Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

“As swiftly as we might have hoped — her Ijmdon physician having no other claim upon his time and attention, that might prove more remunerative.”

“You are severe upon me.” He turned his hat in both hands, worrying at the brim. “But money has not been my object, though you would have my motives solely mercenary. I may go so far as to assert, Miss Austen, that neither my conduct, nor that of those I have attended, merits such censure; but honour forbids me saying more.” His look, when he raised his eyes, had something of pleading in it, and a circumspection I should not have guessed Mr. Dagliesh capable of. “There is a nobility in the most common of men, Miss Austen, when they are spurred to act from principle; and I have found that the appearance of what is wrong may often cloak, conversely, a very great good.”

“As I am sure the opposite is true,” I rejoined, somewhat tardy, “with all manner of evil parading itself as circumspection and propriety.”

“That has ever been the case,” he said, with some gentleness. “The wonder is that we should still be equally as fooled.” And with a civility, he left me — though less happy in my designs upon peach-coloured silk.

IT WAS AS I RETURNED FROM POUND STREET TO WlNGS COTTAGE, that I first noticed the presence of a man to my back. He appeared to find interest in shop windows at exactly the moment I turned to gaze at something on offer; and resumed his slow stroll in my train whenever my interest was satisfied, and my own walk recommenced. Upon first perceiving him, I was puzzled; then alarmed; and finally, determined upon calculation. Though I had half a mind to confront him with questions, the possibility that I but succumbed to an over-active imagination, could not be discounted; and so I turned instead into a local purveyor of comestibles, in search, ostensibly, of tea. I knew the shop to let out onto an adjacent street at its rear; and upon learning that no tea was to be had in all of Lyme — a curious notion, that — I exited by this latter way. Imagine my dismay, upon perceiving the gentleman as yet behind! For he had assuredly pursued me to the shop's interior, and thence into the adjacent street.

I had no desire to alert him to my awareness of his presence, by attempting blatantly to lose him; and so, with my head down and my feet purposeful, I made as swiftly as I might for Wings cottage. A hurried ascent to my room, to dress for dinner — and to observe the gentleman posted in the street below, arranged so very casually in a doorway, for all the world like one of my brother James's Loiterers. [73] Austen's brothers James and Henry, while students at Oxford, established the literary journal The Loiterer, to which Austen herself may have contributed the occasional letter. — Editor's note.

I wonder what shall become of him? Does he intend to remain there the rest of the night? And who has set him upon me — and for what possible reason? Is he, perhaps, one of Roy Cavendish's men, intent upon learning the direction of my enquiries, since I have been so rude as to avoid communication with the Customs man himself?

I was unsettled the length of dinner, and could make only the most cursory of replies to my mother's many suppositions regarding Wootton House, and my father's observations of the history of Wootton Fitzpaine's church.

And now, alone with my pen and paper in the clear light of a Sunday morning, with little of activity before me other than the writing of a long-overdue letter to my poor Cassandra, I am incapable of so simple a task, and must rise continually to peer out at the street, in as stealthy a manner possible, in search of an unknown watcher.

Monday, 24 September 1804

NOT LONG AFTER BREAKFAST THIS MORNING, AS I SETTLED DOWN IN the sitting-room to mend the slit in my brown wool, and mull over all that I knew of Lyme's tangled affairs, I was starded to find in the depths of my workbasket, a bit of paper — its edges sealed with a drop of tallow. Opening it in some wonderment, I discovered it to be a missive from our man James, written painstakingly with a bit of lead, and looking something of a scrawl.

Dear Miss, it ran, I'll be seing Matty Hurley as you askt it being my free day. Do you come to St. Michael's church at 3 o'cfock. I hope as this will serve. Yours respeckfuUy James.

I had but to waste the better part of the morning, then, in fitful bursts of work, and occasional glances from the scullery window — which revealed no watchers waiting in doorways; and indeed, I am forced to wonder if my fancies did not run away with me Saturday e'en, in being surfeited with all manner of preposterous schemes.

ST. MICHAEL'S BEING BUT A SHORT WALK DOWN BROAD TO BRIDGE Street, and from thence, after a brief look at the sea and Broad Ledge, which was visible now at low tide [74] Broad Ledge was originally a part of Lyme proper — medieval maps of the area suggest it once was crowded with houses — but was later inundated by the sea, and is now visible only at low tide. It serves as a reminder of the shifting nature of the Dorset coastline. — Editor's note. , up Church Street, I had a very little way to go. I set out not long before three o'clock, accordingly, in my demure close bonnet and with a basket of clothes depending from my arm; for at my mother's hearing that I intended visiting the church, she would charge me with delivering her contribution to the ladies’ auxiliary, and was only persuaded with difficulty against accompanying me herself.

St. Michael's is not a handsome edifice; and that may be attributed, perhaps, to it being two churches at once — a late Norman one, and the present building, which dates from the sixteenth century. It sits nobly upon a cliff, how-ever, and seems quite suited to the spirit of Lyme, with all its peculiarities. I should not wish a more regular building to take its place; it seems, indeed, to have been a part of this coast forever.

I stood a moment on the stoop of the church, and glanced back the way I had come; and shivered to think that I detected a figure lingering behind; but it must have been an effect of the sunlight, a chimera of sorts, for when I blinked to observe a second time, the figure was no more. I pushed open the church's heavy oak door, and stepped into the cool dimness of its vestibule.

All was hushed, and the few supplicants scattered amidst the pews, too bowed in prayer to attend to my arrival. I looked about for James's broad shoulders, and could not find them; and so, after a moment, I progressed up a side aisle and took my place among the reverent. The church bell tolled the hour.

After fifteen minutes of silent contemplation, I determined to search for James outside the church; and made my way once more to the vestibule. It was there I encountered Miss Crawford, as staunch as a general the afternoon of a battle. She stood to one side of the vestibule itself, in the Auxiliary's anteroom, in an imposing black cap arrayed with jet. Her nostrils were pinched as though in reception of a noisome odour, but her bony hands fairly flew among the ordered piles of cast-off clothing. She looked up as I hesitated on the little room's threshold, and under the command of Miss Crawford's gaze, I could not but drop a curtsey.

“Good afternoon, Miss Austen,” that lady said sharply over her spectacles. “I understand you were at Wootton Fitzpaine on Saturday. You should have informed me of your visit prior to having paid it, and I should have charged you with enquiring of Mrs. Barnewall when she intends to make her contribution to the ladies’ auxiliary. My brother tells me she is to leave the country soon; and it should be a very shabby thing, if in all the bustle of making ready, St. Michael's were forgot. But no matter. I was not to know you were to go — and on such a foggy afternoon, too! — and so I shall have the trip to make over.”