mean Mr. Sidmouth!” I spoke with all the energy of conviction, and a desire to know more.
“I do,” the Captain rejoined, with something like relief at being spared the necessity of broaching the man's name. “I have observed that gentleman's ways for some time, Miss Austen, and I cannot like them. I should hesitate to introduce any lady I held in true esteem, to their pernicious influence. But how do you know of Sidmouth?”
“He is another whose friendship we did not seek. We were overturned in a violent storm near High Down Grange Monday e'en. My poor sister, I fear, was gravely hurt, and even now suffers from her injury.”
“But that was you!” cried Captain Fielding. “You were of the unfortunate party! My own house lying not above a half-mile from the Grange, I had occasion to see your coach righted by a team and dray the following morning, and wondered, as I passed on my way into Lyme, what rude events had occasioned such misfortune.”
“And had we but known, we might have sought shelter from you,” I observed. “Fate is a fickle mistress, is she not? For instead, we toiled up the hill to the Grange, and met with an uncertain welcome, and some very odd inmates indeed, in whose bosom we were forced to reside for some two days.”
“I regret it,” the Captain replied, with feeling. “Could I have spared your dear family from such an inhospitable abode, I should have done all that was in my power. But I was not to be allowed, and Sidmouth was afforded the pleasure of your company.”
“He did not seem to find it a pleasure” I said. “Indeed, he spent as much time out of doors as possible, the better to avoid us.”
“You may consider yourself fortunate, Miss Austen. He is not a man to entertain for many hours together.” After a little, with an air of hesitancy, he asked, “You met the Mademoiselle LeFevre, I suppose?”
“I could not undertake to say. A woman I did see, who I think was called Seraphine; but as she was never properly introduced, I cannot tell you if she was the same.”
An expression of anger suffused Fielding's countenance, and he seemed too overcome to speak; but finally, with a little effort at a smile, and a quick glance of the eyes, he unburdened himself. “I must apologise, Miss Austen, for the violence of my feelings,” he told me; “but I cannot observe that gentleman's treatment of his cousin, without some indignation and general outrage.”
“His cousin!”
“Indeed, a cousin from France, who first fled the deprivation of her estates, and the murder of her family, in the old King's time. She has been resident in England some ten years, and under Sidmouth's care.”
“But it seems impossible!” I cried. “I thought her no higher than a servant, from the manner in which she was dressed, and the air of general command he enjoyed in her presence.”
“I fear that you saw nothing out of the ordinary way,” the Captain replied, his lips compressed. “Sidmouth rules her frail life with an iron hand; and she is so far dependent upon him, as to make her prey to every degradation. I very much fear—I have reason to wonder—if she is not entirely abandoned to his power, Miss Austen, in a manner that no honourable man should tolerate. To consider his oum advantage, when he was charged by her dying father to protect hers, is in every way despicable; but I must believe him to have sunk even as low as this. I pity Mademoiselle LeFevre; I am stirred by the outrage she daily endures; but I cannot intervene. I have not the cause. Not yet.”
I was overcome by this confidence, and all amazed at the depravity it bespoke; and though I wondered a little at Captain Fielding's imparting so much of a rumoured nature, to a lady and a virtual stranger, I silently applauded the fine sensibility that encouraged his indignation, and felt a warmth of respect for his concerns. Of Seraphine LeFevre, I thought with renewed pity, and of Sidmouth, with contempt
Our dance coming to a close with the Captain's last words, he bowed gravely and I curtseyed, somewhat lost in thought My gallant partner then suggesting we should repair to the supper room, I gladly took the arm he offered me, being somewhat out of breath from the double exertion of conversation and dance, and allowed myself to be led in search of punch and pasties.