“And yet my sister Eliza finds that Mr. Sidmouth goes often to France — or did so, before the outbreak of the latest hostilities. Having been long a resident of that unfortunate country herself, she was delighted to meet with a gentleman capable of offering the latest intelligence regarding Parisian society, something for which she is always longing.”
“I am happy to learn that Mr. Sidmouth was capable of offering anything that could be described as pleasing,” the Captain rejoined soberly. “That he was engaged in conversing with a lady — and a lady of the world, as everything about your brother's wife proclaims her to be — must speak for itself. Sidmouth's charm is always most lively in the company of the fair sex.”
“You are aware, then, of his travel?” I persisted.
“I am. It has been many months since I have regarded it with anything but dismay.”
“Dismay!” I cried, with a look for Lucy Armstrong, whose eyes were cast down upon her folded hands. Her cheeks were remarkably rosy for one so apparently indifferent to our conversation.
“Indeed.” Captain Fielding appeared to hesitate, as if debating within himself; and then the desire to relate his anxieties won out over the impulse towards discretion. “I have reason to believe, Miss Austen, that Geoffrey Sidmouth is engaged in business of a most unscrupulous nature; that he ventures to Paris on behalf of certain nefarious interests whose result you saw only moments ago; that he is, in fact, none other than the reprehensible Reverend of whom the world speaks with such a strange mixture of repugnance and admiration.”
“Mr. Sidmouth! The very Reverend!”
“It cannot be,” Cassandra said, with some urgency in her tone. Her eyelids had fluttered wide, and two spots of colour burned in her cheeks. “Mr. Sidmouth retains every aspect of the gentleman. I cannot believe so good a man as he proved himself to me, in my time of need, to be so lost to the expectations of society — of duty — indeed, of every moral purpose!”
“I wish that I could share your approbation,” Captain Fielding said. He spoke gently to Cassandra, as was his wont, but his blue eyes were cold and hard in his tanned face. I understood, in gazing at him then, what it must have been to answer his commands on a surging deck in the midst of battle. “I have watched his movements for some time. The trips to France are but a part of it; to this, I would add the strangeness of waggons coming and going at the Grange at all hours of the night; the appearance of bands of men who shelter in its barns for a few days only, and then are seen no more; the constant traffic along the cliffs, in the foulest of weather; and the habitual walks of Mademoiselle LeFevre.”
“Mademoiselle LeFevre?” Lucy Armstrong said, in a tone of bewilderment.
“Mademoiselle LeFevre,” Captain Fielding rejoined. The barouche tilted suddenly, in turning into a private avenue of well-grown trees, and I looked up to find we were come very nearly to the end of our drive. “She is given to walking, as all of Lyme has observed, along the cliffs in her bright red cloak, and on particular afternoons.”
“There can be nothing singular in a lady's taking exercise, ” I objected, as the barouche rolled to a halt before Captain Fielding's door, “nor in the fact of a scarlet wrap, when one is speaking of Lyme.”[47]
“There can — and there is — when the lady's constitutionals are followed without fail by the landing of a smuggling ship along the beaches that same night. I am convinced her red cloak is a signal; she wears it for the benefit of the Reverend's cutters, lying offshore, and straining at their sea-glasses for a glimpse of scarlet. At times when the dragoons are particularly active — when they feel, for the sake of propriety, a need to assume an attitude of vigilance, and stand about the town as if ready to arrest us all — I have observed Miss Seraphine to remain within doors for whole days together.”
The Captain eased his game leg out of the barouche with the coachman Jarvis's assistance, and, once steady upon the ground, turned to hand down first Miss Armstrong and then my sister. “Having seen the cutter running offshore today, I find it in me to wonder, indeed, if Mr. Sidmouth's presence at Mr. Crawford's fossil pits was entirely without design. From such a point, one might have an unimpeded view of all sea traffic; he could combine a pleasure party with scrupulous observance of his cargo's fortunes.”
“But he departed before the cutter appeared,” Lucy Armstrong argued. Captain Fielding merely bowed, and gestured her towards the open door, where a housemaid stood ready to usher her within. Cassandra followed, with the faintest of smiles. Her gait was unsteady, as though she moved under the influence of a fearful headache. My heart misgave me as I watched; but Captain Fielding's hand was outstretched to receive my own, and I returned to the subject uppermost in my thoughts.
“You have indeed been an avid observer of all Mr. Sidmouth's movements,” I said, as I grasped the Captain's gloved fingers and found the carriage step. “I would venture to say that even your place of abode is not without design. With no other object than the closest scrutiny, can you have chosen to settle in a house not a half-mile from High Down Grange. For no other reason than to calculate his ruin, can you have chosen a neighbour so abhorrent to you.”
How my heart reacted to this knowledge of Captain Fielding's design, I cannot say. I confess to a confusion of emotions — some all in admiration of his penetration and bravery, and others, having more to do with Geoffrey Sidmouth, that were marked by regret. But I could not deny the calculation of Fielding's words, and the careful study behind them; I myself had spent two nights at High Down Grange, and had seen the red-cloaked girl with a lanthorn bobbing along the cliffs. What had Mr. Sidmouth said to Seraphine, in those few phrases of French? Something about the men, and the dogs, and the bay. And the name of the bottle-green boat on the beach — La Gascogne. Presumably a cargo was expected the very night of our precipitate arrival — hence the hostility with which we were met, and the stable boy's levelled blunderbuss. Seraphine LeFevre was undoubtedly dispatched to divert the men and their wares to another place of hiding, for the length of our unfortunate stay.
“You are possessed of a singular understanding,” Captain Fielding said, his eyes intent upon my face. We stood thus a moment in the drive while Jarvis remounted the box. “But then, I have allowed myself an unwonted frankness in your company. It may be that our minds are formed for such effortless meeting.”
“I am happy to learn that you are not entirely languishing in retirement, Captain Fielding” I rejoined, deflecting his gallantry with a smile. “Indeed, I think you are possibly the most active former Naval officer I have ever met.”
He threw back his blond head and laughed. “You have found me out, Miss Austen. I am, indeed, as yet employed — though on behalf of His Majesty's revenues rather than his seamen. I shall have the Reverend yet— and when I do, I shall be very much surprised if he is not Geoffrey Sidmouth.”
Chapter 7
The Lander Routed
8 September 1804
Dawn
I HAVE PUT ASIDE MY FOOLSCAP AND MY EFFORTS TO FORM EMMA Watson to my liking — a more wrongheaded heroine I have never encountered, so intent is she upon ceding the stage to her spiteful sisters and the ridiculous Tom Musgrave[48] — and taken down this journal once more to record all that has unfolded since yester e'en. I had progressed only so far, in relating the chief of that tumultuous day, when Mr. Dagliesh appeared at my brother Henry's dispatching. And so I must set down something of how the surgeon's assistant came again to Wings cottage.
We had partaken of a little refreshment, and decidedly superior tea — an excellent Darjeeling — in Captain Fielding's attractive blue and white drawing-room, and had then quitted the house to observe the last slanting rays of sunlight in the gentleman's garden. Captain Fielding reveals himself as a devotee of the rose, on a scale that rivals the Empress Josephine, for almost the entirety of his grounds is given over to beds of that noble flower — though sadly for us, well past its blooming.
“But this is charming, Captain Fielding!” my sister ex
claimed; among the Austens, she is the true lover of the garden and its healthful exercise, and is possessed of a remarkable taste in the arranging of beds and successive waves of seasonal bloom. “Utterly delightful! And in June, when the roses flower, it must be a veritable Eden!”
“Eden must not be considered as approaching it, Miss Austen,” the Captain replied. “For my garden has no snakes.”
“But what energy and industry has been here applied!” Cassandra continued. “And you are not even resident in the place very long.”
“No — but where application is steady, and the means exist for the furthering of work, all manner of change may be swiftly effected. I have had teams of men labouring here to rival Crawford's fossil pits. Where we stand this very moment, was only two years ago a pitiful stretch of downs, replete with scrub heath and the occasional fox den.”
“Extraordinary,” Lucy Armstrong said quiedy, and gazed around her with a wistful air. “I remember this place some months ago, Captain Fielding, when you entertained us all at dinner. The roses were then in bloom— and a glorious sight it was.” She gave me a brief smile, as though lost in a pretty memory, and moved on down the path with my sister.
Captain Fielding offered his left arm, which I gladly accepted, and we followed behind. The Captain employs a walking cane when attempting a greensward, and must progress more slowly as a result, so that Cassandra and Miss Armstrong were soon at some little distance from ourselves.
“I venture to hope, Miss Jane Austen, that you shall again walk among these flowers, when their scent fills the air with a headiness unequalled, and their petals suggest a grace that can only be found in your lovelier form,” my companion said, in a lowered tone.
I blushed and turned away; for the import of his words was unmistakable. But I affected not to understand him, and said only, “I hope I shall often have reason to visit Lyme. It is a place and a society that has become quite dear to me. To fix one's residence by the sea, is, I believe, to live in the greatest privilege and the most salubrious circumstance.”
“You dislike Bath, then?”
“Who can feel otherwise, who is consigned to spend the entire year through, in a place destined for pleasure parties and occasional travellers? The sameness, and yet the constant parting with friends, happy in their return to quieter homes; the bustle, and the self-importance, and yet the nothingness of the town; the white glare of its buildings, the fearful drains, the endless parade of the fashionable and the foolish, hopeful of cures from the sluggish waters — no, Captain Fielding, I cannot love Bath. It is become a prison to my spirit, however gilded the trappings of the cage.”
“I regret to hear it,” he said slowly. “But you will have some weeks yet in Lyme.”
“Yes,” I said, recovering. “We intend to remain here through November. I cherish every day, and count out those remaining, as though I turn the rarest pearls along a string.”
The Captain raised his fair head, and gazed into the distance, his eyes narrowing. “Miss Austen!” he cried. “Miss Armstrong! We are losing the light, I fear, and must turn back.”
“And what is that place my sister has come to?” I enquired, in gazing upon a prettyish little wilderness some yards before us.
“It is my temple ruin,” Captain Fielding said abruptly, “a colonnade of stone, in wisteria and hedgerose. Your sister has found it necessary to rest some few moments, but she cannot remain there.”
I must have looked my surprise at his terse words, so clearly expressive of a proprietary interest in the place, rather than in Cassandra's state; but in a moment, I understood the cause of Captain Fielding's distress.
“I must chide myself for an overactive enthusiasm in exhibiting these grounds — and in so vigourous a manner,” he said, “for assuredly the walk has proved too much for her delicate health.”
And indeed, Cassandra was slumped upon a bench in an attitude of great fatigue, while Lucy Armstrong searched frantically among her green muslin pockets for what I imagined to be some errant smelling salts. The enquiring eyes of a stone wood nymph, arranged over a little door that stood ajar in the temple's wall, looked down upon the tableau. That the door shielded an area for the storage of garden implements, I readily discerned; for a huddle of indiscriminate shapes, cloaked in sailcloth, was revealed by the setting sun — and a clever usage it was for a wilderness ruin. Captain Fielding's house is entirely fitted out with such similarly charming notions— reflective, perhaps, of a man accustomed to tight quarters on a ship. I had observed the snug arrangement of his bookshelves and desk, the latter article having a removable surface for writing in one's chair, as we earlier passed through the library; and indeed, little that the Captain owns is designed purely for ornament, or for a single purpose, serving a variety of duties in ways that are decidedly ingenious. I thought of Frank, whose life is similarly efficient in its organisation, and shook my head fondly at my brother's plans to marry.[49] Mary Gibson should make a sad business of Frank's tidy habits.
As we approached, Cassandra raised her head, her countenance suffused with pain. “I have overtaxed my strength, dearest Jane,’” she said, “and must run the risk of offending you, Captain Fielding, with my plea for a return to Wings cottage.”
He turned from securing the door beneath the nymph's head, and cried, “It shall be done with the greatest dispatch. A moment only is required for the summoning of Jarvis. But tell me, Miss Austen — can you attempt the walk to the house?”
“If Jane will support me on the one hand, and Miss Armstrong on the other, it may be done,” Cassandra replied, and slowly regained her feet with an air of grim resolution. I hastened to her side and suffered her to rest her weight against my shoulder, my arm around her waist and my heartbeat rendered the more rapid by a fearsome anxiety. A quick glance at Captain Fielding revealed the agony of regret that suffused his countenance; and I knew as though he had spoken aloud, that his mind was a turmoil of recrimination and anger at the disability that prevented him from providing greater assistance. But a lame man, dependent upon a cane for his own support, was hardly likely to serve as a prop for my suffering sister; and so I left him to sort out his manly feelings in peace, and turned my attention where it was the more necessary.
We had progressed perhaps one half the full length of the garden walk, when Cassandra begged to rest upon a bench; such dizzyness as overwhelmed her, coupled with a throbbing at the temples, nearly dropping her where she stood. I bit my lip, and wished for some greater aid — my brother, perhaps, or even Eliza — while Lucy Armstrong satisfied her tender feelings in repeated enquiries of Cassandra, and the triumphant production of the smelling salts. At last my sister rose, and managed to regain the house; whereupon Captain Fielding sent for his carriage and bade the housemaid fetch some brandy. This last having been administered, Cassandra sat back upon the settee with streaming eyes and a choking cough, unaccustomed as she is to strong spirits; and turned to me with all the terror of her infirmity upon her face.
“Jane!” she cried, though her voice was but a whisper; “I had thought myself completely recovered! It was not so very great an injury; the rest of my dear family suffered little from the coach's overturning; and? am several days removed from the event. And yet my present pain is unbearable. Can it be that I have received a greater knocking than was at first understood? Or that Mr. Dagliesh has mistaken the extent of the malady?”
“Such fretful thoughts cannot improve your prospects for the remainder of our travel home,” I said gently, as the sound of wheels upon the gravel revealed the barouche as even then standing before the door. “We will consult with Mr. Dagliesh as soon as ever we may.”
Captain Fielding assisted us to the carriage with the greatest concern alive upon his countenance, and urged the coachman to achieve his two-miles’ journey with all possible speed, though mindful not to jar the lady. And so, with these conflicting orders settled upon his head, poor Jarvis clucked to the horses, and we were off.
The ride itsel
f was uneventful, being spent chiefly in the sort of silence that only arises from great perturbation of spirit; and I sighed with relief as the barouche began the descent into Broad Street, and the cheerful lights of Wings cottage appeared through the growing dusk.
We were not to be afforded the comfort of an uneventful arrival, however — for Cassandra had only to set foot to paving stone, before crumpling in a faint upon the ground.
AND SO MR. DAGLIESII WAS SUMMONED AT THE BEHEST OF MY brother Henry, who was even then within the cottage awaiting our return, the better to give his fondest adieux — for he and Eliza depart for Weymouth today, to tour the town and observe the embarkation of the Royal Family.[50] From thence they should travel to Ibthorpe, and by a leisurely route return to No. 16 Michael's Place, and their neat little home. But at the outcry and bustle from the very gate, my dear brother rushed to our assistance; and his anxiety was the more extreme, from being motivated by surprise. Miss Armstrong and 1 were more sanguine, having journeyed in some anticipation of the event.
I may say that Mr. Dagliesh was very angry; he regarded us all as having precipitated a dangerous relapse, by our determination to force Cassandra over-early into activity; and he ordered the strictest quiet, the administration of broth, and the application alternately of ice and warm compresses, for the relief of my sister's throbbing temples. The poor surgeon's assistant stood some few minutes by her bedside, holding her wrist between his fingers as though intent upon her pulse; but I knew him to be utterly inattentive to the flutter of Cassandra's heart, so clearly were his thoughts fixed upon the agony within his own.
He departed not long thereafter, in search of some ice from the Golden Lion, and assuring us of his return at the earliest hour of the morning; and it remained only for us to determine the wisest course. The consultation of Dagliesh's superior, Mr. Carpenter, was much canvassed, and rejected by my mother, who had learned something to that gentleman's detriment from a recent Lyme acquaintance, one Miss Bonham, who claimed a persistent nervous fever. Henry at last voiced the thought chief within all our minds — that Cassandra should accompany himself and Eliza on their return to London, that trip being expedited by the amendment of the plan, and a determination to proceed with all possible swiftness towards Michael's Place; for the opinion of a physician, with all the experience of a city practice, should be solicited as soon as possible. My father agreed; my mother lamented and groaned at this loss of her favourite; and I felt a pang at the loneliness I should undoubtedly feel in Cassandra's absence.
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