Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“She cares for her son, I gather.”

“Near enough as to fall down and worship him,” Mrs. Twitch returned with obvious contempt. “Aye, and in the teeth of his dislike—for it’s my belief Mr. Julian can’t abide sight nor sound of his mother. Never forgiven her, if you ask me, for her Turkish treatment of Miss Addie when she run off with Mr. Fiske. Thought to make a great match for her daughter, Mrs. Thane did—on account of the fortune she wanted, to save Wold Hall. Ready to sell Miss Addie to the highest bidder, she was. No wonder the poor mite fled across the Channel with the first rakehell that offered. I’ll send up the mustard bath directly, ma’am.”

The housekeeper curtseyed and pulled closed the bedchamber door.

I had no great wish to plunge my feet into a steaming kettle of nostril-curling bath, but it seemed a small price to pay for verisimilitude. Feigning illness had won me the wisdom of Mrs. Twitch; and in the murder of a maid, one could do far worse than interrogate the housekeeper.

28 October 1813, Cont.

I waited until the mustard bath appeared in the hands of an upper housemaid, and allowed the girl to fuss over me, and arrange my skirts that I might set my feet in the steaming water without staining the fabric of my best—I may say my only —carriage gown before I attempted further researches. This particular maid I judged to be in her twenties, plain-featured and without the slightest suggestion of frivolity about her person; she wore no armband, and her visage did not bear the marks of weeping.

“I am sorry to cause so much trouble,” I attempted. “I was so stupid as to stand in the rain some hours, a few days since, and caught cold as a result.”

The maid’s glance shifted towards me, then glided away; but her lips compressed. She was not the sort to be tempted by an oblique approach; I should be forced to confront her headlong.

“Were you at all acquainted with the unfortunate girl who met her death on the Downs?” I persisted.

“That Martha?” The maid shrugged. “I shared my room with her; but as for being acquainted , I don’t hold with encouraging foreigners. She was no Kentishwoman. Of Leicestershire stock, was Martha—and terrible free in their ways, such folk be.”

“In their ways?” I repeated as tho’ perplexed. “What do you mean?”

A shuttered look came over the maid’s face. “Don’t mean nothing at’all, ma’am. Is the water hot enough for your liking?”

“It is very well, thank you. By free, would you suggest that Martha was friendly ?”

“Aye, and to all the world—both above and below. No proper sense of place, had Martha—and look what it got her.”

“You believe that she was murdered by a friend—and one not of her station?”

“No friend would cut a girl’s throat,” the housemaid returned drily. “If you’ve nothing further, ma’am, I’m wanted downstairs.”

“Of course—thank you. You have been very kind. And I don’t even know your name.”

“Susan, ma’am.” She bobbed a curtsey, her face wooden.

“Susan,” I repeated brightly, and reached for the reticule dangling from my wrist. I pressed a shilling into her palm; she thanked me with a nod; and the door closed behind her.

I waited until the sound of brisk footsteps on drugget had died away. Then, pulling my dripping feet from the mustard bath, I hurriedly donned my stockings and boots.

The servants’ quarters at Chilham were in the second attic two flights above. I chose to travel as silently as I might by the back service stair, and met no one at that hour, the staff being employed in meeting the wants and demands of the Wildman family and their guests. The stairs wound first past the main attic level, where the old day and night nurseries were housed, and the schoolrooms, where governesses had once attempted to teach Louisa and Charlotte to read Italian; but all were silent now, with the stale sensibility of disused rooms, and I did not chuse to linger.

A greater sense of life animated the servants’ level, tho’ no creature stirred. The ceiling was lower here, and numerous doorways gave onto the narrow passage, which curved with the hexagonal shape of the Castle. Light came only dimly through slits of windows intended to affect a medieval stile. I guessed that just the female staff were lodged in this aerie; in observation of the proprieties, the men would be housed below-stairs, near the kitchens and offices. Mr. and Mrs. Twitch, being senior staff and a married couple, probably merited a suite of rooms in that part of the house. It should not be too difficult, therefore, to discover the bedchamber Susan and Martha had shared. It should be the only one with a stripped cot and bare shelf on one side of the room.

What was it I hoped to discover, two days after the murder—two days that ought to have afforded anybody with a guilty conscience and mortal purpose time enough to ransack the maid’s room? A scrap of paper, perhaps. A journal. If Martha could write, who knew what damning facts she might have set down? The girl had been murdered for a reason—and it must be because of something she knew , regarding the death of Curzon Fiske.

But I was fated never to find the maid’s room. As I moved noiselessly around a curve in the hexagonal passage, a sinister figure loomed—silhouetted against the faint light seeping through the Castle’s false battlements. Tall, thin, and severely coiffed, with a profile as handsome as an eagle’s, and just as merciless. Mrs. Thane.

“What do you think you are doing here?” she demanded harshly, as I came to an abrupt halt.

“I might ask the same of you—were I so presumptuous.”

She was standing, I observed, near one of the doors, which was firmly closed. On the point of exiting—or entering?

“My maid did not answer my bell,” she said austerely. “So I came in search of her. What possible reason can you profess, Miss Austen, for invading these quarters?”

“The gentlemen are returned from the village, Mrs. Thane. I thought you must certainly wish to know.”

It was a commendable lie; and it succeeded in its object. For the woman brushed past me imperiously in a rustle of silk, without vouchsafing another word.

To my surprize and secret gratification—few liars are so lucky as to be shielded by Fate in a cloak of seeming honesty—the gentlemen had returned from the inquest. Or rather, three of the gentlemen had returned. Julian Thane was not among them.

The absence was immediately perceived by his mother at her entrance into the drawing-room. She halted abruptly, and following too close behind, I nearly trod upon her heel.

“Where is he? Where is my son?”

Captain MacCallister turned from some activity among the decanters and crossed to Mrs. Thane, a glass of brandy in his hand. “Pray be seated, ma’am, and try a little of this cordial.”

“I do not wish for brandy!” she exclaimed imperiously. “Where is Julian?”

“He has been taken up by Mr. Knight,” said Old Mr. Wildman quietly from his position by the fire, “for the murder of Martha Kean. I am sorry for it.”

A cry broke from the woman, and she wavered where she stood. I stepped forward to support her, but the Captain was before me, and led her towards a chair. She shook him off, however, with an expression of contempt, and remained upright, her blazing eyes fixed on poor Fanny’s face. “Mr. Knight is the greatest fool! Julian —murder that girl? Calumny! Nonsense! An outrage! Her throat was cut; and had my son wished to kill her, his pistol should have sufficed. I am sure I do not know a keener shot than Julian.”