Edgars Buildings are fine, respectable establishments, offering lodgings for respectable families who come to Bath yearly in the pursuit of health and marriageable young men. They comprise as well, on their ground floors, a group of respectable shops — and in one of these, I had remarked a very fetching demi-turban of apricot sarcenet, adorned with ostrich feathers, such as one might wear with a gown of the same fashionable shade. I had just such a gown in view — indeed, had one as yet in pieces, at a formidable mantua-maker renowned in all of Bath for her artistry.[17] My peach silk confection, so clearly suited to a Duchess’s rout, or a night at the theatre, or a concert in the Upper Rooms — a gown that should be utterly too fine for my usual diversion of Aunt Leigh-Perrot’s insipid card parties — should be the sole spoil of recent misadventure. Not two months ago, I had purchased the stuff from smugglers in Lyme. By such small sacrifice of Miss Austen’s judgement and integrity was a vicious murderer apprehended; and I may confess to no great unwillingness to revel in the gain.

With very little fuss, and only the negligible discomfort occasioned by over-hasty coachmen and their great splashing beasts, I soon achieved Edgars Buildings. My enquiry as to the cost of such a thing as an apricot demi-turban, arranged cunningly with plumes, was the matter of but a moment; and the acknowledgement that it should be too dear for my purse, required but another. I turned away, lost in contemplation of how a similar headdress might be contrived, through the remnants of my own cut-up silk, and the loan of my sister Eliza’s feathers — when a loud hallooing from the street brought my attention to bear.

Outriders, in a gorgeous livery of black and gold, with Bengal caps and tassels; postilions, mounted on the wheelers[18], similarly arrayed; and the coach-and-four, magnificent and sleek, the horses as black as night. A spirited team, chuffing and tossing their heads as they turned down Milsom Street — bound, no doubt, for the Bear or the White Hart. I strained to make out the coat of arms on the coach’s door — but it was unknown to me. Certainly not the Wilborough device; and so the conveyance could hardly hold Lord Harold. That the Gentleman Rogue was posting towards Bath, however, upon the early morning receipt of an express from his mother, I little doubted. Perhaps in the company of his brother, the Duke.

“The Devil’s own cub,” muttered a gentleman not three paces away. He stood similarly arrested on the pavement, his eyes following the careening coach.

“Who is it, guv’nor?” cried a small boy, skipping and bouncing with excitement.

The gentleman turned angrily away, as though offended, and strode briskly towards Gay Street. His small persecutor kept pace, dodging the vicious stab of a walking stick with effortless grace. “Come on, now! Tell us who ‘tis, guv’nor! Ol’ Prinny, maybe? Or the Queen?”

“The Earl of Swithin, you unfortunate cull,” his quarry spat out, “and now I suggest you take yourself off. Swithin’s hardly the sort to throw you a penny for carting his dunnage. He’s more likely to eat you for breakfast.”

The urchin chortled, doffed his cap, and sped off in the direction of Cheap Street.

After a pause for consideration, I sedately did the same.

MY SISTER ELIZA WAS FIRMLY ENSCONCED IN A SUITE OF rooms at the White Hart; her maid, Manon, and her little dog, Pug, comprising fully half of her establishment, while the remainder — bedchambers for herself and Henry, with a sitting-room in between — might all be taken as Eliza’s to rule, so little evidence of my brother could I find. Such an apportionment of space at the White Hart must be very dear, and I wondered at the expense, and at my brother’s having failed to take lodgings in some retired square. The Henry Austens intended a visit to Bath of some three or four weeks, and it was unusual in such cases to remain more than a few days at the coaching inns. But Eliza, though accustomed to luxury, is singularly careless about convention — the result, perhaps, of her itinerant childhood. She moved with her mother, my aunt, from India to England and thence to Europe — fixing, at last, in the environs of Versailles. Even in London, Eliza is rarely at rest; she has occasioned the removal of my brother’s household several times already, and fully intends to continue the practice as long as a suitable establishment should offer.

Even her grave, I suspect, will be a temporary domicile.

“My dear Jane!” she cried now, throwing aside her netting and smoothing her hair. “And are you quite recovered from the Duchess’s rout? I am on the very point of venturing to the Pump Room. You will accompany me?”

She was dressed today in bottle-green silk, far too fine for morning wear, with small puffed sleeves and a plunging neck. A large green stone glittered on her finger.

“Is that an emerald I see, Eliza?”

“Oh, pooh,” she cried, “it is nothing of the sort. A tourmaline merely — a gift from my godfather, Mr. Hastings. We met with him only last week. You will never guess, Jane, who has come to the inn.”

“The Earl of Swithin?”

“The Earl of Swithin! How did you know? You will have seen the coach, I suspect, with its device of the snarling tiger. The Swithin fortune was made in India, you understand — my mother was intimate with his, Lady Swithin being one of the few who did not reproach Mamma for the attentions of Mr. Hastings — and the tiger was ever their device. I should know the coat of arms anywhere. He is a very fine-looking young man. Though not too young. I should put him at thirty.”[19]

“Eliza,” I said, in a tone of mock reproof. “You will not flirt in the very midst of an inn. Have a care!”

My sister shrugged her lovely shoulders. “I only hung about the stairway for a time, the better to observe his ascent; and I may fairly say that nothing should induce me now to trade a coaching inn for hired lodgings, be they ever so grand, and in Camden Place!”

“You may be certain that Lord Swithin will do so.”

“Then we must hasten away, my dear, if we are to have a glimpse of him! I heard him charge his manservant to await his return from the Pump Room!”

It is the Pump Room, in truth — situated only steps from the White Hart — that makes the inn so convenient to Eliza; she is forever looking into the place, to meet with her acquaintance, or to spy upon those who are newly arrived. My rented lodgings in a retired square should be insupportably dull for the little Comtesse; and I understood my brother Henry the better. A bored Eliza is a petulant Eliza — a complaining and a declining Eliza, who fancies herself miserable with all manner of mysterious ailments. She should never last a fortnight in retirement.

IT IS MANY MONTHS SINCE I LAST ENTERED THE PUMP ROOM — for being little inclined myself to the waters, I could find no purpose in an errand to that part of town, beyond an idle promenading about the lofty-ceilinged room. That the better part of Bath was engaged in that very pursuit, I immediately observed upon the present occasion; a hum of discourse rose above the clatter of pattens and half-boots, as a gaily-dressed Christmas crowd trod the bare planks of the floor.

Pale winter light streamed through the clerestory windows. When last I had entered the Pump Room, I now recalled, the warmth of August had turned the dust motes to gold. I had been taking leave of a friend, before journeying south to Lyme.

“Jane!”

I shook myself from reverie, and espied Eliza hard by the pump attendant, a glass of water in her hand.