My most cordial regards, dear Fox — and God keep you—

Trowbridge

Chapter 13

That Perfect Understanding Between Sisters

Friday, 7 July 1809

“I must say, Jane, that you have endeavoured to distinguish yourself and the name of Austen as much as possible, in as little time as possible — an exertion I should have expected to be beyond even your spirit and understanding,” my sister Cassandra observed. She was sitting in the single hard-backed chair I had placed near the window of the bedroom we were to share, her bonnet lying on the little dressing table and her hair still disordered from the effects of too many days’ travel in an open carriage. Her face was somewhat tanned, but shadows lingered in the hollows of her eyes and her hair has turned quite grey; at sixand-thirty, she begins to look the middle-aged woman. A young dog was asprawl in her lap — a gift from Neddie towards the formation of our new household. I was pleased to note that it was neither a bird-dog nor a hound, but a useful little terrier of cunning aspect. The rats, I felt sure, were already disposed of.

“I have determined to call him Link,” Cassandra confided, “after the link-boys of Bath; for he is always dashing ahead, to lead the way!”

I smiled at her as she crooned over the pup like a new mother with a long-awaited child; but the vision was not one of unalloyed happiness. I see in my sister the mirror of myself — a lady with hardened hands and correct posture, a gown done up to her neck, and a suggestion of strain about the mouth; and I remember her fleetingly as she was at nineteen, in all the flush of youth and a strong first attachment, when she accepted Tom Fowle’s proposals. We both meant to marry Toms, Cassandra and I — and all our happy plans went awry, the men we had chosen being disposed of, in their fates, by other persons more powerful than ourselves: Tom Fowle despatched to the Indies and his death at the whim of Lord Craven; and Tom Lefroy packed off to the law courts of Ireland, and the safety of the heiress he eventually married. I never think of him now, except when my mind reverts to those silly, happy days my sister and I passed so unconsciously at Steventon Parsonage; he is no doubt a father these many years, and balding in his pate, and gouty in his foot, while I have long since given my heart and soul to another.

“I am sorry, Cass, if my publick exposure has occasioned any difficulties for you or Neddie,” I returned, with what I considered admirable control of my temper; “but I could not consider your descent upon Chawton, in all the style of a Kentish lady, when I confronted a corpse in our cellar.”

“It is not of that I would speak. It is a most disturbing affair, to be sure, and not at all what one would like in the Squire’s circle — but as the poor wretch came there well before you and my mother appeared in the village, the business cannot be helped. No, Jane — it is your continued association with his lordship that I must deplore. I need not elaborate.”

She proceeded to do so.

“When I learned, from the safety of Godmersham, that you had continued to court Lord Harold’s notice — that you had so far forgot what was due to your family, as to involve my dear brother Francis in the unseemly circumstances of his lordship’s murder! — when I understood, from a chance remark in one of Martha Lloyd’s letters, that your intimacy had given rise to the general expectation of an union between yourself and the gentleman — for so I am forced to call him — I confess I believed you had taken leave of your senses.”

“No doubt I had.”

“And now I am not a quarter-hour arrived in Hampshire,”

my sister added, drawing off her gloves with a complacency that must cause me to grit my teeth, “before I learn that Lord Harold had the presumption to notice you in his Will. It is as Mamma observes: even from the grave the Rogue would destroy your reputation.”

“I must beg you, Cass, not to speak of what you cannot understand,” I said stiffly.

“Jane, your intimacy is everywhere talked of. I heard it mentioned on a stranger’s lips while Edward halted at the George, and must have blushed for the exposure of a most beloved sister. And our house broken into!” She lifted up her hands in amazement. “Would that the chest is never found! Then perhaps we may be rid of the odour of scandal his lordship has brought upon us.”

At the thought of the stolen chest, I felt a tide of misery rise up within me. We had hastened from the Great House last evening, Henry and Mamma and I, in the company of Mr. Prowting and Mr. Middleton both. We had not tarried to take proper leave of the Stonings party, nor yet of Mr. Prowting’s family, who remained in the drawing-room with the delightful prospect of canvassing our private affairs behind our backs. I read triumph in Jack Hinton’s looks as I bade him farewell, and knew that he regarded me with derision and contempt. But it made no matter: my thoughts were all for Lord Harold’s legacy. Wretched, wretched woman that I am, not to have detected in our convenient absence from the cottage, while dining at the Great House, an opportunity for plunder!

We found the new bow window torn from its frame, glass panes smashed, with a small knot of folk collected in the garden. I recognised the baker woman, and Toby Baigent standing by the side of a burly man who must be his father; the others I could not name. And there was Bertie Philmore, his back thrust up against a tree that shaded the Street, his arms securely gripped by a pair of strangers and a surly expression upon his face.

“Well, then, Morris,” Mr. Prowting called out to one of Bertie’s captors as we approached, “what have you found?”

“This lad a-climbing out of the cottage’s bow window, Mr. Prowting, sir,” Morris replied.

“That is my groom,” the magistrate told Henry, “and a likely fellow if ever I knew one. I thought it probable that Philmore would return to the cottage once your mother deserted it, and so I set Morris to watch upon the place, and inform me when the ruffian appeared.”

I had wondered if Mr. Prowting’s powers of intellect were stouter than they had at first seemed, and was amply satisfied with this answer. “But why should Philmore return, sir — if indeed he was ever within the cottage before?” I enquired reasonably. Mr. Prowting wheeled upon me with a look like thunder. “Is it not obvious, Miss Austen? Because he is drawn to the place where he murdered his friend, Shafto French — because his guilty conscience compels him to return to the gruesome pit in which he left the body!”

Henry’s eyebrows rose. “I agree that the cellar is malodorous and damp, but to call it a—”

“I never killed Shafto!” Philmore burst out. “I were at home in bed when he died, same as my Rosie’ll tell you!”

“Was anything found on this man’s person?” I demanded. Mr. Prowting glared at Morris. “Well, sirrah? Did the ruffian make off with the Austens’ property?”

“No, sir. It were just him, sir, jumping down from the windowsill.”

“You see, Miss Austen? A guilty conscience will prove the answer!”

I studied Philmore’s countenance as he strained against Morris’s grip. Far from appearing terrified at the tendency of the magistrate’s accusations, there was a suspicion of smugness in his looks, an air of having bested all comers. My heart desponding, I took the key to the door from my mother’s hand and made my way past the knot of gawkers. Henry followed. My brother emitted a low whistle as he stepped over the threshold.

The contents of the trunks and wooden boxes we had meant to unpack during the course of the week were everywhere scattered about the room: a few earthenware plates smashed and ground to dust, linens strewn in disorder, books tumbled from the shelves. A quantity of paper had been trampled underfoot, and a bottle of ink spilled over all. A trail of ruin led from kitchen to dining parlour and up the main stairs, and I knew before I reached my bedroom what I should find. The drawers of my dressing table were emptied, the mattress torn from the bedstead, and my clothes thrown in a heap on the floor.