Jane and the Canterbury Tale

“—Once Fiske won the hand of Adelaide Thane, you would mean.” My brother met the clergyman’s gaze with a level look. There had been just that suggestion in Harriot Moore’s teazing last night—that her husband had once cherished a tendre for the young lady who had married Curzon Fiske.

Mr. Moore frowned. “The entire nature of Fiske’s pursuits—his whole manner of living—was repugnant to me, as well you know, Edward! I could not regard his stile of living, or his choice of acquaintance, with approbation. It has been long and long since we two had anything but reproaches to offer one another; and tho’ I was grieved indeed to learn of Curzon’s death, I will freely own I thought it a happy release from a life that had grown burdensome—to more than just himself.”

“You had no notion he survived the fever that was reported to have killed him?” my brother asked mildly.

“None whatsoever! Do you sincerely believe I should have countenanced Mrs. Fiske’s marriage yesterday to Captain MacCallister, had I doubted the veracity of those reports?”

“I do not.”

“Very well.” Mr. Moore looked slightly relieved. “Then I suppose it is for us, now, to determine what is to be done.”

My brother knit his brows. “I propose to await Dr. Bredloe, as I have stated already. There must be an inquest, and it is for the coroner to decide when and where that shall be conducted. Once Bredloe has seen enough of the remains, I propose to remove Mr. Fiske to a more suitable location in Canterbury—whichever publick house Bredloe chuses for the empanelment of his jury.”

“But there is Mrs. MacCallister to consider,” I interjected. “Surely she must be told?”

“On no account would I have us commit such needless folly!” Mr. Moore’s words burst from his mouth with a ferocity I had never witnessed in him—and he was a man whose ill-temper was notorious. “No possible good may be served by cutting up that unfortunate woman’s peace; she is happy in her present union; let her remain so! It should be the final insult her late husband might deliver, to destroy Mrs. MacCallister’s reputation—having already destroyed so much.”

“You forget yourself, Moore,” Edward said bluntly. “The man was foully murdered. Would you deny even Curzon Fiske his measure of English justice?”

“I would deny such a man anything he had so palpably failed to earn,” Mr. Moore returned with heat.

“Gentlemen!” I cried. “I beg of you—a quarrel between yourselves cannot hope to serve our ends. Pray consider what you are about.”

Edward smiled grimly, and Mr. Moore bowed—more in respect of a lady, than of any sense I might have uttered.

“There is but one honourable course of action before us,” the clergyman insisted. “Convey to that unhappy pair the intelligence of Fiske’s discovery if you must—but preserve an absolute silence regarding the nature and time of his death. The man was murdered, so you say—but we cannot possibly apprehend the circumstances; he might have done away with himself, after all; and the principal point, as I see it, is that Fiske is no more—as he was believed, long since, not to be!”

“But—” Edward objected.

“That Fiske is dead,” Mr. Moore blundered on, “preserves the respectability of his wife’s late marriage; and I cannot see that canvassing the exact hour or agent of that death will achieve any greater purpose! The blackguard may have died two days ago, as easily as half an hour since; and therefore, no discussion of the subject ought to be allowed further than this room. Will you both swear to that?”

He glared defiantly first at my brother, and then at me, as tho’ suspecting I should be the sort of woman determined to spoil sport. I could not find it in my heart to disappoint him.

“But surely the time of Mr. Fiske’s murder must tell us a good deal about the identity of the one who killed him?” I observed, with all apparent innocence. “It appears to me a vital point. When he was merely a faceless pilgrim, anyone might have done the deed; a mere footpad or chance miscreant. But as a gentleman formerly well-known in the neighbourhood—one returned from distant climes at almost the very hour of his wife’s marriage to another!—Fiske becomes a sinister presence, one of peculiar interest. The very elements of scandal you would suppress, Mr. Moore, are exactly those that must be probed, if the murderer is to be named.”

“Trust a woman to entirely misapprehend the facts,” he retorted impatiently.

“I would argue that my sister has grasped them more clearly than yourself, Moore,” Edward said, with a speaking look for me. “Captain and Mrs. MacCallister were to set out from Chilham Castle on their wedding trip this very morning, were they not? A tour of Cornwall, I collect, where the Captain possesses some acquaintance?”

“He has the loan of a country house in the neighbourhood of Penzance,” Mr. Moore supplied. He ran his fingers through his greying locks distractedly. “But they intended to reach no further than London today, and were to spend an interval in Town, I believe. All the more reason to hold the inquest quietly in their absence.”

“You cannot be serious, Moore,” Edward retorted in exasperation. “It will not fadge, and you know it. I am First Magistrate for this neighbourhood; I regard my charge as a sacred one; I should never shut my eyes to certain truths, merely because they invite scandal for one or another of my acquaintance. Curzon Fiske was once a respectable member of Kentish society—and you would hush up his death as tho’ he were a convict, shot while escaping from Newgate! You must be mad to think I should agree to such terms, merely from considerations of Mrs. MacCallister’s reputation! If she married MacCallister while Fiske yet lived, she undoubtedly did so in error—and the ill may be immediately remedied, with a quiet service performed this very evening at Chilham. You must see the sense of that—and I am persuaded you will regret your scheme, once your mind has grown cool.”

“And I am persuaded that you will long regret this morning’s work, Edward, when events have destroyed much more than Curzon Fiske!” The clergyman struggled for mastery of his temper; appeared on the point of speaking further; then wheeled and strode in fury from the room.

My brother and I stared at one another in consternation.

“Well, well.” Edward sighed. “I cannot think that marrying George Moore was the wisest thing poor Harriot has ever done.”

“We must not judge him by this morning’s events.”

“I beg your pardon, Jane, but I judge the fellow on a host of events, witnessed over a period of some years,” my brother retorted bitterly. He paused in contemplation a moment, and I was reminded of nothing so much as my late father, when wrestling with a spiritual question of no small doctrinal importance. I had never thought Edward very like dear Papa before—Henry has more of my father’s humour in him; but there is as much Religion, I must suppose, in the conduct of Law as there is in the salvation of men’s souls.

Edward’s eyes met mine. “Tho’ I hate to do it, I suppose I must send an Express after the MacCallisters, Jane—and tear them from their happy dream as soon as may be.”

“Ought not the message to come from Mr. James Wildman’s hand?” I suggested gently. “He is, after all, Mrs. MacCallister’s cousin. Better that he should break the unhappy truth, than that she should learn it from a complete stranger.”

“You have the right of it, Jane, as always,” Edward said gratefully. “I shall roust Wildman from the billiard room straight away, and set him down with pen and paper.”

“I wonder that Mr. Wildman himself did not recognise Curzon Fiske,” I said thoughtfully. “For surely he must have known him well, in better days.”

“Nobody thinks to recognise a dead man,” my brother said simply, and quitted the room.

There was a bustle above-stairs; I suspected the coroner was arrived. And so, with one last glance for the silent figure laid out on the trestle table, I closed the scullery door behind me and ascended to the Great Hall.