Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas

B
EING THE
J
ANE
A
USTEN
M
YSTERIES

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Jane and the Wandering Eye

Jane and the Genius of the Place

Jane and the Stillroom Maid

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy

Jane and the Barque of Frailty

Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

Jane and the Canterbury Tale

OTHER NOVELS

A Flaw in the Blood

The White Garden

“Jane,” said my mother over the lolling head of the parson slumbering beside her, “be so good as to shift your bandbox and secure my reticule. I cannot manage the hamper with one hand, to be sure.”

“No, indeed.” I pressed my bandbox—already crushed from the confines of the stage, which was crowded beyond bearing—into my friend Martha’s lap, and seized my mother’s purse. She had netted it from silk, an effort demanding considerable invention and time; none of us should hear the end of it if Mrs. Austen’s work were ruined, well before it could be universally admired. I braced my booted feet against the unsteady coach’s floor and cradled the reticule as tenderly as a newborn babe.

My mother’s hamper was a sturdy article, its contents swaddled in linen. She had provided herself with a nuncheon of cold brawn, cheese, and bread, and was determined to partake of it when we quitted the coach at Basingstoke. I doubt that any of our party had the stomach for brawn—which is invariably strong in both taste and smell—after swaying together for more than fifteen miles. Martha appeared faint and my sister, Cassandra, has never borne well with
publick conveyances since the overturning of our chaise a decade ago in Lyme. For my own part, a medicinal glass of mulled wine seemed in order: my feet were become as insensible as ice, for the interior of the carriage was almost as frigid as the air without.

The odour of pickled boar’s head wafted to my nostrils; Mamma had determined to inspect the hamper’s contents. She was inordinately fond of brawn; it was just such a dish as recalled the festivities of her girlhood, when meals were less elegant and more English. I reflected that the increase in the numbers of French among us—due to the horrors of the guillotine and Buonaparte—has done much to improve the British palate in recent years.

“Lord,” whispered Cassandra hurriedly, one gloved hand over her pinched nostrils. She was seated on my left, closer to the hamper than Martha or I.

“Never fear,” I murmured. “A quarter-mile at most shall end the agony.”

We wallowed through the rutted outskirts of Basingstoke, the stage lurching as though at sea. We ought to have been six within, but the coachman’s avarice had persuaded him to add two more to his complement, burly fellows of the prosperous yeoman class. These were snoring within moments of our departure. Their personal cleanliness did not appear remarkable. Martha huddled against my right shoulder, Cassandra my left; and in short, we were quite crushed from the moment of quitting Alton.

The coach windows were fogged with damp, and a light snow had begun to fall; but if I narrowed my eyes and peered over my sister’s shoulder I could just discern a pair of ostlers, poised at the entrance of the Angel’s coaching yard with a fresh change of horses.

Happy release!

With a harsh halloo and a blare of his horn, the coachman turned
into the yard and pulled up his strengthy beasts. The ostlers were at their heads in a moment. The coach door was pulled open, admitting a welcome blast of air, icy and tinged with the smell of horses. I drew a shuddering breath and waited for the burlier folk to quit their seats. Next to me, Martha heaved an unhappy sigh.

“I cannot bear the thought of continuing on alone to Bath,” she said. “Perhaps I ought to have accepted my sister’s invitation, and passed the Christmastide with all of you at Steventon.”

Martha’s sister, Mary, is my brother James’s wife. It was to spend Christmas among our friends and relations in Steventon that we had ascended the stage this morning. Martha, however, was fortunate in a pressing invitation to Bath—and must bear all the indignities of a publick conveyance until well past nightfall. We were to transfer to private accommodation here in Basingstoke for the final four miles of our journey. James had promised to send a man for us. I glanced at the lowering sky—the fall of flakes only increasing—and fervently hoped that my brother had elected a closed carriage over his usual donkey cart.

“Pray take the hamper, Jane,” said my mother briskly, holding out her hand for her reticule. “I am sure the good man at the Angel will overlook our nuncheon, provided we offer custom in another quarter. I shall order hot lemonade, to throw off the cold.”

At a few pence per draught, this should hardly supply the loss of a fine dinner in a private parlour—but Mr. Fitch, the Angel’s publican, was unlikely to expect much from us in any case. Four ladies of shabby-genteel appearance, ranging in age from thirty-nine to seventy-five and travelling upon the common stage, are unlikely to loosen their purse-strings. Even if the purse is netted of silk.

Martha was already supplied with a steaming mug of what I suspected to be mulled wine; as the coachman would stay only for
the change of horses, she could not spare a moment for the Angel’s interior. I gave her a swift hug and wished her joy of the Christmas season in Bath, which was likely to be far more festive than our own; considered briefly the madcap notion of abandoning the brawn in the stableyard and stowing away in the coach with my friend; then turned resolutely and trudged after my family.

Novelists, I reflected, are rather apt to pass in silence over the rigours of travel. Our heroines are generally accommodated in private carriages, complete with fur lap robes, enormous muffs, and hot bricks to their feet; they travel post, with private teams of horses at every stage; and invariably are pursued by a rogue so handsome and dangerous as to render them insensible for the better part of the journey. I should dearly wish to be insensible for the remainder of mine.

“Miss Austen, ma’am?”

I glanced up from the muddy ruts, already turning grey with snow. A man in nankeen breeches, heavy boots, and a worn sailor’s jacket: James’s man, no doubt.

“Jem Harley, ma’am,” he said. “Rector sent me to fetch you. I’ve stowed the cart in the stables so’s to keep the nag warm.”

The cart. My heart sank.

Four miles through open country at a snail’s pace. In snow.

Having been pretty well-acquainted with James for nearly forty years, I ought not to have hoped for much else.

The man was holding out his hand for the hamper.

“Pray partake of the contents,” I urged as I handed him the basket. “I am sure you will need fortifying for the journey ahead.”

D
USK COMES SWIFTLY IN
late December, particularly when the sun is obscured by a heavy layer of cloud. Now that the snow was falling in earnest, the roads out of Basingstoke were grown deserted
as more sensible people sought safety within doors. I am sure that our driver, Jem, could hardly see beyond the nose of his nag. He did not complain or mutter oaths, however; indeed, he uttered not a syllable, his shoulders hunched and his gaze fixed on the road.

The unfortunate horse moved at a walk. Given the weight of our baggage and ourselves, I was surprized that it moved at all. It was nearly four o’clock, and growing dark. More prosperous travellers would have lit their carriage lamps before departing the Angel. But we had none to light.

“Ought not we to turn back, Jane?” Cassandra asked in a lowered tone. “James and Mary expect us every moment—they shall be in considerable suspense—and James has already laid out good money for the services of this man—but surely our present attempt is out of all proportion to what is required?”

She was huddled beneath one edge of the lap robe, which was so narrow as to prevent its being tucked beneath her; we had decided without comment to place our mother as warmly and securely as possible between us. Both Mamma and Cass kept their heads bowed, as though at Divine Service, to prevent the snow from stinging their cheeks. Cassandra’s feathers—so proudly set to trim her Christmas bonnet a few days ago—were sodden and draggling by the tip of her nose.