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Chapter 1 Death Comes in Fancy Dress

Wednesday,

12 December 1804

Bath

A ROUT-PARTY, WHEN DEPICTED BY A PEN MORE ACCOMPLISHED than my own, is invariably a stupid affair of some two or three hundred souls pressed elbow-to-elbow in the drawing-rooms of the great. Such an efflorescence of powder shaken from noble wigs! Such a crush of silk! And what general heartiness of laughter and exclamation — so that the gentler tones of one’s more subdued companions must be raised to a persistent roar, rendering most of the party voiceless by dawn, with only the insipid delights of indifferent negus and faltering meat pasties as recompense for all one’s trials.

So Fanny Burney has described a rout, in Cecilia and Camilla; and so I should be forced to record my first experience of the same, in a more modest volume I entitle simply Jane, had not Fate intervened to render my dissipation more intriguing. For last night I endured the most fearsome of crushes — a post-theatrical masquerade, forsooth, with myself in the role of Shepherdess — at no less exalted an address than Laura Place, and the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s abode, with attendant hundreds of her most intimate acquaintance.

And what, you may ask, had Miss Jane Austen to do in such company? So my father gently enquired, at the moment of my setting out from No. 27, Green Park Buildings (where all my dear family have been situated but two months, having lost our former lodgings in Sydney Place to the infamous Coles), my brother Henry at my side, a most formidable Richard the Third, and his wife, Eliza, done up as Marie Antoinette.

“Why, Father,” I replied, with a wave of my Shepherdess’s crook, “you must know that the invitation is all my brother’s, procured with a view to amusing Eliza, who must have her full measure of Bath’s diversion during so short a visit to the city, and in such a season. Bath at Christmastide may yet be called a trifle thin, in requiring the larger crowds of Easter to lend it style; and if Eliza is not to be thoroughly put out, we must seize our diversion where we may. A masquerade, and at the express invitation of a Dowager Duchess, cannot be let slip. Is not this so, Henry?”

“Indeed,” my brother stammered, with a look for his elegant wife, who appeared to have entirely swallowed her little dog, Pug, so pursed with false innocence was her mouth. Eliza is but a slip of a lady, tho’ in her present towering headdress, complete with ship’s models and birds of paradise bestowed about her heavily powdered curls, she bid fair to rise far above her usual station.

I must confess to a greater admiration for Eliza’s queen than for Henry’s king — for though both may be called cunning by history’s judgement, Eliza has the advantage over Henry, in having at least seen Marie Antoinette in all the Austrian’s former glory, and thus being capable of the incorporation of that lady’s vanished style in her present dress; while Henry is dependent upon the merest notion of humped backs and twirling moustachios, or a general reputation for squintyness about the eyes, for the affectation of his villain.

“And our own dear Madam Lefroy is to be in attendance at the Duchess’s party as well, Father,” Eliza added. “It is to form the chief part of her final evening in Bath — she returns to Hampshire on the morrow — and we cannot part without some notice on either side. I am sure you would not wish us to neglect so amiable a neighbour, so dear a friend. For who shall say when we shall meet again?”

“But are you even acquainted with the Duchess, my dear Jane?” my father asked, in some bewilderment. “Assuredly—” Henry began.

“—not,” I concluded.

“That is to say,” my brother amended hastily, “the acquaintance is entirely mine, Father. I have performed some trifling service for the Wilborough family, in the financial line. The rout tickets came to me.”

“I had not an idea of it, my dear boy.” The expression of pleasure that suffused my father’s face, at this indication of his son’s advancement in his chosen profession of banking, made the falsehood almost worth its utterance.

“But now we must be off,” Eliza interjected firmly, “or lose another hour in search of chairs, for our own have been standing at the door this quarter-hour.[1] It has quite struck eleven, and how it snows! Do observe, my dear sir, the unfortunate chairmen!”

Bath’s climate is usually so mild as to escape the advent of winter, but this night at least we were subject to a fearsome blast. And thus, as my father clucked in dismay from the drawing-room window, all benevolent concern for the reddened cheeks and stamping feet of the unlucky fellows below, we hurried down to the street, where indeed our chairs had been idle already some minutes, and settled ourselves comfortably for the trip to Laura Place — or would have, had not my Shepherdess’s crook refused the conveyance’s close accommodation. This small difficulty resolved, by the abandonment of the offending object on the stoop of No. 27, Green Park Buildings, the chairmen heaved and hallooed, and off we went — with only the occasional bobble to recall the untidiness of the snowy streets, and the likelihood of a yet more strenuous return.

I profited from the brief journey, by indulging in a review of the causes of our exertion, for pleasure was unfortunately the least of them. However circumscribed my usual society in Bath — which is generally limited to my Aunt Leigh-Perrot’s insipid card parties, and the occasional indulgence of the theatre when my slim purse may allow it — I am not so desperate for enjoyment as to spend a decidedly snowy midnight done up as a Staffordshire doll, in a gay throng of complete strangers more blessed and happy in their mutual acquaintance. Nor are Henry and Eliza so mad for rout-parties as my father had been led to believe. My brother and sister[2] had succumbed to my entreaties for support, and had gone so far as to prevaricate on my behalf. From an awkwardness of explanation, I had deliberately withheld from the Reverend George Austen the true nature of our visit to Laura Place. We were gone in the guise of revellers, indeed, but laboured in fact under a most peculiar commission.

Lord Harold Trowbridge, my dark angel of recent adventure — confidant of the Crown, adversary of whomever he is paid to oppose, and general Rogue-about-Town — is the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s younger son. He is also in the throes of some trouble with a lady — nothing unusual for Lord Harold, although in this instance, the novelty of the lady’s being not only unmarried, but related to him, must give the mendacious pause. In short, his niece, Lady Desdemona Trowbridge — an Incomparable of the present Season, a girl of eighteen with all the blessings of fortune, beauty, and breeding to recommend her — has thrown off the protection of her family and friends; has left all in London whose interest should form her chief consideration and care; and has fled to the Dowager Duchess in Bath. The agent of her flight? The redoubtable Earl of Swithin, who claims an interest in the lady’s future happiness. In short, the Earl has offered for her hand — and caused the fair Desdemona considerable vexation and grief.

Lord Harold observed the flight, and respected his mother’s wishes to leave the girl to herself for a time; he remained in London, and restrained His Grace the Duke from summoning the chit immediately back home; he forbore to visit Laura Place himself, and urge the reclamation of sense; and when the Lady Desdemona showed neither an inclination to quit her grandmother’s abode, nor to suffer very much from her voluntary exile, being engaged in a delightful round of amusement and shopping in the weeks before Christmas — he applied, at last, to me.

And as the letter supplied a direction in Pall Mall — Brooks’s Club, to be exact — and the very rout tickets formerly mentioned, I could not find it in me to refuse — if, indeed, at present I could refuse Lord Harold anything. It is not that I owe him some great debt of gratitude, or harbour for the gentleman a more tender sentiment; but rather that where Lord Harold goes, intrigue surely follows — and I confess I have been insupportably bored with Bath, and the littlenesses of a town, since my return from Lyme Regis but a few weeks ago. The Gentleman Rogue and his errant niece presented a most welcome diversion.

And so to Laura Place we were gone.

I DO NOT BELIEVE I EXAGGERATE WHEN I DECLARE THAT the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s establishment was ablaze last e’en with a thousand candles. Light spilled out of a multitude of casements (the original glazing of which must have exacted from the late Duke a fortune), and cast diamond-paned shadows upon the snowy street; light flowed from the open entry-way at every chair’s arrival, like a bolt of silk unfurled upon the walk. A hubbub of conversation, too, and the clatter of cutlery; a voice raised hoarsely in song; a burst of laughter. The faintest strain of a violin drifted to the stoop.

Henry paid off the chairs and presented our cards to the footmen, but I found occasion to dally at the very door, almost deterred by the glittering hordes I glimpsed within — until an exclamation from Eliza thrust me forward. I had trod upon the foot of Marie Antoinette.

The foyer was a wealth of pale green paint picked out with pink and white, the colours of Robert Adam. Pink and green silk lined the windows, and a bust of the Tragic Muse loomed before a pier glass opposite — Mrs. Siddons, no doubt, and taken from the painting by Reynolds.[3] I gazed, and beheld myself reflected as Shepherdess, a forlornly bucolic figure amidst so much splendour. Eliza pinched my arm.

“As near to Old Drury as may be, my dear,” she murmured.[4]

“Indeed,” I replied. “The Dowager Duchess may be living in relative retirement, but she has not yet forsworn her passions.”

“Let us go up,” Henry interposed with impatience. “There is a fearful crush at my back!”

The rout was intended, so Lord Harold had informed us, as a tribute to the principal players of Bath’s Theatre Royal[5] — and the present evening’s performance being just then concluded, the tide of humanity spilling into Laura Place from the direction of Orchard Street was decidedly at its flood. The staircase, a grand curve of mahogany, was completely overpowered with costumed bodies struggling towards the drawing-room; I hooked one arm through my brother’s, and the other through my sister’s, and so we stormed the redoubt.

Let us pass over in silence the travails of the next quarter-hour; how our gowns were torn, and our headdresses deranged; what injuries to slipper and glove. Better to employ the interval in relating the chief of what I know about the Dowager herself — the barest details of Her Grace’s celebrated career.

I have it on so good an authority as my dear mother’s dubious memory, that Eugenie de la Falaise began her ascent as a pert young chorus girl in the Paris comic opera; from thence, with a comely ankle and a smattering of English, she rose to Covent Garden; and it was there the Duke of Wilborough — the fifth, rather than the present, Duke — fell headlong in love with the lady. Wilborough was already past his first youth; he had seen one Duchess into her grave, and her stillborn son with her; and thus it should not be remarkable that he might establish the beautiful Eugenie privately, or offer unlimited credit in the most fashionable shops, and a smart pair to drive her about Town, in return for the enjoyment of her favours, as Lord Derby once did with Miss Farren.[6] But Eugenie had a greater object in view. She wished to play at tragedy.

That she was unsuited for Isabella, or Lady Macbeth, or even the role of Portia in The Merchant of Venice, need not be underlined. Twelfth Night, perhaps, or She Stoops to Conquer, may have shewn her talents to advantage; but at the Duke of Wilborough’s intercession with the Drury Lane director, Lady Macbeth she played — and opposite no less a personage than the redoubtable Mr. Garrick.

The performance — there was, alas, only one — was declared to have been lamentable. The outraged patrons hissed and shouted, threw all manner of refuse from theatre pit to stage, and forced the curtain down in the very midst of Lady Macbeth’s celebrated walk. Eugenie de la Falaise was mortified, and disappeared abruptly from public view, never to return to the London theatre.

We cannot in justice fault the fifth Duke for having married her. He may be forgiven the indulgence of his folly. The pity, the generosity, the rashness her ruined career may have excited — we can have only the merest idea of how they worked upon his sensibilities. Eugenie was, it is said, a beautiful woman at twenty-four; and though she is now a grandmother these many years, and Wilborough long since gone to his reward, she is no less formidable a presence.

I say this, having found my eyes directed to the Dowager Duchess upon first gaining entrance to her drawing-room. Tho’ possessed of fully seventy years, and requiring the support of a stout cane she clutches tightly in one hand, Her Grace commands immediate attention. Her narrow features and shuttered aspect recall the face of her son, Lord Harold; but where the effect is often forbidding in the latter, it may be declared devastating in the former. A lesser man than the Duke of Wilborough — accustomed as he was to the power of doing as he liked — would have braved greater scandal in pursuit of such a woman.

And scandal there was. His Majesty George II is said to have interceded in the match, which condescension was stoically declined. The Duke’s political fortunes may subsequently have suffered. Certain of his acquaintance may have cut him dead. But others, made more valuable through the passage of time, accepted his bride; and accepted no less the heirs she pragmatically produced.

Bertie, who succeeded his father, bears the greatest fidelity to the Wilborough line, in character as well as countenance; Lady Caroline Mulvern, née Trowbridge, is the unfortunate picture of her Trowbridge aunts; but in the face of Lord Harold, the impertinent among society’s loquacious have gone so far as to question paternity. Lord Harold is so clearly Eugenie’s son, that the late Duke might have had nothing to do with his fashioning.

The Dowager stood in the midst of her fashionable rout last e’en arrayed in the form of Cleopatra — an Egyptian robe and a circlet on her brow, with a velvet mask held before — and beside her stood a girl so very much of Eugenie’s stamp, albeit some fifty years younger, that I knew her immediately for the Lady Desdemona, Lord Harold’s errant niece. She was robed to perfection as none other than herself having ignored the general command of fancy dress; and her quite ordinary appearance amidst the general excess of baubles and plumage rendered her as exotic as a sparrow in Paradise. I could trace no hint of her mother, Honoria, or her apoplectic father, Bertie, in her narrow and elegant face, and wondered whether her character was as French as her countenance.

“Jane,” Eliza cried, her visage incongruously marred by the mask that covered fully half of it, “Henry will have me to dance; and though I confess the heat and crush make the prospect an indifferent one, I cannot find that sitting down should be so very agreeable either. Can you forgive us our desertion?”

“Go, my dear, and make as frivolous a figure as your murdered Queen may support. I shall do very well in idleness here. I find I have an excellent prospect of Lady Desdemona.”

“Where?”

“She stands beside the Duchess.”

“Ah,” Eliza said, with the driest satisfaction, “in the figure of an ingénue. She might readily be Cecilia herself, and prepared to thwart a cavalcade of admirers, whose costumed obscurity can only encourage impertinence. Let us call her Virtue, and have done.”

“Indeed? I had thought her merely to disdain all pretence or disguise. And burdened as I am with so hot and ungainly an outfit” — I surveyed my multitude of muslin underskirts with a shake of my bonneted head — “I cannot in justice criticise. I fairly long for an exchange.”

“Perhaps. But does her abhorrence — or wisdom — reveal a niceness of temperament and taste? Or may we judge her merely to spoil sport?”

“I cannot undertake to say, without a greater knowledge of the lady.”

“Then find her out, my dear Jane, and I shall be content to think as you do. It saves me a vast deal of trouble in thinking for myself.” And with a smile and a care for her overpowering headdress, Eliza left me to Lord Harold’s business.

I began by surveying the company — a torrid blend of the comely and the grotesque, their colours garish and their accents brazen, relieved somewhat by the solitary interval of an elegant figure, composed against a doorframe or supporting a distant wall — engaged, it seemed, in an activity similar to my own. A Harlequin I espied, resplendent in a suit of black and red, in the closest conversation with a stately Queen Elizabeth; and a fearsome Moor, all flowing capes and harshly graven features — though not in attendance upon my particular Desdemona. More than one visage I detected, that when deprived of its domino might daily grace the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine, or one of Gillray’s satiric drawings.[7]

A full quarter-hour of observation, however, could not betray to my sight the predatory horde whose idea had so excited Lord Harold’s anxiety. Two men only approached the Lady Desdemona — yet another Harlequin, suited this time in diamonds of alternating black and white; and a fellow who might well have been Henry VIII, tho’ of a corpulence supplied by tailor’s padding. These two seemed as intent upon conversation with the Dowager Duchess, as with her lovely charge.

“And are you, too, of the Theatre Royal?” came a voice at my shoulder; and looking up, I beheld a Knight in the semblance of armour, complete with visored head, his identity secure in mystery.

“Of its occasional box alone,” I replied, “but I may confess to admiration for good, hardened, professional acting. Are some part of the company present, then?”

“The masquerade is in their honour.”

“So I had understood. But with so many figures in fancy dress, how is one to divine the true player from the false?”

My companion bowed. “You merely posit, madam, the oldest question of mankind.”

I studied the visored face, which revealed nothing of the gentleman within. Could it, in fact, be Lord Harold, making sport of circumstance? The voice betrayed an echo of the Gentleman Rogue’s tone. But no. He should hardly engage my offices on the Lady Desdemona’s behalf, had he intended to form one of the party.

“I wonder, sir,” I began again, “that you can think me a member of such exalted company.”

“I merely tossed at hazard. You might be exalted in any number of ways — as I might myself. We appear as utter strangers the one to the other; but indeed we might claim the deepest intimacy, and yet pass in ignorance, so impenetrable is our garb.”

“And the most accomplished actress herself must go unremarked.”

“There, madam, you betray a charming innocence of accomplished actresses. It is the first rule of the stage that to go unremarked, is to go presently into the wings. Observe the Medusa in scarlet.”

I looked about, though the compass of both bonnet and mask rendered all vision partial.

“By the fireplace, in converse with the bearded Pierrot.”

I observed then an extraordinary woman, all vibrance and fire, her flowing black hair and tattered raiment the very soul of madness. Her beauty was such as to astonish. Her costume, however, barely merited the word, in leaving more of her person exposed than it disguised. The effect must draw even the most jaded attention. She had flaunted custom, and wore no mask. Whether her conversation was as engaging as her person, I could not discern; but as I watched, the bearded Pierrot threw back his head in hearty laughter.

“That is Miss Conyngham,” my companion remarked.

“Maria Conyngham? I had not an idea of it.”

“Her brother is beside the Duchess.”

I turned to look for Her Grace.

“The Harlequin?”

“Henry the Eighth.”

“So that is the famous Hugh Conyngham! I wonder I did not observe it before! Who can see his present self, and fail to trace his tragic Hamlet? His murderous Macbeth? His pathetic Gamester? The nobility of suffering is writ in every line of his countenance!”

“With charcoal, if not by nature,” the gentleman observed.

“And are you then a player, sir? Claim you some acquaintance with the pair?” It was absurd in me, I own, to cry such admiration at Conyngham’s discovery; but so much of my meagre purse has gone to furnish his, in supplying the coveted seat in a box for the actor’s performance, that I may be excused my excesses of enthusiasm. I have invested as much in Conyngham as Henry in all his four percents.[8]

“I have not that distinction,” the Knight replied with an inclination of the head. “I may claim the accomplishment of dancing only, and that with indifferent skill. But I must beg for the indulgence of your hand, fair Shepherdess, or suffer the charge of impertinence, in having monopolised your attention too long.”

I hesitated, with thoughts of Lord Harold, and the necessities of duty; but a glance at the floor revealed the Lady Desdemona, all smiles and animation, going down the dance with her partner opposite. The White Harlequin, it seemed, had prevailed in his suit; his appearance of attention to the Dowager had been rewarded with the hand of her granddaughter. Lady Desdemona’s eyes were bright, and her complexion brilliant; but how, I thought with vexation, was I to report her partner’s name? For a masquerade is ill-suited to espionage; conjecture only might supply the place of the man; and I should be reduced to outright eavesdropping, if I were to learn anything to Lord Harold’s purpose. To the dance floor, then, with the greatest despatch.

I bowed, my own mask held high, and took my suitor’s proffered arm; and found to my relief that armour may be formed of cloth, however shot through with silver, and pose no impediment to a country dance, though it reveal nothing of the Knight within.

A FULL HALF-HOUR OF HEATED EXERCISE PROVED INSUFFICIENT to the fulfilment of my schemes, however; it was impossible to overlisten anything to Lord Harold’s purpose in so great a throng; and so, with a civility on either side, I abandoned my partner for a comfortable seat in the supper-room near Henry and Eliza. I had divined only that the White Harlequin made a shapely leg and was a proficient in the dance, with a vigorous step and a palm decidedly moist, as he handed Lady Desdemona along the line of couples. She seemed happy in her choice of partner, and moved in a fine flow of spirits; he was a spare, neat figure possessed of a hearty laugh and a general conviviality, who comported himself as a gentleman; and what was visible of his hair was brown. There my researches ended.

The delights of cold fowl and buttered prawns, white soup and ratafia cakes, were all but consumed, and Henry had embarked upon the errand of refilling our cups of punch, when I began to consider of Madam Lefroy. Anne Lefroy has long been our neighbour in Steventon, being established in the rectory at Ashe these two decades at least; and though she is full five-and-twenty years my senior, she remains my dearest friend in the world. The claims of friendship had recently drawn her to Bath — her acquaintance with the Dowager being of several decades’ standing — and the previous fortnight spent in her company had been one of the most delightful I could recall. Our tastes are peculiarly suited the one to the other, and there is no one’s society I should more eagerly claim in good times or in bad.

It was Madam who refined my taste in poetry, who improved my ear for music, who taught me that cleverness is far more than mere surface wit. From Madam, too, I learned that even ladies might converse about the nation’s affairs — for as Madam feelingly says, when so great a figure as Mr. Sheridan confuses a parliamentary bench for Drury Lane, how can we be expected to respect the difference?[9]

Anne Lefroy was to leave us on the morrow — but we had intended a meeting in Laura Place. The crush of bodies and the bewildering array of fancy dress had quite disguised her from my sight. I craned about in search of her glorious hair — when a muffled ejaculation from the direction of the fire demanded my attention.

Two men — the White Harlequin and my unknown Knight — were arranged in an attitude of belligerence, although the effect was rendered somewhat ridiculous by the incongruity of their costumes. The Knight had removed his helmet, revealing a fair head and a sharp-featured face that must be vaguely familiar; and he now glared boldly at his masked opponent.

“You are a blackguard, sir, and a liar!” he cried.

The Harlequin swayed as he stood, as though influenced by unconquerable passion, or an excess of spirits. And at that moment, Lady Desdemona intervened.

“Kinny! You will apologise at once! Mr. Portal meant nothing by his words, I am certain of it. I will not have you come to blows!”

“I’d sooner fall upon my sword than beg pardon of such a rogue,” my Knight exclaimed; and as if in answer, the Harlequin thrust Lady Desdemona roughly aside. She cried out; it was enough. The Knight rushed swiftly at his opponent.

A scuffle, an outburst of oaths — and the two were parted by the actor Hugh Conyngham and the stern-looking Moor.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Mr. Conyngham exclaimed. “You will look to your conduct, I beg! This is hardly what is due to the Duchess!”

My Knight, his countenance working, drew off a silver glove, and dashed it to the floor. The White Harlequin struggled in the Moor’s arms, determined to pick it up.

But it was Hugh Conyngham who bent to retrieve the glove. He tucked it deftly into his Elizabethan doublet. “No challenge, my lord, I beg,” he muttered, with a look for Lady Desdemona.

Eliza craned on tiptoe for a clearer view of the scene. “But how droll!” she whispered. “An affair of honour! And can the lady be the cause?”

Lord Harold’s niece turned and quitted the supper-room in considerable haste, her eyes overflowing with tears. As if released at a command, the scandalised guests sent up a buzz of conversation; and the Duchess moved to follow her.

“Stay, Grandmère,” called my Knight; “I shall go to Mona. Have Jenkins show this blackguard the door.” And with a look of contempt for the White Harlequin, who sat slumped in a chair, he sped swiftly in Lady Desdemona’s train.

My Knight, the Dowager Duchess’s grandson? Then was he, in fact, Lady Desdemona’s brother, and the heir to the Wilborough dukedom? There was something of Eugenie’s sharpness in his features, and I could imagine him as almost his uncle’s twin in another twenty years.

The Duchess halted in her path, leaning heavily upon her cane, and glanced around the supper-room. “Jenkins!” she called, her voice low and clear. “Send round the wine, if you please. I shall attend to Mr. Portal.” And grasping her cane with one hand and the White Harlequin with the other, she led him unprotestingly away.

“I might almost think it a set-piece of the stage,” said a wry voice at my back, “did not my familiarity with a lady’s tears argue its sincerity. What think you, Jane? A lovers’ quarrel? Or something deeper?”

“Madam Lefroy!” I turned in delight, and held out my hands. “Do my eyes misgive me? Or is the magnificent Elizabeth reborn in the form of Ashe?”

The masked figure of Queen Elizabeth, whom I had observed earlier in conversation with the Red Harlequin, seized my fingers and laughed.

“As you find me, my dear Miss Austen! — My dear Mrs. Henry! And how do you like the Duchess’s party?”

“I may forgive her the disadvantage of a large acquaintance, however much it ensures I shall be crushed, now that there is a touch of scandal to the evening,” Eliza declared mischievously. “Of what else might I speak in the Pump Room tomorrow?”[10]

“Eugenie should never forgo a chance to set the town to talking — but I wonder if the Lady Desdemona is quite of her way of thinking? She seemed much distressed.”

All discussion of the interesting episode was forestalled, however, by my brother’s return. Henry carried a chair with effort in one hand, and a glass of punch in the other; and the result of his exertions, in having raised a fine dew along his forehead, did little for his Richard.

“My poor Henry,” I exclaimed. “Your benevolence is for naught. I have secured my dear Madam Lefroy, as you see, and will leave you to your lovely Antoinette, and the comforts of iced custard.”

“WHAT THINK YOU OF THE ROUT, JANE?” MADAM BEGAN, AS she slipped her arm through mine, and commenced a measured step in time to the musicians’ playing. “I confess to some amazement at the company — a more Whiggish group I have rarely seen, and did your father know of it, he should as soon have barred you within doors as hastened you on your way. Is Henry, then, a traitor to the Austen cause?”

“Our sentiments may be Tory, my dear Madam, but our practices are not so discriminating, as to refuse a patron of the Duke’s stature.”

“Or his brother’s?” Madam enquired keenly. “Do not I recall some little acquaintance of yours, and of fully two years’ duration — with the disreputable Lord Harold?”

“Indeed, I have never found Lord Harold disreputable” I faltered, with a sudden colour in my cheeks.

“But his behavior towards your friend the Countess was hardly honourable. I read the accounts of that notorious trial, you know. The papers wrote of little else that winter.”

“Both Isobel and her present husband were acquitted by the House of Lords.” Impatiently, I thrust my mask in my reticule. “What was possible to proclaim to the public, of the sad business at Scargrave, and what of necessity remained closed to the general understanding, I am hardly at liberty to reveal. But I may freely assure you, Madam, that Lord Harold Trowbridge acted then in a manner that has fully won my respect and esteem.”[11]

“I am heartily glad to hear it,” Madam Lefroy replied, “for I should not like to be uneasy about my dear Jane’s associations, at such a remove from Bath. I may well rejoice at the delay that has provided an occasion for finding you amidst the very best society this town may offer, however Whiggish its aspect. Is Lord Harold present, Jane?” Her head turned swiftly about the supper-room. “I quite long to make his acquaintance.”

“I do not believe that he is. Business in Town, I understand, has detained him.”

“A pity. I might almost have prolonged my stay in Bath on the hope of meeting with him.”

“Prolong your visit for any whim, I beg. If the prospect of Lord Harold may serve to keep you by my side, I shall summon him from the ends of the earth!”

“I require no very great inducement,” Madam replied with a smile. “There is so much of the diverting to be found in Bath! I might almost believe myself returned to Kent, and the days of my girlhood, when the Dowager Duchess presided at Fairlawn! The present Duchess entertains only rarely, you know — and her circle is hardly so lively as Eugenie’s.”

I drew Madam Lefroy towards a pair of chairs just then returned to liberty. “You have enjoyed a singular intimacy with the Dowager, I collect.”

“She is some years my senior, of course — but her warmth must always transcend age or station. A great many changes have occurred since first we called one another by our Christian names. How gay we all were, when the late Duke was alive, and all the world came to Kent!”

My friend’s voice held a familiar note of regret. Anne Lefroy may be many years a clergyman’s wife, but she has not forgot the brilliance of her father’s house, or the elegant society of Canterbury in the days of her youth. She married late, and only, it is whispered, after a grave disappointment in her first attachment; and has suffered the remainder of her days in the retirement of a Hampshire village. She retains as yet the beauty that marked her youth — the fineness of bone and brilliancy of complexion that so transported Gainsborough — and hungers still for the best of the Fashionable World: stimulating conversation and the elegance of a select acquaintance. Indeed, it is her air of the great lady that inspired the affectionate title of Madam.

“The sight of so many ravishing young gentlemen and ladies, all accomplished in the theatrical line, must recall the days of Eugenie’s youth,” she continued, as she glanced about the throng.

“Had you occasion to see her play?”

“I? Good Lord, no — I was barely out of leading-strings when Her Grace quitted the boards forever. But as a girl of sixteen I was privileged to participate in amateur theatricals, at Fairlawn of a Christmastide — Wilborough maintained a private theatre, you know, for his lady’s use — and all manner of personages were wont to parade in pantomime, for the amusement of Her Grace’s guests. The young Sarah Siddons and her brother Kemble, and the elder Conynghams, were summoned one year as I recall — and very prettily they played it, too, though not yet attaining the excellence of their London years.”

I looked for the Medusa in scarlet, and the corpulent Henry VIII, and found them in animated conversation with Pierrot. “I did not know you were acquainted with the Conynghams.”

“I cannot claim the honour, my dear, though Her Grace was so good as to introduce them to my society. They were not even thought of, when I enjoyed the art of their parents — and their parents are many years deceased.”

“How melancholy to consider of it!”

“Age will advance upon one,” Madam observed with a sigh, “though I must remark that Her Grace seems to keep its deprivations at bay! How very well she looks, to be sure! And the Conynghams appear to have survived their early loss. Mrs. Siddons had the raising of them, I believe. They were of an age to be thrown together with her children — she possesses no less than five, like myself — and I cannot think but that they do her credit.”

“With such a rearing, it should be marvellous indeed did the Conynghams abhor the stage.”

“They were bred to the boards, as they say in theatrical circles. Miss Conyngham was educated in France, in company with the Miss Siddonses; and her brother, Hugh, was sent to the same college as the Kemble gentlemen patronised — a religious school somewhere in Flanders.[12] Mr. Conyngham would be about the same age as Mr. Charles Kemble, the Siddons girls’ uncle, and both are Papists, you know.”

“I was not aware,” I replied. “And do the Conynghams look to the Siddons family to patronise their careers? Mr. John Philip Kemble is presently the manager of Covent Garden, I believe — and might do much for his friends.”

“There has been a little coolness in their relations, it seems,” said Madam Lefroy, “owing to an unfortunate love affair. Hugh Conyngham was excessively attached to the younger Miss Siddons, and thought to have married her; but the lady turned her affections elsewhere, and he has not yet got over the disappointment. However, she was of a sickly constitution, and passed away some years since.”

“How tragic!”

Our exchange was broken by the clang of a gong — we turned as one, and perceived once more the Dowager.

Her Grace had got rid of the offending White Harlequin somewhere, and now leaned on her cane at the head of the drawing-room, as if on the point of speech. Lady Desdemona, seeming quite recovered in spirits, stood once again by her grandmother’s side. At the Dowager’s other hand was Henry VIII — or the actor Hugh Conyngham — possessed of his usual dignity. The entire rout fell silent.

“Dear guests and fellow devotees of the theatre,” Eugenie said, the faintest suggestion of France in her guttural tone and tender way with consonants, “the artistes of the Theatre Royal have honoured us tonight with their presence. It is my noble office to present the celebrated Mr. Hugh Conyngham, who will speak a short passage from Macbeth for our enjoyment. Mr. Conyngham.”

“Your Grace,” the gentleman replied, with the most elegant sweep of his hand, and the deepest of bows, “I am honoured to be of service.” And with that simple acknowledgement, he fixed his gaze upon the decorative plaster of the ceiling, his aspect at once become sorrowful, brooding, contemplative, and tortured by turns.

My heart, I confess, gave way to a painful beating; I felt the impertinent blood rise swiftly to my cheeks; and was glad for the support of a chair. Macbeth, as Conyngham plays him, is the very soul of tragedy; and I am but too susceptible to its power.

“If it were done,” HE BEGAN, IN THE HUSHED TONE AND SLOW pace appropriate to murderous thought, turning before our eyes like a cage’d tiger—

“when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well

It were done quickly. If th’ assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease, success; that but this blow—”

(Here, a swiftly upraised hand, a clenching fist, the agony of indecision in his aspect.)

“Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We’ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgment here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends th’ ingredience of our poison’d chalice

To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,”

(The nobility of his consciousness! The foulness of his thought!)

“Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murtherer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, hors’d

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind.”

(A long declining wail, as though uttered from within a tomb.)

“I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’verleaps itself,

And falls on th’ other—”

The last words, whispered and yet utterly distinct, came like the gentle slip of leaves from a November bough; and his lips had scarcely ceased to move, when the applause that was his due rang forth in strenuous tumult. Every throat swelled with praise, and the madness of cheering all but blotted out Hugh Conyngham’s gentler thanks. The actor’s brilliant eye, and the fever of his cheek, spoke with firmer eloquence, however; and I read in his looks a grateful understanding. For such an one, as yet so young in the life of the stage — for he can be but thirty — to take his place among the Garricks and the Kembles, if only in the estimation as yet of Bath, must seem like glory, indeed.

The cheering did not cease; the clapping hands acquired a measured beat; and it seemed as though Hugh Conyngham must bow to the desire of the guests, and speak on — when the tenor of the hoarsest cries declined by an octave, and gained a sudden accent of horror and dismay. The acutest attention o’erspread the actor’s face; the crowd’s mood changed as perceptibly as though an icy draught had blown out the blazing fire — and I turned, to perceive a stumbling knot of bodies caught in an anteroom doorway.

“I fear some part of the Duchess’s acquaintance are but too disguised in truth,”[13] I said to Anne Lefroy. “We had best make our adieux, and summon the chairs, before this rout turns to a riot.”

“Nonsense. It is nothing but a bit of theatre — the stabbing of Duncan, I suspect.” She stepped towards the anteroom with the others, and protesting, I followed.

Craning on tip-toe, the better to discern the man who had stolen Hugh Conyngham’s scene, I comprehended a small salon to one side of the massive drawing-room, done up in Prussian blue picked out with gold. Its double doors were thrown wide and obscured by a press of bodies. The late Duke’s reception room? — Or perhaps a study? But all such observations were fleeting, for my eyes were fixed on one alone — the mettlesome Knight, my erstwhile dance partner. He strained in the grip of two stout fellows, and his reddened countenance worked in horror.

At his feet lay the White Harlequin.

The face still wore its mask, but behind the lozenge of velvet the eyes were sightless and staring. Blood pooled slowly on the Duchess’s Savonnerie carpet, as though the man called Portal had wished to exchange his white-patterned stuff for the rival Harlequin’s red.

I raised one hand to my lips to stifle a scream, and with the other, gripped Madam Lefroy’s arm. She tensed beneath my fingers.

A woman brushed past me with a flash of black curls, and fell in supplication at the Harlequin’s feet. The Medusa, Maria Conyngham. With shaking fingers she snatched at the dead man’s mask. “Richard! Oh, Richard!”

The voice of a bereaved mother, or an abandoned wife — the soul of a woman destroyed by grief. The crowd parted to admit Hugh Conyngham to the hushed circle, and he knelt at his sister’s side.

“Dead!” she cried, and fell weeping on his breast.

“Kinny?”

The voice, clear and sweet as a child’s, was the Lady Desdemona’s. She stood just behind Hugh Conyngham, on the edge of the crowd. The pallor of her face was extreme. But in her composure and the intensity of her dark grey eyes I saw something of the fierce Trowbridge will. Without even a look for the murdered Harlequin, she crossed to the Knight.

“Kinny, what have you done?”

“Nothing, Mona! I swear it! I found him just as you see!”

“Then show me what is in your hand!”

Her brother started, and released the thing, which fell clattering to the parquet floor — a bloody knife, chased in gold, as curved and deadly as a scimitar.