Jane and the Canterbury Tale (26 page)

“—Or the desire to preserve her present happiness, urged her to silence a man the world already believed to be dead,” my brother returned.

“We cannot know what demands he then made, or how he threatened her security, when they spoke on the Pilgrim’s Way.”

“We cannot know that they spoke at all!” Edward burst out. “A man impatient for his beloved wife need only clasp her at once to his heart—and receive the fatal ball.”

The powder burns on Fiske’s coat made Edward’s phantasy all too probable.

“But do you believe that Mrs. MacCallister should then
incriminate her cousin James
—the kindest of men, and her playfellow from old?” I demanded. “Impossible!”

“I should think it preferable to hanging her brother or husband—and theirs must be the only other pistols readily available to the lady in her midnight hour of need. No, Jane—a Wildman gun would have to serve, and there were plenty lying about in the Castle gun room. I have only to learn whether the note was delivered to Fiske by Julian Thane or Adelaide’s maid—assuming the latter knew where Fiske was to be found—and the thing is clear.”

“Fiddle! Make her your murderer if you will, Edward, but the case will not serve once you consider the pistol! She might
have restored it to the gun room in all innocence, once Fiske was dead. Nobody should have connected James’s gun, in its velvet-lined box, with the murder. No—whoever killed Fiske
meant
for James to be blamed. That is the material point. Fiske’s murderer
hated
young James Beckford Wildman, and wished to see him hang! Until you may tell me why Adelaide should do so, I shall not credit her guilt!”

“What you chuse to believe, my dear, is your own affair—but it cannot influence the evidence. Or the nature of my duty.”

I rose and approached the hearth, where my brother stood brooding over the flames, his booted foot on the fender. “You mean to charge Adelaide MacCallister with murder?”

He glanced up at me. “I must.”

“But if she may offer an
explanation
for her note’s presence in Fiske’s pocket—”

My brother’s looks hardened. “The lady has lied to me, Jane, throughout the whole of this business. I cannot
now
credit any story she might chuse to tell. Surely you must see that!”

“I see only that I shall have to prove you wrong, Edward.”

“I wish you may,” he said.

And drove off to bring misery to Chilham Castle.

K
NOWING WHAT
I
DID OF EVENTS THE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD
was as yet in ignorance of, I did not submit to dining with the Moores and Fanny and my young nephews on this last Sunday before their return to Oxford. I pled a head-ache, and retreated to my bedchamber to write to my sister Cassandra. I made little progress, however—to fill my page with amusing nothings on the exploits of the nursery set, or the design of Fanny’s newest cap, or young Edward’s success with the harriers, could not serve to distract me from an acute awareness
of the scene that must be unfolding at Chilham even now. Perhaps I ought to have accompanied Edward—I might have been some comfort to Mrs. Wildman in her trouble at least—but I knew myself for a coward. A note of thanks to
me
had thrown a rope about Adelaide MacCallister’s neck; and having delivered it to the Magistrate, I stood in the guise of traitor. The distress of all her relations should justly make them hate me.

At length I tore the letter to Cassandra in twain and tossed it on the fire. It lay smouldering atop the logs, the wood being too damp to burn cleanly; smoke billowed in gusts as it nosed its way up the chimney. The hazy scrim between my eyes and the fire seemed to mock my effort to penetrate Curzon Fiske’s death; nothing about the affair stood in sharp relief. It was all a smoke of falsehood and omission, of motives obscured, tales only partially told, and passions suppressed. Except for one fact:
James Wildman’s pistol had been left with purpose in St. Lawrence churchyard
. Edward might dismiss that fact; but I clung to it as a drowning man will to the length of rope that might save him.

I drew another piece of foolscap towards me, thrust my pen into the ink, and wrote,
Why destroy James Wildman?

He was an amiable young man; his temper was invariably cool; tho’ handsome enough for a country neighbourhood, he had not incited the young men of his acquaintance to violent envy either through the mastery of sport or success in affairs of the heart; in short, James Beckford Wildman was far too unobjectionable for a pointed hatred.

I wrote:
Personal emnity or jealousy—springing from events or passions unknown to me?
If I considered of Julian Thane in this, I may be pardoned—neither of James’s sisters should be likely to kill Fiske merely to throw blame upon her brother. Besides, I could not see either the complaisant Charlotte or the scornful Louisa venturing out-of-doors in the dead of night.

I wrote:
The fatal whist-party, and the nature of the betting three years since?
It was possible that some quarrel among the cardplayers, embroiling James, had revived with Fiske’s return—but how had any of them known of Fiske’s return, before discovering his body Thursday morning?

I wrote:
Financial expectations?

James was, after all, the heir of his house—and stood to come into twenty thousand a year! It was a fortune great enough to figure even in London. He had no brothers; how should the elder Mr. Wildman’s fortune be left, and who should benefit, should his heir predecease him—by hanging? The elder Mr. Wildman had a brother, one Thomas, whose sons were respectable young men of easy fortune; but the idea that either should have been upon the Pilgrim’s Way at dead of night, in order to murder Curzon Fiske and destroy his cousin’s prospects, seemed too improbable a notion to pursue. They should inherit their own father’s wealth in time; and as it was fully as substantial as our Mr. Wildman’s, deriving from the same family holdings in Jamaica, I could not find in James’s cousins the slightest reason to incriminate and supplant him.

I sighed, and set down my pen. My thoughts were in a sad tangle. I required a greater knowledge of the Wildman family—and James in particular—than a few intimate dinners, balls, or the exchange of visits could provide. Had Edward stayed his magisterial hand, I might have paid a visit to Chilham Castle on the morrow, and forced a tête-à-tête with James himself—but the awkwardness attendant upon such a visit
now
, ensured that I should meet with a united silence. I could learn nothing in that quarter. And so I must apply to others.

It was only as sleep overcame me that I recollected two sources of intelligence should be furnished me on the morrow. Sir Davie Myrrh’s solicitor should arrive in Canterbury; and Jupiter Finch-Hatton in our drawing-room. Of the two, I
placed greater hope in Jupiter—for tho’ I regarded his understanding as less than powerful, he was not the sort to suppress his opinions when offered the slightest opportunity of declaring them. I should undertake to cultivate the young man tomorrow—if a lady so burdened in years could hope to engage his attention for a quarter-hour together.

I
WAS AWAKENED BRIEFLY, NOT LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT, BY
the sound of my brother’s carriage returning to Godmersham. I did not go down to ask him how Adelaide MacCallister liked her new quarters in Canterbury gaol.

  
CHAPTER TWENTY
  

M
ONDAY
, 25 O
CTOBER
1813

“I
S IT TRUE
, A
UNT
J
ANE?
H
AS
F
ATHER UNDERTAKEN THE
hideous step of arresting Mrs. MacCallister for the murder of her first husband?”

Father
, not Papa. Fanny was looking indignant, which lends considerable animation to her countenance, and by any stranger’s judgement should be called a fine figure of a girl this morning, as she sat in the breakfast-parlour in her figured rose lawn, with her cheeks flushed and her grey eyes sparkling dangerously.

I had caught her in the act of pouring out coffee, as I entered the room; and saw that Jupiter Finch-Hatton was already lounging at his leisure opposite her, having arrived at Godmersham with a promptness unusual in him. That he had brought the intelligence of Mrs. MacCallister’s arrest I little doubted; the young man came to us from Chilham Castle,
after all. It was Godmersham’s position halfway between Chilham and Finch-Hatton’s home at Eastwell, that recommended us to him at present—tho’ I suspect the prospect of bidding Young Edward farewell, and engaging in some last days of shooting before Fanny’s brothers departed for Oxford, was an added inducement. Jupiter is the sort of man who progresses from one idle amusement to another, week after week, and thereby constructs of his pleasures a sort of life. Whether in his estimation Fanny figured as chief attraction or mere addition to Godmersham’s charms, I could not tell. His provocative gaze, a complex of insolence and invitation, lingered on her countenance—then travelled, with some absorption, to her bodice. It was swelling with outrage at the moment.

“You had better tax your father with that question, my dear,” I said. “I was not present on the occasion.”

“But you knew that it was toward!”

“Indeed.” I raised the lid of a silver dish set out on the sideboard, and inspected some kidneys, not without a shudder. The next dish held a species of small roasted bird, possibly ortolans, possibly snared by my nephews. To my infinite relief, the third dish held nothing more offensive than boiled quail’s eggs. “Why do you suppose I could not stomach dinner last evening? But I should dearly like a cup of that coffee, Fanny. And some of that toast.”

“How can you be so insensible, Aunt?” Fanny cried, as she set down the coffee pot with more decision than grace. “Only consider of the distress to Mrs. MacCallister, and all her relations. Her mother, and her brother.” She hesitated a little over the idea of Julian Thane, and cast a sidelong glance at Jupiter. “Good God—consider the feelings of her husband, the gallant Captain! I wonder that he or Mr. Thane did not call my father out, for the insult visited upon Adelaide!”

“I assume they have more wisdom, and less heat, than you
do, Fanny. One does not challenge the Law to a duel—duels being entirely illegal in England at present.”

“You cannot believe her
guilty
, Aunt? No, no!—Father has merely fallen into the gravest error. It springs, no doubt, from the limitations of his sex,” she added thoughtfully. “For you and I will agree that no lady could shoot a man to whom she was once united in Holy Matrimony. It must be impossible! However one regards it—impossible!”