Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (33 page)

“Bring her into the library,” William Chute ordered, “and lay her upon the sopha.”

Edward did as he was told. We all followed—even James the Archbishop, who might have been expected to urge privacy.

The Admiral looked up as we entered, and rose from his seat by the fire. He was an imposing figure of a man, despite his weathered countenance and thinning hair—a number of years younger than his wife, and more youthful in health and vigour. Where she had
retreated into age, he had defied it; and their worlds seemed similarly parted.

“Good evening, Chute,” he said courteously; but his eyes bore about them the signs of weeping. “Edward has told me of the tragedies you have witnessed here. I learnt of Gage’s death, of course, from your letter—but no word … no word—”

He put his face in his hands. After an instant, he recovered himself.

“I do not know the rest of your party.”

Chute made the introductions.

Eliza ministered to Lady Gambier with a vinaigrette.

“Her heart is not strong,” Edward said. “Aunt always looks the Tartar—but the least shock might carry her off.”

“It is a wonder your sister’s death did not do it,” Eliza murmured.

“But that was no shock to her ladyship,” I observed. “Was it, Edward?”

He stared at me, and rose from his position by the sopha. “What did you mean, when you said Aunt Louisa should have Mary’s death upon her soul?”

“I meant that your sister need not have died, had she not been burdened with your aunt and uncle’s secret,” I returned.

“Not another word!” Lady Gambier cried hoarsely from her supine position. “I forbid it.”

“And you, Admiral?” I enquired. “Would you have your family fester in continued doubt, now you have already lost your dearest girl?”

He shook his head. “Not for any price.”

“Why did you bring Mrs. Gage to The Vyne?”

“I discovered her in Portsmouth upon landing there two days ago from Ghent,” he said. “Gage’s death left her in desperate circumstances. There was nothing to keep her in Portsmouth any longer.
I intended to carry her and the child to Bath, where she might find employment—as a seamstress, or in service. That is all.”

“And how did she come to be married to John Gage?”

The Admiral studied me a moment. “I arranged the marriage for their mutual benefit. Mrs. Gage received the protection of the Lieutenant’s name, and the Royal Navy—and Gage … earned my gratitude.”

“And the promise of eventual advancement, I presume?”

“He should have had his next step this year.”

“That plum must have palled in his mouth, however,” I suggested, “once he met your niece in Brighton last summer.”

“Fool,” Louisa Gambier muttered from her sopha. “He should not be talking so. He should not have thrown that sailor in her way.”

“John Gage fell in love with Mary Gambier,” I said carefully, “at the very moment he might have earned the step that should enable him to marry her—only he was married already, to a woman he did not love! Tell me, Admiral—who is Jem’s father?”

There was a brief silence. “I am,” he said.

A little sigh ran through the room.

“Good God, sir!” Edward Gambier cried. “Dismal Jimmy, of all people in the world, to have got a by-blow! It might almost be cause for laughter—were it not gross hypocrisy!”

“You cannot say anything to me that I have not said to myself,” the Admiral retorted. “A period of madness—of heedless judgement in a distant port … and then I, who never had a son, am suddenly the father of a natural one—and dare not acknowledge him!”

“The joke of Providence,” Edward observed bitterly.

“Or of Benedict L’Anglois’s charade,” I suggested. “He was excessively sly, Christmas night, in circulating his riddle—which the Gambier ladies could not fail to notice.”

Edward held up his hand. “Of what concern is our family scandal to such a man? What can a child of two or three have to do with Gage’s murder? Much less Mary’s?” He wheeled upon me. “Do you merely satisfy your desire to know our family secrets, Miss Austen—or is there a purpose to your interrogation?”

I might have answered, but Raphael West spoke for me.

“It is not only Miss Jane who is concerned with Justice,” he said. “I am a guest at The Vyne in part to paint its owner—but also on behalf of the Crown. Mr. Chute, you see, has been harbouring a French spy. It was to seize him that I came into Hampshire.”

Eliza let out a little cry. “William! Whom have we been harbouring?”

“Poor old Ben. He’s a wrong ’un, I’m afraid.”

“Mr. Langles!” Eliza moaned. “But he was always so polite. So very distinguished, seemingly.”

“What Frenchman is not, my dear?” Mamma offered kindly.

“Explain yourself, West,” Edward Gambier said impatiently. “You believe Langles killed Gage?”

“I am almost certain of it. Tho’ the gentleman having fled, he cannot defend himself. I believe he exited The Vyne through an ancient bolt-hole that begins near the Chapel, and ends at the ice house, not a dozen yards from where Gage was found. He used the tunnel to set up his snare the night of Gage’s arrival, and again on the morning of his death—to break Gage’s neck and steal the Ghent Treaty.”

“But why kill Mary?” Edward asked in perplexity. “I thought the fellow had a
tendre
for her.”

Raphael West looked at me. “Miss Jane?” he said.

“I overheard Miss Gambier arguing with a man I suspect was Mr. L’Anglois in the passage outside our bedchamber doors, in the early hours of the morning of Lieutenant Gage’s death,” I supplied. “He
demanded something of her; she refused. He parted from her with a threat. You know what ensued.”

The Admiral spoke. “But why do my darling violence, if he wanted something from her?”

I lifted my brows. “Because she was adamant in refusing L’Anglois. She chose to betray your secret, my lord, rather than prove the ruin of John Gage and his career.”

“What do you mean?”

“Please understand: She tried to shield you for long and long. John Gage told your niece last summer, I suspect, that you had persuaded him to give his name to your child. He probably did so to explain why he could not marry your niece. Perhaps he intended, recklessly, to sue for divorce. He might have exposed your sins in the process. Mary negatived that plan. She would not win John Gage at the expence of your reputation, Admiral. You are everywhere respected as a Christian gentleman, I am told.”

Lady Gambier let out a cackle of bitter laughter.

“But how did L’Anglois know what John Gage had told her?” the Admiral demanded.

“He knew,” I replied, “because you married John Gage to Aimée L’Anglois—Benedict L’Anglois’s sister.”

“The Devil you did!” Edward Gambier cried. “Lord, Uncle, you did make a mull of it!”

“How could I know the girl’s brother was a spy?” the Admiral spluttered indignantly.

“The wages of sin,” Lady Gambier said distantly, “are Death.”

This silenced the little murmur of interest that had run round the room.

“His sister, Miss Jane?” Raphael West asked. “Are you certain?”

I nodded. “We might ask her directly now—it is of no consequence.
His wife must have believed Benedict L’Anglois dead, to marry another; but his sister was in communication with Mr. L’Anglois, and he with her. She shall probably admit to the correspondence frankly; it is possible she does not share his treason.”

“Mary,” Edward Gambier said with dogged despair. “I still do not understand why she had to die.”

“It is painful to contemplate, is it not?” I said softly. “A young woman of principle and affection, torn between rival loyalties. Mr. L’Anglois wished her to obtain the Treaty from John Gage—so that he might have his intelligence without violence. He blackmailed Mary with the Admiral’s illegitimate child. He expected her to fear publication of the family scandal, and steal the Treaty in exchange for silence. But Mary loved John Gage—and she would not violate his trust. She expected a publick shaming upon her return to Bath—the revelation of Admiral Gambier’s
amours
. She could not have known, however, that her refusal to take the document Lieutenant Gage carried, sealed his death.”

“Poor woman,” Raphael West mourned. “How she must have felt it, when his body was carried into the Chapel that day!”

“And how she spent the ensuing hours on her knees,” I added, “in an effort to wring forgiveness from Gage and God.”

“So you think L’Anglois gave her laudanum,” Edward Gambier said, “because she knew he had murdered Gage and stolen the Treaty? Why in Heaven did she not accuse him, and save herself?”

“She might have done so at the inquest,” I suggested. “But first she had to wrestle with her conscience on her knees. To accuse Benedict L’Anglois, she must admit the blackmail—and her family’s scandal—to a Coroner and his jury empanelled at the Angel. I believe she had decided to do so. She may even have communicated her decision.”

“And so she died.”

I walked slowly over to Lady Gambier as she lay upon her couch. “You could not bear to have the truth known, could you, Lady Gambier? In all candour, now—you would rather have Mary die, than have the world know your shame.”

She stared at me from her pallid face, her eyes two glittering stones. “I never gave him children,” she said. “Never. Tho’ I tried. So he went and got them himself. Do you have any notion of the humiliation? The agony of that? To be denied as a mother—and see another woman fill your place?”

“You emptied your laudanum bottle into Mary’s coffee, that final night,” I said relentlessly, “and when, in her stupor, she had gone down once more to lie by John Gage’s bier in the Chapel—you let her lie. You left the empty bottle by her outstretched hand.”

Admiral Gambier gave a choking cry, and fell from his chair onto his knees, his head bowed. Edward went to him.

“What life had she, in any case?” her ladyship said indifferently. “The man she loved was dead. She was determined to drag our name through the muck. No one should have offered for her then.”

“However empty a spinster’s days may be,” I said harshly, “she has the right to live them.”

“Not at my expence,” Lady Gambier retorted. She raised herself on her couch and turned to the Admiral and her nephew. “Look at them. Crying for love. Do they not realise what a cheat it is? There, Miss Austen. A bit of candour for you.”

She pulled herself to her feet and walked to the door.

“Lady Gambier!” William Chute said sternly. What did he intend? To charge her with murder?

But she did not even bother to pause in her stride.

“You’ll never prove it,” she said contemptuously. “Tho’ you try the rest of your life long. There is no proof.”

My brother Frank rode north this morning to convey the latest and gravest news from Portsmouth, having just received it of the Signals men over the Admiralty line.
¹²

“You will have seen from the London papers that Napoleon escaped his prison at Elba on the twenty-sixth,” he said as he threw himself into a chair in our front parlour, “but it is in my power to tell you that he reached Paris yesterday. Other than Provence, which is Royalist, he met no opposition on his journey north. Everywhere the veterans of the Grande Armée have flocked to his sword. I am come to take my leave—for it is certain we shall be at war. I am in momentary expectation of my orders.”

I am sure my poor mother’s heart sank at this; she rejoiced in the cessation of hostilities only nine months ago, and hoped that Frank might be afforded an interval to know his children better. I felt the
descent once more of a familiar anxiety—I am never easy when my brothers are exposed to the cannon of the Enemy—but I recognised the gleam of excitement in Frank’s eyes, and congratulated him. He has never got over missing the Trafalgar action by one unlucky day; I hope this new chance of battle brings him glory.

But as I mounted the stairs to my small bedchamber tonight and took out this journal, I found myself thinking of another set of men: those I had met at The Vyne during Christmas. Benedict L’Anglois—he had never been captured at the Channel ports in his flight two months ago. By the end of February his scheme was complete: Napoleon had broken free of his captors, while the better part of the English army was as yet in America. The Treaty of Ghent, having been lost and delayed in its delivery to Parliament, had only been ratified a fortnight since. No word of peace had yet crossed the Atlantic—where Wellington’s crack troops remained. It had been cleverly done. Buonaparte had watched the Congress of Vienna, where the cutting up of his great empire had angered the French; he had awaited his moment—and returned in triumph while no deadly force loomed on the frontiers to stop him.

How had Raphael West greeted this news? Was he even now bound for Paris, on some errand of the Secret Funds? Or was he in disgrace, for having failed in his errand of capturing the French spy?

I have had no real word from him since we parted at The Vyne on the Feast of the Epiphany. A few days after my return from Steventon to Chawton, my brother James forwarded a sheet of paper under cover of a letter of thanks to me, for having effected such an improvement in Caroline’s temper and spirits. It was the drawing Raphael West had made of me, crouching in the snow. James enclosed it without comment, and no word from West was scrawled on the picture—only his signature.

I have not shewn it to Cassandra.

Here in Chawton we have whiled away February with reading Mrs. Hawkins’s novel,
Rosanne
. It is a collection of sober things and exceedingly silly things, particularly on the subject of Love; she goes on rather better when she takes up Religion. The Authoress herself proclaims at the outset that her purpose is “to point out … the inestimable advantages attendant on the practise of pure Christianity.” That sentiment cannot help to recall Admiral Lord Gambier—who lost so much through his impure practise. The sacrifice of his niece to his wife’s mania for reputation has gone unpunished; as that lady wisely noted, no proof could be found of her guilt. The nephew and husband have abandoned her to chilly solitude in Bath—and have taken lodgings together in Town. Amy Gage and her son, tho’ provided for (and not in Bath), remain unacknowledged by the Admiral in all but spiritual ways. Edward Gambier’s expectations as heir seem secure.