Jane and the Man of the Cloth

by Stephanie Barron

  Sidmouth must, at all costs, be warned.

  I bobbed a curtsey to Crawford, and summoned the falsest of smiles. “I shall be quite all right, I assure you,” I said, and turned away. “I should never sleep easy, Mr. Crawford, did you not hasten to Mr. Dobbin this very moment God forbid that Jane Austen should stand in justice’s way!”

  I RETURNED WITH HASTE TO WLNGS COTTAGE, IN THE EVENT THAT Mr. Crawford followed; for I knew not how narrowly he suspected my motives, or my presence by the gaol, and I would wish to preserve the appearance of credulity in Mr. Sidmouth’s guilt and an innocence of my intended plan. But I knew that Crawford should spare a very little time, and should be mounted on horseback, and must lose nothing to delay. And so I tarried only long enough to discard my cumbersome cloak and bonnet, don my stout boots, and mount the steps to Wings cottage’s back garden—there to slip once more into the night. It was but a scramble up the hillside, and a furtive ducking through the yard of a neighbour, before I found my road; and in a very little while, my hand pressed to a stitch in my side, I was hastening across the exposed expanse of Broad Ledge at low tide, and down into the little cove of Charmouth beach.

  THE ROYALISTS SHOULD NOT HAVE CHOSEN TO SET THE TOWN alight, and free Sidmouth from his chains, only to keep him in hiding several days—no, there was a plan behind all of this, and a purpose, and I little doubted that I should find a party upon the beach, in expectation of the arrival of a ship offshore, and a signal light that should go unremarked against the broader glare of flames to the west. That Crawford might assume as much—or look for Sidmouth to return to the Grange, and from thence make his way down the cliff side to the shingle, seemed equally likely. I had not a moment to lose.

  Caution must be my guide, however; and so, as I drew shuddering breath at the eastern foot of Broad Ledge, my shins much abused by my passage and my gown spattered with sea spray, I attempted to calm my racing heart. I could not know for certain the route Mr. Crawford should take; but his own familiarity with this bit of coast, and the proximity of his fossil digs, must make him a knowing adversary. I strained to make out the beach’s foreground, and observed no movement; but for safety’s sake, I turned into the cliffs, and began to creep my way up the shingle.

  Nothing but the soft susurration of waves upon the shore, did I have for comfort in the darkness; that, and the light patter of raindrops that had begun to fall from the clouds above—slowly at first, and then with a mounting urgency, as though the very heavens wished to save the houses and shops of Lyme, in letting fall a healing flood. My turn of mind was grown quite biblical, I reflected—a propensity for which I must blame Geoffrey Sidmouth, and the discord his circumstances had unleashed. I placed a careful foot upon a rock, in an effort to leap a small sea-pool, and found I had miscalculated; the rock o’erturned, with a sharp clink!y and I stopped in horror of discovery.

  Nothing greeted my misstep, however—no leap to alarm, or sudden gunshot, or cry of warning torn from an anxious throat Had I miscalculated? Was Charmouth beach empty, and Sidmouth lost in the mouth of the Pinny, and far from the effects of Crawford and my warning together? Or—and at this, I felt a shudder of apprehension—was Crawford better apprised of his friend’s whereabouts, and I had lost both Sidmouth and the opportunity to effect his salvation?

  I found my fingers were trembling, and willed myself to complaisance with an effort; but it was not fear that had so unnerved me, but cold—for I was wet through to the skin from the combined effects of rain and spray, and my hair hung in wet rat-tails about my face. I looked the very part of castaway, and must find some shelter soon, or catch my death.

  The cave, I thought; of course. They shall have hidden themselves in the cave, and await the signal of the ship, and be all but invisible to my wandering eye.

  But did Crawford know of the cavern as well? No, I could not believe him ignorant of a feature of the landscape he had occupied so long.

  The gentleman’s fossil pits were before me; I longed to explore their depths, and find there a storeroom, and a quantity of silk of exceptional quality; but such things were better left to the light of day, and Mr. Dobbin’s men. It remained now for me to pass the entrance in as much safety as possible, against the possibility that Mr. Crawford was even now about; and so, despite the cold, I pulled my clinging skirts into a girdle around my waist, exposing my stockinged legs to the elements, and fell to the sand on hands and knees. A stealthy crawl along the shore, with many a pause for safety, and the pits were nearly passed; when a soft nicker nearly starded me out of my wits, and I looked up to find a horse tethered to a rock not three feet from my head. —A dark horse, nearly invisible on such a night, and undoubtedly Mr. Crawford’s.

  But xuhere was the man himself?

  A shudder, part cold and part terror, overcame my body, and I laid my face against the sand. Did he find me here, I should assuredly be lost.

  “Miss Austen,” came a voice from above, “and in so abject a posture! Can this be the light angel of old?”

  I raised my head slowly, in fear for my life—and gazed squarely into the eyes of Lord Harold Trowbridge.2

  IT IS NOT FOR ME HERE TO RELATE THE JOY WITH WHICH I GREETED his narrow, calculating face; nor the shock and relief I felt, nor the questions I plied—for I was denied all such, in being grasped roughly by the arm, and dragged into the safety of a cairn, and held with rapidly beating heart against the wet wool of Trowbridge’s greatcoat.

  “Make no sound,” he commanded in a whisper. “It is as much as your life is worth.”

  I nodded once; and in an instant, observed the confident pacing of a man across the shingle with a cocked pistol in his hand, some twenty feet from the rocks behind which we sat. Crawford. Quite careless of discovery— or confident that he should prevail against it.

  “He is making for the cavern/’ I breathed. The slightest pressure of Trowbridge’s hand warned me against further speech. We waited, with breath suspended, until Crawford had achieved the mouth of the cave—and startled us with a sudden cry.

  “I say! Sidmouth! Are you there? It’s Cholmondeley Crawford. I’ve come to offer my assistance!”

  I stole a glance at Trowbridge. “The man is Sidmouth’s enemy.”

  “I know.”

  “But how?”

  “I have had you followed for some days,” he whispered in reply. “Having observed to whom you spoke, I merely spoke to them in turn. What you have deduced, I have seconded. Crawford is the Reverend, and hopes to put Sidmouth in the way of settling his score with the law.” He rose to a half-crouch, and peered around our sheltering stone. “He is being ushered within. We have not a moment to lose. I doubt not that the law follows hard upon his heels, and that he expects to hold Sidmouth and his men at gunpoint until he might hand them over to the dragoons, and pose as hero of the day.”

  “But are not the Royalists armed?”

  “It shall avail them nothing, if they are taken by surprise. Stay here in safety, and do not move until I return.” He took a step out from the rock, but I clutched at his coattails immediately.

  “You would not leave me here!”

  “I have no choice, Miss Austen,” Lord Harold said impatiently. “You must find your fortitude where you may.”

  “I am coming with you.”

  “You cannot.”

  “I must,” I insisted, and rose to my feet. “If you do not allow it, I shall scream at the full pitch of my lungs, and bring Crawford down upon you.”

  We had parried closely before, but never in the presence of such mortal danger. Tonight Trowbridge was neither amused nor incensed at my insistence; he merely calculated a measure past it, and handed me his pistol. I had never held such a thing before, and had not the slightest notion of how to discharge it.

  “It is loaded with ball,” Trowbridge said. “Keep it pointed in the air, and fire at will if the dragoons approach. In this you should be performing a dearer service, and prove less of an encumbrance, than if you dragged at my heels. No
t another word!” he commanded; and was gone as swiftly as a star at sunrise.

  I gave him a few moments; observed his lean form scuttle along the beach with bent back and arms akimbo, for all the world like a retreating crab; and then turned as noiselessly as I might, and began the slow ascent up the cliff’s face.

  I DID NOT EXPEND MUCH THOUGHT IN RESOLVING LORD HAROLD’S presence upon Charmouth beach, or his admission that he had had me followed. Sidmouth’s support of the Royalists, as I had already divined, had as its object the destruction of Napoleon’s reign; and that Harold Trowbridge, servant of the Crown, should be behind the Grange’s projects, should hardly astonish. Tho “the Royal Navy stood vigilant against invasion, and the Sea Fencibles3 were roused along the coasdine, how much more easy should all of Britain sleep, if the tyrant were torn from his throne, and France no longer in thrall! What lives should be saved, at the expense of this one life! Others, did they know of it, might speak with shock of statecraft so dishonourably conducted, behind the veil of proper diplomacy; and were the Royalists unmasked, and Lord Harold’s part in their skulduggery exposed, he should bring down upon his head only the usual measure of disapprobation his activities generally enjoyed. But I may, perhaps, look more kindly on Sidmouth and his men, for having two brothers much exposed to the caprice of war; and count as nothing the cloak and the dagger deployed to secure their continued health and safety. In truth, I quite admired His Majesty for undertaking such a course.4

  After perhaps ten minutes of struggle, I gained the cliff’s head; and from there, it was but a short scramble to Captain Fielding’s garden, and the wilderness temple. I glanced swiftly around me—at the still shadows cloaking the empty house, and the rank-upon-rank of dormant rose bushes, and the discerning eyes of the stone wood nymphs—and without a second thought, secure in such isolation, I plunged into the tool-shed and made for the tunnel’s very mouth.

  THE DARKNESS OF THE PASSAGE WAS AS ABSOLUTE AS I REMEMBERED; I felt my way down the initial flight of steps, and along the sloping ground, with as much haste as discretion allowed. I could not recall with certainty how many minutes were required for the completion of the distance; but that it should be far less than the ten demanded of a direct assault upon the cliff’s face, I confidently assumed. And indeed, a little over half that time had elapsed, when I found myself confronted with the wooden door, and the faint line of light at its edges, that proclaimed me come to the cavern itself. I placed my ear against it, and stood as still as a mouse.

  “At the very least, Crawford, allow Mademoiselle LeFevre to go free,” came a grim voice; I recognised Sidmouth, and knew that his every illusion regarding Crawford’s purpose must be now o’erthrown. “She has done nothing to deserve arrest, and her brother is wounded, as you may plainly see. Send them out to the boat—at pistol point, if need be—and keep me hostage to their word. I may fully vouch that they shall depart without a backwards glance, if I so command it”

  “Do you think me a fool? Should I allow a boat to land, and armed men with it, before the dragoons are come? 1 have not spent a decade in flight of the law, to fall victim to another rogue. No, Sidmouth, you shall remain within, and the signal go unsent, and the boat remain offshore.”

  There was a faint groan of suffering—from the injured Philippe, 1 supposed. It was because of the boy that I had assumed Sidmouth would seek hiding so near to the Grange, rather than in the wilds of the Pinny, or simply flying along the Crewkerne road. He was not the sort to leave his ailing cousin, and since any attempt at removal by waggon should delay them insupportably, they must go by boat, and be borne swiftly out of harm’s way, or die in the attempt.

  There was a rapid cursing in French from Seraphine, and the sound of a woman spitting.

  “You may rest easy, Mademoiselle,” came Crawford’s voice. “By my lights, we have not long to wait”

  Where, oh, where, was Lord Harold?

  “What was that?” Crawford’s voice held a note of apprehension. “A sound, like a rock falling.” A pause, during which I assume the Reverend peered cautiously from the cavern’s mouth. “Not the dragoons—they should have no need for stealth,” he mused. “Some other, then. Sidmouth!”

  Footsteps crossed the cavern swifdy, and I heard with a shudder a cry of pain from Seraphine and the cocking of a pistol. “Your beloved dies, unless you speak the truth. What manner of man is beyond the cavern mouth? Is it Dagliesh, your black dog? Or one of your lily-bearers, perhaps? Out with it!”

  “You had better keep your ball for the defence of your prize,” Sidmouth drily rejoined, “than spend it in terrorizing my cousin. I have no notion who might be beyond.”

  He spoke strongly, with much of bravado; but there was something like hope in his voice. A sudden indrawing of breath, and an ill-suppressed whimper from Seraphine, was his only reward.

  A gunshot rang out, and I jumped, in a fever of anxiety that Crawford had carried out his ruthless aim; but even as the thought occurred, I knew the ball to have been fired from some distance, the beach beyond, perhaps, and not from within the cavern. It must, it could only be, Lord Harold. There was the sound of a scuffle, and a dragging of a body across the floor of the cave, and then Crawford’s voice was very nearly at my ear.

  “The girl comes with me, Sidmouth, as proof against your aims. If I am pursued, she dies—even if I must die with her. But if your man outside makes no attempt to follow, you have my word that she shall live.”

  I knew with sharp certainty that Crawford intended some retreat up the very tunnel whose doorway I commanded, with Seraphine as his hostage, and I felt my heart race. I pressed myself against the tunnel wall, my breath suspended, and raised Lord Harold’s pistol high in both hands. 1 should have only one chance, or be overcome.

  The door was thrust wide, and Crawford backed into the passage, his left arm hooked about the throat of Seraphine, who struggled futilely, with rolling eyes; and in his right hand, an upraised gun, that trembled with a cowardly anxiety.

  So much? saw, before I brought the butt of Lord Harold’s pistol down upon his skull, with all the force in my slender frame and a guttural yell that shocked even my overwrought senses—and Crawford swayed a moment on his feet, then crumpled to the ground.

  What hullabaloo did then ensue! It was Sidmouth first who vaulted into the passage, followed swiftly by one or two men I judged to be French, and in their train, Lord Harold Trowbridge, with something very like amazement on his narrow face, and a touch of amusement in his cold grey eyes. Seraphine had sprung free, and thrown herself in Sidmouth’s arms; but it was to me he looked, over her golden head, and spoke all his astonished gratitude.

  As for myself—the apprehension of the moment having given way to energetic activity, I found myself with tremors now renewed, and a shaking at the knees, and all but crumpled to the insensible Mr. Crawford’s side; but found support, at the last, in the strong arm of a French stranger, who helped me from the tunnel and into the comparative freedom of the cavern’s depths.

  “My compliments, Miss Austen,” Lord Harold said briefly, joining us. “Mademoiselle—the signal?”

  “The boy has it,” Seraphine managed, from the folds of Sidmouth’s shirt.

  Trowbridge turned to Toby, who leaned in a shadow on his crutches, and held out his hand for the spout lanthorn. He waited only for the striking of a match, and was as swiftly gone to the beach.

  A groan, and I turned to observe Mr. Crawford regaining his wits; and saw that he was firmly trussed in rope, with his hands bound behind.

  “Leave him,” Sidmouth tersely ordered his companions. “Lord Harold shall deal with him. Let us bear Philippe to the beach. If the dragoons come before the boat, at least we may make our stand in the open, and die nobly at the last.” He gave a shake to Seraphine, who released him with a sigh, and bent to the task of removing her brother, who lay on a litter in the very midst of the cave. I drew a deep breath, and passed a hand over my draggled locks. The flight had been planned with extreme simplic
ity; a few sacks only lay about the floor, filled, I supposed, with but a change of dress and provisions against the journey. I reached for one, and carried it to the cavern’s mouth.

  Trowbridge stood upon the shingle, careless of all who might observe him, a pocket glass to his eye, his every fibre straining towards the horizon. “The boat!” he cried. “It advances!”

  The rain that had begun perhaps a half-hour before had become a veritable storm—smugglers’ weather, I recalled with a half-smile—and the suspense that characterised the skiff’s approach was such as I hope never to endure again. Twice, it was nearly capsized, but for a manful pulling at the oars, as it attempted to breast the surf at the bar; and once, an oarsman was swept overboard with a terrible cry, and was only retrieved by his mates with difficulty, at the loss of several moments’ precious time. But at last it achieved the beach, with Lord Harold and Sidmouth running into the surf to their thighs’ height to aid its approach; and the Frenchmen bent to Philippe’s litter.

  At that moment, Seraphine gave a cry. I turned to observe her uplifted hand, pointing back along the cliff’s edge; what seemed an army of men was descending the road to the fossil works, swarming over the beach and heading in our direction. The men sprang to the boat; Lord Harold heaved with all his wiry strength at the prow, and Sidmouth swung Seraphine to safety amidships. He turned, half-standing, half-kneeling, in the boat, and searched for my face.

  “Jane!” he cried. “What we owe, nothing might repay! God keep you, all the days of your life! And may you find the happiness denied to me, with your loss—”

  I could not answer, for the tears streaming down my face, and slowly raised a hand in salute. Lord Harold surged out into the waves; the oarsmen bent to their burden, and with an agonising slowness, the boat turned towards the open water beyond the bar, fighting, fighting, against the storm.