plaintive sounding of a clock somewhere in chambers alerted me to the fact that the day was much advanced; Eliza would be wondering if I were lost. I slipped the bottle-green volume into my reticule and locked Lord Harold’s chest.
E LIZA WAS, INDEED, ANXIOUSLY AWAITING MY return—but it was Madame Bigeon who informed me of the fact. Manon’s aging mother answered my pull of the front doorbell. When I would have stepped into the hall, she urged in a rapid undertone, “Pray, mademoiselle, do not for the love of Heaven delay, but go for Monsieur Henri at once!”
“Is it Eliza? She is—unwell?” I managed.
Madame shook her head. “It is the Runners. Bow Street is in the house!”
1 This was the traditional meeting ground of duelists, outside London.— Editor’s note .
Chapter 9
The Gryphon and the Eagle
Thursday, 25 April 1811, cont.
∼
“F ETCH ME INK AND PAPER, AND I SHALL REQUIRE the hackney to carry a note to Henry,” I told madame—but before she could hasten on her errand, a barrel-chested fellow in a dull grey coat and a squat, unlovely hat had barred the passage behind her.
“What’s all this?” he demanded, surveying me with a pair of eyes both sharp and small in a pudding face. “Are you the mort what’s visiting from the country?” 1
“I am Miss Austen. This is my brother’s house. And who, my good sir, are you?”
The question appeared to surprise him. Perhaps the better part of his interlocutors were too stunned at the awful sight of a Runner—the terrible gravity of the Law, and Newgate’s dire bulk rising before their eyes—to enquire of the man’s name.
“Clem Black,” he said. “Of Bow Street.”
“So I understand.” I took off my bonnet and set it carefully on the table in Eliza’s hall. “What is your business here?”
I spoke calmly, but in truth was prey to the most lively apprehension on the Henry Austens’ behalf. There could be only one explanation for the presence of a Clem Black in the house: my poor brother was even more embarrassed in his circumstances than his partner James Tilson could apprehend. Perhaps there had been a run on the bank. Perhaps Austen, Maunde & Tilson had discovered a discrepancy in the accounts. Perhaps Henry—so recently installed in this stylish new home, with its furniture made to order and its fittings very fine—had felt his purse to be pinched, and had dipped into the bank’s funds without the knowledge of his partners.
But at this thought my mind rebelled. Not even Henry—lighthearted and given over to pleasure as he so often was—would violate the most fundamental precept of his chosen profession. When it came to the management of another man’s money, Henry was wont to observe, a banker must be worthy of his trust.
“You’re a cool one, ain’t ye?” Clem Black said with grudging admiration. “The other gentry mort is indulging in spasms and such. If you’d be so good, ma’am, as to come with me—”
I bowed my head and preceded him into Eliza’s front drawing-room, where so recently the crowd of gentlemen and ladies had stood, in heat and self-importance, to listen to Miss Davis and her brood in the singing of their glees. Eliza was reclined upon a sopha, Manon engaged in waving a vinaigrette beneath her nose; but at my appearance my sister reared up, her countenance quite pink, and said, “Ah—not Henry. I had hoped— Still, it is probably for the best. We may delay the unhappy intelligence as long as possible. Jane, I have wronged you—and I cannot rest until I have assured you that the injury was unknowingly done.”
“Hush, Eliza,” I murmured, and joined her on the sopha. “What has occurred?”
“That man”—she inclined her head in the direction of a second Runner I now perceived to be nearly hidden by the drawing-room draperies, his gaze roaming Sloane Street as it darkened beyond the window—“that man has quite cut up my peace. Indeed, indeed, Jane, I should never have undertaken
E LIZA WAS, INDEED, ANXIOUSLY AWAITING MY return—but it was Madame Bigeon who informed me of the fact. Manon’s aging mother answered my pull of the front doorbell. When I would have stepped into the hall, she urged in a rapid undertone, “Pray, mademoiselle, do not for the love of Heaven delay, but go for Monsieur Henri at once!”
“Is it Eliza? She is—unwell?” I managed.
Madame shook her head. “It is the Runners. Bow Street is in the house!”
1 This was the traditional meeting ground of duelists, outside London.— Editor’s note .
Chapter 9
The Gryphon and the Eagle
Thursday, 25 April 1811, cont.
∼
“F ETCH ME INK AND PAPER, AND I SHALL REQUIRE the hackney to carry a note to Henry,” I told madame—but before she could hasten on her errand, a barrel-chested fellow in a dull grey coat and a squat, unlovely hat had barred the passage behind her.
“What’s all this?” he demanded, surveying me with a pair of eyes both sharp and small in a pudding face. “Are you the mort what’s visiting from the country?” 1
“I am Miss Austen. This is my brother’s house. And who, my good sir, are you?”
The question appeared to surprise him. Perhaps the better part of his interlocutors were too stunned at the awful sight of a Runner—the terrible gravity of the Law, and Newgate’s dire bulk rising before their eyes—to enquire of the man’s name.
“Clem Black,” he said. “Of Bow Street.”
“So I understand.” I took off my bonnet and set it carefully on the table in Eliza’s hall. “What is your business here?”
I spoke calmly, but in truth was prey to the most lively apprehension on the Henry Austens’ behalf. There could be only one explanation for the presence of a Clem Black in the house: my poor brother was even more embarrassed in his circumstances than his partner James Tilson could apprehend. Perhaps there had been a run on the bank. Perhaps Austen, Maunde & Tilson had discovered a discrepancy in the accounts. Perhaps Henry—so recently installed in this stylish new home, with its furniture made to order and its fittings very fine—had felt his purse to be pinched, and had dipped into the bank’s funds without the knowledge of his partners.
But at this thought my mind rebelled. Not even Henry—lighthearted and given over to pleasure as he so often was—would violate the most fundamental precept of his chosen profession. When it came to the management of another man’s money, Henry was wont to observe, a banker must be worthy of his trust.
“You’re a cool one, ain’t ye?” Clem Black said with grudging admiration. “The other gentry mort is indulging in spasms and such. If you’d be so good, ma’am, as to come with me—”
I bowed my head and preceded him into Eliza’s front drawing-room, where so recently the crowd of gentlemen and ladies had stood, in heat and self-importance, to listen to Miss Davis and her brood in the singing of their glees. Eliza was reclined upon a sopha, Manon engaged in waving a vinaigrette beneath her nose; but at my appearance my sister reared up, her countenance quite pink, and said, “Ah—not Henry. I had hoped— Still, it is probably for the best. We may delay the unhappy intelligence as long as possible. Jane, I have wronged you—and I cannot rest until I have assured you that the injury was unknowingly done.”
“Hush, Eliza,” I murmured, and joined her on the sopha. “What has occurred?”
“That man”—she inclined her head in the direction of a second Runner I now perceived to be nearly hidden by the drawing-room draperies, his gaze roaming Sloane Street as it darkened beyond the window—“that man has quite cut up my peace. Indeed, indeed, Jane, I should never have undertaken
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