Jane and the Stillroom Maid (29 page)

I could have kissed Lord Harold’s grave and inscrutable face; but instead, I clutched the volume to my breast and said only, “Thank you, my lord.”

“Thank your mother, my dear,” he advised. “It was she who was beforehand with the chamber pot.”

I
T WAS ONLY AS
I
CONDUCTED HIS LORDSHIP TOWARDS
the coaching inn’s door that I thought to enquire after his purpose in paying his call.

“Merely to offer these,” he said carelessly; “they should go very well, I think, with your hair.”

He held out a small velvet box, such as one might obtain from the dearest of London jewellers. I looked up at him wordlessly, my arms at my sides. It was impossible that such a man should make a gift of something precious to
me;
and impossible that I might keep them, if he did.

“They are ornamental combs belonging to my niece, Desdemona,” he said. Something flickered in his eyes—an understanding, harsh and painful, of my predicament. My cheeks flamed red.

“She enquired as to your dress”—he still held out the box in his gloved hand—“and I confess I could tell her nothing. Please accept them. Mona was most anxious that you should be happy on such an occasion—your first evening at Chatsworth.”

“The Countess is very good,” I said haltingly. I should have felt relief at the little parcel being anything but a gift; instead, a wave of shame and vexation at my mistake swept over me. I reached with trembling hand to accept the box.

“What is it, Jane?” Lord Harold enquired gently.

I shook my head, and opened the lid. The combs were ebony, and set with a pair of sapphires; they should look charmingly against Mona’s hair, and would do very well, indeed, with grey silk. I managed a smile.
“Pray offer my deepest thanks to Lady Swithin,” I told Lord Harold. “I shall wear her combs with pleasure.”

“I have ordered His Grace’s carriage for your comfort,” he said. “It shall be standing at the door at six o’clock.”

And tipping his hat, he was gone.

30 August 1806, cont.
∼

“M
ISS
A
USTEN
! I
AM TOLD THAT YOU HAVE MET WITH
the most abominable behaviour in the world this morning! Are you entirely well?”

Sir James Villiers, his countenance animated by the liveliest anxiety for my welfare, hailed me thus from the swinging door that separated the public rooms of the inn from Mr. Davies’s quarters. I assured the Justice that I was in perfect health and spirits, though justifiably apprehensive. I should prefer the experience of highwaymen and robbers to remain marked by its singularity.

“Naturally!” he cried. “And for that very reason I have instructed my men to throw Michael Tivey into the watchhouse, alongside his confederate Will Pickle. Tivey has been responsible for too many disturbances of late, and should benefit from a period of sober reflection.”

“Will Pickle, I presume, acted today as highwayman?”

“He did, and confessed the whole at my interrogation. He is a cousin of Tivey’s from over the Buxton
way, and so was not likely to be recognised in this part of the world. I am assured he meant you no harm; but, however, he appeared on the road and brandished a firearm, and thus must be tried as a desperate and violent man. He shall be fortunate to escape hanging.”

“For that, I should have to lay charges against him, I suppose.”

Sir James appeared surprised. “I had not thought that was open to question. You will surely wish to do so.”

“I should rather show clemency, and perhaps obtain valuable information in exchange. Michael Tivey, too, I presume, is open to the laying of a charge? For there were several witnesses as to his thieving entry into our chambers.”

“Certainly.” Sir James’s eyes narrowed. “What is it you would propose, Miss Austen?”

“Mr. Tivey sought to obtain the stillroom book compiled by the murdered maid, Tess Arnold. There can be only one purpose in his elaborate subterfuge: he regards the book as a threat to his own security. I have already perused nearly half of the maid’s entries, and may attest that there was considerable collusion between herself and the surgeon; she often obtained medicines from Mr. Tivey that should belong more properly in an apothecary’s establishment. But I can find no evidence of any real wrongdoing on the surgeon’s part. I must suppose, therefore, that Tivey has no idea what Tess might have written in the book—and that it is his own guilty knowledge which drives him to secure and destroy it.”

“What would you have me do with the fellow?”

“Is he still detained there, in Mr. Davies’s kitchen?”

“He is.”

“Then I should very much like to speak to him, Sir James—if you would be so good as to bear me company.”

The Justice smiled, and held wide the kitchen door. “With the very greatest pleasure, Miss Austen—provided
you will undertake to leave in peace, any crockery you are tempted to fling at Mr. Tivey’s head.”

“If it must be so, it must.” I sighed, and preceded him through the door.

The inn’s kitchen and adjoining scullery were of a size commensurate with the needs of a coaching establishment. A cook and two scullery-maids, sweat glistening at their temples, were huddled between the hearth and a double stove set into the wall at its side; Sally our parlour-maid sat darning a sock by the open back door. Michael Tivey, his powerful arms bound tightly to his sides with a length of twine, was perched on a stool; Nate stared balefully at him, blunderbuss levelled, from a distance of perhaps five feet. Mr. Davies appeared too harassed by his several duties, and the signal honour of a Justice in the kitchen, to spare Michael Tivey a thought.

“Here we are,” I declared, “and none the worse for a trifling fall from a pony trap, on my side, nor a blow to the head on yours, Mr. Tivey. I did not think that I should meet the respected Coroner of Bakewell again in such circumstances—but life is replete with irony, is it not?”

“Get the woman out of ’ere, Joostice,” Tivey muttered at Sir James. “Ah’ve no time fer a deal o’ palaver.”

“I should lend Miss Austen your ear, Tivey,” Sir James replied in a severe tone; “she has your interest—and liberty—at heart.”

The surgeon’s head came up, his countenance a sketch in canny hostility. “Wha’ joo want wit’ me, then?” He made no effort to speak, I noticed, with the deliberate care of the Inquest’s proceedings. Discovery and disgrace had returned him to a baser realm.

“Mr. Davies,” I suggested, “would you be so good as to afford us the liberty of the kitchen for a period? Mr. Tivey might prefer to speak for the Justice’s ears alone.”

Davies sought Sir James’s face, then cleared his throat noisily. “Now then, girls,” he ordered. “Into the
yard wit’ thee. You, too, Nate. Happen we might fetch that load o’ flour Miller ‘as waitin’.”

The serving members of The Rutland Arms filed dutifully—and not at all unwillingly—through the back kitchen door, and Sir James saw it fastened securely with the bolt. The warmth of the kitchen was swiftly stifling; but my own discomfort could not be allowed to matter. I folded my hands and looked at Michael Tivey.

“You sought this morning, by various stratagems, to obtain the stillroom book compiled by the dead maid, Tess Arnold. You did so because you fear what the woman wrote concerning yourself. Your activity came too late, however, and fell far short of your objective; I had already perused the book’s pages, and what Tess knew of your nefarious habits, Michael Tivey, you may be assured that I now comprehend as well.”

For an instant, the most naked fear could be glimpsed in the surgeon’s small, dark eyes; I felt a surge of satisfaction within. A man afraid for his life is a man who may be bent to purpose.

“Ah’ve told Sir James what ah know.”

“Of Tess Arnold’s death, perhaps—but it is her life that concerns us now. I shall not scruple to say that circumstances have informed against you. Your case looks black, indeed. The Justice has agreed to offer you a chance at winning some leniency from the Law. But you must be frank and open, Mr. Tivey—you must speak without reserve or hesitation. Nothing else is likely to save you.”

“Ah’ll speak,” he cried out, before I had barely concluded my sentence. “Ah’ll tell Tha’ what ah can.”

I glanced at Sir James. His expression was wooden; but from a flicker of his eyelids I judged I should be allowed to proceed. I drew forth a vacant stool and settled myself upon it.

“Very well. You procured for the maid a quantity of medicines, such as should properly be in the keeping of a professional surgeon or physician. That much is
clear. But you gave her other things as well, did you not? You instructed her in methods of healing that were far beyond her station.”

“Tess’d learnt ’er letters,” he explained.

“She borrowed books from you,” I declared, with greater certainty than I possessed; I must tread carefully now, and never disclose to Tivey how little I actually knew.

“Yes!” he cried. “I lent her my books. There was noo ’arm in it. She was hungry fer learning, and books is scarce to coom by. She’d askt the Master up t’a Hall, and Mr. Andrew. They’d gone through libree for ’er. But they’m old books, in Latin; and neither Tess nor I were properly learnt in they dead tongues.”

“Naturally.” I kept my eyes trained upon the surgeon’s head. His own gaze was steadfastly bent upon his knees; the bluster of former days was gone. I saw again in memory the strong forearms and the heat of the blacksmith’s bellows, Tivey amidst a crowd in Water Street, careless about his effect.
If no one claims ’im, ah’ll be wanting the body for study
. … A good corpse was hard to come by. The students of London physicians must pay a pretty penny for the remains of beggars; and even then the hue and cry of the pauper’s family could be fearsome to behold. There had been riots in the streets of Town on the strength of a common criminal’s being turned over to the College of Physicians; it was hardly unusual for God-fearing folk to regard the dismemberment of a corpse with superstitious terror.

“You lent Tess Arnold books about herbs and simples; and about the workings of various medicines,” I suggested, my eyes on his face. “But I have an idea, Mr. Tivey, that you must also have spoken to her regarding the subject of… anatomisation?”

He drew a shuddering breath, and thrust his face in his hands. “Oh, God! And I told her to breathe not a word! The stupid bitch … the stupid
cowl
She went an’ wrote of it in her book!”

I looked to Sir James. He raised an eyebrow in confused enquiry.

“Did you manage to study corpses together, Mr. Tivey?”

No answer but a sob from behind the splayed fingers.

Sir James’s voice was like a lash. “Speak, man, lest you hang for offences that dare not be uttered! Speak honestly of what you know!”

“We only went but twice,” Tivey muttered. “Twice, when Tess were able to steal out of the Hall. It had to be when a grave was freshly dug, and on a night of no moon. She wore a man’s clothes—dark, so’s to move quickly, and not be seen. We’d dig oop the coffin and carry the body to a field in a carter’s dray. Nobody were the wiser.”

He swallowed hard, and raised beseeching eyes to Sir James’s face. “We always poot the corpse back in’t grave. We meant no ‘arm by it. How else is a man to know the way o’ the body?”

“You did this twice,” the Justice said between his teeth. “
Twice
you violated a hallowed grave in consecrated ground. Did you intend to effect a similar abomination on the night of the maid’s death?”

The surgeon nodded once in despair. “There was a suicide,” he told us, “along oot Taddington way. A young fool lost a deal o’ brass at cards and blew ‘is brains oot in ‘is father’s barn. Parson meant to bury’m at the crossroads near Taddington, just where the road meets the fork down fra’ Miller’s Dale. Tess could walk over right easy fra’ the Hall.”

“And so you required her to come.”

“I sent bit o’ note in some morphia she’d ordered.”

And Tess had walked out through the hills from Tideswell, wearing her borrowed suit of black clothes, a spectral figure under a fitful moon. Only she had never arrived for her dreadful assignation.

“I found the grave right enough,” Tivey went on.
“And who’s to care, what befalls the corpse of a sinner? ’E weren’t in churchyard, any road. I waited more’n two hour fer Tess. She nivver coom, she nivver sent no word.”

“And then?”

Tivey hesitated, and dropped his eyes from Sir James’s face. “I weren’t aboot to let a good corpse go to waste. I opened the grave and took’m out.”