The Comtesse, as I have said, was not to be of our party that evening. Eliza had solicited her old friend for the honour of her song, but Anne de St.-Huberti affected humility; she never sang before strangers, she protested, but only in the intimacy of her own home, and only before chosen friends. Having heard her in voice on Sunday evening, I will confess to relief that the Comtesse was not to sing for Mr. Egerton and our guests; her instrument cannot now be what it was.

I hastily stowed the pages of my book beneath a circulating novel that lay discarded on the drawing-room table, and rose to greet the visitor.

“Mes chères amies,” the Comtesse sang out as she sailed into the room, a swansdown muff negligently disposed on one arm, “what dreadful weather you have for your evening, non? It comes on to rain! You will be fortunate indeed if half your guests venture out into the streets! And my dear Eliza, how swollen and red your nose!”

I foresaw a similar vein of conversation, richly mined by the Comtesse’s malice; and being unable to explain Eliza’s attachment to Anne de St.-Huberti — unless it be an affection for some memory of her own glorious career at Versailles, before Louis’s fall — I determined to salvage what I could of the day and my own peace.

“Eliza is decidedly unwell,” I observed, “and ought to be laid down upon her bed, with hot lemonade and sticking plaster. Indeed, I was just upon the point of quitting the house for the apothecary. You will forgive me, Countess, if I go about my errand … ”

“But of course,” the lady said earnestly, her gloved claw clasping my fingers. “It is always the office of the spinster sister, non, to sacrifice herself to her wretched family? You are admirably suited to the role, my dear Jane. You will darn the socks to perfection, and nurse other people’s children without a thought for yourself. Run along while I amuse la pauvre Eliza with every sort of scandalous nonsense.”

If I did not utter a retort that should set the harpy’s ears to flaming, I may say it was from a sense of what I owed my brother Henry: those precious typeset pages carefully concealed beneath an overturned book. He is the most excellent of brothers, Henry — however many dubious females he may admit into his house.

I DID NOT HAVE FAR TO SEEK FOR MR. HADEN, THE apothecary and surgeon, as his shop was directly next to Henry’s home — at No. 62 Sloane Street. I might have despatched my errand with alacrity, had I been desirous of returning to the Comtesse d’Entraigues and her repellant conversation; but I had been within doors all day, and fretted at my confinement. For nearly two years now I have been accustomed to walking the lanes of Chawton, in mire or dust, in pursuit of the post, or acquaintance, or the broader delights of neighbouring Alton. I rejoice in the daily revelations of the garden in such a season as this: the tentative spurt of sunshine; the first daffodils waving in the stiff breeze; the inadvertent torrents; the appearance of the bluebells. London, with its fashionable throng, its noise and dirt, its persistent and impenetrable fogs, its rackety business of carriages and midnight hours, is a type of enjoyment to which one must be schooled. I might in youth have relished the heady excitement of money and power that is here everywhere on parade; but in my more sober years — in the fullness of my womanhood — I cannot ignore the immense want I see in the pinched faces of the streets, nor the gin-soaked decrepitude of the women and men who beg at every corner. There is a ruthlessness to London life perfectly in keeping with its glittering masters: I thought once more of the Princess Tscholikova, her blood running down the steps of one of the most exalted residences in Town — and shivered in my pelisse.

A brisk walk was required — a filling of the lungs, even if it be with sulphurous air — and so I ventured across Sloane Street into the pretty little wilderness of Cadogan Place, where nursemaids sat in careful watch over their infant charges, who played at battledore and shuttlecock upon the greening lawn.[4]  Hans Town, as this village on the edge of the city is called, is by no means a fashionable abode, being fully a quarter hour’s brisk walk west of Hyde Park; but it will do for such gentlemen of business as my banker brother Henry, for hopeful families of second sons, who regard the country air as more healthful than that of the city generally; and for those shabby-genteel members of the ton whose fortunes have been gambled away. We are a heterogeneous lot, part pretension, part vulgarity; but I cannot repine, or wish my brother returned to Upper Berkeley Street. His rooms are more commodious, and his neighbours infinitely more colourful, than I should discover elsewhere.

I was swinging with energy along the gravel path, when a “Good morning, Miss Austen” rang brightly in my ear, to be seconded by a chorus of little voices; and I turned to find Mrs. James Tilson some ten paces behind me, with her maid and a collection of children bestowed about her, bent upon their exercise.

“Fanny!” I cried. “I should expect you to be laid upon your bed, with a warm shawl about your shoulders, recruiting your strength for the dissipations of this evening! You cannot fail us, my dear! We depend upon you, however much it should come on to rain!”

Frances Tilson is the wife of my brother’s chief banking partner in London, Mr. James Tilson, and the mistress of just such an household as is everywhere to be found in Hans Town. A boy of twelve is presently away at school; but no less than seven daughters fill the drawing-room in Hans Place, the youngest not above a year of age. Mrs. Tilson’s excellent sense and tolerable understanding make her an attractive companion for these walks about the square, while her children — in small doses — provide amusement. Eliza will say that Fanny Tilson has no sense of humour, and that her taste for the exalted— her air of piety and sober reflection — are tiresome in the extreme; but I cannot abuse goodness, tho’ I lack it myself. Such abuse must smack of envy.

“But of course we shall not fail,” Fanny replied simply as the party came up with my position on the path. “We have been eagerly anticipating the party a fortnight at least. I have promised the older girls they may help me dress.”

Squeals of delight greeted these words, and as we fell in together, and began to pace the gravel path, I observed, “It is as well, perhaps, that you have some frivolity to distract your thoughts. You have lost a neighbour, I understand.”

“I do not care to speak of it,” Fanny said, turning her head away. “Everything to do with that person is repugnant to a lady; and however much we may deplore the manner of her end, I think I am safe in stating that it was not unfitted to her mode of life.”

I considered of the Princess, lonely and friendless as I had observed her the previous evening, her throat slit and her body cast upon the streets; and thought her death totally at variance with a life of privilege and indulgence. I apprehended that Fanny wished me to draw a moral from violent death, and being surrounded by her tender daughters, did not chuse to pursue the subject. My companion surprised me, however, by continuing the debate with vigour.

“Her body has been returned to the house,” Fanny said, “and black crape hung from the doorway. There is a coat of arms — quite foreign — suspended above the door, and the knocker removed. I should have thought that the world would shun the remains of one so wretched as to take her own life, but in point of fact a succession of carriages has been coming and going all day, for the leaving of cards and condolences. I am sure there is no one to read them. She lived quite alone, as one would expect of a woman so lost to propriety as to abandon her husband, and desert all her friends.”