Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“Edward, are you suggesting that Sir Davie killed Fiske, and Burbage helped him to do it?”

“I can think of nothing more probable! One of them—I presume Sir Davie, as it was he who pretends to have stood in the back garden awaiting the message from Adelaide’s maid—stole young James Wildman’s pistol from the gun room while all the wedding guests were occupied at the ball; he may then have passed it to Burbage, along with the intelligence that Fiske would be waiting near St. Lawrence Church; and the thing was done.”

“Fiske was murdered and poor James’s gun left in the churchyard,” I murmured. “Yes, I do see. They thought there could be nothing more natural, in the eyes of a suspicious Law, than for a Wildman to rid the world of Curzon Fiske on the night of his wife’s bigamous marriage—only think of the scandal Fiske’s timely death should avert! To burden James with the guilt is revenge, indeed; did Sir Davie succeed in bringing Old Mr. Wildman’s beloved heir to the scaffold, he should visit upon Chilham Castle such a manifold tragedy! It is in every way diabolical!”

“You have stated my frame of the case in a nutshell,” my brother concluded.

I glanced at him curiously. “But what of Martha, lying cold in the Chilham publick house?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps she saw Sir Davie steal the gun—or hand it to Burbage. And when Fiske was found, she began to talk.”

“It seems quite apt,” I said uneasily. “And yet—”

“And yet, we have not a single shred of evidence, from beginning to end. Not a particle of proof. We have helped the very men we suspect, to walk out of their cell; and wished them godspeed on their voyage to the Galápagos. I swear I could put a gun to my own head , Jane, when I consider of it!”

“What has been done, to recover them?”

“When I quitted the chambers of Reeve and Bobbit, I went to the Bow Street Runners—they are given to meeting at the Bear, a publick house in Covent Garden—”

“—not two steps from Henry’s lodgings in Henrietta Street,” I finished. “I am well aware. The Runners are even now in pursuit of Sir Davie Myrrh?”

“Their first object must be the principal ports. I am in no wise convinced that the Galápagos is truly the baronet’s destination; the offering may have been a blind, intended to throw us off the scent. I have urged the Runners to search the Channel ports, as well as those giving on to the North Sea.”

“I understand the Baltic is lovely this time of year. And now?”

“I must attend an inquest.” Edward rose. “You are looking hagged, Jane, and decidedly unwell. You have taken a cold in the head, from an injudicious gallivanting about the country. Pray lie down upon your bed this morning, like a dutiful aunt.”

“And miss the opportunity of speeding George Moore and all his family from the house?” I shook my head in disdain. “They have only to vanish down the sweep, Edward, with Harriot’s brave handkerchief fluttering, for me to require Fanny to instantly harness her Rowan. I intend to pay a call upon Chilham Castle while you are at the village publick house—and she must drive me.”

My brother’s eyes narrowed. “You will not betray a word of my conjectures?”

“Not a syllable! I merely wish to know how dear Mrs. Wildman bears the protracted blessing of Mrs. Thane’s continued presence. I have been sadly neglecting my duty; I have been tardy in paying my calls. And you know Jupiter is to leave us once your boys have gone to Oxford. Fanny will be wanting a diversion for her spirits. She shall sadly miss his company; he is the most engaging fellow.”

“You might drop a hint in Thane’s ear that his sister is very soon likely to be freed,” Edward said doubtfully, “but do not allow that young buck to be waltzing with Fanny, pray!”

And so he left me.

I sat a while longer over my coffee and toast, revolving all that Edward had told me. If I indulged a very different set of conjectures than the Magistrate’s, in my brother’s absence, I am sure he shall be the first to forgive me.

28 October 1813, Cont.

In the end, of course, it was past noon before gentle Rowan was harnessed and Fanny at leisure to drive me to the Wildmans’, for the morning was spent in bidding farewell to Young Edward and George, and all their sundry belongings, which were strapped to Edward’s travelling-coach for the first leg of their journey by post to Oxford. They are to bait at Lenham, and spend a night in London, before journeying into Oxfordshire. Young Edward elected to ride his favourite hunter behind the coach, leaving his younger brother to the splendid isolation of its interior—or what should be splendid isolation, once the Moore family quits it. Mr. and Mrs. Moore elected to have a saving in their post charges, by travelling as far as Lenham at Edward’s expence, and with his exasperated sons; from there, they shall have to fend for themselves in achieving their own home at Wrotham. But I have hopes of Harriot’s greater comfort in future: in all the flurry of strapping bandboxes to the rear of the coach, and shifting my nephews’ things so as to have their own nearer to hand, Harriot found a moment to embrace me, and whisper in confidence her thanks for my encouragement and understanding.

“And only reflect, Jane! Mr. Moore assures me that he perceives no further need for charitable works in the Indies—and our gold is to remain quite our own , henceforth!”

I tucked away this morsel of intelligence, as further confirmation of my suspicions—that Curzon Fiske had steadily blackmailed his old school friend George Moore, in return for silence on a delicate subject: that the late Archbishop’s son had gambled at cards, for the stake of another man’s wife.

My brother Edward had sufficient time only to offer his guests a distracted farewell, clasp his younger son to his bosom, and take his elder’s hand, before being gone on horseback in the direction of Chilham.

“Ought to take leave myself,” Mr. Finch-Hatton said doubtfully as he gazed at Fanny; and tho’ the young man has risen much in my esteem, and I should not tire of learning more of him, I could not in good conscience encourage him to linger. He should look both too particular with regard to Fanny, and too diffident in declaring himself—and I cannot believe him ready to declare himself in a manner calculated to make my niece happy. There is too little of the ardent lover, and too much of the boy, still raging in the man of five-and-twenty.

Of her own feelings on the subject, Fanny betrayed nothing—unless one may interpret an air of distracted impatience, as evidence of her desire for her visitor to be gone. She is the female least susceptible in the entire neighbourhood to Jupiter’s charms, which cannot argue for his suit’s prospering. I find, as these weeks of my visit to Godmersham wear away, that I cannot penetrate Fanny’s heart at all—have no notion, indeed, of which qualities in a gentleman she most prizes—but should argue in favour of the quiet probity and sound understanding of John Plumptre succeeding, where Jupiter’s casual presumption cannot.