“For,” said she, turning a gold bracelet idly upon her wrist, “I cannot abide the ennui of a country existence. One's circle is so fixed, so little varied, that one might complete the sentences of one's neighbour with very little thought or effort. When I am married, I shall suffer myself to spend as little time as possible at my husband's country seat.”
“Then perhaps we should wish you the wife of a man who has none,” I replied, with perhaps more of acid in my tongue than I intended.
“How you do tease, Miss Austen!” Fanny cried. “What is a man, without an estate of his own? A poor sort of gentleman, I declare.”
“Perhaps — but he is very often a soldier, you know; for though it is the profession you prefer above all others, it is generally the province of second sons.”
“Oh, piffle,” Miss Fanny said, returned to her good humour. “What is country life in any case, but shooting and billiards and the coarseness of country neighbours? An establishment in Town, such as an officer possessed of a truly good commission might claim, is far to be preferred. I long to be returned to Hyde Park, and the shops of Bond Street, and the theatre, and a hundred delightful schemes, even if London will be rather thin — until Easter at least. “
My patience for such a rattle was at an end. “I think it likely that we shall be so engaged, when in London, by matters of a sober and troubling nature,” I said stiffly, “that we shall have very little time for diversion.”
“One cannot be always going about with a long face,” said Fanny, intent upon adjusting her bodice. “It behooves us to meet adversity with a certain style. I intend to find Madame Henri — she is quite the most fashionable modiste, my dear Miss Austen — as soon as ever I arrive, and order a proper gown for the gallery at the House of Lords. It must be of black, of course, as we are in mourning for the Earl; a pity, for it was never a colour suited to my complexion.” Impervious to my disdain, she pursued her delightful fancies with clasped hands and uplifted eyes.
“Only think whom one might meet there!” Fanny cried. “The entire peerage of England assembled in one place! And certain to be moved to tender pity by the interesting circumstances in which we find ourselves. I could not devise a scheme more delicious. You must come along with me to Madame Henri's, my dear Miss Austen. You cannot afford to look less than your best, at your age.”
Madame Henri, indeed! It should never occur to Miss Delahoussaye that I lacked the funds for such an establishment — nor that my mantua-maker of choice was my dear sister Cassandra, and I hers. The price of fine muslin is too dear to make added expense of its fashioning; I should rather spend my shillings on a bit of braid, the better to trim my bodice. But Miss Fanny could know as little of economy as she might of tact.
Somewhat nettled, I spoke with asperity. “And so you have abandoned completely Lord Scargrave as your object, and would now seek a husband among the broader ranks of the great?”
“It was never my object to secure Fitzroy,” Fanny replied with a careless shrug; “such a cold fellow as he is, all erudition and puff! And in any case, I do not intend to injure my prospects by appearing allied to a man under such a cloud.” She dropped her eyes in the way of modest misses, and coloured prettily. “No, Miss Austen, I have long given my heart to another; I am sure you cannot mistake whom I mean. If things should fall out badly — if Fitzroy is to hang and Isobel with him — why, then, my choice will be proved aright! For in that case, it is certain that George Hearst should inherit the earldom.”
“The Payne family being possessed of no other direct heirs?” I enquired, with a stirring of interest.
“Unless the late Earl has got himself a bastard hidden away,” Miss Delahoussaye said, shrugging, “and between you and I, Miss Austen, that is hardly likely — he was an awfully respectable old stick. Did he get a son on the wrong side of the blanket, all the world should know it, and the boy be yet at Eton. No, Miss Austen, the Hearsts are at present the Earl's closest male relations — and who should have a greater claim to Scargrave than Mr. Hearst, who has lived all his life here, and his mother before him?”
“But can he inherit through the female line?”
“I understood from Tom that there is just such a provision in the conferment of the title. George has but to exchange the name of Hearst for Payne, and all shall be settled happily. You will have heard of such things before, I am sure.”
And so Tom Hearst has been calculating his brother's prospects— aloud, and to one so lacking in discretion as Miss Fanny — a very little time after Fitzroy Payne was charged with murder. Or was the deadly charge the Hearsts’ objective all along, with the seizure of an earldom their primary purpose? Murder has been done, and the innocent made to suffer, for far less.
Fanny was humming a little tune, lost in delightful fancies; I deemed it best to learn as much of the matter from her as possible, and thus turned the subject to her dearest concern.
“And so you would have Mr. Hearst?” I said, with conscious stupidity.
“Miss Austen!” she cried, with a new asperity in her eye. “I will not answer when you tease — for I see that you would sport with me. Mr. Hearst, indeed! You are a sly creature.”
I perfectly understood her meaning, and wondered at Fanny's ability to grasp some facts, while remaining ignorant of so many others. Should Fitzroy Payne be condemned, his cousin George Hearst would accede to an earldom, and the Lieutenant's prospects might very well improve. Tom Hearst should find a convenient ear for all his troubles, and perhaps an open hand to make his fortune — although, from knowing a little of Mr. Hearst's poor opinion of the Lieutenant, I would hesitate to consider his purse entirely his brother's to command. But the direction of Miss Fanny's thoughts should brook no disappointment; it was her fondest hope that with George Hearst's good fortune and high estate to add to his honourable commission, Tom Hearst should merit all the felicity that Fanny Delahoussaye's thirty thousand pounds could bring.
Both brothers, I mused as I buttered my toast, had reason enough to want their uncle dead, and their cousin judged guilty of his murder.
But I had no time for such dreadful thoughts, much less for Fanny's idle chattel; I left her calculating the proper length of sleeve for a murder trial among the peerage, and turned my attentions to poor Isobel, a prisoner in her very home.
“JANE,” THE COUNTESS GREETED ME BRISKLY, AS I BRAVED the guardsman at her lintel and slipped through the door, “you are just in time. But was ever a friend so faithful in her attendance? Another should have been long returned to the bosom of her family, unhappy Scargrave forgotten.” The Countess sat at her writing desk, head bent over paper and pen, her breakfast tray untouched.
“None could forget, Isobel, though well they might flee. But I am neither so timid, nor so indifferent to your goodness.”
“Dear Jane!” she cried, and reached a cold, pale hand to my own. She looked remarkably ill this morning, her haggard countenance hardly improved by the rusty black of her gown; I judged her to have endured a sleepless night, and felt numb at the terrors she must yet face. “Would you perform one last office on your friend's behalf, before we must part?”
“Anything, Isobel, that you would command.”
“Place your signature at the foot of this page,” she told me, her voice low and trembling. “It represents my final wish in this world.”
I looked all my amazement, but Isobel pushed her pen towards me with resolution. “I beg of you, sign.”
I could not speak, nor read the provisions of her dreadful will, but affixed the name of Austen to the deed. I saw with sadness Daisy Hodges's awkward scrawl — she who was the Countess's young maid — in the place of second witness.