Jane and the Man of the Cloth (Jane Austen Mystery) - Hardcover

Barron, Stephanie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553102036 ISBN 13: 9780553102031

Publisher: Bantam, 1997

Synopsis

After her brilliant detective debut in Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, there can be no doubt that Jane Austen would have made a
remarkable sleuth. And so, with great aplomb, Stephanie Barron reveals the next superb Jane Austen Mystery...

Jane Austen and her family are looking forward to a peaceful late-summer holiday in the seaside village of Lyme Regis. But on the road thither, a fearful storm and an overturned carriage lead the shaken travelers to seek refuge at High Down Grange. And there, in a dismal manor house wrapt in an air of malevolent neglect, Jane meets the darkly forbidding yet strangely attractive master of High Down Grange, Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth.

What murky secrets does the brooding Mr. Sidmouth hope to preserve behind his fierce glower? And who is the exceedingly lovely young woman dressed in peasant garb who shares his home? Once settled in town, Jane seeks to learn the answers. Yet common gossip is soon forgotten when a man is found hanged from a makeshift gibbet by the sea.

Only the day before, Jane had observed this same man in a heated exchange with Mr. Sidmouth. Still, the worthies of Lyme are certain the labourer's death is the work of "the Reverend," the notorious ringleader of the midnight smuggling trade. The Reverend's identity is the paramount mystery of Lyme Regis.  And Jane, who can never resist a puzzle, is determined to solve this one.

But to her dismay, she must soon admit that she harbours a strange sensibility for a man who could very well be a murderer. And then a second mysterious death draws her into a perilous scheme to entrap and expose Geoffrey Sidmouth. From the drawing- rooms of the cultured and the devious to secret caverns and coarse haunts, her mission will take her far from a lady's proper venue...until even so canny a student of character and valiant adventurer must ask herself: "Is the prize worth the risk--to my heart as well as my person?"

Stylish, suspenseful, and wickedly diverting, Jane and the Man of the Cloth delves deep into the foibles, passions, and ruthless machinations that lurk within the most polite society.

About this title

About the Author

Stephanie Barron is the author of eight previous Jane Austen mysteries. She lives in Colorado, where she is at work on the next Jane Austen mystery.


From the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

illiant detective debut in Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, there can be no doubt that Jane Austen would have made a
remarkable sleuth. And so, with great aplomb, Stephanie Barron reveals the next superb Jane Austen Mystery...

Jane Austen and her family are looking forward to a peaceful late-summer holiday in the seaside village of Lyme Regis. But on the road thither, a fearful storm and an overturned carriage lead the shaken travelers to seek refuge at High Down Grange. And there, in a dismal manor house wrapt in an air of malevolent neglect, Jane meets the darkly forbidding yet strangely attractive master of High Down Grange, Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth.

What murky secrets does the brooding Mr. Sidmouth hope to preserve behind his fierce glower? And who is the exceedingly lovely young woman dressed in peasant garb who shares his home? Once settled in town, Jane seeks to learn the answers. Yet common gossip is soon forgotten when a man is found

Reviews

YA. Following Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (Bantam, 1996), this book again places Jane Austen in the role of detective. As the Austen family travels to the town of Lyme Regis for a seaside holiday in the summer of 1804, their carriage overturns in a wild storm and Jane's sister Cassandra is injured. They are forced to seek shelter in nearby High Down Grange, the home of the mysterious and sensuous Geoffrey Sidmouth. A few days later, after the Austens are settled in their cottage, Jane witnesses menacing events and hears local gossip that rouses her curiosity. The remote village has become a destination for smugglers and Sidmouth is implicated as the notorious leader, the "Reverend." When his accuser, Captain Fielding, is found murdered, Jane uses her sleuthing abilities to unravel the puzzles of human relationships and ominous events. Like Jane Austen, Barron fuses drama and ironic wit to enable her heroine to maneuver effectively through society's restrictions. Jane is troubled by her conflicting feelings for Sidmouth and her need to get to the bottom of the mystery. Her wry observations, intelligence, and self-awareness will please Jane Austen fans as well as readers who enjoy intrigue blended with social commentary and history.?Susanne Bardelson, Wheat Ridge Public Library, Jefferson County, CO
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nearly as wry as Jane Austen herself, Barron delivers pleasure and amusement in her second delicious Jane Austen mystery (Jane and the Unpleasantness of Scargave Manor, 1996). While headed to Lyme Regis for a seaside holiday in 1804, the Austen carriage overturns and Jane's sister Cassandra is injured. The family finds shelter at High Down Grange, home of sardonic Geoffrey Sidmouth and his beautiful cousin Seraphine LeFevre. The narrative is structured as a journal in which Barron's Jane notes her distress at finding herself attracted to the sensuous Sidmouth. The Austens' trip is historically accurate but sparsely enough documented to allow Barron great latitude in creating a tale that makes the most of the period when the Napoleonic Wars raged and the coast was rife with smugglers. At the local Assembly dance, Jane gathers gossip from the Crawfords, Barnewalls, Lucy Armstrong and Captain Percival Fielding, an injured naval officer, who hints that Sidmouth is the "Reverend," a notorious smuggler. When Fielding is murdered and Sidmouth arrested, a customs agent asks Jane to conduct an undercover investigation. She eagerly agrees. With indefatigable daring and intelligence, Jane discovers the true natures of her new acquaintances and the meaning of heroism. While Austen denied that her characters were based on real people, Barron cleverly turns to characters from Austen novels as models for her own: Mrs. Bennet for Mrs. Austen, Willoughby for Sidmouth, Elizabeth's relationship with Darcy for Jane's with Sidmouth. Worthy of its origins, this book is a delight.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Barron's second venture into the period and persona of Jane Austen (Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, p. 261) finds Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their parents on the road from Bath to a rented summer cottage in Lyme, on the seacoast. A heavy rainstorm overturns their carriage and injures Cassandra, but Jane finds help at the nearest dwelling--High Down Grange--and meets Geoffrey Sidmouth, its charismatic owner, along with his beautiful French cousin Seraphine. Once settled in Lyme, with Cassandra sent to London to speed her recovery, Jane is left to shop at the local boutique, attend the weekly Assembly dances, and wonder at a series of strange events along the coast that point to Sidmouth as the unidentified master (called ``Reverend'' by the townspeople) of a ring smuggling luxury goods from a Napoleonic France presently at war with England. One of that ring may have been Bill Tibbit, a local ne'er-do-well found hanged on the town quay, a white lily placed nearby. Displaying much interest in all this, and in Jane, is retired Captain Percival Fielding, who's mysteriously at bitter odds with Sidmouth. When Fielding is found shot to death--with another white lily and traces of Sidmouth's horse Satan near the body, and with reluctant testimony from his old friend Cholmondeley Crawford--Sidmouth appears doomed. But it's Jane and a few others to the rescue--a hero saved, no doubt, for future appearances. Prettily narrated, in true Austen style, but marred by a confusing, overlong, overpopulated plot, and by a Jane who too often appears Waspish or smug. A boon for Austen lovers, but outclassed by the author's debut. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this second entry in a series featuring Jane Austen as a detective, following Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor , Barron has delivered another rousing adventure, this time set in one of Austen's favorite locations, the seacoast town of Lyme. After the Austen family's carriage is overturned in foul weather, they're forced to rely on the hospitality of the mysterious Mr. Sidmouth. When settled at last in their vacation cottage, Jane is quickly drawn into the strange affairs of the town's citizens. Because its secluded location, Lyme has become a hotbed for smugglers, particularly a notorious robber dubbed the Man of the Cloth for his propensity for smuggling high-quality silk. Jane sets out to determine the smuggler's identity, and high on her list of suspects is the attractive if irritable Mr. Sidmouth. Barron's winning combination of romance and intrigue is well nigh irresistible. Strong plots and stylish writing are quickly becoming the hallmarks of this well-crafted series. Excellent entertainment. Joanne Wilkinson

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bath being unbearably hot this August, and my father's health indifferent, we determined to exchange our rooms in town for more salubrious ones along the coast. We had little inclination to try the bustle and vulgarity of Ramsgate , though my brother Edward would take a large establishment there; Brighton was not even to be spoken of; and so to Dorsetshire we would go, and to Lyme Regis in particular, having made a several-weeks' trial of its delights the previous autumn. No coaching inn should be good enough accommodation on the present occasion, however; none of your Three Cups or Golden Lions would do for us--no, the Austens of Bath should travel in style, and take furnished lodgings.  A cottage on the water, where my mother might gaze at the sea, and consider her Naval sons, and my father might indulge his passion for botany in walks along the shingle, should do very well. Cassandra and I meant to be happy with frequent turns about the Cobb , and even more frequent dances in the town's pretty little Assembly Rooms; our memories of the place were so cheerful, in fact, that the plan met with immediate approval. Bath was forgotten; Ramsgate consigned to those of little sense or taste; and Lyme become the object of all our fondest hopes.

Being possessed of a fortune that no longer admits of a private carriage, but finding ourselves above the meaner conveyance of mail coach and stage--the former being adjudged too swift and precarious for my father's temper, and the latter too crowded and vulgar for my mother's--we were forced to adopt the only alternative, a post chaise initiating in Bath, with horses changed daily en route. Having descended towards the southern coast by way of Shepton Mallet, Somerton, and Crewkherne, as recommended by Paterson's , we were even yet embarked today upon the final stage of our journey, with a new postboy, hailing from Lyme, mounted before; when the appearance of a murkiness upon the horizon gave rise to general alarm. Our fears were rewarded, as such fears generally are, with the sudden convergence of a gale above our heads; and the fierceness of the wind and rain that then ensued was indescribable.

Though it was not much beyond six o'clock, the light had failed utterly, leaving the interior of our coach in a gray dimness through which the faces of my sister and mother, seated opposite, shone palely Cassandra, who is ever indisposed by the motion of a carriage, and who, after long days of travel, was at the last extremity of her endurance, was in very ill looks; and her temper could hardly be improved by the proximity of my mother, whose general alarm at the fearful neighs of the horses, as the storm built wrathfully above our heads, and the postboy's resultant curses, had taught her to seek comfort in a fierce pinching of Cassandra's hand within her own. I observed the whitened knuckles of her grip, and silently thanked the force of chance that had placed me beside my father.

"We shall be overturned! I am sure of it! Overturned, Mr. Austen!" my mother cried.

"Now, my dearest," my father said, in a tone of gentle reproof, "you must not give way to womanly fears. The Lord looks after His own."

"Then He must be looking after them in town," my mother replied, in some exasperation, "for He is assuredly not along the Lyme road at present. We shall be overturned, and all of us killed, and I should like to know what you will say then, Mr. Austen! I am sure you shall be very sorry you did not listen to your wife!"

"Now, my dear," my father said again, and took up once more his book. A fearsome jolt then occurring, I was thrown abruptly against the coach window, and seized my chance to gaze out upon a storm-tossed world. The pitted road, but poorly maintained in the best of times, was awash in muddy water; the adjacent trees lashed into silvery indistinctness by the combined effects of wind and rain; and no relief apparent in the lowering density of cloud. I drew back to the relative comfort of the coach's interior, and attempted to calculate the distance remaining. We were some hours removed from Crewkerne, where we had spent the previous day and evening, not being prone to Sunday travel; [4] and should even now be breasting the long hill into Up Lyme. Was not the carriage rising? But as this very thought struck, a yet more bone-rattling shudder seized the coach's frame, as though a great beast had taken us up in its jaws and tossed us about for sport. I cried out, and was rewarded with a look of terror from my mother and a squeak of pain from Cassandra, whose hand was no doubt suffering under the effects of her companion's anxiety.

"Overturned, Mr. Austen!" the good woman cried, and half-stood as though to throw herself upon her husband's lap.

A great crash from the road ahead, and a lurching of the carriage; then the screaming of horses, and a tumult that could only be due to chaos within the traces. For the world to revolve a hundred degrees, was required but a moment; and when I found the courage to open my eyes, the floor was become the coach's ceiling. A most ludicrous position, particularly when viewed through a quantity of muslin, the result of one's skirts being tipped over one's head. I lay an instant in utter silence, feeling the rapid patter of my heart and the laboured nature of my breathing; and was relieved to find that both continued in force.

A grunt from my father roused me.

"Sir!" I cried, endeavouring to secure him amidst the murk and confusion, "May I be of assistance?"

At that, the coach's nether door was seized and opened--by the postboy, no doubt--and my father, whose main support the door had been, tumbled from the vehicle. Hardly a dignified antic for a clergyman of three-and-seventy, but followed by the still less-seemly exit of his younger daughter, her skirts in a tangle about her knees. The relief, however, at being freed from such a world gone topsy-turvy, was beyond every indecorous attempt to achieve it; I drew a shaky breath and tested my limbs, heedless of the fierce rain that pelted my cap. My father, having been helped to his feet by the postboy (a burly fellow of some five-and-thirty, one Hibbs by name), was seized with a coughing fit. The poor man's senses were little assisted when Hibbs thought to pound upon his back, and I hastened to intervene.

"Father," I said, taking him by the arm, "I trust you are not injured in any way?"

"Only in complaisance, my dear," he replied, with the ghost of a smile, "and that has been decidedly shaken. I shall be forced to attend your mother's every warning, by and by--a triumph, I fear, that she shall not know how to sustain."

My mother! I turned in an instant, and peered back within the carriage's depths--and oh! What a scene I then descried!

My beloved sister lay wan and lifeless, in a heap of crushed muslin against the coach's farthest wall--the wall that had received all the force of impact in the conveyance's upheaval. My mother was attempting to shift Cassandra towards the open door--which, given the tossing of the coach, was well above her head; but the poor woman lacked the strength for it, and was reduced to tears as a consequence.

"Stay, madam," I cried, and leapt for the postboy.

The man Hibbs saw the necessity in a moment; and lifted Cassandra to safety so swiftly and gently that I was all but struck speechless; the condition of the poor sufferer being of paramount importance, however, I offered broken thanks and turned to her comfort, overcome by nameless dread. So much lively beauty, reduced to deathly silence! It was not to be borne. My beloved sister was carried to the shelter of a tree, and my father's cloak propped on a few sticks above her, in an ineffectual attempt to shield her from the rain.

My mother's wails declared her incapable of use; my father was consigned to comfort her; and I turned to Cassandra to see what ill I might find.

A great bruise o'erspread her temple, and in feeling about her scalp, I was rewarded by a grimace of pain flitting across her countenance, and a warm trickle of blood upon my fingertips. I chafed her wrists, and called her name; implored her, in desperation, to awake; but she continued insensible, lying at the verge of the road like so much cast-off clothing. The horror that seized me then! I shudder to recall it. I was the closest to despair I have been in all my life--and so resolved upon action. To do, when one is very nearly past hope, is the sole means of relief. I turned from Cassandra and looked for the postboy.

"Hibbs!" I shouted. The tumult of the storm continued unabated, making all attempt at conversation a dubious affair.

"Yes, miss," the man rejoined, turning from the wreckage of his rig.

"My sister cannot remain here."

"Don't know as she 'as much choice, beggin' yer pardon, miss. The horses be gone, and the coach a fair wreckage. Then there's the matter of o' that there tree " he said, tossing a look over his shoulder.

I regained my feet and peered ahead into the tempest. A massive trunk indeed lay full across the road, barring further passage. How unfortunate that it should be before us, rather than behind. But I comprehended, now, the reason for the horses' terror and flight. We were any of us fortunate to be alive.

"We cannot hope to shift it?"

Hibbs shook his head in reply, "And with the nags run off--"

"Then we must fetch assistance from some neighbouring farm," I said with authority, and peered about me into the gloom. Misfortune could not have chosen a more desolate place to befall us. As far as the gaze might reach, the high downs rolled unimpeded to he sea. But wait--"

"Is not that a light, away there in the distance?"

The postboy shrugged, and his brows lowered. "Happen it is. But you'll not be finding he...

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0553102036
• ISBN 13: 9780553102031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288