Jane and the Canterbury Tale

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 naive 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.[8] 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 mournfully. “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