Jane and the Man of the Cloth (26 page)

The heaviest share in sleeplessness, however, I must accord to the proper place, as arising from my own indecision regarding Sidmouth. In truth, I knew not what to think of the incriminating hoofjprints. A plausible case might be made for another's having taken a mount from the Grange's stables, and done away with the Captain in SidmouuVs guise; but I felt all the truth of Mr. Crawford's conjecture—that none might harbour towards the Captain such enmity as the master of High Down.

—Or none, perhaps, than the smugglers and their lord, who undoubtedly bore towards the Captain a mortal grudge, for having bent his efforts to disturb their clandestine trade—but since all the world stood ready to proclaim Geoffrey Sidmouth the very Reverend, such an avenue led me nowhere.

Or did it?

I sat up in bed, transfixed by a thought.

Captain Fielding had supposed that Seraphine served as the Reverend's living signal, turning about the cliffs in her wide red cloak; he had offered it as his opinion that the very night that followed upon the heels of such a walk, should find the smugglers’ landing. I had strolled with Mademoiselle myself this morning, and observed her stand like a stone on die cliffs above the sea, for whole moments together. No ship had I observed, it was true; but I had been much preoccupied with my own interrogation, and its effect upon the lady.

I threw back the bedclothes and reached for my boots.

The conjectures of a fevered brain, made less reasonable by lack of sleep, will bear all the weight of rational thought in the mind of the conjeeturer, however ridiculous their merits might seem by the light of day. Full many a midnight thought have I entertained with alacrity, only to reject it over my breakfast chocolate as excessively disordered. Tonight, however, I was possessed of too much impatience to await the dawn; I felt I
must
know whether Sidmouth was the Reverend or no, and I knew with all the certainty of midnight that the answer lay upon the shingle below High Down Grange. That most ladies of gende rearing and habits should rather die than venture alone through the darkness, I acknowledged; and set aside as irrelevant. I was not, after all,
most ladies.

A glance through the curtains, to observe the waning moon, a few hours from its setting—and the hope that any smuggling band worth its brandy should be likely to await a greater darkness for landing. 1 might just have time enough.

And so, in the last extremity of caution, I clothed myself in my oldest dress—a serviceable brown wool, which should be some proof against the coolness of a September night, and the damaging effects of the downs—and let myself out of Wings cottage as quiedy as I knew how.

THE WALK THAT WAS BRISKNESS ITSELF IN THE FULL LIGHT OF DAY,
required nearty twice the time to effect in darkness and stealth; and the moon was fled from the sky indeed by the time I found the shore of Charmouth, and groped my way along its length. Mr. Crawford's fossil works I passed, and felt gratitude for its familiar humping of tools and rock, all shrouded now in canvas; passed, too, the path from the road above, where Mr. Sidmouth had pulled up the Crawford barouche—a day that seemed so long ago, I might have lived it in another lifetime.

I climbed up on a little bluff above the sand, to gaze at the rubble surrounding the fossil pits; and remembered the ammonite he had pressed into my hand—cool and smooth, like his strong fingers. Then I turned to the sea, and stared out over the endless black, as enormously empty as eternity itself. I had never before witnessed the curl of surf upon a beach at night, and was much struck by the white-green glow of the waters, as though some light from within the sea's depths would guide the waves to shore. The fresh wind clutched at my brown wool, and sent a chill through my body—unless it be the sensibility of my exposure to the elements, and the solitude of the night, and the possibility of a fate such as the Captain had found, that made me quail where I stood. Such isolation, as wrapt me round in discomfort! Well might I curse the power of midnight thoughts, that had sent me on such a foolhardy errand!

I turned back to the cliffs, and gazed upwards, searching for the light of a farmhouse or outbuilding, that might herald my progress towards the Grange; but the flanking bulk of the chalk heights foreshortened my view, and revealed nothing of the civilisation hugging its very edge. I stepped back, and farther back, until my boots sank well into the wet sand at the sea's margin; and craned myself to tip-toe.

And then I saw it—the short blink of a beam, as swiftly blinked out. An idea of Seraphine's curious lanthorn sprang to mind—its long, cylindrical spout debouching from one side, with a sliding cover of tin, so obviously designed for signalling.
Someone
above would make converse with a ship at sea. 1 wheeled, and strained to peer through the darkness—and was rewarded by an answering flare of light

Not a moment should be lost, for they would be upon me with some swiftness. But where to hide myself?

Eliza's voice it might almost have been, from a light-hearted walk over a fortnight since, and ringing in my ears with her habitual frivolity—
A cavern, Jane, as foetid and dank as Mrs, Raddijfe should make it! Shall we venture within, at the very peril of our lives?

I hastened myself back along the cliff wall, endeavouring to recall the exact location of the slight opening in the rock; had it been
before
the Crawford pits, or just after? Or was it well along the Charmouth shingle, almost to its end? Without the aid of the moon, I could make nothing of the fold and meander of the chalk; where deliberation and calm were required, I was maddened by a sense of urgency that would not be gainsaid; and so it seemed that I must have stumbled about the place a veritable age, when of a sudden I recalled the small rock cairn I had observed so many days ago, in walking with Eliza by the cave's entrance. A moment only secured it to my sight; and my relief at turning past it, and slipping within the protective blind, was little greater than my previous desperation.

I was forced to stoop in the entry, and felt the chill brush of moisture against my back; but the cave's sandy floor was dry enough, however little my eyes might discern of its depths. If the darkness without might be enough to terrify, it was nothing to the blackness within; and I groped my way like a blind woman robbed of her cane, with tentative step and arms outstretched. It remained only to find a suitable spot for sitting, since my purpose was to o'erlook the beach as best I might, while shielding myself from others’ eyes; and to the left-hand side of the cave's opening, I found a large boulder with space enough behind to setde myself in a heap of exhausted brown wool, and schooled myself to wait.

To
MY HORROR,
I STARTED AWAKE SOMEIIME LATER WITH AN AUDIBLE snort—and possessed not the slightest notion how long I had been slumbering. I was on my feet in anxious haste before the slight sound of oars turning in their locks stopt me at the cave's mouth; and so with caution renewed, I held my breath, and peered out into the night.

Two figures were huddled upon the shore, straining for a glimpse of something progressing over the waves— the very Seraphine, to judge by her length of dusky cloak, and the boy Toby, bent over his crutches. The mademoiselle 's right hand was flung protectively around the boy's shoulders, while from her left depended an indiscernible object—the lanthorn, in all probability. I looked towards the sea for the object that engaged their full regard, and could just make out the form of a dory, breasting the surf well out from shore, where a hidden bar rose up in the night water. It was from thence the sound of oarlocks emanated.

I stood as still as caution might make me, and watched as the boat pulled nearer, revealing with the additional passage of a few moments the figures of four men—two at the oars, and two bent over the cargo. Brandy kegs? Or crates of goods, as various as the peoples of the Continent?

The boat slid to shore; the oarsmen jumped into the sea, and dragged their vessel high up on the sand; and to my surprise, Seraphine gave a stifled cry, and stumbled towards the dory's gunnels, her hand over her mouth in horror.

And at that instant, a group of men rushed from the cliff's foot down the shingle's length, and hurled themselves on the boat—dragoons, I thought at first, with a pounding heart, come to attack the Reverend's proxy— but it was clear they were known to the boatmen, and further observation revealed them dressed as rough fisherfolk, their faces blackened with soot to defy discovery. One, however, I recognised, to my intense surprise— for Mr. Dagliesh, the bashful surgeon's assistant, stood by the mademoiselle's side, while his fellows exchanged places with the oarsmen, and turned the boat back out to sea. Whatever did it mean?

I could spare no more attention for the dory's progress, however, the bulk of my interest being claimed by Seraphine, who knelt in a red-cloaked huddle over the vessel's beached cargo—which was neither kegs nor caskets, but the figure of a man, and quite insensible, from his attitude. The mademoiselle's shaking shoulders betrayed her to be silendy weeping; and my curiosity was not greater than the sympathy her sorrowful attitude aroused. Dagliesh dropped to her side, and busied himself in attending the man; and the boy Toby leaned upon his staves, silendy watching, with head bowed. His mistress looked up, and asked a quick question of Dagliesh, which was as fluidly and unintelligibly answered; and if my ears did not betray me, both had spoken in French.

Some grave mishap had overcome the smuggler's crew, that much was certain; and a wounded man—perhaps a dead man—had been brought to shore, and a team dispatched to serve as relief. Had the cutter been pursued across the Channel's length? Had it been fired upon, even, and stopt only long enough to send its casualties into English safekeeping? I shook my head in consternation. Such things were past my understanding.

The huddle of folk about the still form suddenly fell into disarray; Seraphine, with a wringing of her hands, turned to seek the path up the cliff's face, with Toby hobbling in tow; and the oarsmen, taking up their burden with a grunt, hoisted the unknown fellow to their shoulders and moved off into the night. No light had they, but for Seraphine's lanthorn; and if the cutter had indeed been pursued, it seemed likely they should spurn illumination for the protective cover of darkness. What a lonely trudge they faced to High Down Grange! And still more disheartening a night's watch, perhaps, over a man with little life left in him!

I turned back to the cave's interior, intent upon retaining my seclusion until the sounds of the smugglers’ passage should have entirely died away, though my own spirits were so cast down, and my energy so sapped, that I should as lief have been gone on my own way home, the quicker to put the night's peculiarities behind me. The threat of discovery I could not entertain, however; and so I counseled myself in greater patience, and ignored the cold that crept beneath my gown, and hugged my arms closer about my person. I envied Seraphine the utility of her thick cloak, and saw that I had much to learn of midnight skulduggery.

Perhaps a quarter-hour had passed, and I felt myself to be quite alone, and had just arisen with limbs aching from the cold, and ventured to the cave's mouth—when the sound of laughter and a stumbling foot stopt me dead. 1 drew breath, a wave of fear unaccountably washing over me, and found the courage to peer once more into the night.

Neither Seraphine nor Toby, nor yet one of the men so recendy disembarked upon the shingle; but
two
fellows, quite rough in appearance, and strangers to my eyes. As I watched, one raised a bottle to his lips and tottered backwards, unmanned by spirits or die slope of beach or both; the other gave forth a burst of raucous cheer, and sang a snatch of a sailor's chanty. I glanced wildly about, and felt too swifdy the idiocy of my position—how alone I had made myself, and how unlikely a cry for help should
now
draw forth any aid from the Grange above—and cursed my too-active curiosity. It shall be my very death, I am sure, before the passage of much more time.

I drew back swifdy to the cave's interior, awaiting with bated breath the men's progress down the shingle; and clenched involuntarily at the rock wall to my back. The voices were approaching, amidst the tramp of heavy feet; their purpose was certain, and unswayed by any diversion, despite the fog of spirits that hobbled them. And so with suspended breadi, and hands thrust behind to break any fall, I began to step noiselessly back into the cave. For I knew with a certainty that the men's object was my very place of hiding—and that all flight to the fore should be impossible.

20 September 1804, cont

∼

A
BEAM OF LIGHT DANCED IN THE CAVE'S MOLTH, AND I HELD MY
breath, feeling my way backwards. One of the men—he who had earlier produced the botde—had lit a lanthorn as they approached, and it was
this
that swung its welling arc of illumination ever closer to my feet. I took yet another step back, and felt my boot heel butt up against something hard—not the cave's nether wall, thank God, but the cool dampness of a very large boulder. I ducked around it, the better to afford myself protection, and found a narrow space behind just capable of admitting my form. Providence had not entirely abandoned me.