head. ‘The man's charm is considerable. I am sure—I cannot but assume—that you felt its force yourself. Consider then how the people of a town, who feel only the public benefits of association with such a man, are more generally likely to forgive his private sins. Sidmouth has spent such sums on the betterment of Lyme, as to ensure his place in the hearts of the Fane family and their creatures, who all but control the town;7he cuts a handsome figure at the Assemblies; his taxes are paid, his tithes collected—and if he continues to form a part of a roguish set, much given to gaming and general drunkenness in its hours of idleness—so be it.”
“I am shocked,” I cried, “shocked and saddened. Men who have much power for good, seem always that much more tempted to evil; and that it should be the reverse, in the eyes of Providence, holds but little sway.”
“My dear, my most excellent Miss Austen,” Captain Fielding replied, with some emotion; “you have given voice to my very thought. I hope our two minds may be always in concert.”
I thought then, with a rush of foreboding, of the hanged man at the end of the Cobb, the scene I had witnessed the previous day, and my own doubts of Mr. Sidmouth's motives. I suspected another incitement to murder—one that had nothing to do with the notorious Reverend or his smuggled goods. But to voice such fears and suspicions, even to Captain Fielding, on the strength of so little, must be impossible; the ruin of Mr. Sid-mouth's reputation—nay, even his life—might hang upon such idle talk.
It could not do harm, however, to probe what more Captain Fielding might know of the murky affair.
We had secured refreshment and moved towards the settee at one end of the room, before I took up my subject.
“Lyme seems particularly prone to such grotesqueries of character as Mr. Sidmouth displays,” I observed, as I setded myself delicately upon the edge of a cushion. “The hanged man on the Cobb, for example. It was a very singular example of crudery, was it not?”
A look of surprise from Captain Fielding, and a hesitation; for a Mrs. Barnewall to raise such matters, might be acceptable, but for a Miss Austen to broach them, apparently was not.
“Poor Tibbit,” he answered at the last, as he eased himself next to me and extended his game leg before him. “He leaves a wife and five children, and all ill-provided for.”
“You knew him then? How tragic! And nothing is known, I suppose, of his murderers?”
“Nothing.” The Captain offered me a glass of wine, his fingers grazing my own. Unless my eyes misgave me, his hand trembled at the touch. “The fellow was a scoundrel, of course; he has turned up at my home a thousand dmes, to labour in the garden or mend a stone wall. The sort of idler who can be hired for a few pence, in the performing of odd jobs—which sums are as quickly dissipated at the Three Cups, as turned to his children's account. Tibbit shall not be missed, even by his wife.”
“But is that reason to ignore the manner of his end?” I enquired gently, as I took a sip of punch. “Is not the death of even the slightest creature of weight in the scales of justice?”
“Oh! But of course! If you would look for a reason in his death, Miss Austen, you need search no further than the manner of his life. I will wager that if Bill Tibbit did not meet his end at the hands of the Reverend, then it was through some fellows he double-crossed, in an affair of devilry; and though the local justice were to question the entire village, and solemnly record their protestations of innocence, and preoccupation with their affairs on the night in question, he should not arrive at the truth of it. No, Miss Austen”—the Captain said, drawing me back towards the ballroom as the musicians recommenced— “the scales of justice are balanced already. Bill Tibbit knows why he is dead, I warrant; but that we shall ever know, is quite unlikely.”
IT WAS SOME HOURS LATER, AS I WAS RESTING IN THE COMFORT OF AN alcove settee, having danced with Mr. Crawford, and a few of Captain Fielding's brother officers (who had gone in search of negus), that Mr. Sidmouth arrived. Mindful of all that the Captain had told me, I felt some little trepidation upon perceiving the master of High Down;