“But would a man moved to such a sudden mortal blow carry a lily about his person, or leave it by the Captain in token of his sins?” I cried. “Depend upon it, Mr. Crawford. We are all grossly imposed upon. There is more to the matter than meets the eye.”

“You may well be proved correct, Miss Austen,” Mr. Crawford replied, his dejected form speaking all his misgiving, “but the Captain is unlikely to have known two men who bore him such enmity, as we know Sidmouth to have felt.”

I could not charge Mr. Crawford with the betrayal of his friend, as Seraphine had done; he spoke only as Mr. Dobbin and the coroner might, in presenting the evidence at Fielding's inquest — and for any light to be thrown upon the matter, even the most distasteful of possibilities must be accorded a measure of thought. The darkest matters between the two men should be fully canvassed and understood, did we hope to find Fielding's murderer.

“Mademoiselle LeFevre,” I said tentatively, with a look for poor Seraphine, whose face was lost in her kerchief, “I have no wish to increase your distress, for the idle satisfaction of my own curiosity; but it would appear that a better understanding of the affairs between your cousin and Captain Fielding, might materially improve Mr. Sid-mouth's case. Is it in your power to reveal the cause of his profound dislike?”

Her angelic head came up, and her eyes sought mine with pain. “I do not know — I am not certain what may safely be said. I must speak with Geoffrey first.”

“It turns upon the Captain's nickname, does it not?” Mr. Crawford gently enquired. “Le Chevalier. He won it through some service to yourself, I had understood.”

“Service? Service? Is that what he called it?” Seraphine threw back her head with bitter laughter. “The English have a curious way with language, do they not? Mr. Crawford speaks of duty, when he should say betrayal, and Captain Fielding — Captain Fielding spoke when any man of honour should better have remained silent. From the services of our friends, my cousin and I have both of us been reduced to misery.” She rose in a single fluid movement, swung her red cloak about her form, and turned to Mr. Crawford a countenance as remote as heaven.

“Thank you, Mr. Crawford, for the indulgence of your time; but I fear I must return now to the Grange. There is much to be done, and one less pair of hands to do it; and I hold my cousin's concerns too dear to neglect his business in his absence. You will forgive me.”

Mr. Crawford cleared his throat, and sank his chin in his cravat, and seemed at a loss for words.

“May I offer my company, Mademoiselle, and my assistance?” I enquired.

Seraphine only shook her head. “You are kindness itself, Miss Austen, but I should like to be alone at present. We will speak again, I hope, in a few days’ time.”

That she envisioned some meeting by the Golden Lion, in the midst of Sidmouth's inquest, I little doubted; and felt a deep foreboding. A look for Mr. Crawford convinced me that the gentleman was similarly lost in thought; but he roused himself sufficiently to order his carriage, a measure of solicitude for which I was thankful, having walked my fill of Dorset's hills for one morning.

Our few moments’ journey was rendered tedious enough in being passed in virtual silence, before Seraphine was deposited on the Grange's doorstep; and at the coachman's turning his horses’ heads, I had a final glimpse of her — pale, upright, and clothed in fire, as she toiled her lonely way through the courtyard.

20 September 1804

in & wee hours

I COULD NOT SLEEP, TONIGHT, FOR TOSSING AND TURNING IN THE grip of tortured thoughts — all that I observed and witnessed today being fresh upon my mind. A thousand expressions and attitudes paraded before my wearied eyes— Mr. Sidmouth's warmth, as he handed the boy Toby his crutches; the face of Seraphine, as she stared across the sunlit Channel towards France; her tears, in considering Captain Fielding's mysterious behaviour towards herself; and her raging loss in the face of Sidmouth's seizure. Mr. Crawford, too, would not be banished from my mind — for such a heavy burden did he bear, in debating, as he must, his friend's guilt or innocence!

The heaviest share in sleeplessness, however, I must accord to the proper place, as arising from my own indecision regarding Sidmouth. In truth, I knew not what to think of the incriminating hoofprints. A plausible case might be made for another's having taken a mount from the Grange's stables, and done away with the Captain in Sidmouth's guise; but I felt all the truth of Mr. Crawford's conjecture — that none might harbour towards the Captain such enmity as the master of High Down.

— Or none, perhaps, than the smugglers and their lord, who undoubtedly bore towards the Captain a mortal grudge, for having bent his efforts to disturb their clandestine trade — but since all the world stood ready to proclaim Geoffrey Sidmouth the very Reverend, such an avenue led me nowhere.

Or did it?

I sat up in bed, transfixed by a thought.

Captain Fielding had supposed that Seraphine served as the Reverend's living signal, turning about the cliffs in her wide red cloak; he had offered it as his opinion that the very night that followed upon the heels of such a walk, should find the smugglers’ landing. I had strolled with Mademoiselle myself this morning, and observed her stand like a stone on die cliffs above the sea, for whole moments together. No ship had I observed, it was true; but I had been much preoccupied with my own interrogation, and its effect upon the lady.

I threw back the bedclothes and reached for my boots.

The conjectures of a fevered brain, made less reasonable by lack of sleep, will bear all the weight of rational thought in the mind of the conjecturer, however ridiculous their merits might seem by the light of day. Full many a midnight thought have I entertained with alacrity, only to reject it over my breakfast chocolate as excessively disordered. Tonight, however, I was possessed of too much impatience to await the dawn; I felt I must know whether Sidmouth was the Reverend or no, and I knew with all the certainty of midnight that the answer lay upon the shingle below High Down Grange. That most ladies of gentle rearing and habits should rather die than venture alone through the darkness, I acknowledged; and set aside as irrelevant. I was not, after all, most ladies.

A glance through the curtains, to observe the waning moon, a few hours from its setting — and the hope that any smuggling band worth its brandy should be likely to await a greater darkness for landing. 1 might just have time enough.

And so, in the last extremity of caution, I clothed myself in my oldest dress — a serviceable brown wool, which should be some proof against the coolness of a September night, and the damaging effects of the downs — and let myself out of Wings cottage as quiedy as I knew how.

THE WALK THAT WAS BRISKNESS ITSELF IN THE FULL LIGHT OF DAY, required nearly twice the time to effect in darkness and stealth; and the moon was fled from the sky indeed by the time I found the shore of Charmouth, and groped my way along its length. Mr. Crawford's fossil works I passed, and felt gratitude for its familiar humping of tools and rock, all shrouded now in canvas; passed, too, the path from the road above, where Mr. Sidmouth had pulled up the Crawford barouche — a day that seemed so long ago, I might have lived it in another lifetime.

I climbed up on a little bluff above the sand, to gaze at the rubble surrounding the fossil pits; and remembered the ammonite he had pressed into my hand — cool and smooth, like his strong fingers. Then I turned to the sea, and stared out over the endless black, as enormously empty as eternity itself. I had never before witnessed the curl of surf upon a beach at night, and was much struck by the white-green glow of the waters, as though some light from within the sea's depths would guide the waves to shore. The fresh wind clutched at my brown wool, and sent a chill through my body — unless it be the sensibility of my exposure to the elements, and the solitude of the night, and the possibility of a fate such as the Captain had found, that made me quail where I stood. Such isolation, as wrapt me round in discomfort! Well might I curse the power of midnight thoughts, that had sent me on such a foolhardy errand!