Jane and the Man of the Cloth

by Stephanie Barron

  My thoughts were disturbed by a sudden Bump! overhead, and the sound as of something rolling into a garret corner; I glanced up swiftly, and would swear I heard the shuffle of knees along bare floorboards, and then the very stillness of suspended breath. I looked to Seraphine for explanation, but she was bent over a cauldron hanging at the hearth; and if her cheeks were a trifle flushed, surely die heat of the fire might be taken as cause. Sidmouth, too, appeared insensible of the secretive movements above his head, being engaged in gathering up the cloth Seraphine had used for Toby’s bandage; and I should have thought myself quite mad, did I not believe them both to have a purpose for assumed tranquillity.

  I glanced about the kitchen, and observed a doorway in the far corner—concealing, perhaps, a staircase, and the way to the rooms above, where even now the Reverend’s henchmen were foiled in their activity, by the appearance of a visitor below. The image of Davy Forely’s grimacing face, glimpsed a week ago as he fled the dragoons on Sidmouth’s horse, rose with conviction in my mind—was the lander even now recovering from his wounds, in hiding at High Down Grange? But to what purpose? For had not Captain Fielding divulged that no charge could be brought against the men, for retrieving a cargo of small beer? But someone was assuredly above, and keeping covert; Seraphine had pronounced my name quite clearly at my arrival, and Mr. Sidmouth equally so— a signal, perhaps, for the cessation of all movement in the garret. I must try what outright interrogation should reveal.

  “I see you have visitors? Mr. Sidmouth,” I said, and awaited his response.

  He moved lithely to the doorway and peered out into the sunshine, as though in search of an arriving chaise. “I fear you are mistaken, Miss Austen. We must look solely to yourself for amusement this morning.”

  I allowed the slightest suggestion of confusion to cross my features. “But what, then, is the purpose of the waggons in the courtyard? I expected an entire party of pleasure-seekers upon my arrival—and yet could barely discover a soul!”

  “We were about the haymaking yesterday,” Sidmouth said evenly, with a look to Seraphine; “until halted by the onset of the storm. Had Toby been better fitted to his work, the equipages should hardly have been left standing; but his injury, and the pressing nature of my own affairs, necessitated their present abandonment”

  He could not have known, of course, that Toby had declared his injury to be a thing of the night—and well after any waggons should have been put up.

  “I hope your expectations are not all downcast, Miss Austen, at finding us quite alone? For we are general!)’ so retiring at High Down Grange, that the addition of merely one to the circle is taken as a novelty. We are in your debt, you see, for this visit/’

  “And I feel it particularly,’” said Seraphine, turning from the fire, “for you know I see almost no one. I wonder, Miss Austen, if you would care to take a turn along the cliffs—the weather being so fine? We might converse at some leisure in the open air; and as such days will offer only rarely in the coming months, we ought to seize them when we may.”

  Though I had toiled fully two and a half miles uphill from Lyme in the previous hour, I surmised Seraphine to be seeking some privacy, if not my safe removal from the vicinity of the kitchen garret; and declared myself not antagonistic to the notion of exercise. While the lady went in search of her cloak, there being a brisk breeze off the sea, I settled myself into an empty chair; and so was left in the company of Mr. Sidmouth for some anxious moments.

  “Let me repeat myself, Miss Austen, the better to show my gratitude, even at the risk of increasing your tedium,” he began, his brown eyes warm in his harsh-featured face. “I am very much obliged to you for this visit. I know full well that you are come at my express request, made only a few nights ago—a melancholy night, in retrospect, given the events that followed hard upon our evening’s enjoyment at Darby.”

  For a moment I knew not how to reply, surprised that he should mention even so obliquely the death of Captain Fielding.

  “There is to be an inquest, I understand, at the Golden Lion,” I ventured at the last.

  “It will avail them nothing,” Sidmouth said grimly, and threw himself into the chair Seraphine had vacated. “Fielding’s murderer is long gone from the vicinity.”

  “You would credit, then, the notion of a footpad? You believe Captain Fielding to have died by misadventure?”

  “Is there an alternative?” he enquired, with a knitting of the brows. “—For the Captain is unlikely to have done away with himself, Miss Austen, having first dispensed with his valuables.”

  “But another might have effected a similar appearance.”

  “To what purpose?” Mr. Sidmouth’s voice was so quiet as to be almost inaudible, and his countenance was stilled and shuttered.

  “To suggest that what was murder by design, was merely a perilous encounter with a highwayman—the better to divert suspicion, and throw into doubt all hope of confounding the killer.”

  “And why should any wish to trifle with Fielding’s life in so terrible a manner?”

  “Come, come, Mr. Sidmouth!” I cried. “Km are a man of the world. You know what it is to inspire enemies, and to maintain a relation of enmity with another. Surely you may supply a myriad of reasons for such an extraordinary course. You bore the Captain too little love, not to wish him as much ill-fortune as he was unhappy enough to endure.”

  “Are you suggesting that I wished him dead, Miss Austen? Or, worse still, that in wishing him dead, I took measures to achieve my aim?” Mr. Sidmouth rose from his chair and crossed to where I sat, his powerful form overtaken by malevolence. I had an idea, of a sudden, what it should be to cross him in a matter of some importance to himself, and swallowed hard to overcome my fear.

  “I suggest nothing,” I replied.

  “Miss Jane Austen of Bath never speaks to little purpose.’ ‘He observed me narrowly. “You actually believe me capable of such foul conduct as Fielding suffered! Does my aspect betray me as so prone to violence, however just and warranted it might be? But no—” he said, wheeling about, “—it is unwise to enquire too closely of a lady whose aspect is so clouded with doubt. The answers should be too little to my liking.”

  “Mr. Sidmouth—”

  “Say nothing, Miss Austen, for good or ill,” he said harshly; “you cannot know the effect your words should have. I am too little master of my feelings in the present moment to meet either your contempt or your concern with the attention they deserve.”

  And with that, he left me—in such a state of perturbation, that I barely disguised my sensibility before Seraphine, who returned some moments later intent upon a walk.

  “I MUST TELL YOU, MlSS AUSTEN, THAT GEOFFREY ESTEEMS YOU highly. It is his fondest wish that we should grow acquainted; and I am so desirous of company in my isolation, that I welcome his interest, and the benevolence it has inspired. You are very good to weary yourself in seeking the Grange.”

  I studied Seraphine’s beautiful profile curiously. She spoke so frankly of her retirement from society, as though it were a sentence imposed by a merciless court, that I adjudged her amenable to some gentle questioning.

  “I cannot help asking, Mademoiselle—how come you to be here, so far from your home, and quite without friends?”

  “Home is a mere channel away, Miss Austen, and Geoffrey the greatest friend I have ever known,” she replied quiedy. “But I understand what you would ask. France might as well be at the ends of the earth, for all the hope I have of returning—hope or desire, both being equally extinguished by my sad history. I have been in England nearly a decade, having fled the horrors of the guillotine at the age of fifteen.”

  “Your family suffered in the revolution?”

  “Suffered!” Her lip curled expressively, and she turned to gaze out at the sea an instant, before resuming our pacing along the cliff’s edge. “I saw my mother taken away in a cart, and my father; my three aunts, two of my uncles, and my eldest brother—all perished on the infer
nal machine.”

  “Good God!” I cried.

  “Words cannot express the blood-lust, the mad desire for revenge, the senseless hatred that compelled the people in those days. It was the sort of frenzy only rarely witnessed by rational beings—thank God.”

  “But how came you to escape?”

  She shrugged and averted her gaze. “My relations in England exerted their energies on our behalf—you should know that Mr. Sidmouth is the son of my mother’s sister—and for once they were successful. We were smuggled out of the prison beneath a load of refuse, and borne swiftly to Boulogne, there to embark upon a ship bound for this coast; and here I have remained ever since, walking these cliffs that I might gaze towards France, and remember those who did not escape.”

  “You speak in the plural, Mademoiselle,” I said tentatively. “Was there some other who escaped at your side?”

  “My youngest brother, Philippe. He was but ten at the time.”

  “A brother! How fortunate that you should be left with some prop in the midst of tragedy—some confidant in sorrow! But where is your brother now, Mademoiselle? Away at school, perhaps?”

  To my surprise, she shrugged, the faintest of smiles overspreading her lips. “Philippe has returned to France. He is with Napoleon’s army there.”

  “With Buonaparte?” I could not disguise my incredulity. “But how is such a thing possible?”

  “How might a victim of the revolution throw his strength and ardour behind its greatest opportunist, you mean?” Seraphine said, with a delicately-lifted eyebrow. “Well might you ask. My cousin and I have spent many long hours in contemplation of it.” She exhaled a gusty breath and drew the collar of her red cloak closer about her throat. “I cannot rightly say. I loved Philippe as almost a mother—I clung to his sturdy boyishness, his indomitable spirits—until the moment when he disappeared in the night, taking only a few belongings and leaving but a few words. Perhaps I never understood him—what it was to grow up as a dispossessed child, aware of his family’s noble history, and the ruthlessness of its decline.”

  “Women arc more accepting of the vagaries of Fate, perhaps,” I said thoughtfully. “We sit at home, and mourn in solitude, and find no oudet for our resdess tides of vengeance. It should not be remarkable that a young man should wish to make his way in the world, and resurrect the glory of his name, by any means that offer. We cannot judge rightly, without standing awhile in his skin, and feeling all the burden of outraged youth.”

  “But you forget, Miss Austen,” Seraphine replied. “I have stood there. I have felt the outrage. I have railed against the bitterness of Fortune, and shaken my fist at every sun that rises again to shine on the revolution’s children, and I have hated Napoleon for his steady ascent. He climbs on the backs of the old aristocracy—who were cut down by men he has never disavowed, however little he formed a part of their schemes—and marries his generals to the orphaned daughters of the great. But I beg to hope, Miss Austen, that he will reach the height of power, only to discover that he has been ascending a scaffold— and that there is no escaping the noose”

  I confess I was overwhelmed by the hardening of her tone and aspect; Seraphine seemed no longer an ethereal angel, but a woman clad in steel, and burnished by the sunlight thrown up from the sea.

  “It would perhaps be justice,” I observed, “did Napoleon fall as swiftly as he has ascended; but I do not believe it likely. Many years of blood and hopelessness remain, I fear, before vengeance may be done.”

  Seraphine turned a speculative eye upon my countenance. “That may be, Miss Austen; and then again, it may not. Time alone will tell.”

  “Assuredly,” 1 said, in some confusion. For she spoke as though blessed with a more intimate knowledge of events than I should have credited in one so remote from their ordering.

  We turned at the cliff’s edge and walked on a few paces in silence, heads bowed against the fresh breeze off the sea. The pause in conversation afforded me the opportunity to recollect my true purpose in soliciting the mademoiselle’s confidence—and for the space of several strides, I gathered my courage to speak. We could not labour on entirely in silence, however, without some end to our exercise being precipitated; and so I forced myself to broach a subject that could not but be distasteful to the lady.

  “How calm the sea looks!”? observed, with a careless air. “Quite unlike the afternoon when Captain Fielding and I espied the smuggler’s cutter abandon its cargo, not far off the end of the Cobb. On that occasion the seas were quite stiff, and the Navy ship that followed in pursuit made but poor progress, and came all too late behind.”

  There was a delicate pause. Then, with what I judged to be an effort at composure, the mademoiselle enquired,

  “You were well acquainted with Captain Fielding?”

  ‘Only a little. And ¥011?”

  “As you say—only a little,” she said, with a quick smile, that as quickly fled.

  “He seems to have been everywhere acknowledged as possessing an admirable character.”

  “Indeed.”

  A few more paces in silence, and I made another attempt. “However little you thought yourself acquainted with Captain Fielding, your well-being and happiness were clearly of some concern to the gentleman. He spoke well of you in my hearing on several occasions, and expressed some anxiety regarding your—situation—at the Grange.”

  “I do not doubt he mentioned my situation, as you put it,” Seraphine said, her contempt flaring unchecked. “Captain Fielding was an officious and arrogant man, who little cared what damage his concern might do.”

  “You regarded his interest as interference?” I rejoined quickly.

  She turned and studied my countenance quizzically, while I endeavoured to assume as clear an aspect of innocence as my own sense of guilt should allow.

  “Would not you have done the same, Miss Austen, when a gentieman’s meddling occasioned the worst sort of calumny, and the grossest of lies, to be heaped upon a cousin you esteemed as dearly as a brother? But how come you to wonder so much about the affairs of people, of whom you know so little?”

  This was abruptness indeed; and I felt the chastening power of her words as severely as a lash. Groping for some justification, however, I fell back upon events.

  “It is just that the Captain’s tragic end, Mademoiselle, has thrown his whole life into question—do not you agree?” I gestured towards the road, just visible at the foot of the downs behind our backs, and emptied now of any conveyance. “How strange to think that the gallant Captain shall drive the Charmouth road no more, when only a week ago I sat beside him in his barouche. The suddenness of events is inexplicable; and the mind struggles for comprehension/’

  My excuses availed me nothing, however; Seraphine had stiffened beside me, and was grown as remote as marble—expressionless, opaque, and no doubt chill to the touch. My words might have been all unspoken.

  I perceived no alternative but persistence, all the same. “The news was quite shocking, was it not?”

  She stirred herself at last, but betrayed nothing of her emotion. “The news of the Captain’s death? I suppose it was. Certainly? had not looked for it.”

  “But you found it not incredible?”

  “I found it to be justice, Miss Austen, however curiously achieved,” she cried, in some exasperation. “One cannot be otherwise than satisfied when justice is done.”

  Whatever I had expected, it was hardly this—an avowal of nothing and everything at once.

  “I do not pretend to understand you, Mademoiselle. Had the Captain committed some infamy of which I am unaware?”

  She studied the sea as though my words had gone unspoken, for the space of several heartbeats. I counseled patience to myself, and stood as still as a stone, reflecting that many a wild thing will come to eat from the hand, if a suitable caution is preserved. At length, however, I observed to my horror that silent tears were coursing down her cheeks; and it was perhaps more terrible still that she did noth
ing to impede their flow, or disguise their traces, so lost in contemplation was she.

  “Mademoiselle LeFevre,” I said, laying a hand along her red-cloaked arm, “whatever is the matter? What can he have done to you?”

  She shook her head, and turned a watery smile upon my anxious face. “Never mind, Miss Austen. Whatever it was, it is past all remedy now, and all forgiveness. What le Chevalier did, was done in passion; and so his life has ended. There is nothing further worth asking/’

  Le Chevalier. That name again; and spoken now with a depth of bitterness that could not but make it ironic. To probe the girl’s natural reticence would be unseemly, and beyond even my application; my gentle education had not taught me how to so offend propriety, even did I claim the pursuit of innocence as my spur. There were others— Mrs. Barnewall rose immediately to mind—who might shed some light on the matter. I managed, then, only to press Seraphine’s arm in sympathy, and stand in an awkward silence; and so, I fear, I left her. She would not accompany me back to the Grange, being unequal, perhaps, to her cousin’s scrutiny; and it may be that she found some comfort in gazing out over the sea, towards France and the turbulent past. But her figure lingers long in memory as I consider her, red cloak flowing in the wind, as still as a tower at the cliff’s edge.

  I HAD BARELY ACHIEVED THE COURTYARD BEFORE THE FARMHOUSE, and steeled myself for the tedious return to Wings cottage, when I espied a strange coach pulled up before the Grange’s door. A man, whose appearance bespoke him a gentleman, stood aloof and grim at the horses’ heads. Barely a moment upon the heels of this observation, the front door was thrown open, and a party of men exited, with Sidmouth in their midst. An expression of rage suffused the latter’s countenance, and his bearing bespoke a wounded dignity; had not these apprised me that he went against his will, the manner in which the four burly fellows at his side secured his wrists and arms within their grasp, should assuredly have served as guide. In the grim huddle’s wake came Mary, the housemaid, anxiously wringing her apron.