pleading in it, and a circumspection I should not have guessed Mr. Dagliesh capable of. “There is a nobility in the most common of men, Miss Austen, when they are spurred to act from principle; and I have found that the appearance of what is wrong may often cloak, conversely, a very great good.”
“As I am sure the opposite is true,” I rejoined, somewhat tardy, “with all manner of evil parading itself as circumspection and propriety.”
“That has ever been the case,” he said, with some gentleness. “The wonder is that we should still be equally as fooled.” And with a civility, he left me—though less happy in my designs upon peach-coloured silk.
IT WAS AS I RETURNED FROM POUND STREET TO WlNGS COTTAGE, that I first noticed the presence of a man to my back. He appeared to find interest in shop windows at exacdy the moment I turned to gaze at something on offer; and resumed his slow stroll in my train whenever my interest was satisfied, and my own walk recommenced. Upon first perceiving him, I was puzzled; then alarmed; and finally, determined upon calculation. Though I had half a mind to confront him with questions, the possibility that I but succumbed to an over-active imagination, could not be discounted; and so I turned instead into a local purveyor of comestibles, in search, ostensibly, of tea. I knew the shop to let out onto an adjacent street at its rear; and upon learning that no tea was to be had in all of Lyme—a curious notion, that—I exited by this latter way. Imagine my dismay, upon perceiving the gentleman as yet behind! For he had assuredly pursued me to the shop's interior, and thence into the adjacent street.
I had no desire to alert him to my awareness of his presence, by attempting blatantiy to lose him; and so, with my head down and my feet purposeful, I made as swiftly as I might for Wings cottage. A hurried ascent to my room, to dress for dinner—and to observe the gendeman posted in the street below, arranged so very casually in a doorway, for all the world like one of my brother James's Loiterers.3
I wonder what shall become of him? Does he intend to remain there the rest of the night? And who has set him upon me—and for what possible reason? Is he, perhaps, one of Roy Cavendish's men, intent upon learning the direction of my enquiries, since I have been so rude as to avoid communication with the Customs man himself?
I was unsettled the length of dinner, and could make only the most cursory of replies to my mother's many suppositions regarding Wootton House, and my father's observations of the history of Wootton Fitzpaine's church.
And now, alone with my pen and paper in the clear light of a Sunday morning, with little of activity before me other than the writing of a long-overdue letter to my poor Cassandra, I am incapable of so simple a task, and must rise continually to peer out at the street, in as stealthy a manner possible, in search of an unknown watcher.
Monday, 24 September 1804
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NOT LONG AFTER BREAKFAST THIS MORNING, AS I SETTLED DOWN IN the sitting-room to mend the slit in my brown wool, and mull over all that I knew of Lyme's tangled affairs, I was starded to find in the depths of my workbasket, a bit of paper—its edges sealed with a drop of tallow. Opening it in some wonderment, I discovered it to be a missive from our man James, written painstakingly with a bit of lead, and looking something of a scrawl.
Dear Miss, it ran, /????? be seing Matty Hurley as you askt it being my free day. Do you come to St. Michael's church at 3 o'cfock. I hope as this will serve. Yours respeckfuUy James.
I had but to waste the better part of the morning, then, in fitful bursts of work, and occasional glances from the scullery window—which revealed no watchers waiting in doorways; and indeed, I am forced to wonder if my fancies did not run away with me Saturday e'en, in being surfeited with all manner of preposterous schemes.
ST. MICHAEL'S BEING BUT A SHORT WALK DOWN BROAD TO BRIDGE Street, and from thence, after a brief look at the sea and Broad Ledge, which was visible now at low tide,4 up Church Street, I had a very little way to go. I set out not long before three o'clock, accordingly, in my demure