Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“If by prospered you would suggest that I know more at present than I did when I quitted Kent two days ago—then indeed, Jane, my errand prospered. But I fear it is in a manner that is likely to cost me much effort, time, and reputation.”

My brother tossed off these words with such suppressed savagery that I was astounded, the coffee pot dangling from my hand.

“I have set free the one man I ought to have kept caged,” he said, “and have already despatched orders that Sir Davie Myrrh, and that scoundrel he chuses to call his solicitor, be clapped in irons by any who chance to espy them.”

“Not truly!” I cried. “I was correct, then, in believing I had seen Mr. Burbage before—at the inquest into Fiske’s death?”

“Yes, Jane, he undoubtedly attended the inquest. Tho’ as I have not seen the fellow again to speak to, I have not been able to wring a confession from him on that point.”

I set down the coffee pot. “Pray speak plainly, Edward.”

“Very well—I shall leave off being clever, and attempt to be patient. I shall start at the beginning, and tell you the whole.”

And so, as my brother consumed a beefsteak and I dipped a few fingers of toast into my coffee—I heard a round tale.

Edward had begun his London odyssey with a visit to India House, where the name of Sir Davie Myrrh was not unknown. He was able to corroborate much of the seaman’s phantastickal stories, and learnt that he had indeed been glimpsed in Ceylon last year, but had been little heard from of late; it was believed the baronet was voyaging in the West Indies at present. For further intelligence, Edward was directed to the chambers of Sir Davie’s solicitors—Mssrs. Reeve and Bobbit, of Lincoln’s Inn.

“Not Burbage at all,” I supplied. “How curious!”

“—Tho’ Mr. Reeve was familiar with Burbage’s name and history,” Edward continued. “The solicitor had no notion Burbage was passing himself off as Sir Davie’s man, nor that his client had been languishing in Canterbury gaol, and was most distressed to think that Sir Davie found no use for the talents of Reeve and Bobbit in such a pass. He apprehended why, of course, once I described the circumstances of our interview. Sir Davie, so Mr. Reeve confessed, lives in the grip of a singular obsession—and it was that which brought him to Canterbury, rather than any plan of Curzon Fiske’s. Fiske was merely a convenient tool to a greater end—tho’ the unfortunate rogue had no idea of it.”

“What sort of obsession?”

Edward pushed aside his plate with a sigh. “Do you recollect Sir Davie saying that he once possessed estates in Jamaica—sugar plantations, naturally—as well as Kildane Hall in England?”

“I recollect he referred to them, but—”

“—he swaddled both in a fine-woven cloth of reminiscence and adventure that diverted our attention from the essential point. Sir Davie, in his years of wandering the globe, managed to lose Kildane Hall and all his family’s hard-won fortune.”

“Was he a gamester, like Curzon Fiske?”

“I should say rather that he was careless—and too trusting of other men, who took advantage of his complaisance. The firm of Reeve and Bobbit has acted in the baronetcy’s interest for generations—Reeve himself knew Sir Davie’s father well—and he maintains that Kildane’s revenues were exhausted by a combination of poor management on the part of its steward, in whose hands Sir Davie left the business of the estate, and the greed of that same man—who absconded to the Americas with thousands of pounds in estate income. During Sir Davie’s protracted absence, Reeve undertook to write to him, earnestly representing in what poor case Kildane stood—and was answered after some months by Sir Davie’s demand that he mortgage Kildane, and forward the funds thus received to Jamaica , where Sir Davie’s plantations stood in urgent need of support. This Reeve did—tho’ with a heavy heart, for he did not like to see a noble English place made to support a failing concern half a world away. However, it was done—and a bare eighteen months later Reeve was informed that the Jamaican plantation had failed, the land was to be sold, and that Kildane must be made over to its lien-holders in payment on the debt. You may imagine how powerless the solicitor felt, Jane.”

“It is a wreck of considerable proportions,” I agreed. “But how came this about? I had understood there was a fortune to be made in sugar!”

“That is because you are familiar with Old Mr. Wildman,” Edward said with the first sign of satisfaction I had heard in his voice, “who has prospered in the Jamaican trade—and curiously enough, it is upon Wildman that the tale turns.”

“Is Mr. Wildman acquainted with Sir Davie Myrrh?”

“Not at all, to my knowledge,” Edward replied, “but he knows his late Jamaican plantation too well. It was Wildman who drove Sir Davie to ruin in those parts, so Mr. Reeve assures me, through a concerted effort at competition—and some ruthless methods no gentleman should have stooped to employ. There was a mysterious fire in a sugar mill, I collect, that brought production to a standstill, and a revolt among the slaves that wreaked havoc with the baronet’s harvest. Wildman was then the chief steward of the famous Quebec Estate—the largest plantation in Jamaica, four times the size of Sir Davie’s holdings, with four times the number of slaves required to work it. It was the Quebec Estate, Jane, which Wildman eventually bought from Mr. William Beckford; and it is the Quebec Estate that afforded our neighbour the wealth to purchase Chilham Castle, some decades ago, when he determined to return to England with his Creole bride.”

“What has all this to do with Curzon Fiske—or Mr. Burbage, if it comes to that?”

“Burbage is the son of Sir Davie Myrrh’s late plantation steward. He grew up in Jamaica, and was happy there—until his father shot himself, when the baronet was ruined. The lad was left with no home, no prospects, and nowhere to turn—except to Sir Davie.”

“And both men blame Mr. Wildman for their misfortunes?” I said, with growing comprehension.

“As Reeve vowed—it is an obsession with Sir Davie to see himself revenged upon the family at Chilham Castle.”

We were both silent an instant, as Edward’s words lingered in the air. “But why Curzon Fiske?” I demanded. “What possible rôle had he to play?”

“That of victim, of course.”

“I do not understand.”

Edward leaned across the table with all the intimacy of a conspirator. “Fiske, you will recall, met up with Sir Davie Myrrh in Bangalore, and spent a number of idle months with the baronet in Ceylon. I suspect that the two canvassed their grievances a good deal during the period—and discovered a mutual object of hatred in Old Mr. Wildman of Chilham Castle. The one saw him as a ruthless despoiler of wealth, and the other as the enemy of his marital hopes.”

I seized my brother’s arm. “I had almost forgot! Jupiter told me the whole of that final evening three years since, when Fiske gambled his last—and put up his wife as stake! Our own George Moore nearly won Adelaide at cards , Edward—but that Mr. Lushington would have it Fiske cheated!”

“What in God’s name are you speaking of, Jane?”

“The story will keep, my dear, until such time as you may turn your attention to it. But you were saying that Fiske had every reason to hate Old Wildman—pray continue.”

“I think it probable that Fiske and Sir Davie saw their paths aligned. They quitted Ceylon with the intention of repairing to Canterbury—Fiske, in an effort to regain his wife, and the baronet, with the object of being avenged. It was Fiske’s misfortune that he did not perceive he was to be the agent of Sir Davie’s satisfaction. Burbage, however, was fully alive to it.”