Chapter Twenty-seven
THE NEXT DAY, there was quite a hubbub amongst the servants. After luncheon, Jane called Nellie in to speak to them about it, and Nellie said that all she knew was that a valet from Cannar Hall had been taken away by the magistrate and others for the murder of Miss Seward.
Oh, thought Jane, so this is his plan.
“The magistrate came here today?” said Cassandra. “How did that occur?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” said Nellie. “I just know they came and demanded that the man be brought out and then they took him away. He is to stand trial, as I understand.”
Mrs. Austen spoke up. “But Jane, I thought you were the one who was going to find out who had murdered that poor woman.”
“Yes,” said Jane, “well, I did find out, and it was the way it always is amongst men of that class. They weren’t willing to take the blame, so they cast it elsewhere.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Austen, “are you saying that this valet isn’t the murderer after all?”
Jane shrugged. “I think the valet deserves it.”
“What does that mean?” said Mrs. Austen.
How had Byron done it? Jane wondered. How had he spun it? What tale had he told? And what was to be done about Beaumont, who shouldn’t get away with this without any consequence?
But she was angry with Lord Byron, and she wasn’t going to seek him out and ask her questions.
And as for Mr. Beaumont, she supposed he would have absolutely no consequences, none at all.
The worst of it was the ruin of the life of poor Anne Seward, who had been ruined by Mr. Beaumont as an adolescent girl, and not even because he took pleasure in her, but because he wished to used her to get other bodies close to him, bodies that did give him pleasure.
She’d been used and discarded in all of it, and what was left of her?
No marriage for her. No children.
Men like Mr. Hardy in love with her, but really dependent upon her, and doing evil like blackmail in her name and other men like Mr. Crampton using her worse, and then…
Accidental death from a dose not even meant for her.
That was a tragic sort of life, if Jane did say so herself.
It was awful, and it was purposeless.
If this was a novel, thought Jane, I should make her wicked. If she had been wicked, abominably wicked, it would not be so bad that she was dead.
Yes, it was as Cassandra had said, it was better if there was a reason for bad things to have happened, if all badness was a punishment against some sin in the past. Perhaps God provided that service for humans, gave everything a meaning and a purpose, and if so, such things were necessary and must be preserved.
It was only that it was so dreadfully difficult in one’s own life to figure out the meaning and the purpose.
Now, now, she scolded herself. Not again. We have been through this before. There is nothing so terribly awful about your own life.
No, not truly.
Well.
She and Miss Anne Seward were both unmarriageable and had no children of their own.
Jane didn’t know if she really missed the tangible aspects of that sort of life or not.
She did. Of course, she must. She must miss the idea of a man who looked at her with fondness, who put his arm around her when they were alone, the kiss of whiskered lips.
She must miss the warm, soft heft of a babe in her arms, the cry of a child saying mama, the laughter of a nursery full of one’s growing children.
But she also felt, deep down, a sort of wrongness that was separate from those tangible aspects.
There were ways women fit into the world, and Jane didn’t match any of the ways. She was not what a woman should be. And neither had been Anne Seward, Jane supposed.
Was that what happened to women like the two of them?
Did they simply die young?
HE WAS OUT on the path when she went for an afternoon walk.
She glared at him.
He made an apologetic face and fell into step with her.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I am speaking to you, my lord.”
“Oh, that’s just fine,” he said. “I shall do all the speaking then. Just stay there silent and allow me to say it all.”
She huffed. This man.
“I know you’re frustrated about Mr. Beaumont,” said Byron. “But I couldn’t very well have the magistrate cart off the man whose hospitality I was enjoying, now could I?”
“How did you manage that anyway?” said Jane. “What? You just rode off to the magistrate, presented yourself, told him what you thought, and he hopped to and did your bidding?”
“I thought you weren’t going to speak.”
“To be a man,” said Jane, groaning.
“You’re really doing rather a lot of speaking, actually. I would say this is a proper conversation between us.”
“To be a lord,” said Jane.
“Whatever you wish to say, you can’t think that it wasn’t a benefit to the world at large to be rid of that Mr. Lovell,” said Byron.
“Oh, it was very convenient for your friend Mr. Crampton,” said Jane. “Yes, all the very rich men with a lot of land in this story, they all come out of it quite well. And everyone else?” She shrugged.
“Yes, that’s like you to say that,” said Byron. “I did read your book.”
“Oh, you admit it?”
He shrugged. “I did what I had to do. I could not do that to Beaumont.”
“I suppose you don’t think he deserves it, that he should be allowed to go around drugging everyone with laudanum that bother him.”
“Well, you have to admit he had very little recourse with Mr. Hardy, who had shown himself quite willing to resort to blackmail at every turn. And Mr. Hardy does not like Mr. Beaumont, owing to the whole business when they were youths.”
“Yes, so, he should have simply murdered him,” said Jane.
“No,” said Byron. “No, what he did was wrong.”
Jane eyed him. “Well, call the bloody heralds. Lord Byron has admitted one of his rich pals was wrong.”
“Did you just say ‘bloody’?”
“I’m out of sorts,” she said.
“Quite clearly,” he said. “It’s only that Mr. Hardy could have exposed the babe at any time, and that could have been disastrous for everyone, including Mr. Eves.
Now, Beaumont says that it was all his idea, and that Mr. Eves didn’t know a thing about it, but perhaps he is just trying to protect the man. ”
“Wait,” said Jane. “Mr. Eves is the father?” She lifted a finger. “Yes, it doesn’t make sense else. Why would Mrs. Beaumont be running barefoot through the woods for a man who hid in a closet and watched her husband with her?”
“They don’t know,” said Byron.
“They don’t know,” said Jane.
“It could have been either of them is what I’m saying,” said Byron. “What I truly don’t understand is why Mr. Eves agreed to the arrangement at all. It seems there’s nothing in it for him.”
“Maybe he’s in love with Mrs. Beaumont.”
Byron made a face.
“Well,” said Jane, “how did you do it? What did you tell the magistrate?”
“You mean about Mr. Lovell?”
“I do,” said Jane. “I’m quite curious.”
“I said he climbed the ladder and dosed the sleeping draught,” said Byron.
“Why did you say he did it?”
“Because he didn’t like Mr. Hardy,” said Byron.
“That’s it?” said Jane.
“Best to keep these things simple,” said Byron. “I had a number of servants in the Cannar Hall household who were happy to agree to say that Mr. Lovell had disliked Mr. Hardy and wanted him dead. They were all quite keen to say anything they could to get rid of him. He was not well liked.”
Jane’s shoulders sagged. “So, then, it’s all over and done with.”
“It seems so,” said Byron.
“It’s the most anti-climactic thing I think I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “I feel full of a dreadful nervous energy that I have positively nowhere to put.”
“Hmm,” said Byron. “Well, that’s what walks are for, I suppose.”
She glared at him, and then began to pick up the pace and walk even faster.
He hurried to catch up to her. “You hate me now, I suppose.”
“Oh, I already hated you,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you I was done with you and done with trying to figure out the murder, and I wish that I had been done with it then instead of sticking around for this bit, which is simply a travesty.”
“Ouch,” he said. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
She huffed again. She had not known she had so much huffing in her. “What happens to Mr. Hardy?”
“What do you mean? Nothing.”
“Well, when Mr. Beaumont tries again, then what?”
“He won’t,” said Byron.
“Sure of that?”
“He told me he would not.”
“Oh, yes, and he’s ever so trustworthy.”
“I think he was quite devastated that it went wrong,” said Byron.
“The fact that Anne died instead of his intended target, it was absolutely impossible for him to handle. He could not bear it. He swore off the whole business after that. And I think he’s decided that if Mr. Hardy wishes to extract money from him, perhaps it’s a lesser price to pay, a bit of coin, rather than the life of a young and vibrant woman, who I think he felt a great deal of affection for. ”
“Yes, as if she was a wild horse he couldn’t break!”
“Oh, you’re misunderstanding all of that. I don’t think he meant it the way you are taking it. I don’t truly think he thinks of women that way at all, but Beaumont has this way of saying things to make himself sound as if he is attracted to women.”
“What?” said Jane. “As if that makes him sound that way.”
“I mean, that he copies things that other men say, and he does not understand why they say them because he does not feel that way about women, so he does a bad job of knowing when to mimic them and when not to. I imagine he was nervous with you there, and he went too far, saying all manner of ridiculous things at that dinner. He was ever so insistent you stay, after all.”
“Well, he was that,” said Jane. “You think that was because he was nervous. I suppose he might have been, having just carried out a murder the evening before.”
“Yes, and we told him it went awry,” said Byron.
Jane thought back to Beaumont’s reaction. He had seemed to behave rather oddly.
“Anyway,” said Byron, “it has happened the way it has happened, and I am happy enough to have the entire matter closed, truly.”
“And you can go back to London, to your married mistress and the accolades of all the people who have read your poem, and I can stay here and realize I absolutely wasted my time finding a murderer who I let get away with it.”
Byron stopped walking. “I can see why you feel that way.”
She kept walking.
“I was quite serious about that masked ball, wherein everyone gets to sing the praises of your book!” he called after her.
She kept walking.
“Are you not even going to say goodbye to me?”
She paused, but she did not look back.
“Miss Jane,” he said, catching up to her. “We are friends now, are we not?”
“I don’t know, my lord,” she said. “How can I be friends with someone who shields his friends from justice even if they deserve it?”
“Well, that makes me a very good friend, actually,” said Byron. “And you must know I would do the same for you.”
“Oh, if I happened to murder someone.”
“Obviously,” said Byron. “Would you for me?”
“I don’t intend to murder anyone,” she said.
“Well, obviously, I don’t either.”
She scoffed. She resumed walking.
“Miss Jane!” he cried.
She didn’t pause this time.