Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Chapter 21 A Deadly Challenge

2 November 1808, cont.

They played at faro on Mrs. Challoner’s enamelled table, with the faces of the thirteen cards painted on its surface: Sophia as dealer, Lord Harold the bettor. As she drew each card from her box, he wagered a sum as to its face; and as she displayed it, he must react with neither pleasure nor pain — but rather as a man in acceptance of his Fate. The game was well-suited to their varying tempers — Lord Harold should keep a mental register of every card that fell, and might, with time, wager successfully as to the nature of those that remained — while Mrs. Challoner stood in the guise of Fortune’s handmaiden: powerless to affect the hand she dealt, but determinant of success or failure all the same. He had appeared this evening at Netley Lodge with his usual careless grace; claimed acquaintance with Maria Fitzherbert in a cool but affectionate tone that was returned with polite indifference; bowed correctly to the Conte da Silva-Moreira, who would have drawn him apart immediately if he could — but that Lord Harold was determined, I saw, to take notice of me.

“Ah, and it is — Miss Austen, I think? Of Mrs. Lacey’s pastry shop? You are in excellent looks this evening, ma’am. I confess that it has been a long while since I have seen such a daring hat.”

He pressed my hand to his lips, raised a satiric brow, and allowed his attention to be claimed by others — but the rallying tone, and the attempt at intimacy, had not been lost upon Sophia Challoner. She came to me not five minutes later and said, in an undertone, “Do you not believe me, now, Jane, when I say that the fellow is lost to all claims of respectability? He shall be offering you carte blanche next, if you are not on your guard.”[23]

All conversation was soon at an end, however, for Sophia Challoner opened her instrument, and commenced to play a dashing air while Mr. Ord sang. The American possessed a rich, full voice that paired admirably with the pianoforte — and I thought how well Sophia and her swain appeared together: the dark head and the bright, the cultivated beauty and the fresh-faced youth. Were they, despite the disparity in their ages, equal in attachment? I witnessed no peculiar mark of regard — no look of adoration or lingering touch. It was a puzzlement. I almost wished them to be lovers, so that they might not be joined by conspiracy alone.

“Her performance is admirable,” said Lord Harold in my ear, “but I cannot approve her taste. What do you think, Jane?”

He had moved between my chair and the wall.

Beyond me stood the Conte da Silva, his gaze trained on the fair proficient, while Mrs. Fitzherbert had retired to her fringe in the window seat, and must be well beyond the range of hearing.

“I think that you run the risk, my lord, of alerting Mrs. Challoner’s senses. She mistrusts your notice of me, and is determined to thwart it.”

“Sophia — jealous? All the better!” he murmured provocatively. “I enjoy considering you the object of that woman’s envy, Jane. You deserve a little envy. Your dress becomes you as nothing has these four years, at least.”

“My lord—”

I felt too exposed in the room, under the gaze of those assembled; but I apprehended that it was exactly this degree of risk his lordship enjoyed.

“Are you not desirous of learning my progress in London?”

“I cannot believe there is wisdom in such a subject.”

“Jane, Jane — you were never faint of heart! But I make you uncomfortable. And Sophia detects a disturbance in her ranks; she shall end her song presently. I have time enough for this: Beyond the power of imagining — to the shock and dismay of her intimate friends — Mrs. Fitzherbert has lost the Prince’s favour. He now pursues another: the Lady Hertford, whose husband rules the Seymour clan. It would seem that in pleading Lord Hertford’s indulgence, in the matter of Minney Seymour, His Royal Highness fell in love with Hertford’s wife. Poor Maria has won a daughter — but lost her Prince.”

His speech was done, as well as his provocation; but he had left me much to consider. If Mrs. Fitzherbert had been spurned once again — if, in the autumn of her life, she were abandoned a second time by the man to whom she had sacrificed every notion of honour and reputation — might she not have cause for vengeance? Our assumptions of her fidelity to the Prince must be routed. And that meant—

— That she might lend her entire support to a Catholic plot, without the slightest qualm.

I studied the pink and guileless countenance of the middle-aged woman bent over her fringe, and felt both doubt and immense pity. What must it be, to be born with the burden of beauty, and pursued to the ends of the earth by the Great — only so long as one remained young?

It was after Sophia’s song had ended that I fell prey to her rapacity for whist-players, a table being made up of Mr. Ord, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Conte da Silva, and myself. I am no lover of cards, and detest the waste of an evening spent in such a pursuit, when the hours might better pass in conversation or music — but I understood that Sophia Challoner pursued a double purpose, in arranging her drawing-room thus: she might satisfy Mrs. Fitzherbert’s desire for placid amusement, and engross Lord Harold entirely to herself, the better to further the Conte da Silva’s interest with that gentleman.

“Do you play at faro, sir?” she had enquired with mocking sweetness.

“You know that I do. Would you consent to deal me a hand?”

They had then established themselves at the cunning table near the fire; and I found that my eyes strayed too often from my own cards, to observe the battle of wits they waged, to offer my partner Mr. Ord much success. This was entirely as it should be, for Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Conte were allowed to carry all before them — a result they appeared to enjoy.

“Have you lived all your life in Southampton, Miss Austen?” Maria Fitzherbert enquired as she set down her trump.

“But a year and a half, ma’am — though Hampshire has always been my county. I was born in the town of Steventon, some miles to the north.”

“Then I have spent several years in your part of the world!” she cried, with the first evidence of animation I had seen. “I stayed on numerous occasions at Kempshott Park.”

“And how did you find the neighbourhood of Basingstoke?”

“Decidedly agreeable. It is a good market town, and as a staging post for London, must offer every convenience to one of itinerant habits. It is nearly twenty years since I was staying there — but I recall that the local hunt was rather fine, and the society in general not unpleasing.”

The Prince of Wales had leased Kempshott Park for some years in the late 1780s, or the early 1790s; I had been too young a girl to recollect much of the household, but my elder brother, James, had been wont to ride to hounds with the Prince’s party. I doubted, however, that Mrs. Fitzherbert had seen anything of James. That she could refer with equanimity, to a place she had occupied under the most dubious of circumstances, confirmed my belief that she was impervious to the weight of scandal.

“I knew the house in Lord Dorchester’s time,” I returned, “and attended many a ball there, in my youth. It is a lovely place.”

“I was very happy at Kempshott.” Her eyes lifted thoughtfully — not to meet my own, but to regard Mr. Ord, who was bent over his cards. Her gaze rested on his golden head, and an involuntary sigh escaped her.

“Youth, and its memories, are precious — are they not, Miss Austen?”

Did she think of the Prince, and the beauty of his youth? Prince Florizel, he had been called — one of the most engaging young gentlemen of the last age. Half the ladies of the ton had harboured a tendre for him — but at six-and-forty years of age, he was very much dissipated, now.

Mr. Ord chanced to look up — chanced to meet the benevolent countenance trained upon him — and smiled at Mrs. Fitzherbert. “You are forever young in the eyes of those who admire you, madam.”

Something tugged at my heart — some look or word whose meaning I could not decipher — and then the moment passed. A cry broke from the faro table beside us, and Lord Harold thrust back his chair in triumph.

He stood over Sophia Challoner, his narrowed eyes gleaming. An expression of fury and challenge darkened the lady’s face, and for an instant I almost believed she might tip the table and its contents — cards, bills, a dish of sugared almonds — onto the floor at his feet. Her parted lips trembled as though to hurl abuse at his head; but Lord Harold straightened, and stepped away from the table.

“My God, Sophia, how you hate to lose!”

“You saw the cards. Admit it! You cheated in my house! As you once cheated Raoul of life!”

The colour drained from Lord Harold’s countenance. “Madam,” he said stiffly, “in deference to your sex I may not answer that charge; but were you a man, I should toss my glove in your face!”

Mr. Ord rose from his seat. “Then toss it in mine, sir! I stand behind Mrs. Challoner’s words!”

“Do you, pup?” He bared his teeth in a painful grin; and I saw the mastery pride held over him. He would not hesitate to challenge the American — to meet him with pistols at dawn — and the outcome must be desperate. Lord Harold’s reputation as a marksman was fearful; but I had seen Mr. Ord spur his black mount, and guessed at the passions his gentle exterior must hide. I found that I had risen as well, and stood swaying by the whist table; the Conte da Silva was very still, his black eyes glittering as they moved from one man to the other.

Mr. Ord pulled off his glove.

“James — no! ” cried Mrs. Fitzherbert. “I beg of you—”

He stepped forward, and slapped Lord Harold across the face.