He did not observe me; indeed, I am certain the Comte believed himself ignored. He was standing at Canning’s elbow, like an acolyte or a servant; his hands clasped behind his back, his head humbly bowed. I remembered something Henry had said: that Canning and d’Entraigues were intimate once, until la belle cocotte, Julia Radcliffe, had divided them. It did not appear as tho’ they were divided now.

It was possible the Comte d’Entraigues would offer the cut indirect to so insignificant a person as his despised wife’s acquaintance, regardless of the fact that we had met only two days before in Hyde Park— but as I gazed at his raddled countenance, I perceived that the piercing eyes were studying an image behind me. I turned, and saw the sleek black head of the nobleman who had peered from the carriage window through the rain of yesterday morning: the Russian Prince who must be Tscholikova’s brother.

He wore black, as did all those in his party — two gentlemen and a figure I recognised as the maid Druschka. All four might have been alone in the room, for all the notice they gave the curious. I did not wish to betray a vulgar interest, and looked instead for my brother.

Henry was already surging forward to claim a pair of seats at the middle of the room. He had no reason to find a foreign grandee of particular note; his attention was drawn, rather, to the suddenly paralysed clubmen behind us. They stood as tho’ cast in stone, all their eyes riveted upon a single figure as he paused in the now empty doorway: a tall man, with a pronounced nose and penetrating eyes, and the disordered locks of a fashionable exquisite: Robert, Lord Castlereagh, the dread object of a dead woman’s love.

Chapter 12

Dead Letters

Friday, 26 April 1811, cont.

SIR NATHANIEL CONANT IS MAGISTRATE AT THE Bow Street office, and it was he who brought the pub-lick room of the Brown Bear to order.

“Gentle-men,” he sonorously intoned, pounding with the flat of his hand on a scarred oak table, “gentlemen … and ladies, silence if you please. The enquiry into the shocking and lamentable death of Princess Evgenia Tscholikova in the early hours of Tuesday last, is now called to order — Thomas Whitpeace, coroner for the districts of Covent Garden and Queen Square, presiding.”

I settled myself in the seat Henry had procured for me, aware that the better part of the fashionable bucks arrayed in the doorway would be forced to stand for the duration of the proceedings. But Robert, Lord Castlereagh, ignored the crush of gawkers and strode regally to the very front of the room, where a scarlet-faced individual promptly offered his own seat to the former member of the Cabinet. His lordship looked neither to left nor right, and might have been alone in the assembly for all the notice he gave his fellows — including particularly George Canning, and the old French nobleman who lingered in his shadow. Castlereagh was exquisitely dressed in a coat of dark green superfine that even I could judge was cut by one of the first tailors of the day — Weston, perhaps, whose quiet elegance should exactly suit his lordship — and kerseymere breeches. His boots shone; but it was his lordship’s bearing that inevitably drew the eye.

“I must say, Henry,” I whispered to my brother, “he is exceedingly handsome, even for one well past his first youth. Such compelling dark eyes! Such a sensitive line to the mouth! And the turn of countenance, tho’ haughty enough, is not unpleasing. It suggests a high courage — which must serve his lordship well in such a place.”

“I should give a good deal to learn his knack of tying a cravat,” Henry returned. “He wears the trône d’amour, Jane. You will observe the creases to be sublime — and requiring no absurdity in the collar-points to achieve the first stare of fashion. His lordship disdains the dandy set, being rather a Corinthian in his tastes — that is to say, that he prides himself on matters of sport. His ability to drive four-in-hand, his patronage of the Fives Court, his precision at Manton’s with a pistol … ”

My brother’s confidences died away. Castlereagh’s talent for marking his targets was already too well known.

He was followed at perhaps a half-pace by a gentleman in the neat dress of a political servant. But here all resemblance to the common herd must end — the gentleman’s countenance called to mind the angels; his form, the Greeks. A paragon of beauty, where most men might prefer to be called handsome — and I noted more than one indrawn breath, of surprise and admiration, as his figure made its way in Castlereagh’s wake.

“And who, Henry, is that?” I murmured.

“Charles Malverley — third son of the Earl of Tanborough. He is devilish astute in the upper works, I understand — serves his lordship as private secretary. Ambitious, and a great favourite with gentlemen and ladies alike.”

At that moment, a communicating door from the far side of the publick room opened, and a man I judged to be Thomas Whitpeace paced swiftly towards the coroner’s chair. He was diminutive and spry, a balding man of middle years blessed with the bright eyes of a bird; and I observed him survey the august crowd with a slightly satiric look.

He cleared his throat, well aware of the devices of theatre — and there it was again, I thought: the sensation of being played to, in a grotesque drama whose ending was beyond my knowledge. Whitpeace offered no welcome, no recognition that this was an inquest quite out of the ordinary way — but announced the names of the panel without further ado. These appeared to be men of trade for the most part— citizens of the neighbourhood surrounding Covent Garden, and thus purveyors of market goods, or the labour that sustained them: wheelwrights, carters, a butcher, and a poulterer. Several looked decidedly ill-at-ease; but one, a squat, red-haired individual with powerful arms, glared contemptuously at the lot of us. Samuel Hays was a smithy, and foreman of the panel, and hewas not to be put out of countenance by a deal of ton swells, up to every grig.

I was interested to see whether the man’s expression altered after he was conducted, along with his fellows, to view the Princess’s decaying corpse— which must have been placed in the room Thomas Whitpeace had just quitted — but upon his return Hays appeared, if anything, more defiant than ever. He was alone in this; the rest of his panel looked quite green.

“Let it be known that Deceased is one Princess Evgenia Tscholikova, so named and recognised by two persons here present who have sworn before the magistrate as to Deceased’s identity. We are to consider,” Thomas Whitpeace said quietly into the well of expectant faces, “in what manner Deceased came by her death, in the early hours of Tuesday, the twenty-third of April, 1811—whether by mishap, by malice aforethought, or by her own hand. The coroner calls Druschka Molova!”

A stir filled the closely-packed room as the black-clad figure of the maid moved heavily towards Thomas Whitpeace. She kept her eyes trained on the floor, and was followed by one of the men who had accompanied the Russian Prince.

“I am Count Kronsky,” this personage said, with a dramatic bow and clicking of his heels, “and I will speak for the maid, as she does not understand the English.”

His own accent was so impenetrable that the coroner had to request him to say his piece again, before comprehending it, Druschka following the exchange all the while. When it came to the swearing of the oath, the maid refused, as being contrary to her Orthodox faith; and at length, exasperated by the complexities of multilingual persuasion, the coroner proceeded to his questions.

The story that unfolded was a simple one. Druschka had been raised from a child on the estates of the Pirov family, and was employed as the Princess’s personal maid at the time Evgenia turned fifteen, and was presented to the Tsar’s court. At the Princess’s wedding — which occurred when Tscholikova was seventeen — Druschka had accompanied her mistress to the home of her husband; and from thence she had journeyed to Vienna, later to Paris, and lastly, to London. The maid’s fierce loyalty and love for the dead woman was transparent, even through the voice of her interpreter.