Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Canterbury Tale

She did not bother to conclude her sentence. Little George would not be permitted the extravagance of a cavalry regiment.

“I am sure Mr. Moore has many pressing obligations,” I said carefully.

“He must,” she returned, “for we are always short of funds, and turning off the kitchen maid, and making protracted visits to the homes of friends, so as to have a saving of coal and candles. I am sure if your brother Edward were not such a patient creature we should have worn out our welcome years since! But I cannot help wondering, Jane, why it should be so. Mr. Moore’s first wife was a daughter of the Earl of Errol, and came to him quite well dowered. I know that I was raised in only a baronet’s household—and that I have not the habit of economy—but I did not go to my marriage penniless, either! But I cannot learn where the portions have gone! And that the better part of the parish tithe money should be spent in Mr. Moore’s charitable works , rather than upon his family, is what I cannot comprehend!”

“His charitable works?” I repeated, in puzzlement. “What sort of works, Harriot?”

“A mission in the East Indies, I believe—for he is forever sending parcels there. I suspect there is gold in them.”

“Impossible! Mr. Moore sending gold to India!”

“And receiving letters from that region in return. They require a dreadfully long period for their transport, Jane, coming as they do upon East Indiamen—at times no letters arrive for months, and then three will appear all at once!”

Good God. George Moore had been in correspondence with someone in India. Was it impossible that it should have been Curzon Fiske—and Harriot mistaking India for Ceylon? But why would Mr. Moore send parcels of gold to either place? Or to a man he professed to despise?

I was too suspicious; I chided myself for a fanciful mind. No doubt Mr. Moore engaged in legitimate business—Harriot had said the correspondence and parcels were carried by East Indiamen, as how else should they travel? I had done Mr. Moore an injustice; I had been too hasty in judgement. He indulged, merely, in a speculator’s investments—attempting, perhaps, to secure that expensive future for his little son.

Or, a voice said unbidden in my mind, had he been paying Curzon Fiske to stay out of England—and remain dead to all his relations?

“I suppose Mr. Moore is apprenticing to become a Nabob,” I said lightly. “Perhaps he has been trading in rubies, against the day that little George requires a crack regiment. His correspondence with India has been active some years, I collect?”

“He certainly did not undertake it when first we were married,” Harriot returned in a troubled tone, “and indeed, we contrived to live in much greater comfort, without the worry of duns at the door! I dread to think, Jane, that it is our hopeful family that has driven Mr. Moore to speculate, if speculation it is! Certainly he did not do so before Eleanor and little Harriot were born.”

And the girls had come into this world quite recently, in fact—within the past four years. Both were deemed too young to accompany their parents on this visit to Godmersham, and remained at the vicarage in East Peckham.

The correspondence had commenced within the past four years. Within, therefore, the interval of Fiske’s exile.

“I have pleaded with Mr. Moore for long and long to divulge the whole,” Harriot was saying in her gentle voice. “But he becomes cold and grave when I tax him for the truth. I could bear anything, Jane, no matter how dreadful—but not coldness!”

I thought of George Moore’s rigid looks during our carriage ride home, and shivered. He was a cold-hearted fellow, indeed; but cold enough to shoot a man who had returned to Canterbury, despite the fortune paid out to keep him in the Indies? Nothing could be easier than that Moore should slip out of his bedchamber at Godmersham in the dead of night, and meet with Fiske on the old Pilgrim’s path beyond the Stour. Perhaps he had already known that Fiske would be present—without recourse to notes or tamarind seeds.

“And have the Indiamen brought any letters in recent months,” I enquired, “or has there lately been a period of drought?”

“I had hoped the business was entirely at an end, indeed,” Harriot confided, “for there had been nothing for the longest while. But then my hopes were dashed, at no less than two letters arriving on the same day, but a few weeks since! Mr. Moore was much preoccupied by them, and shut himself up in his book room, so that I was seized with anxiety that the charitable work had gone awry—but then he emerged, and would say only that we must certainly go to Godmersham for a fortnight’s visit, and dance at Chilham Castle. So the intelligence received cannot have been so very dreadful, after all, do not you think, dear Jane?”

It seemed fantastic—it must be so.

As fantastic as the idea of George Moore deliberately stealing his old friend James Wildman’s gun—and leaving it to be discovered in St. Lawrence churchyard.

I glanced from the temple in the distant direction of Bentigh, and the side-path where the corpse had been discovered—and was so surprized as to discover two figures on horseback, cantering spiritedly along the Stour. One was certainly Fanny, in her becoming new riding habit of military cut—and the other, a whipcord figure in black and dove grey, with a high-crowned beaver on his dark locks. Julian Thane. He had succeeded in luring Fanny out-of-doors on a Sunday , in defiance of the funereal calm that obtained within Godmersham; and from her animated looks, his success was complete. I recollected the letter on the silver salver, and was frankly glad I had not elected to pry. Fanny deserves more adventure than she has opportunity of obtaining.

“Jane,” Harriot repeated. “Are you tired?”

I turned resolutely away from the dashing pair by the riverbank. Harriot, thankfully, had not observed them. I should not like to consider of Mr. Moore’s strictures that evening on the subject of Sunday riding . “Only a little chilled, my dear. I am wanting a good fire and my comfortable chair in the library. Shall we turn back?”

Tho’ I said nothing to Harriot, I felt I must speak soon with Edward. He knew these people—this collection of genteel, comfortable, and secretive whist players—far better than I, and should more readily divine what lay hidden in their hearts. Without his privileged knowledge I merely groped through darkened halls. When the stakes were murder and the consequences death, one took care how one trod.

But all thoughts of gamesters and their charitable missions were momentarily fled upon my return home. Edward had returned from Chilham, and brought a letter for me—from Adelaide MacCallister.

Chilham Castle ,

24 October 1813

My dear Miss Austen ,

Words cannot express my gratitude for your kindness yesterday. I do not think I could have borne another moment in that dreadful room—and had you not intervened, and your brother condescended to escort me from the place—I must surely have been overcome. If only the matter were not merely suspended, but put behind us all! To live in the present degree of apprehension is a kind of purgatory, unlike any I have known since the first days of my late husband’s flight. The friendship and concern of all at Godmersham, however, may encourage me to be equal to anything. Do I ask too much, or may I call upon you tomorrow? I confess it would be a pleasure to escape the confines of this house for a little .

Yours, etc .

Adelaide MacCallister

I studied this missive thoughtfully, perusing it several times, and was so abstracted as to remain unresponsive when my brother taxed me for an account of its contents.