Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“Her … correspondence?” Mr. Emilious repeated, with a swift glance at Mr. Sothey. “You have had occasion to look into the lady's letters?”

“Any number,” Neddie said airily, “and the names found within it should astonish the neighbourhood, I may assure you!”

“Then I hope you will take care, my dear sir, that they never come to light.” Mr. Emilious held my brother's gaze quite steadily. “From what little I know of Mrs. Grey, I am certain she can have said nothing flattering of her acquaintance.”

“Then she merely returned a common favour,” Lizzy observed idly, “for they certainly had nothing good to say of her.”

“Upon my word, Mr. Austen — the ladies will think us decidedly dull,” Mr. Emilious cried, with a gallant look for Lizzy. “All this talk of dusty matters had better be confined to the Port, had it not? We were charmed to see you at Eastwell, Mrs. Austen, on Friday evening; you have been too chary in your visits altogether.”

“Lady Elizabeth shall wish me at the ends of the earth, sir, do I succeed in wresting her improver from her grasp,” Lizzy rejoined. “I rather wonder at her allowing you to ride over to Godmersham at all, Mr. Sothey! — But perhaps she sent Mr. Finch-Hatton as a sort of surety against your return. Are you charged with bringing Mr. Sothey to Eastwell unharmed, sir, and well before dawn?”

“Unharmed,” Mr. Emilious replied, “but not, I hope, before dawn. Mr. Sothey has so much delight in Godmersham, dear madam, that were it not for a delicacy in appearing forward, I am sure he should express his wish to continue sketching tomorrow.”

Mr. Sothey looked sharply at his friend, but said nothing. Lizzy instantly took the hint, and invited them both to stay the night — protested that it should prove not the slightest trouble — the rooms were already made up; and was so gracious in her assurances, and so frank in her delight, that the two men accepted with alacrity. I wondered, as I observed them, how Miss Sharpe should find the addition — but as the governess had held firm to her intention of remaining above stairs, I was denied the chance to observe her.

Anne Sharpe's poor history had paled in comparison, however, with the suspicions now alive against Mr. Sothey and his companion; and I must wonder whether Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton had another object in prolonging his stay, than the improvement of my brother's estate. That Neddie assumed as much — that he had indeed incited the event with his careless talk of letters and names — I read in the studied blandness of his looks; and vowed to sit wakeful far into the night, that I might be witness to everything that should come to pass.

IT WAS NEARLY TWO O'CLOCK, AND THE HOUSE HAD BEEN abed some three hours, when a sound in the gallery outside my door alerted all my senses. It was the hesitant, muffled, and quite obvious fall of footsteps along the drugget — footsteps that endeavoured to disguise their passage, and yet could not avoid the creaking board or the impact of an occasional chair leg. They came from the end of the wing just beyond my Yellow Room; Mr. Sothey had been housed there, with Mr. Emilious opposite. Had I been possessed of cunning, as I now assumed these two to be, I should have descended by the back stair, which depended from the opposite end of the hallway; but as the gentlemen were unfamiliar with the house, they might prefer to go as they had come — by the main staircase opposite Neddie's door.

I waited until the footsteps should have passed, and then threw back my bedclothes and moved as soundlessly as possible to the chair by my door. I put on my dressing-gown and reached for the knob. Another instant, and the doorway yawned wide — I peered out, scarcely breathing, and surveyed the gallery. It was empty of life. Whoever had passed must be presently upon the stairs.

One foot forward, and then another; and at length I had achieved the end of the hall. I must be admitted as possessing an advantage, in having traversed it a thousand times before. Not for me the trespass on a weak board, that should alert my quarry to pursuit. I peered down into the sweeping dimness of the stfirs, and glimpsed a single figure bobbing hesitantly before me in the dark — a woman, fully dressed and bonneted, and carrying a satchel. It must be, it could not be other than, Anne Sharpe.

I abandoned caution, and hastened down the stairs in her wake. She turned, and uttered a little cry that was as swiftly stifled by a hand to her mouth. Then she sped rapidly down the remaining stairs.

“Miss Sharpe!” I trained my voice to a whisper, but the words issued forth with all the violence of a shot in the echoing expanse of the marble-floored front hall. She was but a few feet away from me now, and intent upon the front door. As she struggled with the bolts, glancing half-fearfully over her shoulder, I reached her side.

“Whatever can you be thinking of, my dear? To walk abroad in the dead of night, without a single friend to bear you company? You are certainly in the grip of a fit,” I told her firmly, and closed my hand over her own. “Come sit down upon this bench, and tell me what you are about.”

“Why, for the love of God, can not you leave me alone?” she cried. “But for you, I should have been comfortably away! Away — from all that is painful, from—”

“Julian Sothey?”

“Mr. Sothey is nothing to me, Miss Austen. You quite mistake the matter, I assure you.”

“Nothing to you now , perhaps. But I think there was a time when he was very dear, indeed.”

She went limp, and allowed me to lead her towards one of the little damask benches that lined the entry hall. There she sat down and threw her head in her hands.

“You met at Weymouth and I suppose you fell in love with him there. Did you know that he was in Kent when you accepted the position at Godmersham?”

She nodded helplessly. “We had agreed to a secret engagement, and corresponded faithfully. I used to walk out on the morning a letter was expected, and intercept it in the post. I did not think that Mrs. Austen would look kindly on such a predisposition.”

“It bore too much of an affinity for intrigue — yes, I see how it was. And I suppose you met with Mr. Sothey, in the stableyard at The Larches, when Mrs. Grey was abroad?”

Her head came up at that, and a band of moonlight cut across her face. I read the look of shock in her countenance. “I, meet Julian in the stables at The Larches? However can you have devised such a notion, Miss Austen?”

“You did not sometimes visit him there?”

“How should I, who have no mount at my disposal, and am not a great walker, have travelled all that distance? It is above six miles! Impossible! I have never been nearer to The Larches than the Canterbury race grounds; indeed, I never had occasion to observe Mrs. Grey herself, until—” She faltered.

“Until the lady brought her whip down upon the neck of your betrothed,” I concluded grimly, “and you knew in an instant that the greatest intimacy must subsist between them. Or feared as much.”

“Feared — knew — I cannot tell you which,” she replied wretchedly. “I may only say that the most powerful conviction of betrayal then overcame me — and with it, a dreadful sense of shame. I had been treated lightly by a man I thought worthy of my love, and knew myself for a fool.”

“Mr. Sothey saw you on that morning, I collect?”

“Our eyes met across the race grounds. You must recall that he was positioned in such a manner that his figure must be visible to our party; seated in the Austen barouche, I was similarly exposed to his sight. We had not met in over a year, Miss Austen; and at my first glimpse of him, what joy! — to be overcome, so suddenly, by a passion akin almost to hatred.”