Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

There was a terrible pause — one filled with horrified implication, as we each of us glanced at the others around the table — and then Julian Sothey thrust himself to his feet.

“Sit down, boy,” Mr. Emilious charged him in a deadly tone. “I shall deal with this.” Then, in a calmer accent, he said: “As for Mr. Grey's life — you may rest easy on that score. The Comte de Penfleur shall not stir from his rooms, without I learn of it; and Mr. Grey has been called by Mr. Pitt to London on a pretext, expressly for the preservation of his safety.”

“So even Grey is as yet in ignorance of the extent of his folly!” Neddie cried. “I can well comprehend it. What man could endure the knowledge that his colleagues and friends had murdered his wife, as a policy of statecraft!”

“Are you accusing me of murder, Mr. Austen? Consider well, before you do,” Mr. Emilious said sternly. “You cannot hope to prove such a claim; for tho' present at the Canterbury Races, I was under the eye of my unimpeachable brother, and half a dozen others, for the whole of the proceedings.”

“But what of Mr. Sothey? Where was he , at the critical hour?”

The improver's countenance assumed the perfect serenity I had last discerned at the Canterbury Races.

“My man will vouch for me.”

“Your man! Aye, I am sure he will vouch for anything. But I cannot be so certain he will be believed.”

“Come, come, Mr. Austen,” Mr. Emilious interrupted in a placating tone. “Is it not far more likely that the Comte de Penfleur murdered Mrs. Grey? I am certain, for my part, that he murdered Denys Collingforth.”

“On what grounds?” Neddie retorted, his brows knit.

“—Because he intended that Collingforth's murder should look like the work of Mr. Grey, towards whom he has always harboured the most vengeful jealousy. The crime was committed on the very night the Comte knew Grey to be called away on business. Grey travelled alone; no one might vouch for his route; and the man Pembroke, if questioned, should be taught to accuse Grey as his paymaster. Pembroke undoubtedly sent the news of Collingforth's presence in Deal to the master of The Larches; but I would warrant it was the Comte who received it.”

“You know a great deal too much about that man's affairs,” Neddie observed.

“It is my duty to know everything that the Comte holds in contemplation, before he so much as conceives it,” Mr. Emilious flashed. “Arrest the man Pembroke, Mr. Justice Austen, and see if I have not told you rightly!”

There was a faint whimper, as of a small animal run to earth, and Anne Sharpe reached a trembling hand to my arm.

“What is it, my dear? Do you wish to seek your bed?”

She shook her head, and said in a voice so faint as to be almost inaudible, '1 have a duty of my own to perform, or all sleep shall be banished forever.” Then, more clearly, “You asked me whether I had ever had occasion to visit Mr. Sothey in the stables at The Larches. Did that question arise from a particular instance you know of, Miss Austen — or from a general suspicion of my behaviour?”

“A particular instance,” I replied. “A woman with raven-dark hair was seen riding out of The Larches' stables, a few days before Mrs. Grey's death.”

The governess rose unsteadily, as tho' seized with a sickness, and backed slowly away from the table. Her hazel eyes were fixed on Julian Sothey, and the expression of horror in their depths must have filled even him with dread.

“Then it was you,” she whispered. “I thought that I had been dreaming — a trick of the light and my tortured brain. But I have seen it in memory again and again, wearying my thoughts like a child's rhyming song! If you knew the nightmare I have lived in, Julian, you should have fled the country long since!”

“Anne—”

“Do you not know that I have observed you sit your horse an hundred times, during those happy days in Weymouth? Whether you chose to ride sidesaddle, and wear a long red gown, I should know your seat anywhere!”

— Did you see that grey-eyed jade, Neddie, spurring her mount for all she was worth ?

— I believe Mrs. Grey s eyes to be brown, Henry.

“Of course,” I said slowly. “Henry saw what we all did not. Your eyes are decidedly grey, Mr. Sothey — and the lady's eyes were brown.”

“I could not believe it true,” Anne Sharpe burst out, “but I know now that I was not mistaken! It was you, Julian, who were astride Mrs. Grey's horse in the final heat; and the lady herself was already dead at your hands!”

26 August 1805, cont'd.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS TOO SWIFT FOR THOUGHT. Emilious Finch-Hatton leapt from his seat, and would have seized Anne Sharpe by the neck, had not Mr. Sothey been before him; she cried out, and cowered behind the spare form of the improver. Sothey contrived to hold Finch-Hatton at bay, while the latter muttered imprecations through his teeth.

“Fool! She'll have your neck!”

“I care nothing for life, Finch-Hatton,” Sothey cried, “if I have not the love of this woman. Can you have understood me so little?”

“I have understood you not at all. I thought you a man of sense, of coldest calculation — not a weak-hearted fool, to be played upon by a girl!” Mr. Emilious wheeled away from his confederate and thrust a kitchen chair violently towards the wall. He seemed oblivious to the look of appalled fascination on my brother's countenance; I, who had long understood what he was, could appear more sanguine.

“You must demand a vow of silence from her, Sothey,” he muttered. “Everything — your life, and possibly Grey's— depends upon it!”

“Not to mention the spotlessness of your own reputation,” I observed from my position by the table. “I doubt that Miss Sharpe would willingly speak now of what she knows, did her grave yawn before her; but shall you demand a similar vow from ourselves, Mr. Finch-Hatton? Such a request might appear quite reasonable, to a spinster of advancing years, who wishes only to sit quietly at home; but to a man in commission of the peace for the neighbourhood—! One of some standing, too, whose honour must be seen as embodied in his word. I should not like to depend upon such a vow, Mr. Finch-Hatton; but perhaps you shall choose the surest path, and make an end to us all. What does Mr. Sothey advise?”

Sothey simply gave me a long look; then he led Anne Sharpe back to her chair, with a gentleness usually reserved for the aged or the infirm. She went as a condemned woman goes to the block — mute, stiff, and lost to inner contemplation. Her hand, when I touched it, was deathly cold.

“While Mr. Emilious is considering the most proper means of ensuring our silence,” I said, “you might endeavour to satisfy my curiosity, Mr. Sothey. I perceive now that Mrs. Grey's murder was the work of some days — the fruit of considerable planning. You were observed to enter the stable at The Larches, and emerge in the guise of a dark-haired woman mounted on horseback, a full two days before the lady's death. I comprehend the necessity of preparation — it is one thing to gallop in pursuit of a pack, as one has been riding all one's life; and quite another to attempt it sidesaddle, and in skirts.”

“I did not relish the prospect,” he replied. “But I thought it best to be prepared for every eventuality. And I was proved correct in the event. Mrs. Grey informed me at the race-meeting, that her husband had betrayed her; that her credit in France, and her every hope of a future life, was utterly in ruins; and she beseeched me to aid her in a desperate attempt — the kidnapping and torture of Valentine Grey. She thought to make him divulge the present whereabouts of the Spanish treasure promised to France. I loved Grey too well, and had worked too long in support of the funds' diversion, to accede to such a request.”