Jane and His Lordship's Legacy

Chapter 9 What the Cellar Told

Thursday, 6 July 1809

“And so,” my brother concluded, “a verdict was returned of death at the hands of a person or persons unknown?”

“It was — with Mr. Munro adjourning the proceeding, and placing matters in abeyance until Mr. Prowting should inform him otherwise.”

“It is a curious business.” Henry drained his dish of tea and pushed back from the breakfast table. He had appeared at the cottage early this morning agog with the news of yesterday’s inquest, which had spread rapidly throughout the town and was subject to every kind of exaggeration. Henry had been unable to attend the proceeding himself, detained by that bank business which had occasioned his descent on Hampshire; but knowing Jane far better than Mr. Prowting, he was confident I should acquaint him with the particulars.

“Drowning and murder might arise in a country village from any number of causes,” he mused, “jealousy, petty hatreds, a dispute of long-standing between two parties. A woman might come into it — or several women, if you like. But why not leave the body with a great stone tied to its neck, sunken in the pond, to be discovered a twelvemonth hence? Why stow the poor fellow in our cellar, deserted as it may have seemed, to be found the very moment the new tenants turned the key in their door?”

“In order to give as much trouble as possible,” my mother replied with indignation. “I am quite sure there was some deliberate design in the business. The mortification is all ours; I do not regard even the unfortunate wife as having any claim to greater misery. It was we who had the trouble of finding the corpse, and suffering the agonies of carters and magistrates and public notice; the widow is merely called upon to bury it.”

“Mamma!” Henry cried in mock terror. “You cannot be so heartless!”

“But design, Henry, there certainly was,” I insisted.

“Whether to bring shame and suspicion upon the name of Austen — as we may believe some in Chawton village should like to do — or merely to employ the most convenient method of hiding an unwanted corpse, there was a good deal of thought in the business. Recollect the matter of the keys.”

The final witnesses Mr. Munro called the previous afternoon, to conclude his panel’s education, were illuminating — and must give rise to further comment and rumour in the neighbourhood. Kit Duff, publican of the Crown, stated simply that Shafto French had drunk deep of his house’s best ale Saturday night on the strength of a week’s pay, had kept entirely to himself, and appeared disinclined for sociable conversation. Some small dispute had arisen between French and his fellow labourer Bertie Philmore — “what is Shafto French’s cousin on his mother’s side” — and the two men’s argument had stilled most of the public room, with Philmore accusing French of an unpaid debt, and French asserting that he should be a warm man before very long, and would settle all his debts with enough left over to rule them all, besides. The two had quitted the inn just before midnight, when the Crown closed in deference to the advent of the Sabbath. Bertie Philmore was next called — and admitted in a surly fashion that Shafto did owe him near to five pound, unpaid this year or more. He insisted that the two had parted at his door, with Bertie bound for his wife and bed, and Shafto saying as he had a man to meet—“tho’ who should be abroad at such an hour but thieves and footpads, I dare not think.” Mr. Munro attempted to divide Bertie Philmore from his assertions — to intimate, indeed, that the two men had carried their dispute so far as Chawton Pond a mile distant, and that death by drowning had occurred as a natural result of a drunken mill — but Philmore was not to be led. He offered his virtuous helpmate as sworn witness to his boots having crossed the threshold at the stroke of twelve, and could not be swerved from his purpose. Mr. Dyer the builder proved most edifying in his communications. He was a square-bodied, powerful individual with a lean and weathered face. He commanded instant respect before Mr. Munro’s panel, as a tradesman with the livelihood of half Alton’s labourers in his pocket. He was little inclined to talk, and answered the questions put to him with a brevity that bordered on the pugnacious. He had indeed used Shafto French in various odd jobs of work that required brute strength but little sense; he could not rely upon the man’s appearance from one day to the next; he had thought nothing of a failure to report for work on the Monday, as no doubt French had been drunk of a Sunday. In these opinions, Mr. Dyer seemed to speak for the entire town.

At Mr. Munro’s further questioning, however, matter of a more serious import was gleaned. Shafto French had been set to work at Chawton Cottage the week immediately preceding our arrival, in digging the new cesspit. Three other labourers, including Bertie Philmore, were engaged, under the direction of Mr. Dyer’s son, William, in blocking up the unfortunate front parlour window and throwing out the new bow overlooking the garden. The keys to Chawton Cottage had thus been in Mr. Dyer’s possession — which the builder purported to have returned to Mr. Barlow at the George, according to previous arrangement with my brother, at the conclusion of his firm’s work.

“And the work was complete on what day?” Mr. Munro then demanded.

Mr. Dyer looked all his discomfort. He had intended the repairs to Chawton Cottage to be finished on Saturday, as his men were expected in Sherborne St. John on Monday; but work on the cesspit, or French himself, had given some trouble. Rains and indolence delayed the business’s conclusion. When Shafto French did not appear as expected Monday morning, Mr. Dyer’s son painted the privy himself and set all in order before handing over the keys to the publican Mr. Barlow’s safekeeping — much relieved to learn that we had arrived at the inn from Kent only that day.

“Your son noticed nothing untoward as he was locking up the house? — A suggestion, as it were, that someone had entered the premises prior to himself?”

“Bill had no cause to go down cellar, nor any of my men neither, being that no repairs were to be done in that part of the cottage,” Mr. Dyer said sharply. “Don’t you be accusing my boy of murder, Mr. Crowner, when all he’s done is another man’s honest day of work.”

Mr. Munro had soothed the builder’s injured feelings, and reverted instead to the matter of the keys. Had Mr. Dyer been assured of their possession throughout the interval between Shafto French’s disappearance on Saturday, and the conclusion of work on Monday?

Mr. Dyer thought that he had. An impression of reserve was given; and at Mr. Munro’s persistence, the builder confessed that it was his son, Bill, who’d been the keeper of the keys — and that Bill was at work today in the aforementioned parish of Sherborne St. John, and must answer later for himself.

“Bertie Philmore or young William Dyer killed the man and hid his body in the cellar,” Henry told me thoughtfully, “or someone unknown to us obtained the builder’s keys through stealth with the intention of committing, and hiding, murder. We can be certain, however, that the deed was done between midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the keys were apparently once more in the publican’s possession.”

“If,” I rejoined to Henry’s chagrin, “there is only one set of keys.”

When he had breakfasted, I prevailed upon my brother to descend the cellar stairs and study the floor there, with a lanthorn held high against whatever spectres might haunt a place of violent death.

“Not a happy part of the house,” Henry observed feelingly as the dank coldness of the air hit our faces, despite the warmth of the summer morning above. “It wants a number of casks and wooden crates of smuggled claret — sawdust on the floors to take off the damp — and a spot of whitewash on the stone walls.”

“If you know of a single man in Alton or Chawton courageous enough to undertake the labour of painting this deathroom, I beg you will send him to us directly,” I retorted. “Not even Mr. Prowting can discover a person of the serving class willing to enter the cottage. Like all ill-gotten gains, it is tacitly understood to be cursed.”

“I shall have to speak to young Baigent’s father. The boy ought to be horse-whipped.”

“So ought Neddie. I shall whip him myself, for having ignored the claims of Widow Seward and Jack Hinton alike.”

The lanthorn, swinging in Henry’s hand, threw wild shadows against the ceiling and walls; I tried not to find in the flickering shapes the humped menace of rats.

“Munro was interested, you say, in any disturbance — or the stain of dried water?” Henry asked.

“—Tho’ Mr. Prowting insisted he saw neither.”

“Then he did not observe the ground closely,” my brother objected. He held the lanthorn perhaps a foot above the dirt floor and moved it in an arcing sweep over the surface. “Look, Jane. Faint footprints, and a poor effort at scrubbing them out.”

He was correct, as Henry must always be: in the stronger light of the burning oil, I could discern what a candle flame had not revealed: The impressions of a boot in the dirt, near the corner of the room where Shafto French had lain. They were partial and indistinct, and ought to have been obliterated by the careless feet of Mr. Prowting and myself, not to mention those who had removed Shafto French’s body. I gathered my skirt in both hands and crouched down, the better to observe them. The mark of a right heel, broad and flat; and two impressions of a boot toe.

“Henry,” I murmured as I studied them, “do these appear to be the marks of a labourer’s shoe?”

“They do not,” he replied grimly, “tho’ I should certainly believe them a man’s. There are no impressions of hobnails, as one would expect from a heavy working boot, and look, Jane—

the leather sole was so fine as to leave an imprint in one place of the fellow’s left toe. I should judge these marks to have been left by a good pair of leather boots such as... ”

“... a gentleman should wear.”

We looked at each other, both of us frowning.

“Could they be Prowting’s?” Henry demanded.

“Perhaps. But I imagine Mr. Prowting’s impression might be found here, at the foot of the stairs” — I motioned for my brother’s lanthorn — “where he stood an instant with the full weight of the chest in his arms. Observe how distinctly the marks are left, Henry.”

“And of an entirely different size,” he added. “There is another set of those marks beneath the hatch, where Prowting stood to unbar the doors.”

“We must invite our neighbour the magistrate to test his footwear in this room, and I myself shall sketch the remaining impressions,” I said soberly. “We ought not to delay. Mr. Prowting may have an idea of Shafto French’s enemies among the gentry of Chawton.”

“Then why did he not offer them at the inquest, Jane?”

A slight sound from the cellar stairs drew my head around, and forestalled my answer.

“Mamma? Is that you?” I called upwards.

A woman’s face swam in the darkness at the head of the stairs: white, frightened, with large clear eyes and a trembling lip. A knot of red-gold hair crowned the whole.

“It is Mrs. French, is it not?” I said in surprise. “How may I help you, my dear?”

She stood in silence at the foot of the stairs, glancing about the ugly stone walls and the scuffed dirt of the floor. Henry had bowed to the woman and murmured a word of sympathy; but he did not tarry in his errand to Prowtings. I could hear his heavy tread even now above our heads, making for the front door.

“The lady said as I might come down,” Jemima French muttered, “and should be in no one’s way. I had to see this place, if you understand me, ma’am. I had to see where my Shafto died.”

I might have told her he could have met his end in any horse trough between the Crown Inn and Chawton; but I did not like to seem so unfeeling. I considered of this girl — for, indeed, she was little older than Ann or Catherine Prowting — lying alone in her bed with the little ones breathing softly beside her, and seeing in memory again and again the ravaged face of her husband. They had asked her to view the body and name it for Shafto French. Had she gone alone to that interview with the surgeon, Mr. Curtis?

“It is dark down here, in’it?” she murmured, tho’ Henry had left us the lanthorn. “You will tell me where he lay?”

I nodded assent, and pointed towards the corner of the room. “Just there. I must ask you not to touch the place. There are marks we should like the magistrate to observe.”

Her eyes were once again wide with horror, as though she imagined the trail of a convulsive fit, or perhaps the traffic of a legion of rodents emanating from the walls. “What marks?”

Caution, and a knowledge of the habits of country folk — of the impossibility of any fact remaining private — made me deliberately chary. “The marks of your husband’s form, of course. Shall I carry you upstairs, my dear, and fix you a cup of tea?”

“I should’ve known,” she said dully, “when he didn’t come back. A bit o’ light-skirt, I thought it was — Shafto always having been a man for a doxy. It was pride, ma’am, as prevented me speaking; but pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, as my mother used to say, being a great one for quoting Proverbs.”

“Had you any reason to think your husband at risk of injury, Mrs. French?”

She stared at me fixedly; but it was not a look of incomprehension — of indecision, rather, as tho’ she could not determine to trust me.

“Had he an enemy?” I persisted. “Some person you knew of, who wished him ill — or who might perhaps profit from his death?”

A slow flush o’erspread her features, and her gaze fell. “No, ma’am. Nobody could want my man dead.”

“But someone clearly did. The coroner is convinced your husband did not meet his death by chance.”

She turned her head restlessly. “He’d been talking wild for days, about the blunt he was going to have off some’un as was plump in the pocket; blood money, he called it, as’d set us up forever. Silk gowns, Jemima my girl, he said, and no worrying about wood for the fire when the cold winds blow. ”

“Was he often given to publishing hopes of that kind, when he had lately been paid for work?” I enquired with an unstudied air. She shook her head. “It was a rare struggle for us to make one end meet the other, ma’am, and how I am to manage now I cannot think.”

“Have you any family?”

“A brother, with a good number of his own to feed. But I can ply a needle, ma’am, and may find piecework at the linendraper’s. I have worked all my life, and am not afraid of it.”

I preserved a tactful silence. Between the demands of war and the limits to commerce we suffer at the hands of Napoleon, times are very hard in this country. I myself have felt the pinch of articles too dear for my purse, and I had not Mrs. French’s encumbrances.

“You have no further expectation of these funds your husband spoke of? — He gave you no hint of the person from whom he expected his money?”

“Not a word, ma’am. And who should it be, when all is said?

I’ve known Shafto’s mates since we were all little ’uns together, running through Robin Hood Butts of a spring morn.[10] None of our kind of folk would come into a treasure; and none owed him money. ’Twas too often t’other way round. My man had no head for business, ma’am.”

“And yet — Bertie Philmore asserted that when he parted from your husband, Mr. French was intending to meet with a man. You have no notion of who this man might be?”

“His murderer,” she rejoined in a voice creased with misery.

“Shafto thought to make his fortune, and met his end! Blood money! I’ll give ’im blood money!”

“It is a curious phrase,” I observed, “potent with violence.”

“He always was a fool, my Shafto — but that kindhearted. He’d never raise his hand to me or the little ’uns,” she said hastily.

“That is not what I meant. I meant that the words blood money suggest payment for a killing — or, perhaps, for your husband’s silence regarding one. He expected to gain from guilty knowledge, that much seems certain. — Tho’ the guilt may not have been his own.”

This time her confusion was evident.

“Did he say anything else that might help us, Mrs. French?”

“Only that it was the air as would pay.”

“The air?” I repeated blankly.

“Yes, ma’am. Someone as stood to inherit a good deal, and could afford to buy Shafto’s silence.”

The heir as would pay.

I had heard two men described in such terms in as many days — Julian Thrace and Jack Hinton. Both had witnessed the inquest. I felt a sudden longing to seize the gentlemen’s boots and make a trial of both pairs on the cellar floor.

“Was your husband well known in these parts?”

“He’d lived here all ’is life.”

“So he would be quite familiar to any number of people in both Chawton and Alton — the Prowtings, perhaps, or the Middletons; even the Hintons, I suppose.”

Her reaction to this gentle query was swift as a viper’s. “Why should the Hintons care? Who’s been talking about Shafto and Mr. Jack?”

“Nobody,” I replied, bewildered. “Has there been talk before?”

“Among his mates, there was always a kind word for Shafto,”

she retorted defiantly, “whatever that Bertie Philmore will say.”

“And Mr. Hinton? Did he also think well of your husband?”

“Mr. Hinton be blowed!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed pitifully. “Oh, God, Shafto, me lad — I should’ve known when you did not come back! I should have looked for you myself!”

“You could have done no good, had you roused the entire country,” I told her gently, and placed my hand on her shoulders. “A thousand men in search of your husband could not have saved him. If he was killed by the man he went to meet at midnight on Saturday, he found his end before you even understood he was missing. And no one but a tenant of this house could have discovered the body.”

She lifted her visage, blue eyes all but drowned. “A proper wife would’ve known he was gone.”

“Indeed, you take too much upon yourself.” I grasped the lanthorn in one hand and put the other carefully on the young woman’s shoulder, drawing her towards the stairs. “Your duty now is to preserve your children from exposure to the malice of your neighbours, and to fix in their memories a picture of their father in life, such as shall comfort and support them the rest of their days. Have you both boys and girls?”

And in speaking of her children, Jemima French discovered some fleeting comfort; enough to carry her into my kitchen, and sustain her for the length of time required to drink my tea.

Excerpt from the diaries of Lord Harold Trowbridge, dated 26 February 1785, on board the Indiaman Punjab, bound for Portsmouth out of Bombay.

... I walked about the quarterdeck this morning at Captain Dundage’s invitation, glad for the freedom it afforded from the seamen holystoning the decks and the constant activity of the Indiaman. It is as nothing, of course, to the relentless toil of His Majesty’s Navy — two such ships of the line hovering in escort just off our port and starboard bows; but such a knot of bodies is constantly passing to and fro amidships that I should be hard pressed to achieve any sort of exercise without the Captain’s kind intervention. There is very little society, either. Freddy Vansittart has made a friend of the First Lieutenant, Mr. Harlow, and spends his hours in firing a gun off the stern rail at any creature that moves; tho’ well enough to look at without his powdered wig, and possessed of high courage that makes him a fine fellow in a fight, Freddy was never one for discussing philosophy, and is certain to prove tedious company in a voyage so long as this. My esteemed employer, Governor-General Hastings, being a prey to seasickness and in no mood for conversation — the politics of my friend Fox having succeeded in cutting up his peace and requiring his resignation from a post the Governor prized above all others in life — I am left to my own devices more often than not. I find I can bear the solitude quite cheerfully. It affords me the opportunity to consider of my future.

In four months’ time I shall be five-and-twenty. Which is to say that, despite my father the Duke’s concerted effort to thwart every impulse of my existence, I must come into my late uncle’s fortune under the stipulations of his Will. With sudden wealth, any number of avenues are opened to me: I might establish a high- flyer in Mayfair and offer her carte-blanche; I might squander my yearly income in a fortnight at picquet, as Fox himself has done; or I might spurn the obligations of a Man of Fashion and Birth, and throw the lot into the India trade. The Governor himself has told me the recent India Act is designed to clip the wings of the Honourable Company, as its profits are too great and its threat of dominion over the Subcontinent, with Mr. Hastings as its king, all too feared. Hence his departure in high dudgeon for the English coast. I see in my employer’s present fall an opportunity: I shall take my money and become part-owner in a ship — an opium trader bound for China. Like any gaming hell, the China trade has all the appeal of high risk and rich return, with the added attraction of being deeply offensive to His Grace the Duke of Wilborough. But as his lordship the Viscount St. Eustace once observed, I was born a commoner and a commoner I shall always be.[11]

I have profited from my turns about the quarterdeck in conversing on certain points with Captain Dundage, who is a veteran of these seas for the past decade. What he does not know of Indiamen and tea and the fortune to be made in poppies is not worth asking. And there is an added incentive in this: the Captain has in his safekeeping a young lady of retiring habits and infinite charm — a virtuous and well-born French girl of eighteen, reared in Madras and bound for a betrothal in England with my very enemy the Viscount St. Eustace — a man she has never met.

How has it come about, this bizarre and distant proposal from a stranger nearly twice her age? She cannot have an idea of his lordship’s depravities — of the Beauty he has already crushed beneath his fist. She cannot know his dangerous proclivities, his desire for mastery, his miserly clutch on the riches he claims, his delight in other people’s misery; she cannot understand the Hell her life is to become. I must know more of this girl and her history.

I confess on this page that the temptation to ruin St. Eustace’s hopes is fierce upon me like a fever. But the Captain is scrupulous in shielding his charge from all eyes, and when Mam’selle takes the quarterdeck air, I am not permitted to ascend.

There are months yet to surge through the southern seas, in fair weather and foul, and months may work a wondrous change. In the meanwhile I strive to impress old Dundage with my air of industry, my keen questions regarding triangular trade, my well- bred manners and unimpeachable connexions. We shall see how long is required for the French citadel to fall.