Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [124]
2. Separate estate, or separate property, was a term in the marriage settlement drawn up at a woman's engagement, particularly if she was an heiress. This set certain property—investments or land—in trust, with the income available to the woman, but the property itself beyond the reach of herself, her husband, or his creditors. Such property customarily passed to her female children at her death. —Editor's note.
3. Interestingly, Austen's dislike of this phrase resurfaces in her novel Sense and Sensibility, in which Marianne Dashwood uses almost identical language to upbraid Sir John Middleton, when he jests that she has “set her cap” at Willoughby. —Editor's note.
7 January 1803
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WHEN I CHARGED MY BROTHER HENRY TO DISCOVER ALL that he could of the finances of the Scargrave family, he set about his work with customary diligence; and so swiftly achieved results, that he waited upon me this morning with intelligence of no little import. As but two days remain before Isobel must appear in the Lords, I was in a fever of impatience to hear Henry's news.
“My dear Jane,” he began, seating himself in an easy chair in the late Earl's study—the only room in which I feel completely safe from prying ears, due to its heavy wood panelling and walls lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves—”I find that you have taken up lodgings with a rather rum set.”
“You surprise me, Henry,” I rejoined. “Is not murder merely one of the country house games a guest may expect at Christmas?”
“Among our great families, I suppose anything may be made a game. They have certainly made a charade of robbing one another,” my brother replied gravely.
“A fate to be considered worse than death.”
“Or capable of precipitating it, assuredly.” Henry's large grey eyes twinkled; he was enjoying his new-won role in the Scargrave drama.
“Begin at the beginning, pray,” I commanded him, with some asperity.
“Let us start with Fitzroy Payne.”
“I am all attention.”
“His circumstances are by no means as easy as he might wish, nor yet as distressed as you have been told.”
“Sir William will not have it thus, you may depend.”
“Sir William may have no choice. The facts are these: the new Earl is possessed of a considerable estate in the West Indies, acquired by his father and managed by a man who has done little to merit the trust placed in him by the Payne family. In short, the plantations are in reduced circumstances—”
“As I understand many such holdings are, at the present time.”
“Indeed. It is not the year to be in sugar production.”
“Or coffee, so I understand.”
“Jane! Are you become a shareholder in some venture I should know of? Are we to expect you to take a London journal upon your return to Bath, and make cryptic references to the ‘Change1 over breakfast?”
I smiled at his banter and bade him go on.
“The holdings remain, nonetheless, of substantial worth, and may require only an infusion of capital and a change in managers to make them a going concern. That the Earl hopes to use a part of his uncle's estate for just this purpose, is a fact Sir William must underline before the House of Lords.”
“And his personal debts?”
“Fitzroy Payne lives on the interest from his father's Derbyshire estate, to the tune of three thousand pounds a year—a respectable income, assuredly, but not of the level to cut a certain dash among the glittering set in which he is owned a confederate.” Henry hesitated, and eyed me dubiously. “Payne has habits of considerable expense, sister.”
That he thought of the rumoured mistress, I readily discerned, and hastened to set him at his ease.
“You may except the illustrious Mrs. Hammond,” I assured him.