Jane and the Canterbury Tale (8 page)

“We must not judge him by this morning’s events.”

“I beg your pardon, Jane, but I judge the fellow on a
host
of events, witnessed over a period of some years,” my brother retorted bitterly. He paused in contemplation a moment, and I was reminded of nothing so much as my late father, when wrestling with a spiritual question of no small doctrinal importance. I had never thought Edward very like dear Papa before—Henry has more of my father’s humour in him; but there is as much Religion, I must suppose, in the conduct of Law as there is in the salvation of men’s souls.

Edward’s eyes met mine. “Tho’ I hate to do it, I suppose I must send an Express after the MacCallisters, Jane—and tear them from their happy dream as soon as may be.”

“Ought not the message to come from Mr. James Wildman’s hand?” I suggested gently. “He is, after all, Mrs. MacCallister’s cousin. Better that he should break the unhappy truth, than that she should learn it from a complete stranger.”

“You have the right of it, Jane, as always,” Edward said gratefully. “I shall roust Wildman from the billiard room straight away, and set him down with pen and paper.”

“I wonder that Mr. Wildman himself did not recognise Curzon Fiske,” I said thoughtfully. “For surely he must have known him well, in better days.”

“Nobody thinks to recognise a dead man,” my brother said simply, and quitted the room.

There was a bustle above-stairs; I suspected the coroner was arrived. And so, with one last glance for the silent figure laid out on the trestle table, I closed the scullery door behind me and ascended to the Great Hall.

  
CHAPTER SIX
  

21 O
CTOBER
1813,
CONT
.

D
R
. H
AMISH
B
REDLOE IS A
S
COTSMAN, WHO LEARNT HIS
profession in Edinburgh—a very knowledgeable centre of learning, I believe, in matters of natural philosophy. Having established an excellent practice as a physician in London some decades since, he had lately retired to the wealthy environs of Canterbury, and had been burdened with the office of coroner at his own request. At a time in life when a man might be expected to cultivate peace, and bask in the glow of honours accumulated through long years’ acquaintance with the Great, Dr. Bredloe had discovered a restlessness and boredom that might soon have killed him, had he not devoted his energies to the determination of Manners of Death, and the inveighing against Misadventure, Malice Aforethought, and Person or Persons Unknown. An interest in the sordid and the
low may not have won him numerous invitations to dine among the great houses of Kent; but it had rendered him invaluable to gentlemen like Edward—who were charged with the maintenance of justice, and took that charge in all seriousness. Edward regarded Dr. Bredloe as a man possessed of the keenest understanding, and one whose good opinion he would not lightly foreswear. Hence his utter abhorrence of Mr. Moore’s proposals, regarding a conspiracy of silence; Edward should never attempt to suborn the coroner, as he must undoubtedly have done had he acceded to the clergyman’s scheme.

Mr. Moore was not to be discovered above-stairs, and had perhaps sought reflection in his wife’s company, or in guiding his young son through a lesson in Greek, as I had observed he was wont to do when the desire for mastery was firmly upon him. Edward was able, therefore, to conduct Dr. Bredloe to the body at once—explaining, as he did so, the curious circumstance of the gentleman’s identity.

Beyond curtseying at Dr. Bredloe’s observance, and bridling a little under his sharp glance, I did not hover in the coroner’s vicinity. He would undoubtedly wish to disrobe the corpse, and there could be no cause for my observance of such an examination; I was content to learn the doctor’s conclusions once he had regained Edward’s book room, and was established over a glass of Madeira.

In the meantime, I sought out my niece Fanny.

I found her standing distractedly in the little saloon at the rear of the house, arranging a posy of late summer flowers that
must
have come from a succession-house, for none of Godmersham’s blooms had survived the relentless chill rains.

“Aren’t they lovely, Aunt?” she murmured, her cheeks aflame. “Mr. Thane has been so kind as to send them from Chilham. He knows nothing of our sad business here—reflects only on the gaieties of last evening, poor fellow! What a shock it shall be to him, when he hears!”

Mr. Thane, offering a tribute of flowers to a lady, the morning after a ball. The Regency Buck was up to every trick, and should never be backwards in any attention—my dear Fanny’s head was certain to be turned. She could not leave off admiring her flowers, though a nuncheon had been thoughtfully laid out upon a sideboard: sliced apples, a large cheese, cold ham and tongue, and a platter of sausages with the special mustard for which Mrs. Driver is famous.

Of the gentlemen, my nephew George, Jupiter Finch-Hatton, and Mr. Lushington—I had forgot to mention Mr. Lushington, but shall explain him presently—were to be seen; the rest of the shooting-party, Fanny informed me, were hanging over Mr. James Wildman as he attempted to craft his delicate missive to his cousin Adelaide.

“Tho’ ten to one they are merely disturbing his train of thought, and causing him to blot his copy,” Finch-Hatton observed with a yawn. “I declined to make another of such a great passel of boobies.”

“Mr. Plumptre might be of signal assistance,” Fanny retorted, her eyes flashing, “for he is a very
learned
young man, I believe, and devotes considerable hours to questions of philosophy.”

“—Sure to drive poor Mrs. MacCallister into strong hysterics, then,” Finch-Hatton rejoined, “and make a vile situation entirely desperate. Plumptre was never such a dead bore when he was living in Kent—I declare that Oxford has much to answer for, when unexceptionable young men are turned prosy and prudish, and all from reading too much in books. Ought to be outlawed, in my opinion.”

Mr. Lushington burst out in laughter at this sally, and speared a sausage with a convenient knife. “Good God, George,” he said—meaning Mr. Finch-Hatton, not my young nephew; there are no less than four Georges at Godmersham at present. “A few more books might render your conversation bearable—to me as well as to the ladies. Any more of it,
I warn you, and I’ll pack you off to Oxford myself—tho’ you
are
several years past your scholarly prime.”

Mr. Stephen Rumbold Lushington is an excellent man, all smiling, wide teeth, and good address; he is our Member of Parliament for Canterbury, and is, I daresay, ambitious and insincere—your short men often are—but he speaks so well of Milton, when he has a volume of the master in his hands, that I am a little in love with him, despite his being a year younger than myself and already married these fifteen years at least. And why is Mr. Lushington staying the night at Godmersham, one may ask? Because in this house there is a constant succession of small events; somebody is always going or coming. The world entire walks in and out of my brother Edward’s doors and heartily consents to remain for dinner. Mr. Lushington, besides being our MP, is also Manager of the Lodge Hounds; he came to talk of fox hunting with young Edward, and shall be leaving us one day or another. I shall make good use of him before he goes, however, for I mean to get a frank for my letter to Cassandra—if ever I find a moment to sit down and write it.
¹

“Is it true, Aunt, that the dead pilgrim is really Curzon Fiske?” George demanded breathlessly. He was, after all, but seventeen—and tho’ much inclined to ape Jupiter’s affectations, and in awe of Mr. Lushington, he could not mask avidity with studied indifference.

“So it would seem. Your father, I am sure, shall tell you all about it.”

“Dashed smoky affair,” Mr. Lushington remarked briskly.
“But Mr. Knight shall sort it all out for the rest of us, I am sure.”

“Were you at all acquainted with Mr. Fiske in former years, sir?” I asked.

He appeared to hesitate, tho’ perhaps he was merely digesting his sausage. “I suppose I knew him a little, but very long ago, I’m afraid. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learnt he had been found but a stone’s throw from this door—and dead yet
again
!”

“Poor Mrs. MacCallister,” murmured Fanny in my ear. “To think that she was married to the Captain in all innocence—and that the union is now thrown under a cloud! How unkind is Fate! I have been turning it over in my mind all morning—and am so troubled in spirit I declare I have not been able to swallow a mouthful! Every feeling revolts at the sight of
food
, when such tragedy oppresses the soul!”

“Then I am certain I possess not the slightest sensibility at all,” I told her mildly, “for I have never sat down to breakfast—and am utterly famished! I shall certainly carve myself a slice of ham, and perhaps some cheese, and if Mrs. Driver can discover one of Cook’s apple tarts hiding in the larder, I may be so bold as to request a slice, with a strong pot of tea. If events continue as they have begun, my dear Fanny, we are all of us likely to miss dinner, as well—so pray force yourself to whatever you find least disgusting, lest you faint dead away upon a sopha.”

“The sausages are excellent,” Mr. Lushington observed.

“Made of pheasant,” Jupiter Finch-Hatton added with a roguish look, “tho’
not
the ones we bagged this morning.”

“Pheasant,”
Fanny whispered with revulsion, the circumstances of Mr. Fiske’s discovery no doubt rising in her mind. “How can you speak so, Mr. Finch-Hatton, when a man lies dead but one floor below?”

“Now, don’t go all
missish
on me, Fanny.” He pierced a
slice of apple with an idle fork, and offered it to her with a bow. “Man’s been dead for years, after all—or as good as.”

“But only consider of the anxieties that must attend this dreadful news among all those who remain at Chilham Castle,” she returned in a trembling accent. “Mrs. Thane, for instance, and … and … young Mr. Thane, both of whom must feel so
deeply
for Mrs. MacCallister in the present case—do you not think, Aunt, that it is our duty to accompany Mr. Wildman when he returns home, to condole with all his relations? We might be able to assure them, from our hearts, that every proper observance is being accorded to the unfortunate Mr. Fiske’s remains.”

As I wished very much to observe the effect of the unfortunate Mr. Fiske’s
second
death upon those most nearly related to him, I was on the point of adopting Fanny’s scheme; but I required rather more of the late gentleman’s history first.