Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

And beyond all this, is a something more — a want of that which I cannot quite define. The Captain speaks and behaves entirely as he ought; and yet I cannot feel that he is open. There is an affectation of openness — he was surely frankness itself yesterday, in discussing the smugglers' affairs — and yet I have the creeping certainty that he is open by design, and that only when it suits his purpose.

Geoffrey Sidmouth, on the contrary, is neither open nor secretive; that gentleman is merely the master of his own business. His emotions are so hardly checked, as to be almost transparent; one will always know where one is, though utterly confounded as to why. His is an eager, a forthright, temperament; and even in his blackest moments — when I find nothing easier than to mistrust his purpose — I know myself to be in the presence of the man. With Captain Fielding, one is ever in the presence of a caricature. Even his gallantries are studied.

I had reason to consider this but a few hours ago, well before my return to Cassandra's still-slumbering form, and the quieter comforts of my pen. I was awakened, as two days before, by a great hallooing along the Cobb; and with a sickening certainty I saw in t?? mind's eye the ghastly scaffold raised once more, and the lifeless body awash in surf. At the sound of men's voices I threw back the covers, and hastily exchanged my nightclothes for yesterday's discarded muslin; a moment's thought instructed the choice of stout boots over my usual slippers. It required but an instant to descend the stairs as noiselessly as I knew how, and exit Wings cottage.

I lifted my trembling eyes to the Cobb's end — but not a gibbet was to be seen. Along the wide beach that fronts The Walk came a parade of toiling men, casks upon their backs; and great wains were drawn up along the shingle, with the horses full in the water to their very flanks’ height. Feeling rather foolish, but nonetheless thoroughly roused, I proceeded along The Walk until I had gained a better view — and espied two galleys, with crews at their oars, bobbing in the very waters where the smugglers’ cargo had been dropped the previous day!

“So they would retrieve it, then, as Captain Fielding asserted,” I said aloud, in some wonderment; and was rewarded by a reply of sorts, and from my very elbow.

“At an hour when most women should dread to be seen abroad, you are lovelier than I might have imagined, Miss Jane Austen of Bath.”

I swiftly turned, in some dismay and confusion, and found Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth on the sand below, seated easily astride a black stallion of fearsome appearance; the animal's nostrils flared as it chuffed at the wind and tossed its powerful head. I stepped backwards involuntarily, and clasped my arms together, shivering somewhat from the morning's chill. In an instant Sidmouth had dismounted and secured the horse; and in another, he had divested himself of his cloak and draped it about my shoulders, so swiftly I had not time to protest.

“The breeze is cold off the water at dawn,” he said, with an indifferent air. “We cannot have you catch your death, however deserved of your impetuous nature. Dagliesh has enough to do at Wings cottage.”

I swept my eyes the length of his powerful figure, and noted that he was in a similarly-disheveled state. His wine-coloured coat was stained with a dark liquid I could not identify, but took to be spirits; his stock was undone, his jaw unshaven, and his hair decidedly ruffled by long exposure to the wind. He might almost have been abroad the entire night through, and be only now upon his road home, and tarrying by the scene at the water's edge; and with a sudden blush, I imagined the hours of dissipation now put behind him.

“What brings you to the Cobb, sir?” I enquired. “And at such an hour!”

“I might ask the same of you, Miss Jane Austen of Bath.” His voice held too much amusement for my fragile pride.

“I thought to observe another unfortunate fisherman, hanged for the Reverend's sins,” I retorted, “and at the hullabaloo below my window, ran out to offer assistance”

“Singular,” Mr. Sidmouth observed coolly. “Very singular indeed. Most women should faint dead away at the mere prospect. But then, you are always a singular personality, Miss Austen. It was just such a sense of purpose in extremity that drove you to my very door, some few days ago.”

For this, I had no answer; and we were silent, observing the activity below in the fitful light. The sun was not yet up, and the industrious figures flitted like shadows in a graveyard. Sidmouth's eyes were narrowed over the sharp hook of his nose, and his lips compressed; and I wondered, as I stole a glance at him sidelong, whether I stood next to the very Reverend, in the act of overseeing his cargo's landing.

“It is a smuggler's goods,” I said, with the most casual air I could effect; “Captain Fielding and I observed the cutter only yesterday, as it jettisoned those very casks.” For the labouring men were wading through the surf with a massive barrel suspended from each shoulder, and heaving them into the carts drawn up to the water; and despite the weight of the contraband, as evidenced in their bowed backs, their progress was swift indeed. In but a moment, I imagined, the last of the waggons should be filled, and the horses turned towards some safe place of hiding in the midst of the downs — but would they be welcomed by a girl in a sweeping red cloak, her spigot lanthorn [52] A spigot lanthorn is as Austen described it in the first chapter — a curiously shaped lamp designed specifically for signaling. It was tall, cylindrical, and entirely closed except for the spigot projecting from one side, the open end of which could be covered and uncovered by the signaler's hand, emitting a blink of light. It was frequently employed by smugglers. — Editor's note. held high in the dusky dawn?

“Trench brandy.” Sidmouth spoke as though remarking upon the weather. “It shall be turned a proper brown in some hole in the woods, and be on its way to London in a very few days. [53] French brandy was considered “raw” when it hit English shores, because it was colorless. The smugglers would mix it with burnt sugar to give it the deep golden hue the English expected, and probably thinned it with water as well. — Editor's note. But you look stupefied, Miss Austen — surely you knew that French brandy, like the cheeks of so many French ladies, does not win its colour from Nature?”

“I am simply all amazement, Mr. Sidmouth,” I rejoined, “that so much brandy exists. There must be enough in those waggons to keep London afloat for a year!”

“Or the members of White's [54] An exclusive men's club in Pall Mall. — Editor's note. , at the very least,” the gentleman replied ironically.

“And what organisation! What dispatch! The Royal Navy should observe these fellows’ methods, the better to order their gunnery crews!”

“See there, the one in the blue cap, who stands aloof along the shoreline?” Mr. Sidmouth's face moved closer to my own, and his left arm extended before my nose, the better to distinguish his object. “He is Davy Forely, this crew's lander; and a better lander is not to be found along the entire Dorset coast.”

“And what, pray, is a lander?”

“The fellow employed by the smuggling captain to organise the men on shore,” Mr. Sidmouth said patiently. “He it is that recruits them, and pays them, and makes certain they are loyal to the game.”

“I had not realised it to be so sophisticated a profession, as to admit of hierarchies,” I replied. “Your knowledge of the whole can hardly be to your credit”