Jane and the Wandering Eye (20 page)

“Gentlemen are wont to speak of
honour
when they are bound by oaths or pledges, are they not?” I hastily submitted.

“They are,” Lord Swithin replied, “and are ready, more often than not, to defend such pledges with their lives. So I take Lord Kinsfell’s determination in the present case. I very much fear that he will go silently to the gallows, rather than betray his sacred trust.”

“Oh, Lord!” Lady Desdemona breathed, and pressed a hand to her brow. “Where, oh, where, is my uncle?”

“You have but to enquire, my dear, and he appears.” Lord Harold spoke from the drawing-room doorway. To my most active surprise and interest, Mr. Wilberforce Elliot stood at his back. “Miss Austen—a pleasure. Lord Swithin—an honour I had hardly expected. You are not, I think, acquainted with Mr. Wilberforce Elliot, a magistrate of Bath.”

Introductions were made, and then Lord Harold continued, “You have disdained the wares of the hot-house this morning, Swithin. But perhaps your restraint is intended to pay tribute to my niece’s unassuming simplicity. She is not the sort to take pleasure in gaudy display. You are quite right, I think, to bestow your flowers elsewhere. Others may be less nice in their tastes than Mona.”

“—Except, one supposes, when she is sitting to her portraitist,” Lord Swithin replied.

Lord Harold’s eyebrow shot upwards. “Really, my lord, is that intended as an insult, or a rebuke? Were the lady affianced to you—or even, forgive me, did she regard you with favour—this little display of temper should be accorded as your right. But in the present circumstances it is entirely untoward.”

“Then you may name your day, my lord, and I shall name my second with pleasure.”
⁵

Lord Harold smiled condescendingly. “You are remarkably quick to offer a challenge, Swithin—but perhaps you expect me to jump at the chance to show my mettle, like poor Colonel Easton. In this, I fancy, you suffer from a misapprehension. I would never make sport of a fellow young enough to be my son—particularly when I have been as intimate with his mother as I have been with yours.”

The Earl paled, and stepped back a pace. “I would beg you to remember where you are, my lord. Your niece—”

“Oh,
will
you both have done,” Lady Desdemona cried in exasperation. “What have I to do with matters in any case? You circle each other like two schoolboys on the green, while Kinny sits festering in gaol!”

“And he is unlikely ever to emerge, Mona, if your uncle will have the handling of his affairs,” the Earl retorted contemptuously, and reached for his hat and gloves. “I have no wish to remain where I am served with such incivility. Good day to you, Lord Harold. Your servant, Miss Austen. I trust I will not find you in the Lower Rooms this evening, Lady Desdemona?”

“Whyever not?”

“Would you dance, then, while Lord Kinsfell is deprived of liberty?”

“I am sure I cannot hope to assist him by remaining quietly at home! In such a pass, it behooves the Wilborough family to comport itself with style! Besides—poor Easton is most pressing in his desire to dance.”

Lord Harold smiled, the Earl snorted—and quitted the room without another word.

“Capital!” Lord Harold cried, and gestured the magistrate towards a chair. “We have rid ourselves of a dangerous distraction. Mona, darling, would you be so good as to fetch your grandmother—I require her presence immediately.”

“Uncle,” she said, hastening to his side, “the inquest—! It is in every way horrible!”

“Yes, my dear; but I hope all is not lost. You will observe I have brought the magistrate in my train. His interest has been exceedingly piqued by the notion of an open carriage halted some moments beneath the anteroom window; and though the proofs of a murderer jumping to safety in its depths are impossible to gather, Mr. Elliot is nonetheless willing to reconsider the case.”

“Your servant, my lady,” Mr. Elliot said with an affable smile; and then retrieving a handkerchief from his breast pocket, he blew his nose most energetically.

Lady Desdemona went in search of the Dowager Duchess; and roused from her letter-writing, Eugenie proceeded slowly to the drawing-room with Miss Wren for support. Not five minutes had elapsed, before an expectant circle gazed silently at Lord Harold.

“You remember Her Grace, I am sure, Mr. Elliot,” the gentleman said, “but I do not think you are acquainted with Miss Austen or Miss Wren.”

The magistrate peered at me narrowly, and nodded once. “The Shepherdess,” he said.

“Miss Austen is a particular friend of my niece’s. Miss Wren is so kind as to serve as Her Grace’s companion.”

“Indeed, it is an
honour
, not a kindness, Lord Harold,” Miss Wren simpered. “When I consider the extent of Her Grace’s affability—”

“Now, then.” Lord Harold clapped his hands together
with energetic purpose. “I would propose the amusement of a novel parlour game—an amateur theatrical, if you will. Let us set about the staging of Mr. Portal’s murder.”

“I cannot think that even
one
performance of a similar tragedy is necessary for our amusement, Harry,” the Dowager protested sternly. “How should I seek another?”

“For the purposes of science, dear ma’am. Mr. Elliot has allowed the seed of doubt to enter his formidable soul, and we must do everything in our power to ensure the seed will grow. Miss Austen!”

“My lord.”

“Please to adopt the attitude of Hugh Conyngham before the drawing-room fire. Desdemona! You shall play at Miss Conyngham. Her Grace shall be, as ever, Her Grace. I shall be Portal. Mr. Elliot will merely observe, I beg, and draw what conclusions he may. And you, Wren—
you
shall be poor Simon.”

“I shall do no such thing!” she countered hotly. “A more decided want of taste I have never observed. And the Marquis deprived of all freedom, while we sport with his circumstances!”

“Do as Lord Harold bids you, Wren,” the Dowager commanded. She grasped her cane firmly with her left hand, and Lord Harold with her right. “You should endeavour to stumble, Harry, when I lead you to the anteroom.”

“Stay, Mamma—I must speak a word to Mona.” Lord Harold drew the lady aside, and whispered a few phrases; at which she nodded, and grew pink with excitement. “Very well, Your Grace—lead me to my doom.”

The Dowager conducted her son unsteadily to the little salon done up in Prussian blue—and left him reclining in apparent stupor upon the settee.

Delighting in my role, I advanced to the head of the room, adopted a pose by the fireplace, and set about declaiming from
Macbeth
, with many an inadvertent stumble and fault.

Lady Desdemona made her way to the anteroom door, and effected an entry; Lord Harold emitted a ponderous groan; and before I had accomplished even half the length of Hugh Conyngham’s speech, the lady stood before me once more, to all appearances enraptured by my art. She had achieved the drawing-room by the panelled door’s passage.

At that moment, urged by the Dowager, Miss Wren advanced upon the anteroom; and in all the horror of exclamation and dismay, fell upon the dying Lord Harold as he lay stricken on the blue and gold carpet.

“It is done,” he said briskly, springing to his feet and adjusting the set of his coat, “and with admirable efficiency. I do not think we need enquire whether a lady pressed for time, with agitation to give her wings, could not have managed it better.”

“And the crowd of guests must disguise even Maria Conyngham, despite her costume of red,” I mused. “For I confess that on the night in question, I did not observe Lord Kinsfell’s approach to the anteroom door.”

“Nor did I,” Lady Desdemona supplied. “I was unaware of it until a hue and cry broke out, and I turned to observe Kinny standing over Portal’s body. Any number of guests might have passed from room to room without the majority remarking upon it. But why would you have it be Miss Conyngham, Uncle? Was not she in love with Mr. Portal? She can hardly have served him with violence!”

“Only Miss Conyngham may know the truth of
that
conjecture,” he replied, his hooded eyes inscrutable. “But I would suggest, Mona, that her precipitate appearance
at Mr. Portal’s feet, before the regard of all the assembly—her wanton weeping, and her costume of red—may have been intended to fix in observers’ minds, the fact of her presence in the drawing-room itself. Miss Conyngham forced her person upon our attention only
after
Portal’s body was discovered—and at such a moment, the scene she played must be intriguing.”

“That’s all very well, my lord,” Mr. Elliot interjected benignly, “but you cannot prove the lady guilty without you extract a confession. And the use of the passage does nothing to advance your scheme regarding the open carriage.”

“True, my good man—but I could not be happy with the descent from the window, until I had tried the passage and found it wanting. I have not found it so. There was time enough and to spare, for the effecting of the deed; and for a lady accustomed to moving about on a darkened stage, the exit along a poorly-lit back hall should be as nothing. She might accomplish it at twice Desdemona’s speed.”

“You cannot prove it, my lord,” Mr. Elliot said again, and scratched determinedly at his club of black hair. “And consider of the risk! For Miss Conyngham could not presume her movements should be disregarded; any one of the guests might have turned in the midst of her brother’s speech, and observed her to enter the anteroom.”

“But you forget, my dear Elliot. Nor could she have anticipated Lord Kinsfell’s passage through the room. Miss Conyngham expected the deed to remain obscure some hours, with Mr. Portal discovered when the rout should have been accomplished and the last of the guests departed.”

“I remain unpersuaded, my lord,” the magistrate said with a smile, “and though I’ve no formal training in the barrister’s art, I cannot believe you’ll find a jury as will
agree with you. Do you hold to your open window, and the carriage below, if you will have it the Marquis ain’t guilty—but leave Miss Conyngham in peace, I beg!”

“Would you care to adventure the passage, Miss Austen?” Lord Harold said, ignoring Mr. Elliot’s gibes. He took up a candle and pushed open the door.

We paced the length of the passage connecting anteroom to back hall, and observed the choice of direction—to the left, the servants’ quarters and stairs to the kitchen; to the right, the drawing-room’s far door. Then we returned the way we had come, our eyes intent upon the passage’s floor. Nothing to be seen; not even dust.

“You had hoped for a scrap of fabric, perhaps?” I enquired.

“Preferably in scarlet.”

Lord Harold swung the panelled door closed—and there in the space between door and passage wall, winking in the dim light of the taper, was a small figure in gold.

Lord Harold whistled softly beneath his breath, knelt to retrieve it—and the taper went out, with a parting scorch to his fingers. He muttered an oath and pulled open the door once more, freeing us both from the oppressive dark.

“I must beg your indulgence, Mamma,” he said indolently. “Does this brooch form a part of the Wilborough stones?”

The Dowager turned the pin over in her palm, a slight frown between her eyes. “It does not, my dear Harry. I have never seen it before.”

“Mona?”

She looked at the brooch—paled—and sat down abruptly on the anteroom settee. “Good Lord, Uncle, what does this mean?”

“Perhaps we should enquire of your friend,” Lord
Harold replied; but the gravity of his looks betrayed his careless tone.

For what he held in his hand was a snarling gold tiger, its eyes formed of rubies—the device of the Earl of Swithin.

Chapter 9
Into the Labyrinth