Jane and the Man of the Cloth

by Stephanie Barron

  “My dearest Jane!” she now cried, as she threw open the bedroom door. A swift embrace, as from a small whirlwind, and she had moved to my sister’s bedside. “And poor, dear Cassandra. Does your head ache very much? Am I disturbing you dreadfully? No matter. We shall have you to rights in little time, I am sure of it You cannot do better than sea air, you know, for all manner of illness; and if that does not cure you, we shall whisk you away to Farquhar. He is quite the rage in London, I assure you, and has done wonders for my complaints—though I did commit the betise of addressing him as Doctor, ‘on our first meeting, when it should have been ‘Sir Walter.’”

  “You have cut your hair, Eliza,” I said faindy, in some wonderment; and, indeed, her lovely dark head was quite shorn all around, and worn in a mass of curls. A peach silk turban, with a jet-black feather, topped the whole.

  “Quite a la mode, is it not?” she rejoined delightedly, twirling her sheer muslin gown upon the drugget for our edification. ‘Or should I say—? la guillotine, for that is what they call it in London. Having cheated the infernal machine once already,4 I thought nothing now of parading my lovely neck. I quite recommend it to you both. The sensation of lightness, in ridding oneself of masses of hair, is indescribable.”

  “For my part, I thank you, but no,” I rejoined gendy, with a scandalised glance at Cassandra. We both of us have dark brown tresses that reach well past our knees; in truth, I can almost stand upon my hair, and my sister’s is little shorter. I should feel worse than naked, did I part with it; I should suffer almost as from the loss of a limb. But Eliza met with, and let slip, most things in life with equal carelessness; and I could say in all honesty that the coiffure’s gruesome style became her. I had never known her to adopt anything that did not.

  “Eliza, my dear, you see how we are fixed,” said my mother as she walked briskly into the room. “You see how unbearably cramped we are. We cannot hope to keep you, nor Henry. You are intending the Golden Lion, I suppose?”

  “Naturally, madam,” Eliza replied, and pecked my mother upon the cheek. “I have only just setded it that dear Jane shall walk with me there, that we might spare Cassandra our chatter. Her head aches fearfully, you know, though she never says a word.”

  “There, my love,” my mother said with a start and a look for Cassandra, “I was almost forgetting. The young man who attended you earlier—Dervish, was it?—”

  “Dagliesh,” Cassandra supplied.

  “—begged that I should give you draughts of this green-botded stuff whenever the pains take you.” My mother adjusted her spectacles to peer at a slip of paper she held in her hand. “Two spoonfuls in warm water,’ so Mr. Dawdle said, and seemed quite anxious I should get it right. He repeated it above three times, as though I were a woman of little memory and less sense. The meadow flowers were not to be steeped, as I had at first thought, but are to brighten your room.”

  “Flowers, Mother?” I enquired, looking behind the door.

  “Oh, Lord,” she breathed, “here I’ve left them below, when I thought to come up expressly for the purpose of setting them at your bedside. A lovely posy they are, and picked by Mr. Dawes himself. I believe you have made a conquest, my dear.”

  “Though she cannot recollect of whom,” Eliza whispered, her eyes sparkling with fun.

  “Madam,” I called after my mother’s swiftly retreating back, “do not neglect to bring hot water and a spoon, for the administering of Cassandra’s medicine!”

  FROM OUR COTTAGE TO THE GOLDEN LION WAS A PALTRY DISTANCE, and at my expressing a desire to stretch my legs a little— for, in truth, I had been so much taken up with my sister’s care, that I had not spared a moment for the town—Eliza declared herself ready to try the Cobb, and accordingly, we joined arms and set off down the length of stone Walk, heads into the sea wind.

  The Cobb is a massive rampart that effects to create a harbour, where none should otherwise exist, the seas surrounding this stretch of the Dorset coast being quite prone to sudden storms that eat away at the land. There are some who profess to remember land-falls about the town—sudden shiftings in the cliff, that cause earth and houses and all to slide into the sea, a most fearsome manifestation of Providence. But whatever its purpose, the Cobb is chiefly of use in being walked upon—by all manner of people, at all times of day. There are stairs ascending to the breakwater’s upper edge, that only a foolish child or a brave fisherman should attempt;5 but the lower, broader way is recently improved, and a walk along its stones is ideally suited to the exercise of a lady. Here Eliza and I braced ourselves against the blow, which tugged and swept at her feathered turban, and brought an exhilaration to both our strides. What glory, in facing once more the sea! What life, in its billowing waves—ever-changing, ever-roving, to lands and climes of which I know nothing! When I gaze out at the endless horizon, I know a little of my brother Frank’s days, in the blockade off the coast of France, or Charles’s as he dreams of the East Indies;6 what freedom such men possess, who call the world their home!

  But at the thought of France, 1 was seized by a memory and a notion at once.

  “Eliza,” I said, as we ploughed ahead against the wind, “how great still is your command of the French language?”

  As great as my enjoyment of it, Jane—which is to say, excessively good.”

  I had observed it to find its way into your conversation.”

  “Oh,thai, my dear—when one has a reputation for liveliness, one is forever ejaculating bits of French and Italian. It passes for breeding, in some parts of town. But you cannot mean betise,” she said, as if suddenly struck. “Even you must know it to mean a stupidity.’

  “I thought it a faux pas,” I rejoined, with a hint of dryness, at which Eliza laughed aloud.

  “How I have missed you,” she cried, patting my arm. “You must come to London this winter, my dear, and throw yourself in the way of some dashingly handsome murderer, so that I may have the enjoyment of following in your train as you go about exposing the man’s vileness. In fact, a propos of vile men, I have several we might pretend are murderers, and expose for the fun of it Nothing has been so delicious, I assure you, since you ended the Scargrave business so tidily. I have been quite overcome with ennui; but then, I always am in the summer. One so wants a little scandal, now and then, that one is almost tempted to make it oneself!”7

  “Now, Eliza—” I cautioned.

  “Oh, never mind, cherie. Unmixed felicity is rarely found in life, but your Henry knew when he married me that I was unaccustomed to control, and should probably behave very awkwardly, did he attempt it; and so, like the wise man he is, he makes my will his own.8 And thus we get along quite happily.”

  “I am relieved to hear it.”

  “Of course you are. You mistrust the married state so well, you have never ventured near it yourself—and may be forgiven for assuming it to be the ruin of all those around you.”

  “I deserve neither such praise, nor such censure,Eliza!” I cried. “I should gladly have assayed the estate, had it been offered by a gendeman for whom I could feel sincere affection. But in cases where such affection was possible, the gentleman did not offer; and when it was the reverse, I could not accept.”

  “I am very sorry for it, Jane,” Eliza replied soberly, “and for the unconscious cruelty of my words. I meant but to make a sport of men, in holding them up to your supposed derision; but I ended by wounding you.’

  “I, et us think no more about it,” I replied, mortified at my own susceptibility; were my feelings regarding my single state, at the advanced age of eight-and-twenty, so exceedingly raw? But I shook off such thoughts and returned to my first subject. “Regarding your mastery of French,” I said. “Can you give me the sense of a particular word, did T attempt to repeat it?”

  I can but try.”

  “Very well. I believe it was lascargon.” A French word spoken in the drawing-room at High Down Grange.

  Eliza’s brows lowered over her eyes with a pretty air of penet
ration. “But that means nothing, my dear Jane. You cannot have got it right.”

  “Think, Eliza. What might I have heard?”

  “Lascargon. Lascargon. I suppose it might have been les garfons—the boys—or La Gascogney a woman from Gas-cony, a province of France.”

  “That could very well be!” 1 cried, considering Seraphine. “But why did he not simply call her by name?”

  We had achieved the end of the Cobb, and were thrust quite far out into the sea; a drenching plume of spray burst and churned against the rocks at our feet, and in the distance, a cutter sped by under full sail, its stem harried by seabirds. The breeze off the waves was decidedly stiff; and after a summer of Bath’s closeness and poor drains, the smells of a city given over to medicinal waters, I revelled in Lyme’s freshness, and breathed deep.

  Eliza was not so sanguine. “Jane, my dear, I am all to pieces in this wind,” she declared, turning about with a hand to her turban, “and your confusion of pronouns has quite worn out my patience. Let us turn round, and find our way to the Golden Lion, while you explain yourself.”

  And so, as the shadows of afternoon grew longer on the Cobb, and the gulls wheeled and dipped above our heads, I told Eliza of High Down Grange, and the mysteries of a lanthorn on the cliff edge at night.

  “And you cannot place the girl Seraphine’s purpose in the household,” Eliza mused, her eyes upon the stones. “She seems neither a domestic nor a lady. Well! There is only one possibility remaining! She is his little French lovebird—though why he dresses her in sacks, and sends her about the shingle at night, I cannot undertake to say. You have once again found yourself the company of a rogue, my dear Jane, and we must know more of his character before such questions may be resolved.”

  “I do not think you have the right of it, Eliza,” I protested. “Seraphine had not the look of a mistress.”

  “And what is that, in your understanding? An open vulgarity, a blowsy aspect, a decided want of taste? I assure you, the chere amies I have known—including my late husband’s—were hardly as the novels have painted them.” At my expression of horror, Eliza threw back her head and laughed. “I shock you, Jane; I am sure that I shock you; but, after all, that is my purpose in life. I continue to exist merely for the upsetting of Austen conventions. And when are we likely to encounter this most intriguing gendeman? At the Lyme Assembly?”

  “I should not think Mr. Sidmouth prone to dancing. He wants the sort of easy temper that finds diversion in frivolity.”

  “Perhaps,” Eliza replied. “Perhaps. But I would charge you to take care with your appearance on the morrow, in the event Mr. Sidmouth comes.”

  “You cannot believe me to wish for the attentions of such a man!” I protested.

  “I can, and I do. Your air, when you speak of him, is hardly easy, and you were ever a girl to find the eccentric character more engaging than the open. You delight hi mystery, my dear Jane; and Mr. Sidmouth has piqued your interest. Admit it! Your reddened cheeks even now bespeak your susceptibilities/’

  Indeed they do not” My voice was sharp—but then, I was rather mortified. “They are merely brightened by the wind.”

  “I could find it in my heart to believe you, my dear, Eliza said comfortably, “did not the wind blow to our backs at present.”

  I HAD REASON TO PONDER ELIZA’S WORDS WHEN ONCE I HAD SEEN her safely into the care of her devoted maid, Manon, and her little dog, Pug, in the rooms Henry had engaged at the Golden Lion. I was returned once more to the street, and only steps from my cottage gate, when a brief scene unfolding near a shopfront opposite, drew my curious eye. A flash of a scarlet cloak, a stream of unbound blond hair, and the angelic features of Seraphine—and behind her, Mr. Sidmouth, his brows drawn down in an expression of angry contempt. Another man—a common labourer, and quite astoundingly tipsy, by his wavering appearance—was lounging in the shop doorway, an unattractive leer upon his face. That he had only just unburdened himself of a phrase of abuse, I read in his countenance; and knew Sidmouth’s anger to be the result. Seraphine, to her credit, appeared unmoved. Her noble head was high, and her carriage graceful; she moved, as always, as though possessed of wings. I bent my head, much intrigued by what had passed, but desirous of drawing no attention from their quarter; and in a moment I had gained the safety of the cottage door. One further glance sufficed to tell me that the intimates of High Down were turned the corner; and I breathed a sigh of relief. But why? Why this emotion at the sight of him, and in Iier company? A man of whom I know next to nothing, and have even less reason to think well of; a man so little likely to prove congenial to my sensibility or expectations? The ways of the mind and heart are sometimes past all understanding.

  Except, I am reminded, for the Elizas of this world.

  1 It was customary in Austen’s time to stay at home on evenings with little moonlight, and accept engagements for those nights when the moon would be full. Travel along unlit roads could otherwise be quite hazardous. —Editor’s note.

  2 In Austen’s day, relations by marriage were generally referred to as relations of blood. Although the term in-inw existed, it was more of an affectation than common usage. —Editor’s note.

  3 The Pump Room was the social center of Bath, where many of the residents and visitors congregated daily to drink the medicinal waters pumped up for their refreshment, and to stroll about in close converse with their acquaintance. To be seen in the Pump Room of a morning, and in the Upper or Lower Assembly Rooms at night, was indispensable to the conduct of one’s social life. —Editor’s note.

  4 Eliza’s first husband, the French comte Jean Capot de Feuillide, was guillotined in 1794. Eliza retained her title of Comtesse de Feuillide even after she married Henry Austen, out of habit and a liking for its aristocratic air. —Editor’s note.

  5 Austen probably refers here to the stairs she later used in her final novel, Persuasion, in which Louisa Musgrove falls in jumping from one level of the Cobb to another. —Editor’s note.

  6 Francis Austen, born between Cassandra and Jane in the order of the Austens’ eight children, and Charles, the youngest child, were both officers in the Royal Navy. Frank Austen would end his life as Admiral Sir Francis Austen, Admiral of the Fleet. —Editor’s note.

  7 Eliza refers to the first of Jane Austen’s detective memoirs, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. —Editor’s note.

  8 Eliza de Feuillide used words very similar to these to describe her marriage in a surviving letter written from Ipswich in 1798. —Edi tor’s note.

  6 September 1804

  ∼

  CASSANDRA AND I WERE ROUSED FROM SLEEP AT DAWN BY THE HUE and cry of a large party of men; and when I had stumbled to the window, and o’erlooked the lightening Cobb,1 I found them to be racing back along its length in an attitude of urgency. I might have spared a thought, in my fuddled state, to wonder at such a noise; but, in truth, I merely felt all the strength of honest resentment, in being roused so early by a party of brawling flsherfolk. Though I have lived more than three years in Bath, and must be accustomed to the sounds of a city’s daybreak, I have not yet forgot the felicity of early-morning birdsong, and the gender down of the country. And so I gaped, and glared once more upon the beach, in the direction from which the men were running—and started where I stood.

  For the first rays of a rising sun had picked out the end of the stone pier, to reveal erected there a scaffolding ominous in its outlines, even from the distance at which I beheld it; and depending from its crossbar, what appeared to be a bundle of clothing, swaying dejectedly in the stiff breeze off the sea. It must—it could not be other—than a parody of a man; a straw form, perhaps, for burning in effigy—-or so my bewildered thoughts insisted, as I gazed with palpitating heart. For if it were truly a man, then he could not be otherwise than hanged. And how a man should meet his end in so extraordinary a manner— in a place I well knew to have been free of a gibbet only the previous afternoon—was past all understanding.

&
nbsp; As I watched, a wave rose up and broke whitely against the rocks, drenching the crossbar’s nerveless form, and the cries of the fleeing fishermen drew nearer.

  “What is it, Jane?” came Cassandra’s sleepy voice behind me. “A fire?”

  “Nothing so general in its destruction,” I said slowly, “though perhaps as inexplicable.”

  WHEN I HAD DRESSED, AND BADE THE HOUSEMAID, JENNY, TO SUPPLY Cassandra with tea and toast, I slipped on my bonnet— which was Leghorn straw, quite new, with an upturned brim and violet ribbons—and ventured out of doors. I had told my mother I wished to purchase a pair of gloves, my own being unhappily spotted from the effects of Monday night’s rain; but, in truth, I intended to find what the townsfolk might tell me, of the body at the end of the Cobb.

  I opened the picket gate, and turned onto Broad Street, making my way with care towards the linendraper’s on Pound. Harding and Powell’s is a bow-fronted building with a cheerful entry, much frequented by the Austens the previous year; indeed, the fifteen yards required for Cassandra’s pink muslin, which I should wear this very evening, were purchased in the shop. But beyond the delights of its lengths of silk and lawn, its ravishing soutaches and braids, its pretty little bunches of purple grapes, ideally suited for the adorning of a straw hat with violet ribbons—the shop was the centre of gossip, according to the temper of its principal clerk, a fellow by the name of Mr. Milsop.