Jane and His Lordship's Legacy Read Online Free
Author: Stephanie Barron
Austen.”
“My compliments, ma’am,” he replied, “but I need not disturb you further. It is Miss Jane Austen I seek. Is she at leisure to receive me?”
Chapter 3
A Contested Provision
4 July 1809, cont.
~
“I AM M ISS A USTEN, ”I ANSWERED, IN SOME BEWILDERMENT.
“Bartholomew Chizzlewit, of Lincoln’s Inn, at your service, ma’am.” 1 The elderly gentleman bowed low. “I must beg the indulgence of perhaps half an hour of your time, on a pressing matter of business that has already been delayed some months.”
“A matter of business, sir?” I repeated. I could claim no business in the world, save the arrangement of domestic affairs too inconsequential to be of concern to such a man.
“Indeed. A matter of so delicate a nature, ma’am, that I must demand complete and uninterrupted privacy”—at this, his gaze shifted narrowly to my mother’s countenance—“for the discharging of my trust.”
An instant of silence followed this declaration, as my mother attempted to make sense of it and I considered the disorder of unpacking that was everywhere evident within the cottage. How was I to even attempt a
tête-à-tête
?
“I am putting up at the Swan in Alton,” the attorney added firmly, consulting a pocket watch, “and have ordered my dinner for precisely six o’clock. If you find you are unable to accommodate me today, Miss Austen, I must beg you to wait upon me in Alton tomorrow morning, well in advance of my intended departure for London, which I anticipate occurring at ten o’clock. I may add that I am unaccustomed to brooking delay.”
“Extraordinary behaviour!” Mr. Prowting exclaimed. “You can have not the slightest pretension to these ladies’ consideration, sirrah, much less the freedom to demand the terms of your admittance to their household.”
“Sir,” Chizzlewit declared in a voice rich with contempt, “I neither know nor care whom you might be, but I must emphatically state that a man of your obviously rustic experience and modest station can claim no influence with the representative of the noble and most puissant house of His Grace the Duke of Wilborough, whose forebears and heirs I have had the honour to serve as solicitor these sixty years and more.”
“Wilborough?”
my mother cried in startled accents. “Good Lord, Jane—has the Rogue left you something after all? I should not have believed it possible! That a gentleman—even one of Lord Harold’s unsavoury reputation—should offer the insult of monetary consideration to one whose reputation he has already sullied beyond repair—”
“Mamma,” I said firmly, “I believe I should receive Mr. Chizzlewit and learn the burden of his news. I shall require the use of the dining parlour for an interval. You might walk in the direction of the Great House before dinner—and observe whether the tenant, Mr. Middleton, is entirely worthy of my brother’s trust.”
“But my dear Miss Austen—” Mr. Prowting protested. “A young lady of your sensibility—”
“I am nearly four-and-thirty years of age, good sir, and feel not the slightest anxiety at receiving so respectable a person as Mr. Chizzlewit. Would you be very good—and attend my mother on her walk?”
I F THE SERVANT OF THE NOBLE AND MOST PUISSANT HOUSE of Wilborough was dismayed by the surroundings in which he presently found himself, he did not betray his discomfiture. I seated myself on one of my mother’s straight-backed chairs and waited while Mr. Chizzlewit disposed himself in another. With a wordless gesture of his right hand, he had ordered his minions to follow him; they set the curiously-carved chest on the dining-parlour floor and then retreated impassively to await their master’s pleasure.
“I have it on the very best authority, Miss Austen, that your understanding is excellent,” he began, “and therefore I shall not sport with your patience. Under the terms of the late Lord Harold Trowbridge’s Last
“My compliments, ma’am,” he replied, “but I need not disturb you further. It is Miss Jane Austen I seek. Is she at leisure to receive me?”
Chapter 3
A Contested Provision
4 July 1809, cont.
~
“I AM M ISS A USTEN, ”I ANSWERED, IN SOME BEWILDERMENT.
“Bartholomew Chizzlewit, of Lincoln’s Inn, at your service, ma’am.” 1 The elderly gentleman bowed low. “I must beg the indulgence of perhaps half an hour of your time, on a pressing matter of business that has already been delayed some months.”
“A matter of business, sir?” I repeated. I could claim no business in the world, save the arrangement of domestic affairs too inconsequential to be of concern to such a man.
“Indeed. A matter of so delicate a nature, ma’am, that I must demand complete and uninterrupted privacy”—at this, his gaze shifted narrowly to my mother’s countenance—“for the discharging of my trust.”
An instant of silence followed this declaration, as my mother attempted to make sense of it and I considered the disorder of unpacking that was everywhere evident within the cottage. How was I to even attempt a
tête-à-tête
?
“I am putting up at the Swan in Alton,” the attorney added firmly, consulting a pocket watch, “and have ordered my dinner for precisely six o’clock. If you find you are unable to accommodate me today, Miss Austen, I must beg you to wait upon me in Alton tomorrow morning, well in advance of my intended departure for London, which I anticipate occurring at ten o’clock. I may add that I am unaccustomed to brooking delay.”
“Extraordinary behaviour!” Mr. Prowting exclaimed. “You can have not the slightest pretension to these ladies’ consideration, sirrah, much less the freedom to demand the terms of your admittance to their household.”
“Sir,” Chizzlewit declared in a voice rich with contempt, “I neither know nor care whom you might be, but I must emphatically state that a man of your obviously rustic experience and modest station can claim no influence with the representative of the noble and most puissant house of His Grace the Duke of Wilborough, whose forebears and heirs I have had the honour to serve as solicitor these sixty years and more.”
“Wilborough?”
my mother cried in startled accents. “Good Lord, Jane—has the Rogue left you something after all? I should not have believed it possible! That a gentleman—even one of Lord Harold’s unsavoury reputation—should offer the insult of monetary consideration to one whose reputation he has already sullied beyond repair—”
“Mamma,” I said firmly, “I believe I should receive Mr. Chizzlewit and learn the burden of his news. I shall require the use of the dining parlour for an interval. You might walk in the direction of the Great House before dinner—and observe whether the tenant, Mr. Middleton, is entirely worthy of my brother’s trust.”
“But my dear Miss Austen—” Mr. Prowting protested. “A young lady of your sensibility—”
“I am nearly four-and-thirty years of age, good sir, and feel not the slightest anxiety at receiving so respectable a person as Mr. Chizzlewit. Would you be very good—and attend my mother on her walk?”
I F THE SERVANT OF THE NOBLE AND MOST PUISSANT HOUSE of Wilborough was dismayed by the surroundings in which he presently found himself, he did not betray his discomfiture. I seated myself on one of my mother’s straight-backed chairs and waited while Mr. Chizzlewit disposed himself in another. With a wordless gesture of his right hand, he had ordered his minions to follow him; they set the curiously-carved chest on the dining-parlour floor and then retreated impassively to await their master’s pleasure.
“I have it on the very best authority, Miss Austen, that your understanding is excellent,” he began, “and therefore I shall not sport with your patience. Under the terms of the late Lord Harold Trowbridge’s Last
Readers choose
Christina Brooke
Carey Heywood
Bradford Bates
Monica Dickens
Ron Carlson
Yasunari Kawabata
Jasper Fforde
Thornton Wilder
Rhys Hughes
Carly Carson