Jane and the Man of the Cloth (8 page)

7 September 1804

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T
HE
L
YME
A
SSEMBLY
R
OOMS SIT ON
B
ROAD
S
TREET, AT
B
ELL
C
UFF
and Cobb Gate, and their windows so o'erlook the sea, that when one is twirling in the midst of the floor (and well supplied with negus),
¹
one might almost believe oneself aboard ship, and borne on the crest of a wave. Or so Captain Fielding observed; and as he is a Naval man, albeit lame in one leg and now retired, I must take his observations as more generally apt than most

But I run ahead to the middle of the play, and neglect to draw open the curtain and set the scene; and so I give you the Reverend George Austen, attired in a shabby if respectable black tailcoat of uncertain vintage, his younger daughter by his side in her borrowed pink feathers, entering upon the Assembly at the stroke of eight o'clock. Henry and Eliza intended joining us later, believing the hour far too early for fashion; but I rejoiced to find the majority of Lyme society less nice in their distinctions, and the rooms already quite full, and of a happy mixture of ladies and gentlemen—the former being generally of that middle age that assures them either married or safely beyond susceptibility, and the latter retired Naval officers. Lyme has proved so attractive to the seafaring set, in fact, that a coterie of Naval families has setded in the cottages lining the streets of town; and their society seems at once so self-sufficient, and so cheerfully
good,
that one quite longs to marry a daring commander of the Red or White,
²
if only with a view to settling in Lyme some twenty years hence.

But perhaps Captain Fielding has influenced my views.

“What a fearful crowd, my dear Jane,” my father remarked, in his vaguest tone, as though only just emerging from the leaves of his book. “Had not we better return to Wings cottage, and the society of your mother? For the crush is heavy, and we know no one/’ And he would have turned for the door, had I not seized his arm, and urged him firmly into the room.

“There are not above four-and-twenty couples, Father, and you know that in Bath we are commonly burdened with thrice that number. We cannot
know
anyone, unless we
meet
someone; and for that, you know, there is nothing like an Assembly.”

“I wish your mother might have come, Jane. I wish I had insisted.”

My mother remained at home, administering spoonfuls of medicine from Mr. Dagliesh's green bottle to a suffering, though improving, Cassandra.

“I think, sir, that you will like the card room. I am sure that whist is to be played there. Shall I conduct you thither, and claim a chair?”

“But what of yourself? You will be all unchaperoned!”

I stifled my impatience—and stilled my foot, which
would
tap in time to the music, the orchestra having just struck up the first dance; and considered the Reverend's delicacy. Despite having almost nine-andrtwenty years, I remain for my father a chit of a girl, and shall claim such attentions as long as he is able to give them. But on a sudden thought, I searched the gay throng for the one woman whose acquaintance I might claim in Lyme, the better to still my father's fears. I had only to look for the peevish young ladies met with that very morning at the linendraper's—and there I very soon found her, standing a head above her companions and arrayed in a cloth-of-gold costume cut along Egyptian lines, with a circlet of rubies in her black hair. She had a gentleman on either arm—
one
of whom must surely be her husband.

“There, Father!” I cried, turning him in the proper direction. “I see my acquaintance, Mrs. Barnewall. She is the wife of the Honourable Mathew Barnewall, of Ireland, whom I understand is to have the viscountcy of Kingsland.”
³

“Barnewall, do you say?” my father replied doubtfully. “She looks rather like an actress.”

“My dear Miss Austen,” Mrs. Barnewall cried, swooping down upon me from her considerable height, and bearing with her several of her party, “how lovely you look. As fresh as a rose from an English hedgerow. Does not she look lovely, Captain Fielding? I am sure you admire her. So much loveliness cannot be resisted, even by
le Chevalier.”

The man to whom she spoke was neither in that first youth, as to be called callow, nor so advanced in years, as to appear beyond the temptation of so daring a woman as Mrs. Barnewall; but he had the grace to look discomfited by the lady's effusions, which could not help but recommend his character to me. He bowed low, and offered a smile, and asked if he might beg an introduction. At which point, I found myself indebted to the bold Mrs. Barnewall for the chief of my pleasure that evening.

She looked first to the ladies in her train. “The Miss Schuylers, of Shropshire, I believe you have seen already, Miss Austen,” she said, “but may I have the honour of presenting Miss Letitia, Miss Susan, and Miss Constance Schuyler to your acquaintance.”

The first and second were familiar; the third, their youngest sister—left behind, it would seem, on the morning's visit to Mr. Milsop.

I nodded; the other three bowed; and there our mutual interest ended.

“They are also privileged, in being able to call Percy— Captain Fielding—our cavalier.”

At my expression of enquiry, Captain Fielding looked diffident, and would have turned away, the better to avoid explanation, but Mrs. Barnewall intervened.

“There!” she cried. “Was ever a man so perverse in accepting praise! I assure you, Miss Austen, that Captain Fielding comes by the name through nothing dishonourable, as his countenance would suggest. But I shall leave you to tease him about the story, and so give you grounds for conversation; for one
must
talk in the dance, and I am sure he means to ask you.”

Captain Percival Fielding is of good height and very well-made, with fair hair, a quick blue eye, a sudden smile, and the ruddy countenance of a man accustomed to being and doing in all weathers. That he is possessed of a wooden leg joined just below the knee detracts not at all from his charm; if anything, it adds a certain dash to his otherwise commonplace appearance. His impediment certainly
impedes
him very little, as I was to learn in the course of the evening; for tho’ he forewent this first dance in order to make my acquaintance, to enquire as to my engagement for the next, required but a moment; and for my acceptance of his offer, only another.

“And I believe this is your father, Miss Austen? For we have not been introduced,” Mrs. Barnewall said.

I hastened to amend my stupidity, and made each known to the other; and was made acquainted myself with the gentleman on Mrs. Barnewall's
other
arm, who was no more the Honourable Mathew than the Captain. A Mr. Crawford, an elegantly dressed gentleman of undistinguished countenance, balding head, and perhaps five-and-forty years—a widower possessed, so Mrs. Barnewall tells me, of a prettyish sort of place called Darby, out east along the Charmouth way.

“We were just speaking,” Mrs. Barnewall said, “of that dreadful business on the Cobb.”

My father looked vague.

“The hanged man, Father,” I supplied.

“Ah, yes—dreadful business, dreadful/’ He looked a trifle dismayed—at a lady's advancing the topic, I imagined, rather than the topic itself.

“They say he must be one of the Reverend's men, and killed by a rival,” the ginger-haired Letty Schuyler remarked.

“And /heard that it was the Reverend did the deed,” her sister Susan rejoined scornfully, “because the man betrayed his trust.”

“But what of the flower?” Captain Fielding objected.

“Flower?” I enquired, all attention to every detail.

“A white flower was found near the hanged man,” Mrs. Barnewall supplied. “It is the talk of all Lyme.”

“A rose, was it not?” This, from Letty Schuyler.

“No, no!” her sister Constance cried. “It was a lily. I have heard the Reverend intended it as a sign, but know not
what
it signifies.”

“But should a man of the cloth be likely to commit murder at all?” my father cried indignantly. “We are
not
in Rome, where all manner of evil may be perpetrated in an odour of sanctity. The Church of England may be charged with many faults—a laxity of moral purpose, betimes, and an unbecoming luxury, on occasion; to such faults any
human
institution may be prone. But the taking of a life! I profess myself quite shocked that you may credit the notion, and toss it about as a commonplace among yourselves.”

“My dear Reverend Austen,” Mr. Crawford said with a knowing air, and great good humour, “you quite mistake the Miss Schuylers. They speak not of a clergyman like yourself—ho! ho! a very good joke
that
would be—but of a notorious scoundrel who devils these parts—the very Reverend, who is famed for bringing contraband goods from France, and supplying all of England with his wares.”

“A smuggler!” I cried. “I had not an idea of it!”

“Indeed, Miss Austen,” Captain Fielding replied, “the Dorsetshire coast has ever been prey to the evil. The Reverend is merely the latest ringleader of an ancient trade indeed. The Gentlemen of the Night, as such fellows presume to call themselves, have long plied the coves and secret harbours of the very waters beyond those windows.” And with a bow to the ladies, he added, “I must declare myself quite of the Miss Schuylers’ opinions.”

“But which?” the youngest, and the prettiest, enquired with a winning smile. “For you know, Letty and Susan cannot either of them agree.”

“I think either equally possible, for the Reverend's hand is certainly behind the gibbet,” the Captain diplomatically replied.

“And I, Fielding, cannot see the sense of it,” Crawford broke in. “The man's livelihood depends upon his discretion. Why, then, take the fellow's life in so public a manner? Would it not have been better to settle the score in privacy, and in the dark of night? A man might be thrown over the side of a swift galley, on a run from Boulogne, and no one the wiser. No,” the good gentleman continued, sliding a hand into his ample waistcoat pocket, “I think the gesture too public. The scaffold was quite deliberately placed at the end of the Cobb. We might almost think ourselves recalled to Monmouth's time.
⁴
There is more here than meets the eye; the hanging was meant for an example. A message has been sent.”

“But to whom?” I enquired.

“There's the rub of it. And
from
whom?” Mr; Crawford's balding pate began to shine with the honest sweat of his enthusiasm.

“I still hold to the Reverend,” Captain Fielding said stubbornly.

“But
who,
my good man, is /us?”

“You mean to say that the miscreant has never been seen?” my father interjected, with some astonishment.

“Not a glimpse or a whisper has anyone had,” Mrs. Barnewall said exultantly. “The man is said to operate in such disguise, that even his lieutenants may not know him in daylight, much less the Crown's drunken dragoons. On this depends his success; so that nothing is more guarded than the Reverend's identity/’

“I thought to have seen him once/’ Mr. Crawford said, turning to my father, “at my fossil site. A party of men beached a boat just below the cliffs, and commenced unloading a cargo. But the cargo turned out to be fish—and there is nothing very contraband about that, you know.”

Amid general laughter, my father's interest was swiftly diverted by the mention of fossils; and the two men were soon engrossed in a discussion well-suited to the interests of them both. I rejoiced in the discovery of Mr. Crawford—a man of littie physical distinction, being of short stature, decided rotundity, and middle years, but possessed of an intellect that must be pleasing to my father. I had not the opportunity of knowing Mr. Crawford better, however; for as with one thought, the two older gentlemen moved towards the card room, still talking of botany and cliffs, and the Reverend Austen did not reappear for the majority of the evening.

“Lord!” Mrs. Barnewail cried. “I am perishing of thirst! And
where
has my husband got to? Playing at loo, again, and playing high, I've little doubt. Come along, Letty, and preserve me from boredom. I am sure you should like a glass of wine as much as me.”

And with a nod on my side, and several insincere simpers on theirs, the Barnewail retinue moved towards the supper room in a swirl of trains and delicate shawls.

I found myself quite alone with Captain Fielding, and under the pain of the moment, cast about for a topic; several were adopted and discarded as unsuitable; and though my curiosity was raised, I resolved
not
to ask for the meaning behind
le Chevalier,
since the Captain had appeared so little inclined to discuss it. But I was saved all the trouble. The music began, the Captain bowed, and we moved into the dance.

“You have been in Lyme before, I think,” he began. “I am sure that I observed you in this very room, some months ago.”

“It is exactly a twelvemonth since I visited Lyme,” I cried, all astonishment “How came we not to meet before?”

“I was little able to
dance
before this summer, Miss Austen; and you will observe that I manage it now with a very poor grace,” the gentleman replied, with a wry look for his game leg.

“You were wounded in service?”

“Off Malta, in ‘99; a brush with the Monster's forces.
⁵
1 was unlucky enough to be on the gunnery deck at the very moment a cannon came loose; and the full force of a thirty-two-pounder rolled over my leg—which was, as a consequence, removed on the spot.”

At my sympathetic ejaculation, he returned a smile. “In one fell swoop I went from Post Captain to millstone about the necks of my men. I was fortunate, however, in having a First Lieutenant of the first water; and we prevailed before the night was through.”

I thought of dear Frank, and dearest Charles, and shuddered despite the heat and noise of the rooms—for how much danger and horror might they even now endure, far from home and the expediency of news; they might yet be killed, and we know nothing of it for weeks or months. My depth of feeling must have been written upon my countenance, for Captain Fielding's voice noticeably softened.