Jane and the Man of the Cloth (40 page)

“I am Miss Jane Austen,” I said with dignity, “and have come with a basket of victuals from St. Michael's Church—a gesture of charity towards the poor man detained within those walls.” I had retrieved my mother's basket from Miss Crawford after parting from James and Mr. Hurley, in the thought that the ladies’ auxiliary should hardly require it as mightily as /should. In making my way towards the gaol, I had tarried only long enough to purchase bread and cheese, and a few apples, to put in its depths.

“Poor
man? Never thought as I'd hear His Worship called poor, ma'am, and that's a fact. And him been stylin’ hissel’ so fine. Ah, well—the world's gone topsyturvy, it has, and Gordy Trimble's not the one to make the right of it.” He reached a hand to the basket handle, and I saw with a start my mistake.

“I should like to deliver the goods myself,” I told him firmly.

“Eh, now, you'll not be thinkin’ I'll have the eatin’ of ‘em before him?”

“Assuredly not—that is to say—I should like to speak with Mr. Sidmouth a moment, since he is so soon to be taken away,” I faltered.

The little man's face creased in a wicked smile. “Sweet on him, are ye? Half o’ Lyme is in the same state, or I'm not Gordy Trimble. The parade o’ ladies as has been through that door would make a priest blush, it would. Not to mention the mademoiselle. Fair spends her days here, she does—though I'll not be lettin’ her sit by him that long. Leans in the doorway, mooning like a sick calf, until the sun's about down; then hies hersel’ off to the Grange, for to attend to the milking.”

“Is the mademoiselle within at present?” I enquired, in some apprehension. I had not thought to encounter Seraphine when I hastily undertook my errand.

“Nay—you'll be havin’ yer five minutes to yersel, I reckon,” the watchman replied. “But no more.” He peered into the basket and poked a finger around the victuals. “Wouldn't want you bringin’ a knife or a pistol to my prisoner, now would I?”

“Mr. Trimble!” I cried, “i am a clergyman's daughter.” I sailed past him to the door of the small keep—a square, whitewashed building with a thatched roof—and waited while he jangled his keys. Mr. Trimble retained a quantity of them for a man with only one room and one prisoner to guard. I could hear the slight sounds of scuffling, and a length of chain dragged along the floor, from beyond the heavy oak; Sidmouth must be alerted to visitors, and be rising to his feet.

The door swung open, and emitted a cloud of dust from the hay that served as flooring; I sneezed, and understood now the gaoler's streaming eyes. How did Sidmouth stand it? But I had not another moment to consider it, for the heavy door closed behind me, and I was thrown into the dimmest complicity possible with the man. A warm stillness to the air, and a slighdy sour smell, of too much humanity confined too long in so slight a space; it should surely drive one mad, for too many days together.

The hay rusded not five feet from where 1 stood. “Who is it?” he enquired, in a tone of some doubt; and I knew that backlit in the open doorway as I must have been, my features were obscured to him. “Not Seraphine. But a woman.”

“Miss Austen,” I replied—and was surprised to hear how strongly my voice emerged. My heart was aflutter, and the palms of my hands grown moist; such anxiety, over so simple a purpose! I had visited a prison far worse than this, and faced evils of a sterner nature; and yet, today, I might have been as weak as a child, and as ill-formed for such an experience.

A short laugh, harsh in that stillness, and yet tinged with amusement “Miss Jane Austen of Bath, in the very midst of Lyme gaol! To what a turn have matters come! I should rise and welcome you with a proper bow, madam—but that I cannot rise at all, at the moment I hope that you will forgive me, and ascribe my poor manners to the proper cause.”

A faint shaft of sunlight fell from a slit placed high in the wall to my back; and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, I discerned the darker shape against the stone that must be SidmouuYs form. A manacle was clasped about each ankle, and bolted to the wall so that he was denied a range of movement, though his arms as yet were free. I took a step towards him.

“What possible reason can you have, for so exposing yourself to the opprobrium of Lyme society, in seeking me here?” the master of High Down continued easily.

“I have brought you some victuals,” I said, laying the basket at his feet, and sinking low myself. I dared not sit, for fear of the state of the straw, but rocked about on my ankles. “But I will not deny, Mr. Sidmouth, that this food is as a mere pretext, for gaining entry enough to speak with you. I am come on a matter of some urgency.”

“A welcome change,” he rejoined drily, “since all urgency, I fear, has fled from my days. It is extraordinary, is it not, Miss Austen, how the perception of time will shift, according to the measure of one's duties? In having none to perform, I find myself equipped with so much time, that I might effect a revolution in men's affairs, did I but have the freedom—for I pass a year in every day, or so it seems.”

“And yet the days still pass,” I said crossly, “and the number you command grows short. I myself have but five minutes. We must not waste them in philosophy, sir. But your talk of revolution
does
inspire a thought—not of war and tumult, but its alternative—a world of reason and order, however imperfect it might have been. Mr.Sidmouth, I have been turning over in my mind a welter of conflicting thoughts—for I have heard such varied accounts of your business, as confuse me exceedingly. Some would have you a smuggler, the very Reverend, in fact; while others would call you simply a rogue. Much time and penetration on my part has gone to find the meaning of the business. But T believe that I have.”

“Then pray enlighten me, Miss Austen, for I am told that a few sentences will suffice to sum up the matter.” I could not discern his expression; but I caught the flash of white teeth, and the glitter of his eyes, and imagined him smiling sardonically. “It seems that Captain Fielding was in love with my cousin, and that I grew so enraged at her indifference to me, that I killed the man. What better resolution could there be?”

“I must pay you the compliment, sir, of believing you more the master of your energies than such a construction will allow. That conclusion to the sad affair pays no attention to the presence of a white flower near Captain Fielding's body—a white
lily,
more to the point—nor does it incorporate the death of Bill Tibbit, hanged on the end of the Cobb, with another such bloom at his feet. When I discovered that Tibbit had run a ship aground—and that a number of Frenchmen had died as a result—I knew at last the nature of the Grange's trade.”

I paused, to allow my words their full effect. “You have been smuggling Frenchmen between England and France, have you not? And
Royalist
Frenchmen, I would assume from the foundered ship's name and the speaking symbol of the
fleur-de-lys.
But such men are unlikely to find a happy reception on their native shores, now Buonaparte is emperor. Indeed, I cannot imagine them to be returning with anything like his health and safety in mind. Are you a trader in assassins, Mr. Sidmouth?”

There was an astonished silence; and then Geoffrey Sidmouth's chains rattled. I felt cool fingers slip over my own, and drew a startled breath.

“How come you to know so much?” he asked quietly.

“You have been hardly as secretive, or as careful, as you might have thought,” I replied. “The mooring ring at the end of the Cobb bears the marks of green paint, from the skiff you keep on Charmouth beach; in the act of erecting a scaffold, the boat must have brushed against the stone and the ring, and left its telltale sign. I am further assured of this, from having viewed the boat itself, in a later walk upon the shingle/’

“Many people own such a boat, and might paint it green; and the marks of wear be everywhere upon its surface/’

“Do you deny that you own such a boat?”

After a grudging instant, he said, “I do not. You have been well-informed, Miss Austen.”

I shrugged. “It must be impossible to employ so many men, upon so precarious a business, without
some
of them tending to talk. And the grounding of your ship last spring—for which I understand Bill Tibbit paid with his life—has turned the emotion of the townsfolk against him, and made them more likely to air their grievances, out of a mixture of injury and pride.”

“The
Royal Belle
was a heavy loss.” Sidmouth paused, as if uncertain how much to say. “As a result of Tibbit's treachery, seven men aboard it died; and all of them true-hearted and brave, and my dearest friends.”

“There are five Tibbit children who must feel a similar desolation,” I replied.

A silence fell between us, and in the distance I heard the voice of Gordy Trimble, skylarking in sunlight. I looked down at my gloved hand, and saw Sidmouth's fingers still upon it; but a curious heaviness had taken hold of me, in knowing him to be guilty beyond the faintest doubt. I had held out hope for his goodness so long; and though I knew Tibbit's hanging to be a form of retribution—a life taken for so many lives unjustly lost—I could not shake the chill that had overcome my body. There was Captain Fielding to consider. How many deaths were necessary, in payment for blood already spilled?

“I am thankful for this, at least,” I said, faltering. “I thought you likely to hang unjustly—and the weight of it should have haunted me all the days of my life. But I will be reconciled the better, in knowing that Tibbit's blood is indeed on your hands—and on Percival Fielding's as well, for having paid the man to ground the ship. But I cannot understand what should have urged the Captain to such a ruthless act! Did he believe you to traffic in nothing more than contraband?”

“I cannot say.” Sidmouth's voice was heavy, and his fingers slid away from my own. “I did not know for a certainty that he was behind the fellow Tibbit—but your stating it now must be the fruit of further knowledge.”

“And so you
killed
him, though you doubted his complicity?” I was all horrified amazement, and my shock must have throbbed in my voice.

“
I
, killed Percival Fielding? But I
never
killed the Captain, however little love I bore the mincing scoundrel!”

“But, indeed, you must have!”

“Indeed, I did not!”

“But the horseshoes—the white flower—”

“I must assure you solemnly, Miss Austen, that I was standing for the better part of the night some six miles distant, on Puncknowle hill, awaiting the signal of a ship most anxiously desired, which failed, however, to appear! And that Mr. Dagliesh was with me, from the direst necessity, and will vouch for my presence the entirety of the night Captain Fielding was murdered.”

A memory of the scene I had witnessed on Charmouth beach, the very night
afier
Fielding's killing, flashed before my eyes.

“The boat that landed the following night—with the wounded man—it was for
this
that you waited?”

“How come you to know of it?”

“I was a witness to its arrival”

“But
howV
Sidmouth's voice was hoarse.

“You must know of the cavern, on the Charmouth shingle. I had hidden myself in its depths, the better to observe unmolested the movements on the beach—for after your arrest at the hands of Mr. Dobbin that morning, I felt I
had
to probe the truth of matters more. For
lie
seemed little inclined to do it.”

“The cavern—” Sidmouth hesitated. “You explored its fullest extent?”

“You would mean the tunnel? You knew, then, of its existence, and its end point in Captain Fielding's garden?”

“I did. In point of fact, the tunnel predates the Captain's tenancy of that house, it having been built for another gendeman more inclined to clandestine trade, who has since fled these parts, Miss Austen. You will understand that the Gendemen of the Night have long held sway about this coast—some hundred years, in fact—and Fielding's house is at least as old. He may have prettied the place a bit with his wilderness temple, and bits of antique statuary, but the way carved through the cliffs was not his enterprise to claim.”

“And yet,” I mused, “he may have employed it for just such a clandestine purpose. I found the storeroom filled with what appeared to be contraband goods, a fact that has much puzzled me.”

Sidmouth's laugh was short. “Since Fielding styled himself a prop of the law, you would mean, and affected to be so much in the Customs man's confidence? But tell me this, Miss Austen. How do you think that Fielding supported his customary style? On a Naval pension?”

“I assumed him wealthy from the seizure of prizes,”
¹
I replied. “You would ascribe it to smuggling?”

“Not smuggling. No. I believe Fielding to have become wealthy through the consideration of others, more benevolent to his circumstances. For certain Gentlemen of the Night, a small expression of gratitude for silences kept, and discovery averted—a cask of the finest Darjeeling, let us say, or a barrel of French brandy—might seem a gift well-placed.”

“Bribery,” I said slowly. “It has a certain aptness. We may assume him to have sold what he could not consume himself, and thus been in a way to supplement his income.”

There was a smallish pause, as I mulled over the Captain's duplicitous character.

“The cavern I understand; but how came you to discover the tunnel at all?” Sidmouth enquired.

“In following two men within its depths.” I was deliberately vague; I should not like to admit to Sidmouth
now
that I had expected Dick and Eb to be making for the Grange. “I felt sure their business was suspect, and thought to discover its nature in pursuing them. In the event, I found only what bewildered me. I must conclude
now
that they sought to retrieve some tribute previously given to Fielding—for they canvassed the storeroom with thoroughness. But their activity was for naught; they quitted the place in some disappointment.”

The master of High Down did not bother to express his astonishment on this point; he had done with such effusions. I had no longer the power to surprise him. “And did they, too, witness the landing of the boat?” he asked, in some concern.