I have not written here in my journal for a whole day. Too much has happened, and I did not know how to set it down. Some of the things I wrote at the beginning of my visit seem so cruel and foolish now that I am almost afraid to write, lest I sound just as silly.
Adventures are not what I thought. When you read about some heroine fleeing in the night from a madman, it is quite thrilling and amusing. But, though your heart may pound, it is all sham. You know it will come out all right in the end. She will escape and find the hero and, more than likely, marry.
But real adventures are not like that. You have no idea how they will come out, and you are frightened all the time that something dreadful will happen, that you will walk downstairs for breakfast and be told that someone is hurt or…
How much I admire Alan Creighton! He is a true adventurer. He does not make silly speeches like the heroes in books, but he faces danger as coolly. I don’t believe it even occurred to him to draw back after what happened on our ride. He has some plan, and he will carry it through unless he is stopped. I wonder if these men, whoever they are and whatever they are doing, understand that. And, if they do, must they not shoot more accurately next time?
It is infuriating that he will tell me nothing. But I begin to understand him better now. He thinks he must protect me. It is almost an instinct with him. And after today I feel some gratitude for that impulse. He is right. He knows more about this sort of thing than I. Yet I feel I could help, if he would allow me. I don’t wish to leave him alone in this. The things he said about London worry me. He seems to have a kind of recklessness at times, a joy in the thought of battle that seems dangerous. His shoulder is not entirely healed. And he has no fellow officers here to aid him—only Philip, who is unaccustomed to fighting. I shall not give up my investigations.
Alice wishes me to go with her to a village wedding in my ridiculous disguise. She has some scheme in mind, I can tell, and after the shooting I am uneasy about going. But I shall. If I can find out even the smallest piece of information, it might make the difference. And so I have no choice but to try.
* * *
Smuggling. It is smuggling. I should have guessed. I managed to overhear a conversation between that man I saw in the cellar and another like him. There is a ship due in a week with a rich cargo. All the gang will be there to receive it. This must be the time for Alan’s plan to go forward. I slipped a note under his door, telling him what I learned without revealing myself. I could not go to him, for then I would have had to reveal my disguise and my appearance at the wedding, and he would have been angry with me. Also, I fear he would laugh.
It was quite ridiculous. I had not understood before that a thing can be laughable and frightening at the same time.
I went to the wedding as Alice’s beau—not a very impressive one, with my cap over my eyes and smudges on my face—but she didn’t care. I found when we had been there a while that I had been brought to rouse jealousy in a certain Eddie Forbes, the nephew of Forbes the butler! I actually had to dance with Alice while he glowered on the sidelines with his arms crossed on his chest. I made a very bad job of it, too. I have never felt so ridiculous in my life, and I was in terror that he would offer to fight me for her favors! Shakespeare’s characters did not have such silly misadventures, did they? It never seemed silly when Mama was reading it. It is almost impossible to dance with your head down and your hands in your pockets. Everyone thought I was extremely strange.
When Alice at last let me go, I tried to disappear in the crowd. But everyone stared, and asked all sorts of questions about where I came from and who my family was. I had to leave. It was only by chance that I encountered the two men on my way and managed to eavesdrop. I think I only managed it because they were drunk.
These men are frightening. Hearing them speak, I had no doubt they would do anything to save themselves from discovery. They are not from the village either. They talk quite differently. From things I heard a few villagers say, I believe they are greatly feared. Is this why Philip has done nothing? I suppose it must be. But Alan will not be daunted, and they will kill him if they must. It is terrible!
* * *
Jane just came in to do my hair for dinner. She brought me a new tract on the importance of repentance. After all that has happened I felt quite warm toward it. It seemed so homely and familiar, so outside the world of those rough brutal voices at the wedding. I could see she was surprised when I thanked her. Now, I suppose, she will think I am softening and redouble her efforts to convert me. Well, let her.
I must go down to Rosalind. She is getting suspicious. She looked for me while I was at the wedding and came within a hair’s breadth of catching me in my disguise. I think she must be feeling suspicious of Philip and Alan, too. She is not stupid, and the air is full of plotting and secrets. I wonder, should I tell her what I have discovered? It would worry her so. And she has just stopped being ill. I don’t know what to do. For the present, at least, I suppose I will follow Philip’s lead and say nothing to her, though I feel such a sneak keeping things from Rosalind in her own house. Everything is more difficult and complicated than I ever realized.