Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

“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] George III and his retinue made a habit of visiting the Dorset village of Weymouth, where his brother the Duke of Gloucester often stayed. — Editor's note. 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] Henry refers here to his stepson, Hastings de Feuillide, Eliza's sickly son. The boy died in 1801 at the age of fourteen. — Editor's note. 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.