Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [67]
“—even if it be that those foul seeds struck him a mortal blow, it can have nothing to do with me,” Fitzroy Payne asserted. “I have known nothing of their existence until the moment you showed me them.”
“Very well, my lord,” Sir William said, and bowed to the entire room.
“You must believe me!”
The magistrate's gaze was on the Earl, and I was struck by die grimness of my old friend's countenance. “I greatly fear; Lord Scargrave,” Sir William said, “that you plead with the wrong man. It is the coroner you must convince.”
1. The medical dissection of corpses was a practice reserved for the bodies of executed criminals, which were often turned over to doctors for scientific study. Anatomization, as it was called, was considered the most degrading fate possible for the body of a loved one, so that even the families of condemned criminals sought to hide their corpses after execution, to prevent such disgrace.—Editor's note.
27 December 1802
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I MUST CONFESS TO A FEELING OF LASSITUDE AND MELAN-choly in the three days that have followed my discovery of the maid's body, a mood I may perhaps attribute to the sleeplessness that has marked my nights. Images of the murdered girl—her white-rolled eyes and lolling head, the necklace of gore that encircled her throat—fill up my sight when I would close my eyes; and so I lie wakeful in the December dark, intent upon discovering the hint of footsteps in the gallery. It seems, however; that the spectral First Earl is possessed of discernment in his mourning; tonight he does not deign to recognise the passing of a mere servant with the show that preceded her death. In my present state, however, I cannot find it in me to feel apprehension at his possible coming; even fear is swallowed up in my general malaise.
It was a poor sort of Christmas, despite my quiet pleasure in a letter and a holiday box I owed to my dear Cassandra—containing fifteen yards of a lovely pink muslin for the making up of a new gown. After church in Scargrave Close, Isobel kept to her room for much of the day, while Lord Scargrave sought the freedom of the out-of-doors, walking Scargrave's surrounding parkland for hours and returning only with the falling dusk. I was left to the company of Tom Hearst, whose every attention was monopolised by the lively Fanny Delahoussaye, and to his brother George—who though returned from London, appeared little recovered from his bad humour of Christmas Eve. The cleric wasted many hours in silent contemplation before the fire, brows drawn down over brooding eyes.
I bent myself to the pianoforte, music being the one solace for my nerves, but was eventually forced to break off by Miss Delahoussaye, who called me to attention long enough to pronounce us all a sad sort of company for Christmastide. She proposed some simple amusement—play-acting in the parlour, perhaps, or the arrangement of tableaux vivants, neither of which activity was suited to our mood or situation.
“There is Fanny!” Madame Delahoussaye exclaimed indulgently; “so gay, no trifle can burden her light spirits; so full of good humour, that one forgets all one's cares!”
“I should hardly call murder a trifle,” George Hearst remarked in his mordant voice, “though if one is so disposed, all that is serious in life may be ignored by a steady pursuit of frivolity.”
“La, George, you are a stick,” Miss Fanny observed. “I wonder the murderer has not seen fit to send you off, out of sheer ennui. But never mind. We shall amuse ourselves the better without you.”
“As is generally the case,” Mr. Hearst replied, “though I count it no dishonour. Since you find amusement in everything, Miss Delahoussaye—even what is serious or tragic—stimulating your ability to laugh must be considered a talent very much in the common way. I confess I pride myself on rarer qualities.”
“There must be a store of old clothes about, in such an ancient seat as this,” Fanny said, paying him no heed; “I am sure Lieutenant Hearst would delight to see me arrayed as Marie Antoinette, and parade himself as the Sun King.”
Madame appeared startled,