“Stop, thief!”
Elizabeth’s cry drew the attention of several passers-by, including Hiram Deal, whose cart Miss Jones was running past. He intercepted her flight and turned her around to face Elizabeth.
“I believe the lady wishes to speak with you,” he said.
Miss Jones cast him a scathing look. By the time she turned back to her accuser, however, she wore an entirely different expression.
“Oh! Ma’am! I recognize you now. Mrs. Darcy, is it not? The very person I hoped to meet.”
“Indeed?” Elizabeth was amazed by her brazenness. “Whatever for?”
“Why, to beg your forgiveness, of course! For the incident the other evening — I cannot think upon it without regret.”
“Nor can I.” Elizabeth cast a sidelong glance at Mrs. Knightley. “This is the young woman Mr. Darcy and I encountered on the London road.” She nodded towards Miss Jones’s foot. “Apparently, your ankle has healed.”
“Oh, Mrs. Darcy! If you would but listen—” She wrenched against Mr. Deal’s grasp. He released her, but remained near. “I did not want to deceive you! Truly, I did not! They forced me to.”
“Who?”
“The gypsies!”
This declaration raised echoes in the gathered onlookers.
“Gypsies!”
“The gypsies have returned?”
“Someone send word to Mr. Knightley!”
A sturdy young boy dashed off toward Hartfield to report the news, unaware that the magistrate had been in possession of this intelligence for days. Meanwhile, the crowd’s exclamations drew still more villagers. Among the new arrivals was Mr. Elton, who must have left the vicarage almost the moment Elizabeth and Mrs. Knightley had. He strode toward them with an air of self-importance.
Elizabeth had little desire to cause a scene. But she also would not allow Miss Jones to disappear a second time. “I saw no gypsies the other night,” she said to her. “Only you, imposing most shamefully on my husband and me.”
Mr. Elton reached them. “What is transpiring here?”
Though Elizabeth addressed the clergyman, she kept her gaze fixed on Miss Jones. “This woman stopped our carriage and robbed Mr. Darcy and me on the London road four nights ago.”
“That is not true!” Miss Jones turned to Mr. Elton with wide, tearful eyes. “Indeed, sir, she misunderstands. I would never do such a thing — not willingly!”
“I do not see how this young woman could act as you describe. Stop a carriage and overcome the driver and Mr. Darcy? That is improbable for any female, let alone one of such petite stature.”
“She had accomplices. They stole our belongings while she diverted our attention.”
“I did not!”
“Perhaps you have mistaken her for someone else?” Mr. Elton suggested. “What is your name, miss?”
“Loretta. Loretta…” The woman hesitated, staring at Elizabeth. “Jones,” she said finally. “Loretta Jones.”
“I would know ‘Miss Jones’ anywhere,” Elizabeth said. “Her voice is unmistakable.” The caterwaul yet resonated in her memory. “And she is wearing the same dress.”
With little else over it. The girl had acquired a lightweight shawl since Elizabeth had last seen her, but it held more colors than warmth, and on this blustery November day she must be freezing. She still wore no hat; her flight had caused several locks of hair to come loose from its ribbon. Miss Jones rubbed her arms and shivered, eliciting sympathetic looks from more than one observer. A man offered her the use of his coat, which she accepted with abundant expressions of gratitude for his kindness to a “poor, lost stranger.”
She lavished similar praise on Mr. Elton. How providential that a man of God should happen along just at her moment of need, while she was trying to explain to Mrs. Darcy the most unfortunate incidents that had led her to this state.
“How did you come to be lost?” Mr. Elton’s manner was not that of a clergyman ministering to a member of his flock, but rather that of a man whose sense had been banished by the flutter of eyelashes. Mrs. Knightley released a sound of disgust perceptible only to Elizabeth.
“I was kidnapped by the gypsies,” Miss Jones announced.
Gasps and small cries rippled through the assembly. Even the women regarded Miss Jones with sympathy.
“I was out walking one day — on my way to… church… with caps and mittens I had made to give to some poor families in our village. I try so hard to be mindful of others less fortunate than myself, you see. Well, a band of gypsies appeared from nowhere. I thought they wanted to steal the woollens, and I said welcome to them, but they seized me, too. I tried to run away but they said I must cooperate or they would go to my house and steal my sister instead — she only six years old! Of course I could not put her in such danger. So I consented, and they have been dragging me across England with them ever since.”
“Where are these gypsies now?” Elizabeth asked.
“We were camped nearby, and they decided to move on. When they broke camp, I made my escape. I do not know where they have gone, and I do not care. I am only grateful to finally be free of them.”
“Are you no longer anxious for the safety of your sister?”
“She lives in Northumberland, far enough away that I hope they will not return for her.”
And far enough away — the farthest north one could travel and still remain on English soil — that verifying Miss Jones’s story would prove difficult and time-consuming.
“That is a long journey,” Elizabeth said. “When did they abduct you?”
“Months ago. In spring.”
“You were bringing mittens to the poor in spring?”
“It is cold in Northumberland.” She jerked her chin toward Hiram Deal. “You, peddler — have you traveled there?”
Mr. Deal regarded Miss Jones steadily. “Aye,” he said. “The cold there can last well into spring.”
“If you have been missing since spring, your parents must be sick with worry,” said Mr. Elton.
Miss Jones turned to the clergyman with a piteous expression. “I am an orphan — my parents died just before the gypsies stole me. I am alone in the world.”
“Not entirely alone,” said Mr. Elton.
“You are too kind, sir.”
Mr. Elton regarded her with a look of perplexity. “Your sister—”
“Oh, yes — my sister.” Her eyes scanned the crowd until her gaze fell upon a girl of five or six, to whom she offered a wobbly smile. “The child I spoke of is in fact the daughter of a family who took me in when my parents died. She is like a sister to me, but not a blood relation.”
The mother of the little girl Miss Jones had singled out was a plump middle-aged woman dressed in half- mourning. Her hands were work-roughened and strong, her face weathered but gentle. She stepped forward and put an arm around Miss Jones’s shoulders. “Poor lonely creature! Hardly a friend in the world.”
Miss Jones sagged against the woman. “Indeed, I have come to feel so.” She wiped her eyes.
Elizabeth had seen no tears. Otherwise, it was a performance worthy of the Theatre Royal.
“What about the cousins you mentioned the other night?” Elizabeth asked. “The ones named Jones who live on a nearby farm?”
Miss Jones dropped her gaze. “I have no cousins. I–I invented them so that you would believe I had others to depend upon.” She looked up — not at Elizabeth, but at Mr. Elton and Mrs. Todd. “I did not want to impose upon such a fine lady and gentleman, or create in them a sense of obligation to help me.”
“Well, you have friends now,” the woman declared. “And you can count Mrs. Todd and her daughter Alice among them.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Todd.” Miss Jones — Loretta — whatever her name might be — knelt and threw her arms around the child. “Alice reminds me of my sweet foster-sister.” She looked up at Mrs. Todd. “And you, of my own dear mother.”
Alice, bewildered by the sudden affection from a stranger, submitted to the embrace but soon wiggled out of
