Jane and the Canterbury Tale Read online

  “Certainly not. One would have to detect in such letters a spur to violence. Or perhaps another discovered an innocent correspondence, and was moved to murder on the strength of his secret knowledge—that Fiske lived, and was returned to Kent. This can all be merest speculation; but I am persuaded you will perceive the value to the Magistrate of a clear narrative of events: The fatal whist-party, the accusation of cheating, and Fiske’s flight. That should do much to throw light on the murder, and I can think of no one better suited to supplying such a narrative than yourself, Mr. Moore. You will know how to divide emotion from fact, and offer an account untinged by personal emnity.”

  The sharpness of Mr. Moore’s looks increased; his brows drew down, and his lips compressed.

  “You flatter me, Miss Austen.”

  “Do I, sir?” I affected surprize. “Then my portrait of your character must be flawed in its chief points. It has been my habit to regard you as prizing a profound understanding above all else.”

  “That is self-evident.” He drew himself up. “But what right you assume to question me regarding that abhorrent occasion—or advise me on my present course of action—I fail to apprehend.”

  I offered a bewildered gaze. “Have I done so? I intended merely to suggest that Edward must be distinctly indebted to your assistance. However, if you mean to persist in being private about the affair, Mr. Moore, I must assume that you regard it with uneasiness.”

  “On that question I may put your mind at rest, Miss Austen,” he retorted with obvious dislike. “There is nothing in my life, I am thankful to say, that I regard with uneasiness; I am so much in the habit of interrogating my conscience, and acting according to its dictates, that I am a stranger to moral ambiguity. I would advise a thorough canvassing of your conscience in future as a useful aid to conduct.”

  “Come, come, Mr. Moore.” I could not disguise the amusement in my voice; it would break out. “Hypocrisy is a quality in a gentleman—particularly a cleric—that I cannot endure! Three years since, you so far disregarded your conscience as to gamble with a hardened gamester you admit to having thoroughly disliked—and for so breathless a sum as pound points! How reckless of you, to be sure! I perceive that even the most correct of men—in Holy Orders, and with a reputation to consider—may lose his head from time to time. Some profound emotion, rather than Reason, must account for it; but the question that will invariably arise, is this: Was it ardent love for Adelaide MacCallister—or profound hatred for her husband?”

  Mr. Moore was now quite white about the lips, and it was with difficulty that he controlled his temper. “Your strictures, Miss Austen, are distasteful, and unbecoming in one whose rôle in life ought to be submissive and retiring. I owe you no explanation of my conduct, and your presumption in demanding it—in speculating upon the nature and motives of actions long past, and in which you had no part—is repugnant. I decline utterly to discuss the matter further; you do not deserve such notice.”

  He reopened his book, and made a poor pretence of reading it; and I sighed a little at my failure as I returned to gazing out the carriage window. Such men as may be unmoved by flattery, wit, calculation, or humour are beyond the reach of my powers; and Mr. Moore was certainly one of these.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Correspondence

  The worm of conscience will shudder, and somehow show

  Wickedness its face, which may well be

  Hidden from all the world but God and he.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE PHYSICIAN’S TALE”

  SUNDAY, 24 OCTOBER 1813

  MR. SHERER, OUR EXCELLENT AND MOST REVEREND MR. Sherer of St. Lawrence Church, whose sermons so frequently envigour the flagging Christian spirit, is vicar also of Westwell—a neighbouring village in Kent—and from this multiplicity of livings, which any clergyman’s wife must rejoice in, as ensuring the Sherers’ worldly comfort and survival, has come a peculiar evil, in that Mr. Sherer is forced to quit his excellent vicarage here at Godmersham, and repair to Westwell for a period of full three years—the curate charged with supplying Mr. Sherer’s duties in that place having failed to suit the parishioners so well as they should like. The complaints that have come to Mr. Sherer’s ears in recent months have so alarmed that assiduous gentleman, that nothing will do but the curate must be got rid of. What the poor fellow’s crimes may have been—a disinclination for sermon-making, a persistent stutter, or perhaps too glad an eye to the ladies of Westwell—I cannot tell; Mr. Sherer will not speak of them, but only look grave, while Mrs. Sherer casts up her eyes to Heaven.

  “These young men, Miss Austen, ought not to consider Holy Orders, if the vocation is not upon them,” she says, with all the vicarious complaisance of one who has married an Emissary of Providence. “Too many are simply out for all they can get.”

  “And if they are, who can blame them?” Mr. Sherer observed heavily as he quaffed my brother’s sherry, tea being too dangerous an offering for the Sabbath. “The world offers such young men but poor examples of clerical life! If one were to credit the world of Fashion, we are all scoundrels and renegades! Only consider the insults to which the Divine Work of Holy Orders is subjected, among the novelists and playwrights of the stage!”

  “Oh, the stage,” Mrs. Sherer returned dismissively. She is a plump woman with protuberant blue eyes, much given to fondling the bugle beads that adorn her bodice, of which she is inordinately proud. “If you look for respect for the Cloth, my dear, among the swaggerers of Covent Garden, I despair of you! But surely there are many admirable portraits of the Clergy in works of literature? I do not speak of novels—”

  “I beg you will not utter the word, my dear,” Mr. Sherer declared, with a look of pain, and a hand pressed to his brow. “When I consider of the hectic success of that vulgar work—you know the one I would mean, that all the young ladies hereabouts are forever consulting—and the shameful picture of its clergyman, so very worthy a young man I thought, and feeling just as he ought about his Patroness—so quick to apologise whenever his natural feelings outstripped his good sense—”

  “I think you must refer to Mr. Collins,” Fanny interposed, without a hint of betrayal in her voice. “He comes in Pride and Prejudice. I found him vastly amusing, myself.”

  Mr. Sherer shuddered, and reached for Edward’s decanter.

  “You read it, then?” I enquired, in a cheerful accent. “This novel you profess to despise?”

  “I? Read a novel?”

  “—For your portrait of the clergyman is as clear as life, Mr. Sherer. It cannot have been formed by merely hearing of Mr. Collins spoken of, among your acquaintance.”

  The poor vicar flushed. “I cannot say. I cannot recall. It is possible that Mrs. Sherer read me the passages aloud, in her natural indignation at the licence of the author! I declare that any sort of trash may be found at the booksellers today—even in so sacred a city as Canterbury! The French have much to answer for, indeed!”

  What Buonaparte might have to do with the failings of Mr. Collins, I did not trouble to enquire; I have given over admiring Mr. Sherer, tho’ his sermons are so inspired. My sympathies now are all for the dismissed curate.

  It does seem hard that the poor young man (for a curate is invariably a young man, and invariably poor) should have all the tiresomeness of Westwell’s duties, while Mr. Sherer enjoys all its tithes. Perhaps the curate experienced a little of the revolutionary fervour which is so catching in Europe and England these days, and refused any longer to be Mr. Sherer’s slave; but whatever the cause, the curate is to be gone in a fortnight, and Mr. Sherer and his wife—whom I cannot admire—removed to Westwell, leaving another eager young man to do the Lord’s and Mr. Sherer’s work at Godmersham. Our new curate is rumoured to have a wife, who is said to be musical—which might prove beneficial to Fanny’s happiness, at least.

  All this we were told when the Sherers came to take tea with Fanny after the morning service—Sunday being a day of strict observance in the Godmersham household, p
articularly when George Moore is among its intimates. I do not think his little son was permitted to smile, much less laugh, for the whole of the morning; and when Lizzy broke out in giggles at something Marianne whispered behind her hand, Mr. Moore gave both girls so scandalised a look that they were reduced to blushes, and led immediately from the room by Miss Clewes, her lips compressed in profound disapprobation.

  My brother Edward was gone from the house, on a sombre errand: Curzon Fiske was laid to rest in the churchyard at Chilham not an hour since—Mr. Tylden at St. Mary’s having the honour of the funeral rites. How varied and strange has that gentleman’s divine service been, in recent days! Edward, both as neighbour and magistrate, could not stay away; and in this observance he was joined by all the gentlemen of Chilham Castle, not excepting Jupiter Finch-Hatton, who has remained at Chilham to support his friend James Wildman ever since the wedding. Jupiter, I am told, comes to us for several days’ visit tomorrow, ostensibly to bid farewell to Young Edward and his brother George, who set out for the autumn term at Oxford on Thursday; the Moores are to leave us on the same morning. I must therefore glean as much from George Moore as I may, before he passes entirely beyond my ken.

  I am in as much disfavour with that gentleman, however, as Lizzy and Marianne—and should not have been surprized had he warned his excellent wife against me, so grievous were my improprieties of yesterday; but in this I was proved wrong, by Harriot’s drawing me aside once the Sherers were bowed out the door, and begging me earnestly to accompany her in a walk about the grounds.

  Fanny, who had just received a letter on a silver tray from Johncock, Edward’s butler, was too engrossed to permit of her joining us; her cheeks were tinged pink, and her expression distracted. Tho’ I should have liked to pry, I held the impulse in check—one cannot always be looking over the shoulder of a young woman of twenty—and accepted Harriot’s invitation with pleasure. Harriot may not be possessed of the most profound understanding; but it is often your simpler minds that perceive the greatest truths about the gentlemen they marry.

  We two set off through the back garden, and made our way towards the little temple on the hill where I was so often used to write, when Elizabeth was alive—how long ago now it seems!—and where I once sat in the stillness of a late-summer dusk, and watched the elegant figure of a black-coated Rogue climb the slope in search of me. Godmersham has become in some part a landscape populated by ghosts—for me as much as for Edward—and I suppose this is the penance exacted by time: the longer we outlive our cherished companions, the more we are haunted by them. But I shook off this note of melancholy, for Harriot was speaking—like a caged bird, she was forever warbling about something, inconsequential to all but herself.

  “How damp the air is, tho’ it was bright but yesterday! I must suppose we are to expect more rain. It is the most tedious aspect of autumn, is it not, Jane, that the weather should be so persistently damp? It quite lowers one’s spirits.”

  Harriot’s voice was fretful, which was not usual in her; and when I stole a glance at her countenance, I observed that she was looking hag-ridden, as tho’ sleep, or peace of mind, had been wanting of late. Perhaps she was increasing again; that would explain both the desire for an airing and the unquiet nights.

  “I am sure you have been longing for your own home these several days at least. It cannot be thought pleasant, to assist in a study of murder, while a guest of the Magistrate.”

  “Oh, no!” She stopped short impulsively and laid a gloved hand on my sleeve. “You are all so lively, and so kind, that it makes quite a change from our usual domestic circle. Little George, I am sure, is much the better for his playfellows in the nursery, and then, too, Miss Clewes is such a wise and careful creature! I confess I should like to lure her away from Fanny! But I never should, you know. I daresay I could not meet her wages.”

  She flushed as she said this, and dropped her eyes, and without comment we began walking again, the temple looming ever larger in our view.

  I suspected there was some little embarrassment in the Moores’ circumstances, from the fact of Harriot having worn an outmoded gown to the Chilham Castle ball; and, too, she was frequently enquiring of Fanny or me, in a naïve tone, whether various London firms supplied their goods on terms of credit, or required what she calls ready money. Fanny was so careless of her aunt’s feelings as to once ask whether the Moores ever dealt in the article, meaning actual pounds and pence; and Harriot merely opened her eyes wide, and declared that everyone she knew was accustomed to having things on tick.1 It seems the habit of her household, to run up careless bills and face the reckoning much later.

  But now I wondered. Surely the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury—who held a respectable living in East Peckham, by no means his first vicarage—was supplied with an income adequate to his needs and station? Or did George Moore regard his station so highly, that his stile of living demanded greater means than he could command?

  The clergyman’s face rose unbidden in my mind; and around it hovered James Wildman, Jupiter Finch-Hatton, and others at the green baize table—where Curzon Fiske had required his friends to play at whist for pound points. Had this been George Moore’s first exposure to gaming—or was the laying of bets a confirmed vice, a passion pursued in secret, that drained his resources and brought increasing anxiety to his wife?

  “Forgive me, Harriot,” I murmured as she stumbled on the gravel path, and drew a halting breath. “Are you quite well?”

  “I am very well, thank you, Jane. It is just that I am a trifle uneasy in my mind. I should not speak of it, perhaps—let us talk of something else. I shall be better presently, I am sure. The air does one so much good, despite the mizzle that will certainly come on! You are a great walker, I think?”

  “I attempt to go round the park every day; it is the chief resource left to an indifferent rider.”

  “I was used to ride when I was a girl,” Harriot remarked wistfully, “and loved nothing more than a tearing gallop—but it does not do to think of such things, now I am become quite an old matron. What should I do with a hack, indeed, eating its head off in the stable—the wife of a clergyman, with all the duties of a parish to attend to!”

  My conviction of my companion’s distress grew. Was it want of funds that had so oppressed her spirits—or want of amusement, with her grim Mr. Moore for companion? I cast about for a sensible topic—I could enquire dull nothings about her child, or comment upon her progress in knotting a fringe—but such banalities were to no purpose, when a murder had been done. Harriot was my own for the space of a half-hour, and I must violate her gentle sensibilities, and put questions that must discompose her.

  “I know full well what it is to practice a parsonage’s economy,” I said with sympathy as I slipped my arm through hers. “You will recall that I am a clergyman’s daughter—and how my father managed to raise eight of us, on three hundred a year—which is all the living can have provided for much of my childhood—I cannot think!”

  “Eight,” Harriot repeated in a quavering voice. “And I myself am one of thirteen! I could not bear so many children, Jane. The shabby-gentility of such a household! The endless turning and dyeing of gowns—the redressing of last year’s bonnet—and how are so many lives to be provided for? So many girls to be married off, when they do not possess a farthing?”

  I might have been nettled at so artless a speech—being myself the portionless product of just such a shabby-genteel household, and all unmarried—but I heard the note of despair in her voice, and pitied her.

  “—For a clergyman, Jane, cannot expect to leave anything much even to his eldest son—or to purchase a commission in a crack regiment for a younger one,” Harriot persisted.

  “Two of my brothers went to sea,” I said thoughtfully, “the Navy being a profession not very particular as regards to fortune. But your cavalry regiments do come dear.”

  “And little George is so passionately devoted to the Marquis of Wellington!” Harriot said mour
nfully. “I am sure Mr. Moore will see his way clear to George’s education—the value of a period at Oxford cannot be denied—but as for allowing his son to entertain any profession beyond Holy Orders …”

  She did not bother to conclude her sentence. Little George would not be permitted the extravagance of a cavalry regiment.

  “I am sure Mr. Moore has many pressing obligations,” I said carefully.

  “He must,” she returned, “for we are always short of funds, and turning off the kitchen maid, and making protracted visits to the homes of friends, so as to have a saving of coal and candles. I am sure if your brother Edward were not such a patient creature we should have worn out our welcome years since! But I cannot help wondering, Jane, why it should be so. Mr. Moore’s first wife was a daughter of the Earl of Errol, and came to him quite well dowered. I know that I was raised in only a baronet’s household—and that I have not the habit of economy—but I did not go to my marriage penniless, either! But I cannot learn where the portions have gone! And that the better part of the parish tithe money should be spent in Mr. Moore’s charitable works, rather than upon his family, is what I cannot comprehend!”

  “His charitable works?” I repeated, in puzzlement. “What sort of works, Harriot?”

  “A mission in the East Indies, I believe—for he is forever sending parcels there. I suspect there is gold in them.”

  “Impossible! Mr. Moore sending gold to India!”

  “And receiving letters from that region in return. They require a dreadfully long period for their transport, Jane, coming as they do upon East Indiamen—at times no letters arrive for months, and then three will appear all at once!”

  Good God. George Moore had been in correspondence with someone in India. Was it impossible that it should have been Curzon Fiske—and Harriot mistaking India for Ceylon? But why would Mr. Moore send parcels of gold to either place? Or to a man he professed to despise?