The Regency Detective (15 page)

The carriage finally pulled up at Harriet’s residence and the four occupants made their way inside. They negotiated their way through the building materials which cluttered up the hallway and were shown into a room where chairs were set out in rows, most of which were already filled. Mary saw her aunt standing at the front of the room with another woman and as soon as Harriet saw her niece, she beckoned her over.

‘Mary, I am so pleased you have chosen to attend this evening,’ said Harriet. ‘Let me introduce you to Catherine Jennings. Catherine is the headmistress of a girl’s school in Bath and is our guest speaker for the evening. Catherine, this is my niece, Mary.’

The two women acknowledged each other.

‘Is this your first time at one of these meetings?’ asked Catherine.

‘Yes,’ replied Mary, ‘but I am thoroughly looking forward to it.’

‘Well I hope I live up to your expectations, then,’ said Catherine.

‘I think it is about time to start,’ Harriet now interjected. ‘I need to be seated at the front, Mary, but please feel free to sit wherever you wish. I would like to see you afterwards though, before the carriage takes you home.’

Mary nodded and soon found a seat vacant near to her travelling companions. As she took her seat, her aunt addressed the room.

‘Welcome to our monthly meeting and I am glad to see so many of you in attendance tonight. It not only reflects the importance of our cause but no doubt the popularity of the speaker we have this evening. Before we begin, however, I wish to apologise for the untidiness around the manor grounds and the hallway. The builders I have employed to undertake essential maintenance and repairs are not only pontificators of the highest degree, but their actions unfortunately fall short of their words and where the building work should have been completed at the end of the summer, we are well into autumn with no sign of completion. But enough talk of my domestic annoyances, we are here tonight to listen to one of the great educators of this, or indeed, any age, a person so enthusiastic about women’s education that she began a school of her own to anthropomorphise her own philosophy. The author of several volumes and numerous pamphlets on the subject and the woman who it has been said is “the voice of reason in a multitude of chaos.” But now, without any further pontificating on my part, let us welcome to the lectern the one and only Catherine Jennings.’

A loud and appreciative round of applause burst out throughout the room. To Mary, this seemed incongruous for a room full of women, but nevertheless she found it both exhilarating and exciting. She joined in enthusiastically, as did her travelling companions.

‘Thank you, thank you all,’ said Catherine from where she now stood behind the lectern. ‘Firstly, let me thank our host and patron, Lady Montague-Smithson, or Harriet, as she insists we refer to her, for inviting me here to speak this evening. It is indeed a great honour. As Harriet mentioned, I run a school for girls and young women in Bath and it has been open for ten years now. I believe I must be doing a good job because each year some newly-formed, all-male committee tries to find a reason to close us down.’

A ripple of laughter went around the room.

‘I want to talk about education tonight,’ continued Catherine, ‘but specifically women’s education. How does it differ from a man’s education, and should it matter? And if it does matter, then why?’

Mary felt herself at one with the room and her fellow audience members. There was an anticipation of excitement in the room.

‘Since the day Eve convinced Adam to eat of the apple, we women have been portrayed as an evil force within the garden of Eden. But what did that apple contain? As it came from the tree of knowledge we can only surmise it contained that very essence. Therefore, a woman convinced a man to eat from the tree of knowledge and we have been blamed for doing so ever since. Eve should have eaten the apple herself and left men in ignorance.’

This brought another round of laughter within the room, followed by a round of sustained applause.

‘Thank you, thank you. But she did convince Adam to eat and we can see only too well what has happened. Man has used that knowledge to ensure that it is
we
who do not have it. He has eaten the apple and kept us in ignorance. At the very best, man feeds us pieces of his apple but with his agenda attached to it. In this way, we believe we are learning to be independently-minded, but what we are really learning is how to behave within his world. And whatever they may say, and whatever words they may use, this
is
the case. In a male-dominated school we learn facts and figures we believe are important if we are to have intelligent conversations with them. But what is this knowledge? It is certainly not for our benefit, it is only for their benefit. So that we may converse with them about subjects that they find interesting but, to be frank, we do not. Yet when we wish to discuss those subjects we find interesting, the conversation is either changed or stopped altogether. At my school, however, I believe we have retrieved the apple and are able to eat from it for our own satisfaction. However, what is taught at my school does not come from man’s apple, but from our own. This is
our
knowledge. So we must educate ourselves with our knowledge, our history. If you read books on literature you will find it full of men, with only the briefest of any women writers. And yet the writing of women has existed for so long and much of it is full of insight, wit and poetic imagery that would match any man. Daniel Defoe is credited with giving us the novel form, yet Aphra Behn had written at least a dozen of these types of books before him. But this is just one example of how history is rewritten by men for their own purpose. There have been many pioneers of our cause, most recently Mary Wollstonecraft, but she was only the latest. Yet she is being held up as the founder of this movement by men and subsequently ridiculed. Make no mistake, Wollstonecraft’s contribution to our cause will be marked in history and not only in our own, but she is not the founder, merely the latest in a line of women who looked around at the world as it is, and then wrote about what they witnessed.’

Catherine continued talking for another hour or so, outlining the way in which her school was run, giving specific examples of the curriculum, and eventually concluding with an invitation for all those in the room to take it upon themselves to re-educate themselves as women and to throw off the burden of knowledge that had been foisted on them by men. On concluding her speech, Catherine then received the most rapturous applause Mary had ever heard.

After the lecture, Catherine remained at the lectern for questions. Mostly they were about women’s education but one regarded marriage. It was asked by one of Mary’s travelling companions.

‘Do you think a woman can remain true to herself if she is married?’

Catherine smiled.

‘Yes, if the husband is away on business all the time.’

There was more laughter around the room.

‘Seriously, however, I wholeheartedly believe that the responsibility lies solely with the woman herself, to ensure in her own mind the man she plans to marry will not stand in the way of her continuing personal development; whether this is through reading of particular books or the pursuit of suitable creative and artistic activities. If she believes he will, then she only has herself to blame when he does.’

‘But what if the woman has to marry, say for money?’ The question came from another member of the audience.

‘My dear, I hope no one in this room is ever put into that situation. The road of matrimony for financial reasons is surely the road to the spirit’s dissolution. I truly believe it is better for a woman to live a financial impoverished existence, rather than a spiritual one.’

Another round applause was forthcoming and this lasted until Harriet stepped forward and said: ‘We will have one final question.’

The person sitting next to Mary raised her hand. ‘May I ask if you are married? And if so, does your husband have any single male relatives?’

Once the laughter from the room ceased, Catherine answered.

‘No, I am not married,’ she said, without regret in her tone.

Harriet then brought the evening to a close. There had been several questions Mary wanted to ask, but she did not yet have the courage of her convictions to ask them. Nevertheless, the evening had proved most enlightening and her spirit felt lifted from the trials of the last period of time.

Swann stood next to the dining room table in Great Pulteney Street and studied the map spread out across its surface. He had purchased it from a bookseller’s shop, located nearby in Argyle Street, earlier in the day and on returning from his evening meeting with George and Bridges at the Fountain Inn, had unfurled it to its full extent, weighting it down at each corner with four vases he had requisitioned from various parts of the house. The map was a detailed one of Bath and from the date on its top-right corner, it could be seen to have been published that very year.

Through the conversation he had not long finished with George and Bridge’s contact, Swann had decided not to return to London but remain here, at least for the time being. He had acquired the map of Bath before making this decision, having done so with the intention of studying it purely for his own interest, but he now looked at it with more purpose. Now he had made his decision to stay in the city he wanted to become acquainted with every inch of its layout, especially the Avon Street district. This particular area still lacked comprehensive details in places on the map, the cartographers no doubt not wanting to risk their lives for the sake of completion, but there were enough features and landmarks included to give him the foundation upon which to build his geographical knowledge of the locale.

He had brought the map out immediately on his return from the meeting at The Fountain Inn and was still studying it when Mary returned home from her aunt’s gathering. Ordinarily she would have instinctively screamed on entering the dining room to find a ‘stranger’ there, especially such a rough-looking one as this, but on her arrival, Emily had warned Mary about her brother’s disguise, which in his haste to survey the map, he had not taken the trouble to remove.

‘Jack, I hope you apologised most profusely to Emily for scaring her earlier. How could you have been so thoughtless?’

Swann mumbled a response but continued surveying the city.

‘Jack, Jack! What are you doing? And could you not at least have changed out of those ragged-looking clothes.’

‘Look Mary, it was here. I am sure of it,’ he said, pointing to a particular place on the map.

‘Sure of what, Jack?’ she replied.

‘Where I saw
him
, it was only for a moment but I am sure he had a scar down his right cheek and when our paths crossed, I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach.’

‘What are you talking about? Who punched you?’

‘One of the men I have been searching for all these years.’

‘Why have you been searching for him? You are not making any sense Jack. I do not understand?’

Swann turned and looked intently at his sister.

‘A man I saw on the street in Bath today was the accomplice of the man who murdered my father.’

‘How can you be certain it was him?’

‘I cannot,’ replied Swann. ‘But I have always relied on my instinct and it now tells me it is the same man who my father scarred with a poker that night, which is the reason, you will be delighted to hear, I have decided to stay on in Bath, at least for the time being.’

‘That is most coincidental,’ replied Mary wistfully, ‘as I have considered what you proposed on your first day here and I believe it would be appropriate if I moved to London with you.’

‘What has changed your mind?’ said a surprised Swann. ‘Is it Lockhart, has something happened between you two?’

‘No. It is merely that Bath perhaps becomes tiresome if one does not partake of its social activities and London offers more opportunities for the expansion of the mind in the arts and other worthwhile subjects. As for Edmund, he can visit me in London, as he is often there on business. I do believe we are also less likely to have our windows smashed there, despite the bleak picture you painted of it.’

‘I am thrilled to hear this, my dear sister, though for the time being I hope you understand that I must stay in Bath. I have to at least make an attempt to find the man I saw: I owe it to my father. I have been searching for these men since I was old enough to be able to do so and I will not stop until both of them have either been justly punished through being hanged or else I learn they are both dead.’

On witnessing Swann’s determined expression, Mary decided in that moment she would adhere to her brother’s wishes and stay with him in Bath for as long as he wanted to be here.

Later that night, after Swann and his sister had finished their conversation, they retired to their respective bedrooms, but neither of them with the slightest intention of sleeping straight away. Mary, on entering her room, had taken a writing board and placed it upon her lap as she sat up in bed.

She had two pieces of correspondence she wanted to complete. One, she felt, was through obligation, the other through sheer rapture. The former was a reply to a letter of condolence which had been sent from one of her mother’s friends. The two women had grown up in Bath, had moved away after marrying and then both had returned to their home city on their husband’s retirement. There the similarities ended. While Mrs Austen had given birth to a relatively large family, Mary was her mother’s only foray into the act of childbirth.

The Austen family were away from Bath at the present time but on hearing the sad news, Mrs Austen had written post-haste. In the letter she relayed how she felt as if she had to put pen to paper to convey her sadness as to the loss of a dear friend. She also expressed that on the family’s return she would dearly like to pay a visit in order to offer her condolences in person and, if Mary was agreeable to it, would bring her daughter, Jane.