Charles Malverley stared at me uncomprehend-ingly. “Who the Devil are you?”
“Consider me a friend of the Princess,” I said gently. “I think it is time, Mr. Malverley, that you told us all about the box.”
“The box?” he repeated, as tho’ stunned.
“The porcelain box, which the Comte d’Entraigues left by the Princess’s side, and which La Tscholikova had filled with your letters — the box that was not retrieved by the charley, or mentioned as evidence at the inquest. The Princess gave it into your keeping, did she not?”
“Yes,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I have it still. I suppose I must explain how it was.”
“SHE RANG THE BELL OF LORD CASTLEREAGH’S residence a little before five o’clock,” Malverley told us, sitting like one beaten in battle on the settee before the fire, “and I answered the summons. I thought it was his lordship, returned from a debauch without his key, and I did not wish the porter to find him thus — I had become accustomed to waiting up for his lordship, long after the household was gone to bed, in order to preserve his reputation as much as possible. There was no saying in what state Castlereagh might return — not even his valet should be allowed to see him, on such occasions.
“I went to the door, and discovered — when the bolts were thrown back — that I had erred, and my own indiscretion awaited me.”
“Princess Tscholikova.”
Malverley nodded. “She was thoroughly foxed— swaying as she stood — and she looked as tho’ she had traversed most of London in the interval between the Theatre Royal, where I had previously observed her, and this moment in Berkeley Square. ‘I loved you,’ she said. ‘I loved you. I would have died for you. And you regard me no more than a bit of refuse beneath a carriage wheel.’
“I feared she might set up a screeching in the street — that she would rouse the household, if not the entire square — and so I urged her to hush, and said I should be happy to discuss our acquaintance in my rooms at the Albany, if she would but call there in a few hours’ time — but she refused. She was quite resolute, quite calm; but she told me she had been to Russell Square — that she had learned everything of my sordid past I had not told her, and from the very one I should have wished none of my friends to know — Miss Radcliffe.”
Malverley’s eyes lifted malevolently. “Was it d’Entraigues who told the Princess your name, Julia? He bears the distinction of having enjoyed you both, I believe.”
“I shall worship the Fair Julia to my grave,” the Frenchman said simply. “But it is my son who has won the lady’s heart. Wisdom and experience, vous savez, must always give place to youth and beauty.”
Malverley smirked unpleasantly. “I fear that most of us must give way, where Julia is concerned; she has a habit of displacing one man for another — don’t you, my pet?”
Julien surged violently towards the Earl’s son, but Sylvester Chizzlewit seized his arm, and held him back.
“The porcelain box,” I reminded Malverley.
“She was clutching it,” Malverley went on. “When I told her I would see her that very day, at a proper hour, at the Albany or anywhere else she could name, she said — and I shall never forget the sound of her voice — It is too late. You have broken my heart before the world. You published my letters — sold them for a lie. Why, Charles? Why?”
“You could not explain, I imagine, that you hated Lord Castlereagh,” I observed in a matter-of-fact tone, “as much for his treatment of you — his lascivious nature — as for his policy. Was it in Paris you became a Buonapartist?”
Malverley regarded me steadily. “What kind of witch are you? How have you divined so much of my life, when I do not even know your name?”
“What did the Princess do then?”
“She threw the porcelain box at my feet. It shattered, of course. I was terrified of the noise — that she might rouse the household — and so I gathered up the wretched letters and slammed the door.”
“We discovered a fragment of one of them in the hackney that carried d’Entraigues and the Princess to Berkeley Square. But I wonder, Mr. Malverley, why you did not simply quit the Castlereagh household immediately, and escort Princess Tscholikova home? That should certainly have been one way of silencing her.”
The godlike countenance flushed. Malverley’s eyes darted towards the old Comte d’Entraigues, then to Sylvester Chizzlewit, but he did not answer. It was Eliza, oddly enough, who tumbled to the truth.
“Of course!” she said brightly, as tho’ a clever child at a parlour game on a winter’s evening. “The business that kept you in his lordship’s study for so many hours of the morning! Were you copying his private papers, perhaps? Perusing his memoranda— his letters — his despatches from the Regent? I must imagine he is a gentleman often consulted on government policy, for all that he is not yet returned to Cabinet. An excellent patron for a spy … such as yourself.”
Malverley rose, his eyes glittering. “I fear we are unacquainted, madam, and I will not even deign to answer you. Your insinuations are as false as they are impertinent; but happily, they do not bear on the matter at hand. I returned to pack up the necessary papers I had employed in answering his lordship’s correspondence, and threw my own — which Tscholikova had returned to me — on the study fire. It was then I heard the charley, old Bends, shouting murder from the street — and went to see what was amiss. I found her dead, as I have already told the coroner’s panel; and so I shall maintain to my final breath.”
There was a silence, as all those collected in the anteroom weighed Malverley’s words. It was possible that the wretched creature, disabused of every cherished notion of her lover’s worth and fidelity — the door slammed in her face — had indeed done herself a violence. I had an idea of her shivering in the cold of an April dawn, and of the desertion and essential bleakness of the square in that hour; the sharp fragments of porcelain gleaming whitely at her feet. Such a little thing, to reach down and seize the agent of her death — the agent of her peace, at last …
The remaining drapery was thrust aside, and William Skroggs stepped forward. “Mr. Charles Malverley, it is my duty to carry you before Sir Nathaniel Conant, of the Bow Street Magistracy, on suspicion of the murder of Princess Evgenia Tscholikova … ”
Chapter 31
End of the Season
Wednesday, 29 May 1811
AND SO I AM ESTABLISHED COMFORTABLY ONCE more in the sitting room at Chawton, where I may write my nonsense in peace at the Pembroke table, alerted to every advancing busybody by the squeak of the door-hinges. The countryside is in full bloom, the air is sweet, the considerations of each person in this village of so modest a nature, as to prevent the Kingdom’s survival from hanging upon them — tho’ equally consuming to the principals, as the Regent’s latest flirt must be to Him. I cannot regret anything I have left behind in London but the excellent society of Henry and Eliza, and the book room at Sloane Street, where I enjoyed so many hours in perusing Mr. Egerton’s typeset pages; even Mr. Chizzlewit is not entirely absent from my days, having adopted the habit of correspondence — in the guise of a respectful solicitor, regarding the affairs of a Lady Authoress. It was necessary to let him into the secret of Sense and Sensibility, as I foresee a time when I might require a smart young fellow’s offices in the matters of copyright, and payment.
I have received a missive from Mr. Chizzlewit’s chambers only this morning, in a packet of letters from London and Kent; Cassandra, who remains in the bosom of Edward’s family, having sent the news of that country — and Eliza offering a full two pages, crossed, of gossip concerning our mutual acquaintance in Hans Town. The Tilsons have determined to become advocates of the Evangelical reform of our Church of England, and have left off serving even ratafia at their suppers; Lord Moira is deeper than ever in debt, but betrays not the slightest knowledge of having mistaken Eliza for a Woman of the Town; Miss East has decided to write a novel of her own; and the d’Entraigueses are, for the moment at least, reconciled — the Comtesse having lost a fortune in jewels she might have sold, and the Comte his Julia Radcliffe.