to appear rueful. “I fear I have not your penetration, Mrs. Barnewall, and the Captain did appear indisposed to discuss the matter.”
“That is like his natural reticence,” she replied sofdy, and sighed, her snapping dark eyes momentarily clouded. I had not considered that the lady might consider herself in mourning. Such obtuseness should be unforgivable, had I not believed her too light in her attachments to regard the poor Captain with anything like tenderness. But T am too prone to a hasty judgment of the characters and impulses of others; it may be fairly declared my chief failing.
“The tale does him no dishonour, 1 trust?”
“Hardly.” She adjusted a cushion at her elbow, and sctded in for a long chat. “It was a few weeks before your arrival, Miss Austen, about the middle part of August, I should say. We had ail been in attendance at the Thursday night Assembly, though the crowd was rather thin, the summer people in general having departed for country estates to the north. There was nothing like a moon that night, as I recall, and so for those of us who travelled into town by carriage, the drive home was a slow business. Captain Fielding had not been in the rooms—indeed, I had thought him away from Lyme on some business—and his absence deprived the ball of a good part of its gaiety.
“Mr. Barnewall and I had agreed to follow Mr. Crawford to Darby, for a late supper and some cards, being little inclined to retire early, despite the ball's having closed a full hour before its usual two o'clock. And so our carriages travelled in train, up the Charmouth road towards Mr. Crawford's estate—until with a ‘Whoa!’ the equipage in front was pulled up, and in a moment Mr. Crawford had descended, and then my husband must be impatient to know what was toward, and we were all out in the road in the middle of the night, with only the light of a Ian thorn to show the scene.
“And what a scene!”
“Mademoiselle LeFevre?”
She shook her head. “Captain Fielding, unhorsed and with the lady quite insensible in his arms. What a picture they made! Her long red cloak, trailing from unconscious limbs, and the fall of her extraordinary hair across his arm; his face bruised and weary, and himself standing upon a wooden leg, and endeavouring to bear her homeward, without benefit of assistance or even his horse! Had we not arrived at the very moment, I cannot think how things should have gone; but we did, and commended him for his gallantry, and managed them both to their respective houses.”
“But what had occurred?” I cried, in some exasperation.
“We had it from the Captain—whom we chose to convey homeward, while the Crawfords took the mademoiselle—that the lady had been abroad on horseback, well after midnight, about some errand of her cousin, Mr. Sidmouth—only fancy!—and that her horse had starded, and bolted, and thrown her to the ground; at which point she was fortunate in the Captain's happening upon her on the road, at his return very late from business in Dorchester. Only think! Our carriages might have run over her body in the dark, as she lay insensible, had he not appeared to act as saviour!”
“Perish the thought!” I said, with suitable fervour. “But why, then, had the Captain's horse also run off?”
Mrs. Barnewall leaned closer, her eyes once more brilliant with animation. “I understood from Fielding that he was unhorsed in the animal's act of leaping over the mademoiselle's still form, as the beast came upon her in its way. It was thus he made the discovery of her.”
“I suppose Mr. Sidmouth was very grateful,” I observed, with conscious stupidity, “to have his cousin so safely restored.”
“Mr. Sidmouth seemed rather to despair of his errand's having gone awry,” Mrs. Barnewall replied, “but that is ever his way. He should rather have all the world trampled underfoot, than have his own business interrupted; and the poor little Frenchwoman is but a cog in his larger affairs. She is capable, I suppose, and dutiful in her bidding, and there her utility ends. But we knew of this only later, when it became apparent that there was a grudge between Sidmouth and the Captain—the result of which we have all unfortunately seen.”
“And what do you believe is Sidmouth's business?” I enquired of her tentatively. “He is much abroad, in France, I hear—though perhaps not so much of late.”