“Your mother is very nearly terrifying, Lizzy. How did you manage to survive your infancy?”

“She would not have had it any other way, I assure you. We were fairly beaten or cajoled out of every dangerous illness, and never suffered to put on airs. Shall you detest the visit very much, Jane?”

“Not at all. Tho' I dislike being driven from my Yellow Room without even the slightest consultation of my wishes, I think I shall find ample scope for enjoyment. Captain Woodford's troops, you know, are to march directly past the Farm on their highly-secret deployment from Chatham to Deal; I expect a skirmish, or at least a protest, from the assembled pheasant-hunters of the neighbourhood.”

“Now be, be, serious, my dear Jane. Tho' your visit would do much to soften the blow of Edward's ruin— and ease his relations at home immeasurably — I cannot urge you to go.”

“I assure you, Lizzy, that I shall account the favour as the merest trifle. I cannot undertake to accept your brother's proposal of marriage, however. I was always inclined to follow Cassandra's lead in everything, you know; and at the advanced age of nearly thirty, I should not like to diverge from her example.”

Lizzy was almost provoked to laughter; she expressed once more her sense of my goodness; and went off to the morning-room to write to her mother. I was left in all the shame of one who knows that her private motives are hardly so noble as her public professions; for I intended to profit from my visit to Goodnestone, in a thorough study of Mr. Bridges's uneasy circumstances. He had earned Denys Collingforth's public contempt, fallen out completely with Captain Woodford, and had moved in fear since Mrs. Grey's murder; now creditors hounded his very door. Such a parade of misfortune could hardly arise from coincidence. I was determined to know the reason for it.

But if I was to quit Godmersham in a few days' time, I must avail myself of its beauties while yet they remained to me. I glanced out the window and perceived that it had ceased to rain. Pale sunshine was drifting lightly over the damp meadow grasses, and glinting along the parapet of the bridge; the prospect was more inviting than it had been in days.

I fairly ran from the breakfast parlour, retrieved my little sheaf of papers and a well-mended pen, and walked out in the direction of the Doric temple. Most of the morning and evening should be taken up in the visit to Eastwell; tomorrow we were to pay our visit of condolence at The Larches; and Sunday could offer only the forced inactivity of a Christian observance, punctuated by the packing of trunks for the removal on Monday. Lady Susan had been too long neglected; I should find I had forgot how to put words to paper, did I not exercise my fingers soon.

I SETTLED MYSELF IN THE COOL SHADE OF THE PORTICO,and embarked upon a thorough appraisal of my cunning heroine. I must confess that time has taken its toll on her drolleries; she is too much the figure of the previous decade — indeed, the previous century! — and should hardly please the devotees of the modern, like Lady Elizabeth, who prefer their heroines fainting, modest, and utterly stupid. But I write entirely for my own amusement, and Lady Susan persists in her influence over my heart and mind; I cannot quite give her up, tho' I should never subject her to the ruthless eyes of the world, by attempting publication. The censure her activities should win, would then be all my own; and I cannot bear a public tongue-lashing.

I had just taken up my pen to write I am now satisfied that I never could have brought myself to marry Reginald; am equally determined that Frederica never shall — when I observed with an inward sigh that Lizzy, Fanny, and Miss Sharpe were toiling up the gentle rise that led to my cherished retreat. I tucked my papers between the leaves of a novel, secured the volume firmly in my hand, and rose to greet them.

“Aunt Jane! We are taking a tour of the park, for the express purpose of finding out what is wrong with it,” Fanny cried. She ran up the last few yards of the slope, grown brown with the heat and intermittent rain, and tumbled panting at my feet.

“I have had a letter in the morning post from Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton,” Lizzy informed me, as she, too, achieved the temple. “She abjures us most strenuously to visit Eastwell this evening, with the object of introducing Mr. Julian Sothey. We are to be treated to dinner— that is very handsome, since she would take none of ours — but I daresay you shall not like it, Jane. Lady Elizabeth's cooks are as modern as her taste in architecture, and Neddie rarely comes away anything but famished. We shall take a hamper and picnic somewhere along the road, before we are obliged to sit down. How tedious, to travel such a distance in fashionable dress! The roads are certain to be dirty with this morning's rain; we shall be stifling in the closed barouche the entire four miles.”

“And what to wear, in respect of both a tour of the grounds and dinner?” I wondered.

“That settles it,” Lizzy rejoined immediately, “we shall convey ourselves sensibly in carriage attire, and send our evening things with Sayce in a coach to follow. She may dress us both.”

“And what have you learned from your tour, Miss Fanny?” I enquired, with a kiss to the little girl's flushed cheek.

“Mamma is of the persuasion that nothing might be saved — but I do not care two straws for an improver!” she declared hotly. “They are all for swelling brooks into lakes, and stocking them with nasty fish — and I prefer the shallows of our own dear Stour. I like our trailing willows — I think them quite romantic! Do not you agree, Sharpie? Is not a tree that weeps more romantic than anything in the world?”

“It is certainly easier to endure than a lady who does so,” Miss Sharpe replied, as she achieved the portico. Her own eyes, to my surprise, appeared puffed and reddened from recent tears. “Good morning, Miss Austen. We are come to destroy your privacy, I fear.”

“What is privacy, if not to be destroyed?” I replied with a smile. “Had I known you intended the disposition of the entire park, I should have insisted upon being one of the party. I like nothing better than to strike down an ancient avenue for the sake of a whim. And by all means, let us set the common footpaths in the most winding and artistic — not to mention least convenient — fashion, so that the townsfolk are exceedingly put out in their travels from place to place. One cannot disturb one's dependents too much for their own good, I believe.”

“Exactly so,” Lizzy agreed, “nor the pilgrims, neither, who must benefit from a certain arduousness in their way.[32] I am forever telling Neddie he disconcerts them far too little. He should consider his deer and pheasant as having a far greater claim than a herd of trespassing strangers; and as for the value of a Horrid Prospect— something as like The Castle of Otranto as one may make it — I am sure we might sacrifice an avenue or two for the achievement of such a paragon.”[33]

“We may do Mr. Sothey an injustice,” I warned. “He may be discovered a man of perfect sense and unimpeachable taste, when once we survey his plans for Eastwell.”

“Mr. Sothey?” Anne Sharpe enquired. The climb had certainly not agreed with her; she had gone exceedingly pale.

“The improver, my dear. The gentleman improver,” Lizzy amended. “I spoke of him only a moment ago. We drive to Eastwell this morning on purpose to meet him. I had hoped that you and Fanny would consent to be of the party.”

“Lady Elizabeth is the proud mamma of several little boys, who might teaze and amuse Fanny at once,” I added, “unless your abhorrence of improvers, my dear, extends so far as to preclude the delights of a roadside picnic, and a change of dress to follow.”