of being too easy, than of being above my company. Pride is a quality I abhor beyond all things. However justified by the accomplishments of the possessor, it renders the power to do good, onerous when once bestowed. We none of us like condescension when it is offered.”
“Very true. Condescension, and officiousness—the unwonted interference of others in our private affairs.”
He spoke with an edge of bitterness, as if at a painful recollection; and unbidden, Captain Fielding's face arose in my mind. His opinion of Mr. Sidmouth was so very bad; and yet, so kind and generous a gentleman as Mr. Crawford counted the master of High Down among his intimate friends. It was a puzzle.
“And what is your fault, Mr. Sidmouth?” I enquired, bracing my right hand against the seat as the barouche rounded a ragged curve.
“Following my own inclination, when I should consider the needs of others,” he said, without hesitation. “You will notice, for example, that I drive to suit myself, rather than in deference to your fear of heights and speed. But having observed your hand clutching at the seat, I cannot persist; I must imagine the rest of the party to be similarly incommoded.” He sawed at the reins, and glanced over his shoulder at the four heads bobbing behind; all were engaged in animated discussion, the sense of which was drowned in the tumult of hooves and wheels; and none, to my eye, looked the slightest bit discomfited.
“To follow one's inclination first, is the habit of a solitary man,” I observed.
“And how then have I acquired it? For I can hardly be called a hermit.”
“I did not mean you wanted a household,” I replied. “Only that a household cannot claim the consideration that a family might.”
“Ah! The wife and children!” he said, with some amusement. “Yes—I admire your circumspection, Miss Jane Austen of Bath. It is rare for a young lady in my company not to broach the subject of marriage within an hour's acquaintance; and you have withstood the test now several days. But I fear my habits are not conducive to a settled life. For domestic bliss, you must search elsewhere.”
“I spoke but in the general way!” I cried, mortified. “I meant only to illustrate my point, by describing your situation.”
“But you have not described it as you should,” he replied . “For I do not live alone. There is my cousin Sera-phine.”
I must have flushed hody at the name, for his eyes, when they glanced my way, narrowed shrewdly.
“You have heard something to her discredit. I am sure of it/’
“Of your cousin I have heard little—and that, only praise. But of yourself, Mr. Sidmouth—” I faltered, and searched for a means of carrying on. “I hear such conflicting reports of your character, that I confess I know not what to think.”
“If you would draw my likeness from the opinion of men such as Percival Fielding, you cannot hope to capture it truly.”
“Captain Fielding appears all that is honourable,” I replied, stiffening.
“Appears! Aye, he appears to be a great deal.” At this, Sidmouth laughed with contempt, but his countenance was decidedly angry. “He has sunk Mademoiselle LeFevre before the eyes of all Lyme. The sorrow Fielding has caused—the pain—I tremble to think of it, Miss Austen.”
“How can you speak so!” I said, my attitude all indignation. I clutched involuntarily at the seat's edge as the barouche began to descend towards the Charmouth shingle. A broad sea vista was spread before us—breathtaking in the extreme—but I was too intent upon my thoughts to give it proper notice. ‘’You, Mr. Sidmouth, who should have been your cousin's protector! You—who are responsible for reducing her to misery of the acutest kind! I wonder at your encompassing a man so honourable as the Captain—his motives all disinterested, his aims merely just—in the ruin of Mademoiselle LeFevre! Your own sense of decency, Mr. Sidmouth—of respect for the duties of a gentleman—must cry out against it!”
His countenance paled above his bitten lips, and his gaze, levelled as it was over the horses’ heads, became stony. “I would beg you to speak no more to me, madam, of Captain Fielding,” he said. “You cannot know what is toward between that gendeman and myself, and I shall not stoop to deriding him to others, as it has suited him to serve me.”
“I am glad to know you retain some claims to the honour of a gendeman,” I replied tartly; and so we pulled up before Mr. Crawford's fossil works, in silence