Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [117]
It was Mr. Cranley I espied first, as I opened the door, standing by the mantel in an attitude of helpless bewilderment; Madame Delahoussaye was seated on the settee before him, her arms around her daughter. Fanny was prostrate with grief. Her blond curls were in disarray about her face, and her eyes were quite ugly with weeping.
“Whatever can be the matter?” I cried, heedless of my duty to Eliza at such a moment.
Madame raised her head, and shook it briefly, an injunction against further enquiry; and with evident relief, Mr. Cranley crossed to the door and escorted us back into the hall.
“I fear I am the agent of Miss Delahoussaye's distress,” he told us, “but there was no one else to bring the news, and hear it they must.”
“What news?” I enquired, with no little foreboding.
“Of Lieutenant Hearst,” the barrister said, and hesitated. “I have only just told his brother. There has been—a tragedy.”
“He is not—injured?” I said.
“I am afraid that he is dead.”
Eliza's horrified looks mirrored my own. “But how?” I cried.
“He shot himself,” Mr. Cranley said, “this morning, in the middle of Hyde Park.”
MR. CRANLEY, IT APPEARED, HAD BEEN SUMMONED TO A meeting with Lieutenant Hearst by messenger that very morning, and had arrived at the appointed hour and spot to find the gentleman asprawl in a park chair, blood streaming from a great wound in his temple.
“And there is no possibility that he was murdered? You are certain that he ended his own life?” I asked.
“Quite certain,” the barrister replied.”A pauper living in the Park had taken shelter under a neighbouring bush, and saw him do the deed.”
“And so you were summoned with the sole purpose of making the discovery.”
“And of retrieving this,” Mr. Cranley said, producing a plain piece of paper sealed with red wax. “It bears your name, Miss Austen.”
I took the letter from him, my fingers trembling slightly at the sight of the firm, careless hand that had written my name, and now should write no more. “But whatever can he have to say to me?”
“Perhaps it is a confession,” Eliza suggested.
I loosened the wax and unfolded the stiff paper.
St. James, London,
4 January 1803
My dear Miss Austen—
Or rather, my dear Jane—for so I shall always think of you, remembering moments too precious to let slip even in this last midnight of my mortal life. Were I granted one final hour of happiness, I should wish myself back at Scargrave House—leaning in the doorway of my room, waiting for some sight of you in the moonlight, with your hair tumbled about your face. It was so little time ago, and yet a life apart, for all that. I shall never, now, have the opportunity to pursue an acquaintance that might have been profitable to us both—but I forget. You were denied me long before, and by my own cursed conduct.
The men who hold sway over my future are to publish their determination on the morrow. I have learned already from one of their company that the terms are unfavourable to my continued prosperity, the maintenance of my reputation, and, perhaps most important, my claims to honour. With no fortune, and no consideration likely to be granted in future to one with a tarnished name—and furthermore, with Fanny Delahoussaye to consider—I have determined to tread the only honourable path remaining to a gentleman. Were I a rogue, I should book passage on a sure ship, and adventure my fate in a distant land; but I am only a soldier, after all, for whom duty is as a god.
I impose upon you only in this, Miss Austen: to ask that you look after Fanny. She has told me of your knowledge of our sad circumstance. She has her fortune, which, should it escape the clutches of her despicable mother, should preserve her against too great a calumny; but it must be preserved from Madame at all cost. I trust in your goodness.
Farewell,