Jane and the Stillroom Maid (16 page)

“John d’Arcy Danforth died in March. He was no more than two, the darling of his father. And in the midst of her grief and despair, Lydia Danforth was brought to bed of a stillborn son in April, several weeks before she expected.”

A gasp from Lady Swithin; I looked, and saw that she was unwontedly pale. Lady Harriot was too engrossed in her tale to notice its effect on her friend. She stared at me hotly.

“Do you know what the townspeople said of Lydia Danforth, with all her children dead about her? They declared that she was cursed. That she had mated with the Devil, and must reap her reward. And when she
followed her babe to the grave a few days after, they mouthed pious comforts, assuring all and sundry that her death was the will of God!”

Unable to contain her rage, Lady Harriot took refuge in mimicry. “‘The pore missus is at peace, now, wit’ ’er little ‘uns,’” she spat out in a broad Derby accent; and turned her furious gaze upon Lord Harold. “We may give thanks at least that she is beyond the spite of her neighbours!”

“So many children. It does not bear thinking of,” whispered Lady Swithin. Her right hand was pressed against her stomach, as though she might protect the babe within, and her grey eyes—so like Lord Harold’s—were wide with fear. It would be as well, I thought, did Lady Harriot consider of those who were present, as well as those who were gone.

Something in Mona’s voice must have alerted her; Lady Harriot summoned a smile, and reached for the Countess’s hand. “If you do not sleep a wink this night, Mona, you may lay the account at my door. Swithin will pillory me for putting such dreadful notions in your head. Forgive your Hary-O, my darling—if I am a wild beast sometimes, I cannot help it.”

Lady Swithin pressed her friend’s hand and attempted something of her usual manner. “No beast ever had such a heart, my dear. Yours is the largest in the world, as I have cause to know.”

Lady Harriot glanced diffidently away, as though to disguise her emotion, and said in a lowered tone, “One always feels the sufferings of the bereaved, when one has lost the dearest creature in the world! It pains me to see this fresh cloud hanging over the Penfolds family. I could shake that stillroom maid until her teeth fell out, for having brought this misfortune upon Charles!” Her jaw was set so fiercely I felt I glimpsed for an instant the spirit in Lady Harriot’s blood that had moved her forebears to Whiggish revolt.

“I believe your warm heart urges a greater anxiety
for the Danforths than is necessary, Hary-O.” Lord Harold’s tone was unaccustomedly gentle. “The girl was probably despatched by a spurned lover. Sir James will have the villain out in a fortnight, and all will be forgot.”

It was something to catch Lord Harold in a barefaced lie.

“Yes,” she replied with effort. “I am sure that you are right, Lord Harold—you always are, it is your special talent.”

Lady Harriot turned to me with the ghost of a smile. “I do not need to tell you, Miss Austen, that Sir James Villiers is an excellent man—far less frivolous than his appearance would suggest, and shrewder than his friends will allow. He holds his commission at my father’s request. But I cannot help thinking that the Justice moves rather
slowly
. What is your opinion, Lord Harold?”

“I believe Sir James moves no faster or slower than the pace of a one-horse dray, Lady Harriot; and as that is the accustomed pace of a country town, he is exactly suited to his company. His mind, however, is formed of swifter stuff; and I should be very much surprised to learn that Sir James was not before events.”

Miss Trimmer set aside her needlework and, with a severe look for Lady Harriot, said, “Remember your duties as a hostess, Hary-O. I am gone in search of Lady Elizabeth.”

“Go, then,” her charge muttered at Miss Trimmer’s departing figure, “and if such is your errand, my dear Trimmy, I cannot wish you back again. Are you perishing for a glass of iced lemon-water, Miss Austen? For if you are, pray advise me at once and have done. I cannot abide the sort of people who stand upon ceremony, as though I were a bit of porcelain, and might break when handled.”

“Who can possibly have mistaken your character so completely, Hary-O, as to think you fragile?” enquired Lord Harold.

She flashed him a look of scorn meant entirely for another. “Forget my duties as a hostess, indeed! As though I
could
forget them now, when they have been utterly usurped—”

He shook his head once; she bit her lip, and struggled for self-control.

“I should very much enjoy a glass of iced lemon-water,” I said, in an effort to turn the conversation, “for Lord Harold loves nothing better than an open carriage, and you must know the dust on the roads at such a season is dreadful. I shudder to think how I must appear to you all.”

“Heaven-sent, I assure you”—Lady Swithin laughed, her colour recovered—“for the gentlemen have been riding all the morning, and two women cannot endure an entire day’s
tête-à-tête
together without coming to blows. You must sit between us, Miss Austen, and tell me all your news since last we met. Do you still find Bath as disagreeable as ever? I have not set foot inside the town, you know, since my marriage!”

And thus in sparkling reminiscence, with many introductions of her own adventures and good jokes, did Desdemona contrive to amuse us all for a half-hour together, while the shadows lengthened on the verdant lawn. A chair was brought for my comfort, and the promised lemon-water; Lord Harold tossed his hat aside and threw his length along the grass, resting carelessly at Hary-O’s feet, and adding a word or two when the conversation required it. He bent his efforts to peeling a series of peaches, the long, curling, golden skin lengthening under the ministrations of his pocket-knife; and I watched the subtle movements of his hands, the delicate fingers roaming over the surface of the fruit, while attending to Desdemona’s chatter with half my mind. There was trouble here in Paradise, something greater even than the grief of mourning; the anxiety behind all their looks revealed it.

I was the first to perceive Charles Danforth as he made his way across the lawn; and Lord Harold, in following my gaze, rose abruptly to his feet.

“It would appear that Trimmy has found someone besides Lady E.,” he observed to Hary-O. “I thought Charles Danforth should have arrived well before myself and Miss Austen; but perhaps he had an errand along the way.”

“Charles!” Lady Harriot cried, an unsuspected warmth in her voice; and she ran forward to seize his hand, as unaffected as a girl. “I am so glad you are come! I cannot bear to think of you, alone in that house on such a fine summer’s day! You
will
stay to dinner? I do not think you have been at our table three times this summer—and yet Andrew is never absent!”

“And thus we manage to achieve a balance,” Mr. Danforth replied, “Andrew, by his excess, and I in my restraint. In this you may read the nature of our characters, Lady Harriot.” The judgement was offered coolly, but there was a smile about the gentleman’s lips; whatever his inward trouble, he could not regard Lady Harriot’s eager countenance and remain unaffected.

“And were you always so measured, Mr. Danforth?” enquired Lady Swithin with a tearing glance, “or was your youth as ardent, and as misspent, as your brother’s? Come and meet my very great friend, Miss Jane Austen. She is travelling through Derbyshire, to our good fortune.”

“Miss Austen,” Charles Danforth said correctly—and was then arrested when he would have bowed, and studied my countenance keenly. “But surely—I cannot be so mistaken—surely we have already met?”

“We have had a glimpse of each other,” I replied. “In Bakewell this morning, at the Snake and Hind.”

“Good Lord! You are the lady who discovered poor Tess.”

I inclined my head. That he could speak of the maid
with such charity—after the imputations the Coroner had laid at his door, and all the malice of the townsfolk—spoke to his amiable temperament.

“Was the Inquest horrid, Charles?” Lady Harriot enquired. “Miss Austen is too well-bred—or too in awe of Tommy’s disapproval—to speak of it.”

“Then I am for Miss Austen,” he quietly replied. “Such unpleasant scenes cannot be too quickly forgotten.”

“And have they no notion of who may have injured the poor maid?”

“None whatsoever, Lady Swithin. It is in every way inexplicable. I had not so much as known that she was dismissed from my service, before I learned of her death.”

“Dismissed?” Lady Harriot cried.

“Indeed! Mrs. Haskell turned Tess Arnold away, on the grounds of some grievous infraction, on the very night she was killed—although she made no such confession to
me
. The servants all conspire to respect my privacy, you know.” He offered this last for my benefit, who could not be presumed to know anything of Penfolds Hall.

So Charles Danforth would have us believe he knew nothing of his brother’s affairs; and perhaps, indeed, he did not. My gaze drifted towards Lord Harold; but his eyes were fixed on the gentleman’s face. His own disclosed nothing of his inward thought.

“Poor Haskell seems to feel herself in some wise responsible for the maid’s death,” Danforth continued. “It is only natural, I suppose, that she should take so much upon herself; but I cannot believe it reasonable. The girl was murdered by a wandering lunatic. That is the only explanation possible—and Haskell must learn to forgive herself.”

“It is a difficult lesson for any of us to learn,” I observed.

“Yes.” He gazed at my countenance, and his own
altered slightly. From a studied air of ease that had been meant to reassure the ladies—to suggest that he was in no way affected by the Inquest—it saddened perceptibly, and his thoughts fled far afield. Had Charles Danforth forgiven himself, I wondered, for the deaths of his little children? For the despair and agony of his late wife? A man might take every grief in the world upon his shoulders—might stand as God within the bounds of his own kingdom—and feel how futile his power to alter the balance of life and death. Charles Danforth could do nothing to prevent his daughters failing before him; he could not keep back his son from the brink. Such a man might well believe the whispered mutterings he heard on every side—and cry out that he was cursed. What had kept Charles Danforth from falling headlong into the grave?

“And how have you been amusing yourself, Charles?” Lady Harriot demanded. “Playing the gentleman farmer, I suppose? Or reading great tomes of philosophy in your dusty old library?”

The look of nagging melancholy softened, and was gone; he smiled at Lady Harriot. “I have been planning a great journey, you know. You will have heard, I think, that I intend to sail for the West Indies in the spring.”

“Not really!” The sudden access of delight—of wistful longing—was startling in Lady Harriot’s face. “How I should
love
to throw off the wet and cold of England, and sail towards the sun! What freedom you men possess—and how I detest you all!”

He held her gaze, and measured his words with care. “I am sure that if Lady Harriot Cavendish wished to go anywhere in the world, she might command the will of any man.”

Lady Harriot drew a sharp breath, and glanced away. Colour flooded into her cheeks; she affected indifference. “It has been ages and ages since I’ve been anywhere but London. And the Continent is entirely closed to us now, unless one considers Oporto, which I
cannot regard. But the Indies—! Oh, Charles, how
fortunate
you are!”

“Or would be, were my estates in better order. But that is to talk of business, and I shall not try your patience with sugar and accounts. My lord,” he observed with a nod to Lord Harold, “what have you attempted, for the amusement of these ladies? I had heard from Andrew that archery had been taken up, and targets secured on the lawn; but I can observe nothing so novel in the landscape. Chatsworth rolls on, as it has ever done, serene in its breadth of green.”

“The only novel you shall find, my dear Charles, is presently in Lady Elizabeth’s work basket,” Hary-O retorted before Lord Harold could speak. “The bows and arrows were dismissed from her sight so lately as yesterday; we may presume that she feared they offered too much temptation. With one murder in the air, you know, the effect may be catching; and dear Bess will not play the bull’s-eye for anyone.”

“You are very
bad
, Lady Harriot,” Danforth assured her with a half-choked laugh; and as he bent over her chair to admire her work, I had the strongest impression of collusion among Hary-O and Danforth and Lady Swithin. They were all of them shaking with guilty amusement; and I wondered that I had ever found Charles Danforth a figure of melancholy. The effects of sadness—of profound loss—were etched upon his countenance, to be sure; but in this place, and among these young women, he was able to set aside his care. Like Lady Harriot, I was suddenly glad that he had come; and I disliked to think of him alone amidst the many ghosts of Penfolds Hall.

The sound of a barking dog drew Lady Harriot sharply around, to gaze towards a gravelled avenue; three horsemen and several great hounds—bull mastiffs, by their appearance—approached at a walk. The eldest of the three, whose venerable head and resemblance to Lady Harriot proclaimed him her near relation,
I judged to be His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. The second was a boyish figure of perhaps fifteen, with auburn hair, a bearing quite stiff and correct, and an unsmiling countenance; he was arrayed entirely in the profoundest black. William, Marquess of Hartington, it must be presumed—the sole Cavendish son and heir to a king’s ransom. He did not look to me to be very promising; but allowances must be made for youth, and for the effects of grief. Lord Hartington was said by all the world to have been devoted to his mother.

The last was a gentleman of sober dress and easy appearance, a decade older than the boy at his side. This must be Andrew Danforth, though I could trace not the slightest resemblance to his brother. Where Charles Danforth was dark and sombre, this man was fair-haired and easy; where the weight of suffering lent nobility to Charles’s brow, his brother could offer only good-humoured charm. Whatever of tragedy had been visited upon Penfolds Hall, it had not laid low this elegant figure.