Jane and the Man of the Cloth (35 page)

“And if your cousin dies as a result of your silence, you foolish girl?” I cried.

“He will not.”

“But of course he will!”

She shrugged, all of France in the gesture, and stared into the middle distance. I saw that whatever influence I had held over her mind, had begun to slip away.

“You were ready enough to speak this afternoon, before the coroner,” I threw out, in one final attempt. “You very nearly
then
revealed everything to do with your affairs, and gladly, in an effort to save your cousin's neck.”

“But as you saw, Miss Austen,” she replied with chilling calm, “my cousin did not wish it It was
his
words that stopped my mouth before Mr. Carpenter, and yours shall certainly never loose it.”

“Tho’ you hazard the risk of sealing his guilt?”

“Even so. I must trust in Geoffrey's determination of what is right; and further importuning must be useless. I must beg you to cease. We have spoken long enough.”

I saw from her looks that she was quite determined, and so I rose with a sigh, and turned for the door.

“You shall have but a few days for the consideration of your cousin's fate,” I said, “when every hour is precious. If ever you determine to seek some assistance with your burden of confidence, know that I stand ready to help you bear it.”

“And if you, Miss Austen, can ever admit what you feel for Geoffrey,” she replied, “then we shall both know where we stand. But until then, I believe I shall keep my own counsel.”

“And I shall pursue my own path,” I said, with some asperity. “For the cause of justice will not suffer indifference, Mademoiselle.”

“Justice, Miss Austen?” she said mockingly; and turned her head away. But her laughter followed me down the length of the passageway, and I confess it disturbed me more than I should like. There was too much of Eliza's knowing in it.

21 September
1
804, cont.

∼

I
FOUND MY FATHER ENSCONCED IN A DIM CORNER OF THE
L
ION, HIS
book open upon his lap. My mother had long since departed the inn to pay a call upon an acquaintance—an intelligence I received with some relief, as I had feared her too-eager canvassing of Seraphine LeFevre's affairs in so public a place. I could now avail myself of my father's advice without concern for interruption; and so, as he gathered up his things, I suggested we take a turn along the Cobb. A dubious proposition for one of my father's unsteady gait; but the day was fair enough, and the wind not of a strength to overwhelm. He appeared surprised at the suggestion, but ready enough to seize the opportunity for exercise; and thus we set off, companionably arm-in-arm.

“And so, Jane—what is
your
opinion of this sad business of Sidmouth's? I should enjoy a share in your thoughts at the present; for I know that your acquaintances among the great have taught you much about scandal and violence,” my father began. That he referred to Isobel Payne, and her nephew Fitzroy (who were even now upon the point of uniting once more the titles of Countess and Earl of Scargrave), I immediately understood.

“I fear that my singular experience of two winters past prepared me for nothing in the present case—unless it be a greater tendency to question the truth of
everything
I hear, and to assume that the persons appointed to safeguard the law, are little likely to look beyond the most obvious construction of events,”I replied. “But I would gladly share my intelligence, Father, if you will promise in return some measure of perspicacity.”

And so, as we coursed the length of the breakwater's stone, I told my father all that I had learned of the infamous Reverend and of Mr. Sidmouth—who might, or might not, be one and the same man. I did not neglect to mention my dubious commission from Roy Cavendish, nor the curious movements in the Grange's garret, nor the appearance of a wounded man on the Charmouth shingle, nor my own midnight adventure in the cavernous tunnel, nor my interview with Maggie Tibbit. When I had done, the good man was lost in silent contemplation for some few minutes; and when he had sufficiendy roused himself from thought to pay his companion more heed, he turned to me with an expression of wonder and—dare I say it—respect.

“My dear Jane,” he said. “My dear Jane. I knew you for a lady of fine understanding and natural courage; but I dared not hope you possessed such faculties of determination and initiative. Forgive me if I must observe that they seem rather the part of one of your brothers, than a member of the weaker sex. I am not
entirely
assured that the affairs of either Mr. Sidmouth or the Captain required so
much
active benevolence on your behalf—and at such risk to your person—but I will not pain you with suppositions regarding your motives. Only tell me,

Jane”—and here he hesitated—“are you
quite convinced
of Sidmouth's innocence in the Captain's death? For I should not like you to suffer for what you will discover.”

“I am convinced of nothing, dear sir,” I replied, “and do not imagine me to harbour such tender emotions towards the gentleman in question, that my senses should be entirely routed if I find my labour has gone only to confirm his guilt I may congratulate myself upon a clearsighted view of his character. Sidmouth is forthright, but self-serving; loyal to those he values, but indifferent to the broader claims of society. His temper is mediated only with difficulty, though I could not charge him with
unwonted
meanness of spirit And though I know no real evil of him, I cannot profess a complete confidence in his motives or aims. I hear such conflicting reports of him, as should bewilder a finer understanding than my own. There—have I satisfied your anxiety?”

‘Tor the moment,” my father replied. “But tell me, Jane—could you ever love a man you regarded with such ambivalence?”

“Must love, then, be
blind,
in your opinion?”

“Not blind—but preferably unalloyed; and best bestowed upon a worthy object.”

I hesitated before I answered him; for I knew from the kindly tenor of his words, that my father's whole heart was in the subject. “1 am not now in love with Mr. Sidmouth, Father,” 1 said with remarkable firmness, “and I do not know that I could ever be, or that the question should even be put to the test, in the event that he returned such feeling. And since the gentleman promises fair to
hang
before he should have time for a tender dalliance, you may set yourself at ease.”

“Jane! You cannot jest in such a matter!”

“Matters have come to such a turn, my dear sir, that I may fairly do little else. But I
wiilbe
serious. I
ivill
promise you to take what care 1 can in the business. I shalI not plunge whole-heartedly into a matter that might offer only harm, without judicious thought beforehand.”

“That is as I should expect of you, my dear,” my father replied, with a pat to the hand he held close in the crook of his arm. “You were ever a girl whose heart was ruled by her head.”

Was I?
I thought fleetingly;
and is that to be preferred to a head ruled by the heart” I cannot be entirely certain,

“Father—” I said, with a purposeful effort at changing the subject, “—what should, then, my next step be? For so much cries out for elucidation, that I am in a confusion as to my proper path.”

We had reached the end of the Cobb, and lingered to feel the freshness of the spray; and I knew with a sinking of the heart that autumn was advancing, and winter coming on. The sea air was sharper than it had been only a few weeks before, and I shivered as I drew my shawl closer about my thin muslin gown. We had but a little of our Lyme sojourn remaining to us; but Geoffrey Sidmouth had fewer days still. I must not be a spendthrift with time.

“You have declared the horseshoes to be the crux of the business,” my father said thoughtfully. “And since you are unlikely to have success where Mr. Dobbin did not, I should counsel against a useless review of the Lyme blacksmiths. Your appearance in their midst, and in pursuit of such information, should only arouse suspicion against you, and excite the attention of the local tradesfolk.”

“Very true.”

“Let us consider, my dear Jane, whether any of the people hereabouts might spurn the Lyme trade, and engage a private smithy for the maintenance of their beasts.”

“No one in our acquaintance is likely to require such a service,” I objected. “Even Mr. Crawford has a modest stable, as we observed only a few days ago.”

“But the Honourable Barnewalls have gone in for horses on a larger scale, have they not?”

“In
Ireland,
perhaps,” I said doubtfully, but my father waved away such temporisations with surprising vigour.

“Forgive me, Jane, if I beg to speak from greater knowledge,” he said. “I have known a few of your race-mad fellows in my time. They are never far from horseflesh if they can manage it; and from BarnewalFs conversation the other evening at Darby, I should adjudge him to be perpetually in a fever of acquisition over
some
mount or another. You will recall he wished to purchase Sidmouth's Satan; and undoubtedly he has snatched up a horse or two—or
ten
—in the course of his visit to Lyme. Have you paid a call on Mrs. Barnewall, Jane?”

“I have not,” I replied, with new respect for my father's turn of mind.

“It is very remiss of you, when one considers the attentions she has shown. I should not have thought you capable of such rudeness.”

“Indeed. And I might solicit her excellent taste, in the matter of my new silk—for Mrs. Barnewall
is
the very soul of fashion, and would appear well-acquainted with Maggie Tibbit's wares.”

“And perhaps even with the woman's manner of obtaining them,” my father finished smoothly. “I should think a visit to the Honourable Barnewalls highly profitable.”

We turned with some reluctance from the vivid view of the bay, and had the wind at our backs for the remainder of the way home. It was a slow walk, and marked only by desultory conversation, for my father was much fatigued; and I was far too preoccupied with his perspective on the matter, to spare a thought for much else. The Honourable Barnewalls had their fingers in every piece of this pie; and I wondered I had not troubled to notice it before. It was stewho had first introduced
le Chevalier
to my acquaintance, and
he
who elicited the valuable intelligence that Geoffrey Sidmouth marked his horses’ shoes. It should take less than a few hours for a private smithy to render a Barnewall horse similarly shod; and the Honourable Mathew had enjoyed the span of a day, between learning of the Grange's brand and the murder of Captain Fielding. Could he have so wished to obtain the stallion Satan, that he resorted to theft and murder to do it? It seemed incredible. But might there exist
some other
motive in the matter, that should make the death of Captain Fielding, and the guilt of Geoffrey Sidmouth, in every way delightful to the peer-in-waiting?

For Mrs. Barnewall was familiar with the River Buddie district, and the Tibbit household; she clearly spent a fortune on dress, and her husband a fortune on horses; and yet, they continued to live in a style that suggested a comfortable income. Could it be that Mathew Barnewall—stupid, vulgar, utterly uninteresting Mathew Barnewall—was the very Reverend himself?

But my interest in the Barnewalls’ affairs, though quickened by my father's observations, must await another day's satisfaction; for the afternoon was much advanced, and my father wanted his dinner, and I confessed to feeling much fatigued in my own right, and to be longing for the quiet of Wings cottage, and my too-long neglected
Watsons.
The fitful attention I had paid poor Emma in recent days, had left my heroine marooned in the midst of a fairly tedious ball—albeit her first in her adopted neighbourhood—and at the mercy of a small boy, who had been dancing with her far longer than was necessary, owing to my scattered wits. And so, I sat down once more before the fire in the HtUe sitting-room—having crossed through the scullery in order to reach it, the doorway to the hall being now permanendy barred by the bulk of the oak secretary—and applied myself to my writing with every intention of industry.

It would not do, however; in a very little while my attention wandered, from the odious Lord Osborne and the bland Mr. Howard, and the still less amusing Tom Musgrave; they were all of them pale substitutes for Geoffrey Sidmouth, and my emotions were all alive to the dangers that so threatened that gendeman, and over which I had but little power. He was at once more
real,
and more vividly engaging, than anything my imagination might summon—and thus a person unique in my experience. For I have generally found the creations of my pen more pleasing, and arguably better company, than the bulk of the men thrown in my way.

With a sigh, I closed up my ink botde, and gathered up my little papers, and submitted to a dubious glance from my father. “Your efforts do not engage you, Jane?”