Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Genius of the Place

“If you have quite done,” Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton said, “I believe that Sothey and I should take our leave.”

He had risen from his seat, and withdrawn a duelling pistol from his coat; it was a lovely thing, of highly-polished wood, and silver handle. But the ball in its depths should suffice for only one, before Finch-Hatton must reload; and in recognition of this, he had trained the piece upon my brother.

“I suggest you place the knife upon the table, Austen, where I might see it.”

It was brilliantly done; had Finch-Hatton chosen to fix upon Anne Sharpe, he could not depend upon Sothey — on myself, and he should risk Neddie's heroics. As it was, my brother stood in all the horror of our regard — and considered, I suppose, of his nine children. He hesitated, glanced beseechingly at me, and then laid the knife in the middle of the worn oak.

“I regret the necessity of such brutal persuasion,” Mr. Emilious said sadly, “but dawn approaches, and Sothey's road is a long one. Pray make our excuses to your bewitching wife, Mr. Austen, and assure her that we bear her no ill-will for the nature of this flight. The extended tour of the grounds, I fear, must be deferred for another time.”

“There are many forms of justice, Finch-Hatton,” Neddie replied carefully, “and Sothey's shall find him. Of your own fate, I confess, I am less sanguine; you have the peculiar ability to remain always on the fringe of the field, an observer of the fray, or perhaps its truest instigator. Such men invariably live long and interesting lives; whether their reputations survive them, is another question. And now, pray get out, before I find a foolish courage, and take your ball in pursuit of the bubble reputation.”

Finch-Hatton shook his head, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Pray allow Mr. Sothey to bind you to your chair, Mr. Austen — and the ladies also — lest you hound us on horseback the length of England. We require several hours, I should think, for the effecting of this flight; and we cannot waste a moment. In a very little while, I assume, your cook will be about the matter of breakfast.”

And so it was done: Finch-Hatton remained to train his pistol on Neddie, while Sothey fetched some twine from the stillroom; we were bound into our chairs as tightly as knots could hold us, and left with the unpleasant sensation of pigs trussed for the slaughter. Only Anne Sharpe appeared too remote for sensation; she was very nearly in a swoon.

“Anne,” Sothey said desperately, as he knelt before her chair, “will not you throw up everything, and come with me?”

She turned from him with such an expression of horror, that his countenance went white. “Can every tender feeling be denied me? Can not you understand what I have effected for my King, my country? — Indeed, Anne, for the love of such an one as you?”

“Do not attempt to claim that you strangled Mrs. Grey out of love for me,” she retorted bitterly. “I have never understood what you are. From the first moment of our meeting, I pledged my heart to a creature of my own invention; and I reap nothing now but my just reward.”

He would have touched her then, but she shrank away; and in utter silence, he bound her hands.

“Where shall you go?” I enquired, as he came to me.

He merely shook his head. “Mr. Canning, I must believe, will have some use for a desperate man. There are any number of noisome holes throughout the world, where such an one might be hidden — and so die.”

When he bent to tie my wrists, I caught his fingers in mine. “Do not give way entirely to despair, Mr. Sothey. If these hands have shed some blood, they have also been the instruments of a remarkable beauty. In your art I glimpsed a little of Paradise; but there cannot be a garden without a serpent or two. I shall not soon forget the beauty of your works, or the genius I have glimpsed.”

“My genius, Miss Austen, is akin to Lucifer's; and I fear that he was cast out from Heaven.”

“There is something of the demon and the angel in all of us, Mr. Sothey,” I replied, “and I know that your angel shall prevail. Let that hope be your guide — the beacon in your darkness — that redemption, and atonement, might come to you at last.”

The knots tied, he bowed low over my coupled wrists and kissed the back of my hand. Then, his eyes averted from Anne Sharpe, he quitted the room without another word.

And so they left us.

IT WAS A TEDIOUS INTERVAL, POSSIBLY AS LONG AS AN hour and a half, before the first clatter of feet on the servants' stair announced the housemaids come in search of water. Anne Sharpe could provide no conversation to relieve the boredom of that passage; she was lost in a peculiar torment, that did not admit of speech; and the greatest kindness we could offer, was to respect her silence.

Of Neddie I enquired only once.

“You remarked that there were many forms of justice, and that Mr. Sothey would come to his in time. Of what were you thinking, Neddie? Do you intend to pursue him to the limits of the law?”

“I may risk the wrath of Mr. George Canning,” he replied wearily, “and perhaps, even, of Mr. Pitt. I cannot pretend to understand so deep an undertaking, Jane, as was unfolded here before us. But I may discharge one duty upon my conscience — I may inform Mr. Valentine Grey of exactly how his wife came to die.”

“You believe him as yet in ignorance?”I cried.

“He should never have handed over her letters,” Neddie said, “did he comprehend the ruin he should bring upon his friend Sothey's head. No, Jane — I believe Grey's part in the puzzle extended only so far as indemnification of the Royal Navy's ships. Of his wife's ungentle handling, he can have known nothing.”

“—But suspected a great deal,” I returned thoughtfully. “Perhaps his conscience, indeed, argued the presentation of those letters.”

“And if I know anything of the man's character,” Neddie observed grimly, “he shall not rest until his honour is satisfied. It is for Grey to pursue his friend Sothey to the ends of the earth, and setde the account at pistol-point. And to my great relief, Jane, my dear, I shall be nowhere within hailing distance, when the deed is done.”

16 September 1805

I HAVE COME AT LAST TO THE END OF MY KENTISH interlude; nearly four months of dissipation, vice, and the corruption of high living — a period I relinquish with infinite regret. Ahead lie all the pleasures of a visit to the seaside at Worthing, in company with my sister Cassandra, our friend Mary Lloyd, and my widowed and querulous mother; then the return to winter in Bath, in temporary lodgings and all the inelegance of reduced circumstances. I cannot look upon the succession of months with anything like complacency, nor contemplate the fulfillment of my thirtieth year with particular satisfaction. I must trust, however, in the vagaries of Fate — which invariably surprise when one has ceased to expect them.

I closed my visit to Godmersham as I have so often marked its extent — by repairing to the litde Doric temple across the Stour, and sitting awhile in contemplation of the beauty of the downs. The lime trees of Bentigh, it seemed, should proceed in their march unmolested; so, too, the kitchen gardens, amidst their harried traffic of scullery maids and under-gardeners. The promise of Mr. Sothey's Blue Book was at Godmersham unfulfilled, just as at Eastwell it remained unrealised — to Lady Elizabeth's confusion and pain. Of Mr. Sothey's whereabouts she has learned not the slightest syllable. No explanation of her protege's abrupt departure has been offered to her — just as none was ever given for his sudden appearance at her door. She professes to believe his desertion immaterial; but thinks her daughter Louisa decidedly ill-used.