Jane and the Canterbury Tale

quitted the room.

I was most unwell the remainder of Wednesday, the blood-letting having done little to cool my feverish head; and tho’ Fanny appeared to exclaim and sympathise, I would not have her sitting up with a sick aunt when Mr. Finch-Hatton was eager for diversion downstairs, and my nephews were about the business of packing for Oxford, and the Moores were expending their final hours under Godmersham’s roof as tho’ determined to wring from it the last full measure of enjoyment.

And so my care was consigned to the redoubtable Sackree, who relished the task enough to continually disturb me by plumping my pillows, and building up the fire or shielding me from its heat as the occasion required, muttering “Death’s Door” to herself all the while. When the long afternoon had passed and my white wine whey was all drunk up, I alarmed her by rejecting the mutton broth entirely, and requesting that the curtains be drawn against the early autumn dark. “Failing, poor lamb,” she muttered, and enquired if I had any final words for the Master, as the pore gennulman was certain to miss the Crisis that awaited me this night. I told her firmly that I should speak to the Master myself when he returned on the morrow—at which she shook her head dolefully, and asked whether I did not wish my Last Thoughts to be writ down for all my relations, and if Miss Fanny weren’t the best body to effect the Sacred Duty? At this I lost all patience with the creature, and suggested that she return to the schoolroom—where Master George Moore was undoubtedly in need of her caresses as he prepared to quit Godmersham on the morrow. Sackree is so attached to this place, that she feels a depth of horror for those obliged to part from it, and all her warm sympathy was exerted towards the child. She cast a doubtful eye at the clock, and another at my bed. I closed my eyes firmly and emitted a snore.

I must have dropped off in earnest, because the next thing I knew the rattle of carriage wheels broke through my slumber and brought me bolt upright in bed.

The fire was gone out, the Yellow Room was chill, and a grey luminosity at the edge of the draperies suggested night was giving way to a feeble dawn. Whatever Bredloe had put in his paregoric draught—or however much blood he had taken—his physick had done its work: I had slept nearly twelve hours round the clock. My fever had broken—and my brother was come home.

I slipped from beneath the covers and reached for the dressing gown draped over a chair. My entire frame ached, and my head remained heavy, but my thoughts were clear at last. I steadied myself against the chair a moment, then crept across the cold floor to the door and opened it a crack. Edward was banging on his own portal as if to wake the dead; the bolts were thrown, and all the servants still asleep.

I made my way down the stairs and reached the Great Hall just as Johncock, Edward’s butler, staggered across it in his nightshirt, a single candle raised high. I sank down on the stairs, huddled my gown about me, and watched him set down his light to throw back the heavy bolts.

My brother strode into the house, tossing his hat and gloves on the central table. He looked tired, cross, and every day his six-and-forty years.

“Good morning, Johncock.”

“Good morning, sir. Trust your journey was comfortable, sir?”

“Tolerable enough. It is over, in any case.”

I rose from the stairs, the white stuff of my gown as ghostly as a shade’s in the dimness of the hall. Edward started, and stepped backwards, as my form fluttered upwards; his hand lifted involuntarily to his eyes, as tho’ he could not believe the evidence of his senses. An expression of mingled yearning and horror o’erspread his countenance like nothing I had seen before.

“Good God, what is it?” I cried—and the dreadful look vanished.

“Jane,” he said with effort. “I thought—that is to say—” He swallowed convulsively. “I did not think to see you there.”

Johncock was staring hard at his master, as tho’ Edward had thrown off a fit. The candle wavered in his hand, spilling hot wax on the polished marble floor.

Comprehension swept over me. In the half-light, with exhaustion hard upon him, my brother had thought he glimpsed a shade in earnest—that the spirit of his lost, beloved Elizabeth had awaited his return on the stairs. I knew, then, that despite the passage of five years he still looked for her everywhere—that he expected to glimpse her one day, flitting through Bentigh’s allee, or lingering behind one of the temple’s columns. Perhaps he had seen his Lizzy at Godmersham before this, haunting his footsteps. Who was I to say? But my heart twisted within me, and a painful knot formed in my throat. Edward, who possessed so much—his wealth and good fortune were the envy of all his brothers—yet lacked the one thing necessary to his happiness.

“We did not expect you so soon.” I stepped woodenly to the floor. My voice sounded queer in my own ears— heavy and forced, as it seemed sometimes when I cajoled my mother out of her sullens. “The boys will be pleased you are come back in time to bid them farewell.”

“I have much to tell you.” Edward pressed his fingers against his eyes. “But first I must sleep. Will you breakfast with me, Jane—let us say, at eight o’clock?”

“There is an inquest at noon,” I told him, “in the village of Chilham. I think it would be as well if you were there.” 

Chapter Twenty-Nine The Plantation Steward’s Boy

The young man’s appearance seemed sound, to a casual eye,

But deep in his heart lay the arrow of which he might die.…

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Landowner’s Tale”

28 October 1813, Cont.

“Your errand in London prospered?” I enquired as I poured Edward a cup of coffee. It was now half-past eight, and we had met again in the grey light of the breakfast-parlour while the rest of the household still slumbered. Edward had stayed to hear my tale of the maid’s death, frowning over Fanny’s discovery of the corpse; listened to an account of Bredloe’s conclusions, and Finch-Hatton’s conjectures; then repaired to his bedchamber to snatch a few hours’ sleep. I spent the interval in refreshing my appearance, donning a suitable gown for day wear, and writing down the previous account in my journal; by seven, I was longing for coffee, and heard the movements of the servants below-stairs with considerable relief.

“If by prospered you would suggest that I know more at present than I did when I quitted Kent two days ago—then indeed, Jane, my errand prospered. But I fear it is in a manner that is likely to cost me much effort, time, and reputation.”

My brother tossed off these words with such suppressed savagery that I was astounded, the coffee pot dangling from my hand.

“I have set free the one man I ought to have kept caged,” he said, “and have already despatched orders that Sir Davie Myrrh, and that scoundrel he chuses to call his solicitor, be clapped in irons by any who chance to espy them.”

“Not truly!” I cried. “I was correct, then, in believing I had seen Mr. Burbage before—at the inquest into Fiske’s death?”

“Yes, Jane, he undoubtedly attended the inquest. Tho’ as I have not seen the fellow again to speak to, I have not been able to wring a confession from him on that point.”

I set down the coffee pot. “Pray speak plainly, Edward.”

“Very well—I shall leave off being clever, and attempt to be patient. I shall start at the beginning, and tell you the whole.”