Lord Harold, and the woman he believed a spy, long since fled from England in the arms of her betrothed. But Lord Harold had always been in command of himself as well as the cards; I doubted Julian Thrace was so masterful.
“The lady looks to win,” Henry said admiringly. It is a curious game, faro — played upon a little baize table set between the two players. One must deal the cards, and the other guess as to their face value before each is overturned; a talent for tallying sums, and holding a keen memory of all the cards played, will serve the gambler well. The tension in Lady Imogen’s body suggested that a good deal rode on the outcome of this hand; she was half-risen from her seat, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes sparkling.
“And so to the final card,” she said in that low and throbbing voice, “and so to the final card! Turn it over, Thrace! Show its face! My luck cannot desert me now!”
He smiled, and with long fingers turned the card to the fore; she sprang from her chair, face exultant and fierce as a huntress’s, oblivious of those who watched her from the flanks of the room.
“The Devil!” she cried out, impassioned. “The Devil is in these cards, and by God, the Devil is with me! I shall outrun you yet, Thrace — you and all the petty duns of England who would see me ruined!”
In the heavy silence that followed this extraordinary outburst, the doors of the sitting room were thrust open to reveal a manservant bearing a note on a silver tray. The assembled guests stared at him in fascination as he moved towards the magistrate, Mr. Prowting.
The gentleman took up the note, perused it swiftly, and then raised his head to stare accusingly at me.
“Is anything amiss, sir?” I enquired.
“Gentlemen and their boots be demmed! Footprints in the cellar, likewise! It is as I expected. Bertie Philmore has returned to the scene of the crime — and has been caught stealing into your cottage, Miss Austen!”
Letter from Lord Harold Trowbridge to Mr. Henry Fox, later 3rd Lord Holland, dated 13 December 1791; one leaf quarto, laid; watermark fragmentary ELGAR; signed Trowbridge under black wax seal bearing arms of Wilborough House; Personelle, Par Chasseur Exprès, in red ink.
(British Museum, Wilborough Papers, Austen bequest)
My dear Henry—
You ask if I am well; and I suppose that I am in health enough. The trifling mark of a foil on my left shoulder is healing nicely, and gives no trouble, save to impair my aim with a pistol in that hand — but as it is not the one I write with, I may give you a letter long enough to satisfy the main points of your last. Many of our old friends are gathered here at Aix and elsewhere in the province, laying in provisions and bartering for places in the boats putting off at Marseille. There is a rumour abroad that a party of considerable size is lost and wandering in the Pyrénées, giving the Comte much cause for uneasiness; the snows are already deep at the pass’s height, and his daughter has not appeared although she is daily expected. I hope to meet you soon, with a group of thirteen, and drink a bumper of wine to your health; but if the Comte pleads his cause well enough I may be forced to return and form a search party for Hélène — even if only to retrieve the frozen end of a father’s hopes. It is said that the Committee intends to seize all émigré goods before long; let us trust we shall be paid before they do.
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.”