Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Chapter 20 Message from an Unknown

Wednesday, 2 November 1808

At six o’clock this evening, my brother walked to Roger’s Coachyard to secure a hack chaise for my journey to Netley Lodge. Mary settled on my bed to watch me dress for Sophia Challoner’s party. I had laid my new black gown over a chair, and spread the paisley shawl across its folds.

“It is a lovely gown, Jane.” She fingered it wistfully. “And the hat is too cunning for words! Mrs. Challoner must hold you in excessive regard, to send you such a gift!”

“Possibly,” I returned, “but I believe it is the power of giving that she most truly enjoys. She informed me that she had not two groats to rub together when she married her late husband; and that spending her fortune is now the chief pleasure of her life.”

“Then you do her a kindness in accepting of her generosity. Has she no children?”

“None at all.”

“Poor creature! A fortune should be nothing, if one were all alone in the world.”

As I was unlikely ever to have a child myself, I found I could not agree with Mary; the spending of a fortune, in the absence of more demanding preoccupations, might be engaging in the extreme. “Mrs. Challoner should disagree with you. She places the virtues of solitude — or freedom, as she prefers to call it — above all else.”

“She sounds an odd sort of lady. Do you admire her?”

I hesitated. What did I feel for Sophia Challoner, beyond a persistent doubt as to her motives?

“I admire her bravery, certainly. She fears neither man nor woman; handles her mettlesome horses herself; presides over an elegant establishment alone, with utter disregard for the opinions of others; and went so far as to view the battle of Vimeiro at close hand. She snaps her fingers at propriety and cuts a considerable dash. She is the sort of woman that may never enter a room without a dozen heads turning; indeed, she seems to thrive upon notice as others must upon air. But I do not think she possesses an easy soul, Mary. She is in search of something — sensation, the regard of others, a purpose to her restless life. I do not begin to understand her; but admire her?

Yes — if you would mean the sort of admiration one reserves for a wild thing of great beauty.”

“I have never heard you speak thus about anyone,” Mary said in a small voice. “You are so... so relentless, Jane, in the expression of your opinions. You may reduce a paragon to shivering shreds, with the well-placed application of a word.”

I turned and stared at her. “Do I seem to you so vicious, Mary? So wantonly careless of the feelings of others?”

She coloured immediately. “Not vicious, Jane. Not exactly. But I am always thankful that the regard of a sister prevents you from speaking so frankly as you might, your opinion of me.”

My whole heart went out to her: the soft, round face under the cloud of curls; the wondering eyes of a child. Great strength of mind and purpose was concealed beneath her china-doll looks; and her goodness was unshakeable. But it was true I had disparaged Mary Gibson greatly when Frank first lost his heart to her: a mere girl of Ramsgate, with no more wit than fortune or influence. It was easy to dismiss Mary in her girlhood — but I could never regard the Captain’s wife so lightly now.

“Will you oblige me, my dear — though I hesitate to ask it: will you help me to do up my hair as it should be done, to grace this remarkable hat?”

She jumped down from the bed with her face alight. She had left several younger sisters, some of them barely out in Society, when she quitted Kent a few years ago; and I knew she missed the joys of preparing for Assemblies and balls — all the chatter of a ladies’ dressing room.

She held the Equestrian Hat aloft, her narrowed gaze surveying me in the mirror.

“You must let down the front section of your hair, Jane, for it is far too severe, and part it in the middle, I think. We shall curl the wings in bunches at the temple, and the brim of the hat shall dip just so. Have you, by any chance, a set of hair tongs?”

As she wove the heated iron through my hair, I gripped the gold crucifix tightly in my palm. There would be time enough to clasp it about my throat, once I had crossed the River Itchen.

It seemed that Mrs. Challoner had found an hour to commission her gown — and then had commanded several days and nights of Madame Clarisse’s time. She was breathtaking in her evening dress, of rich white Italian sarcenet; it was embroidered in gold thread with grapevines and leaves that ran across the low bodice and the edge of the cap sleeves. Scrollwork in gold ornamented the hem, which was a full foot shorter than the under-petticoat and train; gold buttons fastened the dress behind. Her hair was combed sleekly back along the right side of her head, and blossomed in curls over her left ear; a circlet of gold and diamonds ornamented her neck, and another the upper part of her arm. With her brilliant complexion and liquid dark eyes, she appeared a triumphant goddess — a victorious archangel, who might equally reward a youth for excellence at sport, or watch him broken under the wheels of a chariot. She was charmingly grouped as I entered the room, in a low chair by the fire, with Mr. Ord standing above her and a little girl of nine or ten on a hassock at her feet. The child wore a simple white gown of muslin, tied with a pale green sash; she was turning over the beads of a bracelet, and talking amiably of the afternoon’s delights. I should mention that the drawing-room of Netley Lodge provided a perfect backdrop to this elegant domestic scene: it was filled with curious treasures, brought from Oporto by Mrs. Challoner, and displayed about the room with artless taste. A brilliant bird, quite dead and stuffed, was posed in a gilt cage in one corner; Spanish scimitars hung from the walls; a drapery of embroidered stuff, in the Portuguese manner, was flung across a sopha; and heavy paintings in oils — dark as the Inquisition — stared down from the walls.

“Miss Austen!” Sophia cried, and rose with alacrity to embrace me. I was startled at the effusion of her welcome, but returned her warmth unquestioningly. “How lovely you look in that gown!”

Her eyes moved lightly over my figure — lingered an instant upon the golden crucifix at my throat, but without any peculiar regard — and took in the effect of the paisley shawl with obvious pleasure.

“I must order a gown just like it, immediately — only not, I think, in black. Then we may be seen to be two girls together, sharing confidences, as we ride about the country in my charming phaeton! Maria — may I have the honour of introducing Miss Austen to your acquaintance?”

At that moment, a lady was entering the drawingroom, in a magnificent gown of deep pink drawn up over a white satin slip; it was fastened at the knee with a cluster of silver roses and green foil, and allowed to drape on the opposite side to just above the bottom of the petticoat. Had she been less stately in her person, the gown might have been ravishing; but as it was, she appeared rather like an overlarge sweetmeat trundled through the room on a rolling cart. Her ample white bosom surged above the tight diamond lacing of her bodice; and a necklace of amethyst trembled in her décolletage.

“Miss Austen — Mrs. Fitzherbert. Maria, this is Miss Austen — my sole friend in Southampton, and a very great adventuress on horseback.”

“A pleasure,” said Maria Fitzherbert. She inclined her head. I curtseyed quite low — for one is so rarely in the presence of a royal mistress, particularly one who believes herself a wife, that I was determined no lack of civility should characterise our meeting. She smiled at me; said a word or two respecting “dear Sophia, and her bruising experience in Oporto,” made it known that she regarded me as an object of gratitude for having taken “dear Sophia” under my wing — and moved, in her ponderous fashion, towards the window seat. There she took up her workbag and commenced to unfurl a quantity of fringe.

I had heard from my cousin Eliza de Feuillide, who knew a little of the lady, that Maria Fitzherbert was the most placid and domestic of creatures; that she loved nothing so much as a comfortable coze in the countryside, particularly at her house on the Steine in Brighton; that the Prince’s predilection for loud company and late hours was the saddest of trials; and that, if left to herself, she would summon no more than three friends of an evening, to make up her table at whist. She must be more than fifty, I presumed, and the sylph-like beauty she had commanded at eighteen — the year of her first marriage, to the heir of Lulworth Castle in Dorset — was now utterly fled. Mr. Weld had been six-and-twenty years her senior, and he had survived his wedding night but three months. She was no luckier in her second union, to Mr. Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton Park and London; for he died but four years after their marriage, along with her infant son. She had been nine-and-twenty when at last the Prince prevailed against her scruples, and persuaded her to be his consort. Now the golden hair was turned to grey; her flawless complexion flaccid. But the Prince was said to prefer portly women.

Mr. Ord crossed the room, apparently to admire Mrs. Fitzherbert’s fringe — his attitude all politeness — but a tug on the tails of his black coat from the little girl in the green sash brought him whirling around, at the ready to tickle her. She shrieked with delight, and hid herself behind the column of Sophia Challoner’s dress; Mr. Ord, however, forbore to pursue her there.

“Minney,” said Mrs. Fitzherbert quietly, “it is time you were returned to Miss LaSalles; come, kiss my cheek and make your adieux.”

The child affected to pout, and cast down her eyes; but she was a dutiful creature, and did not hesitate to peck the matron’s cheek and skip out of the room in search of her governess.

“That is little Mary Seymour,” Sophia informed me in a low voice. “You will have heard of her troubled case, I am certain.”

I had read of Minney Seymour, as she was known, in all the London papers. She was the seventh child of Lord Hugh and Lady Horatia Seymour, the latter a consumptive who had placed the infant in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s care before going abroad for a cure. Poor Lady Seymour, whose husband was a ViceAdmiral of the Royal Navy, had returned to England when her daughter was two — only to die of consumption a few weeks later. Her husband, serving on the West Indies station, had survived her but a matter of months. The child had remained with Mrs. Fitzherbert, much doted upon by the lady and her royal consort — until the Seymour family demanded her return when Minney was four. The furor that then ensued was indescribable.

The Prince claimed immediately to have had conversations with the dying mother, in which she made over the care of her child to Mrs. Fitzherbert; he used his influence with every member of the Seymour clan; made over a fortune for the girl’s use, once she should be of age — and when the case was brought to the House of Lords two years since, His Royal Highness shamelessly manipulated the votes of his cronies to require a judgement in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s favour. Some part of the Seymour family was said to be outraged: not least that the child was to be raised by a Catholic, and subject to the polluted atmosphere of the Prince of Wales. But having seen the blooming girl and her adoptive mother, I could not think Minney Seymour so very unhappy. The child had never, one must remember, known her true parents — and could hardly be expected to rush from all the comforts of a royal household in Brighton, to the arms of her unknown relations.

“I am very glad that you are come,” Sophia said in my ear. “Would you oblige me — before the rest of the guests are assembled — in walking into my dressing room for a little conversation? For I should dearly like to consult you.”

“Of course,” I said in surprise.

With a glittering smile at Mr. Ord, who now stood in a becoming attitude near Mrs. Fitzherbert’s seat, she swept out of the room and led me swiftly up the stairs. I could not imagine the source of such urgency — had she commissioned a gown of whose style she was in doubt, and required a second opinion?

“Ah, Conte, ” she said as she achieved the head of the stairs, “they are all waiting for you. How distinguished you look, in the Order of the Regent!”

The man to whom she spoke was tall and blackhaired, with the olive skin of Iberia; a thin, whipcord figure exquisitely dressed, with a sword swinging at his side. A broad scarlet riband crossed his breast, and from it hung what appeared to be a gold and enamel medal: the Order of the Regent, she had called it, by which she signified the vanished Regent of Portugal now resident in Brazil.

Hand on his sword-hilt, he clicked his heels together and bowed deeply. “You are the brightest flower in the English garden,” he said with considerable effort.

“Your command of our tongue certainly increases.” Sophia’s tone was playful. “Miss Austen, may I have the honour of presenting the Conte da SilvaMoreira to your acquaintance?”

Silva-Moreira. Silva. A common enough handle, by all accounts, in that part of the world, Frank had said. Sophia had spoken in English, rather than her accustomed Portuguese — and again I heard my brother: He may have been an Iberian — but I’ll swear the fellow spoke nothing but French!

“The Conte is a very old friend of myself and Mrs. Fitzherbert, with whom he has been staying in Brighton since his removal from Oporto. Conte, Miss Austen.”

I made my courtesy, and the black-haired Count clicked his heels again. He bent over my hand, his lips grazing my glove, and his eyes swept my figure indolently. Then his gaze returned, arrested, to the pulse at my throat.

Under the weight of his look, I felt the crucifix burning there, as though each throb of my heart burnished it the brighter. My hand nearly strayed to cover it, but the Count’s dark eyes flicked up to mine — and the spell was broken.

“Miss Austen?” he said. “There is an English sea captain by that name.”

“There are two, Conte — both my brothers. Have you happened to meet with one of them?” On the St. Alban’s, perhaps, off Vimeiro?

“I have not had that pleasure. I merely heard of Captain Austen from. . friends.” His eyes strayed once more to my throat. “That is a most beautiful crucifix you wear, madam. May I examine it?”

He employed the tone of a man who is never refused anything; his fingers were already reaching towards my neck.

A great, tall man wrapped up in a black cloak, Flora had said, nose as sharp as a blade, and eyes that glittered dark like a serpent’s. Was it he? The man Sophia Challoner called mon seigneur? The man I had blundered against in the dark of the subterranean passage, only yesterday? The man who had stolen Mr. Hawkins’s boat?

He had been staying at Netley Lodge, after all, since Monday.

“How did you come by this?” he demanded sharply.

“It was pressed upon me by a friend.”

“Curious! On the obverse, it bears the family seal of my house!”

“Indeed? I cannot imagine how that could be so.”

“Can you not?”

“If you will excuse us, Conte,” said Sophia firmly, “we shall not be a moment.”

She clasped my hand and led me towards her dressing room. I felt the Count’s eyes follow me the length of the corridor, and shuddered.

“He is an imposing figure of a man, Sophia — too imposing, perhaps.”

“He ought to be. He was reared to rule estates as vast as a kingdom, and may command a quarter part of the wealth of Portugal, my dear. For all his power and fortune, Ernesto knows but little of the world, however; only the gravest necessity would drive him from his native land — and into the arms of the English Crown. But such is the goad of war.”

“—Into the arms of the Crown?” I repeated, perplexed.

“Indeed. The Conte has sought the aid of Maria Fitzherbert not merely from the ancient friendship between her family and his — but because of her influence with the Prince, and by extension, the Whig Party! Without the support of some part of the Government — without assurances that English troops will not desert the Peninsula, and consign its peoples to the French — the Conte’s future will be bleak, indeed. He remains here in Southampton only a day — long enough to engage a ship for his eventual return to Oporto. Tomorrow he posts to London, to meet with the Prince at Carlton House.”

She offered the recital as though it were of no great moment; from her air she had not an idea of the speech’s effect upon myself. That Sophia Challoner should disparage the French — that she should welcome to her household a man determined to win the English to the cause of war in the Peninsula — was so at variance with my ideas of the lady, that I was entirely confounded.

“That is why I extended an invitation to this soiree to Lord Harold Trowbridge — that insolent rake we encountered in Mrs. Lacey’s pastry shop on Saturday,” she continued easily. “He had the presumption to call here the following day, and could not be got rid of for full two hours! I detest the man — but I know him to wield great influence in Whitehall, and I thought it necessary for the Conte to make his acquaintance. Maria might do much with the Prince; but Lord Harold is vital to the persuasion of the Whig Great.”

“Is he?” I said wonderingly. “I did not know that one could be a. . what did you call him? a rake- hell ?... and yet command the respect of members of the Government.”

Sophia threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, my poor, dear Jane!” she cried. “Have your brothers never taught you the way of the world?”

The droll look of a cynic sat well on her beautiful countenance — but I could not credit the change. She had shown a depth of passion — a hatred in respect of Lord Harold — that could hardly be so easily done away with, merely for the sake of policy. I suspected duplicity, on one hand or the other; but looked diffident, as though her words had shamed me.

“I will not teaze you any longer.” She smoothed an errant wisp of hair, her eyes on her own reflection.

“Lord Harold may go to the Devil — provided he serve my interests first. But that is not why I carried you away with me, Jane. Pray attend to this.”

Now she would bring forth a selection from her wardrobe — or offer a ravishing jewel for my delectation, I thought. But instead, she opened the drawer of her dressing table, and drew forth a letter, its seal already broken.

“What do you make of that?”

I opened the page slowly, afraid of I knew not what — that it was penned in Lord Harold’s hand?

That it contained a declaration of ardent love? But I could not recognise the fist. The note was dated Monday — the thirty-first of October.

There was no signature.

“How very odd,” I said softly.

“That is a note that smacks of blackmail, Jane. It appeared on my doorstep Monday morning.”

“But what does it mean?” I enquired with a puzzled frown. “And from whence did it come?”

“If I were forced to offer a guess — I should say that my late serving-maid, Flora, had penned it; though I confess I cannot speak to her hand.”

The writing was fluid and without hesitation, though from the appearance of several blots, it appeared to have been written on an unstable surface — the back of a jolting cart, perhaps? Flora had certainly suggested, in our conversation amidst the ruins, that she might pursue such a course; but I would not disclose so much to Sophia Challoner. She did not need to know that I had met with the girl on Sunday, while overlooking the Lodge.

“But why should your maid attempt extortion? What can this girl profess to know of your affairs?”

She shrugged. “Nothing I should not publish to all the world. She is gravely mistaken if she believes me likely to pay for her silence. I must assume she suffers a grievance, for having been turned off without a character — but in truth, Jane, she was a wretched servant.”

“I am sure of it — your opinion could not err in such matters,” I returned with complaisance. “But how shall you answer such a letter, Sophia?”

“I shall meet the scheming wench tomorrow at dusk. Should you like to bear me company?”

“Take Mr. Ord,” I advised. “You do not know, after all, whom you may encounter — and a gentleman of parts should be of infinite use, in so lonely a place, and at such an hour.”

A clatter in the hallway below — and my companion turned hastily from her mirror. “That will be Lord Harold, or I miss my mark. Come, Jane — let me make you better acquainted with the most despicable man in the Kingdom!”