Jane and the Canterbury Tale

by Stephanie Barron

  I considered of the dizziness and swimming mind with which I had met the corpse’s discovery; how I had blenched, and felt my gorge rise at the rank scent of blood. “I know not whether I should thank you for a compliment, Dr. Bredloe, or protest an insult! Do you regard me as more or less of a woman, as a consequence of my composure?”

  He smiled—a strange sight in that creased and cynical old face—and saved his words for Jupiter.

  “Mr. Finch-Hatton! Pray conduct Miss Austen with all possible speed to Godmersham!”

  I drew off Bredloe’s frock coat and presented it with my thanks; he protested, but I remained firm—God alone knew how long he should be required to stand in such weather, and he had long since left off being a young man. Then I was lifted onto Jupiter’s horse and borne swiftly in his strong young arms towards the comforts of home.

  I INDULGED MY NEED FOR SUCH COMFORTS PERHAPS LONGER than was strictly necessary. A steaming bath in my own chambers, supplied by cans of boiling water carried up by Edward’s manservant; the combing out of my hair, and the drying of it by the roaring blaze Mrs. Driver had caused to be kindled in the Yellow Room’s hearth; the restorative warmth of a glass of wine and a plate of macaroons, sent up from the kitchens; and an interval of rest, laid down on my bed in my dressing gown, when at last the shuddering of my body had eased. I should be fortunate to escape an inflammation of the lungs; I expected no less.

  I dressed for dinner, however, and descended to the library, where Fanny and Harriot had assembled with the addition of Miss Clewes to round out our numbers. The gentlemen—Young Edward, my nephew George, Mr. Finch-Hatton, and Mr. Moore—had been playing at billiards in the adjoining room; but at my entrance it appeared the game was concluded, and they soon joined us, in full-blown argument as to the merits of cross-breeding hunters for stamina and speed. I underwent a strong sensation of relief; the idea of Jupiter and Moore closeted together, with nothing to discuss but the events of the morning, must unnerve me; I should not like George Moore to know of all that Mr. Finch-Hatton had imparted regarding the dangerous game of cards at Chilham three years since.

  “Miss Austen,” the clergyman said with a bow, “I hope I find you recovered from the exertions of your walk. May I say that I could have wished you to have gone in the opposite direction to the Downs this morning! There was nothing so gruesome by the meadows near the Stour; you should have got your fresh air without all the agitation of discovery.”

  “Were you along the Stour this morning, sir?” I enquired.

  “I was.” He gave me a thin smile, his gaze remarkably steady. “The example of these young fellows so far persuaded me to shake off the lassitude of age, and take out a gun.”

  “A gun, Mr. Moore! And were you so happy as to bag anything, sir?”

  “Not a single bird or rabbit!” he declared with an attempt at cheerful disregard. “But the exercise was beneficial. So lost in the beauty of my autumnal surroundings was I, that I may have been gone as much as several hours! —And only considered turning for the house once hunger assailed me.”

  “Fancy!” Harriot cried to Miss Clewes. “Mr. Moore, forgetful of his nuncheon!”

  “I should have thought the rain would dissuade even the most ardent of sportsmen,” I observed.

  He inclined his head. “Happily, it commenced to fall only after I had achieved the gun room. I am not so much of a hearty as your nephews, I confess!”

  He moved on to his wife, and engaged her in low conversation; Harriot was looking harassed and pale, as tho’ the atmosphere of the house—or the prevalence of murder—had begun to tell upon her nerves. Curious, that Mr. Moore should be so eager to impart to me the vagaries of his morning; he had never elected to share such intelligence before. It was rather his habit to preserve a frigid personal distance, than to chatter about the mundanities of the day. I thought him rather too earnest in establishing his presence at the extreme opposite locale from Martha’s resting place, high on the Downs. He had certainly been absent from the house, however, throughout the period at issue.

  Why should George Moore summon a serving-girl from Chilham Castle and do her to death, Jane? a voice within me argued. There can be no possible relation between them. Or none, at least, of which I knew.

  And this was a truth that applied to every person within ten miles’ reach of the Castle. I knew nothing at all of Martha Kean, much less of those who might have come within her orbit during her stay in Kent. There was the entire class of persons serving below-stairs, at both Chilham and Godmersham, who might have formed an attachment to the girl; the folk of Chilham village with whom she came into contact; and above-stairs, there was Julian Thane. Captain Andrew MacCallister. Even Jupiter Finch-Hatton, who had been staying at the Castle some days before coming to us at Godmersham.

  But why should any determine to kill Adelaide MacCallister’s personal maid? —Because of something the girl had seen? Or suspected? I had heard mention of her only once: when Sir Davie Myrrh received a note from Martha in the back garden, on the night of Curzon Fiske’s murder. He had professed to exchange barely two words with the girl—she had fled from him in fear.

  I wished, suddenly, for my brother Edward. No one else was aware of the maid’s rôle in that wedding-night drama—not even the coroner, Dr. Bredloe. There had been insufficient time to apprise him of our late interview with the nautical baronet.

  “All right and tight, Miss Austen?” Jupiter Finch-Hatton stood before me, proffering a glass of sherry. I took it gratefully; I could feel the weight of the inevitable head-cold gathering unpleasantly behind my eyes, and there is nothing like a little wine, after all, for helping one to bear it.

  “I meant to thank you, Mr. Finch-Hatton, for all you did today—your mere presence was a support and a comfort,” I said. “But my lips were so frozen when at last we dismounted that I confess I could not speak!”

  “Happy to oblige,” he replied with his usual air of indolence, which I had begun to apprehend was in fact a foil for a young man’s embarrassment. “Devilish business, all the same. Don’t like Thane’s part in it. What was he doing there, I mean to say? Not ten yards from the girl’s body? If we hadn’t taken that dog out, might never have known she was there! Might have lain for months, in fact! And Thane, spot on the scene!”

  He fingered his cravat, which was tied to a perfection, and glanced at me sidelong from his lazy blue eyes. “Must see it yourself, ma’am. You’re dashed needle-witted. Said it before!”

  Needle-witted. It was a phrase that might have come from my old friend Lord Harold’s lips—had he been twenty years younger. I smiled to myself and turned my glass in the firelight, thoughtfully studying the shift in the wine’s colour. “You have been some days at Chilham, I think—both before the wedding and after. Did you ever happen to notice the girl Martha there?”

  “Shouldn’t have, in the usual way—lady’s maids being not quite in my line,” Jupiter replied. “Known my mother’s Dresser for donkey’s years, of course—devilish high in the instep, and jealous as a cat. Been with her la’ship longer than I’ve been alive. But that’s neither here nor there. Noticed this Martha because Thane was forever cornering the girl in passages and side-rooms. Sort of thing he does—daresay you’ve noticed it yourself. Fellow comes the rake over anything in skirts.”

  “Really, Mr. Finch-Hatton,” I replied mildly. “You strike terror in a maiden’s heart.”

  Jupiter looked discomfited. “Don’t hold with it myself. Daresay Thane only does it from boredom. I mean to say—fellow must be blue as megrim up at the Castle! Sister taken up for murder! Nobody to speak with except that mother of his, who’d freeze the blood of the hottest hellborn babe—and nothing much to entertain in poor James’s sisters. But all the same—doesn’t do to meddle with the servants. Not good ton.”

  “Should you have called the affair a persecution on Thane’s part,” I asked thoughtfully, “or a mutual dalliance?”

  Jupiter rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “The two t
ended to part company whenever I hove into view, so I’ve no way of judging. What went on when the whole house was abed, I shouldn’t like to conjecture. Shabby thing if I did—no real proof Thane’s a bad’un—and besides, girl’s dead. De mortuis, and all that.”

  “Was Captain MacCallister aware of Thane’s interest in that quarter?”

  “The Captain doesn’t chuse to meddle with Thane,” Jupiter said succinctly. “Ask me, he meant to get his fair lady away from the household as soon as possible, and leave the dirty dishes behind. Trouble is, plan went awry. Fair lady’s in gaol. Captain’s up to his neck in dirty dishes.”

  I sighed and glanced at Fanny. “Is Julian Thane truly a dirty dish?”

  Jupiter smiled crookedly, his countenance suffused with a shrewd self-knowledge. “Don’t like the fellow above half, ma’am. Too dashing for his own good, and cuts me out with your niece whenever he sees the chance. So take anything I chuse to say with a grain of salt. Must wonder, all the same, why we came up with him this morning near that coppice.”

  “The girl had been killed hours before,” I reminded him, gently.

  “Know it. What I mean to say is: Looks like he’d been intending to meet her there.”

  I thought of the young man on the plunging black horse, halted on the path by the coppice, and the dog yapping at his feet. When we came up with him, he had been eager to turn us back—and ready with his tale of a visit to Fanny. I had wondered how Thane could contemplate such an errand—however charming he found my niece—when it was Fanny’s people who had placed his sister in gaol.

  “Reckon the coppice was a habit of theirs,” Jupiter said wisely. “Stands to reason somebody besides Thane and Martha knew of it, too—and made use of the place for his own ends.”

  I stared at him, my mind working. Jupiter might actually have seized on the truth. “You mean—”

  He nodded. “Girl went happily enough to her death. Thought it was Thane she was going to meet.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ghosts

  “We cannot kick our heels, or make much fuss,

  But emotions never fade, and that’s the truth.”

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE STEWARD’S PROLOGUE”

  THURSDAY, 28 OCTOBER 1813

  AS PREDICTED, I PASSED A WRETCHED NIGHT, THE COLD IN my head coming on with force. By Wednesday morning, I was discovered by the housemaid in so feverish a state that Fanny was roused, and was made anxious enough to summon Susannah Sackree, the Knight family’s ancient nurse. Sackree hovered by my bedside in awful silence—awful for a loquacious old woman who stands not an inch over four feet, and is easily as wide—and pronounced me at death’s door.

  “That Mr. Scudamore did ought to be sent for, miss,” she told Fanny, “but it’s doubtful as he’ll be able to do much for our Miss Jane, but ease the end.”

  I might have burst out in laughter had my head ached less, and had I been less mindful (even on the verge of delirium) of Fanny’s history. A girl who has witnessed her own mother pass inexplicably from hearty good health to the coldness of a shroud, in the interval between dinner and bed, is never again to be remiss in summoning the apothecary. Indeed, the unfortunate Mr. Scudamore—reconciled or not to his scandalous wife—was rejected immediately in favour of a true physician, and a groom despatched with Miss Knight’s compliments, to summon Dr. Bredloe from his breakfast-parlour at Farnham.

  By noon that much-tried man had pulled up in his gig and mounted the grand staircase at Godmersham, to be received by me in all the splendour of yellow walls and damask hangings, sneezing pitifully beneath my best lace cap.

  “Foolish,” he said succinctly. “Very foolish, Miss Austen. You ought to have left that wretched girl to the manservant and been snug at home hours before you were. I shall be obliged to cup you, ma’am.”

  “After all the blood-letting we have witnessed?” I protested feebly. But Bredloe would not be gainsaid—a basin and razor were produced, his frock coat discarded, and my vein opened.

  I detest being bled.

  To divert my mind from the distasteful business, I studied the view from my window—indifferent, it being another day of rain—and interrogated Bredloe.

  “You succeeded in carrying Martha to Chilham?”

  “She lies even now in the publick house in the village.”

  “And the inquest is to be held—?”

  “Tomorrow at noon, in the same place.”

  “Must Fanny attend? It was she who discovered the body.”

  “I cannot like to see Miss Knight in such a place,” Bredloe objected brusquely. “A distressful scene, for a young lady. And you are far too ill to give evidence, Miss Austen. Your statement will suffice. I have required Mr. Julian Thane to attend, however, as he was in some wise the girl’s master—and present at the body’s discovery.”

  Her master. Such a curious word.

  “I could wish your brother were here, Miss Austen—but to delay the business is inadvisable, given the state of the corpse, and the fact that it must still travel some miles to Wold Hall for interment.”

  The faint smell of blood dripping into the basin at my bedside, coupled with fever, conjured a fiendish image of the dead girl in my mind; I closed my eyes tightly and shuddered.

  “Do not excite yourself with conjecture, Miss Austen. It can do you no good. Your pulse is tumultuous.”

  “You intend to bring in a verdict of murder, I suppose?”

  “—By Persons Unknown. There is nothing else to be done. The naming of the culprit I shall leave to Mr. Knight.”

  At length, when I lay slack upon my pillows and attempted only with difficulty to keep my eyes open, the doctor pronounced himself satisfied, and ordered Sackree to set about composing a paregoric draught, which disgusting mixture I was required to drink down under Bredloe’s eye.

  “You will sleep now,” he said confidently, “and provided there is no putrid sore throat, or inflammation of the lung, I think you will go on very well.”

  Sackree snorted, her hands on her hips. The doctor cast her a jaundiced eye. “A little white wine whey in an hour, Nurse, and perhaps some restorative mutton broth.”

  “Arrowroot jelly,” Sackree pronounced with finality, “and a hot mustard bath to the feet.”

  “Not until after she has slept,” Bredloe returned, “and that, some hours.” He donned his frock coat and bowed.

  “Sir,” I called hoarsely as he reached the door, “pray find out Mr. Finch-Hatton before you leave this house.”

  “Finch-Hatton? —The Exquisite who made himself useful yesterday, in parading his horse about the Downs?”

  I smiled weakly. “He is not unintelligent, I assure you. You might speak with him before your inquest. Jupiter—that is to say, Mr. Finch-Hatton—believes Martha and Julian Thane were in the habit of trysting in that coppice.”

  “Thane, who is Mrs. MacCallister’s brother?”

  I refused to waste energy on redundancies. “Were I you, Doctor, I should learn who else at Chilham suspected the affair—and what use they made of the intelligence.”

  Bredloe stared at me some moments, his entire countenance alive with interest. Then he nodded once, and quitted the room.

  I was most unwell the remainder of Wednesday, the blood-letting having done little to cool my feverish head; and tho’ Fanny appeared to exclaim and sympathise, I would not have her sitting up with a sick aunt when Mr. Finch-Hatton was eager for diversion downstairs, and my nephews were about the business of packing for Oxford, and the Moores were expending their final hours under Godmersham’s roof as tho’ determined to wring from it the last full measure of enjoyment.

  And so my care was consigned to the redoubtable Sackree, who relished the task enough to continually disturb me by plumping my pillows, and building up the fire or shielding me from its heat as the occasion required, muttering “Death’s Door” to herself all the while. When the long afternoon had passed and my white wine whey was all drunk up, I alarmed her by rejecting th
e mutton broth entirely, and requesting that the curtains be drawn against the early autumn dark. “Failing, poor lamb,” she muttered, and enquired if I had any final words for the Master, as the pore gennulman was certain to miss the Crisis that awaited me this night. I told her firmly that I should speak to the Master myself when he returned on the morrow—at which she shook her head dolefully, and asked whether I did not wish my Last Thoughts to be writ down for all my relations, and if Miss Fanny weren’t the best body to effect the Sacred Duty? At this I lost all patience with the creature, and suggested that she return to the schoolroom—where Master George Moore was undoubtedly in need of her caresses as he prepared to quit Godmersham on the morrow. Sackree is so attached to this place, that she feels a depth of horror for those obliged to part from it, and all her warm sympathy was exerted towards the child. She cast a doubtful eye at the clock, and another at my bed. I closed my eyes firmly and emitted a snore.

  I MUST HAVE DROPPED OFF IN EARNEST, BECAUSE THE NEXT thing I knew the rattle of carriage wheels broke through my slumber and brought me bolt upright in bed.

  The fire was gone out, the Yellow Room was chill, and a grey luminosity at the edge of the draperies suggested night was giving way to a feeble dawn. Whatever Bredloe had put in his paregoric draught—or however much blood he had taken—his physick had done its work: I had slept nearly twelve hours round the clock. My fever had broken—and my brother was come home.

  I slipped from beneath the covers and reached for the dressing gown draped over a chair. My entire frame ached, and my head remained heavy, but my thoughts were clear at last. I steadied myself against the chair a moment, then crept across the cold floor to the door and opened it a crack. Edward was banging on his own portal as if to wake the dead; the bolts were thrown, and all the servants still asleep.

  I made my way down the stairs and reached the Great Hall just as Johncock, Edward’s butler, staggered across it in his nightshirt, a single candle raised high. I sank down on the stairs, huddled my gown about me, and watched him set down his light to throw back the heavy bolts.