Jane and the Man of the Cloth (30 page)

I thus found the Tibbits’ abode, and judged it to be occupied, from the squeals and cries of children within, which were all too frequendy punctuated with slaps and the swift onset of tears. It was a poor sort of place, constructed of odd bits of timber, and with a roof in sad need of pitch, and a facade that wanted paint, and a frame too prone to precarious tilting; almost I might have thought it poised to slide into the river at its back, and should misgive the effects of another storm upon its eroding foundations. The river here was narrow enough, that the houses perched on the opposite bank were but a strong man's leap away—so that the effect of the massed housing was more evocative of London's stews, than of Lyme's cheerful cottages.
¹

To my horror, a chicken indeed adorned the Tibbits’ door—and had for some time, to judge by its decayed appearance, and the foul smell that drifted from its carcass (now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat). Traces of rotten vegetable matter I also discerned upon the portal's surface, and wondered at the tyranny to which the Tibbits were subjected. Was not the loss of a father, in so public and horrible a manner, tragedy enough?

Squeamish in the extreme of knocking upon such a door, I turned to a window, but found that nothing was visible through its oilcloth; and so, after an instant's hesitation, 1 was reduced to calling towards the house.

“Widow Tibbit! Pray come into the lane! I would speak with you a moment!”

A sudden silence greeted my words—a listening silence, I was certain—and then I heard the sound of chair legs pushed back from the table, and a hoarse whisper hissed: “You there, Tom, give a look through the winder and tell us?? it ‘tis. If it be that hussy Sue Watkins, you ‘eave this tater at ‘er ‘ead!”

This last intelligence caused me to feel no little dread, and from my knowledge of small boys, and their relishing of any opportunity for batde, to consider a retreat to the porch opposite. Tom's appearance at the window, however, prevented my flight.

“Taint ‘er,” he reported over his shoulder; and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tis a lady.”

“A
lady}
What, wi'out a carriage?”

The sound of feet rapidly coursing towards the door, and a swift pull to its handle, that set the crucified pullet to jiggling; and I was as urgently waved inside by a woman I assumed to be the very Maggie I sought. Without a second thought, I mounted the two steps and eased past her, blinking somewhat as my eyes adjusted to the cottage's poor light.

“Maggie Tibbit, at yer servus,” the woman said, bobbing.

“Miss Austen,” I replied, and met the timorous stares of five very dirty children. One had a hand in its mouth, another hitched continually at his trousers, and the youngest took one look at my fine figure and burst into tears.

“There, there, Jackie boy,” said Maggie abruptly, as she scooped up the screaming child and unceremoniously offered it her breast, “the lady won't bite you.”

The Widow Tibbit was a blowsy-enough figure, as I had half-expected from the nature of Miss Crawford's disapproval. Her dark curls were undone about her face, and she was arrayed in a dressing gown of soiled silk, though the morning was well-advanced. There was
rouge
upon her cheeks, which might have benefitted from a bath, as should the rest of her person; and a dark substance trailed down her front, that I adjudged to be snuff— though what use a
woman
might have for such a substance, I could hardly imagine. On her feet were satin slippers that had once been red, and once very dear; and from the cloud of fumes she breathed in my general direction, I knew her to have been indulging in brandy.

The woman was a walking advertisement for the smuggler's trade; and that her larder should boast some excellent if contraband tea, though not an ounce of oats for her children's porridge, I swiftly surmised.

“Mrs. Tibbit—” I began.

“Plain Maggie? do, now Bill's been done for,” she replied, and knocked the child from her breast with a casual blow that immediately set it to wailing. “What bizness ‘uv ye got wit me?”

I lifted the basket of clothing from my arm, and opened its lid. “I thought your children might benefit from these few things collected by the women of St. Michael's.”

“That Crawford bitch ‘ave sent you, bain't she?” Maggie's countenance darkened and she advanced upon me pugnaciously, her protuberant lower lip revealing some very poor teeth indeed. “Reckon she's cackling summat fearsome, in all her black feathers, now old Mag's out on the street.”

Somewhat disconcerted, I took refuge in a backwards step and a folding of my gloved hands. “I received die clothing of Miss Crawford, assuredly, as she manages St. Michael's good works—but the desire to visit, and to bestow these things upon your children, was entirely mine, I promise you, Mrs. Tibbit.”

The widow pawed through the clothing, scattering chemises and shirts with a careless disregard for the dirtiness of her floor; but in considering the grime that covered her children's bodies, I recollected that the linen should not long survive in a pristine state, and forbore to vent my outrage. The scattered goods disappeared amidst a tangle of youthful limbs, like meat torn asunder by starving wolves. “‘ere!” cried the eldest, whom I recollected to be Tom. “You've never brought us shoes!” His expression of disgust might as readily have greeted the rotten pullet nailed to his front door, and in truth, the worn leather boot he held aloft bore an ill-begotten air. But Tom need not have worried—the shoe was snatched from his fingers by a fellow urchin of indeterminate sex, arrayed in what appeared to be a fisherman's overall many sizes too large; and borne from the house with a triumphant cackle. Tom dashed into the street in pursuit, a fearsome oath emanating from his childish lips. Their mother reached for a bottle resting on the worn oak settle and took a long draught. To my relief, she did not think to offer me a similar hospitality.

“The things'U do,” she declared, and thrust the empty basket aside. “What I wants to know, miss, is why you come—when us's strangers to each other.”

“Who could be unmoved by so much misfortune, as you have lately endured, Mrs. Tibbit?”

“Oh, most o’ Lyme—and that's a fact,” she rejoined sardonically. She spared a moment to place little Jack upon the floor, and shoo the remaining two urchins towards their fellows in the street. Then she turned to me with a calculating air.

“But my troubles is none o’ yer concern, miss. What you want o’ me?”

Any further attempt at explanation on my part was immediately forestalled by the street door's being once more thrust open, to reveal a massive fellow with a belligerent face leering upon the stoop. “Eh, Mag,” he said, by way of salutation. “I've brought you summat nice.”

“Not now, Joe. I've company.”

“Company?” The fellow spat out the word like a wounded animal, and slid into the room without need of further invitation. The newcomer was burly and forceful, a fisherman from the look of his callused hands and the odour that pervaded his person, and he was clearly all but overcome with the anger engendered by his fears. It required all my fortitude not to flee through the open door, so menacing was his aspect; and yet, some sensibility that Maggie Tibbit should not be left alone with such a man, urged me to stand my ground.

“Is that Matt Hurley slidin’ up yer skirts again, and Bill not dead a fortnight?” Joe advanced upon his object, his broad hands clenching convulsively.

“You cared little enough for waitin’ yersel, for all yer talkin’. Now get out. I've a
lady
to visit.”

As if acknowledging my presence for the first time— though how he could have overlooked the alien fact of cleanliness in that squalid room, I do not know—Joe swung his head around and met my gaze. An instant's mortification ensued, before the fellow pulled off his cap, and shifted uneasily on his feet; and then, blushing bright red, he backed his way to the door.

“I'll be leavin’ yer, Mags, until a better time, beggin’ yer pardon, miss,” he said, and felt behind him for the latch.

“You'll be leavin’ me for good, Joe Smollet—and good riddance to ye,” Maggie shot back, lifting high her youngest, the baby Jack. “If I could count the days you've promised me that length o’ silk, as you knows I've a need fer, and taken your bit o’ cuddle—”

“I've got that silk right outside, I have, all done up in paper, like,” Joe protested, halfway to the street

A calculating look o'erspread the slattern's features. “‘Ere now, Joe, don't be so asty,” she called. “You just leave that parcel ‘ere, so's it don't go wanderin’ with the first cove as passes by, and I'll tend to you proper, I will.”

Joe shot me a glance of embarrassment, but was nonetheless unequal to the force of Maggie's charms. He ducked back inside to deposit something wrapped in heavy brown paper in the entryway. “See you, Mags,” he said, with a sheepish nod for me, and thankfully pulled-to the door to the street

“‘E's not a bad sort, is Joe.” Maggie swooped down upon the package and shoved it under a truckle bed that sagged in one corner, its covers askew. “Woman's gotta live, don't she, and all these mouths to feed?”

“Indeed,” I said. “A length of silk should go far in filling your children's stomachs.”

“S'not like I'm a-goin’ to
wear it.”
She sat back on her heels, face black with mistrust

“You would sell it, then?” I enquired, as suddenly enlightened.

“Joo interested?”

Here
was an opening to goodwill, indeed. I surveyed the widow's countenance and considered what I could afford. “I should like to see your silk, Mrs. Tibbit”

The package was swiftly drawn forth, somewhat dusty from its brief repose beneath the bed, and the fastenings undone for my benefit. Maggie pulled out a quantity of glorious stuff, of a peach-coloured hue much like Eliza's silk, and but wanting a feathered turban to complete the effect. I felt my heart lurch—what a thing it should be, to own such a gown!

“And the usual price of Mr. Smollet's goods …?” I enquired.

Maggie smiled, and then, as if recollecting her poor teeth, raised a hand to her lips. “That's rare stuff, that is.”

“I could find as good in the shops of Pound Street.”

“Not for what I'll charge ye.”

“Which would be?” I looked at her over the fabric's edge.

“Five guineas.”

I thrust the stuff in her arms and picked up my reticule. “Ridiculous. I am no fool, Mrs. Tibbit, and should never pay for the privilege of acting like one.”

“Three, then, and that's my final offer,” Maggie said without a second thought.

I measured out the silk according to the span of my arms, and found it to be roughly fifteen yards; enough for a gown with a ravishing train, the very essence of elegant attire. With Eliza's suggestions as to cut and fashion, it should all but make my winter balls—and I knew as well as Maggie that three guineas was but a fraction of what I should pay at Mr. Milsop's, for silk more legitimately won. If my conscience was besieged at this notion, I comforted myself with another thought—three guineas should go far in feeding the little Tibbits, if the sum survived their mother's fondness for the botde.

“Done at three guineas,” I said, arranging the silk in careful folds, “if you will tell me how you came by this stuff.”

Her eyes shifted, and she snatched back the fabric. “‘ad it off'uv Joe, same's you saw yersel.”

“And he had it for services rendered, I imagine, to the Reverend himself.”

The effect of my words was extraordinary, and beyond my expectations. Maggie Tibbit all but collapsed upon the bed, my precious peach stuff crushed in her hands, and began to shake in an alarming fashion.

“Mrs. Tibbit!” I cried. “I fear you are unwell!”

She gestured desperately beyond me, at a loss for words.

I whirled about, and espied the brandy botde still open upon the setde, and fetched it to her side. Several swigs having been consumed by the woman, she recovered her senses enough to fix upon me baleful eyes, and say with authority, “We never mentions that Reverend's name in this Ouse.”

“But he is known to you?” I crouched down at her feet, the better to fix her gaze.

“Hah!” she ejaculated. “As if the Reverend'd be known to the likes o’ Maggie Tibbit.
No one
knows ‘oo ‘e is, much less
me.
But my Bill knew,” she added darkly. “My pore Bill saw ‘is face, I reckon, just afore ‘e died.”

“You believe the Reverend responsible for your husband's hanging?”

She nodded and affected a melancholy air.

I hesitated—aware, at the moment, of the depth of my ignorance. “Mrs. Tibbit—forgive me—but was an inquest into your husband's death recendy held by the coroner Mr. Carpenter?”

Her head shot up, and her eyes glittered with malice. “Death by misadventure,” she pronounced. “As if I don't know what
‘at
means. It means they ain't askin’, and nobody's steppin’ up to tell. There's no justice for the likes o’ us, miss.
That's
for yer coroner!” And she spat into a corner of the room.

“But how is it you believe your husband a victim of the Reverend?” I probed, after an instant's painful pause.

“I
knows
as he was. All on account o’ that ship what went aground last spring, and Bill never the same since.”

“Aground?” At this, I did not need to affect surprise. “One of the Reverend's vessels?”

The widow nodded. “The
Royal Belle
it was. Bill worked as spotter, see, at the Lookout over to Puncknowle way.
²
He was s'posed to work the signals that night, and a powerful foggy one it was. But somethin’ musta went wrong, acos he never left the Three Cups. The
Belle
was grounded and lost with all hands aboard. Some local boys was among the crew, and some Frenchies, too, from the clothes they was wearing when they washed up on Chesnil beach. The Reverend never forgive my Bill for tarrying over ‘is tankard, and he ‘ad ‘is blood fer it.”

With a cursory look for dirt and a stifled sigh at the inevitability of stains, I drew forward the room's one good chair and settled myself near the widow. “What happened the night of the ship's grounding, Mrs. Tibbit?”