I glanced expressively at Manon, who had adopted a position of watchful interest near the kitchen door; the maid rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Julia Radcliffe appears to have been not unmoved by Anne’s recital. She informed the Comtesse d’Entraigues that if her sole objection to divorce was pecuniary — if, indeed, it was her purse and not her heart that should be in shreds, from the severing of her ties to the Comte — that Miss Radcliffe would undertake to make all right. She then produced the velvet roll of jewels we now know to have belonged to the Princess Tscholikova, and pressed them upon Anne.”

“And your friend accepted these jewels?” I cried. “I did not think she was so lacking in honour!”

Eliza shrugged. “One does not arrive at one’s fifth decade without certain compromises, Jane— and one never does so in style if one is determined to be improvident! I cannot consider that Anne acted so very ill. She was afforded the means to endure her husband’s defection — and was not so foolish as to spurn it!”

“She was paid off,” I said grimly, “and with such a treasure as must have landed her on the scaffold, if it does not land us there first. Did Miss Radcliffe disclose the source of her bribe?”

“I cannot make out that Anne even questioned her. Perhaps she believed the jewels to be a courtesan’s spoils — the tokens pressed upon Radcliffe by admiring protectors. She certainly had no notion the pieces belonged to Princess Tscholikova — for she bears the Russian such contempt, I doubt that anything could have prevailed upon her to profit by the Princess’s wealth.”

A faint doubt assailed me. “Eliza, you did not disclose the truth about the jewels?”

“When you had charged me expressly not to do so?” she returned, scandalised. “Naturally, I breathed not a word of Rundell’s despicable setting on of the Runners, nor of our fear that Anne was a murderess. She was so sincerely affected by her troubles, Jane, that I could do little else than encourage her to believe her future was assured — that the jewels should fetch a princely sum — and where I am to find it, I know not! I shall have to apply to Henry for a loan!”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” I returned with asperity. “By the time Henry has quitted Oxford, we shall have discovered the whole of this tangled business — or been brought before the Bow Street magistrate. In either case, your friend will learn the unhappy truth. I cannot think the Comtesse d’Entraigues’s behaviour or morals merit the reward of security, Eliza — let her suffer all the discomfort of deceit a little longer.”

Chapter 22

The Consolations of Religion

Sunday, 28 April 1811

WITH A HOST OF CLAMOUROUS THOUGHTS DEMANDING my attention, and no ready resolution presenting itself to my understanding, I found sleep elusive last night. I could not help but canvass the merits of each of the figures that must fall under suspicion, whether as jewel thieves or murderers or both. Was Lord Castlereagh indeed the gentleman whom the Princess had loved — and Druschka’s avowals of her innocence but the blind loyalty of a devoted servant? Did the Comtesse d’Entraigues beguile my poor sister with fairytales, and disguise a malevolent guilt beneath her crocodile tears? Had her husband cruelly used the dead Princess, or was his indifference as real as his wife claimed? Was Julia Radcliffe not the slip of a girl I persisted in regarding with fascination, but a hardhearted jade who deliberately placed the Comtesse in danger of her life?

By half-past six o’clock, I abandoned my bed for the book room and sat in my dressing gown by the ashes of yesterday’s fire. I schooled myself to look over the pages of Sense and Sensibility most lately delivered from Mr. Egerton’s press — he has at last arrived at Chapter Ten, which must be felt to be a triumph — but the gestation of these slim volumes begins to seem like that of an elephant. The effort of concentration, upon a task so generally felt to be enjoyable, proved too much for my strained nerves; by eight o’clock I had abandoned it.

Henry was abroad when I entered the front passage: shaved, put into his neat dark coat by his man, and ready to be thrown up onto his horse.

“I have urged Eliza not to come down,” he told me in a voice more suited to the tomb; “we have said our adieux. Pray look after her, Jane — I shall send word when I have reached Oxford safely.”

“Enjoy the solitary splendour of the Blue Boar,” I advised him, “and do not be mourning your undergraduate days. You improve with age, Henry.”

I watched him wave from the back of his hired mare and clatter off down the silent streets of Hans Town in a westerly direction; and reflected that there are few sights so gratifying to a female eye, as a handsome man in a well-made coat and hat, astride a horse on a spring morning.

I accepted a cup of coffee from Manon and dressed myself for service in the Belgrave chapel.[21]  The day — so nearly May — was fine enough for walking, provided I might persuade Eliza to the exertion; she was prone, however, to suggest a hackney coach bound instead for the Chapel Royal, as being the house of worship most likely to offer an array of Fashionables in Pious Attitudes, for our amusement. Eliza is frank in admitting she is rarely able to keep her mind on higher things, even of a Sunday — but I was determined this morning to be firm. Fanny and James Tilson are often to be found at the Belgrave chapel, in company with their numerous little girls; and I felt such a wholesome display of family devotion must be salutary, after the thoughts of bloodshed, treason, and adultery I had entertained.

“But, Jane,” Eliza faltered from amidst the bedclothes, where she was imbibing a cup of chocolate, “should I not stay the sacrament? I cannot think myself worthy to receive it, when a suspicion of law-breaking hangs over me! And recollect, we are to dine this evening with Mrs. Latouche and her daughter Miss East, in Portman Square. I am sure I should recruit my strength — for they are both of them so voluble as to send one home with a headache!”

I left her propped up on her pillows, reading her French novel in perfect enjoyment; and walked alone through the brightening morning to church.

The Tilsons caught me up on my way, all of them handsome and virtuous; and I saw that Fanny wore a decidedly fetching straw hat in the jockey style — not unlike the one I had admired on Julia Radcliffe’s bright curls. It seemed the entire world must conspire to remind me of the sordid, when I had trained my thoughts to a more elevated plane.

“Your sister does not accompany you?” Fanny enquired, in a repressive tone. “I should not admit to surprise — I have often found her observance to be wanting, and have imputed it to the irregular nature of her upbringing. One cannot live out one’s girlhood in India and France, among such abandoned persons as Nabobs and Bourbons, without receiving quite improper notions of what is due to the spiritual realm.”

“I am sorry to say that most of Eliza’s notions are improper,” I tranquilly agreed, “which is why she is invariably such excellent company! But this morning her cold persists in troubling her; I am charged by my brother with taking the utmost care for her health, and could not permit her to put her foot out of doors. However bright the sunshine, the air is not so warm as one would like.”

“And your brother, I collect, has quitted Hans Town for Oxford this morning? You will not reproach me, Miss Austen, for confessing how much I deplore Sunday travel; it has not been the habit of my family. But there is a carelessness to Town life that may encourage the lapse of every observance, even among persons one must generally regard as unimpeachable; the business of this world is accorded more weight than the business of the next; and in our hurry to pursue a monetary gain, we very nearly lose our eternal souls! James is to join your brother at the Blue Boar tomorrow — but I could not be easy in my mind, should he have travelled today.”