Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

“He means to urge the Company of Shipwrights to put their silver behind retrieving the Itchen yard, and asked that I help him to do it. [13] The Company of Shipwrights incorporated in 1605.— Editor’s note. I shall certainly intercede — indeed, I may invest funds of my own — for with such a dedicated fellow among the ranks, the yard is likely to prosper.”

“Provided you may protect it against purposeful arson. Jeremiah is a shipwright, then?”

“The Lascar? Lord, no! I should not think the Company would allow a foreigner to set up in business, when good English shipwrights are in want of places — but he is certain to find employment if the yard remains open, and is canny enough to comprehend that greater influence than his is required to secure his future. He has agreed to serve as my spy, moreover, within the ruined yard. But I digress: I meant to learn from him what I could of the night the seventy-four was fired.”

“And?”

Lord Harold offered me his arm, and turned towards the carriage. His excellent black coat of superfine bore a distinct odour of charcoal.

“Jeremiah lodges off the Rope Walk, with several of his kind — Able Seamen who take ship for a year or two, then spend their earnings in a single week ashore. The Lascar had taken his dinner and turned his attention to his favourite pastime — the carving of a model ship — when a cry arose in the street outside. One or two of his fellows had been sitting on the lodging-house roof, drinking rum together and wagering as to the names of ships presently anchored in Southampton Water, when the flames first lit the Itchen yard. Jeremiah climbed immediately to the rooftop, astounded at what he saw. From that height it was clear the blaze had already reached the thirdrate’s masts. The speed of the conflagration seemed at the time remarkable, but we apprehend now that pitch, in being liberally spread upon the timbers, effected it. Unlike his mates, however, who were agog at the fire, Jeremiah searched with his gaze among the surrounding streets. From his lofty perch he hoped to espy Mr. Dixon raising the alarum. The Lascar, you must understand, has spent years at sea and is accustomed to standing watch in the crow’s nest. His eyes are very keen, even in the falling dusk.”

We reached the blazoned chaise, Orlando standing at attention. He swept open the carriage door and bowed low, managing the air of the loyal retainer so well that he might have affected it on the stage. Play-acting, I decided, must be the valet’s true calling: he ought to be put in the way of an introduction to his lordship’s old friend, the tragedian John Kemble. Then he might spend his days in adopting strange masks, and throwing his voice — child’s play for one of his experience.

“Tho’ a crowd of folk commenced to run towards the yard,” Lord Harold continued as we paused by the open carriage door, “Jeremiah espied a single figure running away from it. The man was cloaked in black from neck to boots, and wore a hood over his head. He carried no lanthorn, though the streets were growing dark; and to the Lascar’s mind, he seemed at pains to avoid the most trafficked road. Jeremiah watched him course through the alleys that join the yard with the Rope Walk, and disappear from view somewhere in the vicinity of Orchard Lane — at which point the crisis at the yard could no longer be ignored. The Lascar recognised the utility of opening the sea wall in order to douse the flames, and summoning his mates, raced to accomplish the purpose. It was then he discovered the body of Mr. Dixon.”

“The cloaked figure he espied was responsible for firing the ship?” I enquired as Orlando handed me within.

“And possibly for slitting the shipwright’s throat.”

Lord Harold pulled closed the door. “The man may have worked alone, or in the company of another whom the Lascar could not see.”

“Mrs. Challoner?”

“Recollect, Jane, the evidence of your own eyes. You saw her curtsey to a cloaked figure in the Abbey ruins only yesterday. Perhaps she intended to thank the fellow for a job well-done.”

28 October 1808, cont.

Three-quarters of an hour later, I huddled in the middle of Jeb Hawkins’s skiff with my cloak wrapped tightly around me, convinced that I had quitted the living world entirely. A curtain of fog drifted towards Southampton from the mouth of the Channel, and hung dully over the landscape. My fingers were knotted in my lap against the chill off the sea, which penetrated the thin kid of my gloves; the airing, I decided dispiritedly, would certainly redden my nose.

From the Itchen yard, his lordship had turned to the Water Gate Quay, and there discovered the Bosun’s Mate engaged in mending nets. The hale old fellow was seated on the eastern side of the Quay, his gnarled hands twisting and unfurling his sea-worn rope; but he readily agreed to take us out to Netley Cliff. If he wondered what fascination the place must hold, he forbore to enquire; it was enough for Jeb Hawkins that a duke’s son had need of his services.

The duke’s son was poised now in the bow, his gaze roaming the dim outline of Netley Cliff. Mr. Hawkins, his scowl in abeyance, bent and strained at the oars; at his lordship’s insistence, the locks were muffled with strips of leather. Silent and barely visible, we moved as wraiths over the surface of the Water.

Suddenly, Lord Harold raised one hand in a gesture for silence, and pointed with the other towards the cliff.

“There,” he whispered. “Perhaps four feet above the shingle, to the left of the barnacled rock. Observe.”

I narrowed my weak eyes to search the looming cliff face, half-obscured by the hanging mist. I could discern nothing out of the ordinary.

“Cor!” muttered Jeb Hawkins. “Fifty year an’ more I been sailing this coast, and never did I discover the same. A cut in the cliff, broad enough for a man, with an iron grill to close it. It’ll have been hidden by seagrass, maybe, as is presently disarranged.”

“Well done,” Lord Harold said softly. “That is the mouth of a drain once employed by the monks of Netley Abbey. Some five hundred yards it runs, straight through the hillside from the Abbey kitchen to Southampton Water. Tales have it that the Cistercians disposed of their refuse by such means; others, that the passage was a swift escape to the boats, when the monks were under attack. A second branch of the passage is more prosaic: it runs to the fish ponds, and served the monks with supper.” [14] The passage Lord Harold describes still exists at Netley Abbey today. — Editor’s note.

“Did you merely suspect the existence of such a passage, from a general knowledge of the ways of monks?” I demanded. “I should have thought that everything to do with a cloister must be foreign to your experience.”

“You neglect to mention, Miss Austen, that among my other sins I may count a country boyhood,” he rejoined. “One of the lesser Wilborough estates — in Cornwall, I confess — is built on the ruin of just such an abbey. I explored its cunning features thoroughly in my youth, particularly when I desired a spot of fishing, or to escape the wrath of an outraged tutor. The Cistercians were masters of the hidden back door: they lived in mortal fear of plunderers, particularly when they settled along the coast. Do you recall, Jane, that Mr. ... Smythe ... seemed to materialise from the very stones at your feet, when you met him in the Abbey on Tuesday?”

I had thought Orlando a ghost; and had remarked, moreover, that he had left no boat near the cliff landing.

“Were you perhaps in the vicinity of the Abbey kitchens at the time?” Lord Harold persisted.