Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Fanny looked about wildly, searching for reason in my countenance she could not discover in her father’s. “You cannot mean to blame me , and any … interest … Mr. Thane might have shewn me, for the murder of that unfortunate maid?”

“Fanny! No, no, child—do not think it!” The distress in Edward’s countenance was painful. “You can have nothing to do with so sordid a business!”

“But I have to do with it,” she said tremblingly. “I encouraged Mr. Thane’s attentions. Indeed, I was gratified by them. Whatever his faults—whatever his crimes may prove to be—he will remain in my memory as the most … engaging gentleman I have ever known.”

“Dear God,” Edward said.

Fanny’s chin rose. “I cannot believe him capable of murder, Father. And I do not see why Mr. Wildman’s Will has anything to say to the purpose! He is not in default of heirs male. James is perfectly well!”

“But James only narrowly escaped,” I reminded her gently. “Some one tried to tie a noose around young Wildman’s neck—by leaving his pistol near Curzon Fiske’s body. Had James hanged for it, Julian Thane might expect no less than a castle—and twenty thousand a year!”

Friday, 29 October 1813

Fanny took breakfast on a tray in her room this morning, and I confess I was inclined to imitate her example, for the sleep I might have trusted to cure my tiresome cold proved elusive last night. My mind was too busy weaving and discarding theories of murder, tho’ all my cherished notions had proved useless thus far. I had never met Old Mr. Wildman’s nephews—they live, I believe, in London, on the fruits of the sugar trade. One is a Colonel of Hussars, or some such; the particulars do not signify. But I had taken a powerful fancy to the unknown Colonel. My intimacy with the entire Wildman family is so limited, indeed, by my infrequent journeying into Kent, that I could not be expected to know any real truth of them—and certainly not in what manner Old Wildman’s Will had been drawn. There is a decided fascination to the notion of the Absent Heir: the unseen hand wielding both gun butt and knife. He ought ideally to have been an expensive young man, who held his uncle’s life cheap, and might be expected to remove the obstacle of his cousin James with a ruthless and cunning efficiency. I confess I had cast the Colonel—whose name, I think, is Thomas—in the rôle of chief conspirator; for a soldier, you know, will generally have a high tolerance for bloodshed, and might be depended upon for a steady shot on a night of limited moon. He might just as well have killed Curzon Fiske, and left his cousin James to swing for it. [13] Colonel Thomas Wildman, though unacquainted with Jane Austen, would intersect the life of one of her contemporaries and fellow writers, when he purchased Newstead Abbey—ancestral home of George Gordon, Lord Byron—in 1818, for the considerable sum of £94,500. Wildman was a friend of Byron’s dating from their schooldays at Harrow. — Editor’s note . The little matter of his having not the slightest reason to murder Martha Kean, I had conveniently set to one side.

It was not to be, however; Edward had blasted all my hopes of the Absent Heir with the stunning news that Julian Thane was the very same; and I was sick with disappointment, for Fanny’s sake as much as for the ruin of my interesting ideas.

I drank the coffee the maid had brought and got out of bed, therefore, to dress myself with neatness and propriety, as befit a lady of dubious health who was determined to pay a call at Canterbury gaol.

I found my brother on the point of setting out for the town. He did not look as tho’ he wished for company, but I gave him no opportunity of refusing mine.

“You can have little to say to Burbage,” he observed. “It is to meet with that scoundrel that I am bound for Canterbury gaol.”

“I have nothing at all to say to Mr. Burbage,” I agreed, “other than that I prefer his countenance free of whiskers. I would speak, rather, with Adelaide MacCallister—and might profitably do so while you are closeted with the spurious solicitor. Surely you intend to release Mrs. MacCallister, now that her brother is to be held in both murders? I might convey the intelligence.”

Edward looked uneasy. “I ought to do so, I know,” he said at length. “But my fingers have been burnt once, Jane, in freeing Sir Davie Myrrh—had I then been less merciful, a deal of worry and trouble should have been saved. Mrs. MacCallister, returned to her family, might be a comfort to her mother; and that must weigh heavily with me. I am a magistrate, indeed—but I am first a father. You see how I am torn.”

“Mrs. Thane sets no value on her daughter at all,” I returned with asperity. “Her son is everything to her, and leaves no room for rival interest.”

“Indeed? Who chuses to tell you so?”

“Twitch and his good wife, who have been observing the family forever. Recollect that Adelaide was practically raised at Chilham; her mother had no use for the girl until she turned out a beauty—and then, the excellent lady’s attack upon the Marriage Mart was entirely in the cause of her son’s prospects. She hoped Adelaide might make a brilliant match, and use her husband’s fortune to save Wold Hall from the lien-holders’ clutches.”

“That is hardly a scheme designed to foster affection between a sister and brother,” Edward mused. “The one’s happiness to be sacrificed to the other’s security—they might justly be forgiven for hating each other.”

“And yet, their mutual cordiality appears complete. I should say rather they are united in their disdain for their mother.”

“Unnatural family.” Edward shuddered. “You may condole with Adelaide if you wish, Jane; but I do not envy you the task.”

The Warden’s dogsbody, young Jack, led me cringingly to the women’s quarters in the gaol, where a creature I took to be his mother, from the intimate abuse she bestowed upon him so cordially, surveyed me from head to toe.

“MacCallister?” she repeated. “Aye, we’ve got her, right enough—but her ’usband’s with her now, and I doubt as you’ll be welcome.”

Feeling absurdly out of place, I proffered the woman my card. “Pray convey this to Captain and Mrs. MacCallister with my compliments. I will await an answer.”

She was a massive and stone-faced creature in her middle years, with a plain cap pulled low over greasy locks of indeterminate colour—and took the card frowningly between her fingertips. Such an one might refuse my commission for the sheer pleasure of disobliging me. With a grunt, however, she sorted among the keys that dangled from her chatelaine, and having found the one she required, made her heavy way down the corridor, slippers loosely slapping the stone flags. I was reminded by the sound of a cavalcade of dead fish. I lingered some moments, the boy Jack staring at me fearfully but unblinkingly.

“How old are you, Jack?”

“Dunno.”

“Is that woman your mother?”