We were joined at breakfast by Henry and Eliza, who took notice of the day by pressing upon me a ravishing headdress of apricot silk and feathers, purchased no doubt in Edgars Buildings, and quite admirably suited to my fashionable new gown.
Promptly at eleven the housemaid announced Lord Harold; he bid good morning to all the world, won an interesting sparkle from Eliza’s fine eyes, presented me with a posy, and voiced the hope that I might be granted many happy returns of the day. This little ceremony of deception being well-received, and the weather continuing to hold fine, his lordship did not scruple to suggest a country drive; and to the astonishment and dismay of all my family, I readily acceded to the whole, and hurried into my warmest pelisse. The Gentleman Rogue assured my father I should be much improved from the healthfulness of the airing, and that I should be returned unharmed before nightfall; and so we drove off, with an agreeable sensation of liberty on my part, and a distinct uneasiness behind.
“I expect to be arrived in Bristol by one o’clock at the latest, barring a mishap to the wheels,” Lord Harold observed as we trotted up Charles Street towards Monmouth, and the turning for the Bristol Road. “I shall regale you in the interval with an account of last evening’s adventures at the Theatre Royal.”
“Miss Conyngham was in evidence?”
“She was, though her brother Hugh was not. Indisposed, according to the program notes — perhaps the result of your too-lively dancing, Jane.”
“You do not think, that having failed in his efforts to silence me, he has summarily fled the city?”
“His sister assures me that he has not — but in her word I place the barest confidence. Upon quitting the Theatre Royal, however, I undertook to seek his lodgings — and was told that the gentleman was within, but was to see no one, under the strictest injunctions from his doctor. And so I had not the least glimpse of the fellow, and cannot say whether he was there or no.”
“That is very bad.”
“Less bad, perhaps, than it at first appears. Mr. Conyngham is unlikely to desert his sister. Of Mr. Smythe, however, I cannot say so much.”
I drew the collar of my pelisse close about my throat, at the sensation of a sudden chill. “But you have some intelligence of Smythe?”
Lord Harold nodded. “I happened to enquire of an errand-boy in the wings, and for the price of a few pence was told that the constables had rousted the villain from bed in the small hours of yesterday morning. Being warned by his landlady, however, Smythe jumped from a back window, and made off through the alleyways unpursued.”
“He jumped from a window, you say? And was it a first-floor window?”
“You think of Her Grace’s anteroom! The same suspicion has animated us both. I eagerly enquired of the boy, and was told with the greatest pride and satisfaction that his hero Smythe disdained any distance under twenty feet. He is a tumbler by rearing, and was wont as a child to roam about the countryside with a band of performers known for their physical feats.”
“But this is excellent news!” I cried. “Did we find the guise of Pierrot discarded in his lodgings, we might free Lord Kinsfell today!”
“I had expected you to feel some trepidation in the knowledge that the man was at liberty. Are you so careless of security, Jane?”
I lifted a gloved hand to shade my eyes from the brilliance of the morning sun. The countryside beyond the city’s environs was blighted by the advance of winter — a brownish heap of rolling Somerset hills, dotted at random with the occasional beast; but my spirits would not be oppressed even by fallow fields. “I cannot rejoice in his escape,” I admitted, “but must trust to Providence. Mr. Smythe is unlikely to adventure so perilous a town as Bath for some time to come. I will not indulge in excessive anxiety.”
“All the same—” Lord Harold began.
“I shall promise you never to venture out-of-doors without the company of another,” I said. “Now tell me of Miss Conyngham.”
“She refused to see me, of course, and so I was reduced to storming her dressing-room. I thought it wise to inform her that Mr. Elliot was hardly as satisfied with the case against my nephew as had once been believed, and that the magistrate was even now embarked upon the errand of tracing a curious bauble discarded in the cunning passage, that might well prove to be the property of the murderer. I was deliberately vague; but Miss Conyngham was observed to pale, and stagger a little for support — and she agreed at last to the space of a conversation.”
“And? Did she confess the whole?”
“Jane, Jane — would you have a woman go blindly to the scaffold? Naturally she did not. She intends to divine first how much I know. That I suspect a good deal — that I have perhaps learnt something to her detriment, from my researches or my nephew or both — she is completely aware. But she is confident I have not the conclusive proof; and so she intends to fence with me for as long as she is able.
“We sat down; and I found occasion to comment upon the Earl of Swithin’s interesting attentions to my niece — our belief that he intended to renew his offer for Mona’s hand — a few reflections on the disappointment of Mr. Portal’s death in that quarter — Mona ready to be consoled by the attentions of another — even Colonel Easton much in attendance — and Miss Conyngham’s visage was observed to darken. I then made my adieux, and left her to consider the intelligence conveyed; and I hope very soon to see my stratagems bear fruit.”
“You are an incorrigible beast,” I calmly replied, “but as the lady seems deserving of no very great solicitude, I cannot abuse you as thoroughly as I might. Did she betray anxiety? Guilt? The desperation of an abandoned character?”
“None whatsoever. A suggestion of grief, at Portal’s passing — but we must believe that to be the grossest falsehood. It is a pity,” Lord Harold reflected, “that such a degree of dramatic talent should be employed in so unfortunate a manner.”
“You regard her as beyond salvation, then? As being devoid of every proper feeling?”
“I cannot reconcile her conduct in any other way,” he replied, with an edge of harshness to his usual tone. “And I confess that it troubles me exceedingly. Real evil is rare enough in this world, my dear Jane — but when found in the form of a beautiful young woman, sobering in the extreme.”
WE ACHIEVED BRISTOL IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS OF EASY travel, and immediately sought one of the city’s principal inns — the ancient, half-timbered Llandoger Trow, which sits not far from Bristol’s Theatre Royal. Lord Harold reasoned that if the Earl of Swithin had been present in Bristol so early as Monday evening — and moving in concert with Maria Conyngham — then he should have been likely to seek a lodging not far from where the actress played. Before we embarked upon our interrogation of the publican, however, Lord Harold was intent upon bread and cheese, in the quiet of a little parlour, while I should not say nay to a respectable pot of tea.
We pulled up on cobbled King Street and turned into the Llandoger Trow’s yard. A stable-boy ran out to seize the horses’ heads.
“Morning, guv’nor,” the youth affably cried. “Will you be changing horses, or staying the night?”
“Neither,” Lord Harold replied. “A bucket of oats, pray, and some water for the team.”
“Quick as winking, guv. You just ask for Bob when you’re wishful of having them sent round.”
“Very good. Tell me, Bob, are there any travellers in the habit of hiring equipages of the publican?”
“Post horses, you mean?”
“I do not. I am wondering whether your master—”
“Mr. Twinkling,” Bob quickly supplied.
“—Mr. Twinkling — keeps a carriage or two that he occasionally lets out for the use of travellers. Lodgers at the inn, for example, who might wish a morning’s drive; or those whose equipages may have fallen into disrepair.”