Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING, Jane forced herself to work on reworking her epistolary novel First Impressions into a novel written from a narrative perspective. She needed the distraction, after all, because she found herself rather worried that, in fact, Byron would not arrive.
She found herself thinking through the way that would go, and hating it.
She would be waiting for him at eleven o’clock, and he would not arrive.
Then, it would be time for luncheon, and there would be no sign of him.
By then, she would know, deep down, to give up on him entirely, but she would hold out a sliver of hope, which would be extinguished with every hour that passed, and she would eventually have to conclude he wasn’t coming at all.
She didn’t want this to happen, so she worked on the book, hoping that if she immersed herself in writing that she would not be paying much mind to the time.
But he came calling at quarter to eleven, actually, and he was shown into the sitting room, and Jane went down and Cassandra and her mother were there, and Byron was standing, grinning at her.
“No, as I’m saying, don’t ring for anything at all,” said Byron. “I am just here to collect Miss Jane. And, after all, there has been a past incident involving my eating your household out of biscuits.”
“It is no trouble,” said Mrs. Austen. “We would be remiss if we didn’t offer our guests refreshment.”
“You have offered, and I have refused,” said Byron. “Miss Jane? Are you ready?”
“I am,” said Jane.
“I’ve brought two horses,” he said. “We can ride into town, if that pleases you?”
“You’re leaving with this man,” said Mrs. Austen, looking back and forth between Byron and Jane. “Alone.”
“Only to town,” said Byron.
“Yes, it’s all right,” said Jane. “It’s broad daylight, and I am as old as Methuselah.”
“It’s only that I am your mother,” said Mrs. Austen. “I have to say something.”
Cassandra pressed her lips together and furrowed her brow.
“It’s all right,” said Jane.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Austen.
There were young women who were held to strict standards, not allowed to go anywhere with a man without a chaperone, but it had never really been that way in the Austen household, not even when Jane was young enough that she might have been pursued by men.
For one thing, this obsession with purity was really more of a modern notion than it had been ten years ago when Jane was younger, and, for another, it was something that people worried about when they had more money than the Austens did.
Still, now, with Jane and the family reliant upon Edward for literally everything—their home, their food, their servants, all of it—it did not do to flaunt impropriety, to go about waving it like a flag everywhere.
Edward would not turn them out.
But they did wish to not be too much of a bother to him, either.
It was odd. Edward was their brother but not. They had precious few memories of him as a boy. He had been gone with the Knights most of the time.
It was, in some ways, like ingratiating oneself to a stranger. It had the added odd element that—on both sides—there was felt the tug of familial obligation, but not the tug of familiarity.
Still, riding to town in the middle of the morning, on horseback, with a man she was not married to? It wasn’t strictly proper, but it wasn’t a scandal, either. Jane didn’t think so, at any rate. She was six and thirty, after all, and he was more than a decade her junior.
She might be aware of the infatuation and her own little embarrassing thought process the night before, but no one else was, even if Cassandra seemed to be more astute than Jane would have liked.
So, Jane and Byron set off together on horseback and arrived in town a little after eleven o’clock. They went directly for the tavern to inquire about whether or not Mr. Hardy had sent for Mr. Fields, but Mr. Hardy wasn’t there.
Anne Seward’s body was set out in the main area of the tavern for people to come by and pay their respects.
The tavern itself was not open for business.
They made their way to the kitchens, but they were dark and empty, no one in them.
They went up the stairs to the rooms above.
Miss Seward’s bedchamber was dark, too. The window had been closed, the curtains pulled tightly against the midmorning light.
They went over to see if the ladder was still there.
It was not. Her bed was stripped clean of sheets and blankets.
It lay there, stark and bare in the midst of the dark room.
“Well, without the examination of the surgeon, I doubt we can know whether it was poison,” said Byron as they went back down the stairs.
“True,” said Jane. “It is all conjecture at this point.”
They made another search of the place, found no one, and then went out onto the street in front.
“All right,” said Jane, “perhaps we should start over.”
“What do you mean by that?” said Byron.
“Well, as you were saying last night, the person who killed her likely had some reason to do it, unless it was all just an accident.”
“Did I say that last night?”
“Do you have a patchy memory about that too?” she said, hands on her hips.
“No, I just don’t remember saying that.”
“You said that whoever killed her probably liked her very much and then flew into a passion when she angered him.”
“Oh, yes, I did say that,” said Byron. “Right, I do think that’s likely. But maybe I was only thinking that because of the idea that she was killed by some man in her bed, and I suppose I was only thinking that because I woke up there.”
“Men do kill women,” said Jane. “Especially ones that seem like wild fillies they can’t domesticate. That tends to enrage men.”
“Does it?” Byron made a face. “It doesn’t enrage me.”
“But I suppose there could have been another reason to kill her. Someone might have been angry at her for some other reason. And it might not have even been a man,” said Jane.
“Hmm,” said Byron. “Well, who would have been angry with Miss Seward?”
Jane tapped her chin. “What about, um, Mr. Beaumont’s wife? What if she found out about what passed between Beaumont and Anne in their youth?”
“Possible,” said Byron.
“Of course, she did just give birth, so it seems unlikely,” said Jane. “After a woman gives birth, she usually stays in bed for some weeks, just resting. I find it hard to think she would have gotten up and come all the way down here to administer poison to Miss Seward.”
“She could have left the poison here at some other time and Miss Seward didn’t actually ingest it until much later.”
“That’s possible,” said Jane. “We would need to know how the poison was delivered.”
“Is there anyone else that would have wanted Miss Seward dead?” said Byron.
Jane shook her head. “I haven’t any idea. You?”
“I don’t live here. I don’t know these people,” said Byron.
“Oh, true,” said Jane, sighing. “But I don’t pay them any mind, I’m afraid.”
“Too busy thinking about those novels you don’t write?”
“Yes, something like that,” she said. She tapped her chin again. “But you know who would know, who pays absolutely everyone in town a great deal of attention?”
“I don’t, because I don’t live here,” he said.
“Mrs. Ditterswith,” said Jane. “We’ll simply have to get ourselves invited to tea at her house.
Once we do that, we can say but three things and she’ll be off and running, happy to tell us anything and everything.
She would absolutely know everyone who would have been pleased that Miss Seward is dead. ”
“All right,” said Byron. “How do we get invited to tea? Shall we just show up at her doorstep?”
“No, that’s the way you would do it, but that’s a wretched way,” said Jane.
Byron shrugged. “All right. I suppose you’ll think of another way, then.”
Jane gave him a withering look, ready to say something else, something extremely cutting, as soon as she but thought of it.
However, they were interrupted as Betsy went by them to go into the door of the tavern. She gave them a wave. “You lot still hanging about, are you? What is it you want today?”
“We were looking for Mr. Hardy,” said Jane. “Do you have any idea where he is?”
“None at all,” said Betsy. “I haven’t seen him since last night when he was locking up after Mr. Fields left.”
“Oh, Mr. Fields was here,” said Jane.
“Yes, indeed,” said Betsy.
“And he examined Miss Seward’s remains?” said Jane.
“I suppose,” said Betsy. “I’d best get inside, if you please. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay and talk all day.”
Jane waved her off.
Byron peered after Betsy as she disappeared inside. “Well, shall we simply go to Mr. Fields?”
Jane nodded. “Yes, that’s a very good idea. We’ll ride out to see him, and then he can answer any of our questions.”
“You know where to find him?”
“I think so,” said Jane.
BUT WHEN THEY rode out to Mr. Fields’s house, the servant there informed them that Mr. Fields had been called to the Catterly house out on Mallards Lane.
Jane and Byron discussed it and decided they might as well simply ride out there, and wait until Mr. Fields was finished. Then they’d get him to answer their questions.
On the ride out to the Catterly house, who should they run into but Mr. Fields, riding away from the house.
Jane and Byron dismounted and waved Mr. Fields over. He dismounted as well. They made their way over to the side of the road to speak.
“We were looking for you,” said Jane. “It’s quite convenient to run into you here.”
“Do you need me to accompany you somewhere, Miss Austen?” said Mr. Fields. “I was going back home for something to eat, but if it’s urgent, I shall forgo that and do what I can immediately, of course.”
“Oh, no, no, it’s nothing like that,” said Jane.
“You’d best introduce me,” said Byron. “Or, I suppose I’ll introduce myself. We are not in any formal social situation, after all. Who cares about the rules of propriety? I am Byron. Author of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Fields. “Yes, I’ve heard of that, actually. Really? You wrote that?”