"Jane and His Lordship's Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barron Stephanie)Chapter 5 Chapters in a LifeA flood of birdsong roused me at half past six this morning. I opened my eyes to find the sunlight full in my face; the bedchamber looks south and the window is still undraped. With consciousness came the memory of the dead man in the cellar; there might be intelligence today of both his name and the nature of his end. I reached for my dressing gown and crept quietly out of the room, determined not to wake my mother — but I need have had no fears for her slumber; the shock and exertion of yesterday, coupled with Mr. Prowting’s excellent claret, ensured that she should lie slumbering yet a while. The peace of this country morning was indescribable, a balm for jangled nerves. I stood in the silent kitchen, and listened to the rustling of some small creature against the exterior boards, the lowing of cattle in the distance, and the crowing of a cock — then threw open the back door and stepped out into the yard. A tin pail hung on a hook nailed to the lintel; I took it up, and moved to the well to draw some water. This, I decided, as the pump moved easily on its oiled hinge and the clear water began to flow, should be the work I would claim within our new household: the drawing of water and the preparation of fires in the early morning, the making of a simple breakfast, when everyone else lay abed. The freedom and quiet of an undisturbed hour should be a luxury beyond everything; indeed, it was all the luxury I desired. Having escorted us from his dining parlour the previous evening, Mr. Prowting had helped us to lay a simple bed of coals in the kitchen hearth before departing for his own bed. The fire, properly banked, would serve to boil our tea this morning. The cottage boasted no ingenious modern stove, nothing but a spit and a quantity of iron hooks for the arrangement of kettles, and even Martha might find the conditions less than desirable; but Mr. Prowting had pledged himself to the task of securing a few servants among that class of village folk as were accustomed to labour in genteel houses — had several prospects already in mind — should be happy to interview them so early as today, etc., etc. — and should send the likeliest recruits to my mother for final approval. I foresaw little difficulty, delay, or exertion for myself in the business, and was content this morning to set my mother’s kettle on the fire. The task done, I hesitated briefly in the small kitchen. Ought I to dress and walk out into the street, in search of the woman Mrs. Prowting assured me was the best baker of fresh bread in the village? Or could I trust to Providence and my mother’s slumber a little longer, and steal a glimpse at the contents of Lord Harold’s trunk? After yesterday’s discovery of the corpse, Mr. Prowting had carried my bequest to the henhouse for safekeeping, as I did not think it kind to require the gentleman to enter a stranger’s bedchamber. The Rogue’s lead key hung heavily in my dressing-gown pocket. I curled my fingers around its length and walked swiftly back out into the yard, in the direction of the outbuildings. It is in the nature of treasure chests to yield their contents unwillingly. I expected a lengthy engagement with the lock that dangled from the hasp; expected to be reduced to stratagems and tears, blood flowing from my ravaged fingers — but in the event, the key turned in a well-behaved fashion and released the heavy iron pad easily from its bolt. Barely breathing, I lifted the trunk lid with care. From Lord Harold’s last testament — his wish that I might bring order to his correspondence and somehow construct a narrative from a chaos of events — I had anticipated much confusion of parchment. But it seemed that this morning all my cherished notions were to be o’erthrown. Before my eyes was a compartmented cabinet, as neatly arranged as a solicitor’s desk, and filled with all manner of letters bound up tidily in varicolored ribbons. In one area of the cabinet was a place reserved for leather-bound copybooks; in another was a grouping of ledgers. Several rolled documents, when unfolded, were revealed as ships’ charts and battlefield maps — at a glance, I could discern the entrepôts of the Indian Ocean, and a plan of the city of Paris. One last despairing hope was finally laid to rest. I had not allowed myself to form an idea of a single piece of paper, hastily scrawled with the word It was dated January, 1770, Eton College — and bore the direction of Eugenie, Duchess of Wilborough. Such assurance! In 1770, he had been all of ten years old — and I was not yet born. I held the childish scrawl between my fingers and tried to imagine him: thin, lanky, with a shock of blond Trowbridge hair. He had cultivated even then the talents of a spy. I ran my fingers swiftly through the packet: there were more than twenty letters preserved from Eton days. Had the blue satin ribbon been Eugenie’s? I folded the missive carefully and returned it to its place, selecting as I did so another quantity of envelopes. I reread this letter twice in some puzzlement. I knew Lord Harold to have been an intimate of the late Whig leader, Charles James Fox; yet never had he mentioned a period of employment with Warren Hastings, the former Governor-General of Bengal. Indeed, I had not understood the Rogue to have lived in India at all. Mr. Hastings, on the other hand, was remotely connected with my family, as the putative father of my cousin, Eliza de Feuillide; he was a man whose reputation we had been taught to both revere and suspect. And what was the exile to which Lord Harold referred? Had he fallen out with his father at the tender age of four-and-twenty? I could well believe it possible. A duel — an elopement — a significant loss at cards. or simply the defection of his interest from the Tory party to the Whigs, might have achieved it. Another letter, this time from 1788: And this, from a year earlier: The henhouse was growing hot. I was aware that a considerable interval had passed, and that my mother would soon be rising. I surveyed the wealth of packets with dismay. There was too much to be read, too much to digest in an ordered fashion, beginning with the earliest dates, to achieve much. I should have to devise a more orderly method — and I must secure a place of safety and solitude in which to work. I replaced the correspondence and was about to close the chest’s heavy lid, when of a sudden I reached for one of the leather-bound copybooks. Perhaps, in his journal, he might once have made mention of me. I slowly closed the book, my hands no longer steady. He had given me much in this cavalier bequest: the key to a lifetime of agonies and dreams. I had believed that I understood his character — I had even thought that I loved him. But it was clear to me now that I had tasted only a draught of the deep waters that o’erwhelmed Lord Harold’s life. “Jane? Jane!” My fingers clutched around the copybook, I gazed quickly through the henhouse door. “Henry!” I cried. “Good God — where did you spring from?” “Alton,” my brother replied carelessly. “I keep a bank there, you know. What do you mean by sitting in the middle of a poultry yard in your dressing gown at eight o’clock in the morning?” |
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