“You believe that Mr. Grey turned him away from The Larches?” I hazarded. “But surely Mr. Grey was in London?”

“Of course it was not Grey!” Mr. Brett declared, all astonishment. “He was too indifferent to his wife's conduct, Miss Austen, to lose the services of so valuable a consultant as Mr. Sothey. No; I should imagine it was the lady herself who ran Sothey off, because of his infamy.”

This last put me entirely at sea. “You suspect Mr. Sothey of having wronged her?”

“But of course! That is what I have been telling you!” Mr. Brett abandoned the last of his buttered prawns and set down his cutlery. “I had arranged to call upon Mrs. Grey a few days before her death, on a matter of business—”

So even the probity of Mr. Brett was open to conjecture. Had the business been horse-trading? Or a pressing debt of honour, contracted under Mrs. Grey's hand?

“—and found the lady from home. I was surprised that she had forgot our engagement, but was told by the housekeeper that a courier had come of a sudden from France, and that Mrs. Grey could not avoid the necessity of riding out to Canterbury to meet him. I was about to leave my card in the entry and depart, when the sound of footfalls in the gravel of the stableyard alerted me. Perhaps Mrs. Grey had returned! I took the liberty of entering the little saloon—” he hesitated. “Do you know The Larches?”

“Not at all,” I admitted.

“There are three principal rooms on the ground floor — a drawing-room, a dining-parlour, and a little saloon that gives out on the stableyard. The latter was Mrs. Grey's favourite room, because of her fondness for the stables; she delighted in all the comings and goings of the yard, and might observe them as she conducted her correspondence.”

“I perceive that you were an intimate friend, Mr. Brett. You have my deepest sympathies/'

He looked surprised — seemed about to speak — and then thought better of what he had almost said. “I cannot admit to a liking for either of the Greys, Miss Austen. They were neither of them the sort to encourage intimacy. But Mrs. Grey could command a remarkable fascination — and the interest of her card-parties was undeniable, particularly for a man without family, like myself.”

“I see. And in the little saloon, Mr. Brett? Were you so fortunate as to find Mrs. Grey returned?”

“I was not,” he resumed. “Imagine my surprise, when I observed Mr. Sothey — whom everyone had acknowledged as her lover these several weeks — crossing the yard with a lady's gown hanging over his arm. He peered around at the stable door, as tho' conscious of my eyes upon him; but I fancy that the fall of light was unsuitable to the detection of my figure in the saloon window. He vanished within the stable; and something about his manner cautioned me to remain. I had no wish to call for my horse at that moment, and disturb Sothey about his business. I waited, accordingly, some moments— and when the door opened again, it revealed not Mr. Sothey—”

“But Mrs. Grey?”

“—a woman I had never seen before in my life,” Mr. Brett concluded grimly. “She was mounted sidesaddle, in the gown Mr. Sothey had brought her, and cantered out of the yard directly.”

“How very odd!” I said. “And you believe this woman to have been hiding within the stable, quite bereft of her clothes?”

“I can come to no other conclusion,” he replied.

“And you could make nothing of her countenance.”

“It was eclipsed by the shade of a riding-hat, complete with veil, and could tell me nothing; but I remember that her hair was dark as a raven's wing.”

“How dashing of you,” I murmured. “You betray a poetic turn in your account, Mr. Brett, that is excessively gratifying. And Mr. So they? Did he follow the lady?”

“I watched the door for several moments, but he did not appear; and the housekeeper soon discovering me still upon the premises, I did not like to linger. I called for my horse, all alive to the possibility that So they must return to the house at the stable lad's activity; but, however, he did not.”

“And so you believe Mrs. Grey to have learned of Sothey's liaison with an unknown woman,” I mused, “and to have broken with him on the very day of her death.”

“Can there be any other construction placed upon events?” Mr. Brett enquired.

I was silent, but my gaze would seek out the clear-eyed countenance of the landscape designer. He was a puzzling gentleman, indeed. I knew little of him, for good or ill — but I thought that there had been nobility in his looks, as Mrs. Grey's whip lashed down upon his neck. Animation and honest pleasure, too, as he spoke of the Picturesque; a lively intelligence, an informed mind. He might charm a thousand ladies less keen in their reserve than myself — and yet he had certainly charmed me. Nowhere had I detected a desire to impose, a false posturing, the telltale marks of deceit.

And if Mr. Sothey were entangled in the Greys' deadly game — why, then, was Mr. Collingforth fled to the Continent? Had the improver arranged appearances to his liking, and burdened an innocent man with the blame? I must know more of Julian Sothey before I might be able to measure his talents; and happily, Fate obliged.

Chapter 15

A Dangerous Correspondence

23 August 1805, cont'd.

“LIZZY, DEAREST,” MY BROTHER EDWARD SAID, AS WE were settled into our carriage some hours later, “I quite liked the Gentleman Improver. He is a man of information and taste.”

“Not at all what one would expect of Eastwell Park,” Lizzy replied.

“Then perhaps he shall prove the salvation of it. Did you admire his plans?”

“—The cunning little Blue Book? I thought it quite ravishing, Neddie. I long to have one of my own.”

“How delightful. Then you will not object if he rides over to Godmersham one day or another?”

“I object to nothing, provided he leaves our avenue in peace.”

“Excellent,” Neddie returned comfortably. “I invited him for Sunday. We have never very much to do then, as you know, and might as well spend it in walking about the park as not.”

Lizzy settled back against the seat cushions, a dim perfection in the wan moonlight creeping into the carriage; only the creak of the springs and the steady beat of the horses' hooves served to disturb the darkness.

“And you, Jane?” Neddie enquired at length. “Do you despise Mr. Sothey as much as Humphrey Repton?”

“I cannot despise a man of whom I know so little.”

“Then this is indeed a reformed Jane!” Henry cried. “I have known you to despise an hundred such at first meeting, for nothing more than a poorly-turned phrase.”

“Jane is always cautious when she possesses a dangerous knowledge,” Lizzy observed from her corner. “She has detected Mr. Sothey in an indiscretion.”

“Have you?” Neddie's voice acquired something more of interest. “Then pray offer it to the general view. My work as Justice should be nothing at all, without a few well-placed indiscretions.”

And so I related not only the history of Mrs. Grey's riding crop, but also of Mr. Brett's dubious intelligence regarding the woman in The Larches stableyard, and Sothey's disheveled arrival at Eastwell the evening of the race-meeting.

“You employed your time to better effect than I,” my brother observed drily, “for all I learned from Sothey was that he has no interest in the Gothic, and finds the Hermit Cottage a wretched addition to the body of landscape architecture. But how ought we to regard this … indiscretion, if such it should be called? For as you have noted, Jane — the man should hardly have strangled Mrs. Grey in a fit of passion, did he precipitate a break in the first place. From your description of the lady's whip-hand, I should rather have expected to find Sothey stripped to his small clothes in Collingforth's chaise, than Mrs. Grey herself.”