Jane and His Lordship's Legacy (5 page)

Chapter 6

Coincidence, or Pattern?

5 July 1809, cont.
~

I
T IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE MY ASTONISHMENT AT THIS
sudden apparition of my brother, in a place that—although not wholly alien to him—was nonetheless the very last in which I expected to find him. I had understood our Henry to be fixed with his wife, the aforementioned Eliza de Feuillide, at Godmersham with all our Kentish party; and failing Kent, I should have expected to learn that he and Eliza were returned to London, where they intended a removal to a new home in Sloane Street. Henry’s banking concerns had fared so well of late, and his affluence was so obvious, that the affairs of the Alton branch of Austen, Gray & Vincent might suitably have been left in the hands of his partners for the duration of the summer months; and yet, here was Henry: large as life and impatient for his breakfast.

As I rose from the henhouse floor, he sauntered towards the chest. “Good Lord! Is this the Rogue’s Treasure?”

“What do you know of it?” I demanded indignantly.

“Half of Alton is talking about this article, my dear; besides, Mamma told me the whole the moment I walked in the door.”

“She is already awake?” I peered out at the sun. “I had no notion the morning was so advanced.”

“The cask is undoubtedly from the Subcontinent, and must have been carved a hundred years ago at a pasha’s orders,” Henry murmured, ignoring me entirely. “Observe the figures cut into the teak!”

“They are most indecent,” I said primly, “and I beg you will not draw them to Mamma’s notice.”

“I suppose his lordship must once have visited Bengal.”

“I believe, Henry, that he lived there some years—and was in a position of some trust to your wife’s benefactor, Mr. Hastings.”

“Lord Harold knew old Warren?” Henry’s startled expression was comical, as tho’ Mr. Hastings was the preserve of the Austens alone, instead of a man who had encountered half the world and commanded the rest. “I shall have to tax him with the acquaintance when next we meet. He is getting on in years, Jane—must be five-and-seventy if he is a day—but he would remember such a figure as the Rogue. Should you like me to lock this in the Alton bank?”

“Certainly not! The chest shall ascend to my bedroom, if you please. You may carry it there immediately, like the good brother you are.”

“Be so good as to hold my coat.” He drew off the elegant article and bent to lift the chest.

“Heavy enough to be filled with gold,” he gasped. “Is that what he left you?”

“No questions, Henry.”

“Very well. But you might reward me for my labour.”

“Only when you explain your presence in Hampshire!”

“I left Eliza with young Fanny,” he managed as I led him, staggering with the chest’s weight, into the cottage, “and set out with Neddie and Cass from Kent two days ago. Neddie’s chaise broke an axle not far from Brompton, and he has put up at the Bell until the equipage is repaired. I rode on with the intention of making your minds easy. I reached the George late last night—and learned you were already established in Chawton.”

“My sister was not hurt, I hope, by the accident to the chaise?”

Cassandra had suffered greatly during an unfortunate overturning we experienced near Lyme, some years before, and I did not like to think of her cast down with the head-ache in a strange inn.

“Not a whit—so do not be exciting Mamma with your talk of injury,” Henry admonished me. “This seems a comfortable little place,” he added doubtfully, as he set down the chest on the kitchen floor and peered through the doorway to the sparsely-furnished rooms. “Could do with a bit of paint. Something bright and cheerful, in the yellow line.”

“Thank you,” I returned with heavy sarcasm. “Perhaps you could find us a painter among your Alton acquaintance? And a manservant? Or possibly a cook?”

“I cannot spare above a few days in the neighbourhood, Jane,” he assured me hastily. “I suggest you consult Mr. Prowting. He dearly loves to dispose of other people’s lives. Have you any coffee?”

“You shall have to be content with tea.” I glanced at the kettle; my supply of water had entirely boiled away while I sat in the henhouse. “The well is in the yard. After you have seen Lord Harold’s legacy safely beneath my bed, you may employ your talents with bucket and pump while I repair upstairs to dress.”

“I
T IS THE ODDEST THING,
”
H
ENRY OBSERVED AN HOUR LATER
as we walked out into the Street—as the London to Gosport road is termed where it winds through Chawton village. We were gone on the errand of discovering the local bread baker—my mother had sorely missed her customary toast. “
You
enter the cottage for the first time, only to discover a dead man; while I am greeted at my Alton branch with news of a mysterious burglary. I must consider my decision to descend into Hampshire this week as a matter of Providence.”

“Burglary,” I repeated in a lowered tone, and glanced about me at the sparse population of local folk: two children and their mother, a market basket over her arm, who drove a flock of geese before them in the direction of Alton; and a labourer engaged in shifting a quantity of grain from his dray into his cottage yard. None of these persons so much as offered us a
good morning,
or pulled a forelock; the children, at least, stared openly at the strange lady who had found a corpse in her cellar.

“I was met with the tale upon my arrival at the George,” Henry continued. “The publican—Burbridge? Berlin?”

“Barlow,” I supplied.

“—thought that I had been summoned to the place.
‘Ah, Mr. Austen,’
he said, with obvious relief.
‘You’ve come, then, about the bank.’ ”

“What about the bank?” I demanded, frowning.

“Naturally I enquired. It seems that poor Gray”—by this he meant Mr. Edward-William Gray, his partner in Alton—“had been suffering every kind of anxiety that morning. The windows of Number Ten High Street were forced, if you will credit it—glass lying about the carpet, chairs overturned, and all our papers in a considerable disorder. Gray had spent much of yesterday attempting to determine what, if anything, had been stolen.”

“And?”

“He cannot make head or tail of the business. Neither our post bills nor our banknotes were touched.”
¹

My brother Henry has made a considerable fortune in recent years as a payroll agent for several valuable regiments around the country, including some in Hampshire, Kent, and Derbyshire. He serves, in essence, as go-between for the disbursement of salaries to officers and enlisted men, which sums are sent out by the Paymaster General in London to regimental representatives such as Henry. The role of agent is a coveted one, held in the gift of each regiment’s Colonel; and that Henry has secured so valuable a living, may be attributed to his polished manners, his knack for cultivating The Great, his former commission in the Oxfordshire Militia, and the connexions of his wife—who is everywhere received in Society, and does not hesitate to turn her acquaintance to advantage. Henry’s prosperity has induced my brother Frank to become another partner of the London concern, bringing naval patronage within Henry’s orbit; and if I suspected that Henry occasionally turned a profit on the negotiated sale of commissions in prized regiments, which we are taught to consider beyond the pale of the law, I have never taxed him with the subject.

“What, then, can have been the burglars’ object?” I enquired.

“I have not the smallest notion.” He hesitated. “And that is not the only oddity. Leaving that Bengal chest aside—Mamma tells me you have had an interview with Lord Harold Trowbridge’s solicitor.”

“Mr. Chizzlewit. Yes—he came to me yesterday before dinner. It was in the act of securing the chest belowstairs that we discovered the corpse.”

“Your solicitor paid a call on Gray in all his state not two days ago—lackeys and trunks behind—enquiring your direction in Chawton. Curious gentleman, by all accounts.”

“But perfectly respectable,” I returned.

“All the same—he
did
draw notice, Jane. The better part of Alton was positively agog at his errand. I heard talk of pirates’ treasure and a king’s ransom of jewels—not to mention the name of
Austen—
everywhere. Do you think it possible that this burglary of my branch was an attempt to secure whatever Chizzlewit carried in that heavy great chest of yours?”

For all his style and badinage, Henry is possessed of considerable understanding, and not above speaking plainly when necessity absolutely requires it.

“I think it very likely,” I replied. “No doubt your burglar believed a bank the properest place for safekeeping such a bequest. I am sorry for your trouble, Henry, but indeed I had no notion of causing it.”

My brother cast me a sidelong glance. He would not attempt to force my communication; but having been a little acquainted with the Trowbridge clan in London, he was naturally curious. “If you should ever wish—if there is a matter of a legacy involved, and you require advice as to the terms of investment—in short, dear Jane, I should be happy to serve you in any way I can. As banker or brother.”

“Thank you. His lordship was far too discreet to ruin me with gold, however. Lord Harold offered me
carte blanche
neither in death nor in life. The solicitor delivered a quantity of papers only.”

“So Mamma said. But I made certain you were giving her a Banbury tale. Why should anyone attempt to steal old letters?”

“Perhaps with the object of turning them to good use. All of London and half the Continent appear in his lordship’s communications.”

Henry stopped short in the middle of Chawton, his gaze suddenly intent. “You never mean
blackmail,
Jane?”

“Why not?”

He whistled softly. “This places a different complexion entirely on that wretched fellow you found in the cellar, my dear girl. If the dead man was intent upon the same errand—and came to his end in an ugly fashion—”

“By my own reckoning, the man had been dead some time,” I said gently. “Days before the existence of the chest was even known in the neighbourhood. I cannot believe the poor man’s demise had anything to do with Lord Harold’s papers. I
will
not believe it.”

Henry’s eyebrows rose. “Very well. Believe what you like. Have you another explanation?”

“Did you not know that our house is cursed?” I demanded lightly. “—Or perhaps it is more properly the entire Austen family that labours under ill-fortune. I was told as much by young Toby Baigent, of Symond’s Farm, upon my arrival.”

“Village nonsense!”

“All the same—I fear that Neddie has managed his tenants ill, or at the very least with a want of proper attention. He has excited considerable feeling among the yeoman class with his disposition of houses and farmland. Moreover, his ownership of the Great House—indeed, his right to all his Hampshire estates—is apparently contested by an upstart clergyman’s son, resident in the Lodge, and claiming to be the last true heir to the Hampshire Knights.”

“Not Jack Hinton?” Henry exclaimed.

I turned to stare at him. “You are acquainted with the gentleman’s name?”

“With his name and his entire history.”

“I suppose Mr. Hinton thought that as Edward was no more than a jumped-up clergyman’s son himself, he might as well make the attempt. We were treated to the entire history last evening.”

“The fellow is a complete flat, Jane! And a dead bore into the bargain! He is forever writing tedious letters under the advisement of his solicitors, and delivering them to Neddie at Accounting Day. Lord!”

“You might have told me, Henry,” I returned in exasperation. “Has a protracted residence in London completely deprived you of that knowledge of a country village in which you were reared? The Hintons appear to be related to half the families in the surrounding parts; Mrs. Prowting related the whole to us only last evening. The indignation of all Chawton is allied against the Austens. We are seen as yet another example of Neddie’s abuse of privilege: the indigent females of the family, thrust upon the bosom of the village to the detriment of the true heirs of the Great House.”

“Is it as bad as all that?”

“I should not be surprised if it were. When Edward
does
descend upon Chawton in a few days’ time, I intend to wring his neck!”

“He has been sadly distracted of late,” my brother admitted soberly. “Grief will work a wondrous change in the most frivolous of men. I was forced to read
sermons
after dinner in the drawing-room at Godmersham, Jane, instead of the plays we formerly chose to amuse ourselves. If you could have observed little Marianne yawning over her prayer book of an evening—!”

We had strolled nearly to the end of the Street, observed only by a number of children too young to be helping with the hay-making and three elderly persons who preserved a cautionary silence. The village was pretty and unspoilt enough, with hops growing verdantly on the left hand and a line of cottages on the right. There were no shops or tradesmen in Chawton—commerce being the purview of Alton, a mile distant—but at the approach to one thatched house, we observed an inviting basket with a dozen loaves of bread wrapped in white cloth.