Jane and the Canterbury Tale

by Stephanie Barron

  “I believe we shall not require too much of your time,” Edward assured him. “If you will be so good as to leave your direction with Mr. Burbage, so that we might inform you of the occasion—”

  And so the baronet was released, to the evident displeasure of the warden Mr. Stoke; and the baronet at least seemed to find the occasion a source of joy. For my brother and me, however, the outcome of our interview in Canterbury gaol was hardly happy. I dreaded to consider of the scenes that must be played in coming days.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Clean-Shaven Liar

  “You’ve got to be careful, Solomon once said:

  ‘Don’t open your door to every man who asks.’ ”

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE COOK’S PROLOGUE”

  25 OCTOBER 1813, CONT.

  “WELL, JANE,” MY BROTHER SAID AS WE PAUSED UNDER the arch of Westgate gaol, “what do you make of this tangled web?”

  “Little good,” I replied. “Sir Davie’s account must weave a hempen rope for the unfortunate Adelaide. Did she deny it all, when you charged her last evening?”

  “She admitted that the hand on the fragment of paper discovered in Fiske’s coat was indeed her own. Still, she declared she never ventured out to meet the fellow that night—despite setting the assignation.”

  “I suppose that is not entirely improbable.”

  “Jane! Will you never be done defending the lady? Tho’ she lies, and lies, and lies again?”

  I lifted a troubled gaze to Edward’s own. “I cannot find any credible reason for Adelaide to leave James Wildman’s gun behind her. Until you may supply one, I shall persist in believing that it was not her hand that took Fiske’s life.”

  “Her mother would be gratified by your loyalty,” he offered abruptly. “She informed me, with considerable hauteur, that she had intercepted her daughter on the point of setting out for her midnight confrontation near St. Lawrence churchyard, and forcibly locked Adelaide into her bedroom—where, later still, the Captain avers he found his wife. Upon his return from his own nocturnal jaunt, one presumes.”

  “You do not credit Mrs. Thane?”

  He shrugged eloquently.

  “Was this her attempt, do you think, to restore Adelaide’s dignity before Captain MacCallister?”

  “It may have been,” my brother conceded, his brows knitted, “for I never saw a gentleman more shocked than he; the Captain was deprived of speech for several minutes, once he apprehended that his wife had deceived him—in this clandestine communication, as in so much else. The little matter of her then being taken up for murder was but an incidental blow. For one as deeply in love as MacCallister, each successive day brings its own measure of wretchedness.”

  “Will he stand by her, do you think?”

  “He has that sort of courage. But it will be an ugly business, Jane. I cannot believe she will escape hanging. I must go to her, now, and put before her the matter of Fiske’s letter, posted in London. It may be that she will deny ever having received it—or, once she apprehends we know of the full extent of her falsity, she may give way entirely and confess.”

  “If she does,” I said, “I shall be profoundly surprized.”

  “You do not wish to accompany me?”

  I shook my head, a reprehensible coward. “I am pledged to Harriot, who is kicking her heels at Moffett’s Confectionary. We are to call upon old Mrs. Milles—Harriot desires it.”

  “I shall collect you from the lady’s front door in an hour, then,” my brother commanded, and turned back inside the gaol.

  I STOOD UNDECIDED AN INSTANT, ENQUIRING IN MY OWN mind whether I ought not to see Adelaide MacCallister—whether the face of a friend, and a female at that, should not be infinitely cheering amidst the misery of such a place. Before I had taken a step in either direction, however, the great oak door of the gaol swung open once more, and expelled the solicitor, Mr. Burbage.

  He lifted his hat at the sight of me, and bowed. “Miss Austen. It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope Sir Davie did not unduly weary—or appall—you with his reminiscences?”

  “Not at all, sir. His stories were extremely entertaining—and I may say, enlightening. Is he gratified to have won his freedom?”

  “I daresay. Sir Davie has been in far tighter spots than Canterbury gaol, as no doubt you have surmised.”

  “Have you been acquainted with the baronet long?”

  “Some years,” he replied. “It is my pleasure to serve so notable an eccentric; Sir Davie makes a decided change from the usual Wills and Marriage Settlements.”

  “I suppose you must often support him in tight spots, as you put it—for I recollect, now, where I have seen you before,” I declared, with sudden comprehension. “You attended Saturday’s inquest, did you not?”

  “The inquest?” A look of puzzlement came over Mr. Burbage’s countenance, and he seemed to take a half-step backwards. “You would refer to the inquest on Mr. Curzon Fiske’s death?”

  “Indeed. You entered the publick room at almost the same moment as Sir Davie—tho’ you did not appear to notice one another. Having made room for Sir Davie on my bench, I had occasion to observe you standing against the wall. But you had whiskers, then, did you not? And are now clean-shaven? I presume that is why I did not recognise you when first we were introduced in the gaol. The light in the cell was exceedingly poor.”

  Mr. Burbage’s frown deepened. “I regret that I have not set foot in Canterbury, during the whole course of my life, until this morning, Miss Austen; nor have I ever sported whiskers! I must assure you that you are mistaken.”

  My lips parted in surprize, for the solicitor was raising his beaver in a chilly gesture of farewell. I coloured, and managed, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  “Not at all,” he replied, and walked swiftly away.

  I gazed after him some moments. Absent the confusion of whiskers—merely observing Mr. Burbage from the rear as he strode down St. Peter’s Street—I was more than ever convinced I was correct. The figure, frame, profile—all declared the stranger of respectable appearance, who had taken up a position to the rear of the publick room. I was not mistaken in Mr. Burbage; but for reasons best known to himself, the solicitor preferred to utter a falsehood rather than admit he had been in Canterbury the day before yesterday. I must mention the matter to Edward—Edward, who had waited full two days for the arrival of Sir Davie’s solicitor from London, when it appeared the fellow was already established in the neighbourhood.

  And why had he seen fit to rid himself of his beard, if not to defy detection?

  I had an idea my brother would regard the subterfuge with as much outrage as I.

  I WILL NOT WASTE INK AND PAPER ON THE BANALITY OF MY subsequent hour with Harriot and Mrs. Milles; an account of that visit, and the good lady’s effort to tell us, in three words, of the famous Scudamore Reconciliation, is reserved for Cassandra’s amusement.1 I returned to Godmersham with all our party, Harriot regaling her husband with the burden of our visit; her son, too sleepy to concern himself with being carriage-sick; and Mr. Moore contenting himself with a single question for Edward: “Is that foul-looking sea dog truly the baronet he claims?”

  Of Edward’s interview with Mrs. MacCallister I asked nothing; his countenance was troubled and careworn, and I forebore to tax him further. Once we had achieved the comfort of home, however, and I had accorded my brother an hour of contemplation in the sanctity of his book room—heard Harriot impart the high notes of the morning to Fanny, and yet again to Miss Clewes—and fortified myself with tea and cold meat by the fire in the library—I screwed myself to the sticking point and scratched at Edward’s door.

  “Come!” he commanded.

  His expression, if anything, had darkened. He was fiddling with a silver letter-opener he kept upon his desk—a gift from Elizabeth, long ago—and did not raise his eyes to mine. “I must thank you, Jane, for your measure of self-control the length of the carriage ride home. I had no wish to canvass this dreadful busi
ness before the Moores. You desire to know what Adelaide MacCallister said, when questioned about her receipt of Fiske’s letter?”

  “If you desire to tell me.”

  “That her mother regarded it in the nature of a hoax. A brazen attempt to frighten Adelaide, on the part of some stranger who had known her first husband, and meant to unsettle her. Mrs. Thane advised her to burn the thing, and think no more about it.”

  “But the hand, Edward! Surely she recognised Fiske’s writing as his own!”

  “Mrs. Thane suggested there was just that degree of variation in the script that Adelaide was the victim of imposture.”

  “Mrs. Thane has a great deal to answer for.”

  At last my brother’s gaze lifted to meet mine. “No more than any mother might. She is naturally alive to the terror of the scaffold—and wishes to save her daughter’s neck.”

  “Was Mrs. Thane present at the interview?”

  “She was not. I had the recital from Adelaide herself. Young Thane and MacCallister had been to Canterbury gaol, but Mrs. Thane has no stomach for the place.”

  “An unamiable woman,” I remarked.

  “And her counsel did not help to save Mrs. MacCallister. Indeed, the lack of frankness on the part of all that family has done her a decided disservice! Every word the principals have spoken in this affair, from first to last, appears a tissue of lies, Jane! I cannot endure it!”

  My brother rose abruptly from his chair and moved to beat savagely at the fire with a battered pair of tongs. A shower of sparks ascended into the chimney; it was as tho’ both our thoughts rose with them, into the darkening air.

  “If you would speak of imposture, and a tissue of lies,” I said, “I have an oddity to share.”

  I told him of Mr. Burbage—with whiskers, and without—of the solicitor’s steady insistence that I was in error, regarding his presence at the inquest, and his studied disregard for his client Sir Davie, when that gentleman fled the proceeding with most of Canterbury on his heels. Edward heard me out, a frown gathering on his brow.

  “But are you certain, Jane?”

  “As sure as I am of my own name.”

  “But it is incomprehensible! In every way—incomprehensible! Why should Sir Davie and Burbage pretend that the latter must be summoned from London, and the former await his arrival to speak—”

  “—when we saw, only this morning, that Sir Davie does nothing else but chatter like a magpie! It is not as tho’ Burbage forestalled any incriminating detail—we might have heard that lengthy history of the baronet’s career days since, for all the solicitor’s objection. No, Edward—I must believe that they observed the inquest as apparent strangers, with the object of learning what they could of Fiske’s murder—and once Sir Davie was identified, took to his heels, and ended in gaol, were forced to concoct a credible tale between them.”

  “You believe Burbage is not what he seems?”

  “I believe both men demand further scrutiny. We have only Burbage’s word for it, after all, that Sir Davie is who he claims to be—and if Burbage cannot be entirely trusted …”

  “Then neither can Sir Davie’s account.”

  “—Which has served, in no small measure, to indict Adelaide MacCallister.”

  My brother groaned, and swept his hands over his face. He stared unseeing at the shattered logs in the hearth, and then deliberately replaced the tongs on their hook. “I shall have to post up to London tomorrow and learn what I may of our circumspect solicitor,” he said. “There is nothing else for it. Do you wish to accompany me, Jane?”

  I shook my head. “My time might be more usefully employed.”

  “—keeping an eagle-eye on Fanny and all her young swains?”

  “Discovering, if I may, why someone chose James Wildman’s gun to kill Curzon Fiske.”

  1 See Letter 94, dated Tuesday, October 26, 1813, in Jane Austen’s Letters, Deirdre Le Faye, editor, Oxford University Press, 1995. —Editor’s note.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  An Affair of Honour

  These are fruits from the cursèd pair of dice—

  Swearing, anger, cheating, and homicide.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE PARDON PEDDLER’S TALE”

  TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 1813

  EDWARD WAS GONE BEFORE FIRST LIGHT, POSTING TOWARDS London in his travelling-coach. He intends to put up this evening in Henry’s rooms, over the bank in Henrietta Street, where our brother has lived in bachelor splendour since the sad event of last spring.1 Edward hopes to be returned by the morrow, as his sons depart for Oxford Thursday and the Moores—God be praised!—are also to take themselves off that morning; but if his business in London does not prosper and he finds himself delayed, he has begged Young Edward and George to put off their plan of travel until Friday. I noticed that he forebore to press Mr. Moore to do the same.

  The young gentlemen are used enough to the claims of business in their father’s life to make this present freak—as I am sure they regard it—nothing out of the common way; and as the shooting continues fine, and Jupiter Finch-Hatton is available at any hour to play at billiards, or make another at cards, or to ride out with them on one of their gallops, they appear resigned to passing the remainder of the week at Godmersham, with tolerable composure.

  Miss Clewes was agog to know what could possibly draw Mr. Knight to London, such a little while after our passage through the Metropolis on our way from Chawton this past September; and not all the conjectures the governess and Harriot could suggest between them, sufficed to settle the matter. Harriot was a little put out that no warning of the trip had been given, that she might have charged Edward with myriad commissions in Town—to be achieved, no doubt, on credit—but Fanny preserved a noble indifference to her father’s schemes, sipping her tea with composure in the breakfast-parlour and enquiring of me only, with a sardonic look, if I intended any secret errands throughout the course of the morning.

  I replied in good conscience that I had nothing greater in view than a vigourous climb up into the Downs, if she wished to accompany me; and at Jupiter’s happening to overlisten our conversation, it was presently agreed that we should stay only to don our bonnets and pelisses, before setting out for our walk with Mr. Finch-Hatton as escort. To my relief, Harriot declared herself fatigued after her errand in Canterbury the previous day, and preferred to bear Miss Clewes company in the nursery-wing, sorting Young George’s small-clothes for laundering in preparation for the journey home. I intended to profit by my interlude with Mr. Finch-Hatton; and while I should not hesitate to put questions before Fanny, Harriot should have been a decided impediment to frank and easy conversation, as it was chiefly regarding her husband I wished to query Jupiter. I had not forgot George Moore’s presence at the interesting whist-party, on the night of Curzon Fiske’s flight from England; nor his dispute with Mr. Stephen Lushington, MP, at our own dining table; nor the matter of packets of gold, despatched to unknown points on the Subcontinent. For a man already in the habit of hiding so much, a mere murder seemed an incidental addition.

  Jupiter whistled for one of the dogs—a spaniel of George’s called Frisk—and swung a stylish ebony stick in his gloved hand; he was the picture of an elegant Bond Street Stroller, complete to a shade, for all he went in breeches and top boots. One look at his gold locks tucked beneath his curly-brimmed beaver, one glance from his bold blue eyes, one thought of the earldom that might eventually be his—and I grasped quite fully why even Fanny could not be entirely indifferent to him.

  “Are you quite certain you wish to attempt the path along the Downs, Aunt?” Fanny enquired, with a doubtful look at the clouds gathering above the hills.

  “I am afraid no other way will serve, my dear. It must be the Downs or nothing.”

  She looked at me sidelong. “And do you intend to walk all the way to Chilham Castle?”

  “Not if I discover what I hope to find, before we reach it,” I returned calmly.

  “Lord! Are we hunting for clews, then?�
�� Jupiter chortled. “It makes a dashed good change from billiards, I assure you. Only tell me what you seek, ma’am, and I shall train my full attention on the ground!”

  “I am hoping the dog may nose out something for us,” I said as Frisk’s waving brush disappeared into the under-growth at one side of the path. “A piece of cloth, perhaps, torn from a cloak; a few strands of horsehair pulled from a passing mount.”

  “But surely any idle walker might leave such things behind him, Aunt,” Fanny said in puzzlement, “without them being decidedly a token of Fiske’s murderer.”

  She is hardly lacking in sense, our Fanny; but I adopted an airy tone.

  “To be sure, my dear. But it is equally possible we may discover something decisive.”

  “Such as … another pistol, tossed into the bracken, that does not belong to James Wildman at all,” Jupiter suggested.

  I studied his indolent countenance, so deceptive in its blandness. So the pistol had been troubling Mr. Finch-Hatton too. Perhaps our conversation in the breakfast-parlour yesterday had given him to think.

  The pleasure gardens behind the house gave way to a walled kitchen garden, which amply supplied the Godmersham table three-quarters of the year; and I might have lingered there on a different morning, to indulge a few melancholy thoughts on the relentless march of Time, amidst the leafless espaliered fruit trees. This morning, however, mindful of the impending rain—is there any season so wet as Autumn in Kent?—I trod purposefully forward, Fanny keeping pace beside me, with Mr. Finch-Hatton at her elbow. He whistled a little tunelessly under his breath as he strode along, slashing at the dead grasses with his ebony stick.

  “I have been considering of James Wildman’s pistol,” I mused as the ground began its gradual ascent and our pleasant saunter became an uphill toil. Below us, Edward’s sheep dotted the grass like so much cloud come to ground. “If we are agreed—as I believe we must be—that Adelaide MacCallister is the last person who should have wished to incriminate her cousin, we must endeavour to put our heads together, Mr. Finch-Hatton, and discover who did. You know the gentleman far better than I, or even Fanny—what is your opinion on the subject? Does Mr. Wildman attract enemies, as a jam-pot attracts bees?”