Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Up in Miss Austen’s room, after a busy afternoon and evening of organising and rehearsing, Jane sealed the last invitation while Dora finished off her own assignment.
‘Good, we are done.’ Jane added her card to the basket and rang for a maid. ‘Hill, please see that these last ones are sent out at once.’
‘Very good, Miss Austen,’ said the maid, bobbing a curtsey.
Jane got up and stretched. ‘I haven’t written so much in one sitting for years. Do you think they will all come?’
‘How can they not? They were all asked to the original auction so they will be eager to get a chance to win the bid.’ Dora blotted her work and folded it up.
‘And the Frenchman?’
‘We asked Kir and Mr Smith to talk loudly and indiscreetly about the auction in the mews outside our office while they played knucklebones. Percy will have his spies deployed by now so he will invite himself along, I have no doubt.’
‘Then there is nothing more to be done tonight.’
‘Agreed, though it is in many ways the most dangerous hour. Someone wanting to circumvent proceedings might well strike tonight. That is why we are all here to guard the premises. The men are downstairs but, if you don’t mind, I’ll stay in here with you.
We know the attackers have identified your room and made use of that drainpipe before, so it is better we be prudent and make sure you are not alone.
’ Dora did not want the loss of a friend and such a promising novelist on her conscience.
Jacob had seconded her in that. Eliza Austen had her husband at her side; Jane had no one in her bedroom, what with her sister Cassandra being at home with their mother.
Jane nodded. ‘Thank you. I’d like that.’ They’d closed the curtains some hours ago, but now she went to check through the gap. ‘It is horrible to think someone might try to break in tonight.’
‘Rather than fret your poor nerves, why don’t you sit down and read a book to take your mind off things?’
‘It is likely that the only thing that would get my mind off what is going on is to work.’ She went over to her little writing desk and got out some paper. ‘I’ve been making notes for my novel after Pride and Prejudice. I’ll work on that.’
‘Might I see the book you have in draft?’
Jane looked apprehensive. ‘You really did like Sense and Sensibility?’
‘I really did.’
The author went to her chest and pulled out a ream of paper, holding it close to her heart.
‘Cassandra thinks people will like this one even more than Elinor and Marianne, but I don’t share her confidence.
It was the work of my youth, or begun then, when things were so much sunnier than they are now.
I wonder if it is too light, too funny, not serious enough for our present time? ’
Dora laughed. ‘My dear Jane, it sounds the perfect antidote to waiting for a villain to burst in. We can laugh them out of countenance and kick them off the balcony.’
‘That’s exactly what Elizabeth would do.’ Gathering her courage, Jane handed it over. ‘Be kind. Writers ask for frank opinions, but really, we only want praise.’
Dora read until her candle burned down, caught a few hours’ sleep, then finished the story in the morning at first light.
It felt like she had passed from an old to a new world in that interval.
Wordlessly, she handed Pride and Prejudice back to Jane for safekeeping before they went down to breakfast. There was no way she would risk this with thieves about.
‘That bad, eh?’ said Jane with a sigh, locking it in her chest.
‘That good.’ Dora hugged her friend. ‘I stand in awe – no!’ She went down on her knees and bowed like a slave to the sultan in the pantomime. ‘I bow before your greatness.’
Jane flapped her hands at her. ‘Stop mocking me, you silly goose!’
‘Mock? Never! My obeisance is sincerely meant.’ She hopped up. ‘You, my dear Miss Jane Austen, are the Madame Catalani of the pen.’
‘What a delightful comparison!’ Jane’s cheeks went pink.
‘It is the best book I’ve ever had the pleasure to read, Elizabeth my favourite heroine, and if your Mr Egerton doesn’t pay you a thousand pounds for it, then he is undervaluing your talent.’
‘I was hoping for a hundred and fifty, but Henry warns that I might have to settle for less.’
Dora pulled a face. ‘Why do we women always have to settle for less? Byron is said to have got five hundred guineas for Childe Harold, and that isn’t a patch on your work.’
‘I’m no Lord Byron.’
‘Thank heavens not, or there would be a string of abandoned lovers and waifs in your wake.’
‘Yes, he is a deliciously reprehensible sort, isn’t he?’
The breakfast table hosted a motley crew of performers and the Austen family, Eliza and Henry showing their relaxed attitude to social status by joining them for the meal.
There was a lively discussion about the bill of fare to be laid before the guests, both the society friends were able to come at short notice, and the diplomatic targets who were there for the secret conclusion to the evening.
The theme was ‘Music from the Stage’. Hugo and Ren were to do a comic song; Julien, who had agreed with Jacob that he should be present, was to play a piece by Mozart; Susan had suggested she sing a setting of Shakespeare’s ‘It was a lover and his lass’ that she had done to great acclaim in Bath; while Dora herself had picked ‘Oh, the broom’ from The Beggar’s Opera.
A friend of Hugo’s, currently out of work due to the closure of Drury Lane, was engaged to play a piece on the harp.
Ruby, expected to arrive later for the dress rehearsal, had sent a note agreeing to join Dora, Hugo and Ren in ‘Over the hills and far away’, also from The Beggar’s Opera, in addition to a solo from Così fan tutte.
They had a programme to which the climax would be the announcement of the winner of the auction in a room set aside for the international guests.
Jacob took his place beside Dora, yawning a little as he had had the watch in the middle of the night.
‘All quiet?’ she asked.
‘Yes. We saw some people loitering but, when they saw us watching, they made themselves scarce. And you?’ He heaped his plate with breakfast fuel to keep him going during what was likely to be a long day.
‘I could barely sleep a wink.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry, love. The danger will be over soon.’
‘No, you don’t understand! That book – Jane’s next one – it is the most wonderful story I’ve ever read.’
He chuckled. ‘I’m glad you liked it. It would spoil your new friendship if you had harsh things to say.’
He wasn’t getting it. ‘Jacob, she’s one of the greats, one of the most talented writers of all time.
’ He smiled but in a way that was merely humouring her.
‘You like Wordsworth? Well, she’s my Wordsworth, only better.
’ She said the last with a teasing smile, knowing he was passionate about his Lakes poet.
‘Then I look forward to reading it for myself. When are we to expect Ruby?’
‘She has an appointment with a mantua-maker about a new gown and will arrive after that.’
‘I’m surprised she agreed so readily.’
‘Are you?’ Dora twiddled her teaspoon, nervous already about the evening – not her part in it, but the invitation that would put a killer in their midst. ‘She’s used to working, Jacob.
She dreamed of the life of the ladybird, luxury and freedom from want, but now she’s living it, she’s lonely.
Her happiness depends on the whims of a man who can only spare her a little of his time.
I think she’s grateful I involved her, though she’ll claim it is a favour to me, her way of apologising for putting our names in the newspapers. ’
Jacob spread butter on his toast, his appetite showing no signs of being blunted by nerves. ‘Sorry to put this crudely, but is she good enough for a London audience?’
Dora smiled at his effort to be restrained. He did not like Ruby. ‘You saw us perform once? What was it we did in Kendal?’
‘As You Like It and Castle Spectre.’
‘I thought so. Neither of us sang then. You are in for a surprise.’
‘A good or a bad one?’ he asked plaintively.
‘You’ll have to wait for this evening to find out.’
Ruby came in like a thunderstorm in red silk. She grasped Dora’s shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks.
‘My first engagement in London!’ she said.
‘A private party – how delightful. They are so much better than public concerts, do you not agree?’ She turned to her hosts.
‘Mr Austen, Mrs Austen, charmed.’ She dipped a curtsey.
She spared Jane Austen only a nod and smile of acknowledgment.
‘Lead on, Dora. We must practise until we are perfect!’ That had not been her motto when in the Northern Players.
There she had been of the school of ‘it will be all right on the night.’
As Dora expected, Ruby lost some of her London airs and graces when the door was closed on the practice room and she was alone with her tribe of theatrical folk. She teased Hugo, flirted with Ren and walked carefully around Susan.
Dora drew her aside during the run-through of Hugo and Ren’s song and explained the hidden agenda for the evening, without mentioning the details of the report that the bidders wanted. This wasn’t because she didn’t trust Ruby, but because she knew her friend would simply not be interested.
‘I take it that the viscount approves of your participation here?’ Dora asked.
Ruby fluttered her fingers, the new rings glittering. ‘He said I was to amuse myself in his absence.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s gone north to fetch his family back for the season. When his wife is in town, he won’t be able to spend every evening with me, he explained.’
‘Is this what he envisaged as amusing yourself?’
Ruby bit her lip. ‘Perhaps not. But as long as no report of this gets into the papers, need he know?’
‘We certainly aren’t aiming for the society column, or if we make it into it, it will be one of those insipid “Mr and Mrs Austen, a private party at home” remarks with no details.’
‘Then all will be well.’ Ruby’s gaze settled on Julien at the piano. ‘That’s the new comte, I take it? He now must sing for his supper?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Jacob had told her that the late comte might have been a better manager of his money than his reputation among the ton suggested. ‘But I think he prefers it to sitting at home in that big empty house of his.’
‘Hmm.’ Ruby settled herself into her most becoming pose, shoulders back, head tilted so she looked up through her lashes at her interlocutors, winsome and defenceless. ‘I will go and introduce myself.’
‘Be gentle. He has just lost both his parents in a brutal fashion.’
When she left, Jane, who had been observing the rehearsal from a quiet corner while sewing a costume for Ren, came over to Dora.
‘That’s your friend, the one you spoke of?’
‘It is.’
‘A flamboyant person. Would it be fair to say trouble follows her?’
‘No more than it does me. In fact, I’m worse.’ Dora grinned.
‘I meant in the area of love?’
‘Ah, well, it has left her in a certain situation, as you doubtless noticed. She means to be good, but most moralists would find fault with her behaviour.’
‘Charming but dangerous to gentlemen?’
‘Yes, but don’t you think we women are in far more danger from them, than they from us?’
‘True. Still, the lady adventurer is a curious role. I look forward to hearing her perform.’
‘I notice you haven’t made yourself known to her?’
It was Jane’s turn to laugh. ‘She would not know what to do with a woman like me.’
A truer word was never spoken. ‘And you?’
‘I do. An adventurous female of dubious morals? I’ll put her in my next book!’