Jane and the Man of the Cloth jam-2 Page 18

  And then I saw it — the short blink of a beam, as swiftly blinked out. An idea of Seraphine's curious lanthorn sprang to mind — its long, cylindrical spout debouching from one side, with a sliding cover of tin, so obviously designed for signalling. Someone above would make converse with a ship at sea. I wheeled, and strained to peer through the darkness — and was rewarded by an answering flare of light.

  Not a moment should be lost, for they would be upon me with some swiftness. But where to hide myself?

  Eliza's voice it might almost have been, from a light-hearted walk over a fortnight since, and ringing in my ears with her habitual frivolity—A cavern, Jane, as foetid and dank as Mrs, Radclijfe should make it! Shall we venture within, at the very peril of our lives?

  I hastened myself back along the cliff wall, endeavouring to recall the exact location of the slight opening in the rock; had it been before the Crawford pits, or just after? Or was it well along the Charmouth shingle, almost to its end? Without the aid of the moon, I could make nothing of the fold and meander of the chalk; where deliberation and calm were required, I was maddened by a sense of urgency that would not be gainsaid; and so it seemed that I must have stumbled about the place a veritable age, when of a sudden I recalled the small rock cairn I had observed so many days ago, in walking with Eliza by the cave's entrance. A moment only secured it to my sight; and my relief at turning past it, and slipping within the protective blind, was little greater than my previous desperation.

  I was forced to stoop in the entry, and felt the chill brush of moisture against my back; but the cave's sandy floor was dry enough, however little my eyes might discern of its depths. If the darkness without might be enough to terrify, it was nothing to the blackness within; and I groped my way like a blind woman robbed of her cane, with tentative step and arms outstretched. It remained only to find a suitable spot for sitting, since my purpose was to o'erlook the beach as best I might, while shielding myself from others’ eyes; and to the left-hand side of the cave's opening, I found a large boulder with space enough behind to settle myself in a heap of exhausted brown wool, and schooled myself to wait.

  TO MY HORROR, I STARTED AWAKE SOMETIME LATER WITH AN AUDIBLE snort — and possessed not the slightest notion how long I had been slumbering. I was on my feet in anxious haste before the slight sound of oars turning in their locks stopt me at the cave's mouth; and so with caution renewed, I held my breath, and peered out into the night.

  Two figures were huddled upon the shore, straining for a glimpse of something progressing over the waves— the very Seraphine, to judge by her length of dusky cloak, and the boy Toby, bent over his crutches. The mademoiselle 's right hand was flung protectively around the boy's shoulders, while from her left depended an indiscernible object — the lanthorn, in all probability. I looked towards the sea for the object that engaged their full regard, and could just make out the form of a dory, breasting the surf well out from shore, where a hidden bar rose up in the night water. It was from thence the sound of oarlocks emanated.

  I stood as still as caution might make me, and watched as the boat pulled nearer, revealing with the additional passage of a few moments the figures of four men — two at the oars, and two bent over the cargo. Brandy kegs? Or crates of goods, as various as the peoples of the Continent?

  The boat slid to shore; the oarsmen jumped into the sea, and dragged their vessel high up on the sand; and to my surprise, Seraphine gave a stifled cry, and stumbled towards the dory's gunnels, her hand over her mouth in horror.

  And at that instant, a group of men rushed from the cliff's foot down the shingle's length, and hurled themselves on the boat — dragoons, I thought at first, with a pounding heart, come to attack the Reverend's proxy — but it was clear they were known to the boatmen, and further observation revealed them dressed as rough fisherfolk, their faces blackened with soot to defy discovery. One, however, I recognised, to my intense surprise — for Mr. Dagliesh, the bashful surgeon's assistant, stood by the mademoiselle's side, while his fellows exchanged places with the oarsmen, and turned the boat back out to sea. Whatever did it mean?

  I could spare no more attention for the dory's progress, however, the bulk of my interest being claimed by Seraphine, who knelt in a red-cloaked huddle over the vessel's beached cargo — which was neither kegs nor caskets, but the figure of a man, and quite insensible, from his attitude. The mademoiselle's shaking shoulders betrayed her to be silently weeping; and my curiosity was not greater than the sympathy her sorrowful attitude aroused. Dagliesh dropped to her side, and busied himself in attending the man; and the boy Toby leaned upon his staves, silently watching, with head bowed. His mistress looked up, and asked a quick question of Dagliesh, which was as fluidly and unintelligibly answered; and if my ears did not betray me, both had spoken in French.

  Some grave mishap had overcome the smuggler's crew, that much was certain; and a wounded man — perhaps a dead man — had been brought to shore, and a team dispatched to serve as relief. Had the cutter been pursued across the Channel's length? Had it been fired upon, even, and stopt only long enough to send its casualties into English safekeeping? I shook my head in consternation. Such things were past my understanding.

  The huddle of folk about the still form suddenly fell into disarray; Seraphine, with a wringing of her hands, turned to seek the path up the cliff's face, with Toby hobbling in tow; and the oarsmen, taking up their burden with a grunt, hoisted the unknown fellow to their shoulders and moved off into the night. No light had they, but for Seraphine's lanthorn; and if the cutter had indeed been pursued, it seemed likely they should spurn illumination for the protective cover of darkness. What a lonely trudge they faced to High Down Grange! And still more disheartening a night's watch, perhaps, over a man with little life left in him!

  I turned back to the cave's interior, intent upon retaining my seclusion until the sounds of the smugglers’ passage should have entirely died away, though my own spirits were so cast down, and my energy so sapped, that I should as lief have been gone on my own way home, the quicker to put the night's peculiarities behind me. The threat of discovery I could not entertain, however; and so I counseled myself in greater patience, and ignored the cold that crept beneath my gown, and hugged my arms closer about my person. I envied Seraphine the utility of her thick cloak, and saw that I had much to learn of midnight skulduggery.

  Perhaps a quarter-hour had passed, and I felt myself to be quite alone, and had just arisen with limbs aching from the cold, and ventured to the cave's mouth — when the sound of laughter and a stumbling foot stopt me dead. 1 drew breath, a wave of fear unaccountably washing over me, and found the courage to peer once more into the night.

  Neither Seraphine nor Toby, nor yet one of the men so recently disembarked upon the shingle; but two fellows, quite rough in appearance, and strangers to my eyes. As I watched, one raised a bottle to his lips and tottered backwards, unmanned by spirits or die slope of beach or both; the other gave forth a burst of raucous cheer, and sang a snatch of a sailor's chanty. I glanced wildly about, and felt too swiftly the idiocy of my position — how alone I had made myself, and how unlikely a cry for help should now draw forth any aid from the Grange above — and cursed my too-active curiosity. It shall be my very death, I am sure, before the passage of much more time.

  I drew back swiftly to the cave's interior, awaiting with bated breath the men's progress down the shingle; and clenched involuntarily at the rock wall to my back. The voices were approaching, amidst the tramp of heavy feet; their purpose was certain, and unswayed by any diversion, despite the fog of spirits that hobbled them. And so with suspended breath, and hands thrust behind to break any fall, I began to step noiselessly back into the cave. For I knew with a certainty that the men's object was my very place of hiding — and that all flight to the fore should be impossible.

  Chapter 13

  Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

  20 September 1804, cont.

  A BEAM OF LIGHT DANCED
IN THE CAVE'S MOUTH, AND I HELD MY breath, feeling my way backwards. One of the men — he who had earlier produced the bottle — had lit a lanthorn as they approached, and it was this that swung its welling arc of illumination ever closer to my feet. I took yet another step back, and felt my boot heel butt up against something hard — not the cave's nether wall, thank God, but the cool dampness of a very large boulder. I ducked around it, the better to afford myself protection, and found a narrow space behind just capable of admitting my form. Providence had not entirely abandoned me.

  “Give us the bottle, Dickie boy,” said a high-pitched, sneering voice; and with a guttural oath, his companion complied. The chink of glass against the lanthorn's metal, as the spirits changed hands; and then the contemptible sound of liquid coursing down a vulgar throat. ‘? ‘ates the very sight o’ such dank and nasty places, I do. I still says we should'uv gone ‘round by the ‘igh road. It's perishin’ dark and wet in ‘ere.”

  The Ianthorn's light careened wildly up the rock wall opposite, and I assumed that Dickie had cuffed his partner about the head — which supposition was confirmed not an instant later by a howl of pain.

  “‘Ere, now, what's the cause o’ that?”

  “I told you afore to shut up, Eb. Now shut up, I say. We've serious business above, and it's as much as our necks are worth, if the Reverend finds out.”

  “‘E's not a-goin’ to find out,” the man called Eb rejoined, in a wounded tone, ‘less you tells ‘im, or I tells ‘im, and that's not a-goin’ to ‘appen. We're snug coves, and do things proper. Care for a nip?”

  “Put it away and stow your gaff.” The light swung towards my place of hiding, and the tramp of feet approached; I could not prevent myself from cowering, I fear, in the recognition that I should be considered a terrible risk to the two, did they discover me. As the larger of the men — the one called Dick — passed within inches of my face, I closed my eyes in the certainty that I had been discovered; but he must have looked neither to the right nor the left, and eventually, the sound of footsteps ceased. I opened my eyes, but stayed still where I stood, my ears straining for the slightest sound.

  The ring of metal on stone, and a lowering of the light; Dick had set the Ian thorn down. A grunt of exertion, and a stifled oath from Eb, and then the squeak of poorly-oiled hinges — the men had heaved open a door! A passage must exist, hewn through the very rock, and leading deep into the downs. My heartbeat quickened, for I knew the men should toil onwards, leaving the cavern in peace; and the way to freedom and the road for Lyme should be entirely at liberty.

  What an agony of conflicting impulses then assailed me! Though a heroine of Mrs. Radcliffe's or Charlotte Smith's should have gone determinedly through the door, and hazarded the horrors of the darkened tunnel without a backwards glance, I confess that I thought first of my deserted bed in Wings cottage, and the warmth of its quilts, and the comforting embrace of sleep. I longed to abandon the chase for another day, when Dick and Eb should be far from my thoughts and my person, and the chalk cliffs of Charmouth wear a happier aspect, in being gilded with September sun.

  But Geoffrey Sidmouth had not the luxury of deferring what should be distasteful; to him there remained but a few days, before the coroner's parade of guilt; and I recollected that my object in journeying to the shingle tonight had been to learn something of the Reverend, in the desperate hope that he and Sidmouth were not one and the same. That hope was all but diminished — for Dick had invoked the Reverend's very name, and his familiarity with such a tunnel, placed at the Grange's foot, bore a decidedly unpleasant construction. If I was to learn the worst, then, and abandon all faith in Sidmouth, it must be effected here and now; I had no choice but to go on, when every fibre of my being screamed that I should turn back.

  With indrawn breath and a quickened pulse, therefore, I ventured to place my foot before the sheltering rock, and eased myself back into the cavern's depths. A lighter darkness, and the stirring of air before me, showed the way to the shingle, and home; but with a pang, I turned my back upon escape and sought the nether wall.

  I could discern nothing like the outline of a door; and feeling with trembling fingers across the rock face, I encountered something so squeamishly clinging and moist, that I nearly forgot myself and cried aloud, snatching my hands away in an instant. A nauseous smell, as of decaying fish — and I knew the stuff to be nothing more than seaweed, fresh from the shingle and rendered wet by the trickle of moisture that emanated ceaselessly from the rock walls on every side. An effective disguise, indeed, for a passage one does not wish discovered — for the casual observer should never surmise that a door lay behind, and an idle explorer should be immediately deterred by the stench and touch of the stuff. I drew breath, and the tremor in my limbs subsided; and in another instant, I had steeled myself to touch the foul weeds, and feel beyond them for the rough wood of the door. The latch was there, and mindful of the creaking hinges that had alerted me to the door's presence in the first place, I eased it open but a few inches, and squeezed myself inside.

  The dimmest pinpoint of light before me, revealed Dick and Eb to have made considerable progress; and I immediately followed in their wake, thrusting all fears and doubts behind me in the distracting activity of my purpose. The tunnel's floor was uneven, and a sudden dip in its surface, or a sharp incline, could all but cause me to tumble; I turned my ankles too frequently for notice, and clutched at the walls to either side, being deprived of the steady lanthorn that must so comfort the ruffians before. A very few moments, however, and I wished even for the faint pinpoint first detected — for the tunnel must have turned, and the men and their light were hidden from view.

  I toiled onwards, climbing ever more surely, until I came to a flight of rough steps; and eased my way up them, uncertain when the tunnel floor should resume.

  “Eh, there, Eb, you've stepped on my foot,” a harsh voice muttered, almost before me; and I crouched as swiftly as I knew how, hugging the very step — for at the stairs’ end stood my two guides, and from the sound of their laboured breathing and puffs of effort, another tunnel door.

  After some moments, it must have swung open, and the fellows were passed through, for with a snick! the tunnel was thrown in utter darkness, the encouraging lanthorn having vanished behind the door.

  I climbed stealthily to the stairs” head, and took but a few steps until the tunnel's end was reached; and then, groping forward, I found a decidedly smooth wooden surface, and traced with my fingers the outline of a door-jamb; but no latch or keyhole could I find. The way was barred to me.

  I swallowed hard, and turned about in confusion, and endeavoured not to consider the more usual inhabitants of such a subterranean passage — the scuttling rats, and the creeping spiders, of enormous size, that undoubtedly traversed the walls at either hand, or such nameless creatures as must give rise to shuddering dread — and wished fervently that I had chosen the cowardly way, of my bed at Wings cottage. For to what purpose had I journeyed so far, in the grip of such anxiety, if the men were now gone before, and the passage closed?

  “Give us a ‘and, Dick.” I nearly jumped out of my skin, the high-pitched voice was so close to my ear; and a squeak must have escaped me, for there was a swift cessartion of movement beyond the door, and a thrill of fear in the man's voice when next he spoke.

  “Eh, Dick — joo ‘ear tha#”

  “‘Ear what?”

  “That. Some'at in the wall. Gives ‘un the shivers, it did — like a strangled woman.”

  “Rat, more'n likely. Or maybe a ghost—'ow's that for a nasty bit o’ cheer?”

  “Dick — you don't think as the Cap'n—”

  “Aw, for the luv of Jesus, Eb, com'eer and ‘elp us shift a keg or two. We've not got all night, I reckon.”

  I leaned against the door, adjudging it to be cleaner than the tunnel wall, and listened intently. For some time the two men appeared to be engaged in serious labour— shifting what I supposed to be caskets, and tearing off the l
ids of kegs, from the sound of splintering wood; this, and the occasional oath at a bruised shin, were my sole amusements for what seemed an eternity. The chink of glass proclaimed the bottle to be passed, and a deep sigh the fact that it had been emptied; and still the search — for search it undoubtedly was — went on, — I found it in me to wonder, if the tunnel had indeed led to the very doors of the Grange, where the farm's inhabitants might be. Tending the wounded man, perhaps? Or were the men arrived at the very stables, and shifting about with only beasts for company?

  “Eb! Eh, Eb— ‘ave a gander at this!” Dick exclaimed, after an interval.

  A scuffle of feet, and a low whistle, followed by the nastiest of chuckles. “You s'pose as the swells really play cards like ‘at? indecent, it is. Fancy painting a Queen o’ Hearts what ain't got no clothes on. Those Frenchies'll get up to anything.”

  And this was my reward for risk and wakefulness! I closed my eyes in wearied exasperation. I had long suspected the men were rifling a storage of smugglers’ goods, but this last confirmed it. The rage for playing cards had so inflated the demand for them in England, that the Crown had imposed a tax upon the principal supplier — France — and rendered the game too expensive for most people's purses. French cards were often to form a part of contraband cargoes; but I had not formed a notion of what sort of cards they might be.

  “Well, I'm flummoxed,” Dick said, and from the complaint of a bit of wood, I knew he had seated himself on a crate.

  “The Reverend's stuff ain't ‘ere, nohow,” Eb agreed.