Jane and His Lordship's Legacy

Chapter 19 A Bolt into the Blue

8 July 1809, cont.

There could be no talk of returning to Chawton now. Mr. Prowting stepped forward and grasped the great double doors, as tho’ desirous of shutting out the crowd of domestics assembled in the passage. “You must come in, sirrah, and explain yourself.”

The groom walked determinedly towards Charles Spence.

“You’re accustomed to cavalry, Major. You know what it should be like, with a great sharp thorn such as this beneath the saddle, as soon as her ladyship leaned into her race.”

Spence reached out as if in a dream, and grasped the thorn between his fingers.

“Pressing down on it she was, without even knowing, and the thorn stabbing Nutmeg all the while. It’s no wonder as the horse bolted and threw my lady; wanted to get the saddle off her back, she did.”

“But how—”

“That thorn weren’t there when I unsaddled the mare yestiddy,” Robley persisted obstinately: “The mare was clean. A thorn like that don’t just happen to find itself under a saddle. You take my meaning, sir?”

“You are saying that it must have been placed there,” Mr. Prowting declared, as Charles Spence remained silent. The steward was turning the thorn between his thumb and forefinger, fascinated, but at the magistrate’s words a terrible look of understanding burgeoned on his face.

“You saddled the mare, Robley.”

“But I did not fetch the saddle for the race. It was Mr. Thrace as did that,” the groom returned meaningfully. “Mr. Thrace, who allus rides out alone of a morning, and is in and out of the stable yard at all hours, and dislikes my lady with a passion to equal her own. Thought to put a noose around my neck, he did. Me, what has served her ladyship near twenty year!”

As we stood in horrified silence, aware of what the groom’s words must mean, Spence wheeled to stare at the Beau, who still stood by the great windows.

“Julian,” he whispered. “Can it be possible?”

Thrace did not reply. His handsome countenance had gone white — with fear or guilt, I know not — and all his easy manner was fled.

“Will you not speak, man? Defend yourself — explain yourself — but for God’s sake, speak!”

Thrace’s gaze moved from one of our faces to another. “I can no more say what has occurred than you, Charles.”

I believe Spence might have thrown himself at the man in fury then had my brother not stepped forward, quick as a flash, and restrained him. Catherine Prowting cried out as the two struggled; but Henry’s strength proved greater than Spence’s weak leg. The steward gasped, then sank to the floor near Lady Imogen’s still form.

“She was so joyous this morning — so proud of her home and her horse!” he muttered. “All of life, all happiness before her. A life snuffed out—”

It was then Julian Thrace made his mistake.

With a look of panic on his countenance, he dived without warning through the open window.

“Hi!” Henry shouted, and rushed to the casement. “He’s making for the stables! He shall bolt, and we do not take care!”

Robley turned with the swiftness of the monkey he so resembled and cried to Charles Spence, “Your gun, sir, if you take my meaning. I’ll fetch Rangle and the others and head ’im off at the gate!”

In an instant he was gone from the saloon.

Henry looked as tho’ he might follow Thrace through the open window, but John Middleton was before him.

“It is for the magistrate to act now, I think, Mr. Austen. Else we shall have a second murder done.”

Mr. Prowting was already standing before Charles Spence, his aspect the picture of painful dignity. “No gun, Major. No swift and untimely justice. The man shall be seized, and his guilt weighed in a court of Law.”

Spence turned his head towards the yawning casement, listening for a sound perhaps only he expected; and at that moment, I heard it too. The rapid patter of the great grey hunter’s hooves as they galloped, far beyond the reach of Robley and his baying pack, down the length of Stonings’ sweep.

• • •

“And so the gentlemen could not catch up with him,” my mother said that night, “tho’ they rode out directly in pursuit of the scoundrel?”

“Mr. Thrace’s horse was too swift,” Henry replied. “My hired hack was as nothing to his grey. Spence’s mount — an old cavalry charger — might have done the trick, but for the man’s delay in reaching the stables. Spence is a brave fellow, and I admire him exceedingly; but he could not at present be described as a great walker. I believe the Major would be as yet abroad in the countryside, combing hill and dale for Julian Thrace, had Mr. Prowting not recalled him to his duty.”

“—Funeral rites for that unfortunate girl,” my mother agreed mournfully. “And to think how we all admired her, only two nights since at the Great House! Such charm! So much conversation! Such an air of fashion! She cannot have been more than twenty!”

“She was two-and-twenty.” As my mother had previously declared Lady Imogen to be a sad romp, with a deplorable want of conduct, I ought to have found this encomium amusing. But my spirits were decidedly oppressed. I could not throw off the memory of Catherine Prowting, standing by the window through which Julian Thrace had disappeared, with an expression of the acutest misery on her countenance. I had understood then why the magistrate’s daughter had been sleepless of late, and why her contempt for her sister’s artless flirtation with the Bond Street Beau was so pronounced. Her affections seemed to be entirely bound up with men who figured as murderers.

“What has Prowting caused to be done?” my brother Edward demanded as he paced our small sitting room with an air of irritation. He had been too much pent up in the heat of the day in the back parlour at the George, hearing every manner of complaint from the surrounding countryside. “Has he alerted all the toll keepers between here and London?”

Neddie is a magistrate in his own county, and as such is disposed to be officious in other people’s.

“I believe so,” Henry told him, “but as Thrace is on horseback, not in an equipage, it is probable he will spurn the travelled roads. Then, too, he may make for one of the Channel ports rather than London, and take ship for the Continent. It was Middleton who suggested we alert the dockmasters at Southampton and Deal — but you know the ports are never very secure against gentlemen with the means to buy passage at three times the usual sum.”

“But does he possess such means?” I objected. “I had thought his pockets were entirely to let.”

Henry had the grace to look conscious. “Not entirely, Jane. He may be carrying some five hundred pounds in notes issued against the reserves held by Austen, Gray & Vincent.”

“Oh, Henry. ” I sighed.

Edward looked perplexed.

“I could not within reason deny him the loan!” my brother protested. “Thrace looked to be the heir to an earldom!”

“But of a certainty he was not,” I mused, “else why undertake to murder Lady Imogen?”

“That is what I cannot make out at all,” Cassandra said wearily from her corner. She had retreated to our bedchamber upon the return to Chawton, overcome by the apprehensions and terrors to which we had been exposed. “You say that he was her ladyship’s rival to inherit Stonings — her rival, indeed, for the Earl’s favour — but how should Thrace’s chances be improved by killing Holbrook’s daughter? It does not follow that his lordship must accept an imposter, simply because his daughter is dead!”

“Perhaps Thrace thought to buy a little time, and forestall disaster,” I suggested.

“—By tying a noose around his own neck?”

“No, Cassandra. By preventing Lady Imogen from revealing the truth: that he was wholly unrelated to the Earl, which she must certainly have believed. I thought her looks this morning were not only easy — they were triumphant. She had learned somewhat to her advantage. She knew herself in the ascendant.”

“From your papers, Jane?” Henry demanded.

“I must believe it to be so. Lady Imogen let slip her knowledge of the nature of Lord Harold’s bequest while we dined together at the Great House. She went so far as to say that her own father the Earl would give a good deal to know their secrets. I believe it was she who arranged for the burglary at this cottage, and that it was to Stonings the documents were carried.”

“—Dyer’s men having worked at Stonings,” Neddie said thoughtfully, “and thus being in a way to encounter her ladyship. We must tax Bertie Philmore at the Alton gaol with our supposition, now that his mistress is dead, and cannot be in a way to help his cause. But do you believe the papers are as yet at Stonings, Jane, along with their deadly knowledge? I do not like to think of such a burden left untended.”

“Nor do I. A letter, I think, must be sent to Charles Spence — with a request for the privilege of searching her ladyship’s effects. But how is such a note to be penned? To a man involved in such misery! It is a delicate business — accusing the Deceased of pilfering my belongings.”

“Poor child,” my mother murmured. “How that smiling beast could have coldly plotted her end—”

“Thrace acted as he did from the direst necessity,” Henry threw in. “He deliberately goaded her ladyship into a display of temper over her horse, knowing that the fatal gaming habit in the Vansittart blood must encourage her to demand a contest — to submit to a wager. Then he relied upon our several witnesses to sustain the impression of a dreadful accident — a mishap beyond all our imaginings, or ability to control.”

“And it might have worked,” I agreed. “But for Robley, Thrace should be at Stonings even now, putting on black clothes for her ladyship — instead of racing over the countryside in a desperate bid for freedom.”

“Prowting tells me there is to be no inquest, as he witnessed himself both the murder and the flight of the accused,” Neddie supplied. “His chief concern now must be to spare the Earl any further exposure, and conclude the capture of Thrace as soon as possible.”

“Poor Mr. Prowting is most distressed,” Cassandra observed.

“In all my days as magistrate, he told me, I have never presided over a matter of murder; and yet, in the past week, I find two men of my acquaintance under the most severe suspicion of their lives. I cannot ex- plain it, Miss Austen. ”

Edward laughed brusquely, and threw himself into a chair near Cassandra’s. “The people of Alton and surrounding parts can account for the problem. I was forced to listen to the direst hints in the course of nearly every interview. Want of a proper squire, they said; and misfortunes brought from afar. You were correct, Jane, in your admonition to me — the tide of public sentiment has turned against the Kentish landlord. I must consider what it is best I should do. Perhaps I may find a place near Godmersham for all of you after all.”

“What!” my mother exclaimed. “When there is a priceless fortune buried in the soil somewhere about this cottage? I would not be parted from it for any amount of gain, my dear Neddie; indeed I should not. ”

He stared at her in surprise.

“I think a sudden removal of our household will hardly aid your cause,” I agreed. “We must be seen as steadfast — and impervious to the weight of our neighbours’ opinion. And we have this to look forward to: the fall of Mr. John-Knight Hinton’s star. A thorough drubbing at the hands of the Law, as Mr. Prowting so proudly terms it, should do much for our standing in Chawton. Hinton is not universally liked.”

“And his sister is a dreadful woman,” my mother added. “No countenance, and most insipid in her manner. Having listened to her presumptions on the matter of the Rogue, I should dearly love to twit her on the rakehell nursed in the bosom of the parsonage.”

“And so you ride to Brighton at dawn, Henry?”

My brother was to take the sad news of Lady Imogen’s death to the Earl of Holbrook. So much had been decided before we parted from Charles Spence; the steward’s place must be at Stonings, where he should hold vigil over the body and do what he could to organise the hunt for Julian Thrace. It was unthinkable that a mere Express Messenger should carry such tidings to Brighton— Better a gentleman, even one as yet unknown to the Earl, who should break the news in person. On an errand of such delicacy, there was no one to be desired above Henry.

“I wish you will take care, Jane,” my brother said as he retired for the night. “In your brain and heart you hold the key to Julian Thrace’s past — and we know him for a desperate character. His very flight confirms his guilt; and having lost an earldom, he must hold freedom cheap. Remember that the papers are still at large — and that even were they not, you already know too many of their secrets. I should not like to think of you as Thrace’s next victim.”