Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Chapter 7 The Lander Routed

8 September 1804

Dawn

I HAVE PUT ASIDE MY FOOLSCAP AND MY EFFORTS TO FORM EMMA Watson to my liking — a more wrongheaded heroine I have never encountered, so intent is she upon ceding the stage to her spiteful sisters and the ridiculous Tom Musgrave[48] — and taken down this journal once more to record all that has unfolded since yester e'en. I had progressed only so far, in relating the chief of that tumultuous day, when Mr. Dagliesh appeared at my brother Henry's dispatching. And so I must set down something of how the surgeon's assistant came again to Wings cottage.

We had partaken of a little refreshment, and decidedly superior tea — an excellent Darjeeling — in Captain Fielding's attractive blue and white drawing-room, and had then quitted the house to observe the last slanting rays of sunlight in the gentleman's garden. Captain Fielding reveals himself as a devotee of the rose, on a scale that rivals the Empress Josephine, for almost the entirety of his grounds is given over to beds of that noble flower — though sadly for us, well past its blooming.

“But this is charming, Captain Fielding!” my sister exclaimed; among the Austens, she is the true lover of the garden and its healthful exercise, and is possessed of a remarkable taste in the arranging of beds and successive waves of seasonal bloom. “Utterly delightful! And in June, when the roses flower, it must be a veritable Eden!”

“Eden must not be considered as approaching it, Miss Austen,” the Captain replied. “For my garden has no snakes.”

“But what energy and industry has been here applied!” Cassandra continued. “And you are not even resident in the place very long.”

“No — but where application is steady, and the means exist for the furthering of work, all manner of change may be swiftly effected. I have had teams of men labouring here to rival Crawford's fossil pits. Where we stand this very moment, was only two years ago a pitiful stretch of downs, replete with scrub heath and the occasional fox den.”

“Extraordinary,” Lucy Armstrong said quiedy, and gazed around her with a wistful air. “I remember this place some months ago, Captain Fielding, when you entertained us all at dinner. The roses were then in bloom— and a glorious sight it was.” She gave me a brief smile, as though lost in a pretty memory, and moved on down the path with my sister.

Captain Fielding offered his left arm, which I gladly accepted, and we followed behind. The Captain employs a walking cane when attempting a greensward, and must progress more slowly as a result, so that Cassandra and Miss Armstrong were soon at some little distance from ourselves.

“I venture to hope, Miss Jane Austen, that you shall again walk among these flowers, when their scent fills the air with a headiness unequalled, and their petals suggest a grace that can only be found in your lovelier form,” my companion said, in a lowered tone.

I blushed and turned away; for the import of his words was unmistakable. But I affected not to understand him, and said only, “I hope I shall often have reason to visit Lyme. It is a place and a society that has become quite dear to me. To fix one's residence by the sea, is, I believe, to live in the greatest privilege and the most salubrious circumstance.”

“You dislike Bath, then?”

“Who can feel otherwise, who is consigned to spend the entire year through, in a place destined for pleasure parties and occasional travellers? The sameness, and yet the constant parting with friends, happy in their return to quieter homes; the bustle, and the self-importance, and yet the nothingness of the town; the white glare of its buildings, the fearful drains, the endless parade of the fashionable and the foolish, hopeful of cures from the sluggish waters — no, Captain Fielding, I cannot love Bath. It is become a prison to my spirit, however gilded the trappings of the cage.”

“I regret to hear it,” he said slowly. “But you will have some weeks yet in Lyme.”

“Yes,” I said, recovering. “We intend to remain here through November. I cherish every day, and count out those remaining, as though I turn the rarest pearls along a string.”

The Captain raised his fair head, and gazed into the distance, his eyes narrowing. “Miss Austen!” he cried. “Miss Armstrong! We are losing the light, I fear, and must turn back.”

“And what is that place my sister has come to?” I enquired, in gazing upon a prettyish little wilderness some yards before us.

“It is my temple ruin,” Captain Fielding said abruptly, “a colonnade of stone, in wisteria and hedgerose. Your sister has found it necessary to rest some few moments, but she cannot remain there.”

I must have looked my surprise at his terse words, so clearly expressive of a proprietary interest in the place, rather than in Cassandra's state; but in a moment, I understood the cause of Captain Fielding's distress.

“I must chide myself for an overactive enthusiasm in exhibiting these grounds — and in so vigourous a manner,” he said, “for assuredly the walk has proved too much for her delicate health.”

And indeed, Cassandra was slumped upon a bench in an attitude of great fatigue, while Lucy Armstrong searched frantically among her green muslin pockets for what I imagined to be some errant smelling salts. The enquiring eyes of a stone wood nymph, arranged over a little door that stood ajar in the temple's wall, looked down upon the tableau. That the door shielded an area for the storage of garden implements, I readily discerned; for a huddle of indiscriminate shapes, cloaked in sailcloth, was revealed by the setting sun — and a clever usage it was for a wilderness ruin. Captain Fielding's house is entirely fitted out with such similarly charming notions— reflective, perhaps, of a man accustomed to tight quarters on a ship. I had observed the snug arrangement of his bookshelves and desk, the latter article having a removable surface for writing in one's chair, as we earlier passed through the library; and indeed, little that the Captain owns is designed purely for ornament, or for a single purpose, serving a variety of duties in ways that are decidedly ingenious. I thought of Frank, whose life is similarly efficient in its organisation, and shook my head fondly at my brother's plans to marry.[49] Mary Gibson should make a sad business of Frank's tidy habits.

As we approached, Cassandra raised her head, her countenance suffused with pain. “I have overtaxed my strength, dearest Jane,’” she said, “and must run the risk of offending you, Captain Fielding, with my plea for a return to Wings cottage.”

He turned from securing the door beneath the nymph's head, and cried, “It shall be done with the greatest dispatch. A moment only is required for the summoning of Jarvis. But tell me, Miss Austen — can you attempt the walk to the house?”

“If Jane will support me on the one hand, and Miss Armstrong on the other, it may be done,” Cassandra replied, and slowly regained her feet with an air of grim resolution. I hastened to her side and suffered her to rest her weight against my shoulder, my arm around her waist and my heartbeat rendered the more rapid by a fearsome anxiety. A quick glance at Captain Fielding revealed the agony of regret that suffused his countenance; and I knew as though he had spoken aloud, that his mind was a turmoil of recrimination and anger at the disability that prevented him from providing greater assistance. But a lame man, dependent upon a cane for his own support, was hardly likely to serve as a prop for my suffering sister; and so I left him to sort out his manly feelings in peace, and turned my attention where it was the more necessary.

We had progressed perhaps one half the full length of the garden walk, when Cassandra begged to rest upon a bench; such dizzyness as overwhelmed her, coupled with a throbbing at the temples, nearly dropping her where she stood. I bit my lip, and wished for some greater aid — my brother, perhaps, or even Eliza — while Lucy Armstrong satisfied her tender feelings in repeated enquiries of Cassandra, and the triumphant production of the smelling salts. At last my sister rose, and managed to regain the house; whereupon Captain Fielding sent for his carriage and bade the housemaid fetch some brandy. This last having been administered, Cassandra sat back upon the settee with streaming eyes and a choking cough, unaccustomed as she is to strong spirits; and turned to me with all the terror of her infirmity upon her face.

“Jane!” she cried, though her voice was but a whisper; “I had thought myself completely recovered! It was not so very great an injury; the rest of my dear family suffered little from the coach's overturning; and? am several days removed from the event. And yet my present pain is unbearable. Can it be that I have received a greater knocking than was at first understood? Or that Mr. Dagliesh has mistaken the extent of the malady?”

“Such fretful thoughts cannot improve your prospects for the remainder of our travel home,” I said gently, as the sound of wheels upon the gravel revealed the barouche as even then standing before the door. “We will consult with Mr. Dagliesh as soon as ever we may.”

Captain Fielding assisted us to the carriage with the greatest concern alive upon his countenance, and urged the coachman to achieve his two-miles’ journey with all possible speed, though mindful not to jar the lady. And so, with these conflicting orders settled upon his head, poor Jarvis clucked to the horses, and we were off.

The ride itself was uneventful, being spent chiefly in the sort of silence that only arises from great perturbation of spirit; and I sighed with relief as the barouche began the descent into Broad Street, and the cheerful lights of Wings cottage appeared through the growing dusk.

We were not to be afforded the comfort of an uneventful arrival, however — for Cassandra had only to set foot to paving stone, before crumpling in a faint upon the ground.

AND SO MR. DAGLIESII WAS SUMMONED AT THE BEHEST OF MY brother Henry, who was even then within the cottage awaiting our return, the better to give his fondest adieux — for he and Eliza depart for Weymouth today, to tour the town and observe the embarkation of the Royal Family.[50] From thence they should travel to Ibthorpe, and by a leisurely route return to No. 16 Michael's Place, and their neat little home. But at the outcry and bustle from the very gate, my dear brother rushed to our assistance; and his anxiety was the more extreme, from being motivated by surprise. Miss Armstrong and 1 were more sanguine, having journeyed in some anticipation of the event.

I may say that Mr. Dagliesh was very angry; he regarded us all as having precipitated a dangerous relapse, by our determination to force Cassandra over-early into activity; and he ordered the strictest quiet, the administration of broth, and the application alternately of ice and warm compresses, for the relief of my sister's throbbing temples. The poor surgeon's assistant stood some few minutes by her bedside, holding her wrist between his fingers as though intent upon her pulse; but I knew him to be utterly inattentive to the flutter of Cassandra's heart, so clearly were his thoughts fixed upon the agony within his own.

He departed not long thereafter, in search of some ice from the Golden Lion, and assuring us of his return at the earliest hour of the morning; and it remained only for us to determine the wisest course. The consultation of Dagliesh's superior, Mr. Carpenter, was much canvassed, and rejected by my mother, who had learned something to that gentleman's detriment from a recent Lyme acquaintance, one Miss Bonham, who claimed a persistent nervous fever. Henry at last voiced the thought chief within all our minds — that Cassandra should accompany himself and Eliza on their return to London, that trip being expedited by the amendment of the plan, and a determination to proceed with all possible swiftness towards Michael's Place; for the opinion of a physician, with all the experience of a city practice, should be solicited as soon as possible. My father agreed; my mother lamented and groaned at this loss of her favourite; and I felt a pang at the loneliness I should undoubtedly feel in Cassandra's absence.

“Should not I accompany you, Henry, the better to nurse my sister?” I asked, in a lowered tone, as my mother hastened to the kitchen for a warm poultice.

“Eliza shall amply supply your place, Jane; for, you know, she was many years in attendance upon poor Hastings.[51] Better that you remain to comfort my mother and father.” Henry smiled and patted my arm. “Despite the events of this evening, I do not believe Cassandra to be in any real danger; a bit of peace and quiet, and restorative sleep, shall soon reverse the indifferent state of her health.”

I GAZE UPON HER NOW, AS SHE SLUMBERS STILL IN THE EARLY WATCH of morning, and pray that it may be so. In a few hours she shall be torn from me, and all the delightful prospects of our Lyme visit o'erthrown; I shall have no one but Miss Armstrong for rambling the Cobb, or climbing the chasms of the Pinny, and my solitary visits to Mr. Milsop's glove counter shall be melancholy indeed. Poor Mr. Dag-liesh shall feel it acutely, I am afraid — but Cassandra was afforded little time to return him anything but gratitude, for his attentive and solicitous care; a deeper emotion — an emotion capable of displacing the unfortunate Tom Fowle in her heart — would require such lightness of spirit and limitless days as are presently denied her.

And what of myself? Exists there the seed of feeling, that I might try what limitless days and lightness of spirit may do? And if there be a seed — in whose favour planted?

I had occasion to lie awake much of the night in contemplation of the vagaries of the heart — due, perhaps, to the shallow breathing of my sister tossing beside me, or perhaps to the contrariety of my own heart's impulses. 1 have ever been possessed of too passionate a nature, however I would cloak it in a general appearance of sobriety and sense. It has led me to care too readily and too deeply, for men whose circumstances are utterly unequal to my own — being separated the one from the other by either a gulf in fortune, or a disparity in nature that does not recommend of happiness. Geoffrey Sidmouth belongs most clearly to the latter. A more reasonable woman should give her heart without reservation to the gallant Captain, whose apparent good nature, firm principles, and forthright contempt for all that is ignoble, proclaim him to be the stuff of which England is made. And yet my heart is unmoved by Percival Fielding; I find him possessed of intelligence and integrity, and wish him more blessed by cleverness and good humour.

And beyond all this, is a something more — a want of that which I cannot quite define. The Captain speaks and behaves entirely as he ought; and yet I cannot feel that he is open. There is an affectation of openness — he was surely frankness itself yesterday, in discussing the smugglers' affairs — and yet I have the creeping certainty that he is open by design, and that only when it suits his purpose.

Geoffrey Sidmouth, on the contrary, is neither open nor secretive; that gentleman is merely the master of his own business. His emotions are so hardly checked, as to be almost transparent; one will always know where one is, though utterly confounded as to why. His is an eager, a forthright, temperament; and even in his blackest moments — when I find nothing easier than to mistrust his purpose — I know myself to be in the presence of the man. With Captain Fielding, one is ever in the presence of a caricature. Even his gallantries are studied.

I had reason to consider this but a few hours ago, well before my return to Cassandra's still-slumbering form, and the quieter comforts of my pen. I was awakened, as two days before, by a great hallooing along the Cobb; and with a sickening certainty I saw in t?? mind's eye the ghastly scaffold raised once more, and the lifeless body awash in surf. At the sound of men's voices I threw back the covers, and hastily exchanged my nightclothes for yesterday's discarded muslin; a moment's thought instructed the choice of stout boots over my usual slippers. It required but an instant to descend the stairs as noiselessly as I knew how, and exit Wings cottage.

I lifted my trembling eyes to the Cobb's end — but not a gibbet was to be seen. Along the wide beach that fronts The Walk came a parade of toiling men, casks upon their backs; and great wains were drawn up along the shingle, with the horses full in the water to their very flanks’ height. Feeling rather foolish, but nonetheless thoroughly roused, I proceeded along The Walk until I had gained a better view — and espied two galleys, with crews at their oars, bobbing in the very waters where the smugglers’ cargo had been dropped the previous day!

“So they would retrieve it, then, as Captain Fielding asserted,” I said aloud, in some wonderment; and was rewarded by a reply of sorts, and from my very elbow.

“At an hour when most women should dread to be seen abroad, you are lovelier than I might have imagined, Miss Jane Austen of Bath.”

I swiftly turned, in some dismay and confusion, and found Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth on the sand below, seated easily astride a black stallion of fearsome appearance; the animal's nostrils flared as it chuffed at the wind and tossed its powerful head. I stepped backwards involuntarily, and clasped my arms together, shivering somewhat from the morning's chill. In an instant Sidmouth had dismounted and secured the horse; and in another, he had divested himself of his cloak and draped it about my shoulders, so swiftly I had not time to protest.

“The breeze is cold off the water at dawn,” he said, with an indifferent air. “We cannot have you catch your death, however deserved of your impetuous nature. Dagliesh has enough to do at Wings cottage.”

I swept my eyes the length of his powerful figure, and noted that he was in a similarly-disheveled state. His wine-coloured coat was stained with a dark liquid I could not identify, but took to be spirits; his stock was undone, his jaw unshaven, and his hair decidedly ruffled by long exposure to the wind. He might almost have been abroad the entire night through, and be only now upon his road home, and tarrying by the scene at the water's edge; and with a sudden blush, I imagined the hours of dissipation now put behind him.

“What brings you to the Cobb, sir?” I enquired. “And at such an hour!”

“I might ask the same of you, Miss Jane Austen of Bath.” His voice held too much amusement for my fragile pride.

“I thought to observe another unfortunate fisherman, hanged for the Reverend's sins,” I retorted, “and at the hullabaloo below my window, ran out to offer assistance”

“Singular,” Mr. Sidmouth observed coolly. “Very singular indeed. Most women should faint dead away at the mere prospect. But then, you are always a singular personality, Miss Austen. It was just such a sense of purpose in extremity that drove you to my very door, some few days ago.”

For this, I had no answer; and we were silent, observing the activity below in the fitful light. The sun was not yet up, and the industrious figures flitted like shadows in a graveyard. Sidmouth's eyes were narrowed over the sharp hook of his nose, and his lips compressed; and I wondered, as I stole a glance at him sidelong, whether I stood next to the very Reverend, in the act of overseeing his cargo's landing.

“It is a smuggler's goods,” I said, with the most casual air I could effect; “Captain Fielding and I observed the cutter only yesterday, as it jettisoned those very casks.” For the labouring men were wading through the surf with a massive barrel suspended from each shoulder, and heaving them into the carts drawn up to the water; and despite the weight of the contraband, as evidenced in their bowed backs, their progress was swift indeed. In but a moment, I imagined, the last of the waggons should be filled, and the horses turned towards some safe place of hiding in the midst of the downs — but would they be welcomed by a girl in a sweeping red cloak, her spigot lanthorn[52] held high in the dusky dawn?

“Trench brandy.” Sidmouth spoke as though remarking upon the weather. “It shall be turned a proper brown in some hole in the woods, and be on its way to London in a very few days.[53] But you look stupefied, Miss Austen — surely you knew that French brandy, like the cheeks of so many French ladies, does not win its colour from Nature?”

“I am simply all amazement, Mr. Sidmouth,” I rejoined, “that so much brandy exists. There must be enough in those waggons to keep London afloat for a year!”

“Or the members of White's[54], at the very least,” the gentleman replied ironically.

“And what organisation! What dispatch! The Royal Navy should observe these fellows’ methods, the better to order their gunnery crews!”

“See there, the one in the blue cap, who stands aloof along the shoreline?” Mr. Sidmouth's face moved closer to my own, and his left arm extended before my nose, the better to distinguish his object. “He is Davy Forely, this crew's lander; and a better lander is not to be found along the entire Dorset coast.”

“And what, pray, is a lander?”

“The fellow employed by the smuggling captain to organise the men on shore,” Mr. Sidmouth said patiently. “He it is that recruits them, and pays them, and makes certain they are loyal to the game.”

“I had not realised it to be so sophisticated a profession, as to admit of hierarchies,” I replied. “Your knowledge of the whole can hardly be to your credit”

He looked at me with some surprise. “I have known these men some few years, and may call them the most honest band of rogues in the entire Kingdom. Indeed, I have had occasion to depend upon their very efficiency and organisation. They have served my ends whenever needed, and saved my life more than once; and 1 should be churlish indeed, did I not offer them the praise that is their due.”

“Mr. Sidmouth—” I began, in some perturbation at the import of his words; but my speech was stopped in my mouth, by the appearance on the shingle of a gentleman in a good blue coat, who leaned upon a cane, and observed the proceedings with an air of satisfaction — Captain Fielding, without a doubt, and beside him in the darkling dawn, a stranger to my sight — a short, spare man of wizened appearance, and heavy spectacles, and a protruding lower lip, whose gaze was bent upon the shore's activity with the bulbous intensity of a frog's. I had barely noted the Captain's arrival, in the company of this rare fellow, when the latter raised his arm as though in prearranged signal, and with a cry to harrow the bones of the very dead, a company of dragoons in the bright-hued uniform of the Crown descended upon the beach, bayonets extended, pell-mell into the crowd of burdened men.

“Good Lord!” I cried, forgetting myself in the tumult of the moment, “they shall be overrun!”

Sparing neither an oath nor a moment's hesitation, Mr. Sidmouth unloosed his horse, sprang upon its noble back, and threw himself down the Cobb to the shoreline's edge, his black hair streaming behind him. Full into the swarm of dragoons and struggling men he rode, lashing to the left and right with his crop. I stood open-mouthed upon The Walk, aghast at his activity; for the King's men were armed, and I assumed that Sidmouth was not, any more than the smugglers themselves should bear fire-arms — for to do so, I knew, was punishable by death. Clubs only they had in defence of their illegal trade, and these they brandished; but the threat of ball and powder proved too much, and even the hardiest of the lander's crew were soon forced to submit, and shuffled downcast from the surf past the triumphant Captain Fielding. I observed that result of the melee only at its close, however; for I confess the first object of my eyes was Geoffrey Sidmouth and the progress of his plunging horse.

He forged a path through the tumult, and rode to where the lander, Davy Forely, stood, shouting orders to his routed men; and in an instant, had grasped the fellow's shirt back and heaved him behind. With a cry and a lash, the stallion sprang forward, and broke from the chaotic scene; but Sidmouth was not to be let slip so easily. Captain Fielding had observed his course, and now harried a party of three dragoons to spring to the pursuit; and with weapons lowered and animal yells loosed from their lips, the men closed in upon the horse's hindquarters. Forely shouted, and kicked at the faces of the pursuing dragoons; the stallion screamed and reared as Sidmouth struggled with the reins; and as I watched, the master of High Down turned in the saddle, pulled a revolver from his coat, and aimed it, thankfully, in the air. A single ball was fired, and resounded above the duller noises of clubs and bitter oaths; and the dragoons, incredibly, halted where they stood. Mr. Sidmouth is plainly a gentleman, of a higher order than the smugglers’ band; and, unlike them, his possession of a firearm could hardly cause comment; but the King's men were nonetheless amazed. One only shook himself out of his stupor, and levelled a blunderbuss; and though Sidmouth mastered the horse and attempted to flee the shingle, the dragoon let fire a ball. I saw Forely arch his back in pain, his teeth clenched in a terrible grimace; for an instant of suspended breath, I felt certain the lander should slip from the stallion's heaving flanks; but he proved greater than his wound, and clutched the tighter at Sidmouth, who kicked his horse up the slope with a furious oath. In a very little time, he and his clinging passenger gained the streets of town, the dragoons outstripped, and vanished from sight.

I heaved a shuddering sigh, and wondered at the racing of my heart; and attempted, as best I could, to quiet the chaos of my mind — until, recollecting how unseemly was my presence in the midst of such brutish behaviour, I turned and hastened back along the Parade towards the safety of Wings cottage. I cared not whether Captain Fielding had observed my silent form, high above the brawling men — I cared not what he thought of its purpose or propriety — I felt only the bitterest anger towards that gentleman, though for the life of me, I knew not how to reconcile it. The Captain had done what any man of decency and sound principles should do; he had observed the weighting of the cargo in exactly that spot by the Cobb, only the previous afternoon, and he had reported the same to the Revenue men at the nearest opportunity. Having received such excellent intelligence as Captain Fielding was able to provide, the dragoons should have been decidedly remiss in failing to apprehend the smugglers; but it smacked, all the same, of the setting of mantraps on purpose to break a poacher's leg — poor sport indeed, and reflective, in my humble opinion, of a man who delights in mastery at any cost.

“But Sidmouth is yet free,” I murmured, as I opened our garden gate, “though he is the Reverend, without a doubt”; and I swung myself up the path, feeling a sadness and an exhilaration at his reprehensible daring, opened the cottage door, and stepped inside, to my mother's open-mouthed regard — and stopped short, overcome with a blush.

“Whatever have you got about your shoulders, child? And where have you gone in such a state, so early in the morning?”

“I took a turn along The Walk, Mother,” I replied, realising, as I did so, that a smuggler's cloak was yet warm upon my back. “It is the very soul of a September dawn, and I could not be kept indoors.”

“Mind you wake Cassandra in time for the coach,” she called after me, as I mounted the stairs, her puzzlement at my garb replaced by more immediate concerns. I fluttered a hand in the good woman's direction, and hastened towards the comfort of my room — the heady scents of pipe tobacco and brandy, lingering as they will in fine English wool, aflame in my lungs at every breath.