Jane and the Canterbury Tale (31 page)

25 O
CTOBER
1813,
CONT
.

“W
ELL
, J
ANE,” MY BROTHER SAID AS WE PAUSED UNDER
the arch of Westgate gaol, “what do you make of this tangled web?”

“Little good,” I replied. “Sir Davie’s account must weave a hempen rope for the unfortunate Adelaide. Did she deny it all, when you charged her last evening?”

“She admitted that the hand on the fragment of paper discovered in Fiske’s coat was indeed her own. Still, she declared she never ventured out to meet the fellow that night—despite setting the assignation.”

“I suppose that is not
entirely
improbable.”

“Jane! Will you never be done defending the lady? Tho’ she lies, and lies, and lies again?”

I lifted a troubled gaze to Edward’s own. “I cannot find
any credible reason for Adelaide to leave James Wildman’s gun behind her. Until you may supply one, I shall persist in believing that it was
not
her hand that took Fiske’s life.”

“Her mother would be gratified by your loyalty,” he offered abruptly. “She informed me, with considerable hauteur, that she had intercepted her daughter on the point of setting out for her midnight confrontation near St. Lawrence churchyard, and forcibly locked Adelaide into her bedroom—where, later still, the Captain avers he found his wife. Upon his return from his
own
nocturnal jaunt, one presumes.”

“You do not credit Mrs. Thane?”

He shrugged eloquently.

“Was this her attempt, do you think, to restore Adelaide’s dignity before Captain MacCallister?”

“It may have been,” my brother conceded, his brows knitted, “for I never saw a gentleman more shocked than he; the Captain was deprived of speech for several minutes, once he apprehended that his wife had deceived him—in this clandestine communication, as in so much else. The little matter of her then being taken up for murder was but an incidental blow. For one as deeply in love as MacCallister, each successive day brings its own measure of wretchedness.”

“Will he stand by her, do you think?”

“He has that sort of courage. But it will be an ugly business, Jane. I cannot believe she will escape hanging. I must go to her, now, and put before her the matter of Fiske’s letter, posted in London. It may be that she will deny ever having received it—or, once she apprehends we know of the full extent of her falsity, she may give way entirely and confess.”

“If she does,” I said, “I shall be profoundly surprized.”

“You do not wish to accompany me?”

I shook my head, a reprehensible coward. “I am pledged to Harriot, who is kicking her heels at Moffett’s Confectionary. We are to call upon old Mrs. Milles—Harriot desires it.”

“I shall collect you from the lady’s front door in an hour, then,” my brother commanded, and turned back inside the gaol.

I
STOOD UNDECIDED AN INSTANT, ENQUIRING IN MY OWN
mind whether I ought not to see Adelaide MacCallister—whether the face of a friend, and a female at that, should not be infinitely cheering amidst the misery of such a place. Before I had taken a step in either direction, however, the great oak door of the gaol swung open once more, and expelled the solicitor, Mr. Burbage.

He lifted his hat at the sight of me, and bowed. “Miss Austen. It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope Sir Davie did not unduly weary—or appall—you with his reminiscences?”

“Not at all, sir. His stories were extremely entertaining—and I may say, enlightening. Is he gratified to have won his freedom?”

“I daresay. Sir Davie has been in far tighter spots than Canterbury gaol, as no doubt you have surmised.”

“Have you been acquainted with the baronet long?”

“Some years,” he replied. “It is my pleasure to serve so notable an eccentric; Sir Davie makes a decided change from the usual Wills and Marriage Settlements.”

“I suppose you must often support him in tight spots, as you put it—for I recollect, now, where I have seen you before,” I declared, with sudden comprehension. “You attended Saturday’s inquest, did you not?”

“The inquest?” A look of puzzlement came over Mr. Burbage’s countenance, and he seemed to take a half-step backwards. “You would refer to the inquest on Mr. Curzon Fiske’s death?”

“Indeed. You entered the publick room at almost the same moment as Sir Davie—tho’ you did not appear to notice one another. Having made room for Sir Davie on my bench, I had
occasion to observe you standing against the wall. But you had whiskers, then, did you not? And are now clean-shaven? I presume that is why I did not recognise you when first we were introduced in the gaol. The light in the cell was exceedingly poor.”

Mr. Burbage’s frown deepened. “I regret that I have not set foot in Canterbury, during the whole course of my life, until this morning, Miss Austen; nor have I ever sported whiskers! I must assure you that you are mistaken.”

My lips parted in surprize, for the solicitor was raising his beaver in a chilly gesture of farewell. I coloured, and managed, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Not at all,” he replied, and walked swiftly away.

I gazed after him some moments. Absent the confusion of whiskers—merely observing Mr. Burbage from the rear as he strode down St. Peter’s Street—I was more than ever convinced I was correct. The figure, frame, profile—all declared the stranger of respectable appearance, who had taken up a position to the rear of the publick room. I was
not
mistaken in Mr. Burbage; but for reasons best known to himself, the solicitor preferred to utter a falsehood rather than admit he had been in Canterbury the day before yesterday. I must mention the matter to Edward—Edward, who had waited full
two days
for the arrival of Sir Davie’s solicitor from London, when it appeared the fellow was already established in the neighbourhood.

And why had he seen fit to rid himself of his beard, if not to defy detection?

I had an idea my brother would regard the subterfuge with as much outrage as I.

I
WILL NOT WASTE INK AND PAPER ON THE BANALITY OF MY
subsequent hour with Harriot and Mrs. Milles; an account of that visit, and the good lady’s effort to tell us,
in three words
, of the famous Scudamore Reconciliation, is reserved for Cassandra’s
amusement.
¹
I returned to Godmersham with all our party, Harriot regaling her husband with the burden of our visit; her son, too sleepy to concern himself with being carriage-sick; and Mr. Moore contenting himself with a single question for Edward: “Is that foul-looking sea dog truly the baronet he claims?”

Of Edward’s interview with Mrs. MacCallister I asked nothing; his countenance was troubled and careworn, and I forebore to tax him further. Once we had achieved the comfort of home, however, and I had accorded my brother an hour of contemplation in the sanctity of his book room—heard Harriot impart the high notes of the morning to Fanny, and yet again to Miss Clewes—and fortified myself with tea and cold meat by the fire in the library—I screwed myself to the sticking point and scratched at Edward’s door.

“Come!” he commanded.

His expression, if anything, had darkened. He was fiddling with a silver letter-opener he kept upon his desk—a gift from Elizabeth, long ago—and did not raise his eyes to mine. “I must thank you, Jane, for your measure of self-control the length of the carriage ride home. I had no wish to canvass this dreadful business before the Moores. You desire to know what Adelaide MacCallister said, when questioned about her receipt of Fiske’s letter?”

“If you desire to tell me.”

“That her mother regarded it in the nature of a hoax. A brazen attempt to frighten Adelaide, on the part of some stranger who had known her first husband, and meant to unsettle her. Mrs. Thane advised her to burn the thing, and think no more about it.”

“But the hand, Edward! Surely she recognised Fiske’s writing as his own!”

“Mrs. Thane suggested there was just that degree of variation in the script that Adelaide was the victim of imposture.”

“Mrs. Thane has a great deal to answer for.”

At last my brother’s gaze lifted to meet mine. “No more than any mother might. She is naturally alive to the terror of the scaffold—and wishes to save her daughter’s neck.”

“Was Mrs. Thane present at the interview?”

“She was not. I had the recital from Adelaide herself. Young Thane and MacCallister had been to Canterbury gaol, but Mrs. Thane has no stomach for the place.”

“An unamiable woman,” I remarked.

“And her counsel did not help to save Mrs. MacCallister. Indeed, the lack of frankness on the part of
all
that family has done her a decided disservice! Every word the principals have spoken in this affair, from first to last, appears a tissue of lies, Jane! I cannot endure it!”

My brother rose abruptly from his chair and moved to beat savagely at the fire with a battered pair of tongs. A shower of sparks ascended into the chimney; it was as tho’ both our thoughts rose with them, into the darkening air.

“If you would speak of imposture, and a tissue of lies,” I said, “I have an oddity to share.”

I told him of Mr. Burbage—with whiskers, and without—of the solicitor’s steady insistence that I was in error, regarding his presence at the inquest, and his studied disregard for his client Sir Davie, when that gentleman fled the proceeding with most of Canterbury on his heels. Edward heard me out, a frown gathering on his brow.

“But are you certain, Jane?”

“As sure as I am of my own name.”

“But it is incomprehensible! In every way—incomprehensible! Why should Sir Davie and Burbage pretend that the latter must be summoned from London, and the former await his arrival to speak—”

“—when we saw, only this morning, that Sir Davie does
nothing else but chatter like a magpie! It is not as tho’ Burbage forestalled any incriminating detail—we might have heard that lengthy history of the baronet’s career days since, for all the solicitor’s objection. No, Edward—I must believe that they observed the inquest as apparent strangers, with the object of learning what they could of Fiske’s murder—and once Sir Davie was identified, took to his heels, and ended in gaol, were forced to concoct a credible tale between them.”

“You believe Burbage is not what he seems?”

“I believe both men demand further scrutiny. We have only Burbage’s word for it, after all, that Sir Davie is who he claims to be—and if
Burbage
cannot be entirely trusted …”

“Then neither can Sir Davie’s account.”

“—Which has served, in no small measure, to indict Adelaide MacCallister.”

My brother groaned, and swept his hands over his face. He stared unseeing at the shattered logs in the hearth, and then deliberately replaced the tongs on their hook. “I shall have to post up to London tomorrow and learn what I may of our circumspect solicitor,” he said. “There is nothing else for it. Do you wish to accompany me, Jane?”

I shook my head. “My time might be more usefully employed.”

“—keeping an eagle-eye on Fanny and all her young swains?”

“Discovering, if I may, why
someone
chose James Wildman’s gun to kill Curzon Fiske.”

  
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR