Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

I paused, to allow my words their full effect. “You have been smuggling Frenchmen between England and France, have you not? And Royalist Frenchmen, I would assume from the foundered ship's name and the speaking symbol of the fleur-de-lys. But such men are unlikely to find a happy reception on their native shores, now Buonaparte is emperor. Indeed, I cannot imagine them to be returning with anything like his health and safety in mind. Are you a trader in assassins, Mr. Sidmouth?”

There was an astonished silence; and then Geoffrey Sidmouth's chains rattled. I felt cool fingers slip over my own, and drew a startled breath.

“How come you to know so much?” he asked quietly.

“You have been hardly as secretive, or as careful, as you might have thought,” I replied. “The mooring ring at the end of the Cobb bears the marks of green paint, from the skiff you keep on Charmouth beach; in the act of erecting a scaffold, the boat must have brushed against the stone and the ring, and left its tell-tale sign. I am further assured of this, from having viewed the boat itself, in a later walk upon the shingle.”

“Many people own such a boat, and might paint it green; and the marks of wear be everywhere upon its surface.”

“Do you deny that you own such a boat?”

After a grudging instant, he said, “I do not. You have been well-informed, Miss Austen.”

I shrugged. “It must be impossible to employ so many men, upon so precarious a business, without some of them tending to talk. And the grounding of your ship last spring — for which I understand Bill Tibbit paid with his life — has turned the emotion of the townsfolk against him, and made them more likely to air their grievances, out of a mixture of injury and pride.”

“The Royal Belle was a heavy loss.” Sidmouth paused, as if uncertain how much to say. “As a result of Tibbit's treachery, seven men aboard it died; and all of them true-hearted and brave, and my dearest friends.”

“There are five Tibbit children who must feel a similar desolation,” I replied.

A silence fell between us, and in the distance I heard the voice of Gordy Trimble, skylarking in sunlight. I looked down at my gloved hand, and saw Sidmouth's fingers still upon it; but a curious heaviness had taken hold of me, in knowing him to be guilty beyond the faintest doubt. I had held out hope for his goodness so long; and though I knew Tibbit's hanging to be a form of retribution — a life taken for so many lives unjustly lost — I could not shake the chill that had overcome my body. There was Captain Fielding to consider. How many deaths were necessary, in payment for blood already spilled?

“I am thankful for this, at least,” I said, faltering. “I thought you likely to hang unjustly — and the weight of it should have haunted me all the days of my life. But I will be reconciled the better, in knowing that Tibbit's blood is indeed on your hands — and on Percival Fielding's as well, for having paid the man to ground the ship. But I cannot understand what should have urged the Captain to such a ruthless act! Did he believe you to traffic in nothing more than contraband?”

“I cannot say.” Sidmouth's voice was heavy, and his fingers slid away from my own. “I did not know for a certainty that he was behind the fellow Tibbit — but your stating it now must be the fruit of further knowledge.”

“And so you killed him, though you doubted his complicity?” I was all horrified amazement, and my shock must have throbbed in my voice.

“ I , killed Percival Fielding? But I never killed the Captain, however little love I bore the mincing scoundrel!”

“But, indeed, you must have!”

“Indeed, I did not!”

“But the horseshoes — the white flower—”

“I must assure you solemnly, Miss Austen, that I was standing for the better part of the night some six miles distant, on Puncknowle hill, awaiting the signal of a ship most anxiously desired, which failed, however, to appear! And that Mr. Dagliesh was with me, from the direst necessity, and will vouch for my presence the entirety of the night Captain Fielding was murdered.”

A memory of the scene I had witnessed on Charmouth beach, the very night afier Fielding's killing, flashed before my eyes.

“The boat that landed the following night — with the wounded man — it was for this that you waited?”

“How come you to know of it?”

“I was a witness to its arrival.”

“But how ?” Sidmouth's voice was hoarse.

“You must know of the cavern, on the Charmouth shingle. I had hidden myself in its depths, the better to observe unmolested the movements on the beach — for after your arrest at the hands of Mr. Dobbin that morning, I felt I had to probe the truth of matters more. For lie seemed little inclined to do it.”

“The cavern—” Sidmouth hesitated. “You explored its fullest extent?”

“You would mean the tunnel? You knew, then, of its existence, and its end point in Captain Fielding's garden?”

“I did. In point of fact, the tunnel predates the Captain's tenancy of that house, it having been built for another gentleman more inclined to clandestine trade, who has since fled these parts, Miss Austen. You will understand that the Gentlemen of the Night have long held sway about this coast — some hundred years, in fact — and Fielding's house is at least as old. He may have prettied the place a bit with his wilderness temple, and bits of antique statuary, but the way carved through the cliffs was not his enterprise to claim.”

“And yet,” I mused, “he may have employed it for just such a clandestine purpose. I found the storeroom filled with what appeared to be contraband goods, a fact that has much puzzled me.”

Sidmouth's laugh was short. “Since Fielding styled himself a prop of the law, you would mean, and affected to be so much in the Customs man's confidence? But tell me this, Miss Austen. How do you think that Fielding supported his customary style? On a Naval pension?”

“I assumed him wealthy from the seizure of prizes,” [75] Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, Royal Navy officers — if they survived — frequently made considerable fortunes from the taking of enemy ships and their cargoes. Austen's naval brothers sent frequent news of such booty, and she describes this sort of swift advancement in Persuasion. Captain Wentworth begins his career in 1802 a man without fortune, and by 1814 is a wealthy one. — Editor's note. I replied. “You would ascribe it to smuggling?”

“Not smuggling. No. I believe Fielding to have become wealthy through the consideration of others, more benevolent to his circumstances. For certain Gentlemen of the Night, a small expression of gratitude for silences kept, and discovery averted — a cask of the finest Darjeeling, let us say, or a barrel of French brandy — might seem a gift well-placed.”

“Bribery,” I said slowly. “It has a certain aptness. We may assume him to have sold what he could not consume himself, and thus been in a way to supplement his income.”

There was a smallish pause, as I mulled over the Captain's duplicitous character.

“The cavern I understand; but how came you to discover the tunnel at all?” Sidmouth enquired.

“In following two men within its depths.” I was deliberately vague; I should not like to admit to Sidmouth now that I had expected Dick and Eb to be making for the Grange. “I felt sure their business was suspect, and thought to discover its nature in pursuing them. In the event, I found only what bewildered me. I must conclude now that they sought to retrieve some tribute previously given to Fielding — for they canvassed the storeroom with thoroughness. But their activity was for naught; they quitted the place in some disappointment.”