Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

When confronted with such thoughts as these, I could wish my understanding less able, and my fancies of less persuasive merit. But having once parsed the riddle, what alternative may I choose? Do I thrust away the weight of my fears, as reflecting a woman's foolish misapprehension? Or do I consider with care the path of any further investigation, so decidedly necessary if guilt or innocence is to be proved? For the possibility of Sidmouth's innocence cannot be discounted; and indeed, though reason might construct a case for his culpability, I find my heart cries out within me that it is impossible. What, then, is to be done? For I cannot long survive the suspense of such conflicting emotion; nor the thought that I harbour a strange sensibility for a man who might very well prove a murderer.

(Here the writing breaks off, and is then resumed.)

I was disturbed in the very act of considering my future course, by the arrival of a visitor whose appearance and intentions may only be deemed fortuitous. Providence, assuredly, is a mysterious mover, and who is Jane to ignore its direction?

The sound of a carriage halting before the door, and the bustle in the entry that presaged a visitor, gave pause to my pen; and it required but a moment for the conveyance of a card, bearing a name strange to me — and yet familiar.

“Miss Austen, miss,” Jenny broke in, as she peered around the door, “there's a gentleman below as wishes to speak with you. He's sent up his card, and very fine it is, too.”

Mr. Roy Cavendish, the scrap of paper read. His Majesty's Customs House, Lyme.

I looked to Jenny swiftly. “The gentleman is even now below?”

Her white cap bobbed above widened blue eyes. “He's a King's man, in't he? Whatever can he want with you, miss?”

“And my parents?”

“The Reverend's showing him his chess set. The missus is darning a sock.”

It seemed best to relieve the poor man directly. “Please convey my sentiments to Mr. Cavendish, and say that I shall attend him presently,” I told Jenny, and gathered up my little book.

“IT IS A PLEASURE, Miss AUSTEN.” ROY CAVENDISH BENT LOW OVER my hand as I halted in the sitting-room doorway. He retained, still, the unfortunate appearance of a frog that I had remarked while observing him from the Cobb, the very morning he had come to oversee the seizure of a smuggler's cargo — which seizure Mr. Sidmouth had effectively routed. But I noted that his dress was respectable, his figure neat, and his hand steady; though a repulsive moisture overlaid his palm, and his grip was reminiscent of something noisome cast up upon the shingle.

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Cavendish,” I said doubtfully, and sought my habitual seat. Despite the poor condition of the day, my father had deemed it wisest to seek the out of doors, and had prevailed upon my mother to accompany him, with the promise of tea and muffin on the high street. Mr. Cavendish took advantage of my ease to find a chair himself, and, flipping the tails of his coat over his legs, sat down with something of a flourish— quite at odds with his staid appearance.

“You will wonder why I am come,” he began, “being a stranger to yourself, and indeed, to most concerns that should preoccupy a lady.”

“Indeed, I know not how to explain this visit — though I should not like you to believe it an unwelcome one, sir.”

“You are all kindness.”

I waited, believing the burden of conversation to be on his side; and Mr. Cavendish did not disappoint me.

“I shall turn directly to the point, Miss Austen. You will have heard,” he said, tapping a black band high upon his arm, “of the death of the gallant Captain Fielding.” At this, the Customs agent's countenance assumed a remarkable expression of mournful gravity, as though he had swallowed something inimitable to a frog's digestion. “His loss is a heavy one — for his King and country, no less than for his intimate circle.”

“Indeed,” I said, with circumspection. I et us try what Mr. Cavendish would reveal; let us observe how closely he guards his purpose. A gentle trap, delicately baited, should tell me much. “It is some time since I have been able to think of it with anything but indignation, sir. For such a gentleman, blessed with the noblest qualities, to be cut down by a common footpad! Are decent people no longer to move at liberty? Are we all to be victims of the rabble, as though we called ourselves anything but Englishmen?”

Mr. Cavendish's eyes protruded, and he leaned closer to study my countenance. “So they would have it in Lyme, Miss Austen, but in Lyme it naturally suits the purpose. I do not credit this tale of a footpad; I do not credit it at all.”

“But the Captain was relieved of his purse!”

Mr. Cavendish offered an eloquent shrug. “A trifling matter. Any man intent upon taking the Captain's life should seize his valuables, the better to suggest a death by misadventure.”

I had already determined as much in my own mind; if Geoffrey Sidmouth (or anyone else) meant to disguise the nature of the Captain's end — since affairs of honour inevitably ended in the victor's flight to the Continent, if not his hanging — how better, than to turn out his pockets, like a common thief?

“Whatever do you mean to say, Mr. Cavendish?” 1 enquired mildly, with a view to encouraging his confidence. That Captain Fielding had an enemy?”

An instant's silence, as the Customs man weighed his thoughts; but an instant only, and he had formed a resolution. “Have you heard, Miss Austen, of the Reverend?”

“I have. Captain Fielding himself related the chief of what I know about the man.”

“I understood as much. That is why I am here.”

“I confess I do not take your meaning, Mr. Cavendish.”

“Do not trifle with me, Miss Austen. I know as much of your business regarding Captain Fielding as he might allow himself, as a gentleman, to reveal.” The slight frown I adopted at this intelligence availed me nothing; Mr. Cavendish swept on with all the certainty of his purpose full upon his face.

“On the occasion of my final meeting with Captain Fielding, he informed me that he had admitted you to his confidence — a necessity precipitated by your own penetration. How much he may have betrayed himself, I cannot be certain; but he laid the credit entirely on your side, Miss Austen, in declaring that you had divined his business entirely from appearances, and had confronted him with your knowledge.”

“I was aware that the Captain was engaged in affairs of a very serious nature, regarding the smuggling trade — that much is certain. He was not as he professed himself to be, a simple Naval officer living in retirement, and consumed with a passion for the cultivation of roses.”

“You will have guessed, then, that the Reverend was his object; and that in his pursuit of the Reverend, the Captain invited considerable peril.”

“You would suggest, then, that Captain Fielding died at the Reverend's hand?”

The Customs man sat back in his chair somewhat abruptly. “I am certain of it. But 1 have no proof.”

“And it is my understanding, Mr. Cavendish, that the Reverend's identity is all but unknown.”

“Come, come, Miss Austen,” he cried, with marked irritation, “you know what Mr. Sidmouth's display has been. Consider his abominable behaviour only last week, and before all of Lyme. His actions then declared him the smugglers’ lord. He has been cleverness itself to date — his shipments follow no set schedule, being dependent upon the onset of foul weather, and the cover it provides; and there are others he employs, to captain the vessels and arrange the conveyance of goods, so that he is always far from the scene of a successful landing — but he must have the ordering of such agents at one time or another; and what is required is that we seize him in the very act. Once, then, in the clutches of the law, we might force him to an admission of Fielding's murder.”