The Gentleman Improver undoubtedly possessed what Mr. Valentine Grey had called address—that curious mixture of charm and air, without which a man may never be termed brilliant. It is elusive in definition, but unmistakable in consequence; and I may confess myself particularly susceptible to its effect.
“I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Sothey — for I should dearly like to comprehend a little of the genius that has so totally overthrown Mr. Finch-Hatton's taste.”
“You make it sound a revolution!” he cried, in mock horror, “and a treacherous one at that!”
“Lady Elizabeth assures us that you are intent upon nothing less than the wholesale destruction of formal pieties — the inversion of the traditional order — and if this is not revolution, then what may we call it, sir?”
“I daresay the Whigs have found any number of proxies for such a word,” Mr. Sothey rejoined, with a sharp look of interest in his clear grey eyes, “but do not allow me to be talking politics to a lady. Say rather that at Eastwell I hope to correct what has gone astray, Miss Austen, and to support what might only have been dreamt of before — that I aspire to a higher order of Beauty than yet exists — and perhaps we shall find agreement. ”
“I am sure that even Robespierre once proclaimed a similar faith,” I rejoined, “and yet as many heads fell at the guillotine, as noble old avenues under the axe of the improver.”
“Good Lord! All forms of governance may decline, I assure you, from neglect as well as revolution; and never so particularly as at Eastwell Park.”
“It is well, I suppose, that we have seen the place before your hand has accomplished this transformation,” I observed, “for we may then judge more acutely whether anarchy or order has been imposed.”
Mr. Sothey threw back his head and laughed. “I perceive that you bear no love for the Picturesque, Miss Austen.”
“Julian—” Louisa Finch-Hatton broke in irritably, “pray come and sit by me. I intend to play, and you know that I can do nothing without you to turn the pages.”
“Pray allow me to serve you, Miss Louisa,” Mr. Brett said hurriedly, “for Mr. Sothey is presently engaged.”
He attempted to steer her towards the instrument, but Louisa's countenance assumed a mulish look, and she remained rooted to the floor for the space of several heartbeats. At Mr. Sothey's apparent disinclination to honour the request, however, and his fixed interest in myself, the young lady eventually gave way. From the sound of her strenuous playing, I judged her to be serving out punishment to her excellent pianoforte, that might better have been visited upon her Beloved. The little interval provided an opportunity, however, to seize a chair in one corner of the saloon; and to my delight, Mr. Sothey followed.
“If by Picturesque,” I continued, “you would refer to the work of Mr. Humphrey Rep ton, be assured that I am not wholly ignorant of the style. A cousin of my mother's engaged Mr. Repton to improve his rectory in Adlestrop, and the result, we are assured, is delightful.”[39]
“Then I may suppose,” Mr. Sothey remarked with a glint of humour, “that a perfectly respectable stream has been forced from its hallowed bed, and constrained to run over graduated terraces; that hills have been formed where there were none before, and surmounted with rustic cottages in which no one — particularly hermits or gnomes, to whom such cottages are invariably ascribed — has ever lived. There is a grotto, no doubt, or a ruin in the Gothic style, ideally positioned for viewing in the moonlight. May we hope for so much as an abyss, wherein the Fate of Mortal Man might be contemplated in peace, particularly on days of mist and lowering cloud?”
I could not suppress a smile. “I believe that my cousin carries the abyss within, Mr. Sothey — and thus must find an outer manifestation of Fate unnecessary. But ruins were entirely beyond the reach of Reverend Leigh's purse, as was the better part of Mr. Repton's talents. He merely served as consultant on the redirection of the sweep, and the clearing of a prospect from the rectory to the village; attended to some terracing, and the placement of a few trees.”
“Then he has served your cousin admirably,” so they declared, “and in a better fashion than a fellow with ten times his fortune.”
“You are no disciple of Mr. Repton?”
“I am well-acquainted with his views,” he replied equably, “but have formed my own along a different path.”
“—A higher path, you would imply?”
“It is not for me to praise myself, Miss Austen. You may believe me capable of every absurdity — as you appear inclined to do — but pray allow me to possess common sense. Only a brainless popinjay will proclaim his merit before others have done so.” His lips twitched irrepressibly, and despite my aversion to the entire rage for improvement, I could not help liking Mr. Sothey.
“Then acquaint me with your views,” I urged. “To what does the Picturesque refer, if not to the Romantic Horrors you have yourself described?”
“To the ageless elegance of the art of Europe,” Sothey replied immediately. “To the noble symmetry of Italian landscape, as expressed in the canvases of the Great Masters. If I may achieve an hundredth part of the beauty and taste enshrined in the prospect of a Roman hillside, as painted by a Claude or a Poussin, then I shall declare myself well-satisfied.”[40]
“You have travelled abroad, I perceive.”
“As has your brother, I find. Mr. Austen and I enjoyed a splendid half-hour on the subject of the Grand Tour, and found ourselves much in agreement. I was privileged to study the composition of a landscape, while resident in Paris during the period of the Peace,” So they added, “and now apply the principles of the Picturesque to the grounds of my acquaintance.”
I was immediately intrigued. “And so you would form a prospect — from this saloon's windows, for example— according to the precepts of painting?”
“Is not the prospect a sort of picture? Is not the window a veritable frame?” Sothey cried excitedly. “Consider the view across this garden, Miss Austen. Is it not remarkably flat and unvarying? Does even a single feature suggest its primacy to the eye, and direct the gaze of the viewer to its silent grandeur? I would assert that the back garden at Eastwell is a formless jumble, in which all individual beauties are lost; that the distant prospect, with its barren hills and isolated coverts, must insult the eye with tedium; that trees are required in the foreground, to frame the distance properly, and that a richness of detail in the near-ground is imperative, if the eye is to progress beyond it at all. There is no path, Miss Austen, for the eye to follow — no guide to a remoter beauty — no sense, in fine, of picturesque perspective. Allow me to demonstrate the transformation I would intend.”
He leapt from his chair, and seized a large quarto volume bound in dark blue leather. This was immediately opened and placed upon my lap; and the vigour of Mr. Sothey's action could not but direct the attention of the entire room. I found that I had drawn a circle of attentive admirers, all craning to peer over my shoulder at the pages of the book — which were in fact illustrations, in breathtaking watercolours. All were signed by the painter in a distinctive, sloping script, as tho' the S of Sothey were a sail that might carry its master far upon the sea of fame.
“Have you worked upon Miss Austen already, Sothey, that she must submit to your Blue Book?” Mr. Finch-Hatton cried, in high good humour. “Then we must all be bent to its claims. Pray direct us in the study of your work.”
I had been presented with a catalogue of East-well Park, as it presently existed; and for every picture Mr. Sothey had executed an overlay, which showed the improvements that might be effected.[41] In silence, punctuated by exclamations of delight and wonder, the whole party was treated to an explanation of Mr. Sothey's vision; and I must confess it to have converted even myself. Nowhere did I find evidence of vulgarity, or a slavish devotion to fad; not a Gothic ruin nor a felled avenue could I detect, but rather the subtraction of those elements in the landscape that contributed to its confusion — a clarification of its beauties, that by th
e removal of excess, contributed to a finer definition of the whole. As I turned the pages in company with the others, I could not help but acknowledge Mr. Sothey's Art — his accomplished skill — his inexpressible taste. It might have served the Finch-Hattons immeasurably, I thought, had they possessed a man of his talents in the editing of their architect. For if even a small part of Sothey's plan were achieved, the ill-framed house would sit like a pebble in a casing intended for a jewel.
“And how do you like my Eastwell, Miss Austen?” Sothey enquired in a lowered tone, when the attentions of the others had been diverted by the entrance of the little children, fresh from their dinners in the nursery, and bent upon an hour with Mamma and Papa before bedtime. “Does it suit your notions of Beauty? Or have I failed where I would most desire to succeed?” “I have never seen a place for which Nature has done more, or where natural beauty has been so little counteracted by an awkward taste,” I acknowledged. “You have seized the landscape's soul, the park as it might be in Paradise.”
“I merely let slip the spirit inherent in these woods and hills,” Sothey said. “One can do nothing, you know, without one pays homage to the genius of the place.”
“Alexander Pope,” I returned. “But I thought he meant only a sort of pagan homage — the construction of a grotto, for instance, in respect of the resident River God. I have been hoping for a glimpse of ours, at Godmersham, these six years at least — for you know we are situated on the Stour.”
Sothey smiled. “The more ardent contemporaries of Mr. Pope might interpret his injunctions too literally. But I assume him to have intended something perhaps more subtle — that the imposition of elements alien to a country can never be graced with success. The untamed crags of Derbyshire, Miss Austen, would look sadly out of place in the peaceful folds of the Kentish downs, however Romantic their wild beauty.”
He sat back against his chair and regarded me with a serious air; and in that moment — when his countenance was swept clean of wit and artifice, and overlaid with an unwonted gravity — I knew at once where I had seen Mr. Sothey before. The revelation must stop my breath, and spur my heart to a rapid pounding.
He was the young man who had drawn my attention at the Canterbury race-meeting — a gentleman of unflinching dignity, who had taken the lash of Mrs. Grey's whip full against his neck.
Chapter 14
A Tale of Assignation
23 August 1805, cont'd.
“ARE YOU QUITE WELL, MISS AUSTEN?”
“It is nothing, sir,” I told Mr. Sothey. “The heat — I felt a trifle overcome — perhaps some air—”
I stood up unsteadily and joined my brother and sister at the French windows. Mr. Sothey bowed, and turned his attention to the pianoforte, where Miss Louisa Finch-Hatton now warbled a beguiling Scotch air.
“Jane, my dear,” Lizzy murmured at my elbow, “if we do not escape this instant and dress for dinner, we shall be made to look the completest fools. It would be like Lady Elizabeth to ring the dinner bell early, on purpose to catch us out.”
“Never fear, Lizzy,” I whispered back with tolerable composure, “your little hint of Thursday — that the intimates of Eastwell dined before the fashionable of Godmersham — was hardly lost on Lady Elizabeth. She will keep us waiting until midnight for her elegant courses, and exult in our famished pangs. You may change your gown ten times over with complete equanimity. But I confess I should be happy to escape. Let us go at once!”
Her green eyes narrowed. “Has the Gentleman Improver routed you so entirely? He has a cunning air. Were I disposed to throw my daughter away, I could not do better than Lady Elizabeth. She shall see Miss Louisa eloped to Gretna with her protege before the summer is out, if she does not take care.”
I seized Lizzy's elbow and steered her to the door.
“Pray excuse us, my dear,” she called over her shoulder to Neddie, “Jane and I cannot hope to rival the Finch-Hattons in beauty, but must fly this moment if we are not entirely to disgrace you.”
Neddie bowed as we quitted the room, the very picture of a dutiful husband; but his eyes were a-brim with laughter and the frankest admiration as he gazed after his wife. It was clear from his looks that all Miss Louisa's petulant blonde charms could never sway his devotion to the dark and enchanting. Mr. Sothey's quotation rose unbidden into my mind. “There is something in a face / An air, and a peculiar grace… “Kent is indeed the only place for happiness, and everyone is rich there — but in far more than mere pounds and pence.
I CONVEYED MY APPREHENSION REGARDING MR. SOTHEY to Lizzy as we dressed hurriedly for dinner. Sayce was busy about my sister's hair for some time, and our conversation was necessarily curtailed while the lady's maid was present in the room; it would never do for even so superior a servant as Sayce to carry tales of murder to the servants' hall. But as soon as Lizzy was suitably adorned for an intimate dinner among friends — in a cream lawn gown, sprigged and trimmed in exactly the colour of her eyes; its negligent cut and dampened underskirt displayed her form to breathless effect — I concluded my tale of the silent figure poised at the mounts of Mrs. Grey's phaeton, and the cruel descent of the whip.
“Of course,” Lizzy murmured, “I recollect the whole. Mrs. Grey's dreadful end had the power to put flight to every other scene we witnessed that day; and I confess that Sothey's features were hardly clear to me at such a remove. They must have stood an hundred paces from our carriage; and my eyes were never strong. I retained only the memory of a rather spare, gentlemanlike figure, that offered not the slightest protest to her abuse. But tell me, Jane,” she went on, turning slightly away from the mirror to face me, “—you cannot believe Sothey capable of Mrs. Grey's murder? And on so slight a provocation as a public insult?”
“I do not know what to believe,” I said despairingly. “We can know so very little. Certainly there was a discord between them; and we know that Sothey determined to quit The Larches that very day. No one has thought to enquire where the gentleman should have been, while Denys Collingforth's chaise was upon the Wingham road. How simple for him to borrow it, and ride in pursuit of the woman who shamed him!”
“You believe Mr. Sothey to have been Mrs. Grey's lover, as well as Mr. Collingforth—and the French Comte?” Lizzy adjusted the petals of a flower that Sayce had secured in her hair, and surveyed herself acutely in the glass. “The lady certainly made effective use of her time.”
“We know that Mr. Sothey was resident at The Larches for nearly six months, and that, when Mr. Grey was much in Town,” I observed. “In such unusual circumstances, an illicit passion would not be unthinkable. Even Mrs. Grey, moreover, would not dare to strike a mere acquaintance in so public a manner. So they must have been intimate. There was a passion to the entire scene, quite subtle but undeniable, that might have borne the parties to any length of indiscretion.”
“Even murder? But pray consider, Jane — did not the passion we witnessed emanate from the lady herself, rather than the man you would suggest did away with her? And was it the fury of love denied, or of love unrequited? Was there not more of wounding, than rejection, in the blow?”
I considered her words a moment in silence, then studied my sister with a new respect. “I should have to say that the passion was entirely Mrs. Grey's, Lizzy. What impressed me forcibly at the time, was the forbearance in the gentleman's entire manner — the sanguine aspect of his countenance as the crop came down upon his neck. He was like a schoolboy called to reprimand before his headmaster, accepting of what he knew to be both just and inevitable. There was neither fear, nor anguish, nor pleading in his looks — only the calm of resignation.”
“I am entirely of your way of thinking, Jane. Let us declare, then, that Sothey had broken with the lady, and incurred her wrath; and thus, should hardly have need of strangling her in her shift but an hour later.”
“Your idea of it is quite persuasive,” I acknowledged, “but how can one possibly determine what to think? We know so little of the particulars, and ev
en less of the characters involved; how one might be worked upon, and another influenced for good or evil.”
Lizzy snatched up her reticule and turned to the door. “However little you may comprehend at the moment, my dear Jane, I am certain you shall know it all in a matter of hours. For what better field than a dinner party for the marshalling of your troops — wit, flirtation, and a penetrating mind?”
MY SISTER'S CONFIDENCE IN MY POWERS WAS SADLY misplaced. We descended to the great drawing-room, which was furnished discordantly in several of the latest fashions: couches of loose silk cushions in the Turkish manner, and chairs whose carved gilt arms resembled swans; the whole ceiling tented with a striped silk fabric drawn up in the center of the room, and suspended from the claws of a bronze gryphon, as tho' Napoleon's hordes had overrun several continents with a view to nothing nobler than a miscellany sale — we found the entire party assembled for a removal to the dining-parlour, and ourselves the tardy culprits. That Lizzy gloried in the tedium she had imposed upon Lady Elizabeth— the smallish conversation, and the covert glances at the mantel-clock — I readily perceived. My sister's countenance was as serene as a summer day, however, as she followed Sir Janison and Lady Gordon to the dining-parlour. The rest of us came after in something of a hurly-burly, there being little of precedence to choose among us; a polite skirmish ensued between Mr. Brett and Mr. Sothey, with the former determined he should carry Miss Louisa down the hall, and the latter far more indifferent to the outcome than the lady might have wished. Henry having engaged to convey Miss Mary Finch, I found myself taken up by none other than Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton, the distinguished (and unusually voluble) younger brother — a circumstance I was inclined to lament, being intent upon the elucidation of Mr. Sothey. But I bore with the reversal with something like grace — a something that increased to surprise and gratitude, when I learned more of my dinner companion.
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