Jane and the Man of the Cloth jam-2 Page 19

  I imagined the two of them scratching their heads, lost in a fog of spirits, and wished them more prone to babble and less to a complaisant silence. Had ever a keyhole listener heard less to the purpose than myself? It was not to be borne.

  “What? us do, Dick?” Despite his whiskey courage, there was a note of fear in Ebenezer's voice.

  “Get out o’ Lyme while the gettin's good,” the other replied. “Now Sidmouth's in jail, we've bought oursels some time — His Honour's too distracted wit’ the justice an’ all. But we'd best make tracks afore he notices we failed ‘im, or we'll land at the end o’ the Cobb like Bill Tibbit.”

  The other man audibly swallowed, and to my horror, began to sob — a terrible sound in a grown man, however unnerved by drink and fear. My own spirits were little better — for Dick's words were too open to a painful construction, and their import had the power to sink my very heart — but I longed to hear them debate their dubious fate the longer, in the hope of learning more.

  “Now, now, Eb — ain't I allus looked after ye?” Dick said, in an effort to comfort his fellow. “We're snug coves, like you says, and we'll work oursels out o’ this pickle. Let's get on back to the beach afore daylight, and take the boat round to Pegweli Bay. It's a hop-skip from there to the London road, and we're out o’ the Reverend's ken. You just buck up there, laddie, and trust in ol’ Dick.”

  “’Alfatick—”

  “Eh, what's ‘at?”

  “I'm not leavin’ all this ‘ere, you ninny. Us'll live a year in London, for the price o’ these.”

  “Put ‘em back, Eb,” Dick said, with a certain menace. “I'll not ‘ave the law on our ‘ides, and the Reverend, too. Free Trade is one thing. Stealin's another. I've always kept the difference careful-like. A man'd ‘ang for what you've got.”

  “But it ain't stealin’! This is contraband—”

  “It ain't our'n.”

  “Aw, Dick—”

  The sound of a blow, and a whimper, and some goods let fall, and Eb was brought to heel.

  So absorbed was I in all that passed, that I barely attended to the approach of heavy feet, until with a click the door began to swing inwards. I flattened myself along the tunnel wall, and endeavoured not to breathe, though my heart was pounding painfully within my chest; and in another instant, the door was thrust hard against my person and the two men stumbled through. The heavy musk of liquor enveloped their passage. They were too lost in thought and spirits to notice that the door abutted something other than the tunnel wall; and indeed, in the welling shadows beyond their lanthorn's reach, little could be discerned. As Ebenezer went safely past, I gave a gentle push to the door, which swung closed behind the two men, to the satisfaction of a single glance from Dick over his left shoulder; and since I stood in the blackness just behind his right, I managed to remain undetected. What a fever of anxiety gripped my senses, however, while the three of us retained the same bit of tunnel! That the others could not feel the presence of a third, by some buried animal instinct, had the power to astonish me — so certain was I that my very breath cried out my betrayal.

  But they discovered nothing, and were down the enshrouded flight of steps, and on into the tunnel's depths, before very many instants had passed — taking with them, perforce, their comforting beam of light. In a little while all was utterly dark. A decision was now before me: should I attempt to find the door's hidden mechanism, or turn back the way I had come — and face the dawn on Charmouth beach? That way, assuredly, lay the easier path of least resistance; but I had come thus far, and would gladly return to Lyme possessed of the knowledge of whose storeroom the men had invaded.

  I ran my hands the length of the door's face, and pressed its wood determinedly; but the portal remained unmoved. Perplexed, I paused for consideration. Neither Dick nor Eb had appeared to expend any remarkable energy, in forcing the way; and neither was possessed of inordinate cunning, as a puzzle lock might require. Abandoning the wood, therefore, I felt along the jamb's length, and was rewarded by a small knob, of very little protrusion, and roughly the size of a shilling. I pressed it, and was unsatisfied; pulled it, and was confronted with an open door.

  All was darkness beyond the sill, and discernible within it, the huddled shapes of a quantity of goods, spilled about in hasty confusion. The men had not troubled to restore order where they had bestowed their chaos; and as I stepped into the room, my boots met splintered wood. After so many hours in utter gloom, my eyes could see nearly as well as by day; and I took a moment to look about me curiously, content from the example of the two men's easy search, that the room was safe from surprise.

  The room had no windows; it must, therefore, be a cellar — beneath the Grange's barn, perhaps? Or a greater excavation still, a floor below what passed for cellars in the farmhouse itself? I must trouble to move with caution, until I learned better whose manor I invaded. But what riches this storeroom held!

  I strained in the darkness to put names to the huddled objects, and was rewarded with a king's ransom of goods. There were brandy kegs by the dozen, and deep casks of fragrant tea — the best China leaf, too dear for the humble Austens’ housekeeping — and rough sacks of coffee beans, and pounds of chocolate; exotic spices, from Malabar and the Canaries; the finest Spanish lace; a snorting wealth of sneezing snuff; coal, coffin-nails, hair-powder, and sealing wax; and in one extraordinary chest, all disordered at the tunnel's very entrance, a quantity of newly-strung pearls. Cool and silken to the touch they were, and I understood now Eb's unwillingness to let them slip, and felt a strange respect for the stalwart Dick's refusal. The morality of the Gentlemen of the Night was indeed passing strange.

  I stood up, and let the pearls drop back in their chest, a frown of puzzlement creasing my brow. Something was missing. What could it be? What had the two besotted fellows sought and failed to find?

  Silk.

  But of course. Silk, so necessary for clothing a beautiful woman as vanity and fashion dictated; silk, that draped the costliest windows on the most breathless streets of the country's principal towns — most precious of tissues, its sheen unrivalled, its colours brilliant, its sinuous length wrapping the kingdom from north to south — silk. Spun principally on the Continent, and in the south of France, and taxed within a hair's breadth of everyone's life, and thus a smuggler's fortune. I had owned only one silk gown in my entire life; but I had not yet learned to despise its glorious folds.

  And so the Reverend was a silk trader — a Man of the Cloth. The sobriquet's sly pun bespoke a certain cleverness — a tendency to flout convention, and turn the comprehensible on its head; both qualities quite native to Mr. Sidmouth's character. And my very own Eliza had declared Sidmouth a frequent traveller to France, where his cousin Seraphine must provide a valued service, in speaking the language fluently. I little doubted that whatever her professed distaste for Buonaparte, or the depth of her wounds from the revolutionary past, that with a brother well-placed in the Imperial army, she was not disinclined to cross the Channel on behalf of Sidmouth's interests. From Roy Cavendish I had it that the Reverend employed agents — and who better to employ, than Seraphine? Was this the source of the enmity between Captain Fielding and High Down Grange? Had he discovered that Mademoiselle LeFevre was but a pawn in her cousin's game, and endeavoured to separate them, for the preservation of her liberty?

  I sat down on a keg and put my head in my hands. The night's burden of knowledge was all too heavy, and my store of sleep too small. There was nothing more to be done, than to discover my whereabouts, and effect a return home — by the road, if all within the Grange were yet abed, or the tunnel, if need be.

  There was a staircase at the room's far side, and I quickly sought it, and in the greatest stealth and trepidation, turned the doorknob at its head, expecting at every instant to be set upon by Sidmouth's dogs. But all was quiet; and a delicate light streamed over the threshold as I swung wide the door — dawn had come to the cliffs above the sea. I waited an instant, listening for
some sound in the stillness, and then stepped into sunshine and looked about me, blinking in disbelief.

  For I had emerged from a gardener's shed, and found myself in a ruin — a prettyish sort of place, surrounded by rosebushes now long past their bloom, and the arched forms of wood nymphs trapped forever in unyielding marble.

  Captain Fielding's wilderness temple.[63]

  Chapter 14

  Setting a Course

  20 September 1804, cont.

  “HOW VERY PROVOKING OF MR. SIDMOUTH TO GET HIMSELF arrested,” my mother was saying, in some vexation, as I descended the stairs to the breakfast room. “For he is certain to hang, so Miss Crawford tells me, though he seemed to be overflowing with admiration for our dear Jane. I declare I never saw a more promising inclination, Mr. Austen — excepting, perhaps, Captain Fielding's — but that came to nothing, and Miss Crawford assures me in any case that he intended to make his proposals to her niece. But, there it is — the poor man died before he could speak, and Miss Armstrong is denied even the interesting circumstance of mourning a proclaimed lover.”

  “Indeed,” my father responded drily. “To mourn for a gentleman one may only claim as an acquaintance, lacks something of verisimilitude.”

  “A sad business altogether,” my mother resumed, having heard, one imagines, the sense of her husband's words, without their subtle derision. “I shall never speak of Mr. Sidmouth again, as I told Miss Crawford only yesterday. He is a very undeserving young man, and his want of consideration for the feelings of others is truly abominable — and I suppose there is not the least chance of Jane's getting him now. Ah, my dear, here you are at last!”

  As I claimed my place at table, my father peered at me over the top of his spectacles, and remarked at my wearied countenance.

  “You are not lying awake of nights, my dear, in consideration of Sidmouth's affairs?” he said, with a brief smile. “It is something indeed, for a girl to pine after a gentleman in gaol; it lends a certain style to her attitude, and renders her remarkable among the circle of her friends; but I should hope my stout Jane not unduly affected in her finer sensibilities.”

  “No, Father,” I replied, and knew not where to look.

  “Mr. Sidmouth is one of the most undeserving young men in the Kingdom,” he said, with an air of evident enjoyment, “or so your mother assures me. The very worst of men, I understand, for having shot the gallant Captain — or for failing to petition your hand first — I am not quite certain which. But one assumes he had his reasons, for both his trifling actions.”

  “I cannot believe a man should act as he has done, without a very good reason,” I rejoined.

  “Ah, there you would debate philosophy, my dear— and I never entertain philosophy before breakfast It is unfortunate, all the same. I cannot find out that anyone in town believes Sidmouth innocent; and so he shall probably hang; and yet I liked the man. He had a sound understanding, and a forthright temper, and a dignity of purpose that was not unbecoming. Jane,” my father broke off, “I am sure you are indisposed. Your aspect is decidedly weary for one who has lain so long abed.”

  I endeavoured to reassure him, and divert my mother's attention, in pleading the probable onset of a cold (nothing very remarkable, when I consider the manner in which I spent the better part of the night); and was accordingly counseled to keep to my room, and partake frequently of warm lemon-water. I made no objection to the plan, perceiving some benefit in quiet reflection; for I have much to consider. A few pleasantries over chocolate and rolls, then, and my mother's petitioning me for an opinion as to the trimming of a hat she purchased yesterday for Cassandra, and in a very little while I found myself alone once more, and established over my journal and pen.

  To SAY THAT I WAS ASTOUNDED AT FINDING MYSELF IN THE CAPTAIN'S garden is perhaps to say too little. With what disbelief, did my eyes encounter the familiar landscape, and how, with a mind revolting against the evidence of its own perception, did I cast about for understanding amidst the utter routing of my sense! Every precept I believed to be founded upon rock, I must discard as so much baseless sand; and those cherished notions of my own ability, as a canny student of character, I must vigorously disown. They are the product of vanity, and being acknowledged as such, deserve their sudden abandonment.

  The revelations of the wilderness temple have forced a revision of all that pertains to Captain Fielding's affairs, and the conclusions I drew — was intended to draw — from his words and actions. His extensive establishment of the gardens — over so short a period of residence — becomes more comprehensible when one considers the labour so necessary to the excavation of the tunnel and storerooms, and the secreting of their purpose amidst a quantity of greenery. (I must endeavour to find the labourers who effected it, since the Captain assuredly did not) His behaviour, too, on the first occasion of my visiting the wilderness temple, now bears a different construction; for the Captain's anxiety at Cassandra's indisposition is revealed now as a fear of discovery — and I recall, with all the clarity of the remembered day, his haste in summoning the ladies from their stopping-place, and his closing the tool-shed door, before ever he enquired as to the extent of my sister's distress. I wonder I did not remark upon it before — how a gentleman encumbered by a wooden leg, should choose the greater exertion of crossing the little pavilion entirely, on such a trivial errand.

  But what, exactly, did he endeavour to hide?

  Are the goods stored below the temple but a repository of the Crown, and the representation of contraband seized on behalf of the Revenue men? — Or are they symbols of a duplicity more sinister still, in being the fruits of Captain Fielding's clandestine trade, achieved amidst the odour of sanctity he wore like an epaulette? If the former, then assuredly Roy Cavendish should know of the goods’ existence, and I had but to apply to the gentleman for a full disclosure. I could not feel myself to be easy with this notion, however; for why should such contraband not be immediately transferred to the Lyme Customs House, and thence to London? For what possible purpose should it be retained in hiding?

  At the thought of Mr. Cavendish's unfortunate countenance, his oily manner, his effort to twist my affections and obligations to his own ends — I could not flatter myself secure. For all I knew, he might well have colluded with the Captain himself, and the two embarked upon a profitable enterprise, in the seizing of others’ hard-won cargoes without the knowledge of the Crown. They might summon the dragoons, and take possession of kegs and caskets, without a single remark other than a smuggler's curse; and none in Lyme be the wiser. I could credit Mr. Cavendish with such nefarious behaviour, though I knew him not at all; there is something in his manner that does not inspire confidence.

  I will keep my own counsel for a time, until I know what may safely be said in his hearing.

  But Captain Fielding? Could so noble a gentleman be so wanting in principle?

  His knowledge of the smugglers’ operations must tell against him. He understood the nature of captains and landers, and their preferences in coastline and weather; his very home afforded a likely spot for the observation of all their traffic, being sited on rising ground. I imagined that he possessed, as any Naval fellow might, a sound spyglass for scanning the horizon; and he was better placed than many to anticipate the disposition of Royal Navy ships, and the strength of their pursuit, in foiling Channel crossings. Valuable intelligence indeed, if one but put it to the purpose; but what motivation might the Captain have had, to so betray his trust?

  I summoned to memory his weathered face — the bright blue eyes, the boyish shock of hair; and could find there no hint of malevolent purpose. But when I considered again his broken figure — the indignity of his affliction, his dependence upon a cane — my heart perceived another sentiment. Captain Fielding had sacrificed a great deal, in the height of his powers, and lived to see all his hopes blighted; denied advancement, denied glory, denied a lifetime his youth had toiled in the making— and given, perhaps, very little by way of gratitude or p
ension. Had he died off the coast of Malta, he should have won a place in glorious history, and been saluted by his comrades for valour and example; but as it was, he merely suffered for the winning of ignoble retirement, with a lifetime of regret and thwarted purpose before him. A terrible bitterness, coupled with a weary cynicism, in observing the considerable profits of Free Trade, might be little enough to effect his transformation — from gallant officer of His Majesty's ships, to roguish profiteer.

  I must consider, finally, what he himself had avowed— that the skills of many a smuggling captain were so very great, given their familiarity with the most challenging coasts in the very worst of weather, that the Royal Navy placed their value above many more reputable veterans. Why should not Fielding, then, have turned his talents to use? — He had been denied a Navy ship; but why not purchase another vessel, more secretive and private, and range his wits against the best the Navy had to offer? For this, Roy Cavendish should be unnecessary, except in that by gaining his confidence, and affecting to labour on his behalf, the Captain might hope to secure himself from suspicion.

  And with this last thought, I turned to Geoffrey Sidmouth, and felt there a bewilderment of emotions. If I credited the Captain with so great a duplicity — such depth of cunning as he must command, for the accomplishment of his aims — then very little further was required, to suspect him of establishing a rival, for Cavendish's pursuit and the better deflection of his own guilt. Why not choose for scapegoat a man he hated, and make him the very picture of the notorious Reverend?

  But was Fielding, then, the Man of the Cloth?

  From the tool-shed's contraband stores, it would appear unlikely; I had pierced the sense of the riddling name, and surmised the Reverend to deal in silk, of which there was none below. Dick and Ebenezer, my companions of the night, had spoken of the smuggler as living still, and his attention diverted by Sidmouth's misfortunes. Is Sidmouth, then, the Reverend? Or is there another, unnoticed by Fielding, who yet plies his trade in Channel silks?