Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“There was not.” Edward gazed at me with an arrested expression. “Must you always complicate matters, Jane, with questions that are entirely unanswerable?”

“Two people have died, Edward, and died in pain and violence. I should like the proper person to hang for it.”

He frowned. “You are persuaded the murders were done by the same hand. Whose, then? Sir Davie Myrrh’s? Burbage’s? Explain, if you may, how either man should have come by the shooting coat of drab. Neither has been seen in the neighbourhood of Chilham, much less the Castle’s gun room, of late.”

“Have you had any word of them?”

“Burbage was taken this morning in Deal,” Edward said abruptly, “attempting to hire a private vessel for the crossing to France. He should be conveyed to Canterbury gaol by nightfall. Sir Davie, I regret, is still at large.”

“Then you may pursue your researches yet a few hours,” I assured him affably. “We have delayed you already too long, with our vexing questions. May I suggest, Edward—when you speak to Old Wildman—that you enquire most narrowly into the terms of his Will, and the disposition of his estate, in the sad event of his death?”

“Naturally the whole shall go to his son,” he retorted impatiently.

“I meant, rather, in default of heirs male.”

My brother stared at me, brows knit, then wheeled his horse towards Chilham without another word.

We were not very gay that evening, I confess, despite the luxury of a house emptied of visitors and sporting-mad young gentlemen. We invited Miss Clewes to make a third at table, and toyed with the excellent fowl presented by Cook; in my lowered health and Fanny’s lowered spirits, the cream soup was more to our liking. Miss Clewes shared her stories of the little girls, and the morning spent in the schoolroom, and the droll thing that Marianne had said, and how she had been obliged to deny Marianne her custard in consequence; but neither Fanny nor I were properly attending. Before the governess, who knew nothing of the day’s events, we could not speak of murder or Julian Thane; but Miss Clewes’s prattle allowed each of us to pursue our own unsettling thoughts: Fanny’s, on the subtleties of handsome young men, about whose true proclivities no gently-reared female could presume to know anything; and I, on the hidden and deadly purposes of the human heart. We were so much abstracted that we did not devour above a fraction of the delicacies set before us, I am sure; but I comforted myself, and dosed the cold threatening to o’erwhelm my head, with Edward’s delicious claret. I shall be sadly spoilt by the time I return home, and disdain the fruits of Cassandra’s stillroom as not worth drinking.

“And is your papa expected this evening, Miss Knight?” Miss Clewes enquired brightly. “If you mean to wait up for him, I shall be happy to fetch my work-box, and sit with you a little in the drawing-room. Only I must first assure myself that the young ones are comfortable in the night-nursery. They will be wanting their warm milk.”

Fanny coloured slightly, and looked down at her hands. “I fear that I have the head-ache, Miss Clewes. I should like to retire early. And my aunt is most unwell.”

“Of course you have the head-ache!” Miss Clewes said archly. “For Mr. Finch-Hatton has left us, has he not? And it is a wonder that even little Lizzy is not drooping apace! How dull we shall be this week, to be sure, until some other of your beaux, Miss Knight, appear to cheer our solitude!”

The colour in Fanny’s cheeks deepened. “I have no beaux, Miss Clewes, and indeed I can find little to enjoy in the society of young men,” she retorted crisply. “There is a want of … of … openness , and much of calculated deceit, in the general run of that sex. Goodnight.”

Miss Clewes looked bewildered, and curtseyed her adieux; I pressed her hand and shook my head warningly. Then I caught up to Fanny as she ascended the stairs with more haste than grace.

“Take care, my dear,” I murmured as I kissed her cheek. “That was a speech that smacked strongly of disappointment. You should not wish to expose yourself to the ridicule of the world, for ruined hopes.”

Whether Fanny found sleep readily enough, or tossed and turned on her unhappy bed, I was determined to wait for Edward—and having built up my fire, and exchanged my carriage dress for a warm wrapper, I sat at the writing desk in the Yellow Room and recorded the day’s events in this journal. The clock in the Great Hall had not long chimed the quarter-hour past nine, when I was rewarded by the sound of approaching hooves; Edward, gone round to the stables. He would gain the house in a few moments’ time by the back way, and no doubt summon Johncock to require his supper; and if I knew my brother at all, he would take it in his book room, rather than the awful majesty of the empty dining parlour.

I waited until the clock had chimed the half-hour, then opened my door as noiselessly as possible. A glance along the corridor revealed Fanny’s white face, peeping from the doorway of her own bedchamber; she, too, was clad in a dressing gown and slippers, and looked absurdly youthful beneath her night cap. She hesitated an instant, then stepped into the passage and joined me, the candle she held trembling slightly in her hand. “You intend to speak to Papa? May I come with you?”

I might have spared her one sleepless night out of two, by shielding her a little longer from the evils of the world; but she was twenty, after all, and could hardly be urged back to bed, like a child recovering from nightmare.

“Of course. I told you I valued your opinion.”

We found the Magistrate devouring a plate of cold fowl and cheese, washed down with a tankard of ale. The fire in the book room was blazing, and he had lit several branches of candles, as tho’ he intended to work long into the night. But there were no papers or books before him; the work, I collected, should be done entirely in his brain.

“Jane. Fanny. You ought both of you to be in bed.”

“Pshaw,” I returned briskly. “It is not yet ten o’clock.” But the weariness in Edward’s voice reminded me that he had been travelling on the London road until nearly dawn, and what little sleep he had snatched before our shared breakfast—days ago, it seemed—had long since been spent in hard riding between Chilham, Canterbury, and home.

“I am relieved to know that you were not met with pikes and broadswords at the Castle; and that they have let you go again, without demanding an exchange of hostages.”

His lips quirked at this sally; but his expression of sadness did not materially change. “The family were kindness itself, and treated me with a forbearance I ought not to expect, having gaoled two of their members within the week. It was all I could do to refuse to dine with them—the mere thought was as a mouthful of ashes to me! To accept the hospitality of one of my oldest friends, when I feel myself to be the merest scrub! It was damned awkward, Jane, I do not mind saying— damned awkward, and I hope I shall never again be forced to a similar exertion of duty, however long I may live!”

“Poor Papa.” Fanny perched on the edge of his desk, hope warring with anxiety in her countenance. “Did you speak to Mr. Wildman, sir? Did you learn anything to the purpose?”

“I learnt a good deal.” Edward’s eyes narrowed as he took his last bite of fowl, and washed it down with a draught of ale. “But nothing I learnt can hope to lighten Thane’s case. If anything, it merely confirms it.”

Fanny paled. “How is this?”

He gazed at her levelly. “Your aunt asked a pertinent question, my child. The one question, indeed, likely to tie Curzon Fiske’s murder to that of the maid. In default of heirs male, Mr. Wildman’s estate goes not , as I might have expected, to his brother’s sons—but entirely to his young cousin, Julian Thane. Wildman told me he thought it only just to provide for Thane in the eventuality his son James predeceased him, because his nephews will richly inherit from his brother, who is an even warmer man than Wildman himself. He confided, moreover, that Wold Hall was grossly encumbered with mortgages in Thane’s father’s time, and cannot possibly provide the kind of income that expensive young buck requires. With his pockets entirely to let, Thane was unlikely to prove acceptable to any heiress, either—not even to our own Miss Knight, the principal young lady in the neighbourhood. The added knowledge that his mistress, Martha, was soon to present the world with a pledge of her affection, should have blasted his marriage prospects entirely.”