Jane and the Man of the Cloth jam-2 Read online

  I threw down my pen at this juncture, and paced about the room, in an agony of confusion and hopeless thoughts — for my sense is as tangled as a ball of yarn beset by a litter of kittens. It is enough to have put down what I surmise or fear, and to acknowledge what I do not; and to admit that I am very far indeed from the truth of the matter. I must wonder less, and enquire more, before I shall know how to think.

  I HAVE SPENT THE BETTER PART OF THE PAST HOUR, IN REVIEWING those journal entries that bear some mention of the Captain and Sidmouth; and a few nuts have I gleaned that might direct my future purpose. The matter of le Chevalier must be elucidated, if the source of Fielding's enmity towards Sidmouth is to be understood; and as Mademoiselle Seraphine is unlikely to assist me, I must look to others for enlightenment. From Mr. Crawford's probing of Mademoiselle LeFevre, I must assume that he is equally in the dark about the matter; and so I shall not waste my time at Darby. Mrs. Barnewall — who first spoke the name in my healing — might be better solicited.

  Second, and perhaps more important, I was reminded of Bill Tibbit, the unfortunate fellow hanged at the end of the Cobb. I persist in believing his death is no mere coincidence^ — that the same hand that raised his gibbet, fired the shot that killed the Captain. To understand the one is to begin to know the other. The mere presence of a white flower near the body of each would counsel that the deaths are not unrelated; and the two men were assuredly known to each other. The very night following Tibbit's hanging, at the Lyme Assembly where Captain Fielding was introduced to my acquaintance, I learned from Fielding himself that the dead man had been in his service, in pursuit of odd jobs. Is it too far from belief that Tibbit might have laboured at the tunnel, in the company of some others (Dick and Ebenezer come to mind), and been too swift to reveal his understanding of its purpose? Might he have gone so far as to blackmail the Captain, and met his end as a result?

  Dick and Eb are undoubtedly far along the London road, if their drunken resolve of last night did not desert them; and I should not know how to find them anyway, did I determine to break silence, and reveal what I knew of their movements. But Bill Tibbit has a widow, if Captain Fielding spoke righdy; and a woman bereaved has often the loosest tongue. To the Widow Tibbit, then, I must go, when once her lodgings I have found out.

  A GLANCE THROUGH THE WINDOW REVEALED THE DAY TO BE QUITE fine; and my few hours’ reflection had restored my strength and spirits considerably. I was not, it appeared, to submit to the indignity of a cold; my brown wool had done me a service in this regard, as in so many others; and, upon listening in vain for the sound of my mother and father below, I concluded my parents had believed me abed, and sought the out-of-doors. I might depart, then, unremarked; and so I gathered up my Leghorn straw, and threw a serviceable wool shawl about my shoulders as proof against the late September wind, and descended the stairs in all the briskness of my purpose.

  In the sitting-room I encountered poor James, intent upon his task of nailing some considerable pieces of wood across the windows looking out upon Broad Street. I waited in sympathy while he grunted and heaved through his exertions. Such a flush as overspread the young man's countenance, and such beads of perspiration as shone upon his face! For he must support the wood with one hand, while hammering with the other, and the exercise was decidedly an awkward one. I considered suggesting he call for Jenny, and petition her aid; but fearful of exciting his contempt, in questioning the manliness of his strength and vigour, I stood mildly by and waited until he should have done.

  “There, miss,” he said, rising to his full six feet, and easing his powerful shoulders; “that should please the missus.”

  “Indeed,” I said, “as every form of kindness you exert on our behalf has done. We are indebted to you, James, for such labour freely offered, and with such good humour.”

  He blushed furiously, and cast his eyes about the rug, and was made so clearly ill at ease by my praise, that I hastened to give him opportunity for diversion.

  “I wonder, James, if you are acquainted with the Widow Tibbit.”

  “Old Maggie?” he ejaculated, with an air of surprise. “Whatever d'you want with Maggie Tibbit?” Then, as if recollecting his place, he blushed once more. “Leastways, it's none of my business, beggin’ your pardon, miss. You'll have your reasons, I expect, as I don't need the knowing of.”

  “But you do know Mrs. Tibbit, then?”

  “All of Lyme knows Maggie,” he said, with something of a smirk. “She lives down in Hull cottage, along the river.”

  “The River Buddie?”[64]

  He nodded, curiosity in his eyes. The River Buddie district is a famous place in Lyme, and not for charitable reasons.

  “Miss Crawford was so good as to think of the Tibbit children,” I said, with a casual air, “and gathered some clothes among her tenants. I offered to take them to the widow, with our sympathies and compliments.”

  “Then you'll be giving Old Maggie more consideration nor half the town,” James declared, “but that's like your ways, miss, if you don't mind my sayin' “A zample to us all, so Jenny was sayin”; and I'm of her mind.”

  A zample, indeed.

  Chapter 15

  By the Buddie's Noisome Banks

  20 September 1804, cont.

  THE RIVER BUDDIE — WHICH I SHOULD SOONER CALL A STREAM — begins in the sweet grass of the high downs above Up Lyme, and ends in the salt freshness off the Cobb; but its narrow banks are crowded with a huddle of housing, and the district bears a very ill reputation. So much I had already known; but more salacious details were imparted to me by Miss Crawford, when I called upon that lady in the guise of charity, to solicit clothing for the bereaved Tibbits — for I should not like to appear in the neighbourhood without a clear purpose, lest my visit to the widow excite local speculation.

  “Maggie Tibbit?” Miss Crawford said, peering at me over her spectacles as I sat in the Darby drawing-room. “If the woman had been possessed of sense, she should have married anyone but the man she did; and having committed that folly, she should have determined to bear fewer children. There are no less than five, you will understand, and all of them decidedly ill-favoured.”

  “But deprived, nonetheless, of the support of a fa-ther,” I had rejoined mildly. “Winter is coming on, Miss Crawford, and the condescension of the ladies of St. Michael's could hardly be better bestowed. Consider what Mrs. Tibbit's anxieties must be — and how slim the wretched woman's resources — with so many pitiful mouths to feed!”

  “Aye, Maggie's resources are slim enough,” Miss Crawford rejoined with a snort of contempt. “She has but one, as I'm sure you'll observe, do you persist in this foolish errand.”

  I made no reply, but awaited the outcome of Miss Crawford's benevolence; and in an instant, she had tidied her needlework with an air of decision, and bestowed upon her visitor another withering look.

  “I will turn over some part of the clothing we hold in store, against the needs of such pathetic objects, but I cannot undertake to pay the call in your stead, Miss Austen,” she told me severely. “I truly cannot. It would appear to countenance such behaviour as Mrs. Tibbit pursues, with the church's approbation. Soon all of Lyme's degraded women will be knocking at our doors.”

  “Indeed,” I replied, with a demure look and inward rejoicing; for I had no wish for Miss Crawford's company, nor the discovery of her sharp ears, as I plied my questions. It but remained to follow her creaking black skirts into Darby's offices, and to have her turn over a quantity of clean linen, dutifully mended by the dutiful Lucy Armstrong (now returned to Bath in the company of her parents), and to enquire of Miss Crawford the approximate ages and sex of the Tibbit progeny. Despite her disinclination to involve herself in Maggie Tibbit's affairs, that charitable dame revealed herself well-acquainted with them. She could recite with dispatch the intelligence I required. I paused but to wonder what knowledge of my life she had amassed all unbeknownst; and then with the profusest of thanks and my bundle of clothing, I was han
ded into my hack chaise, and sent speedily on my way.

  THE STENCH OF THE BUDDIE EMBRACED ME WELL BEFORE I encountered its ramshackle cottages; for the river here is little more than an open sewer, that churns all manner of refuse and human waste along its course, to end in the beaches and the sea. The odours that arise from its banks must be overwhelming in the stagnant heat of summer; but I was preserved from the most unhealthful effects, by a brisk breeze and the application of a kerchief, liberally doused with lavender-water, to my nose. I had wisely donned a simple and sturdy gown — my old grey muslin, of a military cut, with the charcoal braid — my brown wool being quite sandy about the hems, the result of my Charmouth adventure, and possessed of a great slit in its backside, acquired somehow in the course of that midnight wandering. The Leghorn straw I had left behind, as too fashionable and frivolous for a charity errand; a sober closed bonnet I had adopted instead, which afforded the added benefit of shielding my features.

  The cobbles of the street were few, and gaping holes pocked its surface; I saw where last week's storm had carved a rut along the verge, and the soil was much eroded. Picking my way with care, therefore, I searched about for a not unfriendly face, intending to ask the way. Several fellows lounging in doorways I swiftly discarded, as bearing too fearsome an aspect, or appearing too befuddled by drink to answer any enquiry with sense; but at last I espied a matron, with a market-basket over her arm and a cap upon her head, and an apron both tidy and white despite the squalor of her environs; and deemed her a suitable guide.

  “Excuse me, madam,” I said, with a bow at once stately and condescending, as befit my role, “would you be so good as to direct me to the Tibbit lodgings?”

  The woman halted in her course, and stared at me with outrage; and then, depositing a mouthful of phlegm on the paving stones at my feet, continued along her way with a sweep of skirts.

  I stared after her, all amazement, then glanced swiftly about the street. We undoubtedly had been observed; and yet, the faces of the Buddie's intimates bore a carefully-shuttered ignorance. Whatever could such behaviour mean? And how was I to discover the valuable Maggie, if her neighbours proved so taciturn and hostile?

  “If ye be wan tin’ the Tibbits, ye've not far to go, miss. The voice came at my very feet; and with a start of surprise, I looked down upon the bent back of a cripple, in truth not above the middle age, but from his rough appearance and apparent ill-health, seeming as ancient as a relic of Shakespeare's time. He leered up at me, head craned at an awkward angle, his gnarled fingers gripping a stave. Involuntarily, I took a step backwards, and clutched tighter at my basket of clothing — for I should not like to be taken unawares by a footpad in just such a caricature, who would leave off his martyred stance and turn his cudgel upon my head.

  But no blow did I receive — only a cackle of laughter, and a rattle of indrawn breath. ‘?G Sam's long past chasin’ the likes of ye, miss. The rheumaticks've got ‘im. Not but what ye ain't a sweet bit o’ goods, and right to keep yer wits about ye.”

  “The Tibbits?” I managed, by way of reply.

  The creature swung his head farther down the road. “The red ‘un, with two winders what looks out onto the street. Ye'll find it, certain sure. It've got a dead pullet nailed to the door.”

  I should have hastened from him as fast as my legs could carry me, but that he shuffled nearer, and held out a withered palm, grinning repulsively through all his rotten teeth. I had just enough command of my wits to find my purse, and drop a coin at his feet. This he swiftly gathered up; and his laughter followed me the length of the narrow lane.

  I thus found the Tibbits’ abode, and judged it to be occupied, from the squeals and cries of children within, which were all too frequently punctuated with slaps and the swift onset of tears. It was a poor sort of place, constructed of odd bits of timber, and with a roof in sad need of pitch, and a facade that wanted paint, and a frame too prone to precarious tilting; almost I might have thought it poised to slide into the river at its back, and should misgive the effects of another storm upon its eroding foundations. The river here was narrow enough, that the houses perched on the opposite bank were but a strong man's leap away — so that the effect of the massed housing was more evocative of London's stews, than of Lyme's cheerful cottages.[65]

  To my horror, a chicken indeed adorned the Tibbits’ door — and had for some time, to judge by its decayed appearance, and the foul smell that drifted from its carcass (now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat). Traces of rotten vegetable matter I also discerned upon the portal's surface, and wondered at the tyranny to which the Tibbits were subjected. Was not the loss of a father, in so public and horrible a manner, tragedy enough?

  Squeamish in the extreme of knocking upon such a door, I turned to a window, but found that nothing was visible through its oilcloth; and so, after an instant's hesitation, 1 was reduced to calling towards the house.

  “Widow Tibbit! Pray come into the lane! I would speak with you a moment!”

  A sudden silence greeted my words — a listening silence, I was certain — and then I heard the sound of chair legs pushed back from the table, and a hoarse whisper hissed: “You there, Tom, give a look through the winder and tell us?? it ‘tis. If it be that hussy Sue Watkins, you ‘eave this tater at ‘er ‘ead!”

  This last intelligence caused me to feel no little dread, and from my knowledge of small boys, and their relishing of any opportunity for battle, to consider a retreat to the porch opposite. Tom's appearance at the window, however, prevented my flight.

  “Taint ‘er,” he reported over his shoulder; and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tis a lady.”

  “A lady! What, wi'out a carriage?”

  The sound of feet rapidly coursing towards the door, and a swift pull to its handle, that set the crucified pullet to jiggling; and I was as urgently waved inside by a woman I assumed to be the very Maggie I sought. Without a second thought, I mounted the two steps and eased past her, blinking somewhat as my eyes adjusted to the cottage's poor light.

  “Maggie Tibbit, at yer servus,” the woman said, bobbing.

  “Miss Austen,” I replied, and met the timorous stares of five very dirty children. One had a hand in its mouth, another hitched continually at his trousers, and the youngest took one look at my fine figure and burst into tears.

  “There, there, Jackie boy,” said Maggie abruptly, as she scooped up the screaming child and unceremoniously offered it her breast, “the lady won't bite you.”

  The Widow Tibbit was a blowsy-enough figure, as I had half-expected from the nature of Miss Crawford's disapproval. Her dark curls were undone about her face, and she was arrayed in a dressing gown of soiled silk, though the morning was well-advanced. There was rouge upon her cheeks, which might have benefitted from a bath, as should the rest of her person; and a dark substance trailed down her front, that I adjudged to be snuff — though what use a woman might have for such a substance, I could hardly imagine. On her feet were satin slippers that had once been red, and once very dear; and from the cloud of fumes she breathed in my general direction, I knew her to have been indulging in brandy.

  The woman was a walking advertisement for the smuggler's trade; and that her larder should boast some excellent if contraband tea, though not an ounce of oats for her children's porridge, I swiftly surmised.

  “Mrs. Tibbit—” I began.

  “Plain Maggie? do, now Bill's been done for,” she replied, and knocked the child from her breast with a casual blow that immediately set it to wailing. “What biz-ness ‘uv ye got wit me?”

  I lifted the basket of clothing from my arm, and opened its lid. “I thought your children might benefit from these few things collected by the women of St. Michael's.”

  “That Crawford bitch ‘ave sent you, ain't she?” Maggie's countenance darkened and she advanced upon me pugnaciously, her protuberant lower lip revealing some very poor teeth indeed. “Reckon she's cackling summat fearsome, in all her black feathers, now old
Mag's out on the street.”

  Somewhat disconcerted, I took refuge in a backwards step and a folding of my gloved hands. “I received die clothing of Miss Crawford, assuredly, as she manages St. Michael's good works — but the desire to visit, and to bestow these things upon your children, was entirely mine, I promise you, Mrs. Tibbit.”

  The widow pawed through the clothing, scattering chemises and shirts with a careless disregard for the dirtiness of her floor; but in considering the grime that covered her children's bodies, I recollected that the linen should not long survive in a pristine state, and forbore to vent my outrage. The scattered goods disappeared amidst a tangle of youthful limbs, like meat torn asunder by starving wolves. “‘ere!” cried the eldest, whom I recollected to be Tom. “You've never brought us shoes!” His expression of disgust might as readily have greeted the rotten pullet nailed to his front door, and in truth, the worn leather boot he held aloft bore an ill-begotten air. But Tom need not have worried — the shoe was snatched from his fingers by a fellow urchin of indeterminate sex, arrayed in what appeared to be a fisherman's overall many sizes too large; and borne from the house with a triumphant cackle. Tom dashed into the street in pursuit, a fearsome oath emanating from his childish lips. Their mother reached for a bottle resting on the worn oak settle and took a long draught. To my relief, she did not think to offer me a similar hospitality.

  “The things'll do,” she declared, and thrust the empty basket aside. “What I wants to know, miss, is why you come — when us's strangers to each other.”

  “Who could be unmoved by so much misfortune, as you have lately endured, Mrs. Tibbit?”

  “Oh, most o’ Lyme — and that's a fact,” she rejoined sardonically. She spared a moment to place little Jack upon the floor, and shoo the remaining two urchins towards their fellows in the street. Then she turned to me with a calculating air.