Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“—not two steps from Henry’s lodgings in Henrietta Street,” I finished. “I am well aware. The Runners are even now in pursuit of Sir Davie Myrrh?”

“Their first object must be the principal ports. I am in no wise convinced that the Galapagos is truly the baronet’s destination; the offering may have been a blind, intended to throw us off the scent. I have urged the Runners to search the Channel ports, as well as those giving on to the North Sea.”

“I understand the Baltic is lovely this time of year. And now?”

“I must attend an inquest.” Edward rose. “You are looking hagged, Jane, and decidedly unwell. You have taken a cold in the head, from an injudicious gallivanting about the country. Pray lie down upon your bed this morning, like a dutiful aunt.”

“And miss the opportunity of speeding George Moore and all his family from the house?” I shook my head in disdain. “They have only to vanish down the sweep, Edward, with Harriot’s brave handkerchief fluttering, for me to require Fanny to instantly harness her Rowan. I intend to pay a call upon Chilham Castle while you are at the village publick house—and she must drive me.”

My brother’s eyes narrowed. “You will not betray a word of my conjectures?”

“Not a syllable! I merely wish to know how dear Mrs. Wildman bears the protracted blessing of Mrs. Thane’s continued presence. I have been sadly neglecting my duty; I have been tardy in paying my calls. And you know Jupiter is to leave us once your boys have gone to Oxford. Fanny will be wanting a diversion for her spirits. She shall sadly miss his company; he is the most engaging fellow.”

“You might drop a hint in Thane’s ear that his sister is very soon likely to be freed,” Edward said doubtfully, “but do not allow that young buck to be waltzing with Fanny, pray!”

And so he left me.

I sat a while longer over my coffee and toast, revolving all that Edward had told me. If I indulged a very different set of conjectures than the Magistrate’s, in my brother’s absence, I am sure he shall be the first to forgive me.

Chapter Thirty A Convenient Indisposition

How can men, you say, defend the wall

Of a castle so assailed; it is bound to fall.

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife Of Bath’s Prologue”

28 October 1813, Cont.

In the end, of course, it was past noon before gentle Rowan was harnessed and Fanny at leisure to drive me to the Wildmans’, for the morning was spent in bidding farewell to Young Edward and George, and all their sundry belongings, which were strapped to Edward’s travelling-coach for the first leg of their journey by post to Oxford. They are to bait at Lenham, and spend a night in London, before journeying into Oxfordshire. Young Edward elected to ride his favourite hunter behind the coach, leaving his younger brother to the splendid isolation of its interior—or what should be splendid isolation, once the Moore family quits it. Mr. and Mrs. Moore elected to have a saving in their post charges, by travelling as far as Lenham at Edward’s expence, and with his exasperated sons; from there, they shall have to fend for themselves in achieving their own home at Wrotham. But I have hopes of Harriot’s greater comfort in future: in all the flurry of strapping bandboxes to the rear of the coach, and shifting my nephews’ things so as to have their own nearer to hand, Harriot found a moment to embrace me, and whisper in confidence her thanks for my encouragement and understanding.

“And only reflect, Jane! Mr. Moore assures me that he perceives no further need for charitable works in the Indies—and our gold is to remain quite our own, henceforth!”

I tucked away this morsel of intelligence, as further confirmation of my suspicions—that Curzon Fiske had steadily blackmailed his old school friend George Moore, in return for silence on a delicate subject: that the late Archbishop’s son had gambled at cards, for the stake of another man’s wife.

My brother Edward had sufficient time only to offer his guests a distracted farewell, clasp his younger son to his bosom, and take his elder’s hand, before being gone on horseback in the direction of Chilham.

“Ought to take leave myself,” Mr. Finch-Hatton said doubtfully as he gazed at Fanny; and tho’ the young man has risen much in my esteem, and I should not tire of learning more of him, I could not in good conscience encourage him to linger. He should look both too particular with regard to Fanny, and too diffident in declaring himself—and I cannot believe him ready to declare himself in a manner calculated to make my niece happy. There is too little of the ardent lover, and too much of the boy, still raging in the man of five-and-twenty.

Of her own feelings on the subject, Fanny betrayed nothing—unless one may interpret an air of distracted impatience, as evidence of her desire for her visitor to be gone. She is the female least susceptible in the entire neighbourhood to Jupiter’s charms, which cannot argue for his suit’s prospering. I find, as these weeks of my visit to Godmersham wear away, that I cannot penetrate Fanny’s heart at all—have no notion, indeed, of which qualities in a gentleman she most prizes—but should argue in favour of the quiet probity and sound understanding of John Plumptre succeeding, where Jupiter’s casual presumption cannot.

—Or should have said so, before the advent of the dangerous Julian Thane. I fear Fanny has noted his inattention since that final encounter over the body of the maid—and that her spirits, so ready to soar at a clandestine note or unexpected posy, a stolen gallop of a Sunday afternoon—are sadly fallen in the absence of Thane’s tributes. I wish it were otherwise; I cannot like a fellow who dallies with his servants; and tho’ I have only Jupiter’s suspicions in the case, I must suspect Mr. Thane’s too-ready address and persistent proximity to danger. He seems the sort of reckless young man who was born to be hanged—a rueful encomium, when applied to a rogue one half-admires, but terrifyingly apt in the present instance. I could wave him heartily from the neighbourhood, for the sake of Fanny’s tranquility; time alone shall restore her to peace.

Jupiter, in the end, took himself off with a langourous bow. Once this last of our male companions was sped down the sweep, I afforded Fanny an interval to attend to household matters. There were all the orders to be given to Mrs. Driver and Johncock, regarding the airing of beds and the inventory of the stores, the neat dinner she wished for and the number of places to be laid—no more than Fanny, Edward, and myself, unless our peace is to be entirely cut up by the unexpected arrival of some one of the Knights’ acquaintance. Muttering a quick prayer against such a tedious event, I ascended the stairs to put on my carriage dress whilst Fanny should be occupied. The cold in my head raged unabated, and as I surveyed my countenance in the gilt mirror that adorned one wall of the Yellow Room, I saw with resignation that I should present a wilted appearance at Chilham, with reddened nose and streaming eyes, the very picture of spinsterly decrepitude.

It was full one o’clock before we were tooling along the road at last.

“How glad I am for this airing!” Fanny exclaimed as she snapped the reins over Rowan’s back. “You cannot conceive, Aunt, how tied to Godmersham I am when the house is full of visitors—my very rambles through the gardens are constrained, from a fear of neglecting some duty. I should feel myself delightfully at liberty now, were it not that a certain dread must accompany this visit. Circumstances are so awkward.”

“Meaning,” I said delicately, “that tho’ you are disinclined to encounter Mrs. Thane, in view of the gaoling of her daughter, you look forward to meeting once more with her son, and testing how adversity has tried his admiration of your excellent looks?”

“Aunt Jane!” Fanny cried; and her ready colour rose in her cheeks. I left her to pursue the subject, if she chose; she elected to hone her attention on managing her horse’s ribbons. I had other concerns to occupy my mind as we bowled towards Chilham, and left her in peace.