Jane and the Man of the Cloth (22 page)

When confronted with such thoughts as these, I could wish my understanding less able, and my fancies of less persuasive merit. But having once parsed the riddle, what alternative may I choose? Do I thrust away the weight of my fears, as reflecting a woman's foolish misapprehension? Or do I consider with care the path of any further investigation, so decidedly necessary if guilt or innocence is to be proved? For the possibility of Sidmouth's innocence cannot be discounted; and indeed, though reason might construct a case for his culpability, I find my heart cries out within me that it is impossible. What, then, is to be done? For I cannot long survive the suspense of such conflicting emotion; nor the thought that I harbour a strange sensibility for a man who might very well prove a murderer.

(Here the uniting breaks off, and is then resumed.)

I was disturbed in the very act of considering my future course, by the arrival of a visitor whose appearance and intentions may only be deemed fortuitous. Providence, assuredly, is a mysterious mover, and who is Jane to ignore its direction?

The sound of a carriage halting before the door, and the bustle in the entry that presaged a visitor, gave pause to my pen; and it required but a moment for the conveyance of a card, bearing a name strange to me—and yet familiar.

“Miss Austen, miss,” Jenny broke in, as she peered around the door, “there's a gentleman below as wishes to speak with you. He's sent up his card, and very fine it is, too.”

Mr. Roy Cavendish,
the scrap of paper read.
His Majesty's Customs House, Lyme.

I looked to Jenny swifdy. “The gentleman is even now below?”

Her white cap bobbed above widened blue eyes. “He's a King's man, in't he? Whatever can he want with you, miss?”

“And my parents?”

“The Reverend's showing him his chess set. The missus is darning a sock.”

It seemed best to relieve the poor man direcdy. “Please convey my sentiments to Mr. Cavendish, and say that I shall attend him presently,” I told Jenny, and gathered up my little book.

“IT IS A PLEASURE,
Miss
AUSTEN.” ROY CAVENDISH BENT LOW OVER
my hand as I halted in the sitting-room doorway. He retained, still, the unfortunate appearance of a frog that I had remarked while observing him from the Cobb, the very morning he had come to oversee the seizure of a smuggler's cargo—which seizure Mr. Sidmouth had effectively routed. But I noted that his dress was respectable, his figure neat, and his hand steady; though a repulsive moisture overlaid his palm, and his grip was reminiscent of something noisome cast up upon the shingle.

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Cavendish,” I said doubtfully, and sought my habitual seat. Despite the poor condition of the day, my father had deemed it wisest to seek the out of doors, and had prevailed upon my mother to accompany him, with the promise of tea and muffin on the high street. Mr. Cavendish took advantage of my ease to find a chair himself, and, flipping the tails of his coat over his legs, sat down with something of a flourish— quite at odds with his staid appearance.

“You will wonder why I am come,” he began, “being a stranger to yourself, and indeed, to most concerns that should preoccupy a lady.”

“Indeed, I know not how to explain this visit—though I should not like you to believe it an unwelcome one, sir.”

“You are all kindness.”

I waited, believing the burden of conversation to be on his side; and Mr. Cavendish did not disappoint me.

“I shall turn direcdy to the point, Miss Austen. You will have heard,” he said, tapping a black band high upon his arm, “of the death of the gallant Captain Fielding.” At this, the Customs agent's countenance assumed a remarkable expression of mournful gravity, as though he had swallowed something inimitable to a frog's digestion. “His loss is a heavy one—for his King and country, no less than for his intimate circle.”

“Indeed,” I said, with circumspection. I et us try what Mr. Cavendish would reveal; let us observe how closely he guards his purpose. A gentle trap, delicately baited, should tell me much. “It is some time since I have been able to think of it with anything but indignation, sir. For such a gendeman, blessed with the noblest qualities, to be cut down by a common footpad! Are decent people no longer to move at liberty? Are we all to be victims of the rabble, as though we called ourselves anything but Englishmen?”

Mr. Cavendish's eyes protruded, and he leaned closer to study my countenance. “So they would have it in Lyme, Miss Austen, but in Lyme it naturally suits the purpose. I do not credit this tale of a footpad; I do not credit it at all.”

“But the Captain was relieved of his purse!”

Mr. Cavendish offered an eloquent shrug. “A trifling matter. Any man intent upon taking the Captain's life should seize his valuables, the better to suggest a death by misadventure.”

I had already determined as much in my own mind; if Geoffrey Sidniouth (or anyone else) meant to disguise the nature of the Captain's end—since affairs of honour inevitably ended in the victor's flight to the Continent, if not his hanging—how better, than to turn out his pockets, like a common thief?

“Whatever do you mean to say, Mr. Cavendish?” 1 enquired mildly, with a view to encouraging his confidence. That Captain Fielding had an enemy?”

An instant's silence, as the Customs man weighed his thoughts; but an instant only, and he had formed a resolution. “Have you heard, Miss Austen, of the Reverend?”

“I have. Captain Fielding himself related the chief of what I know about the man.”

“I understood as much. That is why I am here.”

“I confess I do not take your meaning, Mr. Cavendish.”

“Do not trifle with me, Miss Austen. I know as much of your business regarding Captain Fielding as he might allow himself, as a gendeman, to reveal.” The slight frown I adopted at this intelligence availed me nothing; Mr. Cavendish swept on with all the certainty of his purpose full upon his face.

“On the occasion of my final meeting with Captain Fielding, he informed me that he had admitted you to his confidence—a necessity precipitated by your own penetration. How much he may have betrayed himself, I cannot be certain; but he laid the credit entirely on
your
side, Miss Austen, in declaring that you had divined his business entirely from appearances, and had confronted him with your knowledge.”

“I was aware that the Captain was engaged in affairs of a very serious nature, regarding the smuggling trade— that much is certain. He was not as he professed himself to be, a simple Naval officer living in retirement, and consumed with a passion for the cultivation of roses.”

“You will have guessed, then, that the Reverend was his object; and that in his pursuit of the Reverend, the Captain invited considerable peril.”

“You would suggest, then, that Captain Fielding died at the Reverend's hand?”

The Customs man sat back in his chair somewhat abruptly. “I am certain of it. But 1 have no proof.”

“And it is my understanding, Mr. Cavendish, that the Reverend's identity is all but unknown.”

“Come, come, Miss Austen,” he cried, with marked irritation, “you know what Mr. Sidmouth's display has been. Consider his abominable behaviour only last week, and before all of Lyme. His actions
then
declared him the smugglers’ lord. He has been cleverness itself to date—his shipments follow no set schedule, being dependent upon the onset of foul weather, and the cover it provides; and there are others he employs, to captain the vessels and arrange the conveyance of goods, so that he is always far from the scene of a successful landing—but he
must
have the ordering of such agents at one time or another; and what is required is that we seize him in the very act. Once, then, in the clutches of the law, we might force him to an admission of Fielding's murder.”

“And why do you tell me of all your plans, Mr. Cavendish?” I enquired, my heart sinking.

“Because, Miss Austen,” he replied, rising and crossing to my side, “Fielding gave me to understand that you were an intimate of High Down Grange. It was his belief—and his anxiety, if I may speak frankly—that Sidmouth meant to seduce you as he has seduced his unfortunate cousin. The Captain's benevolence on your behalf was very great, young woman, and you should be cold-hearted indeed, did you turn from the memory of his goodness!”

This last was delivered in so abrupt a tone, as to make me jump where I sat; but I quelled my indignation, though my flushed cheeks surely betrayed my perturbation.

“You overreach the bounds of propriety, sir,” I said, in a lowered tone. “1 beg you will desist/’

“Not until I have won your consent, Miss Austen, in a scheme of some importance to His Majesty.”

“What can such schemes have to do with me?”

“Nothing—or everything, did you bear the Captain's memory some gratitude.”

“Speak less of gratitude, and more of sense!” I cried.

“Very well.” Roy Cavendish turned to pace before my chair, his head bent and his hands clasped behind him. “You are acquainted with High Down Grange. You have met, I think, Mademoiselle LeFevre.”

“I have.”

“It is in your power, then, to visit the household—to press your advantage—to discern the movements of its inmates, and discover, perhaps, the night of an expected meeting between Sidmouth and his henchmen/’

I could make no reply.

Cavendish wheeled and gazed at me with penetration.
“You,
Miss Austen, might fill Captain Fielding's place— and with less danger to yourself, in that your gentler sex, and the inevitable presumption of good on your part, would render suspicion unlikely.
You
might venture where a man could not. And in so doing, you should perform a service very dear to the Crown, and to the memory of the excellent fellow who died in its service.”

“You wish me to turn informer,” I said clearly; but my hands clutched at the arms of my chair.

“No such despicable term as that,” Mr. Cavendish rejoined, his thick lips curving in an unfortunate attempt at a smile. “You should serve rather as handmaiden to justice.”

“A handmaiden,” I said. “You are so convinced of Mr. Sidmouth's guilt?”

“I am. As surely as I stand before you now, Miss Austen, I may state that Sidmouth's mind alone has directed the foulest of deeds. The cleverness of the smugglers’ work; the killing of Bill Tibbit upon the Cobb, so publicly and yet so secretly done; and now, the felling of the Free Traders’ chief adversary, Captain Fielding—it cannot be coincidence only. Surely your heart cries out in a similar vein, Miss Austen. The Captain had moved close to his prey; and his prey turned predator in an instant. You cannot witness his death and be unmoved by a desire to avenge it.”

I sat as though turned to stone, my eyes upon the sitting-room fire; and gave a few moments to contemplation. My despairing wish for SidmouuYs innocence met at every turn conviction of his guilt. Only a few nights previous, at the Lyme Assembly, Captain Fielding had declared him to be the very Reverend, and declared that the man was nearly in his grasp. He had believed himself assured of SidmouuYs taking; but his assurance was as dust. The master of High Down was a formidable foe indeed. Could I muster the courage to contest his mastery? Was the prize worth the risk—to my heart as well as my person?

And with this last thought, a wave of revulsion overcame me. It was impossible that I should harbour any sort of tenderness towards a man so recognised as lost to all morality—a man whose every energy was given over to the pursuit of wealth and unrestrained passion, regardless of law, regardless of cost. But I
did
harbour such an emotion; and I detected within it the refusal to credit Mr. SidmouuYs guilt. Much had been laid at his door—but still I could not find it in me to abandon him entirely. Was Mr. Crawford likely to exhibit such affection for a man whose reputation was entirely ruthless? And what of Seraphine? That she regarded her cousin as the source of all goodness was decidedly evident, regardless of the calumnies that surrounded them both.

If I were to settle the contest within my soul, however— if doubt and disapprobation were to be banished—I must have the truth. And Roy Cavendish's plan was as good an one for procuring it as any. The proof of my own eyes should serve to silence the warring voices within my heart. A delicate balance must be achieved, however, if my own pursuit of knowledge were not to run afoul of the Crown's.

I raised my head and gazed at the Customs agent evenly. “I shall do as you wish, Mr. Cavendish, on one condition.”

“Name it.”

‘That I direct my own efforts. Your scheme depends upon my discretion; and a too-public converse between ourselves should ignite the suspicions of those we least wish to rouse.”

He bowed his head.

And what if I discovered that Mr. Sidmouth was indeed capable of anything? Having gained the knowledge, how was I to act? I thrust aside
thai
dilemma as trouble enough for another day.

“And one thing more, Mr. Cavendish.” I rose to convey to him that our meeting was at an end.

“Miss Austen?”

“If you honour my reputation as a lady, you must never reveal the source of your information, do I succeed in obtaining it” I knew myself in that moment, and called myself a coward. For if I embarked upon a program of spying at High Down, and determined Mr. Sidmouth's guilt, I should be the means of bringing him to the scaffold, for the sake of all that I valued in society. But I could never bear to confront him, at his final day, with his knowledge of my betrayal full upon his face.

1
Miss Crawford describes the common practice among genteel families of ordering the construction of a new carriage for a wedding—usually at the groom's expense. —
Etlilor't note.

2
This letter no longer survives in the collected correspondence. Cassandra Austen is believed to have destroyed many of Jane's letters after her sister's death. —
Editor's note.