Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [81]
Both brothers, I mused as I buttered my toast, had reason enough to want their uncle dead, and their cousin judged guilty of his murder.
But I had no time for such dreadful thoughts, much less for Fanny's idle chattel; I left her calculating the proper length of sleeve for a murder trial among the peerage, and turned my attentions to poor Isobel, a prisoner in her very home.
“JANE,” THE COUNTESS GREETED ME BRISKLY, AS I BRAVED the guardsman at her lintel and slipped through the door, “you are just in time. But was ever a friend so faithful in her attendance? Another should have been long returned to the bosom of her family, unhappy Scargrave forgotten.” The Countess sat at her writing desk, head bent over paper and pen, her breakfast tray untouched.
“None could forget, Isobel, though well they might flee. But I am neither so timid, nor so indifferent to your goodness.”
“Dear Jane!” she cried, and reached a cold, pale hand to my own. She looked remarkably ill this morning, her haggard countenance hardly improved by the rusty black of her gown; I judged her to have endured a sleepless night, and felt numb at the terrors she must yet face. “Would you perform one last office on your friend's behalf, before we must part?”
“Anything, Isobel, that you would command.”
“Place your signature at the foot of this page,” she told me, her voice low and trembling. “It represents my final wish in this world.”
I looked all my amazement, but Isobel pushed her pen towards me with resolution. “I beg of you, sign.”
I could not speak, nor read the provisions of her dreadful will, but affixed the name of Austen to the deed. I saw with sadness Daisy Hodges's awkward scrawl—she who was the Countess's young maid—in the place of second witness.
“Thank you, my dear,” Isobel said when I had finished, and folding the heavy sheet, she placed it in my hands. “It is yours, now, for safekeeping. Do you take it to my solicitor^ Mr. Hezekiah Mayhew of Bond Street, at the first opportunity.”
“My darling girl,” I said, deeply affected, “it cannot yet be time for such despair! Much may occur before this paper is wanted.”
“It is best to prepare for the worst, Jane, since the worst is all that is left to me. Unhappy Isobel! God be praised that Frederick's eyes are closed! The horror, did he see me so reduced to infamy—and by one that he had loved,” she cried, her hands clutching at her hair in distraction. “Faithless Fitzroy! Blackest of men, who can wear such a noble face!”
“Isobel.” I reached for her tearing fingers and held them firmly in my own. “How can you speak so? The Earl's fate is as desperate as yours, and he suffers it with like innocence. Surely you do not believe otherwise?”
“I saw the note myself, Jane,” my friend said contemptuously. “I saw what he had written, I saw it was in his hand. You found it yourself on poor Marguerite's mangled body. Do not you see what he has done? The maid was right all the while. Fitzroy is my husband's murderer. Fitzroy was discovered by Marguerite, who endeavoured to make his treachery known. And Fitzroy ensured that the maid should speak no more.”
“Do not believe it, Isobel,” I cried.
“Are you mad, Jane?” The Countess rose restlessly from her desk and commenced pacing before the fire. “What else would you have me believe? That I am guilty of their deaths myself? You need not assay the longer. Know that I feel as guilty as though my very hands extinguished their lives. It was my blind partiality for Fitzroy—my vanity, my desire for admiration, my weakness in the face of passion—that encouraged him in evil. He saw my fatuous trust, and he used it to his ends. / was the one intended for blame in Frederick's death, while he took all my husband's wealth. But Marguerite