Jane and His Lordship's Legacy

Chapter 21 The Faithful Wife

9 July 1809, cont.

“And what do you think of your neighbour now, Edward?” I demanded as we made our way up the Alton High Street in the direction of the George. “A nice, savoury fellow by way of a clergyman’s son. And he wishes to be Squire of Chawton!”

“As I said: an ill-conditioned pup, for all he is five-and-thirty. But there is no real harm in him, Jane.”

“And no real good either.”

Edward laughed. “I have an idea of the Hinton household as it must once have been: a collection of over-fond sisters and half-sisters; a young boy sent away to school and disliking it as much as any boy could; indulged at his term leave, and petted by the women of the family long after such attention should be necessary; intended, like his father, for the Church. Only young Mr. Hinton has no taste for Holy Orders: He wishes to cut a dash, to be top of the trees as the young bloods would put it; up to snuff, awake upon every suit; a cock of the game. In short: a sporting man of the first stare. Instead, he is a shabby-genteel country gentleman with too little blunt and no opportunity for display — no means to set up his stable or hunt in style; no independent estate other than the Lodge his father left him; and to add insult to injury, the daughter of the most established gentleman in the village spurns his suit for a Bond Street Beau of no family and dubious character. I cannot wonder Hinton took to playing pranks better suited to a boy half his age.”

“Or aspiring to a fortune not rightly his own,” I added thoughtfully.

“It is in the worst order of fretful childishness,” Neddie agreed easily. “Recollect that I have sons of my own, and all of them sighing for the airs of a Corinthian. But in a fellow of Hinton’s years—!”

“Your sons, I hope, will know better how they should get on.”

“My sons were not spoilt from infancy!” Neddie retorted impatiently. “There was never time enough between them to tell one from the other, if you must know! And I thank God for it. They have not lacked for masters or instruction; if they wish for mounts or the means to pursue any peculiar passion, I generally grant their wishes. But my boys earn their rights, by Jove! And not by whining.”

“Well, Squire Austen — and what do you intend to do for the odious Mr. Hinton?”

“Find William Prowting as soon as may be — and suggest the sneering lout be returned to his sister’s leading strings. I have an idea of her contempt for all matters of sport; and think her brother deserves to suffer a little beneath Jane Hinton’s management.”

“For my part, I should not wish such a purgatory on any man.” I could not forestall a shudder, tho’ the morning was warm. “You are a hardened case, Edward. Hinton’s revenge is as nothing to yours. ”

I left my dear brother happy in ordering his dinner at the George, and reflected that there was nothing like a little useful activity to dispel a fit of the megrims. Edward loves Godmersham and the society of Kent — but the perfect serenity of that great estate may throw too profound a veil between my brother and the world. He has endured a winter of isolation, and a summer of slow awakening; the Jack Hintons of life should bring him only good, in the folly of their ways and the absurdity of their cares.

The pleasant summer’s day was drawing in as I walked south towards Chawton, the air grown oppressive and a weight of cloud hovering to the west. We should have thunderstorms by nightfall, and the dusty lanes turned to quagmire; the good turnpike stretches, however, were well maintained between this part of Hampshire and the principal towns of the coast. Henry must long since have reached the Earl’s household at Brighton. How had the former Freddy Vansittart — with his rakehell dark looks, his charm, his easy conversation — taken the news of his daughter’s death?

“Miss Austen!”

I lifted my head at the salutation, my mind recalled from distant wandering — and observed a slight woman with her hair neatly bound beneath a kerchief, and a look of unease around her eyes. Her face must be familiar, tho’ she no longer held a babe to her breast. Rosie Philmore, the laundry maid, and wife of the man who had stolen Lord Harold’s papers. She stood near the verge of the Alton road, her back to Chawton, and curtseyed.

“Good day, Mrs. Philmore. How are your children?”

“Well enough, thank you. I left them in the charge of their grandmother, ma’am, while I walked to Chawton.” She hesitated, and then said in a rush, “I’ve been and gone to visit Old Philmore — but he still is not returned, and no one in the village can say where he is gone, or when he is likely to come back. He has not stopped in Alton in near a week, and my Bert is that put out! Afeared, he is, that summat has occurred to harm the old man.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“It’s not like Old Philmore to leave Bertie in the lurch. Clutch-fisted he may be, and nip-cheese into the bargain, but blood is blood when all’s said and done.”

“I understand. Did you enquire of Miss Benn, at Thatch Cottages? For she is one of Old Philmore’s tenants.”

“And right glad to be shut of him. Miss Benn hardly opened her door to me, lest I had come to collect the rents in the old man’s stead.”

“Have you seen your husband at Alton gaol?”

“I spoke with Bert last night, when I took him a bit of supper.”

“He must be familiar with his uncle’s habits. Can he offer no hint of where Old Philmore might be gone to ground?”

Her work-hardened fingers fretted at the edge of her apron, and her eyes fell. In an instant I understood the poor woman’s dilemma — she did not wish to see her husband imprisoned for years, or even transported to Botany Bay, for an offence that had brought no good to the household; and yet, Bertie Philmore had probably bound her to secrecy when he sent her in search of his uncle. How much did Rosie Philmore truly know of the two men’s adventures?

The thought of Lord Harold’s chest, broken and discarded with all its contents, flamed within me. I must have it back.

“Mrs. Philmore,” I said gently, “I dislike to see you in such trouble. I fear for the well-being of your little ones. If there is any way in which I may help you, be assured that I will attempt it.”

“That is kind in you. But a woman did ought to stand by her husband, ma’am. You’re not to know, being a spinster lady—”

“You cannot make your husband’s case worse than it is already, by speaking; for his silence has already placed him in Alton gaol. Do you wish to find Old Philmore?”

“It’s Bert as is hankering after the old man!” she cried.

“He’s that worried — thinks his uncle was taken ill on his road, or been killt — or something worse.”

— Something worse being, no doubt, Old Philmore’s delighted release from all his Hampshire cares, through the spoils of burglary of which Bertie Philmore now had no share. The nephew, I saw, was torn between a very real anxiety for the man who had long served him as parent, and the jealous regard for his own interest, which the uncle might long since have betrayed. Sitting alone in his cell, hour after hour, his thoughts could not be happy ones. He must suffer the delusions of the forgotten: seeing first in his mind’s eye the image of his uncle’s corpse, trampled and abandoned in some woodland hole; and then again, the picture of his uncle in a far distant land — the West Indies perhaps — and surrounded by every luxury.

“Mrs. Philmore, you know that your husband and Old Philmore stole a valuable chest from my cottage. I must assure you most earnestly that the papers within, which you have already described, cannot save your husband’s life or contribute to the well-being of his family. The person who wished them stolen — the person I believe hired your husband and Old Philmore — is lately dead.”

She emitted a shriek, and pressed her hand in horror to her lips. “Dead? —The gentleman from Stonings is dead?”

“Gentleman?” I returned, my thoughts swiftly revolving.

“Did your husband say that he was hired by a gentleman?”

Too late, she saw her error. She stepped backwards, as tho’

in retreat. “He might have said something. I don’t know what. Not really.”

“A gentleman from Stonings wished the papers stolen?” It was not impossible, after all. We now knew that Julian Thrace had a taste for low company, and was much given to drinking with Dyer’s builders; I had found in this a ready explanation for Shafto French’s murder. But why not for the theft of the chest, as well? Thrace would have learned of Lord Harold’s bequest in much the way Lady Imogen knew of it, and was quick enough to apprehend the danger its contents might pose. He had ample knowledge of our invitation to dinner at the Great House, for he had been present at the very moment of Mr. Middleton’s issuance of it. He might all too easily have secured the services of Bertie Philmore on the night in question, and delayed our arrival home by his elaborate telling of fantastic anecdotes, and his prolonged losses at cards.

And yet — I had thought Lady Imogen so happy yesterday morning, as tho’ she possessed the key to her entire future. If Julian Thrace had been the one to seize the papers, how had she come by her certainty? He should have destroyed the evidence of his birth, and attempted to hide the truth from the Earl and all his household. The very last person Thrace should tell was surely Lady Imogen.

“If it is Mr. Thrace you would mean,” I said to Rosie Philmore, “I fear for Old Philmore’s life. Thrace has two murders already to his account, and is believed to have fled the country.”

The woman frowned. “I know of no Thrace, ma’am. ’Twas not of him my Bertie spoke. My man was hired by the master of Stonings — that Major Spence, what walks with a limp — to rob ye of your chest.”