Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (34 page)

The speech became him, in the force of conviction he threw behind it; but I was all amazement, and would know how it had occurred.

“I can only place the blame on myself,” he said, “in that I was ill-suited for the thwarting of my objectives and hopes. I had looked to my uncle for direction, and felt that in my father's absence, the Earl might be prevailed upon to make my fortune; that from him, if not from relations of my own name, I could hope for guidance in some profession. But he would have me manage the workings of his farm—a project for which, Miss Austen, I had little inclination and even less talent. In attempting to oversee the plantings, the harvests, and the tending of the beasts under Scargrave's care, however, I came much in contact with the Barlows; and with Rosie, who lived under their roof at that time in her life, having left the woman who oversaw her rearing some six years past.

“I did not intend to ruin her; I sought merely to find some comfort for the anger and bitterness in which I lived; some recompense, it may be, for all I felt I had been forced to sacrifice; and if my indulgence came at her expense, it was no more than the manner in which my uncle had seen fit to treat me. So I told myself; and so I reasoned, the better to act without remorse, in a sort of blind striking out for vengeance. But that Rosie could be the only person hurt by my conduct—that it should affect my uncle not at all—I saw too late.

“When I learned of her condition, I offered her my hand in marriage, though I knew that little good could come of such a union.”

“Rosie would not accept you?” I asked gently.

“My uncle could not accept her,” he rejoined, with an expression of grimness, “much to Jenny Barlow's horror and the anger of her husband, Ted. Though they knew me to be so far removed from their sister's station, they had still hoped for the preservation of her respectability, if not the elevation of her place in life. My name only they wished to have, that the child might be known as its father's; for Rosie to live quietly at some remove, supported and free of the world's censure, was their only aim. That I might have sacrificed my hopes to their necessity seemed only to be justice; and so I was prepared to do, but for my uncle.”

“You spoke to him of this,” I said, understanding coming full upon me, “on the night of his death.”

“I did,” George Hearst replied, with some astonishment at my perspicacity, “though I thought none could know of it. My uncle was utterly unaware of Rosie's ruin—I had placed her with Mrs. Hammond through my cousin Fitzroy's good offices, the better to keep the Earl in the dark—and when the fact of her condition was made plain, along with my intention to remedy it through the sacrifice of my prospects, my uncle was thrown into a cold rage. The disgrace— the violation of a sacred trust, in the seduction of a Scargrave dependent—and the impropriety, in one who aspired, as I did, to the Church—all were cause for dismay on the Earl's part. He very nearly sent me from the Manor entirely; but it ended instead with his forbidding me to have anything further to do with the girl.”

“And with his decision to alter his will,” I surmised, “by retracting that promise he had so recently made you, of receiving a living upon his death. How fortunate for you, Mr. Hearst, that he should be taken from this life before he had time to call his solicitors!”

A quick glance from the cleric's hollow eyes, a look eloquent in its anguish. “The denial of the living was as nothing, Miss Austen, when weighed against the denial of Rosie. Only consider that her young life should be blighted in consequence of my sin; that her future should be sacrificed upon the altar of my uncle's pride! I could not bear it. I had determined, when I left him in the library, to go to Rosie at once, and marry her. Scargrave be damned!”

Except that you were saved the trouble
, I thought,
your uncle's death having, like Fate, intervened.
The Earl's sudden passage had allowed George Hearst to achieve his dearest aims—the preservation of his beloved's honour, and the awarding of his dearest wish, a clergyman's living. But I kept such thoughts to myself.

“And now tell me, Miss Austen,” the gentleman said, “how came you to know all of this? Or did you merely hazard some well-researched guesses?”

I had the grace to blush. “I overheard your conversation in the library that evening—some few words.”

George Hearst looked his surprise. “I was not aware of it. I confess that I was distraught, and left the library in great perturbation of mind.”

“And now that the Earl is dead,” I said, “what is to become of Rosie?”

“When I journeyed to London Christmas Eve, it was with the intent of marrying her; and so I have done,” the curate told me. “Rosie is to remain with her grandmother^ and the babe to be reared here for some years. Afterwards, it shall be sent away to school, in an anonymous fashion, to receive the education of a gentleman's child.”

“Rosie is indeed fortunate,” I told him. “She is yet young, and might, with proper care and education, make you a suitable wife, Mr. Hearst. In a living far from Scargrave, where her antecedents are not known, you might yet attain tolerable happiness.”

“I have not learned to look that far beyond the present moment,” he said thoughtfully. “Much remains to be resolved.”

It was then I remembered—if Fitzroy Payne hanged, George Hearst should become the Earl. What a burden this wife should then be felt! For he should be barred from seeking a suitable partner to his new estate, of fortune and standing in the peerage, and must acknowledge Rosie's babe as his heir. I understood, now, his inveterate melancholy; George Hearst's was a fate that seemed ever destined to turn awry.

I
RETURNED TO PORTMAN SQUARE IN SOME PERPLEXITY OF
thought. I had learned much in recent days of the private lives of Fanny Delahoussaye and George Hearst—had ever a great family been so determined in bastardy?—but nothing that proved useful, on the face of it, to Isobel's cause. The trial was to take place on the ninth of January, making it less than six days that remained to us. More than my circumspect probing was required, if the Countess's innocence was to be shown; and I felt impatience, of a sudden, for the return of Mr. Cranley from Pall Mall, and such assistance as the valet Danson could offer.

˜

IT WAS NOT MR. CRANLEY
I
WAS TO SEE IN THE SCARGRAVE
House drawing-room the following morning, however, but my dear Eliza—and with her, brother Henry, only recently become a banker after a turn with the Oxfordshire militia.

“Jane, Jane!” he cried, embracing me heartily; “I understand you have run away from brother James and his scolding wife these several weeks, and got yourself into worse scandal than before! A broken engagement, and now a murder trial? What
shall
people say? That Miss Jane Austen is become an Adventuress, and is not to be seen in polite society?”

“Nonsense, Henry,” Eliza said briskly; “Jane but seizes her chance for amusement when it is offered, as ever you would do; there is very little to choose between you, but your sex and the freedom it apportions to one and not the other. Were you not both possessed of lively spirits and unconventional tastes, I should have spurned the Austens entirely, and be still resident in France, toying tenderly with one of Buonaparte's generals.”

“Indeed, I shall not berate you,” Henry said, with a glance for his lively wife from those large grey eyes, so like my own; “I have ever trusted Jane to find her way out of scrapes as readily as she finds her way
in.
But the price of my approval is a full disclosure, my dear,” he told me, taking my arm, “for I intend to dine out on the strength of your particulars for a fortnight at least. All London is agog with the Scargrave story, and information is as gold.”

And so I told my brother of the murders, and the fate of the Countess and the present Earl—all that Eliza had heard on the way to Wilborough House—and something of Mr. Cranley besides. Of George Hearst and Rosie, or Fanny Delahoussaye's secret, I said nothing. Until such time as disclosure were necessary, I saw no kindness in publicity.

“But, Henry,” I concluded, “there is much that you might do to aid the Countess, did you have the inclination.”

“Unless you wish me to scale the walls of Newgate with my old militia companions, and spirit her out of the country, I fail to see in what manner I might be of service.”

“You are a
banker
, Henry.” I looked Eliza's way, and was treated to a rolling of the eyes at her husband's stupidity. “You must be acquainted with certain gentlemen of finance—those entrusted with the concerns of each in this household. I am confident that Sir William Reynolds intends to call Fitzroy Payne's banker to the Bar, in order to show that the new Earl is desperately in need of funds. But others intimate with Scargrave might be equally pressed.”

“Almost certainly,” my brother said thoughtfully. “Do you but give me their names, Jane, and I shall make discreet enquiries about the Club.” He rose, still in thought, and went in search of his greatcoat.

“And now, my dear,” Eliza said, when the drawing-room door had closed behind my brother, “Henry is off to business, and you and I are at leisure. What scheme have you devised for our amusement today?” Her long-sleeved velvet dress, of a rich red hue and trimmed in matching bugle beads, was equally suited to a visit to Wilborough House or a turn through Hyde Park in an open carriage, where she might nod to all her acquaintance. I surveyed her gown, and longed to seize the opportunity of my time in London to stroll with my sister Eliza among the shops; but I reminded myself that Isobel was all too deprived of similar delights, and that I must be about the business of her salvation.

“Eliza,” I replied, “I should be very much surprised if you were not acquainted with
someone
attached to the Royal Horse Guards.”

“The Blues? But of course.” She fluttered a hand endowed, this morning, with a shockingly great ruby. “Colonel Buchanan is terribly fond of me, you know—and thought he should have had me, did he not already possess a wife.”

“We must renew your acquaintance,” I told her; smiling.

Eliza returned my good humour, so much at my brother's expense. “It needs no renewing, I assure you,” she confided. “I spoke with the Colonel only last week, at Mrs. Fitzhugh's.”

“Then you must call upon him today,” I declared, “and carry me with you. He has a person in his regiment of whom I should dearly love to know more.”

“LIEUTENANT THOMAS HEARST?- COLONEL BUCHANAN
said, turning with the sherry decanter in one hand and my glass in the other; “what possible interest, my dear Comtesse de Feuillide, could you have in such a scapegrace?”

We were established in the cosy sitting-room of the Horse Guards’ commander, in the shadow of Buckingham Palace, and surrounded on every side by leather-bound books, sabres in sheaths upon the wall, and some very good oils of horseflesh the Colonel had ridden in battle. He had swiftly set aside some matters pertaining to his men, in order to receive us without delay; and so my faith in Eliza was as ever rewarded.

The cavalryman offered me a glass with a short nod, and turned to fetch Eliza's. Colonel Buchanan was, as his name suggests, a Scot. With his bandy legs and greying red hair, he reminded me for all the world of the old cock at Steventon, who ran crowing about the farmyard with such importance that Cook soon lost patience and put him in the soup kettle. But I feared I should be overcome with mirth, did I pursue the comparison; and so drank my sherry with head demurely bent.

“I have heard such conflicting tales about the Lieutenant,” Eliza said, sipping at her glass, her eyes sparkling, “and of late he has been much talked of in connexion with a friend of my dear Miss Austen's. Discretion forbids me from saying more. But when Jane told me of her fears for her friend, I thought immediately of you!” She fluttered her eyelashes in Colonel Buchanan's direction. “For no one should be more forthright—no one be less likely to stand on ceremony in such a delicate matter—than my dear Colonel Buchanan.”

The Colonel was not too much of a soldier to dislike a little flattery. He grunted and threw himself into a chair, his booted legs extended before him and one hand thrust into his uniform jacket. With a glance for Eliza, he tossed back the contents of his sherry glass and set it on the table with a decided ring.

“So Tom Hearst has learned to prey upon young ladies of society, has he?” the cavalryman said. “That is no more than I should expect of him.”

“My dear Colonel—my dear
William
”—this, with a laying of Eliza's dark lashes against her creamy cheek—”if you
knew
of anything that should counsel against a marriage—if such a union should in your eyes be imprudent—I know you would not hesitate to trust Miss Austen with your full confidence.”

The Colonel met my eyes and hesitated, wondering, I surmised, whether I was myself the lady whose heart Tom Hearst had entangled. Had I been, I should certainly have quailed; for Buchanan's disapproval was written in his hard blue eyes, and his hand rested lightly, out of habit, along the sheathed length of his sabre. A man not to be trifled with—as Eliza was certainly trifling now, did he but know it. I shuddered to consider the duplicity we had employed, here and at Wilborough House, these several days past; but remembered my Isobel, and the judicial proceedings to take place in but four days, and stifled my scruples.