Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“You shall have to enquire of Mr. Grey yourself,” Neddie replied, “for he did not think to tell me. That is, if you possess sufficient courage to meet with Mr. Grey.”

The older man shook his head sadly over his hunk of bread. “I assure you, Mr. Austen, that you have completely misjudged me. I had nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Grey's end; except, perhaps, in the precipitation of it. I was never so fortunate as to meet the lady.”

“Tho' you learned much of her, from your associate Mr. Sothey,” I supplied. “You had encountered him before, at George Canning's; perhaps he came to you in some distress, once he knew that he had fallen into the woman's power, and was being employed for her own devious purposes.”

“I, employed by Mrs. Grey?” Mr. Sothey interjected with a bitter laugh. “I fear, Miss Austen, that you have got it the wrong way round.”

I looked from the improver to Mr. Emilious, much struck. “You would mean to say, Mr. Sothey, that you went to The Larches nearly seven months ago, for the express purpose of observing Mrs. Grey?”

“It was for that Mr. Canning ensured my introduction to Grey. I was peculiarly suited to the task, Miss Austen, in being an improver of landscape; Mr. Grey, as you know, has a passion for his grounds, and as a result of his recent marriage, was determined to spend much of his time in Kent. Canning — who, in his capacity as Treasurer of the Navy, is charged with the administration of the Government's Secret Funds — had long suspected the nature of Grey's marriage. [58] The Secret Funds were monies voted annually by Parliament, and set aside for the government's use. No public inquiry as to their disposition was allowed; and while they were commonly used during the Napoleonic Wars for the payment of spies and the active sabotage of Bonaparte's government, in past eras the Secret Funds had defrayed the debts of royal mistresses, or purchased votes in corrupt parliamentary elections. — Editor's note. He believed the lady's family intended to use its influence with Grey to the detriment of the Kingdom's fortunes. You may well enquire how he came to believe this; let it suffice to say that Canning is familiar with the Comte de Penfleur these many years.”

“And so he sent you, Mr. Sothey, to spy on the Grey household.”

Anne Sharpe moaned softly, and covered her face with her hands. Mr. Sothey's countenance wore a fleeting look of pain; but he kept his eyes averted from his beloved. “He did. I had been in the employ of Mr. Canning for some time — ever since the end of peace had enforced my return from the Continent. [59] Sothey is presumably speaking of the period around May 1803, when the Treaty of Amiens between England and France was broken. — Editor's note. My reputation ensured my acceptance among the households of the Great; I was thus in a position to go anywhere, and see everyone. My work, I may say, has proved invaluable to Canning and his clandestine office.”

“Then at Weymouth—” Anne Sharpe began, with a desperate look.

“—at Weymouth I was charged with the cultivation of General Sir Thomas Porterman,” he concluded. “I was not charged with making love to his ward — of that you may be certain. It is to my own detriment, and that of my Government, that I have come to care for Miss Anne Sharpe so deeply; but I begin to think the difficulty will resolve itself, with time.” The bitterness had only deepened in Mr. Sothey's voice; he certainly believed the governess was lost to him.

“Do you mean to say,” my brother enquired, “that the entire seven months you were resident at The Larches, you were working upon the lady of the house? — Endeavouring to win her trust, with the object of defeating the Comte de Penfleur?”

“How succinctly you put things, Mr. Austen, to be sure,” Mr. Emilious returned. “Sothey was charged with winning the lady's confidence, and with supplying her with some information that was … shall we say, less than accurate. Mrs. Grey became Canning's most useful channel for the confusion of the enemy; for her sources were so varied, in comprising half the county, and yet so much in conflict with one another, that the Comte could hardly determine which intelligence to credit, and which to discount. Sothey's being so much a friend to Mr. Grey, and so clearly in his confidence, must argue assurance in his regard; whereas the more suspect among the group — such as Denys Collingforth, a desperate man, and Lady Forbes, a very silly woman — might be dismissed. However much truth they managed to convey.”

“I must congratulate you on a certain brilliance in your conduct, Sothey,” my brother said. “It defies belief. And Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton, I presume, is your superior in Canning's line?”

“Call me colleague, rather,” Mr. Emilious said, “and I am satisfied. Certainly I should never have trespassed so long upon my brother's generosity, by remaining at East-well, had not Sothey required the possibility of a bolt-hole. Should the need of quitting The Larches arise, I was to be depended upon. And in the meanwhile, I may say that I served as his occasional counsel. Little that Mrs. Grey had under contemplation was unknown to me.”

“But to what end?” I broke in. “The matter of Spanish lace?”

Both men stared, then looked at one another in perplexity. “Spanish lace?”

“That is what the Comte de Penfleur was wont to call it. Neddie and I assumed it referred to considerable monies, of which the French government is in daily expectation. We understood from the letters that Mr. Grey was to be influenced by Mr. Sothey, towards the end of procuring foreign funds — possibly in Amsterdam, or in Spain. But we cannot determine whether the monies ever arrived — or whether Mrs. Grey was killed before the plan was effected. Certainly the continued presence of the Comte de Penfleur in England would argue a doubt.”

“As would the failure of the French fleet to invade our shores,” Mr. Emilious returned gravely. “There cannot be an invasion, my dear Miss Austen, without there are funds to drive it. You may be assured those funds — whatever Mrs. Grey may have intended — will never arrive.”

“The funds were drawn from Grey's bank, I presume?” Neddie's countenance was carefully controlled, but his eyes glittered strangely as he looked at me. He was in the grip, I should judge, of a powerful excitement; while for my part, I felt only a curious lethargy — the result, one assumes, of too much conversation and too little sleep.

“Grey's bank? Good Lord, no!” Mr. Emilious laughed. “He was required to offer surety for the funds' transferal, of course — that is the usual way of things, in such matters of international finance — but the monies were to be shipped from the Americas.”

“The Americas?”

“From Spain's colonies, to be exact. You must know that every summer, before the onset of the hurricane season, the Spanish treasure ships set out for Cadiz. They have done so for nearly two centuries, bearing cargoes of silver and pieces of eight.”

“But what has that to do with Mr. Grey?” I cried.

“Very little. Pray hear me out, Miss Austen, and all shall become clear.” Mr. Emilious looked at me sternly from under his elegant grey brows, and I was forced to submit. I wondered, however, how such a man could ever have formed a friendship with Lord Harold. While the one was bruisingly to the point, the other was tedious in the extreme. Both, I must suppose, were assiduous in the marshalling of fact, however; and in this, their talents might be prized.

“According to her treaties with France, signed over two years ago, Spain is required to contribute six million francs each month to the French treasury.”