Jane and the Man of the Cloth (31 page)

She shrugged, and ran a broad hand through her unbound hair, the impudent belligerence overlaid, of a sudden, with profound weariness. I knew then that for all her swagger, Maggie Tibbit had not done with mourning her murdered husband. I silendy pressed her hand. “Bill ‘ud never speak of it,” she said. “No matter how much I asked. Swore he'd made a mistake, is all, same's ever'body else, and cryin’ wouldn't make it undone.”

“But did he
know
he was to work the smugglers’ signals that night at Puncknowle? And was his staying at the Three Cups a deliberate omission, or merely an oversight?”

“Folks ‘round ‘ere would ‘ave it he did it for blunt,” Maggie said.

“For—blunt?”

“Coin. Money. That he was paid to ground the
Belle,”
the woman explained patiently. “But my Bill'd never do that. He'd friends on that cutter, and they never come back. Tell
that
to Nancy Harding.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Tibbit, I don't—”

“Nancy's the bitch as nailed the pullet to my door. Wouldn't give ‘er the pleasure o’ takin’ it off, I wouldn't. It can stay there, and look as foolish as Nancy ‘ersel, by my mind.”

I sat back, thoroughly at sea. “And why should the woman do such a thing?”

“‘Er son Bob was on the boat. Just fifteen, ‘e was. I'm not sayin’ as she ain't got a right to mourn, same as all o’ them—but a
chicken?”

“The grounding occurred last spring, you said, and yet your husband's hanging came only two weeks ago. How do you account for it?”

She shrugged, and pulled herself to her feet, the soiled dressing gown sagging about her hips. “Screwin’ up their courage, more'n likely. Nancy Harding was, for certain sure—it took er long enough to show my Bill for a coward. She only stuck that chicken there the night afore he got took.”

“As a sort of—signal?” I enquired, with sudden inspiration.

“Dunno.”

I paused for reflection, and allowed the sense of this to sink in. “You speak of your husband's being taken. Did his murderers come to this very door?”

She shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. “? was at the Three Cups, same as always, ‘cept that night ‘e din’ come ‘ome. I reckon they bamboozled ‘im on the street, when be ‘adn't much fight in im, and strung ‘im up when no one was to see.”

Remembering the image of that fateful dawn—the surf crashing whitely over the gibbet and its terrible burden— I shivered involuntarily. How horrible to meet one's end at the hands of neighbours, and to know that pleas for help will avail one nothing, when the weight of community opinion has condemned one already to death! I understood, now, the positioning of the gibbet—Bill Tibbit had been executed in the very midst of the furious waters, in a manner to recall the deaths his carelessness had caused.

“Who is likely to have served your husband so rough a justice, Mrs. Tibbit?”

She eyed me warily over the lip of her brandy botde, which must be fast approaching its dregs. “Why d'you want to know all this? What's my Bill to you?”

I hesitated, as if in consideration of her trustworthiness, then leaned a little closer. “You may have heard of Captain Percival Fielding,” I began.

Her eyes lit up, and she licked her lips with avidity. “‘Im what got popped out on the Charmouth road.”

“Exactly so.”

“And?” She was all enthusiasm for the intelligence.

“I was on terms of some intimacy with the Captain.” I cast my eyes downwards, to suggest a nearer interest than I felt The attitude was not lost upon my interlocutor.

“Sweet on ‘im, eh? And lookin’ fer answers?” Maggie slapped her thighs with relish. “Sad to say, miss, but you won't find ‘em near my Bill.”

“Your husband never knew Captain Fielding?”

“Not as I could say.”

I allowed my disappointment to be obvious. “I had thought it possible your husband performed a job of work for the Captain….”

“And if be did?’” Maggie replied, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “There's still no call to kill ‘im.”

“But
did
your husband do some work for Captain Fielding—in his garden perhaps?”

She shrugged, with infinite disregard. “Makes no odds. My Bill drank what little ‘is labour fetched, and me never the wiser.”

I cast about for another approach. “Did your husband claim any of the local men as particular friends, Mrs. Tib-bit?”

“A few,” she replied. “Leastways, until the
Royal Belle
went down.”

“And might he have worked in tandem with them?”

“In what?”

“Might they have gone out to work together?”

Her expression of bewildered irritation cleared of a sudden. “Matt Hurley,” she declared.

“The man who”—I hesitated, then found more acceptable words—“the man whom Mr. Smollet seemed to find so objectionable?”

“The very one,” she replied, with a gleam of satisfaction in her eye. “‘E's a rare one, is Matty. Likes to set ‘imsel up as foreman o’ the crews, what stands out on Broad o’ Mondays, waitin’ on people's fancy.”

This took a moment to decipher. “The local men wait in gangs on Broad Street of a Monday, in the hope that someone will purchase their labour?”

“That they do. Matty styles ‘imsel a gang ‘ead, ‘e does.”

I had seen such groups of men loitering about the street corners, and thought them merely idle rogues, never realising there was a purpose to their inactivity.

At this interesting juncture, a knock unfortunately came upon the door, and the dim shape of a head appeared through the window's stained oilcloth. Joe Smollet, I supposed; and Maggie should be little likely to turn him away again. Very well—I should take my leave. But a few questions yet remained to me.

“Where might? find Matthew Hurley?” I enquired.

“The Three Cups,” the widow said, with a dubious look; “not that a lady like yoursel ‘ud go to the pub o’ nights.” She crossed to the window and squinted through its murkiness, waggling her fingers. “I'm much obliged to yer fer the kids’ things, miss, but IVe bizness that wants attendinV’

“I understand.” I rose and brushed absent-mindedly at my skirts. “Have you any idea, Mrs. Tibbit, why a white flower should be left near your husband's gibbet?”

“A white flower,” she said, staring. “What white flower?”

“A lily, I believe. You knew nothing of it?”

“Not a whisper. Coo, that's odd, that is. What'd they go puttin’ a flower by Bill fer?”

“I cannot imagine,” I replied, “though the act itself bears a decidedly melancholy aspect.”

Maggie reached for the door latch and pulled it meaningfully—to suggest, I suppose, that the interview was at a close. I stepped over little Jack, who was rolling about in the dirt with a tomcat of ferocious appearance, and opened my purse.

“The price of your silk, Mrs. Tibbit,” I said.

She turned over the peach-coloured stuff with an expression of regret, but deemed my three guineas to afford a deeper satisfaction; and so we parted, equally pleased with our bargaining. I had learned from her a little to my purpose, but hardly enough; it remained to locate the resourceful Mr. Matt Hurley, an errand for another day.

BUT THE MOST CURIOUS EVENT OF THIS MORNING'S ACTIVITY
occurred as I was wending my way out of the River Buddie district. For it was then I observed the approach of a carriage, that bore a familiar coat of arms upon the door, and within its depths, a lady much veiled, as I observed upon her leaning out the window in converse with her tyger. Mrs. Barnewall, if I was not utterly mistaken, and her carriage pulled up before Maggie Tibbit's very door.

1
Austen here describes a feature of the River Buddie district that was apparently not wiuiout design. Geofftey Morley notes in his book,
Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset, ijoo-1850
(Newbury, Berkshire: Countryside Books, revised edition, 1994), that this was die traditional smugglers’ quarter of Lyme, and that the proximity of the housing served as a useful means of escape. When a smuggler's home was to be searched, its occupants often fled out die back windows to the houses on the Buddie's opposite bank, taking their contraband with them. —
Editor's note.

2
Maggie Tibbit is presumably referring to the two-story structure set upon a knoll between West Bexington and Puncknowle. It was built as a signal tower for the Sea Fencibles, the local militia arrayed against a seaborne invasion by Napoleon; it commanded a view beyond Portland and Weymouth to the east, and over Bridport to Lyme Regis and Lyme Bay some seven miles distant Signal fires would have been lit to warn of enemy ships approaching the coast, which ran straight and clear at this point, making for easy landing. —
Editor's note.

Friday, 21 September 1804

∼

“M
Y DEAR,” MY MOTHER SAID INTO MY EAR, AS WE SAT TOGETHER
amidst the better part of Lyme's residents in the main room of the Golden Lion, awaiting the commencement of the inquest into Percival Fielding's death, “Miss Crawford looks very fine indeed, in her black silk and illusion veil. 1 do not think she could have had
either
of Mr. Mil-sop—though he styles himself so very high, there is
that
about his shop that defies real elegance. I wish our Cassandra were here to see it. Miss Crawford's veil, I mean. But then,
site
is free to wander about the shops of London—Cassandra, 1 would speak of now—Dr. Farquhar having pronounced her quite recovered; and I
do
wish she might write to us of sleeves, and whether they are to be long or short this season; but she
will
not, being much preoccupied with Eliza's circulating-library. I do not understand her indifference upon such a point—”

“Mother,” I interceded, as the good lady paused to draw breath, “I wonder if Miss Crawford is not to be called up by the coroner? For the care her attire has demanded, would suggest some benefit in display.”

“Indeed,” my mother replied, laying a hand over my own in agitation. “And yet,
we
were as well acquainted with Captain Fielding—though
Miss Crawford
would have it he was to beg for Miss Armstrong's hand, and not yours, as I had thought. Why are not
we
to be called?”

“I imagine we can have nothing of particular intelligence to offer the coroner,” I replied firmly, and patted my mother's cold fingers. My father harrumphed, censorious of our chatter, and at that very moment Mr. Carpenter appeared—coroner and surgeon of Lyme, and the superior of our friend Mr. Dagliesh—and strode importandy down the aisle. All rose to offer him the respect that was his due.

Joshua Carpenter was a portly gentleman of jovial countenance and a ponderous wig, of somewhat outdated fashion. He was dressed in rusty black—rusty, from its apparent long use and sad neglect—his collar was wilted, his shirtsleeves frayed, and his coat collar bore the signs of a nuncheon recentiy consumed. When he turned and surveyed the uplifted faces of the crowd, however, I detected a gleam of amused intelligence in his eyes, and a contemptuous curl of the lip, as though he understood well that
gossip,
rather than justice, was the hope of nearly everyone assembled. He glanced at the twelve men of the jury—all strangers to my eyes, and drawn, it seemed, from local folk—who sat composed and cowed upon two of the inn's long benches, and nodded to the one appointed foreman.

How similar was this scene to the one I witnessed two winters past, at an inn in Hertfordshire, when another man had died all untimely! Painful memories could not but intrude as 1 contemplated my surroundings. And yet—how
different,
in the figure of Mr. Carpenter, and the mood of the crowd, and the degree of interest I felt in the outcome. For though my anxiety was roused on Geoffrey Sidmouth's behalf, and my heart aflutter at the prospect of seeing once more his harsh and brooding features, I knew better this time what I should expect. I had been an innocent, and had hoped for justice, when my dear friend Isobel, Countess of Scargrave, was accused of murdering her husband; today I was unlikely to be so sanguine. Appearances should tell against the master of High Down, and I little doubted that, the inquest speedily concluded, he should be held until the next session of the local Assizes,
¹
and then sent to London to be tried for the murder of Captain Percival Fielding.

Unless, of course, I discovered something to his benefit betweentimes.

Mr. Carpenter called for order, and at that moment there was a rustle of consciousness and low-muttered talk from the rear of the room; turning, I perceived Mr. Dobbin, the Lyme justice, and his burly fellows, as they led Geoffrey Sidmouth into the assembly. Behind them came Seraphine, her head high above her long red cloak, and the boy Toby on his crutches; and the mutters swelled into a roar. What pity I felt for the mademoiselle, at that moment! The mixture of pride and despair that overlaid her countenance! A confusion of emotions could not but grip her, at such a time.