Jane and the Barque of Frailty (22 page)

I set down the book.

The Princess had discovered the publication of her correspondence, and the imputation the Great had placed upon it. She had never sold her letters; but someone in Castlereagh’s household had. And with rage stirring in her Russian heart, she had sought his lordship at his very door. To plead with him … or to do him the sort of violence that had ended in her own death?

My mind raced at the idea: Tscholikova, bent upon revenge. Castlereagh, unaccountably absent from home and unwilling to admit to the world how he had spent the hours between one o’clock and five in the morning. The lady, calling at his house with a porcelain box in her hands. Had it contained her jewels, as we had supposed? Or the letters she had received from Castlereagh, and intended to hurl back in his face?

Had it contained, even, a weapon?

She had not found his lordship at home. She had quitted the house. And four hours later, she lay in a ruined heap upon the flagway, with the lid of her porcelain box in pieces beside her …. Where had she hidden herself in the interval? Had she merely lain in wait for Castlereagh’s return? Or had they met elsewhere—by chance or appointment—to discuss the furor occasioned by the Morning Post?

And then I recalled the carriage described at the inquest, drawn up in the mews behind Berkeley Square: with sounds of passion—or violence—emanating from within. For the first time, I could picture the whole in my mind; but how to secure proofs?

“La comtesse is on the point of departure,” Manon hissed from the doorway. “You have seen the oh-so-curious passage I mentioned?”

“They are all of them curious,” I retorted.

Manon threw up her hands and withdrew. From the hall came all the bustle of two ladies’ adieux. I looked for the final entry—that which the Princess had penned on the Saturday prior to her death.

I have seen Canning. He has told me all. There is nothing for it—I must take my courage in my hands, and warn the heedless girl. If a man may look like a god and behave like the very Devil, then no one is safe in his love. I would not consign my worst enemy to the Fate I have endured—and even she, whom the world might consider as having little of reputation to lose— even she might be made to suffer. It will be my last act of kindness before the end. Tomorrow I will pay a visit to—

“Well, Jane,” Eliza said from the doorway, “I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. Anne was all that was frank with me—and I flatter myself I learned a good deal more than I gave away! You will never guess from whom she had the Princess’s jewels! It was not her husband at all. It was that little Bird of Paradise—”

“Julia Radcliffe,” I concluded.

Chapter 21
The Opera Singer’s Tale

Saturday, 27 April 1811, cont.

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“Y
OU KNOW,
J
ANE, THAT
I
CAN NEVER ENDURE A
friend’s misery, without feeling miserable myself,” Eliza said as she drew up a chair to the oak work table—seeming as much at home as tho’ she actually comprehended the art of cookery, rather than being the most helpless creature in a kitchen I have ever encountered. “It is so dreadfully affecting to see one’s oldest friend quite undone by the fear of age, and all the natural affection for her son that one should expect her to feel—particularly when one has lost a child oneself! I declare I was made quite as miserable as Anne, when I had heard the whole, and only the recollection of the esteem in which dear Henry holds me—and the perfect manners he never fails to exhibit, whatever larks he may get up to in my absence—could return me to a sense of happiness again.”

“We shall take it as given that you engaged in an orgy of sensibility,” I said. “But pray cut line, Eliza! What did the Comtesse say?”

“You were quite in the wrong of it,” my sister informed me. “It was not Anne who killed the unfortunate Princess and stole her jewels, because she has long since dismissed the Russian as a rival for her husband’s affection—Tscholikova was grown too long in the tooth, of late years, and he did not care a fig for her. It is true that the Princess and d’Entraigues were the subject of scandalous rumour during the time they both lived in Vienna—which I believe was something in the year 1801 or ’02—but the story of their romance was put about by the French ambassador, who could not like d’Entraigues, owing to his having fled France at the Terror. The Austrians, however, would have it that d’Entraigues was spying for Buonaparte! I ask you, Jane, could anything be the more ridiculous? When he is an émigré nobleman, whom one may meet everywhere, and quite in the confidence of the Tory party? Anne very nearly laughed through her tears at the whole, and said the old scandal was inflamed and enlarged by Tscholikova, who must needs fancy herself in love with Emmanuel—their Viennese association being nearly a decade since, when the Comte had still all his teeth. That is why Anne can never bear to hear Tscholikova mentioned, for Anne was excessively fond of the Austrian court, and detested being forced to quit the city for a petty rumour.”

“But you said that d’Entraigues had demanded a divorce of his wife,” I persisted. “I collect that cannot be laid at Princess Tscholikova’s door?”

“Indeed not, for I was in the right when I suspected the Comte is à coeur perdu over Julia Radcliffe, and that it is she he wishes to offer marriage—but Anne will have it that the girl is merely toying with Emmanuel, being a heartless creature who means to get everything she can. It is not enough that she must have George Canning wrapped around her finger— whom everyone knows will never leave his wife and children for a mere Snug Armful, being mindful above all of his political career, and what such a scandal as divorce should do to that, I should not like to say—”

“Eliza,” I demanded in an awful tone, “if you do not explain how the Princess’s jewels came to be in your friend’s possession, I shall leave the house for Surrey this instant, and require the truth from the Comtesse myself!”

“I told you she had them of Julia Radcliffe,” Eliza returned tartly, “and if you have not sufficient patience to hear the particulars of the story, Jane, I shall not try you further.”

I sighed a supplication to Heaven.

“This is how it was.” My sister turned a garnet bracelet indolently about her wrist. “When the Comte delivered his ultimatum to Anne—but a day or two before we saw them at their home in Barnes— avowing his passion for the Radcliffe chit, and declaring he should not support Anne further, and insisting that she must take up the instruction of singers—you will know that upon her arrival in London, in 1807, no less a personage than the Duchess of York supported her establishment of an academy of voice, Jane, tho’ Anne has quite given that up now—”

“The Duchess of York being too great an eccentric to support any new amusement for very long,” I supplied.

“Indeed! When I consider the wild beasts Her Grace suffers to wander the grounds at Oatlands, I am only too thankful I have never been distinguished by an invitation! Not that such a connexion would fail to benefit Henry, and I am sure I should suffer any degree of trepidation, if it should further his career— But at all events, so great was Anne’s fear of destitution and abandonment, that she took her courage in her hands and paid a call upon Julia Radcliffe, to see what pleading might do.”

“How reckless of her. That would seem to declare one’s weakness to the enemy.”

“And only conceive how it must look to any chance observer! As tho’ she sought the acquaintance of a Demi-rep! However, Anne veiled herself to the point of obscurity—and went to the unsavoury establishment—which I collect is somewhere near Russell Square. She succeeded in gaining admittance, and abased herself thoroughly by a recitation of her woes—only conceive, Jane, of Anne de

St.-Huberti doing so, who had ever so many beaux in her youth, and might have outshone Julia Radcliffe before the royalty of several courts—” Eliza pressed her dampened handkerchief once more to her eyes. “I declare, there is nothing so melancholy as advancing age, after all!”

I glanced expressively at Manon, who had adopted a position of watchful interest near the kitchen door; the maid rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Julia Radcliffe appears to have been not unmoved by Anne’s recital. She informed the Comtesse d’Entraigues that if her sole objection to divorce was pecuniary—if, indeed, it was her purse and not her heart that should be in shreds, from the severing of her ties to the Comte—that Miss Radcliffe would undertake to make all right. She then produced the velvet roll of jewels we now know to have belonged to the Princess Tscholikova, and pressed them upon Anne.”

“And your friend accepted these jewels?” I cried. “I did not think she was so lacking in honour!”

Eliza shrugged. “One does not arrive at one’s fifth decade without certain compromises, Jane— and one never does so in style if one is determined to be improvident! I cannot consider that Anne acted so very ill. She was afforded the means to endure her husband’s defection—and was not so foolish as to spurn it!”

“She was paid off,” I said grimly, “and with such a treasure as must have landed her on the scaffold, if it does not land us there first. Did Miss Radcliffe disclose the source of her bribe?”

“I cannot make out that Anne even questioned her. Perhaps she believed the jewels to be a courtesan’s spoils—the tokens pressed upon Radcliffe by admiring protectors. She certainly had no notion the pieces belonged to Princess Tscholikova—for she bears the Russian such contempt, I doubt that anything could have prevailed upon her to profit by the Princess’s wealth.”

A faint doubt assailed me. “Eliza, you did not disclose the truth about the jewels?”

“When you had charged me expressly not to do so?” she returned, scandalised. “Naturally, I breathed not a word of Rundell’s despicable setting on of the Runners, nor of our fear that Anne was a murderess. She was so sincerely affected by her troubles, Jane, that I could do little else than encourage her to believe her future was assured—that the jewels should fetch a princely sum—and where I am to find it, I know not! I shall have to apply to Henry for a loan!”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” I returned with asperity. “By the time Henry has quitted Oxford, we shall have discovered the whole of this tangled business—or been brought before the Bow Street magistrate. In either case, your friend will learn the unhappy truth. I cannot think the Comtesse d’Entraigues’s behaviour or morals merit the reward of security, Eliza—let her suffer all the discomfort of deceit a little longer.”

Chapter 22
The Consolations of Religion

Sunday, 28 April 1811

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W
ITH A HOST OF CLAMOUROUS THOUGHTS DEMAND
ing my attention, and no ready resolution presenting itself to my understanding, I found sleep elusive last night. I could not help but canvass the merits of each of the figures that must fall under suspicion, whether as jewel thieves or murderers or both. Was Lord Castlereagh indeed the gentleman whom the Princess had loved—and Druschka’s avowals of her innocence but the blind loyalty of a devoted servant? Did the Comtesse d’Entraigues beguile my poor sister with fairytales, and disguise a malevolent guilt beneath her crocodile tears? Had her husband cruelly used the dead Princess, or was his indifference as real as his wife claimed? Was Julia Radcliffe not the slip of a girl I persisted in regarding with fascination, but a hardhearted jade who deliberately placed the Comtesse in danger of her life?

By half-past six o’clock, I abandoned my bed for the book room and sat in my dressing gown by the ashes of yesterday’s fire. I schooled myself to look over the pages of Sense and Sensibility most lately delivered from Mr. Egerton’s press—he has at last arrived at Chapter Ten, which must be felt to be a triumph—but the gestation of these slim volumes begins to seem like that of an elephant. The effort of concentration, upon a task so generally felt to be enjoyable, proved too much for my strained nerves; by eight o’clock I had abandoned it.

Henry was abroad when I entered the front passage: shaved, put into his neat dark coat by his man, and ready to be thrown up onto his horse.

“I have urged Eliza not to come down,” he told me in a voice more suited to the tomb; “we have said our adieux. Pray look after her, Jane—I shall send word when I have reached Oxford safely.”

“Enjoy the solitary splendour of the Blue Boar,” I advised him, “and do not be mourning your undergraduate days. You improve with age, Henry.”

I watched him wave from the back of his hired mare and clatter off down the silent streets of Hans Town in a westerly direction; and reflected that there are few sights so gratifying to a female eye, as a handsome man in a well-made coat and hat, astride a horse on a spring morning.

I accepted a cup of coffee from Manon and dressed myself for service in the Belgrave chapel.
¹
The day—so nearly May—was fine enough for walking, provided I might persuade Eliza to the exertion; she was prone, however, to suggest a hackney coach bound instead for the Chapel Royal, as being the house of worship most likely to offer an array of Fashionables in Pious Attitudes, for our amusement. Eliza is frank in admitting she is rarely able to keep her mind on higher things, even of a Sunday—but I was determined this morning to be firm. Fanny and James Tilson are often to be found at the Belgrave chapel, in company with their numerous little girls; and I felt such a wholesome display of family devotion must be salutary, after the thoughts of bloodshed, treason, and adultery I had entertained.

“But, Jane,” Eliza faltered from amidst the bedclothes, where she was imbibing a cup of chocolate, “should I not stay the sacrament? I cannot think myself worthy to receive it, when a suspicion of law-breaking hangs over me! And recollect, we are to dine this evening with Mrs. Latouche and her daughter Miss East, in Portman Square. I am sure I should recruit my strength—for they are both of them so voluble as to send one home with a headache!”