Jane Austen Mysteries 10 Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron (3 page)

"I fear she is sinking, Miss Austen," he informed me sombrely. "A matter of hours must decide it. I have left a quantity of laudanum--you are to give her twenty drops, in a glass of warm water, as she requires it."

"But Eliza detests laudanum!" I cried. "I have known her dreams to be frightful under its influence."

"Her agony will be the more extreme without it." The surgeon doffed his hat to Edward and me, and stepped past us to the street.

"Mademoiselle Jane!" Mme. Bigeon's elderly voice quavered on the greeting; she gave way that we might enter the hall, her black eyes filled with tears. "At last you are come! I feared--but it is
not
too late. She sleeps much, yes, but she will wake for you,
mon Dieu
! Come to her at once!"

With unaccustomed familiarity--such is the strength of feeling in the face of Eternity--the old Frenchwoman grasped my hand and drew me swiftly up the stairs. I could not stay even to loose my bonnet strings; and that I should be aware of such a nothing on the point of seeing Eliza, must be an enduring reproach. I am ashamed to own it.

Mme. Bigeon hesitated before the bedchamber door; it was ajar, so that I could just glimpse the outline of the bedstead, my brother Henry dozing in a straight-backed chair set up against the wall; and the silhouette of Mme. Marie Perigord--the old woman's daughter and Eliza's dresser, her constant reminder of all the glories of France that are gone beyond recall. Manon, as she is called, was seated near the bed, her sharp-featured face thrown into relief by the flame of a single candle; in her hand was a small bowl.

And beyond--

Eliza.

Her eyes were closed, her breathing heavy; a few damp locks of hair escaped from her white cap. There was a peculiar odour on the air--a sweet, sickly smell that emanated from the open wound in her breast, and the great tumor lying malevolently there; no amount of warm compresses or fresh linen could blot out the taint.

I crept softly to the bedside, young Edward hesitating behind me.

Manon rose and drew back her chair. "Monsieur--mademoiselle ... I cannot persuade her to take any of the broth. And it is Maman's best broth, made from a pullet. Five hours it has been simmering on the stove--"

"Hush," Henry muttered, as he jerked awake. My brother's dazed eyes met mine through the shuttered gloom. "Ah--
Jane
! You are come at last!"

He rose, and pulled me close; the stale odour of a closed room, and clothes too infrequently exchanged, clung about his person.
Henry
--who is the nearest example of a Dandy the Austens may claim--had been neglecting himself.

"Praise God you came in time," he whispered.

"Mademoiselle!" Manon tugged impatiently at my sleeve. "Perhaps you will try? Perhaps she will take some broth from you,
hein
?"

"What does it matter?" Henry burst out, worn beyond bearing.

"But she must keep up her strength!" the maid protested.

Pointless to observe that strength would avail her mistress nothing, now.

Manon's face crumpled into a terrible grimace and she began, painfully, to weep, turning away from the awkward crowd of Austens as though we had caught her at something shameful. Mme. Bigeon swept her daughter out of the room, murmuring softly in her native tongue, half-scolding. I had an idea of the maid's high pitch of nerves, waiting in that darkened chamber through all the hours of a night and day as her mistress's life slowly ebbed, ears pricked for the sound of a particular set of horses halting in the street below. How like Eliza to hold on to the last, as though she knew I was hastening towards her!

But was she even aware of my presence?

"Dearest," Henry whispered, bending over Eliza. "Here is Jane arrived from Chawton."

Her eyelids flickered; the clouded gaze fixed for an instant on my brother's face, unseeing. How great a change was come upon that sprite, that eager, winning countenance! And how helpless I felt, unable to save her, to forestall the dreaded end!

I took up the bowl of broth and the silver spoon still warm from Manon's hand, leaned close to my dying cousin, and whispered, "Come, my darling, and try a little--to please your Jane."

Y
OUNG
E
DWARD RETURNED IN HIS FATHER'S CHAISE THE
next morning to Chawton. The rest of us watched with Eliza so long as our spirits would allow, although in truth Henry was never from the sick room. He dozed upright in a chair, regardless of whether the Frenchwomen or I were attending upon his wife. For my own part, I snatched at sleep whenever one of the others relieved me--curling fully clothed on the comfortable bed in the best bedchamber. We ate what we could at odd hours, taking cold meat and tea in the breakfast room; Mme. Bigeon had no heart to cook, or rather her cooking was all for Eliza: possets, puddings, coddled eggs that were returned, one by one, untouched on their plates. Through the hours Eliza shuddered, and turned, her mind beset by the demons brought forth in laudanum; and though Henry and I would have stinted her, she suffered too much when the draughts were denied.

What did she mutter, as I leaned over her in the depths of the night?
Regret ... regret ...
Her fingers claw-like at my wrist.

The upright and devout would urge me to believe in a deathbed conversion--some softening of her pagan heart, as the life sped out of her--but I am too well acquainted with the little Comtesse.
I regret nothing, Jane
, she would wish me to know.
Regret nothing
. Not the madcap days in Marie Antoinette's train, or the careless disregard for reputation and finances, the husband lost to the guillotine; not the dashing promenades in Hyde Park with a score of beaux dazzled by her wicked dark eyes. Her dead son she might yearn for--wasted from birth by too many ills--but even Hastings could never figure as cause for
regret
. Eliza cherished the boy, heedless of a world that declared him little better than an idiot.

She shall sleep beside him soon.

This morning, near dawn, there was a change. The poor roving spirit stilled and her body went slack, the eyes tightly closed. The sound of her laboured breathing mounted until it seemed to fill the whole room--the airless weight of that room, its single candle glowing. Henry's hand clasped hers, but she seemed insensible of it; and at the last, with barely a flutter of its wings, Death entered the room. She turned her head once on the pillow, towards the window--raised herself slightly--and then fell back, a shell.

I waited, breath suspended. And apprehended that her breathing, too, was done--the very walls listened for it, every window frame strained; no sigh murmured back.

Henry stared at his wife as if willing her eyes to open. Then he placed her limp hand gently on the coverlet, and rose from his chair.

I would have gone to him; but the look on his face was terrible. He walked without a word from the room, and after a final glance at the still figure at its centre, I fled in search of the maids.

30 A
PRIL
1813
S
LOANE
S
TREET

A
LL WEEK THE CANDLES HAVE FLICKERED BY HER BIER IN
the pretty little salon she loved so well, where her Musical Evenings collected a gay throng and her morning callers were wont to sit; tributes of spring flowers arrived daily from Henry's colleagues and Eliza's acquaintance both highborn and low. Lord Moira sent a massive wreath of lilies; but I think I liked best the posy of wildflowers offered at the kitchen door, by one unknown fellow Mme. Bigeon assures me was Eliza's favourite hackney coachman.

Mrs. Tilson--the wife of one of Henry's partners and a near neighbour--came to call, and sat with me a half-hour in Eliza's boudoir; I cannot love her, but she forbore to express her displeasure at my sister's frivolities quite so forcibly as in the past.

Eliza is to be buried at Hampstead tomorrow, beside her mother and son; Manon and I shall wait only for the train of black carriages to depart, before quitting Sloane Street ourselves.
2
The poor maid is quite worn down with nursing Eliza, and could do with a rest in the country--I am to carry her off to Chawton, until Henry comes to fetch her. It shall be a comfort to have the Frenchwoman beside me, merely to dull the edge of grief.

The rain and bitter fog descended upon us today; Spring, it seems, is quite fled. Eliza's death comes as a presentiment, a weight of dark cloud sitting over the house; we are all of us growing older, Henry and I and the two Frenchwomen.

The Autumn of my life is come--my hopes of happiness long since buried in an unmarked grave--and how long, pray, shall the sun endure, before Winter?

1
The Hog's-back is a narrow ridge that runs between Farnham and Guildford; the road traveled by the Austens on their journey to London ran along the summit and offered excellent views of some six counties.--
Editor's note
.

2
Women generally did not attend funerals in Austen's day.--
Editor's note
.

CHAPTER TWO
An Interval for Reflection

5 M
AY
1813
C
HAWTON
, H
AMPSHIRE