The tumult of my nerves and reason would not be stilled, tho’ I sat quietly once more at home — and thus I am restless and wakeful, long into the night. Where is he now? What is he thinking? Is it possible he has entirely forgotten me? Or is there a hope I may yet be dear to him? I take out his letters from the precious days in Paris — and my own voice will not be silenced. I pour forth my soul again upon the paper, as I have done a hundred times before, and seal it with a kiss. But should the letter be sent? Can it be?
A letter. Could this possibly refer to the disputed correspondence with Lord Castlereagh? But the Princess had mentioned Paris — and his lordship was unlikely to have entered that city since the onset of hostilities with Buonaparte. Did she speak, in her veiled way, of d’Entraigues? But a man less like a god could hardly be described. It was undoubtedly true that beauty was in the eye of the beholder …
Manon chose this interesting moment to reappear in the kitchen with the decanter and tray. “La comtesse is weeping,” she said resignedly. “She is wholly distraught. It will require several handkerchiefs, sans doute, to stem the flood. I do not think she poses the least danger to Madame Henri now.”
“What has Eliza said to cast her into despair?” I demanded perplexedly. “She was meant to lull the woman into happy security!”
“No doubt they talk of the despicable husband,” Madame Bigeon suggested. “His infidelities — her endless sacrifices — the mortification and the scorn of the world — you will know how it is.”
Manon disappeared through the doorway again with a feather duster in her hand. I returned to the Princess’s diary.
I must be careful. I have been too long in the world not to know the way of it — to recognise that the ardent love that animates my being must be an object of ridicule before the ton. I pay my morning calls, and yearn to hear of him; I talk of fashion, and of balls, and yearn to talk of him; I walk in the Park, and yearn to encounter him. He has not answered my letter I am in a frenzy at every post. Perhaps he has gone out of town — is on a visit to the country — is engaged in the hunt? Or perhaps it is politics that engrosses him — all this talk of government, and appointments… I must consider it likely, however, that he no longer loves me — that the passions which brought me to London, like a dog called to heel, no longer stir in his breast. He no longer loves me. Perhaps he never did.
This petulant recital was followed by a series of entries describing the Princess’s dissatisfaction with her correspondence. These came to an abrupt end a mere week before her murder.
Were I the sort to read newspapers, I might have known long before what the Polite World believes— but if I had known, I might never have set foot outside in daylight again, but stolen from this house at dead of night, and made for Moscow by any road that offers. The shame of it! That I should learn the truth from my modiste — that it should be the girls in the fitting room, slatterns all, giggling over my card as it was sent in to Fanchette — that she should have the impertinence to demand immediate payment, and decline further custom, “the notoriety of the Morning Post being not what she can like.” He has done what he should not — he has betrayed every sacred trust— and my heart is exposed in all the obscenity of print, for the entire world to read! I cannot understand it— I am brought to my knees by his perfidy. I cannot understand it. I wander about the prison of this house as tho’ dazed from a blow to the head; but anger is as strong as pain. Were I a man, I should demand satisfaction — I should hurl my glove in his face, and look down the barrel of a pistol with rejoicing in my heart, as the blood blossomed in his throat — that perfect, lovely throat I have caressed with my lips so often in memory. I would like to kill him …
I set down the book.
The Princess had discovered the publication of her correspondence, and the imputation the Great had placed upon it. She had never sold her letters; but someone in Castlereagh’s household had. And with rage stirring in her Russian heart, she had sought his lordship at his very door. To plead with him … or to do him the sort of violence that had ended in her own death?
My mind raced at the idea: Tscholikova, bent upon revenge. Castlereagh, unaccountably absent from home and unwilling to admit to the world how he had spent the hours between one o’clock and five in the morning. The lady, calling at his house with a porcelain box in her hands. Had it contained her jewels, as we had supposed? Or the letters she had received from Castlereagh, and intended to hurl back in his face?
Had it contained, even, a weapon?
She had not found his lordship at home. She had quitted the house. And four hours later, she lay in a ruined heap upon the flagway, with the lid of her porcelain box in pieces beside her …. Where had she hidden herself in the interval? Had she merely lain in wait for Castlereagh’s return? Or had they met elsewhere — by chance or appointment — to discuss the furor occasioned by the Morning Post?
And then I recalled the carriage described at the inquest, drawn up in the mews behind Berkeley Square: with sounds of passion — or violence — emanating from within. For the first time, I could picture the whole in my mind; but how to secure proofs?
“La comtesse is on the point of departure,” Manon hissed from the doorway. “You have seen the oh-so-curious passage I mentioned?”
“They are all of them curious,” I retorted.
Manon threw up her hands and withdrew. From the hall came all the bustle of two ladies’ adieux. I looked for the final entry — that which the Princess had penned on the Saturday prior to her death.
I have seen Canning. He has told me all. There is nothing for it — I must take my courage in my hands, and warn the heedless girl. If a man may look like a god and behave like the very Devil, then no one is safe in his love. I would not consign my worst enemy to the Fate I have endured — and even she, whom the world might consider as having little of reputation to lose— even she might be made to suffer. It will be my last act of kindness before the end. Tomorrow I will pay a visit to—
“Well, Jane,” Eliza said from the doorway, “I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. Anne was all that was frank with me — and I flatter myself I learned a good deal more than I gave away! You will never guess from whom she had the Princess’s jewels! It was not her husband at all. It was that little Bird of Paradise—”
“Julia Radcliffe,” I concluded.
Chapter 21
The Opera Singer’s Tale
Saturday, 27 April 1811, cont.
“YOU KNOW, JANE, THAT I CAN NEVER ENDURE A friend’s misery, without feeling miserable myself,” Eliza said as she drew up a chair to the oak work table — seeming as much at home as tho’ she actually comprehended the art of cookery, rather than being the most helpless creature in a kitchen I have ever encountered. “It is so dreadfully affecting to see one’s oldest friend quite undone by the fear of age, and all the natural affection for her son that one should expect her to feel — particularly when one has lost a child oneself! I declare I was made quite as miserable as Anne, when I had heard the whole, and only the recollection of the esteem in which dear Henry holds me — and the perfect manners he never fails to exhibit, whatever larks he may get up to in my absence — could return me to a sense of happiness again.”