Soon enough the rocking of the coach lulled the occupants to sleep. Harold rested his head against the plush squabs while Louisa had her head in his lap.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Based on his son and daughter’s recommendation, Hurst made an offer for Netherfield Park. After a little negotiation, aprice acceptable to both parties was settled upon, and the estate was sold to Mr Ignatius Hurst on the sixteenth day of December 1803.
He took his son’s suggestion and employed Mr Frank Phillips as his agent in Meryton.
After news of the sale became known in the neighbourhood around Meryton, Hattie Phillips and Fanny Bennet were greatly vexed that their respective husbands would not tell them the purchaser’s name. In Fanny’s case, she had the added frustration that her two eldest daughters were as tight-lipped as their father about the name of the new master of Netherfield Park. Even Jane, who was normally so obedient, just told her she was not at liberty to say.
That meant that rather than being able to spread gossip no one else knew, Hattie and Fanny were left to speculate along with all the other matrons in the area. The only new information Hattie had was that her Frank would be seeking tenants to lease the estate for the foreseeable future.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The second Wednesday of January 1804 was a very fateful day.
Holcomb and some men with him had traced and identified the four traitors being paid to spy for France on the naval activity in the Scarborough harbour.
It was the same day that Arthur and Mavis Bingley—the latter unwillingly—had been at a dinner party with some fellow tradesmen at the house of one, which happened to be situated on Castle Hill, also known as the Scarborough Castle Headland.
Mavis objected on the strength that it meant socialising with other tradesmen, while she wanted to rise in society. She did not complain too vociferously because she was aware that, thanks to themisunderstanding—the way she and Caroline referred to their attempt to go to Pemberley—she was still on very shaky ground with her husband. He had not relented on his decision regarding the one year with no allowance or shopping, so it had been with no good cheer that Mavis had attended the soirée.
It was a dark, moonless night when the Bingleys prepared to depart the house of their hosts. During the day when there was light, the view from the house was magnificent. It looked out over the North Bay. On the other side was the South Bay; the two were separated by the headland. Where the house was situated was next to the drive which ran along the edge of the headland. There was a three-hundred-foot drop from the edge to the rocks and water below.
All of this was significant on the fateful night because just before the Bingleys’ coach departed, the four traitors who were leasing a house on the headland, where they would have a clear view of the harbour and the movement of ships, became aware that they were about to be arrested.
The four spies mounted their horses and as they could not ride towards the mainland thanks to the pursuers, they took the drive that ran around the side of the headland. They hoped to come down on the side of the North Bay and escape that way.
Holcomb had predicted this and had men waiting for that eventuality. When he saw the direction the traitors were fleeing, he shot his pistol into the air to warn his men that the spies were coming their way.
As the four men, galloping for all they were worth, made the turn at the end of the Scarborough Castle headland, they were not looking ahead. Rather, they were trying to look back, trying to gauge how close those chasing them were. As such, they did not see the lights of the coach at an angle across the road as it departed a house.
Two of the traitors hit the coach at full gallop, knocking it and themselves over the edge. The impact separated the team from the coach, and the coachman was pulled off the doomed vehicle as he was still holding onto the ribbons. The footmen on the back bench were not as lucky. The remaining two spies were thrown from their horses, which had reared up before they ran into the obstacle after the first two had done so.
Holcomb and his men bound and gagged the surviving traitors and whisked them away before people began pouring out of the house to see what had occurred. Thankfully, other than some cuts and bruises, the coachman was well, and able to tell those who came out of the house what had occurred.
Arthur and Mavis Bingley met their end that night. With them, two footmen and two traitors were lost as well.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Hurst summoned his son and daughter into his office at Somerset House. He had just received the couriered report from Holcomb on the operation in Scarborough and the disaster the fleeing traitors had caused.
“Father, you look like someone has died,” Harold jested. He became very quiet when he saw that his father remained extremely serious.
“You were aware we were closing in on the traitors spying for the Corsican tyrant in Scarborough, were you not?” Hurst questioned. He saw both of them nod. “Louisa, I do not know how to say this except directly. There was a terrible accident which ended with the carriage your parents were in going over the side of Castle Hill and into the North Bay below.”
“B-but that is t-three hundred feet down,” Louisa began to sob. “They did not survive, did they, Father Hurst? How?”
Hurst confirmed her assumption and explained what had happened. “In their reckless flight to freedom, the first two riders never saw the coach ahead of them. Your parents were lost as well as two Bingley footmen. By a miracle, the coachman and team of horses survived.”
“I am so sorry, Louisa. We must travel north at once,” Harold stated as he held his wife tightly.
“Until you receive notification, you cannot let on that you know. It will be another day or two. I am sorry, Louisa; you know why it must be so, do you not?” Hurst asked sympathetically.
All Louisa could do was nod between sobs. She wanted to be with Charles—who had just returned to Cambridge a few days previously—and Caroline as soon as may be. She was aware that Papa had built safeguards into his new will to protect against excesses by Caroline’s machinations and Charles’s indecision. However, there would be ample time to take care of that in due course.
It was a day later that the black-edged letter from Uncle John and Aunt Hildebrand arrived. Louisa and Harold departed within minutes of its receipt. They would first stop at Cambridge to collect Charles before travelling on to Scarborough.
Chapter 10
