“The poor lady could not have done away with herself in a better fashion, nor at a better hour,” Lord Moira observed. “I am no ghoul, and must feel for the unfortunate creature in her misery — but if the woman must slit her throat, thank God she chose to do so at the present moment, and at Castlereagh’s door! It has been a close-run thing; we might almost have had Canning and Castlereagh returned to the Cabinet, and a host of Tories beside, and no end to the war in sight. The Regent, for all his Whig friends, has been considering of an approach to Canning and Castlereagh — His Highness regards them as likely to inspire publick confidence, and he is desperate to marshal the same in support of his Regency. Earls Grey and Grenville cannot offer him that.”
“I cannot believe George Canning would ever consent to serve again with his greatest enemy,” my brother Henry observed quietly. “Recollect, my lord, the duel.”
“George Canning would serve with Satan himself, if the Prince of Darkness offered him power,” Mr. Hampson returned scathingly.
“But now that the breath of scandal has touched Castlereagh,” Lord Moira said, “all hope of a Tory Cabinet is fled. There are even those who speak of a Publick Enquiry in the House of Lords! I say it in confidence — but some would suggest — with the utmost delicacy, I assure you — that the Princess may not have died by her own hand. It is even suggested that the one who struck her down was Lord Castlereagh himself … ”
“Good God!” Captain Simpson exclaimed. “That we should come to this! The governance of the land and the conduct of war determined by paramours!”
“It has always been thus,” Lord Moira told him kindly, “but I will admit the present case to be positively Providential.”
Providential, I thought, to the enemies of Lord Castlereagh — and scented in the phrase the iron smell of blood.
Chapter 5
The Warmest Man in England
Wednesday, 24 April 1811
… The Dashwoods were now settled at Barton with tolerable comfort to themselves. The house and the garden, with all the objects surrounding them, were now become familiar, and the ordinary pursuits which had given to Norland half its charms, were engaged in again with far greater enjoyment than Norland had been able to afford, since the loss of their father.
I confess that I sighed as I read through those first few lines of Chapter Nine — that peculiarly interesting chapter in which my Willoughby must first emerge, like a questing knight of old from his dripping wood, and Marianne his Holy Grail. I sighed …. because the words seemed to me to be stilted past all bearing as I sat in Henry’s book room this morning, lapped in the quiet of a house not yet recovered from the previous evening’s exertions; sighed at the perversity of the printed word, which must appear as distinctly less lovely in its shape and significance than that same word set in flowing script. There is a clumsiness to typeface, I find, that strips from my prose its elusive mystery; I am revealed as a cobbler of letters as rigid and austere as the lead from which they are stamped.
— Or so I felt this morning. I may have experienced some lingering fatigue from Eliza’s party, so great was my concern last evening to delight all those with whom I met, and to ensure their comfort lacked nothing. Or perhaps my attention was drawn from the story on the page — so innocent and familiar — to the story taking shape in my thoughts: a collection of vague suspicions given an alarming trend by Lord Moira’s conversation. Whatever the cause, I could spare but half my mind to Willoughby, as he strode towards the hapless Marianne and her twisted ankle; the better part of my wit was sorting furiously through rumour, fact, and innuendo.
… His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised against Marianne, received particular spirit from his exterior attractions. —
Which is to say: Had Willoughby been short, fat, and ill-favoured, Marianne would rather have limped home.
I twitched the typeset proofs together with impatient fingers.
“Mademoiselle,” Manon said from the doorway. “Do I intrude on your peace?”
“Not at all. I was just considering of my toast.”
“Monsieur is already in the breakfast parlour. Madame Henri takes her tea in bed today.”
“Thank you, Manon.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then shut the book room door very quietly behind her so that we should not be disturbed. “While the house was yet asleep, I walked in Cadogan Square for nearly half an hour. The maid Druschka was there.”
“Indeed?”
“She would not at first discuss the Princess or her death. But after a little — a period of quiet sympathy— she chose to confide.”
I waited for what would come.
“Druschka would have it that the Princess Tscholikova would never se suicider,” Manon said firmly. “She insists that her mistress was killed by another.”
“Deliberate murder?”
“The most deliberate, but yes. Druschka vows she will not rest until justice is done.”
I thrust aside the small table on which I had been writing and rose from my chair. “This might be the loyalty of a devoted servant, Manon — one who cannot bear the Princess to be dragged through the mud.”
“A servant so devoted, mademoiselle, that she was admitted to her mistress’s confidence.”
“We cannot know that! The woman might claim anything in her grief!”
“One truth Druschka holds as absolute, look you: that Princess Tscholikova knew milord Castlereagh not at all.”
I stared. “But the Princess’s intimate correspondence with that gentleman was published in the Post!”
Manon shrugged. “Simply because a thing is printed, it must be true? In France we know better than to believe this. The principals were never named, in any case. A matter of initials only.”
I revolved the maid’s words in my mind. All lies. Not just the manner of her lady’s death, but the scandal that led up to it: a fabrication entire. Impossible to say whether the scandal was invented to pave the way for murder — or whether murder was the inadvertent result of a botched attempt at scandal. Certainly the notion of the lady’s suicide— and the plausibility of its occurring on Castlereagh’s doorstep — were accepted solely because of those damning letters. But if Evgenia Tscholikova had never known the minister …?
Why was it necessary for a Russian princess to die in so sordid a way? And whose hand had held the knife that cut her throat?
“What you say interests me greatly,” I told Manon.
“Like a vignette from a novel, is it not?” she said.
I WAS COLLECTED FROM THE BREAKFAST PARLOUR BY a sister so divinely habited as to appear every inch the Countess, from her spencer of willow green embroidered with cream knots, to her upturned poke bonnet. Gloves were on her hands, half-boots on her feet, and a reticule dangled from one arm. Eliza held a square package wrapped in brown paper; she did not quite meet Henry’s gaze as she said, “I cannot waste another moment, my love, before returning this wretched soup tureen to Mr. Wedgwood’s establishment; I declare I was miserable last evening, for being unable to place it in a position of honour on the supper table. It must and shall be repaired.”
“Eh?” Henry replied, glancing up from his morning newspaper. “Ah, yes — the tureen. Very proper you should attend to it yourself, Eliza; I daresay Madame Bigeon has much to do this morning, in clearing the household of last evening’s effects. But is your cold improved enough to permit of going out? Are you wise to expose yourself to the ill-effects of this spring wind? I had expected you to keep to your room this morning, and had quite resolved to dine at my club, rather than incommode the weary household.”