Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Chapter 23 Jane's Afterword

25 September 1804, cont.

A VERY FEW WORDS WILL SUFFICE TO CONCLUDE MY TALE.

The dragoons attempted, and failed, to impede the flight of Sidmouth's boat. After a frantic quarter-hour of firing poorly-sighted blunderbusses across a heaving sea, they gave up the effort, and stood at the water's edge in a degree of ill-humour and rainswept soddenness, that should have been amusing to behold, did not I find myself in so precarious a position. I espied Roy Cavendish, on the periphery of his troops. The Customs man's arms were folded, his hat brim dripped with the dispiriting rain, and there was an expression of dismay on his countenance. I suspected his foul temper would descend upon my head, did I appear.

It was then that Lord Harold advanced upon them.

He had left me at the mouth of the cave, confident that the dragoons might persuade me to caution where his influence could not. With customary coolness, he had torn a length of rag from his white shirt, and affixed it to his pistol end; then he hauled poor Crawford to his feet, and forced the man to serve as shield for their advance through the pelting showers. It remained only to wait until the dragoons” fury was spent, and Sidmouth safely out of the way; and so Lord Harold did.

“Ahoy there!” he cried, waving his makeshift flag of truce as he thrust the reluctant Crawford before him. “Your commander, I pray!”

Cavendish started from his abject ruminations, and stepped forwards to meet the men; and a parley ensued, in the lowest of tones, that seemed to invert the Customs officer's very world. Disbelief o'erspread his features, and something very like shock; and he took a step backwards from Cholmondeley Crawford in utter amazement.

Roy Cavendish was not a man of the Crown for nothing, however — and in a few moments, he had dispatched a squadron of dragoons from their fruitless position on the beach, to retrieve what dignity they might, in a search of Crawford's fossil site; and they discovered there a quantity of silk and other fine stuff, all imported without benefit of the King's custom — and perhaps, most important, a set of horseshoes made crudely on the fossil forge, and marked clearly with the initials GS.

The intelligence thus obtained, and a few low words regarding statecraft, and His Majesty's government, from Lord Harold Trowbridge, ensured that no Naval cutter should be loosed in pursuit of Sidmouth and his party. But all this it was my privilege to learn later, once Crawford was borne away to the Lyme gaol (all threat of fire in that quarter being now contained), and the dragoons dispersed. At Lord Harold's suggestion, Roy Cavendish made it his business to inform the justice of the peace, Mr. Dobbin, of Cholmondeley Crawford's murderous deceit.

It was then that Lord Harold retrieved me from my place of seclusion, and looked with concern upon my sodden clothes and ravaged face.

“Miss Austen! I have been wretchedly in neglect,” he said, with the first suggestion of anxiety I had ever observed throughout the length of our acquaintance. He doffed his dripping hat and held it awkwardly over my bedraggled curls. “You shall catch your death of cold from your exposure this e'en.”

“I care little for that,” I said wearily, brushing his hat aside, “only I should dearly love a proper cloak, and some conveyance home, as I am falling down with fatigue.”

He hastened to swing his greatcoat from his shoulders, and flung it about my own, and without another word, led me to his good dark horse still tethered at the fossil pits; and with the utmost gentleness, he bent to provide a hand for my mounting. I hauled myself onto the horse's back, with less than my usual grace — being anything but a horsewoman in the best of times — and Lord Harold sprang, with something more of lightness, to the saddle before me.

We paused an instant to gaze through the curtain of rain, and out across the waves, where, like a scrap of torn fabric, the sail of a cutter showed against a lightening sky. It moved swiftly, and as we watched, disappeared from view.

“Where, then, do they sail?” I asked, after a moment.

“Not to France, assuredly.” Lord Harold's voice held an unwonted sobriety. “The country is grown too hot for men of their persuasion. The cutter will bear them to Liverpool, 1 believe — and it is their intention there to secure passage on a ship bound for America.”

“America?” I felt the pain of parting redouble with all the swiftness of a blow to my heart. “I shall never see him again.”

“I fear not,” Lord Harold said quietly. He clucked to the horse, and turned its head, and commenced a slow jog towards Lyme.

And so we rode in weary silence for a time, with nothing but the soft patter of raindrops and the first tentative birdsong to cheer our way. My thoughts were torn between exultation at the party's escape and a regret so profound I could hardly speak. Until, with something more akin to his usual raillery, Lord Harold observed that I must take greater care in the forming of my acquaintance.

“For, Miss Austen,” said he, “though I will not say that I disapprove of your predilection for characters such as Sidmouth, or your habit of dining at the home of smugglers, I confess that my nose is quite turned, at finding my success so spoilt, in being dependent upon your penetration. You will quite ruin my reputation, if word of this gets out; and I shall be reduced to offering you employment.”

“—Which I should as readily decline,” I replied. “At this moment, sir, I want nothing more than the safety of my room, and a hot toddy, and a warm brick wrapt in cloths between the sheets. How it does rain! I will never be without my bonnet, in future, no matter how many borrowed greatcoats I may acquire.”

“You have a most vexatious talent for intrigue,” Lord Harold insisted, with utter disregard for my ideas of bricks and toddies. “Most unusual, in a woman. I shall be con-standy looking over my shoulder, in future, from a fear of finding you behind.”

“Then you shall run headlong over my foot, my lord,” I rejoined with spirit, “for I shall assuredly stand before.”

THE END