Page 33 of Searching for Mr Tilney

It was impossible to see at first. The room was pitch black as we entered, and as Mrs Edwards said we should hold still for a moment for fear of knocking into some precious object, I was aware of the blood thumping through my veins, and my heart beating through the thin fabric of my dress. It was difficult to understand why I was feeling so uneasy, but I’d felt anxious almost as soon as we entered the house. I was beginning to feel guilty that I’d not told anyone that I was coming here, and the way I’d behaved on the journey was making me feel as if there was a part of my character I didn’t know existed inside me before. I’d craved adventure, and had felt daring and bold. I’d wanted to break all the rules, run wild, and with the kind of abandonment I’d never known before. But now, I felt a determined disinclination for any further escapade, I was feeling ashamed of my behaviour, and wished I’d not agreed to come at all.

Mrs Edwards was not at all the kind of housekeeper I was familiar with - I could not imagine my mother exchanging any conversation with a woman who exhibited such a coarseness of manner. The way she’d looked at me with a gleam in her eyes as she’d described me as Thomas’s sweetheart, and the casual manner in which she’d discussed the pleasure in the nakedness of her mistress disturbed me. I could not describe it, but there was an atmosphere in the house I did not like - I felt uncomfortable in the suffocating room, and completely ill at ease.

I wished Thomas was by my side, but he’d gone into the room before me, and it was impossible to see where he stood. I thought, at first, it must have been my imagination, but the sense that we were not alone was very strong, as I stared into the darkness trying to make out any object. In a second I felt as if someone were standing immediately behind me. I felt cool breath like a sigh on my neck, which made me shiver, and a sudden hiss in my ear, making my heart leap, and my head whip round. I was sure Thomas must be playing a trick on me, but then I heard him call my name, and I realised he was too far away to have been the culprit.

When Mrs Edwards pulled back the large drapes at the windows, light flooded the room, and the sense of those other-worldly beings scuttling away like beetles to lurk in other dismal corners filled me with relief. I couldn’t think what was the matter with me, but the ancient house felt as if the shadows it contained would consume me. I longed to tell Thomas, but I thought he might laugh at me. He didn’t look in the least bothered by the house or by Mrs Edward’s teasing, and then I couldn’t help thinking he’d be justified in finding me amusing. My imagination was running away with me.

I couldn’t help remembering the tale about La Baccelli scandalising society by wearing the Sackville jewels at a ball in the house, and knew this was the very room where she’d danced with her duke as she sparkled in diamonds. I could imagine the fine company standing by the huge window like bejewelled peacocks as they cooled down after a vigorous dance, and the moonlight filtering through to silver every precious object and painting. On one side of the magnificent marble chimneypiece next to a row of old family pictures was a portrait that particularly stood out.

‘And that,’ said Mrs Edwards, pointing to it, ‘is my master as a young man - and a very good likeness of him too. Do you not think him very handsome?’

The Duke of Dorset’s portrait was undeniably striking - he was a very good-looking gentleman. I couldn’t help thinking about the statue of Madame Baccelli, in contrast to this portrait of a gentleman richly clothed from head to toe.

‘You’ll see a more up-to-date picture as we go along, and a fine one of my mistress,’ the housekeeper added, pausing to straighten a gilt armchair, carved with cherubs’ heads and swags of foliage. I wondered if Madame Baccelli would be fully clothed in her portrait.

It was a short step to the gallery with its rows of gilded portraits from another age lining the dark, panelled walls.

‘Did you ever see such a set of frights?’ said Mrs Edwards and laughed again, though it wasn’t a happy sound, more like a witch’s cackle, I decided, sounding menacing in the gloom of the passageway. I looked back at the unsmiling faces. I could feel their eyes boring into mine from garlanded frames as they followed our progress along the gallery. Once again I felt troubled and apprehensive - as if the very portraits on the walls were saying I didn’t belong there and I was unwelcome.

We were shown many rooms, richly furnished, each leading from one to another in a building where the age and history of all that had happened there seemed to press around us. And then we turned into a room where the walls were blood red, lined with crimson velvet, and covered in large pictures.

‘Here are Mr Reynolds’ paintings,’ said Mrs Edwards. ‘The Duke of Dorset is a great collector of his work, especially his fancy pictures. I don’t hold with all of them, myself, but he can certainly paint.’

Thomas pointed out the picture of Wang-y-Tong, the Chinese page he’d told me about, and I could see instantly why Thomas had liked him so much. He had a gentle expression, if a melancholy air about him. Looking into the distance, I wondered if he’d been dreaming of his home, as he sat for his portrait, and the friends and family he’d left behind.

‘Oh, that’s Warnaton, that’s what we servants called him,’ said Mrs Edwards, ‘the mistress still misses him terribly. He was always such good company for her when the duke was away, and such a clever boy, always top of his class at school.’

‘Look here, Jane,’ said Thomas showing me another picture of a learned looking man with dark hair, heavy brows and generous lips. ‘I think you’ll be interested in this one. It’s Dr Johnson.’

‘Oh yes,’ I cried, stepping forward to examine it closer. ‘I’m a great admirer of Dr Johnson’s writing, though he looks a little stern here, as if anxious to explain his point of view.’

‘And that’s a very striking painting,’ Thomas dashed along, pointing to another one on the opposite side of the room. ‘It shows Count Ugolino and his sons in the Dungeon at Pisa.’

‘Oh, from Dante’s Inferno,’ I cried, and saw the awful expression on the father’s face as he realised with horror that he’d been sealed into the dungeon. ‘It’s perfectly horrid … I cannot imagine why anyone would want to paint such a distressing subject or have any pleasure in looking at it.’

‘There seems to be a macabre theme running through many of the works in this room, don’t you think? Look at this one of the gipsy telling the young girl’s fortune, while she sits on her lover’s knees. What have you to say about that one?’

I spoke without reserve. ‘I think she’s being told she will soon be his wife, but how can she laugh and look so pleased, without knowing what marriage entails? I do not like the way the boy restrains her, as if he has possession of her young soul. She cannot see that is how her life with him will be. Oh, Thomas, it is such an unsettling picture … I cannot like it.’

The heat in the dark room felt suddenly oppressive, and the paintings seemed to crowd and swim above my head in a sea of vermillion. So many faces were staring back at me - leering, and laughing, as if they were capable of coming to life and living a secret existence as soon as we disappeared. There were other paintings - disturbing pictures of children - poor wretches in ragged clothes - Mercury as a cut-purse in a winged hat with a miserable, menacing expression, and Cupid who was equally pitiful, dressed as a link-boy with sooty bat’s wings, and a smoking black torch, set against a city landscape - both pictures far more sinister in my eyes than any other paintings in the room.

I’d heard stories my father told, when he thought I wasn’t listening, about how his sister Aunt Philadelphia had had to keep her wits about her as a child when she was apprenticed to a milliner in Covent Garden. The respectable trade of millinery, he’d said, was often used as a front to hide other reprehensible activities going on in the rooms above. The fate of the very young and vulnerable, the poorest in society, often desperate for money and food, were all too easily drawn into a world of vice. Aunt Phila was removed from her situation and London, only to be sent to India to find a husband thanks to G-U-F. Her personal attractions soon gained her one, yet I am certain it was never a love match, and it could be said she ended up selling her beauty and youth in exchange for what’s deemed a respectable life. But, it was frightening to think of the alternative that might have been her fate. I could not begin to imagine what she might have suffered in order to survive.

I started to feel quite ill as I looked at the pictures blurring before my eyes, and thought I would faint. The effects of the spruce beer, far from over, seemed to have gathered in strength and potency.

‘Jane, are you feeling quite well? You are very pale,’ said Thomas. I began to say I wasn’t feeling my best when we heard the heavy tread of footsteps approaching along the wooden boards beyond in the corridor, and as we waited to see whom it could be, I couldn’t help thinking we might be in trouble. Had someone discovered we’d taken the key and were here by stealth? The sound pounded in my ears, getting louder with every step, until I felt myself holding my breath. When it finally stopped, the tall figure of a gentleman stood in the doorway blocking out the light. Even so, I recognised him instantly from his painting, and though he looked older than his portrait, he would still be called very handsome. It was the Duke of Dorset!

I felt frozen to the spot, and couldn’t think what to do. I saw Thomas bow, and the housekeeper curtsey, and when I got my wits back I immediately did the same. The next moment, the duke crossed the room, his unsmiling expression completely changed, and he was ruffling Thomas’s hair with all the informality of a congenial uncle. He turned to me at last.

‘And what do we have here, a pretty plaything for Master Thomas?’

I looked up to meet his terrible gaze, a look that penetrated my very being. I lowered my eyes, and curtseyed again, but his fingers hooked under my chin and he raised my head so I was forced to look at him.

‘Your Grace, may I present my cousin, Miss Jane Austen of Hampshire,’ said Thomas.

He made me sound so grand, I might ordinarily have been inclined to giggle, but I was caught like a bird in a trap, and could not move, think or act.

‘What a pretty little cousin,’ the duke said. His voice was very soft, as a finger tickled the soft flesh under my jaw. ‘I should guess she is about your age, Thomas, and just about ready to fall in love with you. Ah, such a perfect age, the sweet rewards of youth are unsurpassed.’