“Not all, it would seem, from the succession of carriages,” I replied.

“They say there is a brother,” Fanny confided in a lowered tone. “A prince of some kind, tho’ what that may signify among Russians, who can tell? He is said to be travelling even now from Vienna. The husband does not appear. The obsequies must be suspended until the brother arrives; and indeed, what sort of burial shall she receive? She cannot be a member of the Church of England. And then there is the fact of self-murder. Perhaps they will remove the body to Paris, where I understand she lived until lately … ”

At that moment, a woman I judged to be a maidservant cut across our path, her chin sunk upon her breast and her expression abstracted. She was so near I might have brushed her arm, had I not pulled up short; and she quite ran into little Charlotte, a stout girl of seven, who cried in pain at the trodding of her foot. The maid never deviated, or lifted her head, or acknowledged our presence in any way — and as I gazed at her in consternation, I saw great tears slip unheeded down her cheeks. She moved as one bent upon an unholy errand, or in the grip of a horror so profound that no human voice might penetrate it.

“Druschka,” Fanny Tilson said in some irritation as she bent to chafe her daughter’s foot. “The Princess’s maid. Perhaps it is shewho reads the condolences. — If, indeed, she is able to read.”

The woman had crossed Sloane Street and paused before the door of the apothecary, Mr. Haden. It was time, I thought, to fulfill Eliza’s errand.

Chapter 3

A Queens Ransom

Tuesday, 23 April 1811, cont.

MR. HADEN WAS NOWHERE IN SIGHT AS I ENTERED his shop. It was clean and commodious, which must inspire confidence in the healthfullness of the man’s wares: a high-ceilinged space, lit by suspended oil lamps, and lined with shelves. Rank upon rank of glass jars held every conceivable tincture and herb, simple and poison; earthenware bowls stood ready for the pestle; a set of brass scales graced the front counter, along with a volume in which the apothecary recorded the names of his clients, the nature of their complaints, and the remedies he had prescribed. With so many children in Hans Town, Mr. Haden was never wanting in work, and Eliza — who is prone to illness as the years advance — finds it a great comfort to be lodged so near a capable quack.

The maid Druschka was standing next to the counter, her gaze fixed upon the scales as tho’ she might read her future there. I had thought her countenance forbidding in Cadogan Place — an impression derived, perhaps, from the grim force of misery. Under the light of the oil lamps, however, I saw that age had deeply etched her visage. This woman could have known the Princess Tscholikova from her cradle.

So lost in reflection was she that my broaching of the door, and the faint tinkle of the bell suspended over it, might have been soundless for all the response they drew. Still as a statue, Druschka waited for Mr. Haden.

“There you are,” he said briskly, appearing from the rear of his premises with a slim purple vial. “Tincture of laudanum. I would advise you to use it sparingly. Do you understand?” He held aloft three fingers. “No more than three drops each night.”

Druschka reached wordlessly for the bottle, her aged hand swathed in a fingerless black mitt. If she comprehended the apothecary’s speech, she made no sign.

“Here,” Mr. Haden said impatiently. “You’ll have to sign my book. Here!”

But the maid was already halfway to the door, and did not chuse to regard the apothecary behind his counter — an inattention born of a lack of English, I must suppose, or a misery so profound it no longer considered of a stranger’s expectations. As she brushed past me towards the street I summoned courage and said, “Pray accept my condolences on the loss of your mistress, Druschka.”

She turned upon me a pair of fathomless eyes and muttered, “C’est tout des mensonges.”

“What did she say?” Mr. Haden demanded, as the maid stepped out onto the street.

“It’s all lies,” I repeated thoughtfully, and procured Eliza’s draught.

THE COMTESSE D’ENTRAIGUES HAD QUITTED THE house by the time I returned, but she had left Eliza no gayer for all her promised scandal.

“The poor creature is beside herself, Jane,” my sister confided.[5]  “Never knowing where her next shilling is to come from, looks and voice quite gone, the years advancing — and who can say how many light-skirts that old roué of a husband has in keeping? I thank God I was fortunate enough to consider of dear Henry’s offer when I was at low ebb myself. You can have no notion how comforting it was, to know I might drop my handkerchief at any moment, as the saying goes, and he should come running to pick it up! When I think of his goodness—”

At this, she buried her reddened nose in a square of cambric and said nothing audible for the space of several moments.

It is true that Henry was besotted with Eliza, who is almost ten years his senior, when he was a callow youth and she a young mother fresh from a château in France. She was infinitely captivating in those days, black-haired and exquisitely-dressed, with jewels at her throat and a delightful penchant for shocking conversation. Even our elder brother James, destined for the Church and a prig from infancy, was wild for Eliza. It became a sort of game for Henry and James to vie for my cousin’s favour when they were both up at Oxford, and she living in London far from the protection of her husband; but by the time the self-styled Comte de Feuillide was guillotined, and Eliza free, James had buried his first wife and was the father of a child. He courted Eliza for months, allowed her to toy with his heart and his future, and took her eventual refusal to become a clergyman’s wife in good part. The idea of Eliza — who at five-and-thirty was still the girlish beauty she had ever been, carrying her pug about Town and riding in the Park — as the mistress of James’s parsonage, was not to be thought of. Henry offered himself twice to my cousin, with a heart that had always been her own, and to the relief of the entire family — Eliza at last accepted him.

It was feared that such a rackety and volatile pair — one with more hair than wit and the other possessed of more charm than is good for him — should be run off their legs by debt. Dire predictions of a frivolous end — desertion or debtor’s prison — my brother’s affections elsewhere engaged as Eliza inevitably aged — were bruited about the family with ruthless disregard for the feelings of this junior son. But the Henry Austens have jogged along steadily in tandem harness for more than a decade now without disaster; and the family must declare Eliza much improved. It cannot be wonderful that a lady so intimate with death — of a mother, a husband, a son — could fail to be sobered by the prospect of eternity; but I must credit my brother with excellent sense, and the uncanny ability to manage his wife by never attempting to manage her at all. It was he who supported my cousin through every loss; he who travelled to France in the wake of revolution to demand recompense for the Comte de Feuillide’s confiscated estates; he who bore with Eliza’s extravagant tastes and exalted acquaintance. As a French countess, she had been much in the habit of attending Court Drawing-Rooms and the exclusive assemblies at Almack’s; she saw no reason to leave off doing so now that she was become the wife of a mere banker. There are still few in London who fail to address Eliza as Comtesse, rather than Mrs. Austen; but it is Henry who franks her style of life.

“You would tell me the d’Entraigueses are embarrassed in their circumstances?” I enquired now as Eliza emerged from her handkerchief. “But that muff—! Her opera dress of last evening! The furnishings of the house in Surrey!”