Chapter 12

The Devil in the Cards

6 July 1809, cont.

As evening parties go, ours was more generally unequal in its composition than most. We were treated to Miss Benn’s simplicities and vague utterances, which had the appalling habit of falling directly into such lapses in the conversation as must make them the most apparent. Lady Imogen Vansittart, on the other hand, deigned to speak to no one not of her intimate party and at her end of the table — that is to say, no one other than Major Spence or Mr. Thrace; while Henry, who was positioned at the table’s centre, spent the better part of the evening attempting to catch the conversation proceeding above him, while evading the notice of those conversing below. The Prowtings were divided between volubility and silence, with Catherine — who was placed next to Mr. Hinton — staring painfully and self-consciously at her plate. I several times observed Mr. Hinton to speak to her in a low and urgent tone, but she repulsed the gentleman’s attempts at conversation. Her earnest gaze was more often fixed upon Julian Thrace, but what attention he could spare from Lady Imogen was entirely claimed by Ann Prowting, who had been placed at the Beau’s left hand.

Ann’s devoted efforts at new-dressing her hair had certainly achieved a degree of novelty: the girl’s golden curls were gathered in a rakish knot over one ear, with a few tender wisps straggling to her nape. A quantity of white shoulder was exposed, as was an ample décolleté; and I might almost have suspected Ann of dampening her shift beneath the white muslin gown, in order that the thin fabric should cling to her limbs. She sat opposite to Henry, but succeeded in ignoring my brother completely. With a Julian Thrace at hand, who could spare a thought for an aging banker?

The young man who aspired to an earldom was the picture of easiness. Thrace could flirt with Ann Prowting, reduce a quail to bones with graceful fingers, listen to Lady Imogen with every appearance of interest, and address an amusing story to his host. Had I yearned to converse with him, I was placed at a disadvantage. My seat was towards the lower end of the table, next to Mr. Prowting; but I was able to observe the Beau’s artful swoops from one conversational plane to another, and decided that it was all very well done.

He had claimed my attention first by declaring, with affecting candour, that he had never before found an occasion to witness a coroner’s inquest — and had discovered the experience to be infinitely diverting.

“As a man raised for much of my life on the Continent,” Thrace explained to the table in general, “I am not so familiar as I should like with the conventions of English justice. To observe your yeoman class, displayed on a hard wooden bench and endeavouring to do their utmost in consideration of the Departed, was as instructive as a treatise on philosophy should be. I admired the succinctness and learning of Mr. Munro, the subtlety with which he asked his questions, and the respect with which he treated high and low alike.”

“I wonder,” the exquisite Mr. Hinton replied with a curl of his lip, “that you can reap so much benefit from so vulgar an episode. I could only endure the two hours I spent in the George, by resolving never to be found there again!”

Mr. Thrace smiled at the gentleman. “But perhaps, sir, you had not the peculiar interest I felt in the man’s demise. When I consider that had I left Middleton but five minutes earlier that evening, I might have saved the labourer’s life — or, heaven forbid! — met a similar fate at the hands of his murderer, I could not be otherwise than compelled by the coroner’s proceeding.”

A storm of questions greeted this pronouncement, with Mr. Thrace throwing up his hands in protest as the ladies all demanded that he explain himself.

“There is no mystery,” cried he. “I dined alone on Saturday with our excellent Middleton, Spence being absent from Sherborne St. John on a matter of business in Basingstoke, and Lady Imogen being as yet in London.”

“We sat in conversation so long,” Mr. Middleton added, “that it cannot have been earlier than midnight when you quitted the house, tho’ I pressed you most earnestly to remain, and should have summoned the housemaid to make up your room, had you allowed it. But you would not put me to the trouble, and rode out directly, the moon being nearly at the full, and the road well-illumined.”

“You noticed nothing untoward, sir, in your way back to Sherborne St. John?” Mr. Prowting asked keenly. “No mill in the roadway, as I believe these affairs are called among the sporting set?”

“My road did not lie in the direction of the pond, if indeed the poor man met his death in that place,” Thrace explained. “I set off at a canter in the direction of Alton, and thence towards Basingstoke, and achieved Stonings by three o’clock in the morning — my hunter, Rob Roy, being a devil to go, begging the ladies’ pardon.”

Ann Prowting here exclaimed at the beauty of Mr. Thrace’s horse, and the conversation turned more generally to the hunting field, and Mr. Chute’s mastery of the Vyne, and the particularities of certain hounds the gentlemen had known; and my attention might have wandered, but for Mr. Thrace’s enjoyment of general conversation, and his tendency to bring the attention of the whole table back to himself. Had I not observed the easiness of his manners, and the general air of modesty that attended his speech, I might have adjudged him a coxcomb, and despised him at my leisure. As it was, I merely wondered at his reverting so often to the unfortunate end of Shafto French. It is quite rare in my experience for a gentleman to concern himself with the murder of a labourer — unless, of course, he harbours some sort of guilty knowledge, or hopes to expose the same in another. I determined to make a study of Mr. Thrace, and refused a third glass of claret that my mind might be clear. Over the second course, a pleasurable affair of some twelve dishes, the Bond Street Beau related a roguish tale, full of incident and melodrama, concerning a necklace of rubies stolen by a British officer at the Battle of Chandernagar; a necklace of such fabled import, that it was said to have once graced the neck of Madame de Pompadour, and to be worth all of two hundred thousand pounds.[16]

“I am certain the stolen jewels are to blame for that unfortunate man’s death in your cottage, Miss Austen,” affirmed he with a gleam in his eye. “I might have offered the story to the coroner yesterday morning, but from a fear of putting myself forward in such a delicate proceeding.”

These words could not fail to alert Mr. Prowting’s attention; the magistrate was suddenly all interest. “Say your piece, man,” he instructed from his position opposite Henry. “If you know something that bears on the murder, you must disclose it to the Law!”

“Well—” Aware that the notice of the entire table was united in his person, Mr. Thrace inclined his head towards Lady Imogen. “I had the tale from your father, the Earl — who spent some years out in India as a young man, and heard the story at its source. It seems that a fabulous necklace was stolen at sabre point from one of the gallant French defenders so routed by Clive in that illustrious battle, which occurred in the last century, I believe.”

“Clive took Chandernagar from the French in 1757,” Major Spence supplied. “The battle secured Bengal for the English.”

“Exactly so,” Thrace returned. “The story, as the Earl told it to me, is that an English Lieutenant seized the fabled gems from a French defender at the fort’s capitulation, and brought them to England after much intrigue and bloodshed. They were later lost on the road — somewhere near Chawton, if you will credit it.”