“What, then, can have been the burglars’ object?” I enquired.
“I have not the smallest notion.” He hesitated. “And that is not the only oddity. Leaving that Bengal chest aside — Mamma tells me you have had an interview with Lord Harold Trowbridge’s solicitor.”
“Mr. Chizzlewit. Yes — he came to me yesterday before dinner. It was in the act of securing the chest belowstairs that we discovered the corpse.”
“Your solicitor paid a call on Gray in all his state not two days ago — lackeys and trunks behind — enquiring your direction in Chawton. Curious gentleman, by all accounts.”
“But perfectly respectable,” I returned.
“All the same — he did draw notice, Jane. The better part of Alton was positively agog at his errand. I heard talk of pirates’
treasure and a king’s ransom of jewels — not to mention the name of Austen — everywhere. Do you think it possible that this burglary of my branch was an attempt to secure whatever Chizzlewit carried in that heavy great chest of yours?”
For all his style and badinage, Henry is possessed of considerable understanding, and not above speaking plainly when necessity absolutely requires it.
“I think it very likely,” I replied. “No doubt your burglar believed a bank the properest place for safekeeping such a bequest. I am sorry for your trouble, Henry, but indeed I had no notion of causing it.”
My brother cast me a sidelong glance. He would not attempt to force my communication; but having been a little acquainted with the Trowbridge clan in London, he was naturally curious. “If you should ever wish — if there is a matter of a legacy involved, and you require advice as to the terms of investment — in short, dear Jane, I should be happy to serve you in any way I can. As banker or brother.”
“Thank you. His lordship was far too discreet to ruin me with gold, however. Lord Harold offered me carte blanche neither in death nor in life. The solicitor delivered a quantity of papers only.”
“So Mamma said. But I made certain you were giving her a Banbury tale. Why should anyone attempt to steal old letters?”
“Perhaps with the object of turning them to good use. All of London and half the Continent appear in his lordship’s communications.”
Henry stopped short in the middle of Chawton, his gaze suddenly intent. “You never mean blackmail, Jane?”
“Why not?”
He whistled softly. “This places a different complexion entirely on that wretched fellow you found in the cellar, my dear girl. If the dead man was intent upon the same errand — and came to his end in an ugly fashion—”
“By my own reckoning, the man had been dead some time,”
I said gently. “Days before the existence of the chest was even known in the neighbourhood. I cannot believe the poor man’s demise had anything to do with Lord Harold’s papers. I will not believe it.”
Henry’s eyebrows rose. “Very well. Believe what you like. Have you another explanation?”
“Did you not know that our house is cursed?” I demanded lightly. “—Or perhaps it is more properly the entire Austen family that labours under ill-fortune. I was told as much by young Toby Baigent, of Symond’s Farm, upon my arrival.”
“Village nonsense!”
“All the same — I fear that Neddie has managed his tenants ill, or at the very least with a want of proper attention. He has excited considerable feeling among the yeoman class with his disposition of houses and farmland. Moreover, his ownership of the Great House — indeed, his right to all his Hampshire estates — is apparently contested by an upstart clergyman’s son, resident in the Lodge, and claiming to be the last true heir to the Hampshire Knights.”
“Not Jack Hinton?” Henry exclaimed.
I turned to stare at him. “You are acquainted with the gentleman’s name?”
“With his name and his entire history.”
“I suppose Mr. Hinton thought that as Edward was no more than a jumped-up clergyman’s son himself, he might as well make the attempt. We were treated to the entire history last evening.”
“The fellow is a complete flat, Jane! And a dead bore into the bargain! He is forever writing tedious letters under the advisement of his solicitors, and delivering them to Neddie at Accounting Day. Lord!”
“You might have told me, Henry,” I returned in exasperation. “Has a protracted residence in London completely deprived you of that knowledge of a country village in which you were reared? The Hintons appear to be related to half the families in the surrounding parts; Mrs. Prowting related the whole to us only last evening. The indignation of all Chawton is allied against the Austens. We are seen as yet another example of Neddie’s abuse of privilege: the indigent females of the family, thrust upon the bosom of the village to the detriment of the true heirs of the Great House.”
“Is it as bad as all that?”
“I should not be surprised if it were. When Edward does descend upon Chawton in a few days’ time, I intend to wring his neck!”
“He has been sadly distracted of late,” my brother admitted soberly. “Grief will work a wondrous change in the most frivolous of men. I was forced to read sermons after dinner in the drawing-room at Godmersham, Jane, instead of the plays we formerly chose to amuse ourselves. If you could have observed little Marianne yawning over her prayer book of an evening—!”
We had strolled nearly to the end of the Street, observed only by a number of children too young to be helping with the hay-making and three elderly persons who preserved a cautionary silence. The village was pretty and unspoilt enough, with hops growing verdantly on the left hand and a line of cottages on the right. There were no shops or tradesmen in Chawton — commerce being the purview of Alton, a mile distant — but at the approach to one thatched house, we observed an inviting basket with a dozen loaves of bread wrapped in white cloth.
“The baker,” Henry murmured.
We halted and my brother drew out his purse. The woman who lived in the place — Mrs. Cuttle, as she informed us — appeared in the doorway, wiping floured hands on her smudged apron. Henry bought two loaves — one for my mother and a second he intended to consume on our walk. “Do you supply much of the bread to households hereabouts?” he enquired easily of Mrs. Cuttle.
“That I do, sir. Are you staying at the Great House, with the rest of Mr. Middleton’s guests?”
“Sadly not. I am merely taking in Chawton on my road to London. But my sister, Miss Austen, is lately come to the late bailiff’s cottage.”
Mrs. Cuttle’s eyes widened and without a word, she dropped a swift curtsey.
“Would you be so good as to deliver a loaf of your excellent bread each day to my mother and sisters?” Henry suggested.
“We should be infinitely obliged.”
The woman’s gaze fell. “Take the loaves ye have, and welcome, sir,” she said, and without another word, she turned back inside her cottage and firmly latched the door.
“Well,” I said into the silence. “I must be glad that Martha Lloyd’s culinary accomplishments include baking.”
“There, Libby,” interjected a breathless accent, “I’ve misplaced my key again, and what Old Philmore will have to say to me if it is not found, I do not like to think!”
A lady of middle age and neat tho’ shabby appearance was exiting the cottage adjacent to Mrs. Cuttle’s. She patted her shawl and reticule with one gloved hand as she spoke, as if much distracted; in her other hand was clutched a posy of flowers; a pair of spectacles perched on her sharp nose, and what was visible of her hair was quite gray.
“Three shillings he demanded for the copy last time, and where such a sum is to be found I’m sure I cannot say. Is it possible, my dear, that one of your delightful children has made away with it as a prank?”
She surveyed us without recognition, somewhat surprised to find that Mrs. Cuttle — for so I assumed Libby to be — was nowhere in sight.