Chapter 18

Dutch Wood and Spanish Lace

Sunday,

25 August 1805

THE ILL EFFECTS OF YESTERDAY'S RAIN HAVING completely disappeared by nine o'clock this morning, we walked through the venerable old avenue of limes and yews, called Bentigh, to St. Nicolas Church for services. The air under the spreading boughs was light and refreshing, and spoke at last of the turn towards autumn; a meadowlark sang of the summer's decline; and our family party — a considerable parade, comprising children, some part of the servants, Mrs. Salkeld, Caky, Miss Sharpe, Neddie, Lizzy, and myself — was unreasonably gay. The little ones skipped and turned somersaults, until returned to a sense of their duty by the imprecations of nurse, governess, and mother; I felt almost compelled to run behind them, and sing aloud of the glorious day. It was to be my last at Godmersham for a time; on the morrow I departed for Goodnestone Farm.

“And to think that Mr. Sothey would have our avenue down!” I cried to Neddie. 'You shall defend it, I hope, at sword's point if necessary.”

“We cannot know what Mr. Sothey intends for the park, until he has toured its extent, and offered his opinion,” my brother returned. “Do not be in such a haste to despise the man, Jane, before he has partaken of Sunday dinner!”

“Sunday dinner?” Miss Sharpe enquired, in a low voice.

I turned swiftly and regarded her. “I had forgot, of course. Poor Miss Sharpe. It seems you are the last to learn of everything! Mr. Sothey, the estate improver presently at Eastwell Park, intends to visit Godmersham this morning. He is to tour the grounds.”

I kept my voice deliberately free of any peculiar emphasis, but the governess was too little mistress of her feelings to disguise her discomposure. She drew a sharp breath and halted in her steps. Had an opportunity of escape presented itself, I am sure she would have seized it; but a recognition of the oddity of her behaviour presently impressed itself, and she walked on. No word did she offer in explanation; Anne Sharpe was clearly disinclined to bestow any confidence regarding the Gentleman Improver. I supposed she might take her secret to her grave.

The old churchyard of St. Nicolas is a quiet, peaceful place. The edifice itself is Norman, dating to the thirteenth century, and is perched on the bank of the Stour above what had once been that river's principal ford. The ancient stones lean crazily over the humped earth of the graves; the wind sighs in the willow trees, and the murmur of water calls like a nymph from beyond the leaded windows. I have grown to love the little church, so unlike the bustle of Bath's imposing edifices; in as humble a house as this, one might feel closer to God Himself. But Anne Sharpe seemed impervious to the place's charms; her countenance was utterly wretched.

“I am sure you will approve of Mr. Sothey, once you are a little acquainted with him,” I said, as we reached the vestibule, and the children fell decorously into line behind Fanny. “He is everything that is charming; and so decidedly possessed of genius! I quite liked him.”

“There can be no occasion for my meeting with him,” the governess replied. “He will be abroad with Mr. Austen in the park for much of the day, and I have a great deal yet to attend to in the schoolroom — the threat of invasion is hardly passed. And Fanny must be heard, in the reading of her Sunday lesson; then there are the little ones' dinners to attend to — I cannot fall in his way.”

I affected puzzlement. “Have you some cause to dread this meeting, Miss Sharpe? You cannot have heard ill of Mr. Sothey!”

She looked me full in the face at last, with such an expression of anguish that I felt myself a very false friend, indeed. “I neither know nor care what Mr. Sothey is, Miss Austen,” she said clearly. “I ask only to be allowed to care for my charges in peace. Now let us go into the service, if you please; everyone will be remarking upon our absence.”

“Of course,” I replied, and allowed her to pass.

“JANE,” MY BROTHER CALLED, AS I WALKED TOWARDS THE little saloon after breakfast. “Might I beg an indulgence?”

“How might I be of service, Neddie?”

He steered me into the library and quietly closed the door. “I would dearly love your assistance in the matter of Mrs. Grey's correspondence. It has been years since I had occasion to translate any French, and I find that I progress only slowly.”

“My own French is indifferent — I make no promises — but I should be happy to exert my wits in the attempt.”

“If you do not find the duty loathsome—” He studied me anxiously.

“Loathsome? I should find it diverting in the extreme.”

“Very well. I thought it only wise to enquire. Lizzy was so decidedly put off by the idea of disturbing another lady's privacy, that I thought perhaps you …”

“I am not a baronet's daughter, Neddie,” I replied firmly, “and have looked into correspondence not my own, on more than one occasion heretofore.” If the ashes of Anne Sharpe's letters rose accusingly in my mind, I did not betray as much to my brother. I settled myself near one of the great tables that divided the room, and looked at him expectantly.

“I have arranged them by date, a tedious job in itself; there must be nearly thirty of them, Jane, running from the month of Mrs. Grey's arrival in Kent — that would be just after her marriage, in February — until the middle of August.”

“Seven months of correspondence from the Comte de Penfleur,” I mused. “Let us call it one letter per week, with an occasional bonus of two. Hardly the ardent work of a lover; more the perfunctory stuff of a business arrangement. Perhaps Mr. Grey is correct in his fears. Have you read any of them?”

“I managed to decipher these” — he waved several sheets of creased paper vaguely — “but the writing is so fine, and what with the crossing of the lines … I shall be weeks perusing the rest.”

I took the letters and leafed through them. Neddie was in earnest; most of the pages had been narrowly inscribed, with the sheet turned to the horizontal, and the original message crossed with a second text. I should not have suspected the Comte of economy in the matter of paper; but perhaps he feared the suspicions of Mr. Grey, did his wife's demand for postage mount too high.[55] All the sheets were signed, I observed, with merely the letter H. So that Mrs. Grey might dismiss her correspondent as an old schoolfriend, still resident in France?

“And what have you discovered?”

“He speaks a great deal of millinery,” Neddie said unexpectedly. “There is a quantity of talk about Spanish lace, and whether Mrs. Grey should be able to find it; some discussion of Dutch woollens, as well, and whether the quality is so reliable as English. It seems Spanish lace and Dutch cloth are devilish hard to come by in France at present; tho' I cannot think why.”

“But it is France herself that embargoes such goods from trade with England!” I exclaimed. “Can you possibly have read it aright?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps my French is more lamentable than I thought.”

“Or perhaps Mr. Grey is mistaken in the identity of his wife's correspondent. Recollect that we have only his assertion these letters were written by the Comte at all.”

“As to that—” Neddie searched among the papers on his desk, and retrieved another sheet of paper, slightly soiled and equally creased. The seal was identical to those already laid before me, and the hand could not be more like. “This is the letter discovered in Mrs. Grey's French novel, which—”

“—Mr. Grey has also chosen to identify as the Comte's.”

“—which matches the writing on this scrap of paper, Jane,” Neddie persisted patiently, “given to me by the Comte. It bears the direction of his inn at Dover, the Royal.”