Free Jane and the Man of the Cloth by Stephanie Barron Page A

“I thought her no higher than a servant, from the manner in which she was dressed, and the air of general command he enjoyed in her presence.”
    “I fear that you saw nothing out of the ordinary way,” the Captain replied, his lips compressed. “Sidmouth rules her frail life with an iron hand; and she is so far dependent upon him, as to make her prey to every degradation. I very much fear—I have reason to wonder—if she is not entirely abandoned to his power, Miss Austen, in a manner that no honourable man should tolerate. To consider his oum advantage, when he was charged by her dying father to protect hers, is in every way despicable; but I must believe him to have sunk even as low as this. I pity Mademoiselle LeFevre; I am stirred by the outrage she daily endures; but I cannot intervene. I have not the cause. Not yet.”
    I was overcome by this confidence, and all amazed at the depravity it bespoke; and though I wondered a little at Captain Fielding's imparting so much of a rumoured nature, to a lady and a virtual stranger, I silently applauded the fine sensibility that encouraged his indignation, and felt a warmth of respect for his concerns. Of Seraphine LeFevre, I thought with renewed pity, and of Sidmouth, with contempt
    Our dance coming to a close with the Captain's last words, he bowed gravely and I curtseyed, somewhat lost in thought My gallant partner then suggesting we should repair to the supper room, I gladly took the arm he offered me, being somewhat out of breath from the double exertion of conversation and dance, and allowed myself to be led in search of punch and pasties.
    Fielding shook his head. ‘The man's charm is considerable. I am sure—I cannot but assume—that you felt its force yourself. Consider then how the people of a town, who feel only the public benefits of association with such a man, are more generally likely to forgive his private sins. Sidmouth has spent such sums on the betterment of Lyme, as to ensure his place in the hearts of the Fane family and their creatures, who all but control the town; 7 he cuts a handsome figure at the Assemblies; his taxes are paid, his tithes collected—and if he continues to form a part of a roguish set, much given to gaming and general drunkenness in its hours of idleness—so be it.”
    “I am shocked,” I cried, “shocked and saddened. Men who have much power for good, seem always that much more tempted to evil; and that it should be the reverse, in the eyes of Providence, holds but little sway.”
    “My dear, my most excellent Miss Austen,” Captain Fielding replied, with some emotion; “you have given voice to my very thought. I hope our two minds may be always in concert.”
    I thought then, with a rush of foreboding, of the hanged man at the end of the Cobb, the scene I had witnessed the previous day, and my own doubts of Mr. Sidmouth's motives. I suspected another incitement to murder—one that had nothing to do with the notorious Reverend or his smuggled goods. But to voice such fears and suspicions, even to Captain Fielding, on the strength of so little, must be impossible; the ruin of Mr. Sidmouth's reputation—nay, even his life—might hang upon such idle talk.
    It could not do harm, however, to probe what more Captain Fielding might know of the murky affair.
    We had secured refreshment and moved towards the settee at one end of the room, before I took up my subject.
    “Lyme seems particularly prone to such grotesqueries of character as Mr. Sidmouth displays,” I observed, as I setded myself delicately upon the edge of a cushion. “The hanged man on the Cobb, for example. It was a very singular example of crudery, was it not?”
    A look of surprise from Captain Fielding, and a hesitation; for a Mrs. Barnewall to raise such matters, might be acceptable, but for a Miss Austen to broach them, apparently was not.
    “Poor Tibbit,” he answered at the last, as he eased himself next to me and extended his game leg before him.