Page 23 of A Fortune Most Fatal (Miss Austen Investigates #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

In the flower-garden at Godmersham Park, Penlington holds a parasol to shield Mrs. Knight from the late-morning glare. Beside the butler and his mistress, Jane snips small clusters of Burgundian roses. Mrs. Knight examines each posy in turn, before giving a small nod to signify Jane may place it in the wooden bucket resting at her feet or a shake of the head to indicate she should toss it into the gardener’s wheelbarrow. Jane should be wearing her bonnet to protect her countenance, already chafed by the long ride to Godmersham with Roger—Neddy having fled Rowling on the tired excuse of urgent business before she had even risen.

Instead, she has pushed the bonnet to the back of her head in an effort to keep Agnes in her sights. The ribbons threaten to strangle her, but Jane must find an opportunity to explain to Agnes her plan to have Captain Fairbairn arrested for the slaughter of all those on board his ship. Unfortunately, maintaining a view of Agnes is as tricky as placing a lead on Conker. Today, the girl is ebullient as she skips along the York stone path, playing hopscotch. When she reaches the pebble, she cries out in jubilation before twisting back on herself and repeating the game. She is in such high spirits, she pays no mind to Penlington or the gardener’s boy, on his way to retrieve the wheelbarrow with a handkerchief tied around his glistening forehead.

“Where is your hat, sirrah?” Mrs. Knight asks the youth, in a tone of severe reprimand.

“I—I seem to have lost it, mistress.”

“How could you be so careless? What will I tell your mother when you expire due to this dreadful hot weather?”

Jane tucks the scissors into her pocket and drifts towards Agnes, hoping for a few moments of private conversation while Mrs. Knight is distracted. She does not yet know how much of her deadly predicament Agnes has shared with her benefactress, and Jane anticipates keeping her secrets will be the key to maintaining her trust. At the very least, she suspects Mrs. Knight is aware of the girl’s fluctuating character, as she ignores her spirited play in the same way she paid no heed to her haughty impudence as Princess Eleanor.

“Agnes?” Jane whispers, trying to attract her attention. Agnes persists in her game, red hair flying out behind as she hops onto one foot and lands on two. Jane reaches for her arm. “Agnes?”

The girl starts, as if only now becoming aware of Jane’s presence. “Will you play with me?” She presses the stone into Jane’s gloved hand.

Jane rears back. The girl’s features are familiar but her eager expression is entirely foreign. “I must speak with Agnes.”

“No Agnes today, only Biddy.” Biddy shakes her head, irritated. She snatches the stone, throwing it to the next slab along and hopping after it.

“Biddy? You wrote to me. I know you’re frightened, but I can help you. Halt for a moment and let me explain.” But Biddy will not stop. There is a manic quality to her movements, which disturbs Jane. It recalls an account she once read of a group of Bavarian peasants who were possessed with a mysterious compulsion to dance night and day until at last they dropped dead. “Please, I need to speak to Agnes about Captain F—”

“Sssh …” Biddy rounds, cupping her hand over Jane’s mouth. “You mustn’t speak of him. You mustn’t even think of him, or he’ll find a way in.”

Despite the extreme heat, Jane shivers. Biddy’s words may resemble superstition but she is right to be afraid. Fairbairn is a wily enemy, loitering in shadows and waiting to pounce. His interactions with Neddy and his letters prove he is growing increasingly desperate to silence Agnes. The longer she is at large, the greater the threat she represents to his liberty. Jane must persuade Mrs. Knight to increase her fortifications and place even her most trusted attendants, including Armand, under suspicion. Gently, Jane removes Biddy’s hand from her lips and returns it to her side. “You asked for my assistance, and I dearly want to help you. But how can I, if you will not allow me to broach the topic?”

“Play with me.” Biddy’s eyes are pleading.

Jane glances along the path but this is not the game she and Cassandra played on the flagstones leading to St. Nicholas’s Church. There is far more at stake here than whether Biddy can retain her balance as she skips back and forth. In her terror, the girl has reverted to a childlike state. “I will, but first I must speak to Agnes. I need to tell her that she’s not alone, that there is another witness who will attest to what the capt—”

“No!” Biddy stamps her foot. “It’s your turn. You must throw.”

Mrs. Knight ceases upbraiding the boy to find Jane missing from her station. “Miss Austen, are you disturbing my house guest?”

“She invited me to join in her game.” Jane lets loose the stone. It rolls over the uneven path, threatening to fall between the cracks before settling on the second slab along. Biddy bounces after it. Jane will get no sense from her while she is like this: she must wait until she has reverted to Agnes. But what if Agnes is too afraid to re-surface, and Jane is unable ever again to converse with the girl in a rational manner? She cannot save Agnes unless Agnes is willing to preserve herself.

“Then I suppose I shall have to tend the memorial garden.” The older woman kneels on a cushion and begins brushing wilted petals from one of the large pieces of quartz placed between each rose bush.

Jane hastens to her side, determined to spare Mrs. Knight from such arduous duties. “Oh, no, let me.”

“Thank you.” The widow rests on her heels.

“Are these dogs’ graves?”

“No, Miss Austen, not dogs.” From Mrs. Knight’s stricken features and the way she places a protective hand to her stomach, Jane fears she’s made the worst faux pas of her life.

The stones will signify the burial plots of the Knights’ own offspring: those unfortunate beings who were expelled from their mother’s womb far too early to draw breath, and who could not therefore be buried in consecrated ground. The unbaptized ought to be buried to the north of the church’s boundary with the suicides. But in Steventon, Jane’s father has given strict instructions to his sexton not to interrupt any persons found digging on the borders of the graveyard. Jane has even found Mr. Austen praying over the patches of newly disturbed earth that appear at the base of the hedgerow after news of some unfortunate family’s loss. “I’m sorry. That was unforgivably heartless of me. My mother did tell me you’d suffered several …” Jane searches for a word that would be adequate to describe Mrs. Knight’s losses. There does not seem to be one. “… accidents.”

“It was a long time ago, before Neddy came to us.” The widow takes Penlington’s arm and rises to her feet, regaining her usual mask of composure.

Chastened, Jane returns to clipping the roses. She pictures Mrs. Knight as the cheerful young bride in the ostrich-feather hat who visited the rectory all those years ago. She would have had no notion of the losses she would endure. If she is taking longer to adjust to her husband’s death than society deems proper, who is Jane or anyone else to deny her that time? Grief will not be curbed by the expectations, or the impatience, of others. “I’m sure that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Don’t snip the bud like that.” Unwilling to listen to Jane’s platitudes, Mrs. Knight snatches the scissors from her hand, cutting the stem at a lower point directly above a leaf. She passes Jane the flower, before turning her attention towards the next shrub in the border. As Jane places it in the bucket, she pricks her finger. Wincing, she peels off her glove and squeezes her fingertip until she ejects a tiny piece of thorn from her flesh. A small red bubble rises on her finger. She puts it to her mouth. The metallic taste of blood settles on her tongue as she gazes across the lawn. Biddy has removed her stockings and slippers. Both lie discarded while she sits cross-legged on the lawn, threading daisies into a chain.

Perhaps the afternoon would be equally well spent in interrogating Mrs. Knight. Even if Agnes was ready to accuse Fairbairn publicly of murder, there is little Jane can do to forward the case at present. She must give Neddy the opportunity to redeem himself by arresting the blackguard, and she has not yet received a reply from her mother with any clue as to the location of her second witness. And, as selfish as it may be, Jane must determine whether the knowledge of Agnes’s condition has caused Mrs. Knight to revise her intentions as to the disposal of her estate. “Biddy is very animated.”

“She is indeed.” Mrs. Knight’s stern features refuse to betray the slightest reaction to the alternative name. As Jane suspected, she is not shocked by the revelation of Agnes’s alternative identity.

“I had hoped that, after we exchanged confidences at Crundale, Agnes might remain.” Despite Jane’s prompting, Mrs. Knight is taciturn as she fiddles with a particularly large maroon rose. The wilted petals around the egg-yolk centre scatter to the ground. Agnes may have surrendered her secrets, but the widow is as unwilling to confide in Jane as ever. “I suppose we should take it as a blessing that she has ceased to appear as Eleanor.”

“Ceased?”

“Yes, now she’s returned to herself. Or someone more like herself.”

“On the contrary, she was Princess Eleanor this morning, directly before you arrived.”

“She was?”

“She was.” Mrs. Knight’s dark eyes soften as she gazes across the parterre. Biddy pokes her tongue between her lips as she focuses on her work.

“I wonder what brought about the change in her.” It was listening to Marianne’s first encounter with Willoughby, exploring the peril Jane’s heroine faced while knowing she was safe, that had prompted Eleanor to switch to Nessa. Could there be a specific set of circumstances that would prevail on Agnes to return? If Jane can identify it, she may be able to steady her.

“Our bucket is full, Penlington.” Mrs. Knight nods to the butler. “Would you be so kind as to fetch a new one? Ask Cook to add some ice to the water. It will prevent the flowers from wilting.”

“As you wish, ma’am.” A crease appears between Penlington’s brows. He is either vexed at being sent away just as the conversation has become interesting, or there continues to be bad blood among the servants after the incident with the kitchen door.

Mrs. Knight waits until he is out of earshot before she meets Jane with a grave expression. “I cannot say exactly what prompted Agnes to return, but it is apparent to me that she has suffered a tremendous ordeal. It must be a blessed relief for her to have found a way to escape her torment, however briefly.” She glances down at her widow’s weeds. “I only wish I could find respite from past hurts.”

Jane’s eyes slide involuntarily towards the memorial stones. There are six, no, seven lined up beneath rose bushes. With a pang, she remembers how mistaken she was in her original estimation of Mrs. Knight. Beneath her brusque exterior, she is a deeply compassionate woman. While Jane no longer believes Agnes is a malicious imposter, out to manipulate the widow’s grief to her own advantage, Mrs. Knight’s own suffering must have been what initially prompted her to act as Agnes’s protector. The question remains of how far she is willing to go in this role, and to what extent it will affect the Austens’ fortunes. “Agnes is so very fortunate to have found such a generous benefactress as yourself. I know you sought to make her independent but, with her affliction, I fear she would not cope.”

“Still, I must see what can be done for her.”

“You are determined to do something for her, then?” Jane calculates what figure this might signify while Mrs. Knight scowls back at her, stupefied by the question. “Because I think the most pressing matter is to ensure her safety, and your own. I know you told me the house is kept locked and guarded, but there is still the risk he could evade your attendants’ watch. He’s a ruthless brute.”

“The captain?”

“Who else?” Jane asks, alarmed by the intonation of Mrs. Knight’s reply. Does she know Neddy is complicit in Agnes’s distress? Surely not—if she did, she’d have broken with him completely.

“You ask too many questions.” Mrs. Knight turns to where Biddy had been sitting. A cold terror seizes Jane’s heart as she follows her gaze. The square patch of lawn is empty and the daisy chain lies abandoned, strewn over the girl’s stockings and slippers. Has Fairbairn snatched her from beneath Jane’s very nose?

“Penlington!” Mrs. Knight cries, as the butler emerges from the side of the house. “Have you seen my guest?”

“Don’t fret, ma’am. She’s playing with the kitchen cat.” Penlington sets a bucket of fresh water, filled with clanking blocks of ice, on the path.

Mrs. Knight lets out a tinny laugh. “Oh, that’s a relief. I feared we’d lost her again.”

“You’ve lost her before?” The panic in Jane’s chest refuses to subside. Neither Eleanor nor Agnes stirred far from Mrs. Knight, but now the girl is exploring as Biddy she is so much more exposed.

“Only for a few hours.”

“But you mustn’t lose her, not for any length of time. You should ensure someone is with her, always. Ask one of the footmen to watch her. Better still, ask two.”

“She’s my guest, not my prisoner.”

“For her own safety.”

“You can take that back to the house, Penlington. We’ve finished now.” Mrs. Knight flaps a hand towards the bucket before fixing her attention on Jane. “I appreciate your concern but it’s impossible to monitor where everyone is in a house of this magnitude.”

Jane glances at the enormous facade of Godmersham Park. This mansion is not the refuge it purports to be. “What of the captain? He’s already tried to break in once. Have you discovered how he’s managing to deliver those dreadful notes?”

Mrs. Knight swallows. “Not yet.”

“Have any more arrived?”

“Several. I’m afraid they’re becoming ever more frequent. He’s managing to leave one, sometimes two or three, a day. I’ve charged all my household with keeping a lookout, but the messages are always left in a different place, and nobody has seen any strangers come or go.”

This development quashes any lingering suspicions Jane may have that Neddy is delivering the captain’s missives. He could not spare the time to travel to Godmersham and back several times in one day. Fairbairn must have another accomplice. If the servants have not spotted any intruders, perhaps one among their own number is leaving the notes. Armand, for example. Jane takes a fearful breath. “Tell me, has the perimeter wall been mended?”

“Not completely. But, as I told you, I have men on constant watch.”

There is no time for discretion. Jane must act before Fairbairn, or his accomplice, harms Agnes. “May I see another of the letters?”

“What on earth for?”

“I could compare the captain’s handwriting to that of anyone else who has access to the park. He may have bribed an emissary to help carry out his campaign of intimidation, but I expect you have an account book that would contain samples of each of your servants’ signatures.”

“Absolutely not. My staff are above suspicion. Besides, I have my steward making enquiries.”

Jane lays a hand on Mrs. Knight’s forearm. “You must let me help you, help Agnes.”

“It’s no concern of yours. You should never have pried into my affairs.”

“Please, I really think—”

“Your insistence borders on insolence.” The widow shakes her arm free of Jane’s grasp. “Besides I couldn’t, even if I wished to. It’s my policy to burn all the notes immediately. They’re all of a piece—full of nasty accusations about Agnes’s character and vile threats about what will happen to me if I refuse to turn her out. He is a bully, but I have some experience with bullies and I will not be cowed.”

“They are evidence. You cannot simply destroy them or you risk letting the captain go unchecked on his reprehensible behaviour. You must set the law on him.”

“Will you stop this?” Mrs. Knight’s cheeks suffuse with red. “I am perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. As I told you previously, I will not involve the authorities as I do not want Neddy to know about the captain and his insidious messages. I have a duty to protect my son and his family. My grandchild is due imminently, and nothing must be allowed to destroy Neddy’s or Elizabeth’s peace at this delicate time.” Mrs. Knight walks away, signalling an end to their conversation.

“Forgive me.” Jane has let her tongue get the better of her once again. She must speak calmly if she is ever to rise in Mrs. Knight’s estimation. “But I won’t rest, not until you let me help you snare this villain.”

“Miss Austen,” Mrs. Knight turns to face her, “if you really want to offer your assistance, then what I need is for you to show yourself as a friend to Agnes. For some reason, she trusts you. You said yourself she confided in you in the carriage at Crundale. Your friendship could prove the calming influence she requires.”

Chastised, Jane nods mutely. Poor Agnes does need a friend. It must be terrifying for her to be aware of her affliction, and yet have no way of controlling it. How frightening it must be for her to wake and have no recollection of what has passed. The uncertainty leaves her utterly defenceless. Feeling more pathetic than ever, Jane resolves to fall back on the one thing she knows she can always do. Before she leaves Godmersham Park, she will take the last remaining sheet of paper out of her writing box and pen a reply to the girl’s note.