Chapter 33
HARTFIELD
EMMA
Harriet and I ran on narrow footpaths and crossed fields until we reached Randalls Road.
That felt safer, so we followed it at a fast walk, Harriet catching her breath while I rushed down every branching path, looking for Mr. Knightley.
Finally, we reached the Westons. Anne saw us through a window and ushered us in.
“Is Mr. Knightley here?” I gasped as her maid locked the door and drew the curtain, but he was already running in from the parlor. My heart lurched from pounding fear to dancing relief as we embraced.
“Easy,” he grunted. “I need to breathe, too.”
Breath seemed irrelevant to me, and he held me just as tight. We inhaled drunkenly when we let go. I smoothed his collar. We were not at a properly decorous distance, but this was as far as I was willing to go.
Eventually, I made a little hem noise so Anne and Harriet knew to turn back from their examination of the hall clock.
Anne could not hide her smile. “Whatever happened to Miss Woodhouse, who told me since she was eight years old how she would never marry?”
“I suppose she had not yet met Mr. Knightley,” I replied, giddy and secure at last.
We entered the parlor. Mr. Weston was sipping tea with Augusta in a quiet corner with a platter of sandwiches. A nanny was reading a story to the Westons’ little daughter, who squirmed, more interested in the guests. It was a wonderfully normal scene, and frayed muscles eased in my tired legs.
“Did you get the amulet?” Mr. Knightley asked.
I drew it out by the chain. In the sunny parlor, it shone with radiant fire.
“You are brilliant,” he pronounced.
“Harriet is brilliant,” I corrected. “She did it.” He bowed to her, and she looked down bashfully.
I considered the amulet. It was heavy—the gold chain of course, and the thick jade. Perhaps dragon scale was dense as well. I had not noticed the weight at the school, but one did not notice minor things when frightened. I had scraped my wrist going through the window and not noticed that, either.
I untied my feathered bonnet and passed it to Mr. Knightley, then slipped the chain over my head.
It nestled inside my collar, dense and fluid.
I tucked the amulet inside my clothes, hiding it completely.
The cold jade on my breast drew a shiver, then it warmed. No mystical vision overcame my senses.
Mr. Knightley, with the eagerness of all gentlemen burdened with fluffy things, had passed my bonnet to the Westons’ maid.
Relieved, he said, “We have had remarkable success, but it means nothing if we do not escape. We should strike out for the coach. With luck, we can cross the French lines on foot and ride freely to Pemberley.”
“As long as we take the Abbey trail,” I said. “I must check for dragons.” Mr. Knightley’s eyebrows shot up, but I rushed on. “There is something more urgent. Mr. Elton is bringing Mrs. Goddard’s students to Hartfield to bind them to crawlers. We must stop him.”
I had forgotten Augusta was in the room.
She jumped out of her chair at her husband’s name, knocking the platter of sandwiches across the floor.
Her hands pawed the air, fighting an unseen assailant.
She looked disturbing and pathetic and fierce, her gown disheveled and torn where she had ripped off decorations, her gloved fingers furious claws.
I gathered her agitated hands between mine. Her eyes swam before settling.
“Your husband is not here,” I said. “He will not hurt you again.”
Her throat worked, and when she spoke, her shoulders jerked with every word. “I did it. I hurt them.” She peered around the room and whispered, “We went into houses. I chose wyves to bring to Hartfield.”
I had seen that when we were captive. Mr. Elton had used her and her crawler like a hunting dog, inspecting us to find wyves suitable to bind.
“You did not know,” I said. “You were captive—”
She shook her head violently, launching tears. “I knew! I was afraid, but I knew.”
I embraced her shaking frame and murmured soothing nonsense.
Her hair against my cheek was clean and combed; someone, Harriet I suspected, had helped her wash while I celebrated my wedding night.
But even with the grime of her abuse removed, my fingers sank between the ribs of her emaciated frame.
How long had she been mistreated? Our cheeks brushed, and my deeper senses woke.
I perceived again the burned, ash-like shadow from her connection to the crawler, although now it was etched in detail.
I had broken that mockery of a binding, healed it in a fashion, but the scars were like fissures on her soul.
Moments ago, I had celebrated triumphs—clever escapes, recovering the amulet, my wedding. That felt unbearably selfish.
Augusta quieted to snuffling. Harriet took a turn, giving her a handkerchief and patting her shoulder, and I eased Mr. Knightley into the hall.
“Her husband put her through ungodly ordeals,” I whispered. “We must bring her with us when we head north. I cannot imagine where else she would be safe. But I do not think we should take her to Hartfield.”
“Is that our destination?” he asked. He was matter-of-fact about it, and I felt a whirl of affection and admiration.
“We cannot stop their army, but if there are no crawlers when Mr. Elton and the slavers arrive, the girls will be safe.”
“A housecleaning,” he said approvingly.
“Exactly. Hartfield is your home too, if you are not too attached to your Chelsea loft. It is a charming house when not infested with crawlers.”
That drew a brief smile. “How would we remove them?”
“They had to drag Augusta’s crawler toward me.
It was terrified. It fought to stay away.
And that was before I had this.” I touched my dress where the amulet lay.
Mr. Knightley’s head tilted thoughtfully while I pressed on, “I cannot bear to have Mr. Elton do more terrible things. Please. We have succeeded so far. Trust to providence.”
“Trust to peculiar events,” he said wryly, “but yes, I agree. We had better hurry. The soldiers were scrambled by those shots, and herding frightened girls will slow them, but they will come.”
I told the others our plan and forbade Harriet’s offer to join us, but then Augusta stepped forward. Her cheeks were blotchy from crying, but her red-rimmed eyes had steadied and her expression was firm. “I will go with you. I know where the crawlers are.”
“That is not necessary,” I said. I was sure I could find them. Even before I had the amulet, I had seen their nascent black bindings flickering through the walls.
“I must do something,” she said, and her voice cracked. “I must.”
I heard in her what I had felt: urgency, duty. And perhaps atonement, or retribution, would heal her scars. So, I nodded.
The three of us set out, Mr. Knightley carrying the long, slim box with the Baker rifle. Outside the house, he swung past the Westons’ wood pile and slung an ax over the other shoulder.
He patted the handle with a grim smile. “In case providence is busy elsewhere.”
We approached Hartfield from the rear along a wandering cow path. I would never have guessed my knowledge of odd routes would prove to be so useful for avoiding occupying armies.
Fifty yards short of the back gate, the groomed lawns of Hartfield’s park opened, giving an angled view of the house’s side and much of the front garden.
Mr. Knightley immediately drew me and Augusta into cover behind a dense sweet briar. There were soldiers in the front courtyard. Only three, though: the French captain we had met at Hartfield and two of his men.
“So much for providence,” I whispered to Mr. Knightley.
His eyes were narrow, and his hand tensed around the rifle case. Then he shook his head. “They might flee without their commander, but I am no soldier. I cannot shoot a man because he wears the wrong uniform.”
“I would not want you to,” I assured him.
The soldiers appeared bored. They clearly had been there for some time. I remembered my last encounter with the captain, and an idea formed. My husband would object, but that was easily remedied…
“Wait here,” I said and set out across the park toward the front door. There was one muffled protest behind me, then silence.
The guards were watching the carriage drive and lane, so I crossed the lawn and passed our espaliered pear tree before I was noticed. Then the French officer’s head flew around. Belatedly, the other soldiers spun, their muskets ready.
“Capitaine Fournier,” I said with a curtsy. “I thought your duty required you to be elsewhere?” When the slavers were preparing to bind us to crawlers, I had appealed to him for help. That had been his excuse as he left.
There was an awkward silence before he replied, “Madame. We were ordered back after you escaped.” He studied me, perhaps wondering whether this one rather slight woman had wiped out the Confederate soldiers he left at the house.
It was not a completely foolish thought.
The deadliest people in this battle were women, the French perfumer and the slavers’ captive wyves.
I realized I was wearing the very amulet the captain had sought at Hartfield. That was not so clever. But it was well concealed.
His soldiers had the baffled expression of people hearing an unintelligible language, so I gave them a disarming smile and proceeded.
“In a few minutes, more slavers will arrive. They are bringing twenty women to bind to the crawlers inside my home. Once they perform that brutality, they will force those women into battle. They will threaten them, drug them, and beat them.” The captain’s jaw clenched.
I had no way to interpret that, so I trusted to instinct and continued, “Some of those women are only girls. You said you have a daughter. Imagine watching her marched into that house.”
“Why tell me this?” he said stiffly.