The Deception At Lyme

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