Jane and the Canterbury Tale Read online

  “And so Mrs. Fiske was released of her onerous wedding vows, put on her mourning-clothes, and after a decent interval, was permitted to re-enter Society.”

  “Where, at the age of four-and-twenty, she was so happy as to make the acquaintance of one Captain Andrew MacCallister,” Fanny concluded.

  Andrew MacCallister. How much did he know, I wondered, of his wife’s storied past? Or the nature of her first attachment? And what would be his astonishment, upon learning that Curzon Fiske—so far from having released Adelaide to her happy future—had thrown his dark shadow over her vows, and made of her a bigamist?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Tamarind Seed

  You must have seen, and more than once, one face

  In a crowd, so white, so pale, you knew at the sight

  This man was walking to death, and could not escape.…

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE MAN OF LAW’S TALE”

  21 OCTOBER 1813, CONT.

  “JANE,” MY BROTHER EDWARD CALLED FROM THE GREAT Hall as Fanny and I prepared to descend the stairs, “Dr. Bredloe has finished his examination of the corpse, and is partaking of refreshment in the drawing-room. I should be grateful if you would join us there.”

  “I am sure Mr. Wildman has finished writing what must be conveyed to Captain and Mrs. MacCallister,” I murmured to Fanny, “however little he may have relished the task; and there is the Express to be despatched in pursuit of the pair. Pray inform Mr. Wildman, therefore, that he is not to stay for us; we might better pay our respects to his family tomorrow, when the unhappy couple is returned to Chilham Castle.”

  An interval of reflection had convinced me of the usefulness of observing Adelaide MacCallister in the bosom of her family—and therefore, to visit that family prior to the lady’s return could afford me little interest. The day was already so advanced as to make the sacrifice of a carriage ride to our neighbours insignificant; my time should be better devoted to my brother and the coroner.

  “I know very well that you and Papa mean to conspire,” Fanny said archly, “and that I am wanted in the drawing-room not at all—” But she went on her errand without further demur.

  Dr. Bredloe was a little man, with sandy hair that I guessed had once been as red as Andrew MacCallister’s. The doctor was a neat figure in his black coat and clubbed queue, the very picture of professional wisdom. He set down his glass of Madeira at my appearance and sprang up from his perch on the drawing-room settee, which was still covered in the elegant damask Elizabeth had chosen long ago. If I wondered at Edward’s conveying the coroner to such an apartment, rather than the more masculine comforts of the library, the conviction that the prosy clergyman Mr. Moore might be in possession of the latter explained our sudden formality.

  “Miss Austen, I presume?”

  “Dr. Bredloe.” I curtseyed. “My brother, I find, reposes the utmost confidence in your judgement. How fortunate that you were not otherwise engaged this morning, when need summoned you!”

  He bowed and offered me a chair, which I immediately took. The coroner then seated himself once more on the slippery surface of the settee. Edward stood by the fire, one boot resting on the fender, his blue eyes surveying us inscrutably.

  “Your brother,” Dr. Bredloe observed, “reposes a curious confidence in you, Miss Austen—dating, I collect, from your conduct during an affair of murder that occurred prior to my coming into Kent.”

  I glanced at Edward; if he had indeed related some part of the activities of Jupiter Finch-Hatton’s mysterious uncle, and the brutal murder of a young woman at the Canterbury race-meeting some years ago, he had decided unequivocally to take both Dr. Bredloe and myself into the confidence of the Law.1

  Excessively wise of Edward, was it not?

  “I cannot say that I agree with Mr. Knight’s decision to disclose what we have discovered in the past hour, before I have empanelled my jury,” Dr. Bredloe continued, with a beetling of his brow, “but my opinion is neither here nor there—Mr. Knight stands before us as First Magistrate for Canterbury. He assures me that you are familiar with the procedures of an inquest, and have in fact appeared before a Coroner’s Panel yourself in the past?”

  “On more than one occasion, I confess.” I dropped my eyes demurely to my folded hands; it cannot be becoming to betray too intimate a knowledge of murder.

  “Excellent. Then I would beg that you examine the items laid out on the Pembroke table, just over there.”

  With a glance of enquiry for Edward, I rose and crossed to the table, where a motley assembly of effects was displayed.

  These included a blood-stained leather wallet, much worn, and a quantity of banknotes—what my young nephews should call a “roll of soft.” It was a remarkably large roll of soft, indeed, such as should open Edward’s and George’s eyes—and that it had been allowed to remain in Curzon Fiske’s possession once his life was snuffed out, confirmed my suspicions that no mere footpad had despatched the dubious pilgrim.

  Set beside this was a square of paper, with the words St. Lawrence Church writ upon it in black ink that had bled and faded from the damp; worse still, the paper itself was turned rusty red in places from what I felt sure was Fiske’s blood. He had been shot, after all, in the chest—and this note must have been secured within his coat. Some other markings there were on the paper—a figure that might have been the hour of an appointed meeting, or perhaps the initials of Fiske’s correspondent—but these were so obscured by the crimson stains as to be unintelligible. It was the final item, however—which sat innocently enough on the Pembroke table—that caused my breath to catch in my throat. I lifted it delicately between my thumb and forefinger: a single, dark brown bean. It had the texture of wood and the lightness of a thrush’s feather.

  “Edward,” I said. “Do you recognise this?”

  “Not well enough to name the thing—but I may say that it appears to be similar to the beans secured in the silken pouch, received by Adelaide MacCallister last night at the ball,” he returned calmly.

  “Eh?” Dr. Bredloe enquired. “What’s that you say?”

  Edward offered a succinct account of the wedding celebrations at Chilham Castle, the appearance of the footman, and the curious gift he had offered the bride.

  “And you observed that the pouch’s contents discomposed her?” Dr. Bredloe asked keenly.

  “I thought her close to swooning,” I admitted.

  “—As tho’ she knew what the offering foretold,” the coroner suggested. “The return of an unwanted husband from the dead. Aye, it’s a nasty business altogether—a bride turned bigamist on her wedding day; a brave young officer foresworn through no dishonourable intent of his own; and a man murdered, to set all to rights.”

  “We cannot surmise so much, until we have spoken to the parties concerned,” I protested, and held aloft the bean. “Where exactly was this discovered, sir?”

  “In the depths of Curzon Fiske’s breast pocket,” Dr. Bredloe replied. “It was tucked into that piece of paper you may observe on the table.”

  —The bloodied paper, with the words St. Lawrence Church penned upon it. Death had made an assignation with Curzon Fiske, and sent the bean as surety.

  It was possible that Fiske himself had delivered the silken pouch to the door of Chilham Castle. A common enough fellow, the footman had described him; and so, indeed, Fiske had appeared in his deceptive pilgrim’s clothes. Were the beans a talisman between Adelaide MacCallister and the man who had abandoned her? —A message she had interpreted immediately upon opening the embroidered pouch, and spilling out its contents? Had Fiske waited in the Castle’s shadows until all the wedding guests departed, and received as reward a folded missive, with a few words scrawled hurriedly upon it, and a bean returned as a token of faith?

  One would have to compare the writing on the note to Adelaide MacCallister’s hand—or perhaps, I thought more feverishly still, her new husband’s.…

  I apprehended that Dr. Bredloe was still speaking.

/>   “… a plant common to the Subcontinent and its surrounding regions, extending even as far as China, I believe, of which the fruit offers both medicinal and dietary advantages.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The tamarind,” he said testily. “That is a tamarind seed, Miss Austen—the tree’s fruit, which is quite large and bitter in its unripe stages, contains numerous seeds of that kind. Natives of India use the tamarind in sauces and chutneys. The seeds, when dried, may serve as counters in children’s games, or for more mature forms of gambling.”

  “Gambling.” I considered the proclivities of Curzon Fiske. “Might this seed be considered in the nature of a warning—and its acceptance from the bearer, an assumption of risk?”

  Dr. Bredloe smiled. “How the ladies do rush to invention! I should never undertake to conjecture the meaning of the tamarind seed; it may be enough to say that like the unfortunate Mr. Fiske, it travelled from India to England.”

  “And thus connoted the Exotic’s return,” Edward mused. “I collect that you are familiar with that part of the world, Bredloe?”

  “Through the realm of literature only,” the doctor answered wistfully. “I should dearly love to see a tiger, however, before I die—and an elephant! Only conceive of such an animal, like a house moving on four legs! My first passion, Mr. Knight, is natural philosophy—and indeed I hoped to form a part of Sir Joseph Banks’s scientific expedition to Botany Bay in my youth, for the collection of specimens unknown to Europe; but personal affairs intervened, and in the end I never embarked. The expedition sailed without me; and so it has been, ever since.”

  “There is still time to wander, surely?” Edward smiled.

  “Before I die? I confess I cherish that hope. But so long as present duties call—I must be content with species known to England, for a little while longer.”

  “—And all the varied forms of evil to be found among them,” I murmured. “Tell me, Dr. Bredloe, do you know what sort of gun killed Mr. Fiske, and how long he might have lain on the side-path from the Pilgrim’s Way?”

  “As to the latter point—” The coroner shrugged. “It was a chill night and a wet one. You observed, no doubt, the stiffening of the corpse. We men of science refer to the phenomenon as rigor mortis—and it has not yet begun to pass off, in Mr. Fiske’s case. In the relative warmth of the scullery, however, we may expect it soon to do so. The wound had ceased to bleed long hours before I examined Mr. Fiske; and if pressed, I should say that life had been extinct some hours. You may attest to the time of the corpse’s discovery?”

  Again, the coroner scrutinised me keenly.

  “I was walking towards Temple Grove near eleven o’clock when Miss Knight came upon me with the news. I suspect the discovery was made mere moments earlier.”

  “Then let us put the murderous event in the vicinity of midnight,” Dr. Bredloe said with satisfaction. “A more exact time must be impossible, solely from the evidence at hand.”

  “And the gun?” Edward pressed.

  “I could not recover the ball that tore through the fellow’s heart.” The coroner looked all his regret. “It exited by way of his back, and is no doubt lying somewhere on the ground or among the trees hard by St. Lawrence’s.”

  “We shall certainly attempt to recover it,” Edward said thoughtfully. “There are men enough about this place to go over the ground with necessary thoroughness.”

  “I would beg, sir, that you refrain from employing any of the young gentlemen who formed the shooting-party, or even your beaters, in the task.” Dr. Bredloe bowed to my brother, by way of softening the sting of his words. “It would look exceedingly odd to the empanelled jury—which, as you know, are generally simple fellows enough—if one of those who discovered the Deceased was also so unlucky as to find the ball that killed him. I have known a surfeit of knowledge to hang a man.”

  “Would you have it whispered I used my position—my authority in the Law—to shield my sons and their acquaintance?” Edward demanded stiffly.

  “Not at all, sir! But neither would I have it said you failed to keep a proper distance, when murder was done so near to your own estate. Summon the constables from Canterbury to conduct your search, man, for God’s sake!”

  Edward appeared to unbend at these words; the sense of them must be apparent, even to one sitting high upon the horse of Dignity. “Very well,” he said. “What are the constables to seek?”

  “A flattened ball of lead,” Dr. Bredloe said, “and perhaps some bits of burnt wadding—such as should be discharged from a duelling pistol. If we were to find even the pistol itself—! But we cannot hope for so much good fortune. It was certainly a single ball that killed Mr. Fiske, however—the hole in the chest is very neat, indeed—and the gun was fired at close range.”

  “The scorch marks upon his jacket,” I murmured.

  “Precisely.” The coroner turned his gaze upon me. “Which tell us what, Miss Austen?”

  “That Curzon Fiske did not fear his killer. So much we have already surmised, however, from the suggestion of an assignation, provided by the tamarind seed and the slip of paper. One matter still puzzles me, however, Dr. Bredloe.”

  “And that is?”

  “Why Curzon Fiske did not stop his wife from marrying Captain Andrew MacCallister yesterday! Only consider: He returns to England with funds in his coat pocket, and so far from revealing his survival to his anxious family—adopts a subterfuge, and lies in wait on the Pilgrim’s Way while Adelaide vows to love and cherish another. What possible motive can have dictated his extraordinary behaviour?”

  “The same conjectures have troubled me these several hours, Jane,” my brother admitted. “If, as we suspect, it was Fiske who caused that silken pouch to be presented on a tray, then he intended to frighten Adelaide badly.”

  “In which object, he succeeded.” I glanced swiftly at Edward. “A man who waits for his wife to commit bigamy, so that he might inform her of his secret knowledge, does so from a desire for power.”

  “Ah.” Dr. Bredloe sighed, with what seemed to be satisfaction. It was the sound I have heard my nephews make, when coming to the end of a difficult mathematical proof. “You would suggest blackmail, Miss Austen?”

  “I would.” I set the tamarind seed back upon the Pembroke table. “What a very nasty person Mr. Fiske begins to seem!”

  1 Jane is referring to events previously related in the volume of her detective adventures entitled Jane and the Genius of the Place. —Editor’s note.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Devil in Dancing

  You see? he was saying, here’s the proof you can find

  That women were the ruin of all mankind.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “THE WIFE OF BATH’S PROLOGUE”

  21 OCTOBER 1813, CONT.

  “MR. WILDMAN BEGGED THAT I WOULD SAY ALL THAT IS proper, Papa, in gratitude for the morning’s shooting,” Fanny offered with creditable calm, “and added that he hoped you would excuse the press of anxiety, which made it impossible for him to suspend his errand to Chilham any longer.”

  “He is gone, then?”

  “And George Finch-Hatton with him.”

  “Good. I could do without Finch-Hatton’s lounging in such a crisis; if a corpse cannot hope to excite the fellow to honest activity, nothing may.”

  “And yet,” sighed Harriot Moore, who was engaged in knotting a fringe as she sat with Fanny in the saloon, “young Mr. Finch-Hatton is so excessively handsome. And you must see, Edward, that all that lounging is essential to his charm.”

  We had discovered the ladies in this elegant little sitting room at the rear of the house, overlooking the faded garden, where they were safe from the depredations of Fanny’s brothers and the younger children, of whom Harriot’s son now formed a part; he was relegated with Lizzy and Marianne to Miss Clewes’s preserve of schoolroom and nursery. Of the billiard-playing gentlemen there was no sign; perhaps that party had broken up when Mr. Wildman quitted the house.

 
Fanny flushed at Harriot’s words, but her look was all for Edward. “I believe you do Mr. Finch-Hatton an injustice, Father! I found his air of calm good sense quite refreshing a few hours since, when my brothers could offer only ghoulish remarks, and others I shall not name must be insufferably prosy!”

  It is a thing with Fanny to call Edward Papa when she is on easy terms with him, and Father when outraged. I suspect she is not entirely immune to Jupiter, no matter how tiresome he may appear to a woman of eight-and-thirty like myself—he is so very tall, after all, and so very blond, and so very langourous in his gaze as his eyes survey one from bodice to hip. All the young ladies cannot help but be out of their senses about him.

  And then there was Harriot, I reflected—not so very young, but just as susceptible.

  “Nonsense,” Edward said briskly. “It is impossible to do Finch-Hatton an injustice—that would be according him far more worth than any man should allow. The fellow ought to buy a pair of colours in a fighting regiment, and lounge about the Continent under Wellington’s eye. To have a horse shot out from under him would be the making of him. Have all the young men left us, Fanny?”

  “Mr. Plumptre did not think it proper to depart before speaking with Dr. Bredloe. You had said, if you will recall, that the coroner must wish to question all the shooting-party.”

  “Now there,” Harriot interjected with the voice of approval, “is a young man I thoroughly esteem. Such cogent reflections! Such solid respectability! So much sense in every word and expression! I am certain Mr. Plumptre is a great comfort to his mother. I am certain a young woman could go a long way, Fanny, without meeting a more worthy man—or one so deserving of every tender consideration.”

  “Worthy,” Fanny repeated in a hollow voice.

  “Indeed,” Harriot concluded mistily, “he puts me in mind of my own dear Mr. Moore, in the first days of our courtship.”

  It must be a fatal allusion; Fanny cast up her eyes towards Heaven.

  “Trust Plumptre to follow my instructions to the letter.” Edward sighed. “Shall I find him in the library, engrossed in a book of sermons?”