Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“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. [10] See Letter 94, dated Tuesday, October 26, 1813, in Jane Austen’s Letters , Deirdre Le Faye, editor, Oxford University Press, 1995. — Editor’s note . 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 business 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.”