The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen Read online

  ‘You look so well!’ She held me at arm’s length, her eyes fixed on mine. I caught my breath, for I could not return the compliment. She looked different in a way I couldn’t quite define: thinner in the face, perhaps; a little paler than usual. I put it down to the poor summer we had had and the strain of completing yet another novel.

  Her writing slope was on a little table with the manuscript piled on top and I begged for a glimpse of the new book. ‘Later,’ she chided, steering me to a chair beside the fire. ‘You must get warm first: your fingers feel like dead eels.’ I frowned at my big, ugly hands, which were indeed white with cold. I wondered if they disgusted her. She saw my face and drew me to her, kissing me on my nose and forehead. ‘I have missed you,’ she whispered. ‘And Cass is going to Scarlets tomorrow so you shall have her bed.’

  I murmured a silent prayer of thanks to the Leigh-Perrots for inviting Cassandra to stay this week of all weeks. I was sorry that I would see her only briefly, for she was good company and never jealous of my friendship with her sister, but the prospect of waking up with Jane each morning was as wonderful as it was unexpected.

  The creaking hinges of the parlour door made us jump apart. A girl appeared with a tray of tea. She was a new maid called Jenny Butter, who blushed to the roots of her fair hair when Jane introduced us. ‘Miss Cassandra sent a note by William Parry,’ she said, backing out of the room with the tray. ‘She and Miss Martha are held up at Wyards with Mrs Lefroy. Nothing to worry about, she says, and she’ll be back in time for dinner.’

  ‘I still can’t get used to Anna’s new name,’ Jane said when the maid had gone. ‘It makes me feel very ancient, having a married niece. I shall be Great Aunt Jane in a few weeks, you know.’

  I did know, for Anna had written to tell me of her pregnancy. She had been married a little less than a year. When the engagement was announced I couldn’t help wondering what Jane must feel, knowing that her niece was about to become what she had once hoped to be. Ben Lefroy was a young cousin of the Tom Jane had told me about; the handsome Irishman she had fallen in love with at twenty.

  ‘It’s such a pleasure to have her living so near,’ Jane went on. ‘She gets books from the circulating library and brings them here to read aloud. We have such fun, making the characters as ridiculous as possible: Cass laughs so much she has to beg us to stop, for she cries all over her sewing.’

  I felt a momentary pang of envy. Anna had taken the very part I would have liked to play in Jane’s life. Rather spitefully, I said: ‘I suppose she will not be able to do that when the baby is born.’

  ‘No, poor animal! I fear she’ll be worn out before she’s thirty. But it’s all still too new for her to fear what the future may bring.’ She paused, pursing her lips. ‘I wasn’t sure about Ben at first; I never thought of Anna as a curate’s wife. He is as serious as she is saucy – but they don’t seem any more miserable than most married people.’

  I returned her wry smile with a click of my tongue. ‘I was quite concerned when she told me she was getting married. I thought perhaps she was being a little hasty.’ I kept back what else had crossed my mind: that Anna was marrying the first eligible man who came along to get away from the stepmother she hated.

  ‘She was rather young,’ Jane nodded. ‘Ben doesn’t have much money and she spends it on the silliest things – but that will all have to change when the baby comes. Anyway,’ she leaned forward to top up my teacup, ‘we are all dining at the Great House tonight. Edward and his harem are staying there at the moment.’ I raised my eyebrows at this and she gave a little snort and a shrug. ‘He never travels without at least three female relatives for company,’ she said. ‘There is Fanny, of course, who has been like a mother to the little ones since Elizabeth died. Then there is Louisa Bridges, Elizabeth’s sister – do you remember her? Well, she lives at Godmersham now. And there is another addition to the Kent clan – her name is Charlotte and she is the widow of one of the Bridges brothers. The whole party arrived here last month, bringing the four youngest children, the governess and nineteen servants.’

  I shook my head, although I was not surprised by the size of the entourage. ‘Has Edward never talked of marrying again?’

  ‘Why settle for one wife when you can have three?’ She gave me the kind of look I had seen at the ball in Bath when she spotted Mrs Hastings in her turkey hat. ‘He says that Fanny wouldn’t like it if he brought another woman in as stepmother to the children. But as it stands, he has her in that role and one of the aunts on his arm for everything else. Perhaps he will think about marrying when Fanny takes a husband – as she surely will before long – but he seems quite content with life for now.’

  And what of Henry, I wanted to ask. She would have written to tell me, of course, if he had taken a new wife. It was more than two years since Eliza’s death and he was not the sort of man to be without a woman for any length of time. But I bit my lip as the question formed. A decade had passed since that summer of intrigue at Godmersham but Henry’s heart, I sensed, was still a slippery subject.

  I heard the distant sound of bells from the village church and Jane’s hand went to the pocket of her gown. She pulled out a slim gold fob watch on a delicate chain and flipped it open to check the hour.

  ‘What a pretty thing!’ I leaned forward to take a closer look. The back showed a tracery of twisting roses with her name engraved in the centre. ‘Where did you get it?’

  She hesitated a moment. ‘It was a gift to mark the publication of Mansfield Park,’ she said.

  ‘A generous gift indeed!’ I replied. ‘Did the publishers send it?’

  ‘No.’ she snapped the case shut and put it back in her pocket. ‘It was Henry. He bought it.’ She looked at me and blinked, as if she was bracing herself for an interrogation.

  ‘Well,’ I said, rather taken aback, ‘that was very kind of him, I’m sure.’ I wondered if this gesture had been made in memory of Eliza, who would certainly have been thrilled to the core by her cousin’s success. I was about to ask when Jane’s face warned me against it. There was an odd look in her eyes, like a dog guarding a bone. I turned my face to the window and made some stupid remark about the weather. When I turned back she was on her feet, halfway to the door.

  ‘I’m just going to rouse Mama,’ she said, ‘She’ll be so cross that she was asleep when you arrived – she’s been longing to see you.’

  I had only seen the Great House from a distance. It lay at the western boundary of the village, surrounded by acres of pasture and woodland. To reach it we crossed the meadow that lay between the cottage and the barns flanking the estate. The light was beginning to fade but I could see the pattern of flints in the brickwork of the ancient building, with a cluster of late blooming roses hanging over the north door.

  ‘You’ll find it very different from Godmersham, won’t she Mama?’ Jane turned to help her mother as we climbed a narrow path that skirted the largest dovecote I had ever seen. ‘It’s all dark wooden panelling and Jacobean hanging staircases.’

  ‘Some of the chambers are rather dark,’ Mrs Austen nodded, panting a little, ‘but the dining room is splendid with a fire.’ A chorus of cooing broke out behind us, as if the pigeons were all in agreement about this.

  ‘It’s such a shame about the weather.’ Cassandra linked her arms through mine and Martha’s as Jane and her mother fell behind. ‘The parkland is so beautiful at this time of the year when the sun shines on the changing leaves: we must take you for a walk tomorrow, if the rain keeps off.’ She led us through a cluster of laurel bushes, which showered us with raindrops as we brushed past. ‘It’s rather dirty, this way, I know,’ she said, clicking her tongue at the rising tide of damp on the hem of my gown, ‘but it’s so much quicker than walking along the drive.’

  I told her that it didn’t matter, that I would soon dry out by a good fire. But I was worried about Jane. She was shivering by the time we reached the steps that led through the stone arch to the front door. Cass had noticed it
too. With a glance at Martha and a murmured apology to me she withdrew her arms and removed her shawl. Martha went over to Mrs Austen and engaged her in talk of Edward’s children while Cass took Jane aside and wrapped her up. Jane might have been her child, standing there still and uncomplaining, as this was done. I saw it more clearly than ever, then: that these were the roles they had slipped into; that Cass’s fulfilment in life came from nurturing her sister, whether it was Jane’s health or her writing that required it.

  As we stood in the draughty vaulted porch waiting for admittance there was a clatter of hooves and a crunch of gravel. A carriage and four bowled up to the steps and as the driver reined in the horses I saw Anna’s face pressed against the window. I quite expected her to leap out, as she would certainly have done in years past, but I had forgotten her condition. When the footman came to open the door I was shocked at the change pregnancy had wrought on her body. I suppose I still thought of her as a child, so to see her like that, barely able to walk for the weight of her belly, made me catch my breath.

  She had to stand sideways on to kiss me. Then she introduced me to her husband, who was dark-haired, stick-thin and very earnest. Someone was getting out of the carriage behind him. It was little Caroline, the half sister who had been born the year Jane and I met. At ten years old she was not as pretty as Anna had been; I saw that she had the same strong jaw and large frame as her mother, who was following her up the steps.

  At that moment Edward’s voice boomed out from behind the door. The years had not been kind to him. Close to fifty now, his face was grown ruddier than ever and he looked almost as broad as Anna round the waist. I recognised the woman at his side as Louisa Bridges. Her eyes were very blue, like Elizabeth’s but she had a very different air now; quite prim in a plain grey gown with a white lace tucker covering her neck and shoulders.

  Waiting in the Great Hall was another member of what Jane had so wickedly described as Edward’s harem. This woman I did not recognise, but Martha introduced her to me as Mrs Charlotte Bridges, wife of the late Reverend John Brook Bridges. She had red hair and a sprinkling of freckles and I was struck by how young she looked: not very much older than Anna, I thought. She seemed rather unsure of herself as she greeted me. I saw her smile at Edward as he handed Jane a glass of mulled wine and ushered her towards the roaring fire. Louisa was at the other end of the room, instructing one of the servants. I wondered how they got on, these two single women with their wealthy male protector.

  ‘She was married only two years when he died,’ Martha whispered as we moved away. ‘No children, sadly. But she dotes on Edward’s.’ I wondered then if Edward was grooming Charlotte to fill the role Fanny would have to forsake when she married and started a family of her own.

  ‘Where is your father?’ Mrs Austen’s voice startled me. She was standing behind me, and like many elderly people who are a little deaf, tended to speak very loudly in a crowd. Her question was addressed to Caroline, who was perched on a little stool so close to the fireplace she was almost in it.

  ‘In bed,’ the child replied. ‘Mama says he has one of his stomachs.’

  I had to suppress a smile at this, for she had made James Austen sound like a cow, with several digestive organs at his disposal.

  ‘What have you been feeding him, Mary?’ Mrs Austen fixed a beady eye on her daughter-in-law, who was tugging at the shoulders of Anna’s gown in a bid to cover up her swelling bosom.

  ‘Feeding him?’ She frowned as she plucked a hatpin from her reticule. ‘Why, nothing at all! He won’t eat a thing: says the very thought of food makes him feel bilious.’ With a sudden stabbing movement she stuck the pin through the back of Anna’s bodice. ‘Don’t move!’ she hissed, as the girl flinched. ‘There! Now you look decent at last.’ Turning to her mother-in-law she said: ‘I told him, you know: “Your daughter is the one who is supposed to be bilious, not you,” I said. Such a sensitive soul, poor Austen: always was and always will be. He thinks it’s him having the baby, not her.’

  Mrs Austen looked askance at this description of her eldest son. She opened her mouth but was prevented from delivering any kind of reply by the arrival of Fanny, who was a few minutes behind her father in coming to greet us. She looked very fine in a white sarsnet gown trimmed with silver and a silver ribbon braided through her hair. Seeing her beside Anna it was harder than ever to believe that they were of an age. Apart from gaining a few inches in height, Fanny looked much the same as she had at thirteen. She was not a beauty like her mother but her skin had all the fresh bloom of youth and when she caught sight of me her face lit up with a dazzling smile.

  ‘Miss Sharp! Is it really you?’ She put her arms round my neck and hugged me in just the same way as when she was a child.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘Have I changed so much?’

  ‘Not a bit!’ she said kindly, ‘But I hope I have! And what do you think of Anna? A wife already and soon to be a mother!’ If she was envious of her cousin’s new status she hid it very well. We became so engrossed in catching up on the years that I failed to notice when the door of the Great Hall opened again.

  ‘Good Lord, Henry! What are you doing here?’ Edward gave a throaty chuckle as he clapped his brother on the back. I saw Fanny’s brow tense into a row of fine lines I hadn’t noticed before. She was looking at the new arrival, as was everybody else in the room. The only one who did not look surprised was Mary.

  Henry was ushered towards the fireplace. I overhead him telling Edward that some unexpected business with the Alton branch of his bank had brought him to Hampshire on horseback. He had called at the cottage to find no one but the cook, Hannah Pegg, at home. It was she, he said, who had told him of the gathering at the Great House.

  ‘Trust you to arrive just in time for dinner!’ Edward was smiling broadly. ‘We shall have some sport tomorrow, if you can keep away from the counting house for a few hours: I took a brace of pheasants from Knickernocker Copse this morning.’

  They fell to an earnest discussion of the relative merits of the shooting to be had at Chawton and Godmersham, upon which I eavesdropped with some amazement. There seemed to be no edge to the conversation; nothing to suggest that they were anything other than the best of friends. Apparently Edward had no suspicion that Henry had been anything other than a favourite brother-in-law to his late wife.

  Their conversation was brought to an abrupt halt by the summons to the dining room. As we were eleven females and just three men, Henry and Edward were required to sit at opposite ends of the huge table. Ben Lefroy was seated in the middle, opposite Anna, who could barely get her chair close enough to eat in comfort, and the rest of us were arranged around them. Louisa Bridges was seated at Edward’s right hand and Fanny on his left. Charlotte Bridges was on Henry’s right and Mary Austen sat to his left. Jane and Mrs Austen were either side of Anna, with their backs to the fire, and Martha and I were opposite, with Ben in between us. Caroline squeezed in between Martha and her mother and Cass took a seat beside Jane.

  Sitting in that room was like being transported into the imaginary world of Sense and Sensibilty, for the house reminded me very much of Colonel Brandon’s Delaford: a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences. The gilded frames of portraits of Edward’s adopted ancestors reflected the warm glow of the fire; the polished mahogany table glimmered beneath the light cast by three towering candelabra. Nine steaming silver platters were arranged in a diamond formation, the largest one in the centre. The combined smells of buttered crab, stewed hare, roast goose and boiled oysters wafted around the room as the pot-bellied covers came off.

  Anna announced that she was starving and her plate was soon piled high with crab and pickles, for which she said she had a particular craving. As she went to spear another morsel of claw-meat she knocked her butter knife off the table. It landed with a clatter somewhere between her chair and Mrs Austen’s. She bent to retrieve it, but her figure prevented it. Mrs Austen reached down but Henry got there before her. He b
owed low to pick up the knife and from my vantage point directly opposite, I saw his eyes glide over Anna’s body as he straightened up.

  ‘We can’t have you and Mama cracking heads,’ he grinned. ‘Where have all the servants gone, Edward? Have you given them the evening off?’

  During the genial banter that followed I glanced around the table, wondering if anyone else had caught what I had seen. Ben seemed unperturbed, and was well on the way to clearing his plate of the great mound of stewed hare heaped upon it. Jane was the wrong side of Anna to have noticed anything and so was Cassandra. Fanny was fiddling with her napkin and her eyes were downcast. Mary Austen was picking at the oysters on her plate but every so often she would steal a furtive glance at Anna. Was that resentment or concern in her eyes? I could not tell.

  Henry was regaling Charlotte Bridges with some incident that had befallen him on the ride from London. Leaning back in her chair and fanning herself, she looked like a delicate flower that might wilt under the power of his beaming smile. At the opposite end of the table Edward was deep in conversation with Jane and Louisa about a review he had read of Mansfield Park. Louisa wanted to know when the next book was coming out and what its title would be. ‘Will there be a character with my name in it?’ she asked. ‘I should so love it if there was!’ Jane arched her eyebrows and said that she would just have to wait and see.

  ‘Beware of what you ask for,’ Edward said, wagging a finger at Louisa and cocking his head towards his daughter. ‘She might make you someone impossibly good, like Fanny Price.’

  Fanny’s eyes narrowed at this. ‘Better to be impossibly good than truly vile, like Henry Crawford!’ Her head shifted just a fraction of an inch towards the other end of the table and her father roared with laughter.