Back on the road,the carriage and grooms left Emma’s sight after another few minutes when they went around a wide curve. Emma could not recall having travelled this way with her father since coming to Eastbourne. Not knowing what was beyond the curve, Emma slowed. She was unused to driving a phaeton, though she occasionally drove their little trap in Highbury. She would not like to tip Miss de Bourgh’s equipage.
Beyond the curve she pulled up sharply to utter chaos. A tree had fallen across the road a short distance beyond the turn, the carriage, not having slowed as Miss Woodhouse did, had crashed into it and overturned. The horses were screaming, and the driver was dead, his head cocked at an unnatural angle. Samuel and Colin were both armed, and before Emma could even step down from the phaeton, they had dismounted and approached the beasts, the men’s arms were stretched out before them, they turned their eyes away, and two shots rang out, as the poor horses were put out of their misery.
At the sound of the shots, Miss de Bourgh began screaming in panic from inside the carriage. Emma could not blame her, the poor ladies must be terrified. She rushed to the overturned carriage, and climbed up on its side before the two men had even begun to recover from the shock and distress of having to shoot the horses.
Emma wrenched the door of the carriage open, and immediately was struck in the face by a tree branch that had forced its way into the window on the other side of the carriage as it overturned. Miss de Bourgh was still screaming.
“Miss de Bourgh! Miss de Bourgh, are you hurt?” Emma shouted. “Let me help you out!”
Anne’s hand shot up and grasped Emma’s, and with Emma’s help, the lady pulled herself up and out of the door. She was still in a panic, breathing heavily, and Emma thought it was a wonder she had not swooned.
“Lady Priscilla, are you well?” Emma cried as Anne was helped down by the grooms. It was difficult to see around the tree branch and all of the leaves.
“I am alr-” Priscilla was cut off by Lord Lennox.
“Move damn you! Out of my way, I said move, I must get out!” the man shouted, as he pulled himself up and out of the door, shoving Emma as he did so.
“Well!” Emma exclaimed, kicking the man in the behind with her slippered foot as he attempted to climb down. He fell off of the carriage, and was quickly set upon by Lady Catherine’s grooms who commenced to give him a sound beating. Emma turned back and reached out her arm for Priscilla, and as she pulled the lady out, Emma saw what had upset the occupants of the carriage.
Emma would have thought that the experience itself might have been enough to distress anyone, but when she saw the state of Sir Albert, she understood Anne’s screams. Sir Albert was impaled through the chest by a broken tree branch just slightly thicker than Emma’s wrist. The man was still breathing, though unconscious. Emma had never seen such a terrifying sight in all of her life.
“Emma?” she heard her father’s voice from behind her. She turned and found her father standing behind her with Mr Elton and a few other men from the village, one of whom was running for the doctor and more help. “Are you quite well?” her father asked.
“Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, youdolook quite well!” exclaimed Priscilla as Mr Woodhouse helped Emma down from the carriage. “How fortunate for my cousin and I that you seemto have quite recovered your strength! Come and sit here with me and Anne, you must feel quite faint now.”
Priscilla began to fan Emma and Anne in turn, as the men gathered round the carriage and discussed how to get Sir Albert out. Eventually, the doctor arrived, confirmed what they all knew. Sir Albert was not going to survive. Rather than make his last moments any more torturous than necessary, he was given a lethal dose of laudanum, and the men settled in to wait until he expired before they attempted to move him.
Mr Woodhouse herded the ladies into his carriage and returned Anne and Priscilla to Bourne House, with Samuel and Colin leading Anne’s horses and phaeton behind. Lady Catherine was in such a rage that she abandoned the party and went immediately to the stables with Torrens and fired the two grooms on the spot. Then she returned to the house and once she had heard all, embraced Miss Woodhouse in thanks, and herded Anne and Priscilla upstairs for large tumblers of brandy, baths, and to be put into their beds to recover their nerves.
Emma Woodhouse wasquiet all the way back to their rented house. When they arrived, Mr Elton excused himself and took himself upstairs to his guest room, but Emma’s father called her to the study. She seated herself on a sofa on the side of the room as he poured her a large brandy and handed it to her. She sniffed it and wrinkled her nose.
“It will help your nerves, dear,” her father said as he took a seat near her on the sofa as she took a large gulp and sputtered. Mr Woodhouse waited patiently as she consumed the brandy, and as the heat of the spirits spread through her, he looked at her speculatively.
“Well, Emma?” he asked.
“Well what?” she said irritably.
“You know what, my dear,” he said gently. “I am not angry with you. I would only like you to explain.”
“It helped you,” she whispered. When he asked her to repeat herself, she shouted, “It helped you! Me, being ill! You cooped yourself up at home, afraid of everything foryears, but when I became ill, it brought you back! You were so determined to see me well again, and when I became well…”
“You were afraid that I would return to my armchair and my blankets and my fears,” her father finished.
“Yes,” whispered Emma. “So I became ill again, for you. When you began to speak of going away to find a physician, I thought that even feigning illness and being unable to do anything fun was better than nothing, as long as wewent somewhere and did something. I thought that perhaps if we travelled, you might enjoy meeting people and doing things again.”
“You were right,” her father said. “You were entirely right. Ihaveenjoyed going out and seeing people again. It has been unfair of me, keeping you in Highbury, with no one but the same few spinsters for company. You ought to be married. You ought todance.”
“I do not mind, not really,” said Emma tearfully. “It was only that you came alive again in a way I had not seen since I was a small girl; I was afraid that it would not last. I will return to Highbury gladly, if only you will be your old self again, always.”
“Thecomte,” her father said distractedly. When she raised a brow, he continued. “He said that you suffered on behalf of another. When they were well, so would you be. What an insightful man.” He took her hands. “I am well, Emma. Now so must you be. We will go to the ball on Tuesday – may I have the honour of your first dance?”
CHAPTER 46
Later that evening, after the household had gone to bed, Lady Catherine met with Georgiana, Ashley, and Richard in her private sitting room.
“Brother! Father was surprised that it was you they sent out here!” said Ashley, rising to clap his brother on the back. “He told me that he spoke personally with the quartermaster before the mission was assigned, he does not think even the quartermaster himself knows that you are the agent in question. What the devil is going on out here in East Sussex?”
“It appeared to be smuggling, and perhaps it is, but damned if I can work it out without proper support, Ashley,” said his younger brother. “I was told that extra men would be sent out the moment I indicated that they were needed. I have asked my superior four times to send more men, and I have yet to hear a word back, and we had a sound method of communication planned. The damned war office sent me out here and abandoned me. I have been attempting to follow no fewer than ten men by myself for weeks, and ensure the safety of Bourne House.”
