Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“Hah! Drive yourself, do you?” Mrs. Thane queried. “It is of a piece with the general stile of Knight effrontery; you did not accompany your father at all, but brought yourselves, from a desire to gossip and feed on our troubles! Spiteful girl! I shall take care that my son wastes no more of his notice on you !”

Fanny flushed; her lips parted in indignation, but it was Captain MacCallister who answered his mother-in-law.

“Julian may have little enough liberty in the immediate future, once he has sworn his testimony at the inquest.”

“What do you mean, Andrew?” Adelaide demanded. “What are all these hints and warnings?” She slipped from under his protective hands, and rose to face him.

He stared at her gravely. “Julian did not spend Wednesday night in blameless sleep, Addie. Nor did I. I bear responsibility for entangling your brother in this affair—and must beg your pardon.”

Adelaide’s looks were ghastly, her beauty a mocking skull.

“Andrew—”

“I do not know the countryside hereabouts so well as Julian; he has been cantering over these Downs forever. I asked him, therefore, to ride with me down the old Pilgrim’s Way that divides your cousin’s estate from Mr. Knight’s. There is a side-path from the Pilgrim’s Way that leads to St. Lawrence churchyard. We achieved it at about half-past two on Thursday morning.” The Captain’s voice dropped. “We met with your late husband, Addie—and gave the blackguard all the money we could pool between us, to be gone from England by daybreak.”

It should surprize no one that at these words, Adelaide MacCallister fainted.

I had just succeeded in writing an account of the morning’s events, from a hope of understanding them better, when my brother Edward strode into the library and made directly for the decanters set out on a side table. He tossed back a mouthful of brandy, then topped up his glass with an absorbed expression on his countenance; tho’ he did not appear to be in an ill-humour, I did not like to pelter him with questions just yet. I allowed him an interval for stirring the fire, and frowning into the flames, and swallowing another draught of his restorative drink; and once he had thrown himself into the chair opposite, I regarded him quietly, until he should chuse to speak.

Silence is a restful quality in a woman, one few women may command.

“Fanny manage the tilbury all right, without my escort?” he asked.

“Perfectly well, I assure you.”

The brandy glass sat idly between his palms, half empty. He sighed, as tho’ very well pleased to be in his own home again. “Rowan’s a well-mannered tit; he’d never run away with the girl. I bought him from James Wildman last spring, did you know that?—one of his three-year-olds.”

“You were always an excellent judge of horseflesh, Edward.”

“Yes. But of men , Jane?” He thrust himself from the chair and tossed off the brandy, then stood with his boot on the fender and stared unblinking into the heat of the fire. “Do you know what a galling trick it was, to be welcomed as a friend into my neighbour’s book room, only to demand of him where his son keeps a brace of duelling pistols, and whether one is at present missing?”

“I am sure it was painful and repugnant to you,” I answered quietly, “but I am even more certain that Mr. Wildman understood it to be your duty.”

“Duty!” Edward retorted with loathing. “Yes, and I suppose I must call it my duty to hang one of my friends before very long.”

“Not that—but to find justice for Curzon Fiske, perhaps.” Edward was silent a moment.

I studied his profile and felt it safe to venture a question. “What did Mr. Wildman say, when you enquired of James’s pistol?”

“He laughed, and said the guns were forever lying about—because James has a penchant for shooting at targets in the most unlikely places. When he is up in London, he may commonly be found at Manton’s Shooting Gallery, culping wafers; but when in Kent, is reduced to snuffing candle-flames at thirty paces on the terrace, and has not been unknown to nick playing cards affixed to the billiard-room walls.”

“So Mr. Thane intimated.”

My brother glanced at me swiftly. “I forgot. While I was insulting one of my oldest friends, you were about your own researches.”

“I suspect that what I learnt is merely a corollary to your intelligence. But with regard to the pistol—it appears that anyone in the household might have taken and employed it, if James is so careless of his weapons as his intimates claim.”

“Exactly so. What an unpleasant construction we are forced to draw! —For whoever stole the gun must have known it should be recognised as James Wildman’s, and must have intended, therefore, to throw suspicion of murder on the young man. The son and heir of Chilham Castle—where presumably the murderer was a guest , Jane. Such effrontery!”

“Decidedly bad ton ,” I soothed, “but I do not see why you should deplore a murderer’s poor taste, Edward. Surely few virtues may be expected in one who would shoot a man in cold blood?”

He could not suppress a snort of laughter at this appalling truth; perhaps the brandy had succeeded in warming him.

“But tell me,” I urged. “How went your interview with Captain MacCallister and Mr. Thane? For Fanny and I could not linger to learn the particulars; with Mrs. MacCallister in a faint and her mother in a fury, we had all we could do to take our leave from the Captain, and tool the horse towards home. Fanny was exceedingly anxious, Edward—I believe she admires that young gentleman more than I should have suspected from the strength of a few dances—”

“The waltz,” my brother interjected gloomily. “I should never have allowed it.”

“Fiddle! What did MacCallister mean, by saying that he and Thane met with Fiske and paid him a considerable sum to leave the country?”

“Mean? Surely it is readily understood? That roll of banknotes we discovered in the man’s coat—nearly five hundred pounds , Jane!—came entirely from MacCallister and Thane; and they are agreed in having presented it to Fiske somewhere between the hours of two and three o’clock in the morning. From something the young buck said, I suspect Thane won most of James Wildman’s quarterly allowance at whist a few nights since, and turned it over to the Captain when need demanded.”

“But do they admit to shooting him?”

“They deny it, when questioned separately or together. Neither will implicate the other to save himself; neither admits to having taken Wildman’s pistol; and both claim to have thought themselves relieved of a damned nuisance, in having paid Fiske to disappear.”

“And they swear they returned to Chilham Castle together?”

“Categorically.”

“Then who killed the man?” I demanded indignantly.

“That is what I have still to discover! I must persist in making myself odious to the entire neighbourhood, particularly the Wildman family, until the affair is sorted—and I relish the business not at all.”

“It seems unlikely that some other should have met with Fiske in exactly that spot, Edward —and in possession of Wildman’s pistol—and killed him,” I pointed out reluctantly.

My brother sighed. “I cannot pretend to always know truth when I see it, Jane, but I do not think MacCallister or Thane dissembled when they spoke to me this afternoon.”

“Thane did not tell you all , at his first interview,” I reminded him, “and I have another reason for suspecting his veracity. He pretended to know nothing of the tamarind seed, or the note establishing the hour and place of meeting. Yet if he went with MacCallister—”