Jane and the Man of the Cloth jam-2 Page 6

  At my sympathetic ejaculation, he returned a smile. “In one fell swoop I went from Post Captain to millstone about the necks of my men. I was fortunate, however, in having a First Lieutenant of the first water; and we prevailed before the night was through.”

  I thought of dear Frank, and dearest Charles, and shuddered despite the heat and noise of the rooms — for how much danger and horror might they even now endure, far from home and the expediency of news; they might yet be killed, and we know nothing of it for weeks or months. My depth of feeling must have been written upon my countenance, for Captain Fielding's voice noticeably softened.

  “You cannot be so moved on a stranger's account,” he said, with concern. “Someone dear to you is similarly engaged in battle, even now?”

  “My brothers,” I replied. “Perhaps you know them. Commander Charles and Captain Frank Austen, of the Red.”

  “I was of the Blue, I fear,” Captain Fielding replied, “and though I may have heard the name of Austen, I cannot in honesty claim acquaintance with your brothers. They are presently at sea?”

  “Frank is with Rear Admiral Louis, in the flagship Leopard off the coast of Boulogne. They are blockading there, and constantly exposed to enemy fire. I fear for Charles less; he awaits his transfer to the East India station.”

  “But a storm or misadventure may strike as readily there as in the heat of action.” Captain Fielding's tone was pensive, and I felt all the injury his brave spirits must endure, in being forced into retirement at the very moment hostilities were renewed. “You may look for their rapid advancement, however,” he said, thrusting aside regret and affecting a cheerful air, “now Buonaparte is likely to invade. Many brilliant careers are forged in battle.”[26]

  “You think an invasion likely, then?”

  “You will have heard that the schoolgirls of Portsmouth keep blankets under their beds, equipped with tapes for hasty donning, lest they be routed from their rooms in the dead of night,’ he replied, “and what schoolgirls plan with conviction, must not be subject to question.”

  I rewarded this attempt at humour with a smile; but indeed, so close to the seas of the Channel as a glance through the window revealed me to be, I could not be completely sanguine.

  “With your brothers to defend us, Miss Austen, I am sure we have little to fear,” the Captain said gallantly. And so we continued through the dance, each blessed with the pleasantest associations regarding the other, and anxious to share the burden of our hearts.

  Talk of war and the Navy, however, soon gave way to the subject of the Captain's tenancy of a country house some two miles distant, on the Charmouth road, and of our own Wings cottage.

  “You came then, only a few days ago!” he exclaimed. “How fortunate that I did not neglect to attend the Assembly, and thus lose some part of your time here!’

  I smiled, and turned aside out of embarrassment, for the genuine ardour of his expression proclaimed his delight But in turning thus, I espied a gentleman standing patiently behind me, awaiting a word.

  “Mr. Dagliesh!” I said with a nod. “I am happy to see you.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Miss Austen,” the surgeon's assistant replied, and bowed, with less animation, to Fielding. “Forgive me for overlistening your conversation — it was unintentionally done. I crave only to learn how your fair sister mends.”

  “Decidedly well, under your careful attention,” I replied. “She should have accompanied us hither, had I not wrested her prize gown from her grasp, and forced her to keep to her rooms.”

  “I am glad to learn that she prefers retirement to premature activity,” Mr. Dagliesh said earnestly. “Had I found her present tonight, I should have urged her return to bed. She should not be abroad for some days yet; far better that she rest, and heal her wound—”

  “—And gaze upon the flowers you so thoughtfully provided for a sickroom,” I told him archly. The figure requiring me to turn my back upon the surgeon, I was spared the sight of his flushed cheeks by the exigencies of the dance.

  “Please extend my compliments to Miss Austen,” he said, and with a click of the heels and a bow, moved on.

  “You are acquainted with Mr. Dagliesh?” Captain Fielding enquired, with a slight frown and a penetrating look.

  “The acquaintance was forced upon us, by a misadventure that befell us as we entered Lyme,” I replied. “Though the gentleman is so open and cheerful, and his intentions so well-placed, that I cannot consider the acquaintance burdensome.”

  “Assuredly not — though I could wish him to belong to a more reputable set.”

  “You know something to Mr. Dagliesh's disadvantage?” I enquired, all curiosity. “Then pray reveal it, Captain Fielding, I beg of you! For I believe him quite susceptible to my sister's charms, and would not have her thrown in the way of a scoundrel.”

  “Of Dagliesh himself, I can say nothing ill,” Fielding conceded. “It is of his friends — of the people with whom he spends the better part of his idle hours — that I would take issue.”

  “You mean Mr. Sidmouth!” I spoke with all the energy of conviction, and a desire to know more.

  “I do,” the Captain rejoined, with something like relief at being spared the necessity of broaching the man's name. “I have observed that gentleman's ways for some time, Miss Austen, and I cannot like them. I should hesitate to introduce any lady I held in true esteem, to their pernicious influence. But how do you know of Sidmouth?”

  “He is another whose friendship we did not seek. We were overturned in a violent storm near High Down Grange Monday e'en. My poor sister, I fear, was gravely hurt, and even now suffers from her injury.”

  “But that was you!” cried Captain Fielding. “You were of the unfortunate party! My own house lying not above a half-mile from the Grange, I had occasion to see your coach righted by a team and dray the following morning, and wondered, as I passed on my way into Lyme, what rude events had occasioned such misfortune.”

  “And had we but known, we might have sought shelter from you,” I observed. “Fate is a fickle mistress, is she not? For instead, we toiled up the hill to the Grange, and met with an uncertain welcome, and some very odd inmates indeed, in whose bosom we were forced to reside for some two days.”

  “I regret it,” the Captain replied, with feeling. “Could I have spared your dear family from such an inhospitable abode, I should have done all that was in my power. But I was not to be allowed, and Sidmouth was afforded the pleasure of your company.”

  “He did not seem to find it a pleasure” I said. “Indeed, he spent as much time out of doors as possible, the better to avoid us.”

  “You may consider yourself fortunate, Miss Austen. He is not a man to entertain for many hours together.” After a little, with an air of hesitancy, he asked, “You met the Mademoiselle LeFevre, I suppose?”

  “I could not undertake to say. A woman I did see, who I think was called Seraphine; but as she was never properly introduced, I cannot tell you if she was the same.”

  An expression of anger suffused Fielding's countenance, and he seemed too overcome to speak; but finally, with a little effort at a smile, and a quick glance of the eyes, he unburdened himself. “I must apologise, Miss Austen, for the violence of my feelings,” he told me; “but I cannot observe that gentleman's treatment of his cousin, without some indignation and general outrage.”

  “His cousin!”

  “Indeed, a cousin from France, who first fled the deprivation of her estates, and the murder of her family, in the old King's time. She has been resident in England some ten years, and under Sidmouth's care.”

  “But it seems impossible!” I cried. “I thought her no higher than a servant, from the manner in which she was dressed, and the air of general command he enjoyed in her presence.”

  “I fear that you saw nothing out of the ordinary way,” the Captain replied, his lips compressed. “Sidmouth rules her frail life with an iron hand; and she is so far dependent upon him, as to make her prey
to every degradation. I very much fear — I have reason to wonder — if she is not entirely abandoned to his power, Miss Austen, in a manner that no honourable man should tolerate. To consider his oum advantage, when he was charged by her dying father to protect hers, is in every way despicable; but I must believe him to have sunk even as low as this. I pity Mademoiselle LeFevre; I am stirred by the outrage she daily endures; but I cannot intervene. I have not the cause. Not yet.”

  I was overcome by this confidence, and all amazed at the depravity it bespoke; and though I wondered a little at Captain Fielding's imparting so much of a rumoured nature, to a lady and a virtual stranger, I silently applauded the fine sensibility that encouraged his indignation, and felt a warmth of respect for his concerns. Of Seraphine LeFevre, I thought with renewed pity, and of Sidmouth, with contempt

  Our dance coming to a close with the Captain's last words, he bowed gravely and I curtseyed, somewhat lost in thought My gallant partner then suggesting we should repair to the supper room, I gladly took the arm he offered me, being somewhat out of breath from the double exertion of conversation and dance, and allowed myself to be led in search of punch and pasties.

  Fielding shook his head. ‘The man's charm is considerable. I am sure — I cannot but assume — that you felt its force yourself. Consider then how the people of a town, who feel only the public benefits of association with such a man, are more generally likely to forgive his private sins. Sidmouth has spent such sums on the betterment of Lyme, as to ensure his place in the hearts of the Fane family and their creatures, who all but control the town[27]; he cuts a handsome figure at the Assemblies; his taxes are paid, his tithes collected — and if he continues to form a part of a roguish set, much given to gaming and general drunkenness in its hours of idleness — so be it.”

  “I am shocked,” I cried, “shocked and saddened. Men who have much power for good, seem always that much more tempted to evil; and that it should be the reverse, in the eyes of Providence, holds but little sway.”

  “My dear, my most excellent Miss Austen,” Captain Fielding replied, with some emotion; “you have given voice to my very thought. I hope our two minds may be always in concert.”

  I thought then, with a rush of foreboding, of the hanged man at the end of the Cobb, the scene I had witnessed the previous day, and my own doubts of Mr. Sidmouth's motives. I suspected another incitement to murder — one that had nothing to do with the notorious Reverend or his smuggled goods. But to voice such fears and suspicions, even to Captain Fielding, on the strength of so little, must be impossible; the ruin of Mr. Sid-mouth's reputation — nay, even his life — might hang upon such idle talk.

  It could not do harm, however, to probe what more Captain Fielding might know of the murky affair.

  We had secured refreshment and moved towards the settee at one end of the room, before I took up my subject.

  “Lyme seems particularly prone to such grotesqueries of character as Mr. Sidmouth displays,” I observed, as I setded myself delicately upon the edge of a cushion. “The hanged man on the Cobb, for example. It was a very singular example of crudery, was it not?”

  A look of surprise from Captain Fielding, and a hesitation; for a Mrs. Barnewall to raise such matters, might be acceptable, but for a Miss Austen to broach them, apparently was not.

  “Poor Tibbit,” he answered at the last, as he eased himself next to me and extended his game leg before him. “He leaves a wife and five children, and all ill-provided for.”

  “You knew him then? How tragic! And nothing is known, I suppose, of his murderers?”

  “Nothing.” The Captain offered me a glass of wine, his fingers grazing my own. Unless my eyes misgave me, his hand trembled at the touch. “The fellow was a scoundrel, of course; he has turned up at my home a thousand times, to labour in the garden or mend a stone wall. The sort of idler who can be hired for a few pence, in the performing of odd jobs — which sums are as quickly dissipated at the Three Cups, as turned to his children's account. Tibbit shall not be missed, even by his wife.”

  “But is that reason to ignore the manner of his end?” I enquired gently, as I took a sip of punch. “Is not the death of even the slightest creature of weight in the scales of justice?”

  “Oh! But of course! If you would look for a reason in his death, Miss Austen, you need search no further than the manner of his life. I will wager that if Bill Tibbit did not meet his end at the hands of the Reverend, then it was through some fellows he double-crossed, in an affair of devilry; and though the local justice were to question the entire village, and solemnly record their protestations of innocence, and preoccupation with their affairs on the night in question, he should not arrive at the truth of it. No, Miss Austen”—the Captain said, drawing me back towards the ballroom as the musicians recommenced— “the scales of justice are balanced already. Bill Tibbit knows why he is dead, I warrant; but that we shall ever know, is quite unlikely.”

  IT WAS SOME HOURS LATER, AS I WAS RESTING IN THE COMFORT OF AN alcove settee, having danced with Mr. Crawford, and a few of Captain Fielding's brother officers (who had gone in search of negus), that Mr. Sidmouth arrived. Mindful of all that the Captain had told me, I felt some little trepidation upon perceiving the master of High Down; a confusion of disapprobation and dislike, which warred with my appreciation of his appearance. For indeed, he showed to greater advantage in his dark blue tailcoat and cream-coloured breeches, than he had in an open shirt, standing in his doorway on a rainy night. The fine figure, the aquiline line of his nose, the dark glow of brown eyes, the sternly commanding countenance — all these cried out nobility where I now knew there to be only the vilest propensities. He divested himself of hat and walking stick, drew on his white gloves, and commenced to scan the room, as though in search of acquaintance; and an expression of glad alacrity encompassing his features not long thereafter, I assumed he had found it. A brisk step, a bow — and I was to see him exert his charms upon a slip of a girl, not above nineteen, and very pretty at that She was accompanied by an older, shrewish-looking woman, dressed all in mourning, whose aspect held less of warmth in regarding Mr. Sidmouth; and at their being joined presently by Mr. Crawford, I presumed the ladies to be of his household. But I had not time to observe their conversation, for behind Mr. Sidmouth stood Henry and Eliza.

  I judged from the animation of the Comtesse's countenance that she had succeeded in scraping acquaintance with the master of High Down Grange. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes snapped, under the recent influence of his brusque regard; and Henry's brow bore a faint crease, as though already wearied by this rival for his wife's attentions.

  “Jane!” Eliza called, as she tripped on her small feet, encased in red satin slippers, across the room. Her bobbed brown head was adorned with pearls, and a cameo locket circled her neck on a length of dark red ribbon; her dress was of cream sarcenet, very fine for Lyme, and trimmed in the same rosy hue. Her gown slipped well down upon her arms, showing to advantage her excellent shoulders and bosom, in a manner that was all the London rage, but which must have afforded dear Henry some anxious moments. What artistry the maid Manon employed to keep Eliza so bountifully displayed, and yet still clothed, never failed to amaze me.

  “I have met your roguish suitor,” she confided, as she pecked me on the cheek, “and 1 applaud your taste. He will quite do for a heartless flirtation.”

  “Do you imagine yourself to voice my intentions, Eliza, or your own?”

  “Now, do not scold me, Jane. You know me too well to imagine I should steal your beaux. I am five-and-thirty at least”

  In fact, she was three-and-forty, some ten years older than my brother Henry; but with a woman such as Eliza, whose beauty and spirits defy attempts to cage them, the flow of years is best left untallied. It may be that she had long since forgot to consider the anniversaries of her birth, and sincerely believed herself on the flow tide of forty; what is certain, in any case, is that age had no power to repress her.

  “Mr. Sidmo
uth is not my beau,” I replied with asperity, “and I may say with feeling that I hope he never may be. I have heard such things of him tonight, Eliza, as confirm my worst suspicions. I believe him now to be the very worst sort of fellow, and must thank Providence for having allowed us to come to so little harm while under his roof.”

  ‘Oh, pshaw!” Eliza rejoined. “I see you are determined to sink me in respectability. I will not have it” She settled herself beside me and glanced quickly about the room, a sharp-eyed bird. “And with whom have you been dancing? For it can only be another man who would strip Sidmouth of his good name. Only one anxious to win your affections would attempt to assassinate his character.”

  “I must disagree, Eliza,” I said drily, “for it seems calumny is more properly the province of women. Men have other weapons, that may carry mortal injury; but a lady may use only words.”

  “Unless she employs poison, as she did at Scargrave,” Eliza said, sidelong, “but then gossip may be considered one of the most lethal of those, I suppose. I will not be convinced, Jane. A rival for your interest has torn Mr. Sidmouth's reputation. Do admit.”

  “And there he comes,” I replied, as the gallant but limping form of the Captain appeared through the throng, “bearing a cup by way of peace-offering. Will you dance, Eliza, or have you the time to be acquainted with Captain Percival Fielding?”

  But she was denied the opportunity to answer.

  “Miss Austen of Bath,” Mr. Sidmouth said at my shoulder. “You look very well this evening.”

  I turned, intending to cut him with a glance — but that glance, in revealing all the power of his manner and appearance, instantly overwhelmed me. I settled for a wordless nod, and took refuge in averted eyes.

  “Do I presume too much — or may I have the honour of this next dance?”

  I opened my mouth to declare myself already engaged, when the change in Mr. Sidmouth's complexion stopped the words in my mouth. His gaze was fixed by something beyond my head, and as I watched, his countenance was suffused with colour, then paled to a deathly white.