Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Chapter 21 Final Confession…

24 September 1804, cont.

RATHER THAN HUGGING A LONELY STRETCH OF COASTLINE HIGH above the turbulent seas, bereft of civilisation and the comforts of humanity, as should befit a prison in Lyme, the gaol where Mr. Sidmouth was held sat in the very midst of the town, with a stock in front and a cubby for the watchman; I should move under the keenest observation as I approached the place, but could not find it in me to care, as my errand seemed too urgent to admit of delicacy. I knew not whether the gentleman was permitted visitors — but deemed it likely that what persuasion might not produce, the application of coin should speedily acquire.

The watchman — a smallish fellow clothed in nankeen, with a sharp nose, watery eyes, and a perpetual habit of sneezing — rose from his stool as swift as a street tumbler, and danced a bow before me.

“Gordy Trimble at yer service, ma'am, though what service ye might be seekin' here, ‘tis beyond me to say,” he offered by way of introduction.

“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 I 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 rustled not five feet from where I 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 Sidmouth"s 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 tell-tale 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 how?” 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 gentleman more inclined to clandestine trade, who has since fled these parts, Miss Austen. You will understand that the Gentlemen 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,”[75] 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.

I shook my head. ‘They appeared on the shingle after your curious skiff.”

“It was La Gascogne, the boat you saw once on the very beach; and it bore my cousin Philippe — Mademoiselle LeFevre's brother.”

“The one who serves Napoleon?”

“The one who served Napoleon — as a spy for the Royalist cause — and nearly gave his young life as a result. If there can be any consolation for myself at such a time, it is in learning from Seraphine that the boy will survive. Had he not been encamped in Boulogne, with the forces readying the Monster's invasion of England, he should never have escaped when finally he was discovered. But escape he did, if gravely wounded; and though the boat was delayed by storm, it landed successfully a day later— in Charmouth rather than off the Chesnil bank. Dagliesh at least was present, though I could not be.”

I drew a tremulous breath; such turbulence as this man endured! Such passion, for a cause so beyond himself! And to end, now, with the end of a rope — but he had accepted such a possibility, undoubtedly, when first he undertook to commerce in the unseating of emperors, however upstart.

I sat back on my heels. “But if you did not kill Captain Fielding — who, then, fired the deadly ball?”

Sidmouth shook his head. “I do not know. I have expended a world of thought upon the subject — for the Captain's murderer took great pains to incriminate me utterly. It betrays a certain knowledge of my household, and my particular habits, that cannot but be troubling, as well as a desire to see great harm devolve upon myself.”

There was a knock upon the door. “Yer five minutes be ten, Miss Austen! Out wit’ ye!”

“Another moment only, pray, Mr. Trimble!” I called, and turned swiftly to Geoffrey Sidmouth. “It pains me to broach so intimate a subject, and which cannot but be painful to you; but I must voice my darkest thoughts and have done. Is it possible — can you find it in your heart to believe — that Seraphine might have done the murder in your very absence?”

“Seraphine? That is preposterous!”

“I do not mean to say she should have killed the Captain from a desire to incriminate yourself,” I said hurriedly, over his words of protest. “She may have happened upon him of a sudden, and feared a renewal of those events that proved so disturbing to her, but a few weeks before; and so fired upon him, in a belief she acted in self-defence, and then fled the scene. At such a moment she was unlikely to think of the horseshoes.”

“But the lily,” Sidmouth rejoined. “It should be no one's custom to travel abroad at midnight in possession of such a flower.”

“Perhaps she bore it with her, on some errand to one of your Royalist men hidden about the countryside, and only laid it near the Captain in the thought that he was behind the grounding of the Royal Belle, indeed.”

“I suppose that such a case is possible,” Sidmouth said slowly. “For it is difficult to account for the horseshoes otherwise. You make a very convincing argument, Miss Austen.” He raised his head, and I perceived again the glitter of his eyes. “I wish it might be less so. But it is of no matter. I have taken on myself the burden of that death; and perhaps it is only justice that I should stand for Seraphine, as someone else has undoubtedly stood for me, in the matter of Bill Tibbit.”

“Bill Tibbit's death shall never be pursued,” I said dismissively. “It will be ascribed to a feud of the fisherfolk, and left to lie. Mr. Dobbin, the justice, will only exert himself in a matter of quality — such as the Captain's. I understand, now, the agony of Seraphine's mind, in the very midst of the inquest. You had a suspicion of the truth, did you not, and so urged her to keep silent?”

“I had no notion — indeed, I wished her only to say nothing of where I had been, or Dagliesh either, the night of Fielding's death, from anxiety that all our plans should be o'erthrown. But upon reflection, I find it not unlikely that events should have occurred as you have said. Seraphine had reason enough to hate the Captain, and fear his appearance on a lonely road.”

“What did occur between them?” I enquired curiously.

Another knock from Mr. Trimble.

“I shall be with you directly! I pause only for my basket!” I called.

“I see no reason to deny you the intelligence,” Sidmouth said, “from knowing I may depend upon your complete discretion.”

“I was told that Fielding recovered the lady after she suffered a fall from her horse, and was attempting to carry her to the Grange, when he was overtaken by Mr. Crawford's equipage.”

A flash of teeth that betokened a grim smile.

“He had drawn her out to the road itself, with a falsely written message — a plea for help from one of our Royalists, hidden in the Pinny,” Sidmouth said. “A drawing of a white lily was sent with the note; and it arranged to meet in a lonely spot not far from the Grange, in the early hours of the morning, when the moon should have set.” He paused to draw breath.

“You have seen that road at night; you know full well how little aid might be found, did one suffer a mishap. When Seraphine arrived, Fielding was waiting; and she knew him to be attempting her discovery. She fled from him, and was upon the point of escape, when his horse overtook her own — and he dealt her such a severe blow to the head with his whip handle, that she fell unconscious from her mount's back. It is solely by the grace of God she avoided a more severe injury still.”

“But what can have been his purpose?’” I cried.

“We think it probable he wished to detain her some time, in an effort to win that intelligence from her, that should be so deadly to our cause.”

“But why? What reason can Fielding have had, to so disturb your activity? He was an officer of the Royal Navy! Should not the downfall of Napoleon be in the interest of all who claim a part in that noble institution?”

“All, who are not presently dependent upon the Monster's purse,’” Sidmouth replied grimly. “I have believed Captain Fielding a spy of the French for many years; but it was only in recent months that he allowed himself to show his hand, in his attempts to discover my methods. He styled himself an agent of the Revenue men, as he took care that all of Lyme should know; but his treachery had as its object far more than Free Trade. It has ended with his life.”

Mr. Trimble could no longer be thwarted; and I made as if to go, my aching ankles almost numb from the conditions to which I had subjected them. I could not but think that I should never see Geoffrey Sidmouth again, and emotion would rise; but I hurriedly removed the bread and cheese and apples from the basket, and placed it over my arm, and was on the point of turning away, in despair of ever making an audible adieu; when Sidmouth's hand closed over my own, as tightly as a vise.

“To have you leave without a word will tear the very heart from my body,” he said harshly. “However little approbation you accord my actions — despicable, unjust as they may seem — do not deny me the gentleness of your pity! One word of farewell, for God's sake, to a man whose fate is so uncertain!”

I stared at him wordlessly, all but overcome; and in an instant, he had pulled me down beside him in a crushing embrace, made more awkward by the presence of his chains. I felt myself enmeshed in iron, and closed my eyes against the force of it, until I felt his lips move warmly over my own.

“Must you surely die, then?” I said brokenly.

“It seems I must,” he replied, in some bitterness of spirit, “—unless it be that chaos reign, and fire cover the earth, and these bonds be loosed by hands more powerful than my own. But do not cry, dear Jane! Perhaps we shall meet again — be it only beyond the grave!”

I felt the sharp prick of tears to my eyelids, and thrust myself to my feet, unwilling and unable to linger more. At the gaol's entry,? turned for one last glimpse of Geoffrey Sidmouth.

“There may be men with a greater claim to unblemished reputation,’” I said, “but none to bravery. It is something, indeed, to know myself your friend. Adieu, Mr. Sidmouth — and courage! in that most mortal hour.”

And so I knocked upon the portal, and emerged into daylight, and the curious eyes of Gordy Trimble — and let the little gaoler think what calumnies he might.

AN INVOCATION OF FIRE, AND OF CHAOS UNLEASHED. I HAD THOUGHT it a pretty speech, from a man in contemplation of his fate, and gave it no more consideration than I should a verse of Cowper's — stirring words, to be sure, and well-phrased, but with little of prophecy about them. I made my slow way home, and endured a listless dinner, my thoughts unabashedly pensive; for the few moments I had spent in Sidmouth's arms were calculated to send any woman's principles to the winds (yes, even a clergyman's daughter), and at the thought that I should never see him the more, I could not but be melancholy. My father observed me narrowly, but forbore from interrogation; and even James — though ignorant of the cause of my Ianguor — had something of sympathy in his tone as he bade me good night.

“You are returned, then, from your day of liberty?” I said, my hand on the stair-rail. My parents had preceded me to bed, leaving me to close up the house in the manservant's company, with only a tallow taper between us to light the way. If there was the thinnest paring of a new moon, a bank of clouds had sufficed to hide its light, and the night beyond the windows was very black. “I hope it was not entirely a slave to my service.”

“Not a'tall, miss — though I'd count it no hardship if ‘twere.”

“I am deeply grateful for your energy and intelligence, James.”

He blushed scarlet, and knew not where to look. A sudden recovery of his memory, however, gave him relief in providing a purpose. “Beggin' yer pardon, miss, but there's one thing as we forgot to talk of, with Matty Hurley this afternoon.”

“Indeed?”

“You were wonderin’ ‘bout his work on the gangs, if I recollect.”

“I was.”

“And whether he ever worked wit’ Bill Tibbit on a job for the Captain wot's dead.” James threw home the front door bolt with a satisfying thud.

“You need not concern yourself with enquiring further of Mr. Hurley, James,” I began, “for I learned something to advantage this afternoon that makes all such questions of the Captain's garden irrelevant.”

James shrugged. “Don't need to enquire further” he replied. “Me and Matty's talked o’ it already. He never worked wit’ Bill at the Captain's, him havin’ chose his own folk, on the quiet-like, and kept ‘em paid proper. Seems as if Bill spent three or four months up Charmouth way, when he warn't drinkm’ in the Three Cups.”

My interest was piqued despite myself, though the tunnel was no longer an object of mystery. “And did Captain Fielding engage only the one man?”

James shook his head. “There was one or two others. Dick Trevors, and Martin Ciive maybe, and old Ebenezer Smoot, ‘im with the high voice and the soft ‘ead.”

“Dick and — Ebenezer?” My voice, I confess, was tremulous.

James nodded, and paused at the foot of the stairs, preparatory to leaving me for the evening. “Marty died o’ the fever last May, and I ‘aven't seen Dick lately, come to think on it, nor Eb neither.”

“I believe they are gone to London,” I said drily, remembering their fear of the Reverend and his vanished silk, “on rather pressing business. The result of having mislaid something of value to their current employer.”

“They've never gone and filched from Mr. Crawford?” James exclaimed, in surprise.

“Mr. Crawford?”

“Aye. They've been a-workin’ them fossil pits, and his bit of a smithy, most o’ the summer now.” The manservant scratched his head in wonderment. “Dick and Eb, run off with Mr. Crawford's property! There's something like. Now what they want with them bits o' stone, then?”