He read it aloud.

Chapter 27

Dr. Bascomb of Buxton

31 August 1806, cont.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON, WHETHER HE WERE above Miller’s Dale or no, was no longer our object. Lord Harold sent Andrew Danforth at a run to the miller’s cottage, where he found a party of men despatched by the Duke of Devonshire. Danforth tarried only long enough to send a message to His Grace, before urging the better part of the search party back up into the hills. It was a sober company that soon appeared, with a makeshift litter among them, to bear Charles Danforth home.

He was placed on the litter, and his eyes closed; and then, with a heave, six men lifted the body high upon their shoulders. Andrew Danforth loosed his brother’s horse, and led it in tandem with his own behind the grim procession. They would walk thus, down the path Tess Arnold had so often trod, towards Tideswell and Penfolds Hall.

I had remained in Lord Harold’s company while the men were summoned; but I did not wish to make another of the melancholy group struggling through the fields. My heart was at present too full. I turned to his lordship, who lingered only long enough to watch the men out of sight, before hastening to the tree where the Danforth mounts had been tethered. He studied the ground, nodded once, and then made his way back to me.

“Do you wish to return to Bakewell this evening, Jane?”

“Not at all. Where do you intend to proceed, my lord?”

“To Penfolds! However indolent His Grace may appear in the general way — however consumed with worry for his son and heir — he remains Lord Lieutenant of the County. He will know exactly how to act. If I am not greatly mistaken, Sir James Villiers will presently make his way to the Hall; and I should wish to be on hand when he appears.”

“Then I shall accompany you.”

His lordship nodded distractedly. In his hand he still held the last words of Charles Danforth; he folded the piece of paper and tucked it inside his coat. “At the very least, I must be sure to give Sir James this. For it is certainly in Danforth’s handwriting.”

“Of course. He was a man to do a thing properly, if he would undertake it at all,” I observed.

Lord Harold’s gaze raked over me keenly; but he said nothing — and so we descended the hills above Miller’s Dale for the last time in silence.

HALFWAY TO PENFOLDS, THE RAIN THAT HAD THREATENED all day burst in a great roar over our heads, so that the patient Devonshire horses, so long pressed into Lord Harold’s service, were steaming with wet at our arrival. We found the great door thrown open, and a miscellany of carriages standing before it; more than one bore the crest of serpent and stag. Naturally, Lady Harriot would come at the first word of tragedy. Before the wheels of our own conveyance had ceased to turn, Lord Harold had thrust back the carriage door and alighted.

Mrs. Haskell stood grim-faced and silent in the front entry. Under the livid glare of the summer storm, the old stone of Penfolds closed in like a tomb. I shuddered, my eyes on the housekeeper’s rigid form. She took his lordship’s hat and stick without a word, and waited for me to untie my bonnet strings. “His Grace the Duke is in the parlour, my lord.”

We followed a footman through one of the doors leading from the hall. A fire had just been lit in a massive hearth, against the chill of the sudden rain; the Duke stood with bent head, staring into the flames. In a chair drawn close to the fire sat Lady Harriot; the Countess of Swithin clasped her hand. I could detect no tears on Hary-O’s face; her countenance was terrible in its self-possession. Andrew Danforth stood by the window, framed in the red folds of a velvet drapery; Sir James Villiers, resplendent in a lavender waistcoat and buff pantaloons, had adopted a place on the sofa. The Justice appeared the most easy of the party. All five looked around as the footman threw open the door, and revealed us to their sight; and I discerned immediately that we were not the persons expected.

“Uncle! And Miss Austen!” Lady Swithin cried; she squeezed Hary-O’s hand and came swiftly across to us. “Is everything not dreadful! I still cannot believe it possible of Charles!”

Lord Harold touched his niece’s cheek; she gazed at him imploringly, as though even now he might be capable of restoring Charles Danforth to life. “Stay with Hary-O, Mona — there’s a good girl.”

The Countess nodded once and returned to her position by Lady Harriot’s chair.

“Your Grace,” Lord Harold said formally. “Any word of Lord Hartington?”

“Young fool stumbled home an hour since,” the Duke of Devonshire muttered, “with some tale of poachers in the woods near Haddon Hall. Gun was fired — mount threw him — dashed his head against a rock. Slept off the worst and walked twelve miles back. Lucky he wasn’t left for dead. Teach him to go hunting on another man’s turf.”

“That is excellent news,” his lordship replied.

The Duke peered around at the assembled company. “Bess’s with him now. Do the boy a world of good.”

No one vouchsafed a reply.

The drawing-room doors were thrust wide again, and a stranger was admitted to our midst.

“Well, Bascomb?” Andrew Danforth enquired. “What is your opinion?”

“Life was extinct from the instant the ball was fired,” the gentleman replied with a bow. “I cannot think that he suffered. The shot was certainly fired from the fowling piece.”

“Are you Dr. Bascomb?” I cried. “Of Buxton?”

“The same. But I confess that you have the advantage of me, madam, for I do not recall our meeting.”

“My name is Jane Austen. You are come into the neighbourhood at my summons, I think.”

“Ah!” the doctor returned, with a look of quickened interest. “The very lady. I looked for you first at The Rutland Arms, and was told that you were thought to have gone to Chatsworth. No sooner did I arrive there, than the Duke informed me of the sad events above Miller’s Dale. I have often served as physician to the Danforth family — as well you know; and so I availed myself of His Grace’s kind invitation, and made another of the party. Did you chance, Miss Austen, to carry with you the interesting stillroom book?”

“I did. It is even now in the carriage. But you will wish, I think, to peruse the letter Charles Danforth left at his death.”

Lord Harold reached for the paper he had thrust into his coat and handed it to Dr. Bascomb. The rest of the party were staring at us in obvious perplexity; Andrew Danforth abandoned his position by the window and came to stand near Hary-O’s chair.