4. Susan Fagg and George Rochefort take a romantic clifftop walk
‘Minnie Fagg had ambitions which had something to do with the delightful walk from the Western Heights to the limit of Shakespeare’s Cliff. The path was a favourite saunter for Dover people, and the dells off it sought by couples courting inclined. Which aspect interested her she did not say.
The pleasant walk to which the youthful Minnie had referred was beloved greatly by her Aunt, Susan Fagg. Securing a sheltered retreat, one could give unmolested attention to a book, or gaze dreamily out to sea if one so desired.
Some few weeks after Mr Elam’s unsatisfactory conversation, Susan Fagg heard St Mary the Virgin’s strike a half after five. Church time being near, she hurriedly rose and, brushing off a few grasses which clung to her poppy-coloured taffeta dress, started for home. She was soon once more on the twisting path, but hardly had she attained it when she very nearly bumped into George Rochefort.
“My dear girl,” smiled that young gentleman, cushioning the collision by grasping her shoulders.
Once only since the night of the party at the Agent Victualler’s house had she spoken to him. That had been when they chanced to meet briefly at the Albion Library, where he had passed a humorous allusion to her progress in one of the arts.
Overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of it, Susan stammered out an apology, ever aware of a painful blush which would creep as far down as her neck, she knew it wretchedly.
“I… I wasn’t looking, George,” she confessed.
Their ways, for a space, were in the same direction, and so together they continued, Susan striving desperately to recall those witty and brilliant sayings she was able to conjure up in the night, and George, as always, easily conversational.
Before leaving Shakespeare’s Cliff, however, he seemed disposed to linger. At the base of the ‘sublime and awful precipice’ the tide could be seen distinctly sweeping eastward, carrying along with it shingle and sand, whilst far towards the western extent of the bay the garden of Little Pent House, with its hollyhocks, geraniums, carnations and forget-me-nots, made a delightful splash of colour amidst the monotonous yellow expanse of the Ropewalk. Between these extremes was Captain Pepper’s little house, with its owner, having eaten a solitary meal and having washed the pots in the well-ordered little galley, now enjoying a pipe of tobacco close by his flag-staff, at the head of which the Jack was gallantly flying.
“One that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!” George Rochefort murmured.
The practice mentioned by the immortal Bard in his tragedy of King Lear continued to that day. Poverty-stricken folk, for the sake of the few pence they might acquire, were lowered down the cliff, there to pluck from the crannies the herb which made an extremely fine pickle.
“Pray recite more of it, George,” Susan suggested daringly.
He shrugged, protested, and then, nothing loath, gave her of his best.
“Here is the cliff,” he declaimed stylishly, “whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully on the confin’d deep, –
How dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eye so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!”
Coming to seek her approving glance, George Rochefort met only the nape of her neck. In truth, she had not wanted him to discern how deeply moved she was.
“What ails you, Susan?” he asked distantly.
There being no escape, she had to tell him. “Your voice, ’tis so lovely,” she faltered, again mantling richly.
Recovered in a flash, he became excessive charming, and for her advantage again began to quote snatches of this, snatches of that, Herrick and Jonson, Milton and Marvell, and ‘dear William’ [Wordsworth], of course.
“George!” Time and again Susan Fagg, in an ecstasy at being so with him, repeated his name in simple wonder at his heavenly fluency.
“And… and Susan,” George Rochefort suddenly said, delightfully teasingly, “tell me what it is you find so pleasing about my voice?”
Susan Fagg’s radiant expression had, immediately before, faded. A couple were approaching, and she felt horribly concerned for George. To meet Kate Warren face to face must be such, such embarrassment for him.
But his attentions for her, and the manner of them, drove all unpleasant thought from her mind. She quite forgot about young Mr James Foord and the detestable Kate.
“I… I only know,” she whispered, fleetingly meeting his eye, “that ’tis lovely.”
He laughed extravagantly, took her arm, bent over and bantered her, and found time to give only the briefest acknowledgement to the passing pair.
Considering that James Foord hoped to make Miss Warren his wife, he was not too tactful in the observation he made.
“Well, Kate,” he said heavily, “if Rochefort had wanted to tell you that there’s more than one fish in the sea he couldn’t have arranged it better.”
He glanced over his shoulder, to see George Rochefort in the same possessive attitude.
“Kept it dark too, eh, Kate?” he marvelled.
Miss Warren made acid reply and took no little working round.
When that reconciliation was accomplished, Susan Fagg was walking home alone, with George Rochefort dropping quickly down the steep slope to Paradise Pent, a slightly more convenient route to his home. The blue eyes of John Fagg’s sister were a little clouded, for she could not understand why George, after being so wonderful, should part from her in such an ordinary fashion.
Puzzling, she began to hurry. She had one consolation, however. Now that the reign of terror was over, now that the wicked Robespierre had been sent to the guillotine, England must come to terms with France.
Mr Stokes had said so at John’s a few nights before, and Mr Stokes was only echoing the sentiments of the powerful Mr Fox.
And if that came to be then George would be safe, oh, so safe.’