Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

“With Buonaparte?” I could not disguise my incredulity. “But how is such a thing possible?”

“How might a victim of the revolution throw his strength and ardour behind its greatest opportunist, you mean?” Seraphine said, with a delicately-lifted eyebrow. “Well might you ask. My cousin and I have spent many long hours in contemplation of it.” She exhaled a gusty breath and drew the collar of her red cloak closer about her throat. “I cannot rightly say. I loved Philippe as almost a mother — I clung to his sturdy boyishness, his indomitable spirits — until the moment when he disappeared in the night, taking only a few belongings and leaving but a few words. Perhaps I never understood him — what it was to grow up as a dispossessed child, aware of his family's noble history, and the ruthlessness of its decline.”

“Women arc more accepting of the vagaries of Fate, perhaps,” I said thoughtfully. “We sit at home, and mourn in solitude, and find no outlet for our restless tides of vengeance. It should not be remarkable that a young man should wish to make his way in the world, and resurrect the glory of his name, by any means that offer. We cannot judge rightly, without standing awhile in his skin, and feeling all the burden of outraged youth.”

“But you forget, Miss Austen,” Seraphine replied. “I have stood there. I have felt the outrage. I have railed against the bitterness of Fortune, and shaken my fist at every sun that rises again to shine on the revolution's children, and I have hated Napoleon for his steady ascent. He climbs on the backs of the old aristocracy — who were cut down by men he has never disavowed, however little he formed a part of their schemes — and marries his generals to the orphaned daughters of the great. But I beg to hope, Miss Austen, that he will reach the height of power, only to discover that he has been ascending a scaffold— and that there is no escaping the noose”

I confess I was overwhelmed by the hardening of her tone and aspect; Seraphine seemed no longer an ethereal angel, but a woman clad in steel, and burnished by the sunlight thrown up from the sea.

“It would perhaps be justice,” I observed, “did Napoleon fall as swiftly as he has ascended; but I do not believe it likely. Many years of blood and hopelessness remain, I fear, before vengeance may be done.”

Seraphine turned a speculative eye upon my countenance. “That may be, Miss Austen; and then again, it may not. Time alone will tell.”

“Assuredly,” I said, in some confusion. For she spoke as though blessed with a more intimate knowledge of events than I should have credited in one so remote from their ordering.

We turned at the cliff's edge and walked on a few paces in silence, heads bowed against the fresh breeze off the sea. The pause in conversation afforded me the opportunity to recollect my true purpose in soliciting the mademoiselle's confidence — and for the space of several strides, I gathered my courage to speak. We could not labour on entirely in silence, however, without some end to our exercise being precipitated; and so I forced myself to broach a subject that could not but be distasteful to the lady.

“How calm the sea looks!”? observed, with a careless air. “Quite unlike the afternoon when Captain Fielding and I espied the smuggler's cutter abandon its cargo, not far off the end of the Cobb. On that occasion the seas were quite stiff, and the Navy ship that followed in pursuit made but poor progress, and came all too late behind.”

There was a delicate pause. Then, with what I judged to be an effort at composure, the mademoiselle enquired,

“You were well acquainted with Captain Fielding?”

‘Only a little. And you?”

“As you say — only a little,” she said, with a quick smile, that as quickly fled.

“He seems to have been everywhere acknowledged as possessing an admirable character.”

“Indeed.”

A few more paces in silence, and I made another attempt. “However little you thought yourself acquainted with Captain Fielding, your well-being and happiness were clearly of some concern to the gentleman. He spoke well of you in my hearing on several occasions, and expressed some anxiety regarding your — situation — at the Grange.”

“I do not doubt he mentioned my situation, as you put it,” Seraphine said, her contempt flaring unchecked. “Captain Fielding was an officious and arrogant man, who little cared what damage his concern might do.”

“You regarded his interest as interference?” I rejoined quickly.

She turned and studied my countenance quizzically, while I endeavoured to assume as clear an aspect of innocence as my own sense of guilt should allow.

“Would not you have done the same, Miss Austen, when a gentleman's meddling occasioned the worst sort of calumny, and the grossest of lies, to be heaped upon a cousin you esteemed as dearly as a brother? But how come you to wonder so much about the affairs of people, of whom you know so little?”

This was abruptness indeed; and I felt the chastening power of her words as severely as a lash. Groping for some justification, however, I fell back upon events.

“It is just that the Captain's tragic end, Mademoiselle, has thrown his whole life into question — do not you agree?” I gestured towards the road, just visible at the foot of the downs behind our backs, and emptied now of any conveyance. “How strange to think that the gallant Captain shall drive the Charmouth road no more, when only a week ago I sat beside him in his barouche. The suddenness of events is inexplicable; and the mind struggles for comprehension/’

My excuses availed me nothing, however; Seraphine had stiffened beside me, and was grown as remote as marble — expressionless, opaque, and no doubt chill to the touch. My words might have been all unspoken.

I perceived no alternative but persistence, all the same. “The news was quite shocking, was it not?”

She stirred herself at last, but betrayed nothing of her emotion. “The news of the Captain's death? I suppose it was. Certainly? had not looked for it.”

“But you found it not incredible?”

“I found it to be justice, Miss Austen, however curiously achieved,” she cried, in some exasperation. “One cannot be otherwise than satisfied when justice is done.”

Whatever I had expected, it was hardly this — an avowal of nothing and everything at once.

“I do not pretend to understand you, Mademoiselle. Had the Captain committed some infamy of which I am unaware?”

She studied the sea as though my words had gone unspoken, for the space of several heartbeats. I counseled patience to myself, and stood as still as a stone, reflecting that many a wild thing will come to eat from the hand, if a suitable caution is preserved. At length, however, I observed to my horror that silent tears were coursing down her cheeks; and it was perhaps more terrible still that she did nothing to impede their flow, or disguise their traces, so lost in contemplation was she.

“Mademoiselle LeFevre,” I said, laying a hand along her red-cloaked arm, “whatever is the matter? What can he have done to you?”

She shook her head, and turned a watery smile upon my anxious face. “Never mind, Miss Austen. Whatever it was, it is past all remedy now, and all forgiveness. What le Chevalier did, was done in passion; and so his life has ended. There is nothing further worth asking/’

Le Chevalier. That name again; and spoken now with a depth of bitterness that could not but make it ironic. To probe the girl's natural reticence would be unseemly, and beyond even my application; my gentle education had not taught me how to so offend propriety, even did I claim the pursuit of innocence as my spur. There were others— Mrs. Barnewall rose immediately to mind — who might shed some light on the matter. I managed, then, only to press Seraphine's arm in sympathy, and stand in an awkward silence; and so, I fear, I left her. She would not accompany me back to the Grange, being unequal, perhaps, to her cousin's scrutiny; and it may be that she found some comfort in gazing out over the sea, towards France and the turbulent past. But her figure lingers long in memory as I consider her, red cloak flowing in the wind, as still as a tower at the cliff's edge.