Chapter 3

The Poisoned Pen

14 December 1802

THE LIVING EVER FEEL UNEASE, WHEN THE DEAD ARE IN residence.

I had determined to leave for Bath the morning after the Earl's death, believing such a passing to be a family burden; but Isobel would have me stay, and so here at Scargrave I remain, tip-toeing along its labyrinth of corridors and hoping to draw as little notice as possible. Upon further acquaintance, the Manor is revealed as an incongenial house, its furnishings of a vanished generation and its air one of quiet decrepitude. I have trod the floors of endless rooms, unmarked by their master's happy spirits or decided taste; it is an abode in which Lord Scargrave can have spent but little time, and now departs forever.

The Earl is to be buried tomorrow. These two days past, he has lain in state in the hall, a vast and draughty place peopled by his ancestors, as though all the dead of Scargrave have assembled for this dreary wake. Dark faces in oil look down upon Frederick's bier with the smiles of Charles's time, or the dour scowls of Cromwell's; while suits of armour from an epoch still more distant huddle in the corners, awaiting their moment to joust with Death. The hall lies in the very centre of the great house, and all the principal corridors debouch or spring from it, making any attempt to navigate the lower floor a necessarily melancholy event. Masses of wax candles in branching silver holders surround the Earl's still form, and gold sovereigns are laid upon his eyes; no tallow tapers or pennies for a peer.

In the flickering glow, Lord Scargrave's face appears as ravaged as it did in the dim light of his death chamber; not the manner in which such a man would wish to be remembered. Were it not for the superstitions of the local folk, who come to pay their respects in a silent, shuffling file, Isobel should have ordered the casket closed; but the Earl of Scargrave must be seen to be truly dead by all the surrounding country before his heir may take up his title. And so convention is served, and delicacy sacrificed upon its altar.

I confess to a shiver or two myself in passing through the hall; I would forget this anguished look, still stamped in death upon the tortured face, as soon as ever I may. Perhaps then the thoughts that spring to my mind too vividly will be banished as well. The assurances of Dr. Philip Pettigrew, the London physician, have done little to quiet them. The good doctor claims to have seen a like disturbance in the bowels before, and found in its violence no sign of a malevolent hand; he imputes it to the quantity of wine the Earl had consumed that evening, along with a quantity of beef, a recipe I should rather think conducive to apoplexy than dyspepsia[10].

I cannot forget that Lord Scargrave's fatal sickness, as I have written before, bore the signs of an extreme purgative, as though the vomiting were induced by some force stronger than claret. But Isobel appears satisfied, if such a word may describe her quiet dejection; and the men of the Scargrave household are united without question in their mourning. And so my country knowledge must give way to London's greater experience.

Isobel keeps to her room, as is natural; Fitzroy Payne to the library, where he is engaged with his London solicitors in reviewing a quantity of papers pertaining to the late Earl's estate. Lord Harold Trowbridge, whom propriety should have instructed to depart, divides his time between Lord Scargrave[11] and the billiard room. The Hearst brothers, though dining at the Manor each afternoon, have chosen to mourn in private at their cottage in the Park; I observed George Hearst pacing a snowy lane, hands behind his back and features lost in contemplation of his personal abyss, while the Lieutenant appears to devote his hours to schooling a particularly troublesome hunter over the same series of hedges.

And so Isobel's aunt, Madame Delahoussaye, and her daughter Fanny, prove my sole society. I doubt that such a felicitous term, so laden with the promise of good conversation, mutual warmth, and general elegance, has ever been so wantonly applied. Three women confined by weather, over needlework and books in which they can have little interest, with a dead earl lying in state beyond the sitting-room door! It is not to be borne for many hours together.

Madame Hortense Delahoussaye is the sister of Isobel's mother, these many years deceased, and a native like her of the Indies. Madame has made her life business the social launching of her two girls, as she calls them — meaning her daughter Fanny and her orphaned niece Isobel. She talks enough for a household; we may perhaps impute her husband's demise these two years past to a surfeit of his lady's conversation. I should listen to it with better grace if her manners were equal to her niece's; but Madame Delahoussaye's pride in her station has been too strongly felt. When I appeared at Isobel's side at the commencement of the ball, the aunt swiftly took the measure of my gown; learned that my father is a clergyman; and thereafter reserved her brilliance for others more obviously favoured by fortune.

Far from feeling too great an oppression at her niece's tragic loss, Madame Delahoussaye has busied herself since the Earl's death in sending orders to her favourite London warehouses, in preparation for the household's adoption of mourning; she is wearing even now the gown that graced her late husband's twelvemonth[12], but is rather put out at its decided lack of fashion. She frequently delivers her opinions — that the Earl should have kept to the lemon-water she prescribed for his health; that the fees to the London physician had better have been saved; and that Isobel should quit Scargrave for Town as soon as the funeral is done — the better to bring Fanny her Season of enjoyment, for the poor child is not growing any younger.

From Fanny's marriage prospects, Madame inevitably turns to the latest style of mourning in France — a nation which, I feel compelled to point out, has had ample scope for study in the art under Buonaparte. Any observation of an historic or political nature must be lost on Madame Delahoussaye and her daughter, however; their heads are formed neither for penetrating discourse nor serious debate. Miss Fanny attends to her mother's recommendations with the greatest care, and is forever engaged in the drawing up of lists, which must be designed to keep a multitude of milliners in goose-and-pudding for the coming year. Lacking their funds and their instinct for elegance in the midst of sorrow, I must content myself for the nonce with whatever grey muslin be in my possession; and for my part, there all attempt at mourning shall end.

I should do Fanny Delahoussaye an injustice if I did not set down that she styles herself very fine, indeed. Having spent hours poring over the pages of Le Beau Monde[13], she is never seen in anything less than the most breathlessly current of gowns. Though given to riotous colour in her evening dress, she prefers a young lady's natural choice for day — white muslin or lawn — in the knowledge that it renders her pink-and-gold perfection even more angelic. And since pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked, I have resolved to thrust my own white lawn to the side for the duration of my Scargrave stay. Such an invitation to comparison between myself and Miss Delahoussaye must be invidious.

Born like Isobei in the Indies, though schooled in London, Fanny's chief business at nineteen appears to be the getting of a husband. She and her mother must needs be at cross purposes in this: Madame Delahoussaye favours the newly-titled Earl, Fitzroy Payne, as any mother should do, while Fanny displays a clearer preference for the penniless scapegrace Tom Hearst. Whether she is likely or able to captivate either gentleman is never laid open to question; it is assumed that her loveliness will conquer. I cannot be so sanguine. Fanny's pretty gowns and her fortune aside, she looks very much like any other young woman with a quantity of yellow hair, vacant eyes, and an expanse of exposed bosom. She inclines her head with exquisite grace, but fails to utter a sensible word; such an excess of elegance can only be imputed to the most fashionable of finishing schools. No doubt she speaks Italian and is highly accomplished — in the art of painting screens, making fringe, and standing before the mantua-maker[14].