Page 38 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)
G etting to the post office was easier than Jane had feared it might be.
All she had to do was tell Father that she wanted to stop and purchase a volume on the “language of flowers” that she thought might amuse the princess, and he was happy to let her walk to the palace that morning rather than ride in the carriage with him.
Getting rid of Betty was just as easy. Jane suggested that Betty might not want to waste her morning lingering about a bookshop and gave her a few shillings to go buy herself some buns at the baker instead.
“Then just walk on ahead. I can meet you at the palace gates,” she said with an awkward wink. “And none the wiser.”
Betty met her gaze, and Jane looked back, unblinking. Betty pocketed the coins. There was a silent agreement in her curtsy before she turned to walk away.
Betty understood, and Jane understood. This payment was for Betty’s silence, and it would not be the last.
Mr. and Mrs. Carey, the couple who ran the post office, knew Jane, of course. They also considered Father a snob and far too standoffish, so she had no fear they’d chatter awkwardly or ask him who this “Miss Kent” might be.
It’s far too soon , she told herself as she waited, shifting from foot to foot, while Mrs. Carey rifled through her pigeonholes. The princess only spoke with Dr. Maton two days ago. I should have waited. I shouldn’t have wasted the excuse. . .
“Here you are, dear.” Mrs. Carey handed Jane the letter sealed with a plain blue wafer. “Dropped off yesterday, it was.”
Jane stared. She barely remembered to thank Mrs. Carey. She practically ran the rest of the way to the palace.
When Jane reached the royal apartments, the princess was at her lessons, singing scales of increasing speed and difficulty under the careful direction of her music tutor and, of course, under the duchess’s watchful eye.
Father was at his desk, reading some papers.
He looked up as Jane came in, and frowned at her empty hands.
Jane just shook her head. She’d tell him that the shop owner had sold the last copy on hand but had promised to order another.
When did it become so easy to think of lying to Father?
Jane moved quietly to her corner and picked up Wordsworth’s poems. When she was sure Father’s attention was fixed on his papers, she opened it, intending to slip the letter inside.
But there was something already there. A neatly written note on a slip of paper.
C. knows nothing. Must try elsewhere.
Jane glanced up and found herself looking directly at Lehzen. Lehzen watched as Jane pulled the letter from her sleeve, tucked it into the pages, and carefully closed the book.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
At half ten it was time for the princess to take her exercise.
“May I walk in the garden, Mama?” she asked humbly.
Too humbly, in fact. Fear rippled through Jane. The duchess will suspect something.
But the duchess, it seemed, was involved with her own cares and simply nodded. “Lady Flora can take you.”
“Yes, Mama,” said the princess dutifully. “Come on, then, Jane.”
Jane rang for Betty to bring her bonnet. She grabbed her sketchbook and pencil box and Wordsworth’s poems.
They were well into the dog days now. The sun was bright and the day was rapidly becoming uncomfortably hot.
Sweat prickled under Jane’s bonnet and trickled down the back of her neck.
She was grateful that the princess decided to stick to the formal pathways between the hedges so they could walk in the shade.
Dash was having a splendid time running this way and that on the grass, shoving his nose into the hedgerows and flower beds.
The real reason the princess chose to stay in the gardens, of course, was that the tall formal hedges provided a screen between them and the palace.
Even if someone decided to watch from the grimy windows, they would be unlikely to see Jane pull Gerald Maton’s letter from the book or the princess’s face light up as she broke the seal and shook the page open.
Jane and the princess put their heads together until their bonnet brims touched. Together they read.
My Dear Miss Kent,
I trust this letter finds you in the very best of health and spirits.
For my own part, I scarcely know what to write or how to tell you what I have learned.
Following our consultation, I found myself so agitated that I was barely able to continue to see my patients for the day.
Please do not think this was your fault!
It was entirely my own doing and brought on by a rational review of all that had passed between myself and my family since my father’s death.
So often, we see our family through a kind of hopeful haze. This means that actions they take can seem quite harmless to us, even if that same action would seem deeply nefarious or ill-advised if taken by a stranger.
Victoria and Jane paused and shared a long look of mutual understanding.
When I was at last able to close my surgery, I went to my brother Julius’s house.
I spoke with him and my mother together.
I said I wished to see Father’s papers, his case notes and journals and the like.
I said I wished to review these things to satisfy my own mind on some points that his death had recently returned to the front of my memory.
I attempted to speak lightly, to pass it off as agitation brought on by grief, and as something that could be quickly alleviated.
I am not sure how well I succeeded. After all, they already knew I was bitterly angry over the treatment of Father in death and the haste and silence surrounding his burial.
But it transpired that I could have spared myself the effort. Upon my mother’s signal, my brother Julius informed me that all my father’s personal papers had already been burnt.
Jane pressed her hand over her mouth to stop her exclamation. Victoria clenched the edges of the letter, wrinkling the paper.
“Why would they . . . ?”
I demanded to know why they would do such a thing.
Again, they spoke of the promised pension and of the necessity for “all our sakes” that the family reputation be preserved.
Julius spoke firmly for several minutes about how any controversy could damage my practice and Marcus’s, as well as his own. Therefore, he had no choice.
“I don’t believe it,” muttered the princess. “About the reputations. It is about this money, the pension they were promised. It must be.”
“That depends what they were afraid those papers said,” breathed Jane.
Victoria frowned.
I left feeling depressed and angry, but also uneasy.
Unease turned to suspicion with uncomfortable speed.
So, taking a great chance, I waited near to the house until I saw that same footman I had spoken to before leave on an errand for my mother.
I took him up into my closed carriage, and I quizzed him about the fate of my father’s papers.
Jane realized she had stopped breathing.
He said that it was true they had been burnt.
That my mother and Julius had seen to the matter personally.
But, he said, he had been called in to help, as there were a great many boxes and files to be dealt with, including some that had to be brought down from the attic.
As a result, he was able to overhear some of what passed between Mother and Julius.
They were, he said, particularly agitated about the manuscript of my father’s memoir, and as they emptied each drawer and box into the fire, they were constantly asking each other, “Did you get it all?” and “Are you sure there’s nothing more?
” and “Could there have been a fair copy made?” and other such questions.
He said that their depredations extended to Father’s case books and appointment books, going back some years.
Remembering your questions when we met, I asked him about the gentleman who came to the house to inform Mother and Julius about the pension.
He said the gentleman left no card, and he was unable to hear the name.
He did, however, give a description of a tall man with military bearing, dark, curling hair, and bright blue eyes.
“Sir John,” said the princess.
At the same time Jane said, “Father.” Of course it would be. Father had gotten the gardeners to fetch the cart. He would naturally have gone with them to make sure their burden reached its destination and so he could speak with the Matons immediately.
“We knew he had something to hide,” said the princess. “Oh! I could scream.”
“Well, it’s over now,” said Jane. She was disappointed, which shocked her. She should have been relieved. “Whatever there was to find, the Matons must have destroyed it.” Jane looked over her shoulder toward the clock tower. “We should be getting back. They’ll be calling you in soon.”
“You don’t believe we should keep asking questions,” said the princess.
“I don’t believe we can find proof of anything wrong,” Jane said flatly. “And without proof, we’re just two silly little girls playing an absurd game.”
The princess wanted to be angry, Jane could tell. But she couldn’t quite muster a retort.
At last, the princess sighed. “You’re right, Jane. We should get back.” But even as she said this, she set her jaw, and Jane knew she was not ready to stop.
And as she trailed behind the princess, Jane found, oddly, that she had begun to smile.