Fantastic as the notion might seem — the merest flight of fancy — one consideration must lend it weight: Mr. Brett's disturbing glimpse of a woman with raven hair emerging from The Larches' stables. If that lady had been Anne Sharpe—

“Here we are at last, Jane — tho' well before I expected,” Lizzy murmured. “No one but Pratt may manage a team so nobly through the mud, to be sure! And how fortunate that the rain is ended — you shall have a delightful prospect of the valley as we approach.”

I thrust aside Mr. Sothey and his amours — consigned Anne Sharpe and her secrets to a safe compartment in my mind — and prepared for delight.

NOTHING MY BROTHER HENRY HAD TOLD ME OF Valentine Grey's consequence had urged me to believe The Larches a modest little place. My brief impression of the late Mrs. Grey — bold, dashing, and devil-may-care — had done nothing to dampen expectation. A woman may only flout convention when she commands sufficient power, either of rank or fortune; Francoise Grey had commanded both. I knew that her home would be in the first style of luxury. To this I was indifferent — one great house richly furnished may be very much like another. It was the grounds of The Larches alone that utterly deprived me of speech.

One approaches the place by a winding drive, that runs for some time through rolling Kentish downs; clumps of trees, in the style of Capability Brown, dot the greenest meadows, and an arched bridge surmounts the river perhaps a mile before the house. In this, there is nothing to astonish — Stourhead or The Vyne[48] might boast as much — and even the prospect of The Larches itself, first perceived around a turning of the drive, is only as noble as any other modern villa of its type. I could cry out in delight, and admire it as I have done any number of places, without feeling moved by a deeper beauty; it required a walk around the remarkable park, before I was completely overcome.

One enters the grounds from a terrace running perpendicular to one side of the house; a series of steps leads to a gravel path, that descends through a wood; and after a period of winding among larch tree, and beech, under-planted with the rarest specimens of rhododendron and azalea, the wood opens out to reveal a plunge of valley, its sides steeply planted with every variety of growing thing, massed in the most pleasing arrangement of colour and form. Below lies the river, now swelled to something greater — a lake, in fact, that is spanned at its narrowest points by first a bridge, and then a ferry. Emerging from the trees, on promontories of their own, and offering rival views of the valley's charms, are three temples — dedicated to Philosophy, Science, and Art.

I rested several moments under the portico of the last, surveying the fall of ground before me, and the ferry boat plying its oars between the near shore and my own; and rather wondered that Mr. Grey had neglected to raise an altar to the god of Mammon — his consequence and his garden both being dependent upon it. But these thoughts seemed ungenerous in the face of such beauty; and besides, the gentleman in question stood silently near me. It would never do to excite his contempt when we had progressed so admirably towards a better knowledge of one another.

But I forget myself, and proceed apace to Mr. Valentine Grey, when I had better have begun with his housekeeper.

Our excellent Pratt pulled up before the house in due course, and we found one Mrs. Bastable standing in the open doorway, as tho' in expectation of our visit. She was quite magnificent in an old-fashioned gown of black lawn, a starched white apron, and a ribboned cap; and she bobbed a cold curtsey as Neddie handed my sister from the carriage.

“Good morning, madam,” she said, in a colourless voice, “it is very good to see you at The Larches again, and after so long a period. You have been well, I trust?”

“Perfectly, Bastable, I assure you,” Lizzy said in a tone of faint amusement. The woman's implication was hardly lost upon her; she had been rebuked for neglect of the dead mistress, and for descending like a vulture upon the funeral-baked meats. “You do not know my sister, Miss Austen, I believe.”

I was treated to a similarly chilly courtesy, and ushered into the house.

Immediately upon entering, my eyes were drawn to the figures of two men — Mr. Valentine Grey, who stood grim-faced and stalwart next to his friend, Captain Woodford; and the Comte de Penfleur, who was established almost indolently upon a settee. Now that the rain had ended for good and all, a watery light played about his fair hair as tho' in benediction. The Comte must have felt the weight of my gaze; his own came up, and searched the room — only to pass indifferently over my unremarkable countenance and fix, with some earnest study, upon Lizzy's glowing one. But I was denied further occasion to observe — some few of our acquaintance were present in respect of the dead, and demanded recognition. Charlotte Taylor of Bifrons Park was there, with her eldest daughter, tho' not her husband; the Colemans, from Court Lodge, stood nervously in a corner; Nicolas and Anna-Maria Toke advanced immediately to pay their respects. It was heavy work, I own; a little awkwardness, in respect of the occasion and Neddie's role, was inevitable. Cordial as the feelings of all towards our party might be, there was nonetheless a little reserve; my brother must be viewed in this house, above all others, in the capacity first of his commission— and only secondarily as a valued friend. We others, as probable parties to his counsel, were treated with an equal respect; and so we were left a little apart, while our neighbours eyed us sidelong, and hurriedly concluded their visits.

“Mrs. Austen!” Charlotte Taylor cried, “how very well you are looking, to be sure. Such a cunning employment of jet beads! I do not know when I have seen a more ravishing gown, to be sure. Pray pirouette a little upon the carpet, that we might observe the flounce!”

“You are too kind, Charlotte,” Lizzy replied, without the slightest suggestion of a pirouette. “I am pleased to find you thriving. Mr. Taylor is well, I trust?”

“Oh, Edward is never less than stout,” she cried. “He quite puts me out of countenance. How am I to contrive a visit to Bath, when he will not suffer from the gout? Now tell me how you like my gown!”

Lizzy surveyed the apparition — a striped green silk, with a perilous quantity of soutache about the sleeves and hem, and smiled faindy. “It suits you admirably, Charlotte.”

“It is handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it is not overtrimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being overtrimmed; quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments, naturally; I should look naked otherwise; but my natural taste is all for simplicity. A simple style of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery.”

“Indeed,” Lizzy murmured.

Delicately, I began to edge away, in the direction of a fine Italian landscape that hung against one wall. Charlotte Taylor on the subject of simplicity was not to be endured; she was constitutionally unfit for the task, and must be insincere.

“But I am quite in the minority, I believe,” she went on. “Few people seem to value simplicity of dress — show and finery are everything. I have some notion of putting such a trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will look well, Lizzy?”[49]

The landscape artist had captured a distant prospect of an ancient hillside, surmounted by Cyprus and a few tumbled columns; the mood was one of desolation and peace, a glorious past recalled, and now thankfully put to rest. Mr. Sothey should have found it admirable — the very soul of Picturesque — but whether congenial as a back garden, I could not presume to say. With a little start, I recollected that Mr. Sothey had probably known this picture well — he had frequented these rooms at The Larches for some months, and might almost have regarded them as his own. What had occurred between the Greys and the improver, to precipitate his hasty flight? And how did Mr. Grey regard Julian Sothey now?