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.”
Chapter 22
The Genius of the Place
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.
Anne Sharpe, who has more occasion to believe herself abandoned, must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the result of her own design. She has rallied tolerably in spirits, tho' she remains unequal to the challenge of Lizzy's daughters, and has accepted a position with a Mrs. Raikes, who possesses only one little girl. She is to leave Godmersham in January, and I hope that she may find tranquillity in her future employment.[62]
I had much to consider, as I lingered in the late summer air — the conclusion of the tragic business of Mrs. Grey, and the mysterious death of the Comte de Penfleur.
It was while I was suffering the blandishments of Edward Bridges, on the third day of my visit to Goodnestone Farm, that I learned the intelligence of Neddie. My brother enclosed a short note in Cassandra's letter, to the effect that the Frenchman had been found shot through the heart in the middle of a gallop not far from the outskirts of Dover. It is presumed that the Comte met another gentleman there, at dawn, for the satisfaction of some affair of honour; but why he brought no second, who might have exposed his murderer, remains a mystery to all of Kent. Suspicion has fallen on Mr. Valentine Grey, of course — but that gentleman has chosen to say nothing regarding the Comte's untimely end; and there are those — Mr. Justice Austen among them— who maintain that Grey was away in London on a matter of business at the time.
I was so honoured during my week's residence among the Bridges family, as to receive a proposal of marriage from a certain desperate curate — but of my reply, let us relate as little as possible, beyond the fact that it was in the negative. Mr. Bridges's declaration coincided with the Coldstream Guards' secret troop movement towards Deal; and we must assume that only an excess of boredom at being forced within doors, and the most extreme anxiety regarding the security of the pheasants, could give rise to so foolish an impulse.
I have now the distinction of having loved two men, from whom it was my destiny to be parted forever; and of having refused another two, whom it was my destiny never to love. I begin to resemble the interesting career of one of Mrs. Burney's heroines, and cannot expect so much of romance in future.
It was as I was seated over the pages of my little book, wrestling Lady Susan at last to her deserts, that the figure of a gentleman toiling up the hill intruded upon my sight. It was a spare figure, tho' tall and elegantly dressed; a trousered gentleman quite at a loss in the country, whose shoes should never sustain the effects of the previous night's rain. The hair beneath his rakish hat was silver, and the knife-blade of his nose must scream his name aloud as clearly as a hot-pressed calling card. I felt all the rush of recognition — rose, and gained support from the temple's table — breathed deep, and endeavoured to calm the racing of my heart.
And when Lord Harold had at last achieved the summit of Neddie's little hill, I was tolerably in command of my countenance. I might curtsey, and extend my hand, and say with admirable composure, “An unlooked-for pleasure, Lord Harold, indeed! What could possibly bring you to so remote a corner of Kent? — For I assure you, sir, that we know nothing at Godmersham of coalitions and accords, or the subtle employments of diplomacy. You had better turn back by the road you have come, and ask the way to Eastwell Park.”
“I had intended to pay my respects to Mr. Finch-Hatton,” he replied, with an effort to subdue his smile, “but that I recendy learned of his posting abroad — to a sinecure in India, much embattled at present. With tigers on the one hand, and mutinous sepoys on the other, who can say how Mr. Emilious shall fare?”
“Having survived the dangerous Miss Austen,” I replied, “we may consider him as equal to anything.”
Lord Harold threw back his head and laughed — the first genuine expression of mirth I had ever witnessed in that gentleman. Then taking up the pages of Lady Susan, and placing my hand within the crook of his arm, he led me back towards my brother's house.
If ever there is a monument built on Godmersham's heights — a propitiation of the local spirit, perhaps— then pray let it be dedicated to the genius of laughter.
62
Anne Sharpe eventually found even one child insupportable, and became a companion to Mrs. Raikes's crippled sister, a position she held for five years. She corresponded with Jane Austen up to the point of Jane's death; Cassandra sent her a lock of her sister's hair as a remembrance. By 1823, Anne Sharpe was die owner of a boarding school for girls in Liverpool, where she remained for nearly two decades. She died in retirement in 1853. —