Jane and the Canterbury Tale

that I feel most unwell. Perhaps the drive has proved a danger.”

“You must certainly lie down in one of my bedchambers, Miss Austen, and if you feel equal to it—have a mustard bath to the feet.”

With an energy unexpected in so indolent a creature, Mrs. Wildman hastened to pull the drawing-room bell, and at the ready appearance of a footman, required him to summon her housekeeper.

This excellent woman being already about the task of providing refreshment for the party in the drawing- room, in the form of pears from the Castle’s own garden, a Stilton cheese, and various sweetmeats, the footman did not have far to look—and in a little while I found myself conveyed by Mrs. Twitch (for she was the butler’s wife) to a comfortable bedchamber. There was no sign of the baleful Mrs. Thane on the stairs; perhaps she had given up her vigil, and retired to her rooms. I had an idea of her being lodged in a suite in the Castle’s tower: a remote fastness, where she might prowl by midnight and fret over the fates of her children. None of Chilham’s intimates seemed disposed to seek out her company—nor she, theirs.

I took off my pelisse and bonnet while Mrs. Twitch kindled a fire.

“Indisposed are you, ma’am?”

“A dreadful cold, taken while I waited for the doctor at the scene of the maidservant’s murder,” I said with calm precision.

Mrs. Twitch stared at me penetratingly. “You could not have took ill in better cause, if I may be so bold—for a sweeter girl never lived than Martha Kean, and how the Lord saw fit to serve her as he did—cut down like a lamb to the butcher—” She broke off, and stabbed viciously at the fire, which needed no encouragement to burn.

“How well did you know her?”

“Not so as to say well—she only come to us with Miss Addie, near a month ago. Mrs. MacCallister, I should say. But she was a taking little thing, and a day was as good as a month for knowing Martha. Not for her the high-in-the-instep airs of a lady’s maid— which she was, and learning to be a Dresser. No task was too mean for her to undertake, for she’d grown up in service. Saw the lot of us as in some wise family. ‘Can I carry the linen for you, Mrs. Twitch?’ she’d say, and whisk it out of my hands before I could so much as answer; and was nothing but kindness to Scullery Nan, what hasn’t enough wits for a baby, tho’ she’s full forty year old.”

“Did the other maids befriend her?”

Mrs. Twitch sniffed. “Not they. Jealous. All four of ’em are Kentish born and bred, ma’am, and don’t take easy to foreigners. Talked scandalous about Martha, they did, as having aims above her station—which’ll be due to the letters, no doubt.”

“Letters?” I had a sudden swift thought of Sir Davie Myrrh, summoning the girl to her lonely death with a missive sent by post. Edward’s conjectures might prove correct after all.

“Aye. Martha knew her letters,” Mrs. Twitch said simply. “Martha could read. And write. That’s a rare talent below-stairs, let me tell you. Fair turned the other girls’ noses, the way she was always tucking a bit of paper in her pocket.”

Good Lord. A maidservant who could read. I had been thinking Martha was brought to the Downs in expectation of meeting Julian Thane—an assignation established in a whisper, by a turning in the stairs. But a summons in a note might have been left her by anyone.

“I understand Martha belonged to Wold Hall. The Thanes must be terribly distressed.”

“He is,” Mrs. Twitch replied succinctly, “Martha having been a playmate of Miss Addie and Mr. Julian when a child, as will happen on a great estate—which is why Miss Addie chose to take the girl with her, as lady’s maid, when she left to marry the Captain. Mr. Julian rode into Canterbury yesterday to break the news to his sister; and that Miss Addie should be forced to shoulder another grief is more than the good Lord ought to allow! But if Mrs. Thane turned a hair at Martha’s loss I’d be fair amazed. That care-for-nobody!”

“She cares for her son, I gather.”

“Near enough as to fall down and worship him,” Mrs. Twitch returned with obvious contempt. “Aye, and in the teeth of his dislike—for it’s my belief Mr. Julian can’t abide sight nor sound of his mother. Never forgiven her, if you ask me, for her Turkish treatment of Miss Addie when she run off with Mr. Fiske. Thought to make a great match for her daughter, Mrs. Thane did—on account of the fortune she wanted, to save Wold Hall. Ready to sell Miss Addie to the highest bidder, she was. No wonder the poor mite fled across the Channel with the first rakehell that offered. I’ll send up the mustard bath directly, ma’am.”

The housekeeper curtseyed and pulled closed the bedchamber door.

I had no great wish to plunge my feet into a steaming kettle of nostril-curling bath, but it seemed a small price to pay for verisimilitude. Feigning illness had won me the wisdom of Mrs. Twitch; and in the murder of a maid, one could do far worse than interrogate the housekeeper.

Chapter Thirty-One The Maid’s Clutches

“I place your soul in his hands, my little child,

Obliged by your mother’s sins, so soon to die.”

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Cleric’s Tale”

28 October 1813, Cont.

I waited until the mustard bath appeared in the hands of an upper housemaid, and allowed the girl to fuss over me, and arrange my skirts that I might set my feet in the steaming water without staining the fabric of my best—I may say my only—carriage gown before I attempted further researches. This particular maid I judged to be in her twenties, plain-featured and without the slightest suggestion of frivolity about her person; she wore no armband, and her visage did not bear the marks of weeping.

“I am sorry to cause so much trouble,” I attempted. “I was so stupid as to stand in the rain some hours, a few days since, and caught cold as a result.”

The maid’s glance shifted towards me, then glided away; but her lips compressed. She was not the sort to be tempted by an oblique approach; I should be forced to confront her headlong.

“Were you at all acquainted with the unfortunate girl who met her death on the Downs?” I persisted.

“That Martha?” The maid shrugged. “I shared my room with her; but as for being acquainted, I don’t hold with encouraging foreigners. She was no Kentishwoman. Of Leicestershire stock, was Martha—and terrible free in their ways, such folk be.”

“In their ways?” I repeated as tho’ perplexed. “What do you mean?”

A shuttered look came over the maid’s face. “Don’t mean nothing at’all, ma’am. Is the water hot enough for your liking?”

“It is very well, thank you. By free, would you suggest that Martha was friendly?”

“Aye, and to all the world—both above and below. No proper sense of place, had Martha—and look what it got her.”

“You believe that she was murdered by a friend—and one not of her station?”

“No friend would cut a girl’s throat,” the housemaid returned drily. “If you’ve nothing further, ma’am, I’m wanted downstairs.”

“Of course—thank you. You have been very kind. And I don’t even know your name.”

“Susan, ma’am.” She bobbed a curtsey, her face wooden.

“Susan,” I repeated brightly, and reached for the reticule dangling from my wrist. I pressed a shilling into her palm; she thanked me with a nod; and the door closed behind her.