Jane and the Stillroom Maid (37 page)

31 August 1806, cont.
∼

T
HE
M
ARQUESS OF
H
ARTINGTON, WHETHER HE WERE
above Miller’s Dale or no, was no longer our object. Lord Harold sent Andrew Danforth at a run to the miller’s cottage, where he found a party of men despatched by the Duke of Devonshire. Danforth tarried only long enough to send a message to His Grace, before urging the better part of the search party back up into the hills. It was a sober company that soon appeared, with a makeshift litter among them, to bear Charles Danforth home.

He was placed on the litter, and his eyes closed; and then, with a heave, six men lifted the body high upon their shoulders. Andrew Danforth loosed his brother’s horse, and led it in tandem with his own behind the grim procession. They would walk thus, down the path Tess Arnold had so often trod, towards Tideswell and Penfolds Hall.

I had remained in Lord Harold’s company while the men were summoned; but I did not wish to make another of the melancholy group struggling through the
fields. My heart was at present too full. I turned to his lordship, who lingered only long enough to watch the men out of sight, before hastening to the tree where the Danforth mounts had been tethered. He studied the ground, nodded once, and then made his way back to me.

“Do you wish to return to Bakewell this evening, Jane?”

“Not at all. Where do you intend to proceed, my lord?”

“To Penfolds! However indolent His Grace may appear in the general way—however consumed with worry for his son and heir—he remains Lord Lieutenant of the County. He will know exactly how to act. If I am not greatly mistaken, Sir James Villiers will presently make his way to the Hall; and I should wish to be on hand when he appears.”

“Then I shall accompany you.”

His lordship nodded distractedly. In his hand he still held the last words of Charles Danforth; he folded the piece of paper and tucked it inside his coat. “At the very least, I must be sure to give Sir James
this
. For it is certainly in Danforth’s handwriting.”

“Of course. He was a man to do a thing properly, if he would undertake it at all,” I observed.

Lord Harold’s gaze raked over me keenly; but he said nothing—and so we descended the hills above Miller’s Dale for the last time in silence.

H
ALFWAY TO
P
ENFOLDS, THE RAIN THAT HAD THREATENED
all day burst in a great roar over our heads, so that the patient Devonshire horses, so long pressed into Lord Harold’s service, were steaming with wet at our arrival. We found the great door thrown open, and a miscellany of carriages standing before it; more than one bore the crest of serpent and stag. Naturally, Lady Harriot would come at the first word of tragedy. Before
the wheels of our own conveyance had ceased to turn, Lord Harold had thrust back the carriage door and alighted.

Mrs. Haskell stood grim-faced and silent in the front entry. Under the livid glare of the summer storm, the old stone of Penfolds closed in like a tomb. I shuddered, my eyes on the housekeeper’s rigid form. She took his lordship’s hat and stick without a word, and waited for me to untie my bonnet strings. “His Grace the Duke is in the parlour, my lord.”

We followed a footman through one of the doors leading from the hall. A fire had just been lit in a massive hearth, against the chill of the sudden rain; the Duke stood with bent head, staring into the flames. In a chair drawn close to the fire sat Lady Harriot; the Countess of Swithin clasped her hand. I could detect no tears on Hary-O’s face; her countenance was terrible in its self-possession. Andrew Danforth stood by the window, framed in the red folds of a velvet drapery; Sir James Villiers, resplendent in a lavender waistcoat and buff pantaloons, had adopted a place on the sofa. The Justice appeared the most easy of the party. All five looked around as the footman threw open the door, and revealed us to their sight; and I discerned immediately that we were not the persons expected.

“Uncle! And Miss Austen!” Lady Swithin cried; she squeezed Hary-O’s hand and came swiftly across to us. “Is everything not dreadful! I still cannot believe it possible of Charles!”

Lord Harold touched his niece’s cheek; she gazed at him imploringly, as though even now he might be capable of restoring Charles Danforth to life. “Stay with Hary-O, Mona—there’s a good girl.”

The Countess nodded once and returned to her position by Lady Harriot’s chair.

“Your Grace,” Lord Harold said formally. “Any word of Lord Hartington?”

“Young fool stumbled home an hour since,” the Duke
of Devonshire muttered, “with some tale of poachers in the woods near Haddon Hall. Gun was fired—mount threw him—dashed his head against a rock. Slept off the worst and walked twelve miles back. Lucky he wasn’t left for dead. Teach him to go hunting on another man’s turf.”

“That is excellent news,” his lordship replied.

The Duke peered around at the assembled company. “Bess’s with him now. Do the boy a world of good.”

No one vouchsafed a reply.

The drawing-room doors were thrust wide again, and a stranger was admitted to our midst.

“Well, Bascomb?” Andrew Danforth enquired. “What is your opinion?”

“Life was extinct from the instant the ball was fired,” the gentleman replied with a bow. “I cannot think that he suffered. The shot was certainly fired from the fowling piece.”

“Are you Dr. Bascomb?” I cried. “Of Buxton?”

“The same. But I confess that you have the advantage of me, madam, for I do not recall our meeting.”

“My name is Jane Austen. You are come into the neighbourhood at my summons, I think.”

“Ah!” the doctor returned, with a look of quickened interest. “The very lady. I looked for you first at The Rutland Arms, and was told that you were thought to have gone to Chatsworth. No sooner did I arrive there, than the Duke informed me of the sad events above Miller’s Dale. I have often served as physician to the Danforth family—as well you know; and so I availed myself of His Grace’s kind invitation, and made another of the party. Did you chance, Miss Austen, to carry with you the interesting stillroom book?”

“I did. It is even now in the carriage. But you will wish, I think, to peruse the letter Charles Danforth left at his death.”

Lord Harold reached for the paper he had thrust
into his coat and handed it to Dr. Bascomb. The rest of the party were staring at us in obvious perplexity; Andrew Danforth abandoned his position by the window and came to stand near Hary-O’s chair.

“Forgive me,” I said hastily. “Your Grace, Mr. Danforth—I beg your pardon. I requested Dr. Bascomb’s opinion regarding the Danforth children, and he has been so kind as to sacrifice his Sunday to my benefit. You will not protest, I hope, if he satisfies our curiosity?”

“Eh?” the Duke replied. “Oh—of course. Very well. Proceed, man—proceed.”

Dr. Bascomb gazed keenly around the room. He nodded once, then adopted a position by the fire.

“I see from this letter,” he began, holding it aloft, “that Charles Danforth suspected the nature of his children’s deaths. Miss Austen has already discerned that I was in attendance upon little Emma, the eldest of the three; so much is noted in the stillroom maid’s book. I was called, as well, when Lydia Danforth was thrown into labour two months before her time; but in that case, I could do nothing. At the Duke’s insistence, a London doctor was called when Miss Julia fell ill in February; and though I looked in upon John d’Arcy in March, lie was already too far gone for my physick to save him.”

Lady Harriot’s countenance twisted; she threw her face in her hands.

“I was troubled by what I observed in Emma’s case. The child suffered a series of feverish attacks, each worsening in nature, over the course of a month; a slight indisposition became a gradual wasting; vomiting and violent purges ensued; and at the end, dehydration and death. In the intervals between these attacks, however, she appeared in complete health.”

“Our Hary-O had a similar passage,” the Duke observed, “and three nursemaids were dismissed on the strength of it, until Georgiana discovered the child surfeiting on sweetmeats in the pantry corner. Greedy little minx.”

“It was possible that the girl suffered from the sort of wasting complaints that every childhood is prey to,” Dr. Bascomb continued with a deferential bow. “I cannot number the young lives taken suddenly off, by a host of ills that plague every town in England. It is not even unusual for entire families to be lost. But in Emma’s case I suspected poison—arsenical poisoning, to be exact. I confided my fears to Charles Danforth. He was greatly disturbed in his mind, as should only be natural; but to his wife, who suffered greatly from her daughter’s death, he imparted nothing of my fears.”

“Were you well acquainted with the late and lamented Lydia,” said Andrew Danforth, “you would not question my brother’s decision. His wife was excessively fearful for the health of her children.”

“With cause,” murmured Lady Harriot.

“Danforth undertook to search out any supplies of arsenic that might be lying about the Hall, and ordered them destroyed,” Dr. Bascomb said. “The gardener’s shed was the most obvious culprit, as arsenic is often employed in the control of rats and other vermin; but the gardener himself could not be suspected of malice towards any of the children. He had been first employed in old Mr. Danforth’s time, and was a great favourite; his grandchildren, the Arnold girls, had grown up on the estate. I believe that Danforth was inclined to regard my words as fanciful—or worse, as the result of my unwillingness to accept responsibility for having lost the child. Mr. Danforth destroyed the poison he found, and ceased to consult or confide in me. I heard nothing further of the Penfolds household, until word was received of the second daughter’s death.

“It is significant, I think, that Charles Danforth was absent in London when Julia became ill. He was absent when John d’Arcy died suddenly, as well. The person responsible for their deaths made certain that she was unobserved by the one most likely to suspect her.”

“Are you saying,” Andrew Danforth broke in, “that
you believe my brother’s claim that poor Tess intended to murder his family? I must regard that accusation as nothing more than the delusion of a broken mind—a mind destroyed by the effects of grief and unaccountable misfortune. Surely the maid can have had no reason to wish my nieces and nephew dead?”

Dr. Bascomb made no reply. His gaze, however, drifted over the room and came to rest upon me.

“Tess Arnold did not kill the children with arsenic,” I told Danforth, “but with a common solution that has been used for time out of mind in the administration of medicinal draughts to children. Black cherry water, Mr. Danforth—the distilled essence of cherry bark boiled in spring water. It has a palatable taste, and may disguise whatever is given to the patient; but I believe I am correct in thinking, Dr. Bascomb, that it has only lately been judged a poison in its own right?”

“Highly poisonous, Miss Austen. A single draught should be unremarkable, though vomiting might result; but when the application is repeated, and the doses increased, it is probable that the effect over time should be death.”

“But Tess could have possessed no notion of the pernicious effect!” Danforth objected. “She learned her stillcraft at her mother’s feet. Her remedies were the stuff of incantation, passed down through generations of healing women; she merely did as she had observed others to have done. If she killed Emma and Julia with the intention of healing them, surely we may absolve her of guilt!”

Dr. Bascomb merely lifted his shoulders. “I cannot profess to know the girl’s mind,” he said. “I only know that I had instructed her myself, most strenuously, never to give a draught in the common bitter waters to children. And yet, Miss Austen has found repeated references in the stillroom book to the employment of these very waters.”

A silence settled over the room, broken only by the crackling of a log upon the fire.

“But why?”

Lady Harriot’s deep and penetrating voice carried across the room.

“Why kill those children Charles loved so well?”

I looked at Lord Harold and raised an enquiring brow.

“It is possible,” he answered slowly, “that she did so at Charles’s bidding.”

“Ridiculous!” Andrew Danforth cried.

“Is it? He stood to inherit a fortune if his heirs predeceased his wife; and you will observe that they did. He was warned by Bascomb that the illnesses looked like poison; and so he contrived never to have Bascomb in attendance again. Two of his children died, moreover, when Charles was himself away—so that he might never be suspected of guilt, should questions arise. And finally, he silenced Tess Arnold—the only party to his crimes.”

“He had no need of such a fortune,” Lady Harriot protested. “Charles was a wealthy man!”

“But he may, my dear Hary-O, have felt desperately in need of
you
,” Lord Harold said harshly, “and his wife and children stood in the way.”

She drew a sharp breath; her beautiful eyes blazed. “That is an unpardonable thing to say.”

Lord Harold inclined his head, but failed to apologise.

“I will never believe it!” Danforth exclaimed.

“Naturally you will not.” I summoned courage for what must come. “For it was to
your
benefit that the children died, and not your brother’s. Emma and Julia and little John d’Arcy—they stood between you and your inheritance, Mr. Danforth. And Tess Arnold had great ambition for you. Or should I say—for you
both?”

Andrew Danforth went white. “Think well before
you utter another word, Miss Austen, lest your speech disgrace you! A familiarity with Lord Harold may have taught you to forget what is due to civility; but a moment will suffice to recall it.”

“The spectre of disgrace has no power over me, Mr. Danforth,” I replied calmly. “Your brother’s sacrifice has absolved us all. You will recall what he said in his final letter?
Her reasons for so doing I will not name, lest they embroil the innocent
. Charles Danforth suspected that Tess would murder his heirs and place
you
in his stead. In the interval provided after his wife’s death, he had time enough for reflection; it was not the maid’s habit to act precipitately. Tess had allowed months between the children’s passing away. And so your brother was suffered to remain in health throughout the first part of the summer. And then, two days before the maid was killed, he endured a bout of vomiting himself.”