James did not respond for a moment, and his eyes narrowed shrewdly. “They've been a number of sudden deaths, to my thinking,” he finally said thoughtfully, “and none of ‘em too well explained, for that matter. I'll see what Matty Hurley has to say for himsel’. You just place your cares in James's keeping, miss, and think no more about it”

I thanked him, and pressed a few pence into his hand, which he blushingly accepted, though only after profuse entreaty; and I sent him on his way. As I watched him go, I gave thanks for the Jameses of this world, and their easy access to places a lady should take care not to visit. He is very likely to form his own construction of matters, but little likely to divine the truth of my purpose — suspicion being far from his nature, and detection beyond his power. I have observed that men will quite happily believe they are rendering a service to a lady, where they might baulk at being made a mere pawn; and yet it is the latter that is so often the case.

And with that thought, the face of Seraphine LeFevre rose unbidden before my eyes. The equivocations of this afternoon did not sit well upon my mind. I could not be easy in her character; I mistrusted her motives, and her purpose was unclear to me. Did she tend the wounded at the Grange tonight, as the stars shone from a darkening sky? Or had my suspicions unnerved her — and sent her out on the beach to a dark green boat, and a hard row against the tide, and a cutter waiting to sail for France— leaving Sidmouth alone in a stone-hearted gaol?

Chapter 19

Tête-à-Tête at Wootton Fitzpaine

22 September 1804

LAST EVENING'S STARS PROVED AS LITTLE TO BE RELIED UPON, AS THE conflicting reports of Sidmouth's character; for this morning dawned still and wet, with a thick fog rolled in off the harbour, and all the town's bustle and business at once magnified and muffled by the impenetrable cloud. I gazed at the lowering gloom with displeasure. If any hoof-prints yet remained at the site of Captain Fielding's misadventure, they should be utterly marred by rain, and offer little in the way of suggestion as to the murderer's comparative size and strength. That door was closed to me; but others might yet be opened.

It was decidedly not a day for paying a call; and so I was hard-pressed to explain the energy of my resolve to wait upon the Barnewalls this afternoon, at my mother's exclaiming over the poor nature of the day, and declaring it fit only for remaining indoors by a comfortable fire. Indeed, she began to talk so much of an early removal from Lyme, it being evident that the closer weather of autumn was hard upon us, and the fair golden days of late September fast in decline, that I seized upon her mood and avowed as I must pay the call, as we might determine to be off at any moment, and the Barnewalls sadly neglected. I was forced to exaggerate here the level of attention the lady had paid me, from the necessity of painting an object worthy of serious consideration; but eventually gained my point. A hack chaise was summoned; my father handed me in with a wink; and in less time than I should have imagined possible, I was on my way to the Barnewalls' residence. It was a slow trip, owing to the fog, and elicited many a grumble and curse from the coachman; but I benefited from the solitude and tedium of the occasion, in reviewing my purpose in paying such a call.

I knew from rumour, and something Mrs. Barnewall had dropt, that they had taken an excessively large establishment some few miles out of Lyme, near the village of Wootton Fitzpaine.[68] This is a small habitation, tucked into a valley between two hills, with an ancient ruin on the one and a lovely growth of woods crowning the other. One or two well-kept farms, and a cruciform church, in some need of repair, form the major part of the village; and as I eyed the belfry of the latter, I could not but think that it should make an excellent signal tower, did someone have need of conversing with ships at sea. I had neither time nor inclination to explore its utility, however; the one truly fine house in Wootton Fitzpaine was my object, and I could spare only a thought for the scattered settlement it overlooked.

Wootton House proved to be an excellent modern estate, its limestone construction dating not earlier than the middle of the last century, and well-fitted-out by its owners, who were absent in London, and who had leased the place to the Barnewalls through their Dorset agents — or so Mrs. Barnewall informed me, within a few minutes of my arrival at her door, having seen me divested of my pelisse and hat, and begun the necessary civility of showing me around the house. If my call occasioned any surprise, she was equal to it; and ascribed my attention to the weather, which should render even the most resourceful unutterably stupid, did they remain within doors too long. Or so she said; though I observed a book laid down at my entrance, and a comfortable lap rug thrown aside, and knew that I had discomfited my hostess a little.

She was dressed today in a remarkably decent gown of French blue wool, with a full bodice and sleeves, and very little ornamentation; I was surprised to observe that the cut followed the lines of no ancient civilisation, as her gowns so often did; it had virtually the effect of a cowl, and rendered her slanting eyes, and pale face, and dark springy locks, the more interesting for its severity. And so I assumed her to be effecting the mood of the cloister, so suited to the general atmosphere out of doors; and decided that this was as much a sort of trumpery as her Roman or Egyptian garb.

We began with a parade through the principal rooms, all very fine, and done in excellent taste, with silk draperies and mahogany furniture — so curiously formal for Lyme, that I adjudged the present owners to be little in residence there, and to have simply repeated their usual style of city living, in their country place. As we walked, Mrs. Barnewall informed me that she had been a full six months in command of the house, and that though they intended a removal to Ireland in but a few weeks, her husband had determined to renew the lease the following spring, and spend the better part of the summer season in Dorset.

“I am excessively disappointed,” she declared, “for I had longed for a London season, or perhaps a trip to the Alps — though the renewal of hostilities between England and France might make such a journey difficult. I could have been happy with Easter in Bath, and spent May and June in London, with a daily parade along Rotten Row, and devoted my industry to the direction of a legion of dressmakers — and retired to someone's shooting lodge for August and September. But it is not to be. Mr. Barnewall is not to be gainsaid. To Dorset we shall return. I hope that we may find you here as well, Miss Austen— for I depend upon good society, in such retirement. You think of returning, I hope?”

“I cannot undertake to say,” I replied, “my time is at my parents’ disposal, I fear, and I go and come as they choose to send me. But I wonder, Mrs. Barnewall, at your engaging a residence so long, in a town and amidst a society for which you show so little affection. What can it be, that so fixes your husband's interest here?”

The lady burst out laughing. “This is frankness, indeed, Miss Austen! Have you learnt to admire Lyme less, now you have suffered it the more.” She slid her arm through mine and urged me along a gallery, painted pale yellow and overlaid with plaster figures and garlands in the best Adam manner, designed for the parade of portraits of people utterly unrelated to my hostess. She seemed to think nothing of living amidst another family's ancestors, though / should find it decidedly strange. The stern faces in oils might have been so many objets d'art on a shop-keeper's wall, for all the mind she paid them. “I fancy we are of the same opinion, more often than not; for though you profess the usual proprieties, and are careful to keep your face as demure as any chit of fifteen, the most delicious absurdities will escape your mouth, whenever you open it!”