jump.

  ‘Uncle Henry! I thought you weren’t coming!’ It was Fanny who saw him first and darted around me to claim him before the others spotted him.

  ‘Well, Fanny, I wasn’t going to – but when I heard that your dear old governess was come to town I thought I must come and pay my compliments.’

  I couldn’t see his face, for I had not yet turned around. But I imagined him looking the picture of innocence as he said it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I could not be certain what was in Henry’s mind that night. I suspected that he had come to get the measure of me, to judge whether I might be about to disclose something of the circumstances of my departure from Godmersham to his sister. He walked with us back to Trim Street, where Cass and Mrs Austen were already in bed. Showing no inclination to leave, he stole the precious time I would have had alone with Jane. It wanted but half an hour till midnight when he offered to escort me back to the White Hart. I had intended to take a sedan but he waved that idea away. To my relief Jane insisted on coming with us. I avoided his eye as we said our farewells, dreading what he might say to Jane on the way home. Would he give his version of events to forestall anything I might say?

  The thought of this robbed me of sleep for many hours. It would be so easy for Henry to turn Jane against me. I knew just how persuasive he could be. He had all but convinced me of his innocence that night in the library at Godmersham. How much more willing Jane would be to swallow what he fed her: what sister would not want to believe that she had been wrong about such a thing?

  I turned it over and over in my mind. I reminded myself that Henry could have done all this months ago if he had chosen to. Why wait until now to sabotage my friendship with Jane? Did he underestimate the strength of the bond between us? Did he think that once I had left Godmersham I would be out of the way forever? Please, I whispered, don’t take her from me! I don’t know who I was entreating – Henry or God above – but I prayed that night as I hadn’t done since my mother died.

  When at last I drifted off to sleep I dreamed not of Henry or Jane but of Mary Austen. She was with her sister Martha in the house at Worthing, stirring a pot that hung over the fire. When Martha turned away Mary dipped her finger in and smeared her lips crimson. They stretched wide open, revealing sharp white teeth like a cat’s. I knew that she was saying something but I couldn’t hear what it was. I had to guess the words from the shapes her lips were making. The painted mouth bunched into a tight red bud, slid out then gaped wide. Don’t tell Jane. Again and again she repeated the phrase and each time her lips swelled in size, sucking me towards them. The moment I entered the dark cave beyond her teeth I awoke with a start. The counterpane of burgundy damask had fallen over my face in the night and the sunshine piercing the curtains had set it all aglow. I threw it off and ran to the window, taking comfort in the sight of milkmaids and lamp snuffers going about their business.

  The dream came back vividly as I sat before the looking glass, arranging my hair. The foxing on its silver surface gave me Mary Austen’s pock-marked skin. The reflection also held the pot of lip balm her sister had made for me. Without looking down, I reached for it and pulled off the lid. My finger touched the sticky red wax. You have a dangerous imagination. The voice in my head was as clear and alarming as the dream. I jumped to my feet, seized the little pot and ran to the window. The catch was stiff but I pulled with all my might. It gave with a shower of rust and I leaned out, hurling the pot as far as I could. It flew in an arc across the street and landed noiselessly in the still, blue shallows of the river.

  I was too agitated to eat breakfast that morning. My stomach lurched every time the head waiter came near our table because I saw him delivering letters to other guests and I convinced myself he had a note for me from Jane. If Henry had done what I feared, Jane would lose no time in cancelling tonight’s rendezvous with me. She would, no doubt, be tactful and polite about terminating our friendship. Perhaps she would pretend to be ill and unable to admit any visitor to the house in Trim Street. This illness would persist for the whole week of my stay then, when I was safely back in Yorkshire, she would pack up for Southampton and neglect to inform me of her new address.

  But by eleven o’clock that morning no note had arrived. I began to relax a little and managed to drink the coffee served to us in the lounge. Mrs Raike was reading the front page of the Bath paper aloud to me. She had got as far as the column that announced new arrivals to the town.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, pausing as she read out the names, ‘This man’s wife is a very dear friend of Miss Gowerton. They were out in India together. She has asked them to meet us in the P
ump Room at midday.’

  ‘Who is the man?’ I asked.

  ‘Warren Hastings.’

  ‘Oh, is he come to Bath?’ I said, unable to conceal my surprise.

  ‘It will cause quite a stir, I am sure,’ Mrs Raike nodded, ‘but we must remember, he was acquitted from that bad business. There is no stain upon his character. Miss Gowerton assures me that no one speaks of it now.’

  She had no idea, of course, that I had any knowledge of Mr. Hastings apart from what had been written in the newspapers. I thought of telling her that I had once met Eliza, his goddaughter, but decided it was too slight a connection to merit her attention. In any case, she had moved onto the subject of her dip in the warm bath, which she would take in half an hour’s time.

  ‘I will take a sedan, I think, my dear. I know it is only a short distance but at my age one can’t be too careful. I should not like to catch cold when I come out.’

  That seemed a most unlikely eventuality, for when I stepped outside to hail a chair the brightness of the day made me blink. There were so many new buildings in Bath, all made from the same white limestone, that when the sun shone upon them the effect was quite dazzling. I shaded my eyes and scanned the streets, half afraid of spotting Henry lurking in some shop doorway, ready to pounce. But there was no one about save the hawkers and carriers. I told myself that my fears about him were groundless, that he must realise I had nothing to gain and much to lose by telling Jane the real reason for my departure from Godmersham. And that being the case, why would he risk telling her himself?

  My errand accomplished, I hurried back upstairs to make Mrs Raike ready for her sedan. At a little before one o’clock she emerged from her sweating-in, all pink and smiling and ready for the rendezvous at the Pump Room. We spotted Miss Gowerton through one of the downstairs windows of the White Hart. She was standing on the steps beneath the colonnade, in conversation with a short, stout old gentleman whose coat buttons twinkled in the sun, and a woman in a bonnet for which at least half a dozen birds must have been sacrificed, so elaborately was it trimmed.