Jane and the Barque of Frailty jam-9

by Stephanie Barron

  Blood and Ministers

  Tuesday, 23 April 1811

  “HOW VERY DREADFUL,” ELIZA BREATHED. SHE SET down her plate of toast and pressed her hand to her heart. “And to think she lodged but a few steps from our door! How thankful I am that she was not killed at home!”

  “ Was it murder, Henry?” I enquired.

  “The editors would intimate suicide. The Princess is believed to have done herself a violence after being refused admittance to his lordship’s household.”

  “But at what hour?” I reached for my brother’s Post. “Only consider — she cannot have importuned Castlereagh on the very steps of his home, even at the close of Mrs. Siddons’s play, and not been remarked by all the world! London does not go to bed so early as one o’clock!”

  “Neither would she have sought an interview with his lordship at dawn, Jane.” Henry frowned. “Yet her body was found by a charley in Berkeley Square at a few minutes past five o’clock in the morning.”[2]

  “She might have lain there some time, I suppose. Does a London watchman make regular rounds?”

  Eliza sniffed. “Never if he may avoid it. The charleys, as you will observe, are elderly louts. I cannot recollect ever meeting with one in the lawful conduct of his duties — even when we resided in Upper Berkeley Street, which you must know, Jane, is most select. We must account it the merest mischance that the Grosvenor Square man stumbled upon the body at all.”

  The Post had furnished its readers with a small line drawing of the Princess, in full evening dress, her looks ghastly and her torn throat dark with inky blood. The editors were amply recompensed for their part in the poor creature’s ruin; her violent end should sell numerous copies.

  “And was this revenge?” I mused. “Her character destroyed by the publication of her correspondence, did the Princess think to shatter Lord Castlereagh’s peace? Prick his conscience? Shame his wife? Or was she simply mad with grief?”

  “All Russians are mad,” Eliza observed.

  “She did not appear to be out of her senses last evening, however. Recollect her earnest gaze! Princess Tscholikova greatly desired to be private with his lordship — but could have no opportunity. It must be impossible to command Castlereagh’s notice in so publick a venue as the Theatre Royal. Did she seek him, then, on his very doorstep? And to what purpose?”

  “It cannot look well, her having been found at his lordship’s,” Eliza said doubtfully. “If the world fails to credit the notion of suicide, Lord Castlereagh must be suspect.”

  “Fiddlestick,” I retorted. “Why should a gentleman of high estate — heir to an earldom, and known to be powerful among government circles — chuse to discard the body of his mistress in his own entryway? It will not do, Eliza, and you know it. Throw the lady into the Thames, by all means, but do not leave her lying about for the charley to find. Besides, Lord Castlereagh has no need of murder. He is the sort of man so complaisant in his own regard, as to consider the denial of his society as punishment enough.”

  “What is this?” Henry cried. “Is Jane to ridicule a Tory minister? And she such a staunch opponent of the Regent and his Whiggish friends!”

  “I cannot admire Lord Castlereagh,” I admitted, “Tory tho’ he is; and he has not been in government these many years, for which we are taught to be thankful. The little fact of his having a mistress is as nothing to his want of brilliance in oratory; and you well know, Henry, that his conduct of the Walcheren campaign was everywhere deplored.[3] The Great World did not mourn when he resigned the post of Minister of War.”

  “—Because he afforded the Great World such sport, in throwing over his political career!” my brother countered. “Consider, Jane, his treatment of Mr. Canning! Surely the violence he showed on that occasion is a great deal more to the present point, than all your talk of oratory?”

  “You would refer to the celebrated duel, I suppose.” It has been nearly two years since Lord Castlereagh, incensed at the poor opinion of his fellow minister, George Canning, called out the latter to defend his honour on a ground of his lordship’s chusing. Pistols at dawn might seem a dubious method of debating Cabinet policy, but both gentlemen are Irish, and Castlereagh is renowned for his temper.

  “He refused all the Seconds’ attempts to mediate,” Henry persisted, “and could not be satisfied until he had fired twice, and winged Mr. Canning in the thigh. I have it on excellent authority that poor Canning had never held a pistol before in his life! — Compared to the wilful attack upon the Foreign Minister, the cutting of a woman’s throat is as nothing.”

  “But why should Castlereagh put himself to the trouble?” I demanded. “Recollect what Eliza’s friend said last evening: Lord Castlereagh has only to conduct himself as usual, to silence the impertinent. Why should he resort to violence at all?”

  “The Post ascribes the Princess’s end to self-murder,” Eliza interjected, “and self-murder it undoubtedly was! Retire to your book room, Henry, and leave us in peace. We shall neverbe ready for our musical evening, and we do not make haste!”

  IN ALL THE WORRY OF PROCURING A SUITABLE QUANtity of Naples biscuit, and tasting the ratafia syllabub we intended to serve once the music should be done, and colluding with Eliza’s maid, Manon, in the fashioning of a cunning headdress — not to speak of a stolen hour spent reading through my printer’s proof — I might have put the gruesome death in Berkeley Square entirely out of mind. I should thus have avoided a period of tiresome activity, meddlesome impertinence, and no little danger to myself; and I might have remained in happy ignorance of the depravity and betrayals of the Polite World, quitting London much as I found it: secure in my view that the Metropolis was replete with honourable and godly people, whose predilection for frivolity was no more to be despised than a child’s affection for playing at spillikins. But it was not to be. The death of Princess Evgenia Tscholikova obtruded on my notice at a few minutes before two o’clock, with the arrival of the Comtesse d’Entraigues’s carriage at our door.

  The Comtesse, as I have said, was not to be of our party that evening. Eliza had solicited her old friend for the honour of her song, but Anne de St.-Huberti affected humility; she never sang before strangers, she protested, but only in the intimacy of her own home, and only before chosen friends. Having heard her in voice on Sunday evening, I will confess to relief that the Comtesse was not to sing for Mr. Egerton and our guests; her instrument cannot now be what it was.

  I hastily stowed the pages of my book beneath a circulating novel that lay discarded on the drawing-room table, and rose to greet the visitor.

  “Mes chères amies,” the Comtesse sang out as she sailed into the room, a swansdown muff negligently disposed on one arm, “what dreadful weather you have for your evening, non? It comes on to rain! You will be fortunate indeed if half your guests venture out into the streets! And my dear Eliza, how swollen and red your nose!”

  I foresaw a similar vein of conversation, richly mined by the Comtesse’s malice; and being unable to explain Eliza’s attachment to Anne de St.-Huberti — unless it be an affection for some memory of her own glorious career at Versailles, before Louis’s fall — I determined to salvage what I could of the day and my own peace.

  “Eliza is decidedly unwell,” I observed, “and ought to be laid down upon her bed, with hot lemonade and sticking plaster. Indeed, I was just upon the point of quitting the house for the apothecary. You will forgive me, Countess, if I go about my errand … ”

  “But of course,” the lady said earnestly, her gloved claw clasping my fingers. “It is always the office of the spinster sister, non, to sacrifice herself to her wretched family? You are admirably suited to the role, my dear Jane. You will darn the socks to perfection, and nurse other people’s children without a thought for yourself. Run along while I amuse la pauvre Eliza with every sort of scandalous nonsense.”

  If I did not utter a retort that should set the harpy’s ears to flaming, I may say it was from a sense of what I owed my brother Henry: those
precious typeset pages carefully concealed beneath an overturned book. He is the most excellent of brothers, Henry — however many dubious females he may admit into his house.

  I DID NOT HAVE FAR TO SEEK FOR MR. HADEN, THE apothecary and surgeon, as his shop was directly next to Henry’s home — at No. 62 Sloane Street. I might have despatched my errand with alacrity, had I been desirous of returning to the Comtesse d’Entraigues and her repellant conversation; but I had been within doors all day, and fretted at my confinement. For nearly two years now I have been accustomed to walking the lanes of Chawton, in mire or dust, in pursuit of the post, or acquaintance, or the broader delights of neighbouring Alton. I rejoice in the daily revelations of the garden in such a season as this: the tentative spurt of sunshine; the first daffodils waving in the stiff breeze; the inadvertent torrents; the appearance of the bluebells. London, with its fashionable throng, its noise and dirt, its persistent and impenetrable fogs, its rackety business of carriages and midnight hours, is a type of enjoyment to which one must be schooled. I might in youth have relished the heady excitement of money and power that is here everywhere on parade; but in my more sober years — in the fullness of my womanhood — I cannot ignore the immense want I see in the pinched faces of the streets, nor the gin-soaked decrepitude of the women and men who beg at every corner. There is a ruthlessness to London life perfectly in keeping with its glittering masters: I thought once more of the Princess Tscholikova, her blood running down the steps of one of the most exalted residences in Town — and shivered in my pelisse.

  A brisk walk was required — a filling of the lungs, even if it be with sulphurous air — and so I ventured across Sloane Street into the pretty little wilderness of Cadogan Place, where nursemaids sat in careful watch over their infant charges, who played at battledore and shuttlecock upon the greening lawn.[4] Hans Town, as this village on the edge of the city is called, is by no means a fashionable abode, being fully a quarter hour’s brisk walk west of Hyde Park; but it will do for such gentlemen of business as my banker brother Henry, for hopeful families of second sons, who regard the country air as more healthful than that of the city generally; and for those shabby-genteel members of the ton whose fortunes have been gambled away. We are a heterogeneous lot, part pretension, part vulgarity; but I cannot repine, or wish my brother returned to Upper Berkeley Street. His rooms are more commodious, and his neighbours infinitely more colourful, than I should discover elsewhere.

  I was swinging with energy along the gravel path, when a “Good morning, Miss Austen” rang brightly in my ear, to be seconded by a chorus of little voices; and I turned to find Mrs. James Tilson some ten paces behind me, with her maid and a collection of children bestowed about her, bent upon their exercise.

  “Fanny!” I cried. “I should expect you to be laid upon your bed, with a warm shawl about your shoulders, recruiting your strength for the dissipations of this evening! You cannot fail us, my dear! We depend upon you, however much it should come on to rain!”

  Frances Tilson is the wife of my brother’s chief banking partner in London, Mr. James Tilson, and the mistress of just such an household as is everywhere to be found in Hans Town. A boy of twelve is presently away at school; but no less than seven daughters fill the drawing-room in Hans Place, the youngest not above a year of age. Mrs. Tilson’s excellent sense and tolerable understanding make her an attractive companion for these walks about the square, while her children — in small doses — provide amusement. Eliza will say that Fanny Tilson has no sense of humour, and that her taste for the exalted— her air of piety and sober reflection — are tiresome in the extreme; but I cannot abuse goodness, tho’ I lack it myself. Such abuse must smack of envy.

  “But of course we shall not fail,” Fanny replied simply as the party came up with my position on the path. “We have been eagerly anticipating the party a fortnight at least. I have promised the older girls they may help me dress.”

  Squeals of delight greeted these words, and as we fell in together, and began to pace the gravel path, I observed, “It is as well, perhaps, that you have some frivolity to distract your thoughts. You have lost a neighbour, I understand.”

  “I do not care to speak of it,” Fanny said, turning her head away. “Everything to do with that person is repugnant to a lady; and however much we may deplore the manner of her end, I think I am safe in stating that it was not unfitted to her mode of life.”

  I considered of the Princess, lonely and friendless as I had observed her the previous evening, her throat slit and her body cast upon the streets; and thought her death totally at variance with a life of privilege and indulgence. I apprehended that Fanny wished me to draw a moral from violent death, and being surrounded by her tender daughters, did not chuse to pursue the subject. My companion surprised me, however, by continuing the debate with vigour.

  “Her body has been returned to the house,” Fanny said, “and black crape hung from the doorway. There is a coat of arms — quite foreign — suspended above the door, and the knocker removed. I should have thought that the world would shun the remains of one so wretched as to take her own life, but in point of fact a succession of carriages has been coming and going all day, for the leaving of cards and condolences. I am sure there is no one to read them. She lived quite alone, as one would expect of a woman so lost to propriety as to abandon her husband, and desert all her friends.”

  “Not all, it would seem, from the succession of carriages,” I replied.

  “They say there is a brother,” Fanny confided in a lowered tone. “A prince of some kind, tho’ what that may signify among Russians, who can tell? He is said to be travelling even now from Vienna. The husband does not appear. The obsequies must be suspended until the brother arrives; and indeed, what sort of burial shall she receive? She cannot be a member of the Church of England. And then there is the fact of self-murder. Perhaps they will remove the body to Paris, where I understand she lived until lately … ”

  At that moment, a woman I judged to be a maidservant cut across our path, her chin sunk upon her breast and her expression abstracted. She was so near I might have brushed her arm, had I not pulled up short; and she quite ran into little Charlotte, a stout girl of seven, who cried in pain at the trodding of her foot. The maid never deviated, or lifted her head, or acknowledged our presence in any way — and as I gazed at her in consternation, I saw great tears slip unheeded down her cheeks. She moved as one bent upon an unholy errand, or in the grip of a horror so profound that no human voice might penetrate it.

  “Druschka,” Fanny Tilson said in some irritation as she bent to chafe her daughter’s foot. “The Princess’s maid. Perhaps it is shewho reads the condolences. — If, indeed, she is able to read.”

  The woman had crossed Sloane Street and paused before the door of the apothecary, Mr. Haden. It was time, I thought, to fulfill Eliza’s errand.

  Chapter 3

  A Queens Ransom

  Tuesday, 23 April 1811, cont.

  MR. HADEN WAS NOWHERE IN SIGHT AS I ENTERED his shop. It was clean and commodious, which must inspire confidence in the healthfullness of the man’s wares: a high-ceilinged space, lit by suspended oil lamps, and lined with shelves. Rank upon rank of glass jars held every conceivable tincture and herb, simple and poison; earthenware bowls stood ready for the pestle; a set of brass scales graced the front counter, along with a volume in which the apothecary recorded the names of his clients, the nature of their complaints, and the remedies he had prescribed. With so many children in Hans Town, Mr. Haden was never wanting in work, and Eliza — who is prone to illness as the years advance — finds it a great comfort to be lodged so near a capable quack.

  The maid Druschka was standing next to the counter, her gaze fixed upon the scales as tho’ she might read her future there. I had thought her countenance forbidding in Cadogan Place — an impression derived, perhaps, from the grim force of misery. Under the light of the oil lamps, however, I saw that age had deeply etched her visage. This woman c
ould have known the Princess Tscholikova from her cradle.

  So lost in reflection was she that my broaching of the door, and the faint tinkle of the bell suspended over it, might have been soundless for all the response they drew. Still as a statue, Druschka waited for Mr. Haden.

  “There you are,” he said briskly, appearing from the rear of his premises with a slim purple vial. “Tincture of laudanum. I would advise you to use it sparingly. Do you understand?” He held aloft three fingers. “No more than three drops each night.”

  Druschka reached wordlessly for the bottle, her aged hand swathed in a fingerless black mitt. If she comprehended the apothecary’s speech, she made no sign.

  “Here,” Mr. Haden said impatiently. “You’ll have to sign my book. Here!”

  But the maid was already halfway to the door, and did not chuse to regard the apothecary behind his counter — an inattention born of a lack of English, I must suppose, or a misery so profound it no longer considered of a stranger’s expectations. As she brushed past me towards the street I summoned courage and said, “Pray accept my condolences on the loss of your mistress, Druschka.”

  She turned upon me a pair of fathomless eyes and muttered, “C’est tout des mensonges.”

  “What did she say?” Mr. Haden demanded, as the maid stepped out onto the street.

  “It’s all lies,” I repeated thoughtfully, and procured Eliza’s draught.

  THE COMTESSE D’ENTRAIGUES HAD QUITTED THE house by the time I returned, but she had left Eliza no gayer for all her promised scandal.

  “The poor creature is beside herself, Jane,” my sister confided.[5] “Never knowing where her next shilling is to come from, looks and voice quite gone, the years advancing — and who can say how many light-skirts that old roué of a husband has in keeping? I thank God I was fortunate enough to consider of dear Henry’s offer when I was at low ebb myself. You can have no notion how comforting it was, to know I might drop my handkerchief at any moment, as the saying goes, and he should come running to pick it up! When I think of his goodness—”