The Deception at Lyme: Or, the Peril of Persuasion (Mr. And Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) (37 page)

“And it is I who will take him back.” Captain Wentworth began walking toward the pair. The others fell into step.

“When we reach them, there is no use pretending we did not hear their discussion—with Mrs. Smith, at any rate,” Elizabeth said. “Look where her bench is, Darcy—she is ideally situated to overhear conversations, and in fact heard one between Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot shortly before Mrs. Clay died. I do not know whether Mr. Elliot is aware of the phenomenon; I think perhaps not, for his speech to her was unguarded.” She paused. “For that matter, so was hers—I wonder whether she realizes the whispering effect works in both directions.”

“I cannot believe Mrs. Smith would act so falsely by us,” Mrs. Wentworth said, “or harm Mrs. Clay. She is my friend. We must give her an opportunity to explain.”

As they neared the bench, they were able to obtain a closer look at Alfred. The child was wrapped in a blanket and appeared to be sleeping. Mrs. Smith smiled at the Wentworths. “Why, good morning, Anne.” Mr. Elliot also offered a greeting, but without the smile. Caution pervaded his normally smooth manner.

“Good morning,” Anne stammered.

Captain Wentworth went straight to Mrs. Smith and took Alfred. “You have given us quite a fright, Mrs. Smith. We have been looking for Alfred.”

“Yes,” Anne added. “How did the two of you come to bring him here?”

“I had nothing to do with the child,” Mr. Elliot declared. “He was with Mrs. Smith when I happened upon them.” He glanced at the quay, where the
Black Cormorant
was docked. The merchantman had acquired her guns since Darcy had last seen her. Darcy wondered whether it was Mrs. Smith or the ship that had brought Mr. Elliot to the Cobb.

“I did not mean to alarm you,” Mrs. Smith said. “Did you not find my note?”

Captain Wentworth passed the sleeping baby to his wife, who held him tightly. As Alfred nestled against her—a welcome sign that he was sound—the anxiety in her face diminished but did not disappear. “No,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “There was no note.”

“I left it in—well, now, where did I leave it? All was such a bustle when we quit the house. The chair bearers were impatient. I had wanted to linger a few minutes more for Mrs. Logan to return, but they said they had other customers waiting. So I decided to bring Alfred with me.”

“Why did you not simply leave him sleeping in the nursery?” Captain Wentworth asked.

“I thought he might enjoy the outing, and the sea air has been so therapeutic for me that I believed he could benefit from it as well. Besides, he was not in the nursery when the chair arrived—he was already with me. I had heard him crying earlier, after Mrs. Logan went out. You were in the study with your guests—I did not think you wished to be disturbed. So I went to the nursery myself to quiet him. He would not settle down without being held, and the sedan chair was due to arrive, so I brought him downstairs with me so that I might watch for it.”

“How did you negotiate the stairs?” Mrs. Wentworth asked.

Mrs. Smith smiled brightly. “On my own legs, I am proud to say. I have been improving beyond your knowledge, Anne! The sea has done wonders for my health. You and Captain Wentworth have been so good to me that I wanted to surprise you some future morning by leaving behind my cane and walking with you all the way down to the Cobb on my own. I am not quite that strong yet—it is a long, steep walk, but I have been practicing by climbing and descending the stairs when you are not at home.”

Mrs. Wentworth regarded her in astonishment. It was not, however, the delighted amazement that Mrs. Smith had hoped to arouse in her friend. It was a sober, wary shock. Her gaze drifted from Mrs. Smith to the wall behind her, and up to the edge of the parapet from which Mrs. Clay had fallen. “And is that,” she said, her voice small, as if muting it would negate the possibility of what she was about to ask, “how you came to be standing on the upper Cobb the morning Mrs. Clay died?”

Mrs. Smith’s cheerful glow transformed into a panicked flush.

“I can explain.”

*   *   *

Admiral Croft returned to the Wentworths’ home in a great flurry. He entered the sitting room so intent upon his mission that he did not realize he interrupted two people who had been engaged for some time in private conversation.

“I have the warrants,” he announced. “The customs officers and our own forces stand ready. Here—I brought your sword. Where is Wentworth?”

“With Mr. Darcy.” Captain St. Clair rose from the sofa to accept the sword; Georgiana also stood. “They are tracking down Mr. Elliot.” He summarized Alfred’s disappearance.

Admiral Croft frowned. “This is most alarming. How is Mrs. Wentworth taking it?”

“Not well. She is upstairs in the nursery. Mrs. Darcy is with her.”

The admiral nodded. “We will not disturb them.” He looked at Georgiana. “Miss Darcy, please assure Mrs. Wentworth that Captain St. Clair and I have gone to apprehend Mr. Elliot. Sir Laurence, as well.”

“I will, sir. I am sure the news will relieve her.”

Admiral Croft bowed. “Let us make haste, Captain.” He quit the room.

Captain St. Clair put on his hat and girded his sword. From bicorne to boots, he looked every inch an officer prepared for battle.

“You do not expect to fight Sir Laurence, do you?” Georgiana asked.

“If the baronet is as intelligent as he thinks he is, he will surrender without resistance. But if not, I am prepared.” Her anxious expression gave him pause. “We intend to take him alive, if that is the source of your concern.”

“No, it is not.”

Hand on his sword hilt, he took a step toward her. “I had been wanting to warn you of him for some time, but feared you would interpret my words as—well, it does not matter now. When next you see me, Sir Laurence will no longer be a threat to anybody.”

He took leave of her, then went to meet the admiral in the hall. He had nearly quit the room when Georgiana’s voice stopped him.

“Captain—”

He turned round. “Yes, Miss Darcy?”

She advanced until she stood just before him. “Do take care.”

He regarded her a long moment, his eyes full of hopeful determination. “I shall.”

“Show a leg, Captain St. Clair,” called the admiral from the entry hall. “Sir Laurence and Mr. Elliot will not be kept waiting.”

Thirty-six

“We were a thoughtless, gay set, without any strict rules of conduct. We lived for enjoyment. I think differently now: time and sickness and sorrow have given me other notions.”

—Mrs. Smith to Anne Elliot,
Persuasion

“It was an accident.”

Mr. Elliot chuckled at Mrs. Smith’s declaration. “Undoubtedly.”

Mrs. Smith stared at him a moment, appearing to weigh something in her mind, then turned to the others and gave Anne Wentworth her full address.

“I was here that morning, as usual. The weather started to turn, and Mrs. Rooke left to summon the sedan chair early to take me home. She had barely started away when I became aware of a conversation going on above me on the upper wall. I recognized the voices—they belonged to Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot.

“I had seen them together on the Cobb numerous times before, but though they sometimes walked right past my bench, they never saw me—nobody notices a cripple; indeed, passers-by avert their gazes to avoid my eyes—and I am so changed that the two of them never realized how close they strolled to a discarded remnant of their past. I saw them in their fine clothes, saw her belly great with evidence of yet another illicit dalliance, and never did anything to draw their attention as they walked past. Betrayed by them both, I wanted nothing to do with them.

“That morning, they argued, and I learned that their treachery had gone further than I had previously known. Moreover, I learned that Mrs. Clay had left Mr. Elliot and taken up residence with your father. The news angered Mr. Elliot, but it incensed me.” Mrs. Smith’s face contorted in disgust. “She made me ill”—her voice shook—“with her loose ways and string of lovers. There I was, impoverished and alone, my husband dead, no fortune to ease my physical comfort, no children to console me. Privation and poor health were my sole legacy from the careless days of our youth, while she had attained everything she ever wanted.”

She fingered her locket, with its miniature of the late Mr. Smith, and turned to Mr. Elliot. “And you—you sickened me in other ways. Not only have you been living in luxury off a fortune my husband’s property made possible, but
you
—my ‘friend’—kept another secret from me for so many years.”

“You were happier not knowing,” Mr. Elliot said.

“I suspected. When I asked you directly, you denied any knowledge—I had to learn years later from your wife. However, when I sorted through my husband’s papers after he died, I found a note from you proving that you knew from the start. I tore it to pieces, not wanting any reminder of how thoroughly deceived I had been by everyone around me. Now I wish I had kept it, as further evidence of what a heartless creature you are.”

Mr. Elliot shrugged. “It was not my secret to tell.”

“No, it was my husband’s—and hers.”

Elizabeth realized she had read a fragment of that note, and understood the betrayal Mrs. Smith referred to. The portrait of Mr. Smith in the locket his widow now gripped in her fist depicted a man with red hair—as red as that of Mrs. Clay’s second son.

Mrs. Smith turned back to Anne Wentworth. “If you have not already inferred, Mrs. Clay’s liaisons did not begin and end with naval officers.”

“Oh, Frances…” Anne’s expression softened, and she went to sit beside Mrs. Smith.

While Captain Wentworth attended Mrs. Smith’s speech, he seemed distracted. His gaze strayed repeatedly to the
Black Cormorant.
Its deck was astir today, though its crew went about their work quietly.

“With my husband no longer able to confess,” Mrs. Smith continued, “I decided to confront Mrs. Clay. I wanted to see remorse in one of them. I wanted to hear the truth from
somebody
.

“I left my bench and walked to the steps around that bend.” She pointed toward the southern end of the Cobb, where stood the far stairs behind the quay. “By the time I climbed to the top and reached Mrs. Clay, Mr. Elliot had gone.”

Mr. Elliot, too, seemed attentive to the activity aboard the
Black Cormorant.
His gaze had drifted to the ship, but at the mention of his name it returned to Mrs. Smith.

Captain Wentworth leaned toward Darcy. “She is preparing to make sail.” Only Elizabeth stood close enough to overhear him; Mrs. Smith continued as if he had not spoken.

“Mrs. Clay was looking upon the harbor when I spoke her name. She turned round, and for a moment she did not know me. But then she recognized traces of my former self in my present face. There was no greeting, no warmth of encountering an old friend after a span of years. She only asked what I was doing in Lyme. I replied that I had come for my health. She made no enquiry into how I fared,” she said bitterly, “not even the most minimal civility.

“I, on the other hand, asked after her, and she gleefully announced her new status as Lady Elliot. When I enquired after her boys, she could barely give any account of them—it was clear that they seldom entered her thoughts. The injustice of it overpowered me. Indulged by men of wealth, she had now married one, and would know a life of comfort that surpassed even what she enjoyed during our former years together, neglecting the child that should have been mine even while carrying another.”

Mrs. Smith’s voice cracked, and one of the hands that had been strong enough to carry Alfred now shook as Anne Wentworth took it into her own.

“I asked about her younger son, and whether he had grown to bear the image of his father. She replied that he little resembled Mr. Clay. ‘That is not what I asked,’ I said. She at last had the decency to look ashamed. She took a step back, and said she did not understand my meaning. She was close to the wall’s edge, but not right upon it. ‘That surprises me,’ I said, ‘for I understand
you
perfectly.’ I moved another step toward her. ‘But if you truly do not comprehend, I will state my query more plainly. Is he my husband’s child?’

“She stared at me for what must have been half a minute at least, the wind whipping her hair and cloak, the gloom deepening. I could see in her calculating visage an internal deliberation over whether any purpose would be served by attempting to maintain the lie any longer. At last she answered. ‘Yes, he is.’

“At that moment, a thunderbolt pierced the sky. Arriving as it did, so swiftly upon her confession, it seemed a divine condemnation of her sin. She started, and took another step backward, coming precariously close to the edge of the seawall. I realized her peril and moved toward her to pull her back to safety. But Mrs. Clay interpreted my advance as threatening, and put up her hands to ward me away.”

Mrs. Smith’s voice had become thick. She swallowed, blinking watery eyes. “I called out to warn her that she was close to the edge, but people were shouting about a ship on fire and my voice was drowned by their cries and the wind. Then the ship exploded. The blast so startled her that she lost her balance. I reached for her, but she was already too far into her fall for my fingers to more than brush her sleeve.”

Mrs. Smith looked beseechingly at Anne.

“It was an accident. An unfortunate, regrettable accident.”

*   *   *

“Yet you did not summon anybody to help her,” Darcy said.

“My own thinking was not clear immediately following,” Mrs. Smith replied. “I was shocked by the explosion and from the horror of witnessing such a dreadful fall. I assumed Mrs. Clay was dead, having tumbled so far, especially in her condition. Also, I was frightened that someone might have seen the accident and misconstrued what occurred—as Mr. Elliot did. I started walking along the upper wall toward shore, faster than I had realized myself capable of, spurred by fear and the pandemonium around me. I had covered half the distance before my mind settled enough for me to consider that perhaps she had not died. I looked back, and by then you were attending her. So I continued to the main steps, where I met the sedan chair when it and my nurse arrived a few minutes later. She was surprised to find me waiting there, but I told her that after the explosion someone had helped me that far.”