Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

“I am very sorry for it, Jane,” Eliza replied soberly, “and for the unconscious cruelty of my words. I meant but to make a sport of men, in holding them up to your supposed derision; but I ended by wounding you.’

“I, et us think no more about it,” I replied, mortified at my own susceptibility; were my feelings regarding my single state, at the advanced age of eight-and-twenty, so exceedingly raw? But I shook off such thoughts and returned to my first subject. “Regarding your mastery of French,” I said. “Can you give me the sense of a particular word, did T attempt to repeat it?”

“I can but try.”

“Very well. I believe it was lascargon.” A French word spoken in the drawing-room at High Down Grange.

Eliza's brows lowered over her eyes with a pretty air of penetration. “But that means nothing, my dear Jane. You cannot have got it right.”

“Think, Eliza. What might I have heard?”

“Lascargon. Lascargon. I suppose it might have been les garsons —the boys — or La Gascogney a woman from Gascony, a province of France.”

“That could very well be!” 1 cried, considering Seraphine. “But why did he not simply call her by name?”

We had achieved the end of the Cobb, and were thrust quite far out into the sea; a drenching plume of spray burst and churned against the rocks at our feet, and in the distance, a cutter sped by under full sail, its stem harried by seabirds. The breeze off the waves was decidedly stiff; and after a summer of Bath's closeness and poor drains, the smells of a city given over to medicinal waters, I revelled in Lyme's freshness, and breathed deep.

Eliza was not so sanguine. “Jane, my dear, I am all to pieces in this wind,” she declared, turning about with a hand to her turban, “and your confusion of pronouns has quite worn out my patience. Let us turn round, and find our way to the Golden Lion, while you explain yourself.”

And so, as the shadows of afternoon grew longer on the Cobb, and the gulls wheeled and dipped above our heads, I told Eliza of High Down Grange, and the mysteries of a lanthorn on the cliff edge at night.

“And you cannot place the girl Seraphine's purpose in the household,” Eliza mused, her eyes upon the stones. “She seems neither a domestic nor a lady. Well! There is only one possibility remaining! She is his little French lovebird — though why he dresses her in sacks, and sends her about the shingle at night, I cannot undertake to say. You have once again found yourself the company of a rogue, my dear Jane, and we must know more of his character before such questions may be resolved.”

“I do not think you have the right of it, Eliza,” I protested. “Seraphine had not the look of a mistress.”

“And what is that, in your understanding? An open vulgarity, a blowsy aspect, a decided want of taste? I assure you, the chere amies I have known — including my late husband's — were hardly as the novels have painted them.” At my expression of horror, Eliza threw back her head and laughed. “I shock you, Jane; I am sure that I shock you; but, after all, that is my purpose in life. I continue to exist merely for the upsetting of Austen conventions. And when are we likely to encounter this most intriguing gentleman? At the Lyme Assembly?”

“I should not think Mr. Sidmouth prone to dancing. He wants the sort of easy temper that finds diversion in frivolity.”

“Perhaps,” Eliza replied. “Perhaps. But I would charge you to take care with your appearance on the morrow, in the event Mr. Sidmouth comes.”

“You cannot believe me to wish for the attentions of such a man!” I protested.

“I can, and I do. Your air, when you speak of him, is hardly easy, and you were ever a girl to find the eccentric character more engaging than the open. You delight hi mystery, my dear Jane; and Mr. Sidmouth has piqued your interest. Admit it! Your reddened cheeks even now bespeak your susceptibilities/’

Indeed they do not” My voice was sharp — but then, I was rather mortified. “They are merely brightened by the wind.”

“I could find it in my heart to believe you, my dear, Eliza said comfortably, “did not the wind blow to our backs at present.”

I HAD REASON TO PONDER ELIZA'S WORDS WHEN ONCE I HAD SEEN her safely into the care of her devoted maid, Manon, and her little dog, Pug, in the rooms Henry had engaged at the Golden Lion. I was returned once more to the street, and only steps from my cottage gate, when a brief scene unfolding near a shopfront opposite, drew my curious eye. A flash of a scarlet cloak, a stream of unbound blond hair, and the angelic features of Seraphine — and behind her, Mr. Sidmouth, his brows drawn down in an expression of angry contempt. Another man — a common labourer, and quite astoundingly tipsy, by his wavering appearance — was lounging in the shop doorway, an unattractive leer upon his face. That he had only just unburdened himself of a phrase of abuse, I read in his countenance; and knew Sidmouth's anger to be the result. Seraphine, to her credit, appeared unmoved. Her noble head was high, and her carriage graceful; she moved, as always, as though possessed of wings. I bent my head, much intrigued by what had passed, but desirous of drawing no attention from their quarter; and in a moment I had gained the safety of the cottage door. One further glance sufficed to tell me that the intimates of High Down were turned the corner; and I breathed a sigh of relief. But why? Why this emotion at the sight of him, and in her company? A man of whom I know next to nothing, and have even less reason to think well of; a man so little likely to prove congenial to my sensibility or expectations? The ways of the mind and heart are sometimes past all understanding.

Except, I am reminded, for the Elizas of this world.

6 September 1804

CASSANDRA AND I WERE ROUSED FROM SLEEP AT DAWN BY THE HUE and cry of a large party of men; and when I had stumbled to the window, and o'erlooked the lightening Cobb [17] Austen probably refers here to the beach that fronted Lyme's harbor, which is also called the Cobb, though not to be confused with the jetty of the same name. — Editor's note. , I found them to be racing back along its length in an attitude of urgency. I might have spared a thought, in my fuddled state, to wonder at such a noise; but, in truth, I merely felt all the strength of honest resentment, in being roused so early by a party of brawling flsherfolk. Though I have lived more than three years in Bath, and must be accustomed to the sounds of a city's daybreak, I have not yet forgot the felicity of early-morning birdsong, and the gender down of the country. And so I gaped, and glared once more upon the beach, in the direction from which the men were running — and started where I stood.

For the first rays of a rising sun had picked out the end of the stone pier, to reveal erected there a scaffolding ominous in its outlines, even from the distance at which I beheld it; and depending from its crossbar, what appeared to be a bundle of clothing, swaying dejectedly in the stiff breeze off the sea. It must — it could not be other — than a parody of a man; a straw form, perhaps, for burning in effigy — or so my bewildered thoughts insisted, as I gazed with palpitating heart. For if it were truly a man, then he could not be otherwise than hanged. And how a man should meet his end in so extraordinary a manner— in a place I well knew to have been free of a gibbet only the previous afternoon — was past all understanding.

As I watched, a wave rose up and broke whitely against the rocks, drenching the crossbar's nerveless form, and the cries of the fleeing fishermen drew nearer.