Jane and the Man of the Cloth jam-2

by Stephanie Barron

  “But my troubles is none o’ yer concern, miss. What you want o’ me?”

  Any further attempt at explanation on my part was immediately forestalled by the street door's being once more thrust open, to reveal a massive fellow with a belligerent face leering upon the stoop. “Eh, Mag,” he said, by way of salutation. “I've brought you summat nice.”

  “Not now, Joe. I've company.”

  “Company?” The fellow spat out the word like a wounded animal, and slid into the room without need of further invitation. The newcomer was burly and forceful, a fisherman from the look of his callused hands and the odour that pervaded his person, and he was clearly all but overcome with the anger engendered by his fears. It required all my fortitude not to flee through the open door, so menacing was his aspect; and yet, some sensibility that Maggie Tibbit should not be left alone with such a man, urged me to stand my ground.

  “Is that Matt Hurley slidin’ up yer skirts again, and Bill not dead a fortnight?” Joe advanced upon his object, his broad hands clenching convulsively.

  “You cared little enough for waitin’ yersel, for all yer talkin’. Now get out. I've a lady to visit.”

  As if acknowledging my presence for the first time— though how he could have overlooked the alien fact of cleanliness in that squalid room, I do not know — Joe swung his head around and met my gaze. An instant's mortification ensued, before the fellow pulled off his cap, and shifted uneasily on his feet; and then, blushing bright red, he backed his way to the door.

  “I'll be leavin’ yer, Mags, until a better time, beggin’ yer pardon, miss,” he said, and felt behind him for the latch.

  “You'll be leavin’ me for good, Joe Smollet — and good riddance to ye,” Maggie shot back, lifting high her youngest, the baby Jack. “If I could count the days you've promised me that length o’ silk, as you knows I've a need fer, and taken your bit o’ cuddle—”

  “I've got that silk right outside, I have, all done up in paper, like,” Joe protested, halfway to the street

  A calculating look o'erspread the slattern's features. “‘Ere now, Joe, don't be so asty,” she called. “You just leave that parcel ‘ere, so's it don't go wanderin’ with the first cove as passes by, and I'll tend to you proper, I will.”

  Joe shot me a glance of embarrassment, but was nonetheless unequal to the force of Maggie's charms. He ducked back inside to deposit something wrapped in heavy brown paper in the entryway. “See you, Mags,” he said, with a sheepish nod for me, and thankfully pulled-to the door to the street

  “‘E's not a bad sort, is Joe.” Maggie swooped down upon the package and shoved it under a truckle bed that sagged in one corner, its covers askew. “Woman's gotta live, don't she, and all these mouths to feed?”

  “Indeed,” I said. “A length of silk should go far in filling your children's stomachs.”

  “S'not like I'm a-goin’ to wear it.” She sat back on her heels, face black with mistrust

  “You would sell it, then?” I enquired, as suddenly enlightened.

  “Joo interested?”

  Here was an opening to goodwill, indeed. I surveyed the widow's countenance and considered what I could afford. “I should like to see your silk, Mrs. Tibbit”

  The package was swiftly drawn forth, somewhat dusty from its brief repose beneath the bed, and the fastenings undone for my benefit. Maggie pulled out a quantity of glorious stuff, of a peach-coloured hue much like Eliza's silk, and but wanting a feathered turban to complete the effect. I felt my heart lurch — what a thing it should be, to own such a gown!

  “And the usual price of Mr. Smollet's goods …?” I enquired.

  Maggie smiled, and then, as if recollecting her poor teeth, raised a hand to her lips. “That's rare stuff, that is.”

  “I could find as good in the shops of Pound Street.”

  “Not for what I'll charge ye.”

  “Which would be?” I looked at her over the fabric's edge.

  “Five guineas.”

  I thrust the stuff in her arms and picked up my reticule. “Ridiculous. I am no fool, Mrs. Tibbit, and should never pay for the privilege of acting like one.”

  “Three, then, and that's my final offer,” Maggie said without a second thought.

  I measured out the silk according to the span of my arms, and found it to be roughly fifteen yards; enough for a gown with a ravishing train, the very essence of elegant attire. With Eliza's suggestions as to cut and fashion, it should all but make my winter balls — and I knew as well as Maggie that three guineas was but a fraction of what I should pay at Mr. Milsop's, for silk more legitimately won. If my conscience was besieged at this notion, I comforted myself with another thought — three guineas should go far in feeding the little Tibbits, if the sum survived their mother's fondness for the bottle.

  “Done at three guineas,” I said, arranging the silk in careful folds, “if you will tell me how you came by this stuff.”

  Her eyes shifted, and she snatched back the fabric. “‘ad it off'uv Joe, same's you saw yersel.”

  “And he had it for services rendered, I imagine, to the Reverend himself.”

  The effect of my words was extraordinary, and beyond my expectations. Maggie Tibbit all but collapsed upon the bed, my precious peach stuff crushed in her hands, and began to shake in an alarming fashion.

  “Mrs. Tibbit!” I cried. “I fear you are unwell!”

  She gestured desperately beyond me, at a loss for words.

  I whirled about, and espied the brandy bottle still open upon the settee, and fetched it to her side. Several swigs having been consumed by the woman, she recovered her senses enough to fix upon me baleful eyes, and say with authority, “We never mentions that Reverend's name in this Ouse.”

  “But he is known to you?” I crouched down at her feet, the better to fix her gaze.

  “Hah!” she ejaculated. “As if the Reverend'd be known to the likes o’ Maggie Tibbit. No one knows ‘oo ‘e is, much less me. But my Bill knew,” she added darkly. “My pore Bill saw ‘is face, I reckon, just afore ‘e died.”

  “You believe the Reverend responsible for your husband's hanging?”

  She nodded and affected a melancholy air.

  I hesitated — aware, at the moment, of the depth of my ignorance. “Mrs. Tibbit — forgive me — but was an inquest into your husband's death recently held by the coroner Mr. Carpenter?”

  Her head shot up, and her eyes glittered with malice. “Death by misadventure,” she pronounced. “As if I don't know what ‘at means. It means they ain't askin’, and nobody's steppin’ up to tell. There's no justice for the likes o’ us, miss. That's for yer coroner!” And she spat into a corner of the room.

  “But how is it you believe your husband a victim of the Reverend?” I probed, after an instant's painful pause.

  “I knows as he was. All on account o’ that ship what went aground last spring, and Bill never the same since.”

  “Aground?” At this, I did not need to affect surprise. “One of the Reverend's vessels?”

  The widow nodded. “The Royal Belle it was. Bill worked as spotter, see, at the Lookout over to Puncknowle way.[66] He was s'posed to work the signals that night, and a powerful foggy one it was. But somethin’ musta went wrong, acos he never left the Three Cups. The Belle was grounded and lost with all hands aboard. Some local boys was among the crew, and some Frenchies, too, from the clothes they was wearing when they washed up on Chesnil beach. The Reverend never forgive my Bill for tarrying over ‘is tankard, and he ‘ad ‘is blood fer it.”

  With a cursory look for dirt and a stifled sigh at the inevitability of stains, I drew forward the room's one good chair and settled myself near the widow. “What happened the night of the ship's grounding, Mrs. Tibbit?”

  She shrugged, and ran a broad hand through her unbound hair, the impudent belligerence overlaid, of a sudden, with profound weariness. I knew then that for all her swagger, Maggie Tibbit had not done with mourning her murdered husband. I sile
ndy pressed her hand. “Bill ‘ud never speak of it,” she said. “No matter how much I asked. Swore he'd made a mistake, is all, same's ever'body else, and cryin’ wouldn't make it undone.”

  “But did he know he was to work the smugglers’ signals that night at Puncknowle? And was his staying at the Three Cups a deliberate omission, or merely an oversight?”

  “Folks ‘round ‘ere would ‘ave it he did it for blunt,” Maggie said.

  “For — blunt?”

  “Coin. Money. That he was paid to ground the Belle,” the woman explained patiently. “But my Bill'd never do that. He'd friends on that cutter, and they never come back. Tell that to Nancy Harding.”

  “I'm sorry, Mrs. Tibbit, I don't—”

  “Nancy's the bitch as nailed the pullet to my door. Wouldn't give ‘er the pleasure o’ takin’ it off, I wouldn't. It can stay there, and look as foolish as Nancy ‘ersel, by my mind.”

  I sat back, thoroughly at sea. “And why should the woman do such a thing?”

  “‘Er son Bob was on the boat. Just fifteen, ‘e was. I'm not sayin’ as she ain't got a right to mourn, same as all o’ them — but a chicken?”

  “The grounding occurred last spring, you said, and yet your husband's hanging came only two weeks ago. How do you account for it?”

  She shrugged, and pulled herself to her feet, the soiled dressing gown sagging about her hips. “Screwin’ up their courage, more'n likely. Nancy Harding was, for certain sure — it took er long enough to show my Bill for a coward. She only stuck that chicken there the night afore he got took.”

  “As a sort of — signal?” I enquired, with sudden inspiration.

  “Dunno.”

  I paused for reflection, and allowed the sense of this to sink in. “You speak of your husband's being taken. Did his murderers come to this very door?”

  She shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. “? was at the Three Cups, same as always, ‘cept that night ‘e din’ come ‘ome. I reckon they bamboozled ‘im on the street, when be ‘adn't much fight in im, and strung ‘im up when no one was to see.”

  Remembering the image of that fateful dawn — the surf crashing whitely over the gibbet and its terrible burden— I shivered involuntarily. How horrible to meet one's end at the hands of neighbours, and to know that pleas for help will avail one nothing, when the weight of community opinion has condemned one already to death! I understood, now, the positioning of the gibbet — Bill Tibbit had been executed in the very midst of the furious waters, in a manner to recall the deaths his carelessness had caused.

  “Who is likely to have served your husband so rough a justice, Mrs. Tibbit?”

  She eyed me warily over the lip of her brandy bottle, which must be fast approaching its dregs. “Why d'you want to know all this? What's my Bill to you?”

  I hesitated, as if in consideration of her trustworthiness, then leaned a little closer. “You may have heard of Captain Percival Fielding,” I began.

  Her eyes lit up, and she licked her lips with avidity. “‘Im what got popped out on the Charmouth road.”

  “Exactly so.”

  “And?” She was all enthusiasm for the intelligence.

  “I was on terms of some intimacy with the Captain.” I cast my eyes downwards, to suggest a nearer interest than I felt The attitude was not lost upon my interlocutor.

  “Sweet on ‘im, eh? And lookin’ fer answers?” Maggie slapped her thighs with relish. “Sad to say, miss, but you won't find ‘em near my Bill.”

  “Your husband never knew Captain Fielding?”

  “Not as I could say.”

  I allowed my disappointment to be obvious. “I had thought it possible your husband performed a job of work for the Captain….”

  “And if be did?” Maggie replied, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “There's still no call to kill ‘im.”

  “But did your husband do some work for Captain Fielding — in his garden perhaps?”

  She shrugged, with infinite disregard. “Makes no odds. My Bill drank what little ‘is labour fetched, and me never the wiser.”

  I cast about for another approach. “Did your husband claim any of the local men as particular friends, Mrs. Tibbit?”

  “A few,” she replied. “Leastways, until the Royal Belle went down.”

  “And might he have worked in tandem with them?”

  “In what?”

  “Might they have gone out to work together?”

  Her expression of bewildered irritation cleared of a sudden. “Matt Hurley,” she declared.

  “The man who” — I hesitated, then found more acceptable words — “the man whom Mr. Smollet seemed to find so objectionable?”

  “The very one,” she replied, with a gleam of satisfaction in her eye. “‘E's a rare one, is Matty. Likes to set ‘imsel up as foreman o’ the crews, what stands out on Broad o’ Mondays, waitin’ on people's fancy.”

  This took a moment to decipher. “The local men wait in gangs on Broad Street of a Monday, in the hope that someone will purchase their labour?”

  “That they do. Matty styles ‘imsel a gang ‘ead, ‘e does.”

  I had seen such groups of men loitering about the street corners, and thought them merely idle rogues, never realising there was a purpose to their inactivity.

  At this interesting juncture, a knock unfortunately came upon the door, and the dim shape of a head appeared through the window's stained oilcloth. Joe Smollet, I supposed; and Maggie should be little likely to turn him away again. Very well — I should take my leave. But a few questions yet remained to me.

  “Where might? find Matthew Hurley?” I enquired.

  “The Three Cups,” the widow said, with a dubious look; “not that a lady like yoursel ‘ud go to the pub o’ nights.” She crossed to the window and squinted through its murkiness, waggling her fingers. “I'm much obliged to yer fer the kids’ things, miss, but IVe bizness that wants attendinV’

  “I understand.” I rose and brushed absent-mindedly at my skirts. “Have you any idea, Mrs. Tibbit, why a white flower should be left near your husband's gibbet?”

  “A white flower,” she said, staring. “What white flower?”

  “A lily, I believe. You knew nothing of it?”

  “Not a whisper. Coo, that's odd, that is. What'd they go puttin’ a flower by Bill fer?”

  “I cannot imagine,” I replied, “though the act itself bears a decidedly melancholy aspect.”

  Maggie reached for the door latch and pulled it meaningfully — to suggest, I suppose, that the interview was at a close. I stepped over little Jack, who was rolling about in the dirt with a tomcat of ferocious appearance, and opened my purse.

  “The price of your silk, Mrs. Tibbit,” I said.

  She turned over the peach-coloured stuff with an expression of regret, but deemed my three guineas to afford a deeper satisfaction; and so we parted, equally pleased with our bargaining. I had learned from her a little to my purpose, but hardly enough; it remained to locate the resourceful Mr. Matt Hurley, an errand for another day.

  BUT THE MOST CURIOUS EVENT OF THIS MORNING'S ACTIVITY occurred as I was wending my way out of the River Buddie district. For it was then I observed the approach of a carriage, that bore a familiar coat of arms upon the door, and within its depths, a lady much veiled, as I observed upon her leaning out the window in converse with her tyger. Mrs. Barnewall, if I was not utterly mistaken, and her carriage pulled up before Maggie Tibbit's very door.

  Chapter 16

  The Night in Question

  Friday, 21 September 1804

  “MY DEAR,” MY MOTHER SAID INTO MY EAR, AS WE SAT TOGETHER amidst the better part of Lyme's residents in the main room of the Golden Lion, awaiting the commencement of the inquest into Percival Fielding's death, “Miss Crawford looks very fine indeed, in her black silk and illusion veil. I do not think she could have had either of Mr. Milsop — though he styles himself so very high, there is that about his shop that defies real elegance. I wis
h our Cassandra were here to see it. Miss Crawford's veil, I mean. But then, site is free to wander about the shops of London — Cassandra, I would speak of now — Dr. Farquhar having pronounced her quite recovered; and I do wish she might write to us of sleeves, and whether they are to be long or short this season; but she will not, being much preoccupied with Eliza's circulating-library. I do not understand her indifference upon such a point—”

  “Mother,” I interceded, as the good lady paused to draw breath, “I wonder if Miss Crawford is not to be called up by the coroner? For the care her attire has demanded, would suggest some benefit in display.”

  “Indeed,” my mother replied, laying a hand over my own in agitation. “And yet, we were as well acquainted with Captain Fielding — though Miss Crawford would have it he was to beg for Miss Armstrong's hand, and not yours, as I had thought. Why are not we to be called?”

  “I imagine we can have nothing of particular intelligence to offer the coroner,” I replied firmly, and patted my mother's cold fingers. My father harrumphed, censorious of our chatter, and at that very moment Mr. Carpenter appeared — coroner and surgeon of Lyme, and the superior of our friend Mr. Dagliesh — and strode importantly down the aisle. All rose to offer him the respect that was his due.

  Joshua Carpenter was a portly gentleman of jovial countenance and a ponderous wig, of somewhat outdated fashion. He was dressed in rusty black — rusty, from its apparent long use and sad neglect — his collar was wilted, his shirt-sleeves frayed, and his coat collar bore the signs of a nuncheon recentiy consumed. When he turned and surveyed the uplifted faces of the crowd, however, I detected a gleam of amused intelligence in his eyes, and a contemptuous curl of the lip, as though he understood well that gossip, rather than justice, was the hope of nearly everyone assembled. He glanced at the twelve men of the jury — all strangers to my eyes, and drawn, it seemed, from local folk — who sat composed and cowed upon two of the inn's long benches, and nodded to the one appointed foreman.