Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

What an agony of conflicting impulses then assailed me! Though a heroine of Mrs. Radcliffe's or Charlotte Smith's should have gone determinedly through the door, and hazarded the horrors of the darkened tunnel without a backwards glance, I confess that I thought first of my deserted bed in Wings cottage, and the warmth of its quilts, and the comforting embrace of sleep. I longed to abandon the chase for another day, when Dick and Eb should be far from my thoughts and my person, and the chalk cliffs of Charmouth wear a happier aspect, in being gilded with September sun.

But Geoffrey Sidmouth had not the luxury of deferring what should be distasteful; to him there remained but a few days, before the coroner's parade of guilt; and I recollected that my object in journeying to the shingle tonight had been to learn something of the Reverend, in the desperate hope that he and Sidmouth were not one and the same. That hope was all but diminished — for Dick had invoked the Reverend's very name, and his familiarity with such a tunnel, placed at the Grange's foot, bore a decidedly unpleasant construction. If I was to learn the worst, then, and abandon all faith in Sidmouth, it must be effected here and now; I had no choice but to go on, when every fibre of my being screamed that I should turn back.

With indrawn breath and a quickened pulse, therefore, I ventured to place my foot before the sheltering rock, and eased myself back into the cavern's depths. A lighter darkness, and the stirring of air before me, showed the way to the shingle, and home; but with a pang, I turned my back upon escape and sought the nether wall.

I could discern nothing like the outline of a door; and feeling with trembling fingers across the rock face, I encountered something so squeamishly clinging and moist, that I nearly forgot myself and cried aloud, snatching my hands away in an instant. A nauseous smell, as of decaying fish — and I knew the stuff to be nothing more than seaweed, fresh from the shingle and rendered wet by the trickle of moisture that emanated ceaselessly from the rock walls on every side. An effective disguise, indeed, for a passage one does not wish discovered — for the casual observer should never surmise that a door lay behind, and an idle explorer should be immediately deterred by the stench and touch of the stuff. I drew breath, and the tremor in my limbs subsided; and in another instant, I had steeled myself to touch the foul weeds, and feel beyond them for the rough wood of the door. The latch was there, and mindful of the creaking hinges that had alerted me to the door's presence in the first place, I eased it open but a few inches, and squeezed myself inside.

The dimmest pinpoint of light before me, revealed Dick and Eb to have made considerable progress; and I immediately followed in their wake, thrusting all fears and doubts behind me in the distracting activity of my purpose. The tunnel's floor was uneven, and a sudden dip in its surface, or a sharp incline, could all but cause me to tumble; I turned my ankles too frequently for notice, and clutched at the walls to either side, being deprived of the steady lanthorn that must so comfort the ruffians before. A very few moments, however, and I wished even for the faint pinpoint first detected — for the tunnel must have turned, and the men and their light were hidden from view.

I toiled onwards, climbing ever more surely, until I came to a flight of rough steps; and eased my way up them, uncertain when the tunnel floor should resume.

“Eh, there, Eb, you've stepped on my foot,” a harsh voice muttered, almost before me; and I crouched as swiftly as I knew how, hugging the very step — for at the stairs’ end stood my two guides, and from the sound of their laboured breathing and puffs of effort, another tunnel door.

After some moments, it must have swung open, and the fellows were passed through, for with a snick! the tunnel was thrown in utter darkness, the encouraging lanthorn having vanished behind the door.

I climbed stealthily to the stairs” head, and took but a few steps until the tunnel's end was reached; and then, groping forward, I found a decidedly smooth wooden surface, and traced with my fingers the outline of a door-jamb; but no latch or keyhole could I find. The way was barred to me.

I swallowed hard, and turned about in confusion, and endeavoured not to consider the more usual inhabitants of such a subterranean passage — the scuttling rats, and the creeping spiders, of enormous size, that undoubtedly traversed the walls at either hand, or such nameless creatures as must give rise to shuddering dread — and wished fervently that I had chosen the cowardly way, of my bed at Wings cottage. For to what purpose had I journeyed so far, in the grip of such anxiety, if the men were now gone before, and the passage closed?

“Give us a ‘and, Dick.” I nearly jumped out of my skin, the high-pitched voice was so close to my ear; and a squeak must have escaped me, for there was a swift cessartion of movement beyond the door, and a thrill of fear in the man's voice when next he spoke.

“Eh, Dick — joo ‘ear tha#”

“‘Ear what?”

“That. Some'at in the wall. Gives ‘un the shivers, it did — like a strangled woman.”

“Rat, more'n likely. Or maybe a ghost—'ow's that for a nasty bit o’ cheer?”

“Dick — you don't think as the Cap'n—”

“Aw, for the luv of Jesus, Eb, com'eer and ‘elp us shift a keg or two. We've not got all night, I reckon.”

I leaned against the door, adjudging it to be cleaner than the tunnel wall, and listened intently. For some time the two men appeared to be engaged in serious labour— shifting what I supposed to be caskets, and tearing off the lids of kegs, from the sound of splintering wood; this, and the occasional oath at a bruised shin, were my sole amusements for what seemed an eternity. The chink of glass proclaimed the bottle to be passed, and a deep sigh the fact that it had been emptied; and still the search — for search it undoubtedly was — went on, — I found it in me to wonder, if the tunnel had indeed led to the very doors of the Grange, where the farm's inhabitants might be. Tending the wounded man, perhaps? Or were the men arrived at the very stables, and shifting about with only beasts for company?

“Eb! Eh, Eb— ‘ave a gander at this!” Dick exclaimed, after an interval.

A scuffle of feet, and a low whistle, followed by the nastiest of chuckles. “You s'pose as the swells really play cards like ‘at? indecent, it is. Fancy painting a Queen o’ Hearts what ain't got no clothes on. Those Frenchies'll get up to anything.”

And this was my reward for risk and wakefulness! I closed my eyes in wearied exasperation. I had long suspected the men were rifling a storage of smugglers’ goods, but this last confirmed it. The rage for playing cards had so inflated the demand for them in England, that the Crown had imposed a tax upon the principal supplier — France — and rendered the game too expensive for most people's purses. French cards were often to form a part of contraband cargoes; but I had not formed a notion of what sort of cards they might be.

“Well, I'm flummoxed,” Dick said, and from the complaint of a bit of wood, I knew he had seated himself on a crate.

“The Reverend's stuff ain't ‘ere, nohow,” Eb agreed.

I imagined the two of them scratching their heads, lost in a fog of spirits, and wished them more prone to babble and less to a complaisant silence. Had ever a keyhole listener heard less to the purpose than myself? It was not to be borne.

“What? us do, Dick?” Despite his whiskey courage, there was a note of fear in Ebenezer's voice.

“Get out o’ Lyme while the gettin's good,” the other replied. “Now Sidmouth's in jail, we've bought oursels some time — His Honour's too distracted wit’ the justice an’ all. But we'd best make tracks afore he notices we failed ‘im, or we'll land at the end o’ the Cobb like Bill Tibbit.”