The tide was with us today, and carried us swiftly down the Water. As we neared the landing thrust out into the shingle, I stole a glance at Netley Lodge, where it rose like a snug bastion from the cliff above. The leaded windowpanes, staring south, gleamed in the watery sunlight. I had an idea of flurried housemaids unleashed upon a suite of rooms.

“And so the Lodge is opened up,” Mr. Hawkins observed, “after more’n ten year of dust and desolation. My crony in Hound told me the whole of it yesterday. The gentleman as owned it made a fortune in the Peninsula, and died before he saw his home again. Merchant, he was, in the Port trade, and his lady were carried out of Oporto after the siege. Right thankful she is to be back on English soil.”

“Indeed? Is she a comfortable matron, with a hopeful family?”

“Neither chick nor child, and her a Diamond o’the First Water. So Ned Bastable says — he being rated Able thirty years or more, and a rare one for intelligence now he’s turned on shore.[9] His granddaughter Flora is parlour maid at the Lodge. She were snapped up ten days ago by Mrs. Challoner’s steward, a great chuckle-headed lump with a black beard and a name Flora can’t pronounce. The lady’s maid is French, Flora says, and speaks not a word of the King’s English; but quite superior, and knows how to keep her place. Three large trunks it took, to stow Mrs. Challoner’s gowns; the maid spent the better part of two days putting ’em to rights. They’re a queer lot at the Lodge, and no mistake.”

“And is Mrs. Challoner quite alone in that great house?”

“She wishes to live retired, after all the crush and noise of the Oporto colony. She’s a widow, after all — though she don’t dress in black.”

The gates to the sweep were thrown open, and the gravel newly raked; lights were kindled within the rooms; and a pair of under-gardeners toiled at scything the withered lawn. I dared not linger before the prospect of Netley Lodge, however intriguing, for I could not tell how many pairs of eyes might be directed at the Abbey path. I grasped my easel in gloved fingers and strolled steadily past, the poke of my bonnet eclipsing any view of the rooms. Where should I position myself? At the breast of the hill, so that I might observe both the Abbey ruins and the house below? I should be unlikely to overlook the sweep and carriage court from that vantage, but no other should serve—

The sound of hoofbeats, thudding dully on the damp turf under my feet: a horse was galloping from the direction of West Wood, the dense growth of trees at the Abbey’s back. In another moment the rider came into view, bent over the reins with an expression of wild elation on his countenance. The hair under his black top hat was fair as the sun, his body was taut and controlled in the saddle; every feature proclaimed nobility. He must have come from the Itchen ferry, along the path I should have walked, had time and the weather permitted.

He swept towards me, a figure of surprising power. In the grip of the horse’s punishing stride, he was as different from the modest young man I had seen in Roger’s Coachyard as man could be — but it was the American stranger, just the same: the gentleman called Ord. He slowed as he passed, and raised his hat with civil grace; but I heard the breath tearing in his lungs. His countenance was flushed, his blue eyes alight. He had ridden hard for the sheer joy of freedom after the cramped journey in the London mail, I thought; he had hired a mount at the Vine Inn and coursed out towards the Abbey, it being the principal beauty in these parts.

Or was his direction spurred by more than a young man’s high spirits? Was he driven by fear and peril — by the wicked goad of statecraft? As I watched, he pulled up before the gates of Netley Lodge and jumped down from the saddle. Without a backwards glance, he led his mount up Mrs. Challoner’s newraked sweep. Curious, indeed, that within an hour of alighting in Southampton, the fresh-faced stranger had sought first to meet with one woman: Lord Harold’s dangerous spy.

Chapter 5

Flames in the Night

26 October 1808, cont.

“There is a letter from Godmersham,” Martha informed me in a lowered voice as I entered the house this evening, “that has your mother in an uproar. Only think: Your brother Edward has offered her a freehold — a cottage, to be sure, but a freehold all the same — on one of his estates. She has merely to name her choice. Wye, in Kent, or Chawton Cottage, near Chawton Great House. It is something to think upon, is it not?”

“A freehold!” The easel and paintbox slipped from my hands onto the Pembroke table. It was nearly four o’clock, and my mother should be awaiting her dinner; I had found it necessary to appear in good time this evening, as recompense for past sins. But my thoughts were all of Netley, and the interesting meeting I had witnessed there; Martha’s present communication came to me as from the moon.

“Rents in Southampton are only increasing, and now that Frank and Mary have settled on the Isle of Wight—”

“Indeed.” My brother Fly and his young family had quitted the Castle Square house nearly a month before, to establish an independence in rented lodgings on the Island, as naval officers will refer to the turtle-shaped bit of land opposite Portsmouth Harbour. My mother was ill reconciled to the change; and though Frank professed himself determined to meet his portion of the Castle Square rent, as well as that of his new home, we would not hear of burdening him. I knew, however, that we should be hardpressed to scrape together the yearly rent.

“But another removal of the household!” I sighed. “Shall we ever be at peace, Martha?”

“If you accept your excellent brother’s offer — perhaps.” She looked at me seriously. “And, Jane: if either establishment proves too cramped for the addition of a fourth, pray do not hesitate on my account. I shall shift for myself. I am quite equal to it.”

“Out of the question, my dear. We cannot do without you.”

Martha smiled — though tremblingly — and went in search of Edward’s letter while I divested myself of spencer and bonnet. To leave Southampton, a mere eighteen months after achieving Castle Square! But a freehold — what that should mean to my mother, and to our general comfort! I might live once more in a country village, and watch the seasons change without the glare and tumult of a city. Either position would prove to our advantage, for Wye has all the charm of proximity to Godmersham, and Edward’s dear little children; while Chawton Cottage should be close to our steady acquaintance in Hampshire. And Henry, my beloved elder brother, had lately opened a branch of his bank in the town of Alton, but a mile from Chawton Great House—

“Poor Edward!” I mused as I rewound a bit of black ribbon through my hair, “to think of us, in the depth of all your misery. Amiable soul, to work for our welfare when your own is so thoroughly destroyed!”

“Martha tells me that you have been SKETCHING, Jane, at Netley Abbey! That is a queer start for one of your age,” my mother exclaimed. She had thrown off the threat of pulmonary inflammation on the strength of Edward’s communication, and had consented to rise for dinner. “You are missing Cassandra, perhaps, and intend to conjure her in memory!”

“I am quite accustomed to missing Cassandra — she is more often in other people’s houses than her own. I merely observed, in walking through the ruins yesterday, a picturesque that cried out to be seized on paper.”

“Your love for that old Abbey certainly increases! Or was it the hope of meeting a certain Lieutenant, and captivating him with your skill in paint, that drew you there?”