“Anne—”
“Do you not know that I have observed you sit your horse an hundred times, during those happy days in Weymouth? Whether you chose to ride sidesaddle, and wear a long red gown, I should know your seat anywhere!”
— Did you see that grey-eyed jade, Neddie, spurring her mount for all she was worth?
— I believe Mrs. Grey s eyes to be brown, Henry.
“Of course,” I said slowly. “Henry saw what we all did not. Your eyes are decidedly grey, Mr. Sothey — and the lady's eyes were brown.”
“I could not believe it true,” Anne Sharpe burst out, “but I know now that I was not mistaken! It was you, Julian, who were astride Mrs. Grey's horse in the final heat; and the lady herself was already dead at your hands!”
Chapter 21
The Better Part of Valour
26 August 1805, cont'd.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS TOO SWIFT FOR THOUGHT. Emilious Finch-Hatton leapt from his seat, and would have seized Anne Sharpe by the neck, had not Mr. Sothey been before him; she cried out, and cowered behind the spare form of the improver. Sothey contrived to hold Finch-Hatton at bay, while the latter muttered imprecations through his teeth.
“Fool! She'll have your neck!”
“I care nothing for life, Finch-Hatton,” Sothey cried, “if I have not the love of this woman. Can you have understood me so little?”
“I have understood you not at all. I thought you a man of sense, of coldest calculation — not a weak-hearted fool, to be played upon by a girl!” Mr. Emilious wheeled away from his confederate and thrust a kitchen chair violently towards the wall. He seemed oblivious to the look of appalled fascination on my brother's countenance; I, who had long understood what he was, could appear more sanguine.
“You must demand a vow of silence from her, Sothey,” he muttered. “Everything — your life, and possibly Grey's— depends upon it!”
“Not to mention the spotlessness of your own reputation,” I observed from my position by the table. “I doubt that Miss Sharpe would willingly speak now of what she knows, did her grave yawn before her; but shall you demand a similar vow from ourselves, Mr. Finch-Hatton? Such a request might appear quite reasonable, to a spinster of advancing years, who wishes only to sit quietly at home; but to a man in commission of the peace for the neighbourhood—! One of some standing, too, whose honour must be seen as embodied in his word. I should not like to depend upon such a vow, Mr. Finch-Hatton; but perhaps you shall choose the surest path, and make an end to us all. What does Mr. Sothey advise?”
Sothey simply gave me a long look; then he led Anne Sharpe back to her chair, with a gentleness usually reserved for the aged or the infirm. She went as a condemned woman goes to the block — mute, stiff, and lost to inner contemplation. Her hand, when I touched it, was deathly cold.
“While Mr. Emilious is considering the most proper means of ensuring our silence,” I said, “you might endeavour to satisfy my curiosity, Mr. Sothey. I perceive now that Mrs. Grey's murder was the work of some days — the fruit of considerable planning. You were observed to enter the stable at The Larches, and emerge in the guise of a dark-haired woman mounted on horseback, a full two days before the lady's death. I comprehend the necessity of preparation — it is one thing to gallop in pursuit of a pack, as one has been riding all one's life; and quite another to attempt it sidesaddle, and in skirts.”
“I did not relish the prospect,” he replied. “But I thought it best to be prepared for every eventuality. And I was proved correct in the event. Mrs. Grey informed me at the race-meeting, that her husband had betrayed her; that her credit in France, and her every hope of a future life, was utterly in ruins; and she beseeched me to aid her in a desperate attempt — the kidnapping and torture of Valentine Grey. She thought to make him divulge the present whereabouts of the Spanish treasure promised to France. I loved Grey too well, and had worked too long in support of the funds' diversion, to accede to such a request.”
“And when you refused, she struck you with her whip.”
“My negative produced a dreadful passion,” he agreed. “She was never a soul under perfect management I informed her that I could not be a party to so heinous a crime; there were others, no doubt, who would gladly accommodate her.”
“Such as Denys Collingforth.”
He averted his gaze.
“And so you determined, that for Grey's sake and the sake of your … policy, that Mrs. Grey must die. Your careful preparation must be put into play. You waited for her in Collingforth's coach; and when she entered it a little before the final heat — under the observant eyes of the entire Austen party — you strangled her there, with her own hair-ribbon.”
“I wonder that you did not hear the struggle,” Neddie said.
I shrugged. “For all his slightness, Mr. Sothey moves with considerable grace — I should judge him a man of some strength.”
Emilious Finch-Hatton paced restlessly before the kitchen hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. Now, I thought — when the two men were engaged in the relation of their tale — now was the moment to seize and bind them. They had practically admitted to the crime of murder; and yet, Neddie did nothing. Could it be that he was hesitating? Or that he doubted of his ability to prove either man's guilt?
And then I saw that his fingers had closed over a bread knife, and were sliding it by imperceptible degrees towards the edge of the table. I hurried myself into speech once more.
“I suppose, Mr. Sothey, that when the gruesome work was done, you put on Mrs. Grey's habit over your own suit of clothes. You are slight enough to have managed it, and Mrs. Grey was a well-formed woman. You added, however, two items — a black wig and illusion veil, under the brim of the lady's tricorn hat. How did you conceal them on your person, as you walked about the meeting-grounds?”
Sothey shrugged dismissively. “I wore, you may recollect, a prodigiously handsome hat, with a high circular crown. The wig and veil were concealed within, and devilish warm they made it, too.”
“Highly necessary, however, for the discouragement of the curious. But you did not mean to be under the observation of anyone very long. Arrayed in the scarlet riding habit, you quitted the chaise; retrieved Mrs. Grey's black horse from her tyger; approached the rail and threw yourself into the heat. That, if I recollect, was ultimately your undoing — for Miss Sharpe observed you jump the rail, and understood the alteration that had taken place, however little she might comprehend or explain it.”
“She cannot have the least notion of what she saw,” Mr. Emilious broke in wearily. “Your entire history, Miss Austen, is the most extraordinary fabrication of humbug and lies.”
I smiled at him faintly. “I thought it unlikely, sir, that Lord Harold Trowbridge should possess an intimate friend; but knowing you now a little, as I do, I comprehend the extent of my folly. You can never have been on terms of intimacy with that remarkable intellect, and yet fail to profit from his example. Accept, Mr. Finch-Hatton, that you have underestimated the Austens; and be satisfied.”
“With the filly Josephine triumphant,” my brother said to Julian Sothey, “all that remained was to accept the plate with a careless grace, and drive your phaeton precipitately out of the grounds. A mile down the Wing-ham road, you discarded the habit; but at the last, you thought better of the wig and veil. It would never do for them to be found; we should have seen in an instant that it was not Mrs. Grey, but an imposter, who had paraded about the grounds.”
“We never thought to wonder what had become of the lady's hat,” I agreed. “That was very stupid of us. And what of Mr. Sothey's own? The prodigiously expensive, high-crowned affair, so admirably suited to the concealment of a wig?”