Jane and the Barque of Frailty (6 page)

An image of Evgenia Tscholikova as I had glimpsed her in life—the earnest gaze fixed upon Lord Castlereagh’s box—and the idea of the lady grown rigid in a pool of her own blood on the London street, arose before me as tho’ reflected in the shifting candlelight. An echo of the maid Druschka’s words, guttural with misery, rang in my ears: It’s all lies. All lies.

“What do you know of the Princess?” I enquired.

Manon shrugged. “What everyone must know. She was born to the noblesse—she graced the Tsar’s court at fifteen—she married a man of exalted position whom she knew not at all, and was miserable as a matter of course. She travelled with Prince Tscholikov to Vienna, where he was envoy to the Court; and there she fell in love with a man. Disgrace and ruin followed. She journeyed to Paris, alone and almost without means. Her brother succored her. And so, at the last, she came to this country—her bloom fading, her hopes gone, a woman not above thirty who must establish her credit amidst a sea of foreign faces and tongues. It has happened, vous savez, to others before.”

“I suppose such a history might well end in suicide.”

“Bah,” Manon said briskly. “That is like your Englishness. Always the propriety, out? But I, who have seen the world—I tell you that nothing, not even the shameful letters published without warning in the newspaper—is so terrible as death, mademoiselle.”

I thought of the Terror: of the young girl Manon had once been, of an entire world lost to the guillotine.

“The man in Vienna—was that Lord Castlereagh?”

“Who knows? He is but the most recent in a string of lovers, perhaps. A woman denied all happiness will snatch at anything. But me, I should not snatch at Lord Castlereagh. He is … du glace.”

Ice. I recollected the studied indifference of the former Minister of War: he who had nearly killed a fellow Cabinet member defending his honour; he who could brave the ridicule of the press with insouciance. Ice was required of a man who must send entire regiments to their deaths; had he also sent the Princess to hers?

Manon’s hands stilled, and she smiled into the mirror. “There,” she said. “C’est fini. Does it please you?”

She could not restore lost youth, or conjure me a Beauty; but she had accomplished, all the same, something on the order of a miracle. My dowdy cap was discarded, my locks brushed with pomade until they shone, and my headdress as smart as my means would allow. The band of bugle beads bound about my forehead exactly matched those on the flounce of my dress. I would never be mistaken for an Incomparable—but as a secret scribbler of novels, a Bluestocking of a certain age come upon the Town—I would certainly do.

“Thank you, Manon.”

She curtseyed, once more the modest servant. “I shall call in Hans Place tomorrow,” she said with a sidelong glance, “to pay my respects to the Princess Tscholikova’s household. Who knows what Druschka may tell?”

“Who knows, indeed?” I replied.

O
UR DINNER GUESTS ARRIVED AT HALF-PAST FIVE:
M
R.
Henry Egerton, whose principal virtue appears to be that he is the son of a clergyman resident in Durham; and Mr. Henry Walter, a serious young man of philosophic and mathematical stamp, who ought to have quitted London this morning, but stayed to eat sole in my brother’s house. Eliza would wish to have nothing to do with Mr. Walter, as he is the nephew of her cousin Philadelphia—a prudish woman whose disapproval of Henry’s wife is rooted in envy—but the most common family feeling dictated that Mr. Walter being in London, Mr. Walter must be invited to Sloane Street. And so he was placed at Eliza’s right hand, and Mr. Egerton at mine, with the Tilsons to balance the table.

Mr. Egerton fell to my lot, and as he was barely half my age, and fatally tongue-tied, I found him heavy work. Having enquired where he had studied, and what poets he preferred, and whether he hunted a good deal or even at all—I left him to demand how I liked my visit to London, and whether I had yet penetrated the British Museum, or been favoured with a glimpse of Mrs. Siddons. This last bow, drawn at a venture, struck home—and I was able to speak with animation of Macbeth until the covers were removed and I turned with relief to the partner on my left, Mr. Tilson.

“You have won an admirer, Jane,” he observed. “Mr. Egerton is overflowing with admiration—to the extent of apparent apoplexy. But do not be throwing yourself away upon a man with so little conversation; you would be sadly wasted. You require a partner whose cleverness equals your own—and not half a dozen exist in the entire Kingdom.”

None, I thought, since Lord Harold’s demise; but said only, “Flatterer. I could wish that your praise did not depend upon the abuse of my neighbour—for there can be no harm in him; he has not lived long enough to run to vice. If you must abuse somebody, let it be my cousin Mr. Walter—whom I cannot love, however worthy his achievements may be. He is a scholar, you know, dedicated to the education of Youth—and will bore the unfortunate Eliza to distraction.”

“A prosy individual,” he agreed, “and unbearably full of consequence for a sprig of his years—he cannot be more than four-and-twenty. But his relation to yourself I may comprehend. Mr. Egerton I do not comprehend at all. Why is he of the select few invited to dine this evening?”

I saw that for all his playfulness, James Tilson was anxious. “I believe him to be nothing more than the son of an old family friend. What is it you fear, Mr. Tilson? That my brother is got among thieves and adventurers?”

My companion said nothing for a moment, his brow faintly furrowed. “You hold your brother in esteem and affection, my dear Miss Austen—as certainly do I. I will not scruple to say that Henry Austen is dearer to me than any but my own family. But I will also state that his judgement—so sound in most cases—has of late seemed wanting. There is a sort of recklessness in Henry … a desire to circulate among the Great … and if this fellow Egerton is another of them, I thought—”

He faltered, lips pursed.

“This is speaking seriously, indeed!” I rejoined, all fear of self-exposure forgotten. “Do not trifle with me, Mr. Tilson. Is my brother on the brink of ruin?”

“If he were, I should never betray him.” Tilson’s countenance eased, and he reached for his wine glass. “I could wish his friend Lord Moira at the ends of the earth, that is all. Henry may chuse to style his lordship as a great and useful patron—a name that lends tone to our banking concern—but the Earl is importunate in his demands for money, and a Whig besides. One might as well throw silver down a hole as lend it to a member of the Carlton House Set! Our thousands are gambled away in a single hand of whist! But Henry will not be brought to see it.”

“Do you wish me to use my influence with my brother?” I asked.

“Have you any?” James Tilson enquired flippantly. “I assure you I have not, and we have been friends and partners these many years. Nor can I bring Eliza to the point; she is persuaded that all manner of good fortune will result from a connexion with the nobility, and encourages Henry to make Lord Moira his debtor. Try if you will to sound your brother on the matter, Jane; I acquit you of all responsibility if you fail.”

“This troubles you, Mr. Tilson,” I said, “and I am sorry for it. It is not like Henry to cause anxiety in the breasts of those he loves.”

“Henry has no children,” Tilson observed ruefully, “while I am possessed of more than enough for both of us; naturally I am the more provident, having so many mouths to feed. I leave it to you, Jane—and will cease to worry the matter. The musicians have arrived!”

T
HEY APPEARED AT EXACTLY HALF-PAST SEVEN
o’clock, in two hackney coaches hired for the purpose: a harpist with her instrument, bulky in flannel wrappings and requiring the services of two footmen to install in the front drawing-room; a pianist who would perform upon Eliza’s beautiful little pianoforte; and a party of singers, led by a Miss Davis: quite short and round, with a flushed fair face, and a remarkable quantity of Voice to her small person. Half an hour passed in the arrangements of these people, and the necessary entertainment of our dinner party in the interval between the conclusion of the meal and the arrival of our guests for the evening—who began to appear by eight o’clock. Eliza had despatched some eighty invitations, and more than sixty people came: quite a rout for Sloane Street. I was relieved to find Mr. Egerton in the company of a Captain Simpson, of the Royal Navy, who possessed himself of the young man’s sleeve and engaged him most earnestly in conversation pertaining to Whitehall; and saw James Tilson surrounded by gentlemen of his London acquaintance: Mr. Seymour, the lawyer; Mr. John-Lewis Guillemard, who has no business but to look smart and flirt with ladies young enough to be his wards; and Mr. Hampson, the baronet, who from strict Republican principles refuses to be called by his hereditary title. It was he who condescended to bring me a glass of wine—and abandoned me hastily at the descent of a thin, effusive lady in long gloves and a terrifying pink silk turban.

“Miss Jane Austen!” she cried, as though we two were met on a desert shore, the wreck of all hope tossing in the sea behind us. “How well you look, I declare! Town bronze, I believe they call it! You have certainly acquired that polish!”

“Miss Maria Beckford,” I returned, and accepted her hand with real cordiality. “And Miss Middleton! Your father told me you were in London for your come-out!”

“We have taken a house in Welbeck Street,” Miss Beckford replied, “and I serve as Susan’s chaperone to all the smart affairs! You must certainly pay us a call. I long to hear all the Chawton news!”

Miss Beckford manages the household of her late sister’s husband, Mr. John Middleton, who is my brother Edward’s tenant at Chawton Great House— and thus my neighbour, when I am at home. She is a formidable woman, spare and abrupt and sensible, with a fund of learning and an enviable want of foolishness. I have long admired her ability to accommodate herself to circumstance. Lacking a husband, she entered instead her dead sister’s household—and reared Middleton’s children. She lacks for no comfort, is esteemed by all, and merits the respect due to an independent woman—without the necessity of submitting to a husband. I quite like Maria Beckford.

Her eldest niece, however, is another matter: a stout, well-grown girl of sixteen, who curtseyed with civility enough; but I detected boredom in all her looks, and guessed that to be dragged in her aunt’s company to a Musical Evening—in a quarter of Town too far west to be considered fashionable, among a parcel of dowds—was to her an indignity tantamount to torture.

“It seems but a few months ago that you were playing in the long grass at Chawton,” I told Susan, “and here you are, a Beauty in her First Season!”

She smirked, and muttered a nothing, her fingers plaiting the pink ribbons cascading from her bodice; an awkward child, with dull brown hair and coarse features, who will be dreaming of balls and private masques, of the assemblies at Almack’s and the afternoon ride through the Park. But Susan, I fear, is destined for disappointment: Neither her fortune nor her beauty is great enough to figure in London. Almack’s, and the breathless notice of the ton, will be denied her—as it was denied me.

“I must introduce you to my cousin, Mr. Henry Walter,” I said, taking her hand firmly. “He looks as though he were in need of a dance.”

My unfortunate cousin was engrossed in a discussion of Theosophy with Mr. Guillemard and Mr. Wyndham Knatchbull, a clergyman—and barely disguised his outrage at being so imposed upon, as to be forced to trade insipid nothings with a child. The harpist striking up an air at that moment, however, my cousin was spared the duty; and Miss Beckford and I left Susan in his orbit. She might, perhaps, serve as Mr. Guillemard’s latest flirt. We retreated to the passage, so as to achieve the maximum degree of coolness with the minimum of crowding, and composed ourselves to listen.

E
LIZA COULD TAKE PLEASURE, ON THE MORROW, IN
the fact that the last of her guests did not quit her house until midnight, and that the evening was deemed such a success—so much of a crush, in fact, an intolerable squeeze—that it merited a notice in the Morning Post. No less a personage than Lord Moira, the Regent’s crony, condescended to grace Sloane Street with his presence; and it was thanks to the Earl that all my suspicions regarding Princess Tscholikova’s end were animated long into the night.

“I own to some delight at Lord Castlereagh’s discomfiture,” his lordship confided to a group of five gentlemen arranged respectfully around him in the interval between Miss Davis’s Airs in the Italian and the performance of Mozart upon the pianoforte. “There will be no talk of the Tories forming a government now.”

“But it can never truly have been under consideration,” Mr. Hampson—the Republican baronet— protested. “The Regent is known to espouse the most radical principles! As his intimate these many years, my lord—and a partisan of the Whigs yourself—you can only have expected His Majesty to approach Lords Grey and Grenville for his Cabinet! This Tory posturing is all rumour, with the paltry object of disconcerting the Regent and elevating the star of Mr. George Canning—whose service in the furtherance of his own ambition is well known to men of sense!”

“Hear, hear,” Mr. Guillemard intoned.

“Damn me,” Captain Simpson exploded, “that’s treason!” He lurched a little, as tho’ he felt the roll of a deck beneath his feet. It must be said that the good captain—who had disconcerted me earlier in the evening with the news that my sailor brother, Frank, was superseded in his command—had been drinking deep of

Henry’s claret. “Would you have us turn over the Kingdom, aye, and all the Continent, to Buonaparte and his crew? That’s what a Whig Cabinet will get ye!”

“Naturally I would have us do so, if it meant peace,” Mr. Hampson rejoined equably. “The cost of this war—ceaseless and senseless as it has been—is bleeding the country and the poor to the point of annihilation! Peace, I say, at any cost—and if the Whigs will help us to it, I felicitate them with all my heart!”

Lord Moira raised his glass in approval, but a heated argument immediately broke out, as to the merits of Tory governance, which should stand firm against France to the dying breath, versus the Whig desire to conciliate the Monster and withdraw Lord Wellington from the Peninsula before the rout of French troops should entirely be achieved. There was mention of our ally, Russia, and the clauses of treaties published and secret; and while I lingered near Fanny Tilson, who talked of her children, my ear trained to the more interesting conversation of the gentlemen—the trend of remark circled back to the strange death of Princess Tscholikova.