Jane and the Stillroom Maid (9 page)

“Not at all!”

“Or, that you played a role
yourself
in Tess Arnold’s death, and carried us into Miller’s Dale yesterday with the design of establishing yourself creditably in the minds of the chief witnesses to her discovery!”

“Jane!” my cousin cried again. “You have said quite enough!”

“In either eventuality, you cannot have thought very clearly, Mr. Hemming. We were bound to remark your singular conduct, and to discover that you knew quite well who the young ‘gentleman’ was. We
must
find your appearance of guilt and dismay peculiar in the extreme. If Mr. Tivey enquires as to your reaction, Mr. Hemming—what exactly are we to say?”

The solicitor did not reply. His pallor was dreadful, and sweat had broken out upon his forehead. Cassandra stared from Mr. Hemming to myself with an expression of the most intense anxiety; even my cousin looked all his consternation.

“If you know anything at all, Mr. Hemming, regarding the maid’s death, you would do well to disclose it,” I
advised. “There can be no loyalty so deep as to permit of such a crime. If you will not speak to us, in the privacy of your chambers—then pray determine to speak on the morrow, before the eyes of God and the Law! I beg of you, sir, do not perjure yourself
then
.”

“Forgive me, Madam—but I believe that I am the solicitor in this company,” Mr. Hemming managed with a ghastly smile. “And now if you will excuse me—I have an appointment that cannot wait. I must ride to Penfolds Hall today, and offer my client Mr. Danforth what counsel I may.”

“Charles Danforth?” my cousin enquired. “I suppose he is greatly disturbed by this dreadful affair.”

“As you would be, too, my good Cooper,” the solicitor replied grimly, “if all your neighbours were calling you murderer and fiend. Miss Jane Austen had better counsel what she may of Truth in Danforth’s ear.”

“D
O YOU BELIEVE THAT
M
R
. H
EMMING FEARS FOR HIS
client, Jane?” Cassandra mused as we made our way back towards The Rutland Arms, “and that an immediate suspicion of Charles Danforth’s guilt urged him to profess ignorance of the maid’s identity?”

“It is possible, I suppose—”

“It is utterly impossible,” my cousin broke in, with remarkable heat. “George Hemming is a highly respectable man! He holds the trust of a considerable number of the Great! He is a gentleman of reputation and no little decency—”

“And his behaviour is in every way calculated to ruin him,” I replied. “Do you believe it likely, Cassandra, that the loyalty of a solicitor to a client should extend so far as perjury?”

“As to that—he has not exactly perjured himself as yet,” she replied. “He has only offered falsehoods to his friends. We must await the outcome of the Inquest, and
then observe how far Mr. Hemming’s allegiance—or his guilt—shall drive him.”

“Guilt! Perjury!” cried Mr. Cooper in consternation. “When I consider the abominable fashion in which you have served my esteemed friend, Jane, I cannot find it in me to regret that we shall leave this place as soon as may be!”

“There must be something greater at issue,” I told my sister; “something more personal than allegiance to a client, or even a valued friend. A man should not compromise his honour so lightly.”

“You have disgraced me before one of my oldest fellows,” Mr. Cooper continued hotly, “and you have conducted yourself in a manner that must lay you open to accusations of vulgarity and impertinence.”

“I cannot think that Mr. Tivey is the sort to treat a gentleman’s honour with respect,” observed Cassandra thoughtfully. Her gaze was arrested by a scene played out at the foot of Matlock Street, some hundred feet distant: a crowd of common folk, both men and women, were gathered before the town’s well. A single figure was mounted on the well-head; even at this distance I could discern the massive forearms, the darkly-knit brows. Michael Tivey would harangue his fellows about the vicious propensities of the Masonic lodge. To what purpose? Had he named Charles Danforth the maid’s murderer? What cause had Tivey to so hound a gentleman, when nothing could yet be known of Tess Arnold’s enemies, or the reasons for her death? And with so strong a conviction towards the guilt of another—how could Tivey remain, in conscience, Coroner for the Inquest?

“But why I should find your behaviour astonishing
now
,” my cousin cried, “is worthy of question. You have never comported yourself with the modest humility becoming to one of your sex and station, Jane. I may only count myself fortunate that I did not chuse to throw
you in the way of Sir George Mumps, my esteemed patron, who must find you unlike his idea of a gently-bred female in every particular.”

“My dear Cousin!” Cassandra cried, in a shocked accent. “Consider the violence of your expressions, before it is too late! Our dear Jane has operated from the best intentions in the world.”

“She is an insufferable busybody,” my cousin retorted, “and will never get a husband if she does not mend her ways. George Hemming seemed so disposed to admire her, too—I thought it very promising that he carried her with us for the angling party. And now it will all come to naught. When I consider of the chances you have thrown away, Jane, I despair of the future of matrimony!”

Thursday
28 August 1806
∼

“A
ND THA’ DETERMINED TO WALK UP INTO THE HILLS
above Miller’s Dale, Miss Austen, quite alone and with no other object than healthful exercise? Was that entirely wise?”

Mr. Tivey, the blacksmith-cum-surgeon-cum-coroner of Bakewell, threw me a stern look as he posed this question before his empanelled jury of twelve men; but I was not the sort of lady to suffer a diminution of composure on
his
account.

“As to the wisdom of my course, Mr. Tivey, I cannot say—but it is customary to walk through the dales of Derbyshire while embarked on a pleasure tour of the county. Thousands of ladies, I am sure, have done so before this.”

“Tha’ did not expect, then, to encounter Deceased in the course of thy rambles?”

“If you would enquire whether I mounted the path with Deceased as my object—then no, sir, I did not. The discovery of the maid’s body came as quite a shock.”

“Could Tha’ describe for the jury thy actions upon first perceiving Deceased?”

I looked at the Coroner’s panel assembled on their benches. A stalwart lot—small farmers and landowners by the looks of them, and careful to preserve their countenances free of expression.

“A murder of crows first attracted my interest,” I replied, “and upon attaining the place where the corpse was laid, I perceived that the person was quite dead.”

“How did Deceased lie?”

“At the foot of a crag, some distance upwards along the path.”

“And how did the body appear?”

He offered the question easily enough; but I could not avoid a hesitation—an indrawn breath—a desire to drop my eyes. Thoughts of the most distressing nature
would
obtrude.

“Miss Austen?”

I lifted my gaze to meet Mr. Tivey’s. “It appeared to be the corpse of a young gentleman, savagely murdered. A lead ball had lodged in the center of the forehead; and the bowels had been quite cut out, as had the person’s tongue. A great welter of blood had stained the corpse’s clothes and the surrounding rocks.”

“Would Tha’ judge the blood to have been freshly-spilt?”

“I cannot say. It appeared quite congealed and dried.”

“Did Tha’ touch the body in anyway?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Did Tha’ observe the marks of a horse, or perhaps of another person, anywhere on the path?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Pray describe for us the condition of the ground.”

“It was quite dry and dusty, as should not be unusual in August; the path was hard-packed, and the grasses withered.”

“So Tha’ should have been unlikely to discern either the marks of Deceased’s passage, or those of any other person in the vicinity?”

“I cannot say. Certainly I did not discern such marks.”

“Did Deceased appear to have discarded any belongings? A trunk or a bundle of some sort?”

“Not that I could discover.”

Mr. Tivey peered at me from under his brows. “Very well. Miss Austen, what did Tha’ next do?”

“I ran back along the path in search of aid. I summoned the gentlemen of my party—Mr. George Hemming of Bakewell, and my cousin Mr. Edward Cooper, who were fishing along the Wye—and urged them to make all possible haste towards the crag, and the unfortunate person lying there.”

“Very well, Miss Austen. Tha’ may retire.”

I rose from the witness chair and made my way back through the assembled throng in the Snake and Hind’s main room. The eyes of the curious roamed over my person; but I was accustomed to impertinence—it could not be avoided in the course of an Inquest. I was no longer an anonymous pleasure-seeker bent upon a summer of idleness; I was a local Sensation. I found a seat at the rear of the room, and prepared to observe all that ensued.

“Mr. George Hemming!”

Mr. Tivey’s voice rang through the chamber, but no answering shuffle of feet prepared to meet it. I craned my head in search of the solicitor’s form. Mr. Hemming, I felt certain, was not in the Snake and Hind; but was such a lapse of duty possible? Had he unaccountably avoided the Inquest?

A stab of doubt, akin to the warning note that had sounded in my brain at Miller’s Dale, coursed through my blood. Mr. Hemming was
not
to be suspected of murder. He was too much the gentleman, and too much my cousin’s old friend. Besides, there had been a gentleness in all his ways—an ease of manner—that was utterly at variance with violence. That ease had fled instantly once the maid’s body was discovered. Why was the solicitor determined to act as one burdened by guilt?

“Mr. Hemming! I call Mr. George Hemming!”

The stir of speculation throughout the room was considerable. Lacking a gavel, Mr. Tivey hammered upon the table with the flat of his broad palm. “Very well—then I call Mr. Edward Cooper, clergyman of Hams tall Ridware!”

My cousin opened his mouth and began to sing.

He made his way in stately procession to the head of the airless room, his eyes uplifted to the rafters, and his face beatified. The lowness of the public room’s ceiling rather spoiled the effect; but his strains carried into every available corner in a most gratifying way. I thought I should sink under the misery of Mr. Cooper’s example, but that I was a stranger to most of the observers present. He took his place in the witness’s chair, and gazed solemnly at the assembly as he concluded his first verse. I felt sure that he intended to go on with a second—he filled his lungs with air—but Mr. Tivey swooped down to administer the oath, and forestalled another chorus of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

In answer to the Coroner’s questions, Mr. Cooper related how he had retrieved the body in the company of the miller and his friend Mr. Hemming, and how our party had conveyed its sad burden into Bakewell. He made no mention of Mr. Hemming’s extreme reluctance to do so, and from this, I determined that my cousin was anxious on his friend’s behalf as well. Mr. Tivey addressed some further questions, regarding time elapsed between my discovery of the body, and its conveyance into Water Street; and then dismissed Mr. Cooper, who retreated to his seat in fulsome song.

Mr. Tivey pounded upon his table.

My cousin bowed his head in supplication, but happily ceased his caroling.

Black brows drawn down over his harshly-graven features, Mr. Tivey paused to compose his thoughts.

“As the surgeon called in attendance upon Deceased,” he informed the jury, “I proceeded to examine the
corpse. It is well known by now that my first discovery was an interesting one—namely, that Deceased was not a young gentleman of unknown origin, but a maidservant by the name of Tess Arnold—” At this, a murmur arose from the assembled townsfolk, more of satisfaction at having previously possessed the remarkable intelligence than any surprise at its publication. Mr. Tivey stared balefully at the crowd. He refused to speak further until the comment had subsided.

“The maid Arnold belonged to Penfolds Hall, the estate of Mr. Charles Danforth, near Tideswell. It will be observed that Tideswell is little over a mile north of Miller’s Dale, an easy enough distance for an accomplished walker.

“Deceased had suffered grievous harm. As the previous witnesses have described, her tongue was cut out and her entrails torn from her body. It is my opinion, however, that these dreadful wounds were inflicted
after
death.”