Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Canterbury Tale

The corpse itself was sprawled across the Pilgrim’s Way, an inert figure clad in browns and greens that must have been indistinguishable from the autumnal verdure; small wonder neither beater nor hunter had noticed the fellow. The man’s utter stillness, coupled with the blood-stained earth all around him, had thrown a pall over the shooting-party.

The scene might have been an engraving by Cruikshank: Mishap of a Sporting Nature, Or, the Wrong Bird Bagged .

There was John Plumptre, his serious dark eyes holding an expression of trouble and a faint line of apprehension on his brow; glorious Jupiter Finch-Hatton, whose posture as he leaned against an oak suggested a fashionable malaise I suspected he was far from feeling; James Wildman, who started forward upon perceiving me, as tho’ determined to offer a lady every civility regardless of chaotic circumstance; and my own nephews George and Edward. Their frank looks of dread recalled countless episodes of schoolboy mischief gone terribly awry: arms broken whilst tree-climbing, window panes smashed with cricket balls poorly batted, and dolls’ heads severed by makeshift guillotines. They were blenching at the prospect of their father’s inevitable lecture, on the thoughtlessness of young men wild for sport.

“Aunt Jane,” Edward said nervously—he is but nineteen, tho’ he affects an attitude of someone far more up to snuff, as must be expected of The Heir—“You have met with Fanny, I conclude.”

“Yes, Edward, I have. She is gone for your father. May I see the poor fellow?”

“Do you truly wish—that is to say, I should have thought—a spectacle not for the frailer sex—” This, from Mr. Wildman, who being the eldest at five-and-twenty, appeared to regard himself as the minder of his fellows.

I smiled at him rather as one of his old governesses might. “Pray do not make yourself anxious, Mr. Wildman. I am quite accustomed to death. My father was a clergyman, you know.”

“Ah,” he said, and looked slightly mortified.

I walked resolutely towards the corpse, the gentlemen heeling their dogs a discreet distance from my skirts, and made as if to kneel down beside the Deceased. I was forestalled by John Plumptre, who flung his shooting coat—a high-collared affair of drab that just brushed his ankles as he strode through the fields—down upon the ground. “The blood,” he said briefly. “It has soaked into the earth.”

I nodded my thanks, and knelt carefully on the coat.

My heart was pounding, however much courage I may have affected for the reassurance of the young gentlemen—for tho’ I have looked on Death before, I never meet Him without the profoundest sensibility. I closed my eyes an instant, drew a steadying breath, and forced myself to study the unfortunate creature whose mortal remains lay before me. I owed the dead man that much—to note what I could of the way he had died—for the five sporting fellows ranged about were so discomfited and mortified by the terrible event, they seemed determined to take no notice of the corpse at all. Perhaps then it might be swallowed up by the forgiving turf, and all should be right as rain in their world. But no —this was no apparition conjured by an excessive indulgence in claret the previous night; this was real, and the bucks of the neighbourhood should be forced to grapple with it, if I had my way. Death should never be so incidental as the bagging of a pheasant. I leaned over the man, consumed by an immense feeling of pity.

He lay on his back with arms flung wide and one leg bent beneath the other, hazel eyes staring sightlessly at the canopy of bare tree branches overhead. The wound in his chest had oozed a good deal, but was darkened and quiet now. He was in his middle forties, I should judge, and had apparently lived a life much out-of-doors, from the weathered condition of his skin, which was quite tanned for October. Not much of this could be seen, however, for he was bearded—a factor that must suggest the labouring class; a gentleman might sport a moustache, but rarely whiskers. The fellow’s clothes bore out the assumption, for they were of worsteds and nankeen, nothing out of the ordinary way. The boots, however, raised a question in my mind. For tho’ they were caked with mud and had seen hard use, they appeared to have been cut by an excellent cobbler from an expensive hide, in a stile I should only describe as Hessians .

I frowned. What business had a labourer wearing a gentleman’s boots? Even admitting that they might be purchased at second- or third-hand, what folly urged their display on a wearisome journey by foot? Our man gave every appearance of having walked to the place of his death—a satchel and stout stick rested nearby.

A pilgrim , Fanny had said. One token alone suggested the activity: a large silver cross hung round the corpse’s neck on a solid silver chain. Something about its shape, or perhaps the irregularity of its design, brought to mind the amber cross my brother Charles had purchased for me in Malta—and the thought rose unbidden that our corpse had travelled in distant lands, perhaps by sea. This was foolishness, of course—anything might be purchased in London, after all, regardless of which village the man claimed as home. Perhaps his satchel would tell us something of his identity—

I had half-risen from my knees in order to rifle the corpse’s belongings, when the canter of hooves announced my brother’s approach. Of course Edward would saddle a horse—he might even have been on the point of riding out for pleasure, as was his custom each morning, when Fanny burst upon his scene big with news.

He dismounted rather heavily, and tossed the reins of his hack to young Edward without a word. He was frowning as he observed my crouching position by the body.

“Are you on the point of swooning, Jane? Have none of these blockheads supported you?”

“Indeed I am not!” I retorted indignantly. “Only puzzled exceedingly by what I find. Or rather—not puzzled , exactly, for the matter is clear enough.”

He raised his brows quizzically as he dropped down beside me, his fingers feeling for an absent pulse in the corpse’s neck. “Quite cold,” he observed grimly.

“That is not all,” I murmured in an undertone. “I must tell you, Edward, that for several reasons I am most uneasy in my mind.”

“Were you to be otherwise in the presence of a dead man, Jane, I should be severely shocked.” He tossed one cutting phrase over his shoulder at the knot of sporting men standing respectfully behind: “Which of you young fools cut off this man’s life?”

There was a painful silence.

My nephew George cleared his throat noisily, a sure sign of panic.

“To be frank, sir,” began James Wildman—

“—We haven’t the slightest notion,” interrupted Jupiter Finch-Hatton. He thrust himself away from his languid pose against the oak and dusted his gloved fingers with an air of distaste. “We’d just flushed the nicest little covey of pheasant a man could wish to find. All our guns were raised; most of ’em fired. Impossible to know which dropped the feller. Oughtn’t to have been there. Trespass on a private manor. Preserves . Damned impudence, my opinion. Got his just desserts.”

“Thank you, Finch-Hatton. When I want your opinion I shall certainly ask for it,” my brother rejoined brusquely. “James, what was your party’s position when the last shots were fired?”

Mr. Wildman appeared relieved; this was a question he could answer. He whirled around and pointed in the direction from which I had come, but well to the right of the Lime Walk. “Quite a way off—thirty yards, I should think.”

“Forty,” corrected John Plumptre. “And the beaters were driving towards us, of course, when the pheasant went up. As Finch-Hatton says—a beautiful little covey, and we got most of them, sir. We’d no notion that any of the shot went awry until the dogs—”