THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF MISS JANE TOBIAS

Part One

Of all the strange stories that followed the restoration of English Magic, it has been said by some that none was more sad or tragic than that of Miss Jane Tobias and none was a greater loss to magic. Her great erudition, her translations of ancient texts, her forceful arguments for that which she called ‘Women’s Magic’ had all assured her rise to prominence within the fledgling magical community and a great future was expected from this tall, stern woman. It therefore seemed all the more extraordinary when, in the summer of 1819, news of her inexplicable death circulated through the magical press.

It became apparent then that although her name was known to all and the tall, spare figure known to a significant few, the woman, the person behind that name was known to none. Not even her closest friends could name the town in which she was born or list any significant event in her life before their acquaintance with her. She had, it seemed, neither antecedents nor descendants and so was buried where she had lived, in the little village of Grace Adieu, and it was noted at the short but poignant ceremony that not a single member of her family, not mother, nor cousin, nor aged aunt was present either in the church or beside the open grave. Her two friends, Miss Parbringer and Mrs Field escorted the coffin to its final resting place and the two girls, Miss Ursula and Miss Flora who had been her pupils and wards at the strange old house of Winter’s Realm laid flowers upon her bier. The rest of the village, out in force for the spectacle, merely watched, undeterred by the soft summer rain that fell from a weeping sky.

By the time the sad news became known outside the confines of Grace Adieu Miss Tobias had been ensconced in her eternal rest for quite some time, but the visitors that arrived throughout that autumn and winter to investigate the mysterious life and inexplicable death of Miss Tobias found a warm welcome at the inn and villagers who were more than willing to talk. In this way, as coins passed in one direction across the bar and beer passed the other, they learned that Miss Tobias, although a favourite with her two charges had always seemed to set herself above the rest of the village. Even before her notoriety as a female magician she had been known as a blue stocking, an intellectual determined to raise herself above the natural station of women and who seemed bent upon raising her two charges likewise. Latin, it appeared, was her greatest crime, and, if the gossips were to be believed, the root cause of all that came after. “Too clever by half” was a phrase often repeated along with “never married” and “spinster”, invariably accompanied by nods and winks concerning “women of a certain age”. There were also rumours concerning a dark, thin man who had been present at Winter’s Realm in the weeks leading up to her death, a man who had appeared out of the darkness one rainy night and disappeared just as mysteriously some weeks later leaving only a legacy of rumours concerning secret trysts, heart break and even murder. That no one had spoken to this man, and only a single servant at Winter’s Realm claimed to have seen him did not detract in the slightest from the pleasure obtained in the telling and retelling of these increasingly elaborate and fanciful stories.

However, as the investigators were soon to discover, none of this shed any light upon the central mystery of why it was that the body of Miss Jane Tobias was found at dawn on Midsummer Day sprawled naked upon a hill top, as pale and as graceful as a swan, not a mark upon her nor any sign of how she had met her end. Furthermore, there was no sign of how she had come to be there, no footsteps breaking the morning dew upon the grass, no mud nor soil upon her naked feet. The servants at Winter’s Realm had seen her late the previous night writing in the library as was her wont and the maid who was first to rise that next, fateful morning swore that Miss Tobias had still been there when she had entered to light the fire just before the dawn light broke, her head bowed above her books. The farmers and other early risers of the local insisted that they had seen no woman walking the lanes in the early hours and declared to all who would listen that naked or clothed they would have noted such a thing. And that too was a mystery, it seemed impossible that she had walked naked to the hill but the servants who attended to such things as laundry and ironing swore that none of her clothes were missing, and anyway, none had been found in the vicinity of the body. It seemed that Miss Jane Tobias, an unmarried woman of a certain age, had appeared upon the summit of Meon Hill and simply ceased to live. In the end the mystery had been too much and it had been decided that she was dead and that there was nothing to be done or said about the matter, and so she was buried in the little church yard in Grace Adieu with the whole village in attendance but only four mourners.

This then was the sum total of knowledge concerning the death of Jane Tobias and no questioning of the ignorant by the curious could elicit more. The woman once hailed as “Catherine of Winchester come again” was dead, her promise unfulfilled, her work unfinished, as enigmatic in death as she had been in life. The only information of significance that could be gleaned was that Miss Parbringer and Mrs Field might know more, but these two ladies maintained a stony silence and would speak to no one.

Part Two

As the winter of 1819 became the spring of 1820 the magical press began to forget the mysterious death of Jane Tobias; her legacy, they said, lay in her published works and it was for these that she should be remembered and not for the indignity of her passing. There were two however, who did not forget, even as the gossip died away in Grace Adieu, being replaced by other provincial scandals and rumours, Miss Parbringer and Mrs Field kept vigil for their friend through the long dark nights. As Mr Field dozed before the fire, they told and retold remembrances of Jane, keeping her presence alive amongst them.

“She was the best of us,” sighed Mrs Field one night as the fire burned low.

“The cleverest, certainly,” replied Cassandra Parbringer. “Even the male magicians have to bow to her superior scholarship. She has shown that a woman is the equal of any man. I do believe that if Mr Strange and Mr Norrell were returned from the prison of their eternal darkness they too would have to admit that Jane was their equal.”

Mrs Field nodded. “She was the best of us,” She repeated, and then reaching out to Miss Parbringer asked as she had many times before. “But Cassandra, my dear, where is she? Where did she go? Surely she cannot be dead!”

Cassandra Parbringer patted Mrs Field’s hand as she always did. “Do you not remember the way she spoke in those last months, of how she would enter the very citadel of the Raven King and explore the King’s Roads with her own feet? Did she not warn us that she would leave?”

Mrs Field nodded her agreement. Yes, she said, poor Jane had indeed said all those things, but still she doubted. “How can we be sure?” she asked. “These past months I have known not whether to weep for poor lost Jane or to be glad for her. I know only to be sad for myself!” She dabbed her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “And what of the man? The tall, dark man they say was with her near the end. What of him?”

Cassandra curled her lip. “Indeed, what of him? What could some man have done to our Jane? Those poor fools, those doctors, those magistrates, they could not even tell that poor sham thing on the hill from our lovely Jane. My dear Mrs Field, do not let thoughts of men trouble you.”

Still Mrs Field sighed and dabbed at her eyes until Miss Parbringer smiled and took her hand. “Do you remember,” She asked, “all those years ago when Mr Strange came to Grace Adieu to see if I was a fit wife for Mr Woodhope?”

Mrs Field nodded, and smiled, and finally laughed at the memory. “What must he have thought?”

“He thought we had bested him,” Cassandra replied with a toss of her head. “Do you recall the dream he told us and how he dreamt such a thing? Well then, give me the curl of Jane’s hair that you keep in your locket and tonight I will sleep with it beneath my pillow and I will see what might be seen.”

The following day at breakfast Miss Parbringer had a secret smile for her friend and confidant but Mrs Field had to wait some little time until they could get out of the house and be alone together, for as Miss Parbringer noted it would not do for Mr Field to fall asleep so early in the day. Hurrying from the house soon after breakfast they made their way to the churchyard to place spring flowers upon their friend’s grave.

Still smiling her secret smile Cassandra Parbringer laid a purple crocus upon the green mound. “I worked!” She whispered. “Did I not tell you? What ever Mr Strange can do, we can do better.”

Mrs Field placed a blue periwinkle across the stem of the crocus. “Tell me,” she whispered.

And so Cassandra did. “Last night, “she said, “when I retired to bed I took the hair from the locket and kissed it, begging Jane to come to me in my dreams. Then I placed the hair below the pillow and my head upon it; and then I slept, and then I dreamed. In my dream Jane came to me, as beautiful as ever she was but as I had never seen her before, stars shone in her hair, she was wrapped in a cloak made from the feathers of owls, and her eyes were bright and staring as though she looked upon sights withheld from mortals. She kissed me, took me by the hand, and led me to Winter’s Realm, her bare feet treading the paths we knew so well. Taking me first to the library she showed me a sheet of paper laid there upon the table. As I watched, her hand pointed and words appeared upon it, drawn in letters of blue fire flowing across its surface as though written by an unseen hand. The words that I read were from Thomas Lanchester ‘Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the other lands.’” She glanced up and smiled at her friend. “Do you see?” she asked, placing a pale feather on the grass beneath the flowers.

Mrs Field nodded, crossing the pale feather with a black one. “Do go on, Cassandra.”

“Well then,” Miss Parbringer continued, “Jane took my hand once more and led me back through the dark and dusty passageways, taking me back to that one special place, that one particular corridor. You will know the one I mean.”

“Where she saw…”

“Indeed. She took me there and as I watched it seemed to me that she glowed, as though the light of another world shone upon her. Then, as she said aloud the words of the Yorkshire game, the words she always spoke into the darkness; ‘I greet thee lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart’, she opened wide her arms, spreading the cloak around her like the wings of a giant bird. And then…well…then she was gone.”

Cassandra Parbringer gave a deep sigh and fell silent. After a long moment she reached out and laid a round, white stone at the junction of the two feathers before glancing up to see a single tear roll down Mrs Field’s face. She kissed it away and the two friends held hands across the grave and the pattern they had made.