Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“One person,” Mr. Lushington declared, “appears to have been so entirely in accord with your sentiments, Moore, that he made certain Fiske proved as dead in fact, as he was reckoned in rumour!”

The clergyman met his gaze coldly. “You go a little fast for me, Lushington. I will not yet admit another party to have been involved. Is it inconceivable that Fiske should have done away with himself?”

“Completely and utterly!” The MP pounded his fist on the table, and my wineglass teetered. “Do you honestly believe the man journeyed long months by sea, risking all to return to England, merely to despatch himself in the middle of a common footpath? Nonsense! Where is the motive? And, more to the point—where is the weapon?”

“I never understood Fiske’s reasons for living as he did,” Mr. Moore asserted. “I cannot be expected, therefore, to apprehend why he should chuse to end that life. As for the weapon—no doubt it shall be found, in time. And then we may thankfully put a period to a scoundrel’s existence.”

“Oh, George,” Harriot mourned.

But Mr. Lushington would not be silenced. He shifted his chair a little so as to face Mr. Moore, and leaned towards him with a fixed smile. “I rather wonder at your confessing so violent an antipathy before the Magistrate— and at his own table, too!—while Fiske’s manner of death remains uncertain. But perhaps you have sources of intelligence others do not. Perhaps you are privy to the judgement of the coroner, before even a panel has been named. As you are comfortably united by marriage to the Law, in this instance, I suppose you may believe yourself safe from suspicion!”

This clever little speech, so vicious in its implication, was offered in a jovial spirit, as tho’ Mr. Lushington meant nothing but good humour all round. His beaming looks and the droll twinkle in his eye, as he practically accused the clergyman of murder, inspired Miss Clewes to titter behind her hand, as if our Back Bencher had offered a very good joke. Harriot Moore, however, sat frozen in her place beside Mr. Lushington, unable to turn her head in either his direction or her husband’s; and Edward went so far as to rise from his seat.

“Have a care what you say, Lushington.” My brother’s voice was as steel. “I take the responsibilities of my office with as much seriousness as you regard yours; and to suggest that George Moore would expect otherwise, in any dealings between ourselves, is an offence to both.”

“Good Lord!” Mr. Lushington cried, and raised his broad hands in protest. “Pure badinage, Mr. Knight, I assure you! I have a lamentably idle tongue, that wags all the day long as most of your politicians’ tongues will—and it has caught me in coils long before this! I beg your pardon—I should not like to give offence to anyone present.”

George Moore, too, was on his feet; his cold grey eyes glittered with malice. “Offence! You offered much the same thing to Fiske, did you not, on the night he fled England for India? —The night, Mr. Lushington, that your lamentably idle tongue accused him of cheating at cards?”

Chapter Eleven The Search Party

… He used to be a friend of yours,

And he was killed last night, given no notice.…

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Pardon Peddler’s Tale”

22 October 1813, Cont.

Fanny rose from her chair almost before Mr. Moore had done, and with a stiff nod of the head to her Aunt Harriot, led the ladies from the dining parlour. I should dearly have loved to remain, to hear what fascinating invective might drop from the mouths of the gentlemen present, but I should have to be content with pumping my nephews on the morrow—that is, this morning—for not even Jane may keep her chair once the decanters of Port are to be passed round.

“Miss Clewes,” Harriot said faintly as we crossed the Great Hall, “I should like to see my son before I retire, if I may—would you be so good as to accompany me to the nursery?”

“I should be delighted,” Miss Clewes answered firmly. Mr. Moore is such an object of admiration for her, that I am sure she has taken Mr. Lushington in severe dislike. “You look excessively tired, dear Mrs. Moore; perhaps a little warm milk before the schoolroom fire? I always offer it to the children, you know, when they have said their prayers and donned their night-clothes; I warm it by the spirit lamp. I do not think I have ever known a night of disturbed rest, when once I have imbibed warm milk before bed!”

With such soothing words, and a modicum of fussing about Harriot’s Paisley shawl, and an arm at her elbow to assist her up the stairs, did Miss Clewes prove herself of some worth; for she succeeded in removing the two most awkward ladies from the drawing-room, and leaving Fanny and me to speak freely.

“Do you think the men will come to blows?” Fanny enquired anxiously as we sat down before the fire and took up our required amusements—transcriptions of sheet music, in my case, and a scrap of embroidery in Fanny’s. “I dread to hear the shattering of crystal, or perhaps foul language. Tho’ I do not believe that my father or Uncle Moore is equal to either. I cannot speak for Mr. Lushington.”

“Mr. Lushington! He shall rather laugh his way out of the business, I think, than resort to his fists. Moreover, you are forgetting the good sense of John Plumptre, which must divert the minds of all present,” I soothed. “Plumptre is not the sort of young man to sit by and tolerate foolishness or calumny.”

“No, indeed—Mr. Plumptre made his sentiments abundantly clear on that score this evening, did he not? Although his subject then was the inherent frivolity and … selfishness … of women. At least, that is how I interpreted what he said.” Fanny gave a hard tinkle of laughter. “I am excessively glad that I never nursed a tendre for Mr. Plumptre. I should be sadly cast down by his opinion of me—whereas at present, I may be thankful for my escape. A man without a particle of humour is what I cannot endure.”

As I knew very well that Fanny had nursed a tendre for Plumptre—that there had been a time, before such things as waltzes with Julian Thane or badinage with Jupiter Finch-Hatton, when her countenance was wont to flush whenever Plumptre’s quiet good looks made their appearance in our drawing-room, I disregarded the bitter feeling in this speech and went straight to its heart.

“Do not regard anything he chuses to hurl at your head, Fanny,” I cautioned. “John Plumptre is a man very much in love, if I do not mistake.”

“In love! You heard what he said to me, Aunt! You heard his poor opinion of my character!”

“I did—and knew him for a man who is suffering under the lash of jealousy. If he seems intent upon wounding you, it is from a desire to win your attention from others—however illogical his methods may seem. He is like a small boy who will not leave off tugging the curls of the little girl he adores.”

Fanny turned her head aside.

“If he is not at your feet this very evening, begging forgiveness for his ill-judged words, I shall be very much surprized,” I said cajolingly. “Do not be so foolish, pray, as to reward him with stony silence. Now, Fanny: What is your opinion of that last exchange between Mr. Lushington and your Uncle Moore? Had you an idea the two held each other in dislike?”

“I should not have called them intimate friends, perhaps, but I have perceived no hint of the discord we witnessed tonight. They have been guests in this house for two days, and have conducted themselves with nothing but propriety and cordiality.”

“For my part,” I said thoughtfully, “I should have thought them unacquainted before this mutual visit to Godmersham—and yet you heard what Moore said: Mr. Lushington was present at the famous card party at Chilham Castle, on that night three years ago when Curzon Fiske fled to India.”