Jane and the Canterbury Tale

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!”

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?”

“I believe he is debating theology there, with Mr. Moore,” Fanny supplied, with admirable command of countenance.

“Of course he is. I shall spare you the interview, my dear—but pray inform Cook we will have another to dinner. Bredloe has had the sense to decline the honour; he wished to make arrangements in Canterbury regarding the unfortunate Mr. Fiske. But we must feed Plumptre, I suppose.”

As it was probable no dinner would be served without the speedy removal of the corpse from the scullery, I silently blessed Dr. Bredloe, and carried Fanny upstairs to change her dress for the evening—her boudoir having the advantage of being as far from the intellects in the library, and the wits in the saloon, as Godmersham could offer.

“And who, pray, has been so unwise today as to be insufferably prosy within range of your hearing?” I demanded.