“I am sure it is all a dreadful error,” Jane said, going over to comfort her aunt.
“Ladies,” Travers said, addressing the Misses Welles and Austen, “please present your reticules at the counter.”
The young women anxiously handed over their purses for inspection.
“It is worse than I had thought!” the milliner exclaimed as his nimble boy reentered the shop with a huffing Constable Mawl in tow. He brandished a mother-of-pearl-backed tortoiseshell hair comb and two jeweled hatpins, which he had fished out of Miss Austen’s reticule. Both young ladies gasped. Had Mrs. Leigh-Perrot been surprised, she would have looked at the items with shock, and not turned away from them.
Mr. Travers displayed the contraband before the constable.
“Now, where did this one come from?” asked Mawl, pinching the length of lace between dirty thumb and forefinger as though it were a bit of disgusting cobweb.
The milliner blanched when he saw the grimy thumbprint on his unpaid-for wares. “That would be from the madam’s purse,” he replied disdainfully. “And the hatpins and the comb were found in the reticule belonging to the young lady,” he indicated, pointing a pale finger at Jane, who stood trembling in the center of the floor at an uncharacteristic loss for words.
Mawl pawed through the delicate items, muttering figures aloud. He dangled the yard of lace before the anxious face of Mrs. Leigh-Perrot. “How much does this bit of fluff go for, Mr. Travers?”
“A threepenny bit to the yard, Constable,” replied the milliner. “Irish lace is tuppence to the yard, but the goods we get from France and Belgium, now that’s a horse of a different—”
“I’m not concerned with horses and laces, Mr. Travers. I’m concerned with cost. Now, madam, as this bit here costs less than a shilling, you’re a lucky woman. More’n a shilling could get you fourteen years in Botany Bay, as you might remember, mum, from a little incident not much more’n a year ago. You won’t be transported to Australia for this offense, but you will have to appear at the next assizes, at which the magistrate will determine your fine. I am writing up a warrant,” he said, removing an official-looking leatherbound book from his coat pocket. “I warn you, though,” he added, poking a finger at Mrs. Leigh-Perrot’s nose, “if you fail to appear, your luck will change considerably.”
“Now you, missy,” he said, turning to address Jane, “I daresay you’d better be learning how to waltz Matilda to ‘The Bold Fusilier’ and consider that to be a stroke of good fortune. I have no need to ask the good Mr. Travers the sum total of these items, as I can safely assume that dainties like these,” he remarked, testing the sharpness of each hatpin, “cost a pretty penny.”
“They were imported from France,” interjected the shopkeeper, “before the hostilities.” He peered over at his own merchandise, currently being sullied by Mawl’s large paw, to gain a better inspection. “Let’s see . . . the one with the cabochon is . . .” He made a number of quick, muttered calculations. “All told, twelve pounds six.”
“What is yer name, miss?”
“Jane. Jane Austen, sir,” a pallid Miss Austen replied, her voice trembling.
“Miss Austen, the penalty for having stolen property this dear is death; but if yer lucky to know an influential barrister, you might get off with deportation to Australia and fourteen years hard labor there.”
Jane reached out her hand to steady herself on the mahogany-trimmed glass display case. It looked as though she might faint dead away at any moment.
“Of course, if your serjeant-at-law is a good-for-nothing, you’d never need to leave good English soil—that is, until yer feet left the ground!” He laughed raucously at his own joke, but his audience refused to appreciate the humor.
C.J.’s experience with the present system of jurisprudence, which had left her with the distinct impression that it operated on the presumption of guilt rather than that of innocence, compelled her to speak up for Jane. Not only was Miss Austen innocent of blame, for she would not possibly resort to petty thievery, but if she were adjudged guilty, the Jane Austen that the world would come to consider one of the greatest chroniclers of her age would never be born. The Jane Austen who stood before C.J. would either have her life cut short by a hemp necklace or would be forever altered by a sentence of several years’ hard labor in an Australian penal colony. She remembered reading that Mrs. Leigh-Perrot was something of a kleptomaniac who escaped such a sentence by the grace of formidable legal representation, as well as a number of character witnesses. And in Mrs. Leigh-Perrot’s case, her defense was aided by the disclosure that her accusers were notorious blackmailers. But what would happen to Jane if C.J. did not defend her?
“Miss Austen did not place the items in question in her reticule,” C.J. announced. “That is my reticule in which Mr. Travers found the hatpins and the comb.”
“Yours?” they all gasped.
Mawl squinted his beady eyes and focused on the self-proclaimed culprit. “You! I recognize you, now.” He smacked the side of his head with his huge hand. “You’re the lightfingers what stole the—”
Once C.J. realized where the constable was headed, she overlapped his speech, saying, “The ornaments in question are—”
Then Miss Austen interrupted. She started to say “mine indeed,” and fished in C.J.’s reticule for the money to pay for them, giving Mr. Travers the impression that Miss Austen’s actual reticule was C.J.’s purse.
But C.J. could not permit Jane to remain under any cloud of suspicion. “The items that you found in the reticule, Mr. Travers, are a most particular request from my invalid aunt, the Countess of Dalrymple. As she frequents your emporium with great regularity, I made the assumption—and now I fully comprehend the gravity of my error—that my
