Jane and the Man of the Cloth Read online

  “And I believe this is your father, Miss Austen? For we have not been introduced,” Mrs. Barnewall said.

  I hastened to amend my stupidity, and made each known to the other; and was made acquainted myself with the gentleman on Mrs. Barnewall’s other arm, who was no more the Honourable Mathew than the Captain. A Mr. Crawford, an elegantly dressed gentleman of undistinguished countenance, balding head, and perhaps five-and-forty years—a widower possessed, so Mrs. Barnewall tells me, of a prettyish sort of place called Darby, out east along the Charmouth way.

  “We were just speaking,” Mrs. Barnewall said, “of that dreadful business on the Cobb.”

  My father looked vague.

  “The hanged man, Father,” I supplied.

  “Ah, yes—dreadful business, dreadful/’ He looked a trifle dismayed—at a lady’s advancing the topic, I imagined, rather than the topic itself.

  “They say he must be one of the Reverend’s men, and killed by a rival,” the ginger-haired Letty Schuyler remarked.

  “And /heard that it was the Reverend did the deed,” her sister Susan rejoined scornfully, “because the man betrayed his trust.”

  “But what of the flower?” Captain Fielding objected.

  “Flower?” I enquired, all attention to every detail.

  “A white flower was found near the hanged man,” Mrs. Barnewall supplied. “It is the talk of all Lyme.”

  “A rose, was it not?” This, from Letty Schuyler.

  “No, no!” her sister Constance cried. “It was a lily. I have heard the Reverend intended it as a sign, but know not what it signifies.”

  “But should a man of the cloth be likely to commit murder at all?” my father cried indignantly. “We are not in Rome, where all manner of evil may be perpetrated in an odour of sanctity. The Church of England may be charged with many faults—a laxity of moral purpose, betimes, and an unbecoming luxury, on occasion; to such faults any human institution may be prone. But the taking of a life! I profess myself quite shocked that you may credit the notion, and toss it about as a commonplace among yourselves.”

  “My dear Reverend Austen,” Mr. Crawford said with a knowing air, and great good humour, “you quite mistake the Miss Schuylers. They speak not of a clergyman like yourself—ho! ho! a very good joke that would be—but of a notorious scoundrel who devils these parts—the very Reverend, who is famed for bringing contraband goods from France, and supplying all of England with his wares.”

  “A smuggler!” I cried. “I had not an idea of it!”

  “Indeed, Miss Austen,” Captain Fielding replied, “the Dorsetshire coast has ever been prey to the evil. The Reverend is merely the latest ringleader of an ancient trade indeed. The Gentlemen of the Night, as such fellows presume to call themselves, have long plied the coves and secret harbours of the very waters beyond those windows.” And with a bow to the ladies, he added, “I must declare myself quite of the Miss Schuylers’ opinions.”

  “But which?” the youngest, and the prettiest, enquired with a winning smile. “For you know, Letty and Susan cannot either of them agree.”

  “I think either equally possible, for the Reverend’s hand is certainly behind the gibbet,” the Captain diplomatically replied.

  “And I, Fielding, cannot see the sense of it,” Crawford broke in. “The man’s livelihood depends upon his discretion. Why, then, take the fellow’s life in so public a manner? Would it not have been better to settle the score in privacy, and in the dark of night? A man might be thrown over the side of a swift galley, on a run from Boulogne, and no one the wiser. No,” the good gentleman continued, sliding a hand into his ample waistcoat pocket, “I think the gesture too public. The scaffold was quite deliberately placed at the end of the Cobb. We might almost think ourselves recalled to Monmouth’s time.4 There is more here than meets the eye; the hanging was meant for an example. A message has been sent.”

  “But to whom?” I enquired.

  “There’s the rub of it. And from whom?” Mr; Crawford’s balding pate began to shine with the honest sweat of his enthusiasm.

  “I still hold to the Reverend,” Captain Fielding said stubbornly.

  “But who, my good man, is /us?”

  “You mean to say that the miscreant has never been seen?” my father interjected, with some astonishment.

  “Not a glimpse or a whisper has anyone had,” Mrs. Barnewall said exultantly. “The man is said to operate in such disguise, that even his lieutenants may not know him in daylight, much less the Crown’s drunken dragoons. On this depends his success; so that nothing is more guarded than the Reverend’s identity/’

  “I thought to have seen him once/’ Mr. Crawford said, turning to my father, “at my fossil site. A party of men beached a boat just below the cliffs, and commenced unloading a cargo. But the cargo turned out to be fish—and there is nothing very contraband about that, you know.”

  Amid general laughter, my father’s interest was swiftly diverted by the mention of fossils; and the two men were soon engrossed in a discussion well-suited to the interests of them both. I rejoiced in the discovery of Mr. Crawford—a man of littie physical distinction, being of short stature, decided rotundity, and middle years, but possessed of an intellect that must be pleasing to my father. I had not the opportunity of knowing Mr. Crawford better, however; for as with one thought, the two older gentlemen moved towards the card room, still talking of botany and cliffs, and the Reverend Austen did not reappear for the majority of the evening.

  “Lord!” Mrs. Barnewail cried. “I am perishing of thirst! And where has my husband got to? Playing at loo, again, and playing high, I’ve little doubt. Come along, Letty, and preserve me from boredom. I am sure you should like a glass of wine as much as me.”

  And with a nod on my side, and several insincere simpers on theirs, the Barnewail retinue moved towards the supper room in a swirl of trains and delicate shawls.

  I found myself quite alone with Captain Fielding, and under the pain of the moment, cast about for a topic; several were adopted and discarded as unsuitable; and though my curiosity was raised, I resolved not to ask for the meaning behind le Chevalier, since the Captain had appeared so little inclined to discuss it. But I was saved all the trouble. The music began, the Captain bowed, and we moved into the dance.

  “You have been in Lyme before, I think,” he began. “I am sure that I observed you in this very room, some months ago.”

  “It is exactly a twelvemonth since I visited Lyme,” I cried, all astonishment “How came we not to meet before?”

  “I was little able to dance before this summer, Miss Austen; and you will observe that I manage it now with a very poor grace,” the gentleman replied, with a wry look for his game leg.

  “You were wounded in service?”

  “Off Malta, in ‘99; a brush with the Monster’s forces.5 1 was unlucky enough to be on the gunnery deck at the very moment a cannon came loose; and the full force of a thirty-two-pounder rolled over my leg—which was, as a consequence, removed on the spot.”

  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 h
ave heard the name of Austen, I cannot in honesty claim acquaintance with your brothers. They are presendy 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 bat-Ue.”6

  “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 gendeman 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;7he 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. Sidmouth’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?”