Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (19 page)

“What a heroine you are,” I returned, admiringly. “You should do very well in one of Maria Edgeworth’s novels. Her ladies are always possessed of stout lungs. But I do not think you need fear a murderer, poppet. James-Edward is merely trying to frighten you. It is what brothers do, when they are home from school and bored.”

“Truly? But Lieutenant Gage—”

“—did not have his head cut off with wire. Beheadings are only for Royals, as you well know.”

She shivered in earnest. “I wish we were not sleeping so near the Chapel,” she said forlornly.

I understood, then. The nursery wing is two flights above the Chapel itself, and does not extend over it—but it is true that of all the inhabitants slumbering in The Vyne, young Caroline should be nearest to a ghost, if Lieutenant Gage’s unquiet spirit chose to walk abroad. I had an idea James-Edward might be responsible for this unfortunate notion as well, and resolved to speak to the odious boy about it.

“Miss Gambier has been holding vigil at the Lieutenant’s bier for hours, Caroline,” I said reprovingly. “If she may endure it without fear—she who truly knew and valued him—certainly you may do so.”

Her expression cleared. “Then that is why there were so many footsteps.”

“Footsteps?”

“Outside my door last night. In general it is very quiet, for nobody comes up here, you know—it is only us children and Crokie. Miss Crokehart—she is Miss Wiggett’s governess. But now you mention Miss Gambier, perhaps it was she who came and went so often. I felt sure it was a ghost.”

“Miss Gambier retired rather early last night.”

“But perhaps she could not sleep—and did not like to go through the Staircase Hall, lest anyone saw her. There is a stair at the Chapel end of this corridor, you know, for the servants—they come from the kitchens that way.”

I wondered very much whether Mary Gambier had spent the night on her knees in the Chapel. Such penitence must augur an unquiet mind. As if divining my thoughts, Caroline added, “Miss Gambier may have been afraid that the poor Lieutenant was lonely. Or cold. Or perhaps she had a secret to tell him.”

A secret to tell.

“Try to stay warm in bed until the fire is laid,” I told my niece briskly, “and only when it has been lit and has warmed the room, may you get up. I shall say nothing to Mamma about how I found you—but pray promise to sleep in your bed tonight.”

“I promise.”

I rose to leave her. One chilled hand grasped my arm.

“Did you not bring me a present?”

The child had a refreshingly human failing—one moment going in fear of her life, the next considering of material gain.

“I did.” I reached into the pocket of my dressing gown and withdrew Jemima’s costume. This was a frilly bit of nonsense intended for
a night rail and a dressing gown. Cassandra had been its chief author; she had chosen a fine gauge of cream-coloured lawn and trimmed it lavishly with lace. I had merely embroidered rosebuds at the neck and hem of both pieces. But Caroline was in transports.

“The very thing!” she said, holding the night rail up to her doll. “For you know, Aunt, I did not like her sleeping in her fine clothes, and it would not do to remove them. We cannot have Jemima take an inflammation of the lungs.”

M
Y BROTHER
J
AMES
’
S WIFE
had sent word that she was far too ill to appear before us last evening, and took her dinner in bed on a tray. Mary Gambier, on the other hand, had not hid herself away, but joined us in the dining parlour, where she sat wan and silent throughout the meal. Her brother chose to sit by her, and spoke to her once and again in a lowered tone. I was glad to see that she ate a little of Eliza’s excellent dinner.

Later, when we repaired to the Saloon, she avoided the slightest chance of a tête-à-tête with any of our party by seating herself beside her aunt. As my mother was the only creature capable of enduring Lady Gambier’s society for more than five minutes, Miss Gambier was safe from scrutiny or questioning by the impertinent.

I sat at the pianoforte. I had been assured that no one expected a brilliant performance; we were all overshadowed by the knowledge of the inquest on Friday, and most of The Vyne’s guests were disposed this evening to read or converse quietly. For my part, I welcomed the chance to lose myself in music. I managed a little respectable Mozart, the new polonaises Mr. L’Anglois had shewn me being too boisterous in a house of mourning. Music provided a mental screen for more important activity—I had much to consider, of all Raphael West had disclosed. I wished to trust him, for the simple reason that he
recalled the intelligence and spirit of a gentleman now several years gone; but the awareness of my little fever of admiration for Raphael West rose in my mind as a kind of warning. I could not know what he was. I was too susceptible to flattery. He had singled me out as confidante—and such discernment on the part of a gentleman was rare enough that I must be susceptible! I could not, therefore, trust the power of my reason. I had too few sources of objective information about the painter. Was West, as he claimed, in search of a French spy—or was he an agent of the Americans, intent upon destroying the fragile peace lately achieved in Ghent, before news of it should ever reach Washington City?

West had seated himself beside Cassandra, and was perusing her sketchbook. How unfortunate for Mary, that she had chosen to exclude herself from our company this evening—she who was so eager for the instruction of a Master!

As tho’ she had read my thoughts, my brother’s wife appeared that moment in the doorway of the Saloon, arrayed in her dressing gown (sadly limp from too-frequent wearing) and a lace cap, supported heavily by the arm of her son.

“Mary!” James said chidingly. “You should not have attempted such exertion. Are you sure, my dear, that it is wise?”

In a failing voice she begged him only to secure her a chair by the fire, and settled herself languishingly in it. James placed a cushion behind her back, and set about determining where the fire screen ought to be placed, to do her the most good.

“Should you like a cup of tea, Mary?” Eliza asked.

“It would maudle my insides at this time of night,” she mourned. “But perhaps a little ratafia can do no harm.”

The drink was procured, and the attention of the room searched for a new object of interest.

Cassandra, I observed, had wisely closed her sketching book.

“Well, Chute,” my brother exclaimed as he stood near his wife, absorbing the lion’s share of the warmth, “what did your search of the house disclose this afternoon? Have you secured the Lieutenant’s pilfered document—and determined that the notion of murder was only a hum?”

“I have not,” Chute said abruptly. He had returned to his preferred Christmas employment over the punch bowl, and was grating nutmeg into a quantity of rich cream beaten with eggs and brandy. “Eliza was good enough to look through the ladies’ effects, while I surveyed the gentlemen’s. A maid and a footman accompanied us both. The Roarks undertook to search the servants’ rooms, and several of our men went through the principal cupboards. We found nothing.”

“Surely, sir, you expected no more,” West observed quietly. “Whoever killed to secure the document, will have secured it in truth.”

My brother James snorted and looked pugnacious. He thrust his hands into the rear waist of his breeches, his coattails fanning behind him. “Poppycock! You found nothing because there is nothing to find! May we Austens be allowed to depart for Steventon on the morrow? You must own, Chute, that the sad tragedy has worked dangerously upon my wife. She should not be forced to remain. It is too injurious to her health.”

“Why should it have worked upon her?” Miss Gambier demanded, rising from her position by Lady Gambier’s side. “Of what personal interest can it be to Mrs. Austen, if John Gage is dead?”

“Sit down,” Lady Gambier hissed. She seized a fold of her niece’s gown as tho’ to force her submission. Miss Gambier twitched it impatiently from her aunt’s grasp and stepped towards Mary.

“Would you borrow the grief of those who loved him, with a view to making yourself interesting? You are nothing but a
ghoul! I shall view your departure gladly, and bid you farewell with alacrity.”

“Miss Gambier!” James said forcefully. “You forget yourself. My wife has done nothing to merit such reproaches. She is a sensitive creature, a martyr to her nerves, and must feel the presence of the Deceased acutely. Had it been possible to bury him decently—but the necessity of retaining the corpse for the inquest—and all the embarrassment of a publick proceeding—the knowledge that she is, herself, tarred by this unfortunate brush—the idea of murder—”

He came to an uncertain halt. Miss Gambier stared at him with what I may only call contempt. Mary held a handkerchief to her face, as tho’ suppressing sobs. There was an uneasy silence.

“Forgive me,” Miss Gambier said. “I should not have spoken. I hardly know what I have said, indeed. Pray excuse me—I must retire.”

She quitted the room with dignity.

In the silence that followed her exit, I closed the pianoforte and rose from my bench. Music seemed the grossest offence in the face of such grief; and I found I longed for my bed. I began to make my
adieux
.

“But, Aunt,” James-Edward implored. “You cannot go upstairs so soon. You promised to give me a match at billiards!”

“So I did.” I raised my brows meaningfully at the boy; in his enthusiasm he might refer to “penny points,” and James was never one to look kindly upon gambling. “Let us go immediately, my dear, or I shall fall over from weariness.”

Thomas-Vere and Mr. Gambier joined us; and by the time we were done—and I had allowed James-Edward to beat me soundly—the Saloon was emptied of life. I urgently wished to consult with Raphael West, but I should have to wait for morning to do so.

C
ASSANDRA WAS STIRRING WHEN
I returned this morning from the nursery wing.

“Did you succeed in your errand, Jane?”

“I did. Caroline said it was just what was wanted. She is a delightful child; but I begin to think that James’s anxiety is warranted. Not for Mary, mind—but for Caroline. She is afraid of murderers and ghosts. We would do well to remove to Steventon as soon as possible.”

“I cannot be easy myself,” Cassandra said, pushing herself upright against her pillows. The maid had already visited our room, and the fire was crackling merrily. She had left a tray of tea on a side table; I poured out a cup and handed it to my sister.

“Have you met the Lieutenant’s ghost, traversing The Vyne’s corridors?”

“Do not joke of such a thing, Jane. The poor young man was brutally cut down, in the prime of life, and with all his prospects—” She broke off, her eyes misting, and hurriedly sipped her tea. Cassandra lost her Tom Fowle at just such a young age, in what must be regarded as a sort of murder—for he was constrained to accompany his patron’s regiment to the West Indies, as clergyman, and died there of yellow fever. Two persons’ lives were blighted in Tom’s loss; and I had an idea of Mary Gambier’s future pain, in studying my sister’s face.

“I am sorry,” I said contritely. “I ought not to have said it. But you looked so strange!”

“Mr. West showed me the drawing you found yesterday,” she said quietly.

“While you were sitting together, last night?”

She nodded. “I suspect his interest in my work was in part a process of detection. He first ascertained, by scanning my sketches, that it was not my hand that had effected that crude depiction of
Miss Gambier. Then he offered the drawing. He asked whether I knew who might have produced it. But I could not say. I confess, Jane, I found it a frightening thing. There is a suggestion, in its lines, of one not quite sane.”

“I thought as much myself.” I curled up beside her on the bed with my cup of tea. “I was reminded, at first, of the strong and violent lines of Mr. West’s own work—his gnarled trees and crude vagrants. But he denied it was his hand. He claimed to know the sketch had been done by a right-handed person—and that he favours the left.”

“I agree with him there.”

“Cassandra—we know that Mary is an adept with charcoal. But who else in this house may claim such a talent?”

“Thomas-Vere draws a little,” she said reluctantly. “But he has never allowed me to glance at his pictures. I suppose there are many who have been schooled in sketching—and yet are loathe to admit as much in publick.”

“That complicates matters.”

“But, Jane.” She set down her cup on the boulle dresser and regarded me earnestly. “You and Mr. West believe this thing has some significance—tho’ it was discarded in the fire, to be burnt. Does that not suggest that its maker repented of the garish scrawl, and wished it destroyed?”

“True. Why was it drawn in the first place, however? The image of a naked woman—a lady of our acquaintance—hanged on a cross? It is the third mystery I may place at Mary Gambier’s door. And that is at least two mysteries too many.”

“You refer to the charade,” Cassandra said. “And the sketch makes two. What is the third?”

I told her of the threatening conversation I had overlistened, the very dawn of Lieutenant Gage’s death.