Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

The master of High Down did not bother to express his astonishment on this point; he had done with such effusions. I had no longer the power to surprise him. “And did they, too, witness the landing of the boat?” he asked, in some concern.

I shook my head. ‘They appeared on the shingle after your curious skiff.”

“It was La Gascogne, the boat you saw once on the very beach; and it bore my cousin Philippe — Mademoiselle LeFevre's brother.”

“The one who serves Napoleon?”

“The one who served Napoleon — as a spy for the Royalist cause — and nearly gave his young life as a result. If there can be any consolation for myself at such a time, it is in learning from Seraphine that the boy will survive. Had he not been encamped in Boulogne, with the forces readying the Monster's invasion of England, he should never have escaped when finally he was discovered. But escape he did, if gravely wounded; and though the boat was delayed by storm, it landed successfully a day later— in Charmouth rather than off the Chesnil bank. Dagliesh at least was present, though I could not be.”

I drew a tremulous breath; such turbulence as this man endured! Such passion, for a cause so beyond himself! And to end, now, with the end of a rope — but he had accepted such a possibility, undoubtedly, when first he undertook to commerce in the unseating of emperors, however upstart.

I sat back on my heels. “But if you did not kill Captain Fielding — who, then, fired the deadly ball?”

Sidmouth shook his head. “I do not know. I have expended a world of thought upon the subject — for the Captain's murderer took great pains to incriminate me utterly. It betrays a certain knowledge of my household, and my particular habits, that cannot but be troubling, as well as a desire to see great harm devolve upon myself.”

There was a knock upon the door. “Yer five minutes be ten, Miss Austen! Out wit’ ye!”

“Another moment only, pray, Mr. Trimble!” I called, and turned swiftly to Geoffrey Sidmouth. “It pains me to broach so intimate a subject, and which cannot but be painful to you; but I must voice my darkest thoughts and have done. Is it possible — can you find it in your heart to believe — that Seraphine might have done the murder in your very absence?”

“ Seraphine? That is preposterous!”

“I do not mean to say she should have killed the Captain from a desire to incriminate yourself,” I said hurriedly, over his words of protest. “She may have happened upon him of a sudden, and feared a renewal of those events that proved so disturbing to her, but a few weeks before; and so fired upon him, in a belief she acted in self-defence, and then fled the scene. At such a moment she was unlikely to think of the horseshoes.”

“But the lily,” Sidmouth rejoined. “It should be no one's custom to travel abroad at midnight in possession of such a flower.”

“Perhaps she bore it with her, on some errand to one of your Royalist men hidden about the countryside, and only laid it near the Captain in the thought that he was behind the grounding of the Royal Belle, indeed.”

“I suppose that such a case is possible,” Sidmouth said slowly. “For it is difficult to account for the horseshoes otherwise. You make a very convincing argument, Miss Austen.” He raised his head, and I perceived again the glitter of his eyes. “I wish it might be less so. But it is of no matter. I have taken on myself the burden of that death; and perhaps it is only justice that I should stand for Seraphine, as someone else has undoubtedly stood for me, in the matter of Bill Tibbit.”

“Bill Tibbit's death shall never be pursued,” I said dismissively. “It will be ascribed to a feud of the fisherfolk, and left to lie. Mr. Dobbin, the justice, will only exert himself in a matter of quality — such as the Captain's. I understand, now, the agony of Seraphine's mind, in the very midst of the inquest. You had a suspicion of the truth, did you not, and so urged her to keep silent?”

“I had no notion — indeed, I wished her only to say nothing of where I had been, or Dagliesh either, the night of Fielding's death, from anxiety that all our plans should be o'erthrown. But upon reflection, I find it not unlikely that events should have occurred as you have said. Seraphine had reason enough to hate the Captain, and fear his appearance on a lonely road.”

“What did occur between them?” I enquired curiously.

Another knock from Mr. Trimble.

“I shall be with you directly! I pause only for my basket!” I called.

“I see no reason to deny you the intelligence,” Sidmouth said, “from knowing I may depend upon your complete discretion.”

“I was told that Fielding recovered the lady after she suffered a fall from her horse, and was attempting to carry her to the Grange, when he was overtaken by Mr. Crawford's equipage.”

A flash of teeth that betokened a grim smile.

“He had drawn her out to the road itself, with a falsely written message — a plea for help from one of our Royalists, hidden in the Pinny,” Sidmouth said. “A drawing of a white lily was sent with the note; and it arranged to meet in a lonely spot not far from the Grange, in the early hours of the morning, when the moon should have set.” He paused to draw breath.

“You have seen that road at night; you know full well how little aid might be found, did one suffer a mishap. When Seraphine arrived, Fielding was waiting; and she knew him to be attempting her discovery. She fled from him, and was upon the point of escape, when his horse overtook her own — and he dealt her such a severe blow to the head with his whip handle, that she fell unconscious from her mount's back. It is solely by the grace of God she avoided a more severe injury still.”

“But what can have been his purpose?’” I cried.

“We think it probable he wished to detain her some time, in an effort to win that intelligence from her, that should be so deadly to our cause.”

“But why? What reason can Fielding have had, to so disturb your activity? He was an officer of the Royal Navy! Should not the downfall of Napoleon be in the interest of all who claim a part in that noble institution?”

“All, who are not presently dependent upon the Monster's purse,’” Sidmouth replied grimly. “I have believed Captain Fielding a spy of the French for many years; but it was only in recent months that he allowed himself to show his hand, in his attempts to discover my methods. He styled himself an agent of the Revenue men, as he took care that all of Lyme should know; but his treachery had as its object far more than Free Trade. It has ended with his life.”

Mr. Trimble could no longer be thwarted; and I made as if to go, my aching ankles almost numb from the conditions to which I had subjected them. I could not but think that I should never see Geoffrey Sidmouth again, and emotion would rise; but I hurriedly removed the bread and cheese and apples from the basket, and placed it over my arm, and was on the point of turning away, in despair of ever making an audible adieu; when Sidmouth's hand closed over my own, as tightly as a vise.

“To have you leave without a word will tear the very heart from my body,” he said harshly. “However little approbation you accord my actions — despicable, unjust as they may seem — do not deny me the gentleness of your pity! One word of farewell, for God's sake, to a man whose fate is so uncertain!”

I stared at him wordlessly, all but overcome; and in an instant, he had pulled me down beside him in a crushing embrace, made more awkward by the presence of his chains. I felt myself enmeshed in iron, and closed my eyes against the force of it, until I felt his lips move warmly over my own.