Jane and the Man of the Cloth (27 page)

“Give us the bottle, Dickie boy” said a high-pitched, sneering voice; and with a guttural oath, his companion complied. The chink of glass against the lanthorn's metal, as the spirits changed hands; and then the contemptible sound of liquid coursing down a vulgar throat. ‘? ‘ates the very sight o’ such dank and nasty places, I do. I
stiU
says we should'uv gone ‘round by the ‘igh road. It's perishin’ dark and wet in ‘ere.”

The Ian thorn's light careened wildly up the rock wall opposite, and I assumed that Dickie had cuffed his partner about the head—which supposition was confirmed not an instant later by a howl of pain.

“‘Ere, now, what's the cause o’ that?”

“I told you afore to shut up, Eb. Now
shut up,
I say. We've serious business above, and it's as much as our necks are worth, if the Reverend finds out.”

“‘E's not a-goin’ to find out,” the man called Eb rejoined, in a wounded tone, ‘less you tells ‘im, or 1 tells ‘im, and that's not a-goin’ to ‘appen. We're snug coves, and do things proper. Care for a nip?”

“Put it away and stow your gaff.” The light swung towards my place of hiding, and the tramp of feet approached; I could not prevent myself from cowering, I fear, in the recognition that I should be considered a terrible risk to the two, did they discover me. As the larger of the men—the one called Dick—passed within inches of my face, I closed my eyes in the certainty that I had been discovered; but he must have looked neither to the right nor the left, and eventually, the sound of footsteps ceased. I opened my eyes, but stayed still where I stood, my ears straining for the slightest sound.

The ring of metal on stone, and a lowering of the light; Dick had set the Ian thorn down. A grunt of exertion, and a stifled oath from Eb, and then the squeak of poorly-oiled hinges—the men had heaved open a door! A passage must exist, hewn through the very rock, and leading deep into the downs. My heartbeat quickened, for I knew the men should toil onwards, leaving the cavern in peace; and the way to freedom and the road for Lyme should be entirely at liberty.

What an agony of conflicting impulses then assailed me! Though a heroine of Mrs. RadclifFe's or Charlotte Smith's should have gone determinedly through the door, and hazarded the horrors of the darkened tunnel without a backwards glance, I confess that I thought first of my deserted bed in Wings cottage, and the warmth of its quilts, and the comforting embrace of sleep. I longed to abandon the chase for another day, when Dick and Eb should be far from my thoughts and my person, and the chalk cliffs of Charmouth wear a happier aspect, in being gilded with September sun.

But Geoffrey Sidmouth had not the luxury of deferring what should be distasteful; to him there remained but a few days, before the coroner's parade of guilt; and I recollected that my object in journeying to the shingle tonight had been to learn something of the Reverend, in the desperate hope that he and Sidmouth were not one and the same. That hope was all but diminished—for Dick had invoked the Reverend's very name, and his familiarity with such a tunnel, placed at the Grange's foot, bore a decidedly unpleasant construction. If I was to learn the worst, then, and abandon all faith in Sidmouth, it must be effected
here
and
now;
I had no choice but to go on, when every fibre of my being screamed that I should turn back.

With indrawn breath and a quickened pulse, therefore, I ventured to place my foot before the sheltering rock, and eased myself back into the cavern's depths. A lighter darkness, and the stirring of air before me, showed the way to the shingle, and home; but with a pang, I turned my back upon escape and sought the nether wall.

I could discern nothing like the oudine of a door; and feeling with trembling fingers across the rock face, I encountered something so squeamishly clinging and moist, that I nearly forgot myself and cried aloud, snatching my hands away in an instant. A nauseous smell, as of decaying fish—and I knew the stuff to be nothing more than seaweed, fresh from the shingle and rendered wet by the trickle of moisture that emanated ceaselessly from the rock walls on every side. An effective disguise, indeed, for a passage one does not wish discovered—for the casual observer should never surmise that a door lay behind, and an idle explorer should be immediately deterred by the stench and touch of the stuff. I drew breath, and the tremor in my limbs subsided; and in another instant, I had steeled myself to touch the foul weeds, and feel beyond them for the rough wood of the door. The latch was there, and mindful of the creaking hinges that had alerted me to the door's presence in the first place, I eased it open but a few inches, and squeezed myself inside.

The dimmest pinpoint of light before me, revealed Dick and Eb to have made considerable progress; and I immediately followed in their wake, thrusting all fears and doubts behind me in the distracting activity of my purpose. The tunnel's floor was uneven, and a sudden dip in its surface, or a sharp incline, could all but cause me to tumble; I turned my ankles too frequently for notice, and clutched at the walls to either side, being deprived of the steady lanthorn that must so comfort the ruffians before. A very few moments, however, and I wished even for the faint pinpoint first detected—for the tunnel must have turned, and the men and their light were hidden from view.

I toiled onwards, climbing ever more surely, until I came to a flight of rough steps; and eased my way up them, uncertain when the tunnel floor should resume.

“Eh, there, Eb, you've stepped on my foot,” a harsh voice muttered, almost before me; and I crouched as swiftly as I knew how, hugging the very step—for at the stairs’ end stood my two guides, and from the sound of their laboured breathing and puffs of effort, another tunnel door.

After some moments, it must have swung open, and the fellows were passed through, for with a
snick!
the tunnel was thrown in utter darkness, the encouraging lanthorn having vanished behind the door.

I climbed stealthily to the stairs” head, and took but a few steps until the tunnel's end was reached; and then, groping forward, I found a decidedly smooth wooden surface, and traced with my fingers the outline of a door-jamb; but no latch or keyhole could I find. The way was barred to me.

I swallowed hard, and turned about in confusion, and endeavoured
not
to consider the more usual inhabitants of such a subterranean passage—the scuttling rats, and the creeping spiders, of enormous size, that undoubtedly traversed the walls at either hand, or such nameless creatures as must give rise to shuddering dread—and wished fervently that I had chosen the cowardly way, of my bed at Wings cottage. For to what purpose had I journeyed so far, in the grip of such anxiety, if the men were now gone before, and the passage closed?

“Give us a ‘and, Dick.” I nearly jumped out of my skin, the high-pitched voice was so close to my ear; and a squeak must have escaped me, for there was a swift cessartion of movement beyond the door, and a thrill of fear in the man's voice when next he spoke.

“Eh, Dick—joo ‘ear
tha#”

“‘Ear what?”

“That.
Some'at in the wall. Gives ‘un the shivers, it did—like a strangled woman.”

“Rat, more'n likely. Or maybe a ghost—'ow's that for a nasty bit o’ cheer?”

“Dick—you don't think as the Cap'n—”

“Aw, for the luv of Jesus, Eb, com'eer and ‘elp us shift a keg or two. We've not got all night, I reckon.”

I leaned against the door, adjudging it to be cleaner than the tunnel wall, and listened intendy. For some time the two men appeared to be engaged in serious labour— shifting what I supposed to be caskets, and tearing off the lids of kegs, from the sound of splintering wood; this, and the occasional oath at a bruised shin, were my sole amuse-ments for what seemed an eternity. The chink of glass proclaimed the bottle to be passed, and a deep sigh the fact that it had been emptied; and still the search—for search it undoubtedly was—went on,

-I found it in me to wonder, if the tunnel had indeed led to the very doors of the Grange, where the farm's inhabitants might be. Tending the wounded man, perhaps? Or were the men arrived at the very stables, and shifting about with only beasts for company?

“Eb! Eh, Eb— ‘ave a gander at this!” Dick exclaimed, after an interval.

A scuffle of feet, and a low whisde, followed by the nastiest of chuckles. “You s'pose as the swells really play cards like ‘at? indecent, it is. Fancy painting a Queen o’ Hearts what ain't got no clothes on. Those Frenchies'll get up to anything.”

And
this
was my reward for risk and wakefulness! I closed my eyes in wearied exasperation. I had long suspected the men were rifling a storage of smugglers’ goods, but this last confirmed it. The rage for playing cards had so inflated the demand for them in England, that the Crown had imposed a tax upon the principal supplier—France—and rendered the game too expensive for most people's purses. French cards were often to form a part of contraband cargoes; but I had not formed a notion of what
sort
of cards they might be.

“Well, I'm
flummoxed,”
Dick said, and from the complaint of a bit of wood, I knew he had seated himself on a crate.

“The Reverend's stuff ain't ‘ere, nohow,” Eb agreed.

I imagined the two of them scratching their heads, lost in a fog of spirits, and wished them more prone to babble and less to a complaisant silence. Had ever a keyhole listener heard less to the purpose than myself? It was not to be borne.

“What? us do, Dick?” Despite his whiskey courage, there was a note of fear in Ebenezer's voice.

“Get out o’ Lyme while the gettin's good,” the other replied. “Now Sidmouth's in jail, we've bought oursels some time—His Honour's too distracted wit’ the justice an’ all. But we'd best make tracks afore he notices we failed ‘im, or we'll land at the end o’ the Cobb like Bill Tibbit.”

The other man audibly swallowed, and to my horror, began to sob—a terrible sound in a grown man, however unnerved by drink and fear. My own spirits were little better—for Dick's words were too open to a painful construction, and their import had the power to sink my very heart—but I longed to hear them debate their dubious fate the longer, in the hope of learning more.

“Now, now, Eb—ain't I allus looked after ye?” Dick said, in an effort to comfort his fellow. “We're snug coves, like you says, and we'll work oursels out o’ this pickle. Let's get on back to the beach afore daylight, and take the boat round to Pegweli Bay. It's a hop-skip from there to the London road, and we're out o’ the Reverend's ken. You just buck up there, laddie, and trust in ol’ Dick.”

“’Alfatick—”

“Eh, what's ‘at?”

“I'm not leavin’ all
this
‘ere, you ninny. Us'll live a year in London, for the price o’ these.”

“Put ‘em back, Eb,” Dick said, with a certain menace. “I'll not ‘ave the law on our ‘ides, and the Reverend, too. Free Trade is one thing. Stealin's another. I've always kept the difference careful-like. A man'd ‘ang for what you've got.”

“But it ain't stealin’! This is contraband—”

“It ain't our'n.”

“Aw, Dick—”

The sound of a blow, and a whimper, and some goods let fall, and Eb was brought to heel.

So absorbed was I in all that passed, that I barely attended to the approach of heavy feet, until with a click the door began to swing inwards. I flattened myself along the tunnel wall, and endeavoured not to breathe, though my heart was pounding painfully within my chest; and in another instant, the door was thrust hard against my person and the two men stumbled through. The heavy musk of liquor enveloped their passage. They were too lost in thought and spirits to notice that the door abutted something other than the tunnel wall; and indeed, in the welling shadows beyond their lanthorn's reach, little could be discerned. As Ebenezer went safely past, I gave a gende push to the door, which swung closed behind the two men, to the satisfaction of a single glance from Dick over his left shoulder; and since I stood in the blackness just behind his
nght,
I managed to remain undetected. What a fever of anxiety gripped my senses, however, while the three of us retained the same bit of tunnel! That the others could not
feel
the presence of a third, by some buried animal instinct, had the power to astonish me—so certain was I that my very breath cried out my betrayal.

But they discovered nothing, and were down the enshrouded flight of steps, and on into the tunnel's depths, before very many instants had passed—taking with them, perforce, their comforting beam of light. In a little while all was utterly dark. A decision was now before me: should I attempt to find the door's hidden mechanism, or turn back the way I had come—and face the dawn on Charmouth beach? That way, assuredly, lay the easier path of least resistance; but I had come thus far, and would gladly return to Lyme possessed of the knowledge of
whose
storeroom the men had invaded.

I ran my hands the length of the door's face, and pressed its wood determinedly; but the portal remained unmoved. Perplexed, I paused for consideration. Neither Dick nor Eb had appeared to expend any remarkable en-ergy, in forcing the way; and neither was possessed of inordinate cunning, as a puzzle lock might require. Abandoning the wood, therefore, I felt along the jamb's length, and was rewarded by a small knob, of very little protrusion, and roughly the size of a shilling. I pressed it, and was unsatisfied; pulled it, and was confronted with an open door.

All was darkness beyond the sill, and discernible within it, the huddled shapes of a quantity of goods, spilled about in hasty confusion. The men had not troubled to restore order where they had bestowed their chaos; and as I stepped into the room, my boots met splintered wood. After so many hours in utter gloom, my eyes could see nearly as well as by day; and I took a moment to look about me curiously, content from the example of the two men's easy search, that the room was safe from surprise.

The room had no windows; it must, therefore, be a cellar—beneath the Grange's barn, perhaps? Or a greater excavation still, a floor below what passed for cellars in the farmhouse itself? I must trouble to move with caution, until I learned better whose manor I invaded. But what riches this storeroom held!