Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Chapter One Marriages Made in Heaven

Wednesday, 20 October 1813

Godmersham Park, Kent

“Ah, Miss Austen,” cried Mr. Richard Tylden as he offered me a glass of claret this evening—most welcome, as the day had been exceedingly wet, and the crush of persons in the ballroom at Chilham Castle so great as to entirely prevent me approaching the fire—“It has been an age since we met! And yet you appear to greater advantage than ever, if I may permit myself to offer so bold a compliment. That gown is excessively becoming. A shade exactly suited to a lady of your colouring.”

As the gown was new, and a source of inordinate pride—the very kick of fashion and purchased at breathless expence only six months before in Brighton—I blushed like a schoolgirl. “You flatter me, Mr. Tylden.”

“Indeed I do not!” he insisted, and raised his glass in salute. “To marriages made in Heaven,” he intoned, “and acquaintance renewed, after far too long a lapse.”

I had no intention of flirting with the poor man, who is already long since married and devoted to his country church; but I condescended to beam at him before taking a sip of wine. I could not help but be pleased with my situation—having come into Kent with my brother Edward’s entire family party in September, I had endured a headlong whirl of gaiety ever since, and tho’ excessively fatiguing, the change from the quieter pleasures of the Hampshire countryside had undoubtedly done me good. I might revisit all those treasured scenes of happier days, when Edward’s beloved Elizabeth reigned at his beautiful Godmersham Park; serve as counselor to my niece Fanny, who was caught in all the toils of young womanhood; and appear as boon companion to the affected and rather silly spinster charged with the governance of Edward’s madcap younger daughters. In the midst of which, naturally, I snatched the odd hour to jot my immortal phrases into the little books I sew up from bits of foolscap. They have a distinct advantage, in being no larger than the span of a pocket in a lady’s gown—into which mine are frequently slipped, when an unwanted visitor shatters the solitude of Edward’s great library.

There is nothing like a sojourn in the environs of Canterbury, indeed, for the refreshment and further education of a novelist—albeit a secret one, like myself. Everyone is rich here, and each has his peculiar story to tell. I think I could spend my whole life in Kent, collecting my characters and assembling my comic situations; and as I am presently at work on the story of a wealthy and indulged young lady by the name of Emma Woodhouse, who orders the existence of everybody about her exactly to her liking, much as my niece Fanny does—I could not be better placed. A wedding-party at Chilham Castle, for example, with all the elegance of Edward’s Kentish neighbours, must provide endless food for the writer’s imagination. Add to its recommendations, that it is the perfect occasion for the parading of my beloved wine-coloured silk—and you will understand a little of my inner exultation.

No matter if Mr. Tylden were sparse of hair and stooped of shoulder; I knew myself to be in excellent looks, and must be gratified that someone, and a male someone at that, had admired my prize on its first wearing.

“It has been some time since you were come into Kent, I think?” Mr. Tylden persisted.

“Four years, at least.”

“So long! I shall have to dispute the question of hospitality with your esteemed brother, Miss Austen—I certainly shall! I wonder you know your nieces and nephews again, after so long a lapse!”

“But you forget, sir—my brother has lately been staying with all his family on his Hampshire estate, in the village where I myself reside, so that our intercourse has been a matter of daily occurrence.”

“Just so. Nearly half the year they were gone to Chawton, and a refurbishment of Godmersham Park undertaken, I collect, during Mr. Knight’s absence. We were excessively glad to have the whole party back again.”

I frowned a little at the use of Edward’s adoptive name, tho’ it is hardly the first time I have heard it since coming into Kent. My brother must leave off the name of Austen, now that his patroness, our distant cousin Mrs. Knight, has passed from this world. In acceding to his full inheritance, Edward and all his progeny must be Knights forevermore; the Will so stipulates it. Mr. Tylden has accepted the change with more aplomb than myself; he did not stumble over his address, as I am forever doing, when some Kentish neighbour hails Edward unawares.

“And there are the fortunate couple now,” Mr. Tylden observed, setting down his glass with a benevolent look, as befit a man who had united Captain Andrew MacCallister with Adelaide Fiske. The two had just entered the ballroom, followed by our host, Mr. James Wildman, the bride’s cousin; and were receiving congratulations from every side.

“And you truly regard theirs as a marriage made in Heaven?” I enquired idly.

“Who could not? So much gallantry on the gentleman’s side, and so much beauty on the lady’s!”

These observations were certainly apt; and if nothing more than gallantry and beauty were required for conjugal happiness, the MacCallisters bid fair to enjoy a halcyon future. The Captain is a man of thirty, battle-hardened and a coming fellow—attached to the Marquis of Wellington’s staff, no less. Some six years his junior, Adelaide Fiske is just that sort of tall, raven-haired beauty possessed of speaking dark eyes, that must turn every head upon entering a room. She possesses the carriage of a duchess and a figure that should make a courtesan wild with envy—tho’ I may not utter that judgement aloud in present company; only my brother Henry should know how to appreciate it, and he is in London at present. Adelaide Fiske’s life to date, however—but it would be as well to dwell as little as possible on the lady’s sad career. The history of Adelaide’s first marriage and widowhood are all to be forgot, now that she is once more a bride; and I should do well to heed Mr. Tylden’s better angels, in wishing the pair nothing but good fortune—and leaving off the name Fiske for the MacCallister she has vowed to cherish until death.

It is unbecoming in a spinster to dwell upon the ominous at a wedding feast; it smacks of disappointment.

“Ah, they are to dance!” Mr. Tylden cried in appreciation. “Only look how well they appear together!”

And it was true, of course. MacCallister swept his wife into the daring strains of a waltz, his dress uniform a blaze of colour against her pale blue gown. His hair might be of a fiery carrot hue and his features nothing out of the ordinary way, but his shoulders were good; and his countenance was suffused with adoration as he gazed at his wife, so that it seemed almost indecent to observe them. Here was the true article: love deep and encompassing, not the pale social convention that too-often passes for it. I read triumph in the soldier’s look, and guessed he had worked long to win his prize. In the lady’s countenance there was greater reserve; she had long ago learnt to meet the publick eye with composure. Scandal is a hard school for young ladies gently bred.

“Your niece has also taken the floor,” Mr. Tylden observed. “We must regard the waltz as approved in Kent henceforth, Miss Austen, if Miss Knight consents to dance it.”

Miss Knight, indeed. And there was my own dear Fanny, who at the advanced age of twenty had been feverishly practicing the steps of the new dance with her brother the whole of the week past. Her countenance was becomingly flushed, and her grey eyes sparkled as she turned about the ballroom in her oyster silk—we had purchased the stuff for the gown in London together a few weeks since, and she was sublimely conscious of having two flounces to her hem and a bodice cut alarmingly low.

Her partner was a gentleman I did not recognise; his arm encircled Fanny’s waist in a shockingly intimate manner I must attribute to the waltz. He was tailored to swooning point in a black coat and cream satin breeches, his dark locks windswept à la Brutus, and his cravat a miracle of complexity. Far from affecting the Dandy, however, he proclaimed the sporting Corinthian with every inch of his muscular frame. It was his eyes that must chiefly draw attention, however—brooding black eyes that fixed upon Fanny’s with a smouldering look. She had excited a dangerous emotion in the young man’s breast, I judged—one it should be as well, perhaps, to discourage before it caused general comment. Intrigued, I taxed Mr. Tylden for the gentleman’s name.

“That is Julian Thane,” he informed me stiffly. “A very wild young man, from all I hear. Sent down from Oxford in his second year, for crimes as yet unnamed.”

“The bride’s brother?” Adelaide Fiske had been a Thane before her first marriage; and this young buck had his sister’s dark looks and self-possessed air. Julian Thane was the sort of man to throw all the girls of Canterbury into strong hysterics, indeed, if I knew anything of Fanny’s acquaintance. Rakes were in short supply in Kent at any season.

From the indignant looks that followed Mr. Thane from nearly every young man in the neighbourhood, I concluded with some amusement that the interloper should be treated with coldness henceforth; he had poached in other men’s preserves.

Grouped near the French doors letting out onto the balcony were three such Kentish fellows: John Plumptre, a serious young man of Oxford, with intellectual pretensions and a tendency to disapprove of frivolity; George Finch-Hatton, the blond god whom all the local girls apostrophized as Jupiter, whenever his planet swung across their firmament; and James Wildman, son and heir of our host, the most gentleman-like member of the set. I had known them boy and man, in company with my own nephews, as the most attractive and indolent passel of gilded youth as might be met with—friends from birth, companions by schooling and inclination, and united this evening in their disapprobation of my niece’s choice.

Fanny could not have done better than to have accepted Julian Thane for the waltz; she must be in hot request for the remainder of the evening—provided Thane consented to part with her. He looked much as a lion might, that had felled a gazelle; and he was supremely indifferent to the rancour of his friends.

“Young Thane is heir to Wold Hall, in Leicestershire,” Tylden supplied, “tho’ he inherited little enough but debt when his father went off—the old gentleman being as deep a gambler as ever lived. All the Thanes are sadly ramshackle, tho’ it does not do to say so on this happy occasion—Ah, Mr. Knight! Is not this an excellent ball? Are we not blessed in the amiability of our friends?”

“Good evening, Tylden,” my brother Edward answered. “I have come to claim my sister for the waltz. She appears too handsome, indeed, to stand stupidly by with the rest of the chaperons. Dance with me, Jane?”

I had watched Fanny often enough in recent days to have an idea of the steps, tho’ I had never attempted the waltz myself. I might have demurred, indeed—but here was Edward, a man of consequence in the neighbourhood, still handsome at six-and-forty, and from his lost expression, acutely lonely amidst the general revels. As I allowed him to lead me to the floor, I wondered for the thousandth time why my brother had not chosen some one, among the eligible ladies of his acquaintance, to marry. Five years had passed away since the death of his beloved Elizabeth, and still he mourned her. It was not for me to trespass on such private ground, with officious suggestions of companionship and suitable matches. I could only consent to partner him about the ballroom, when wretchedness pressed too hard upon him.

“What do you think of that fellow commandeering Fanny?” he demanded, as he led me to the floor. “Is he an insufferable bounder, or a callow youth not yet up to snuff? I cannot like the steadiness of his hands, Jane—the sensation of grasping a lady’s waist ought to be novel enough to make him tremble with embarrassment, whereas that jackanapes is as cool as a cucumber! One would think he spent every evening with his fingers tangled in a lady’s bodice!”

“Perhaps he does,” I said with amusement. “But you need never fear for Fanny; she is the soul of propriety. Confess, Edward—Mr. Thane is excessively handsome, and Fanny is enjoying herself hugely! I have not seen such an elegant fellow—or such brilliant indifference to publick opinion—since …” I paused, having been about to utter the words Lord Harold died, but supplied instead, “… my time in Brighton.”

“Ah, so now Julian Thane’s the equal of Lord Byron, is he? My cup runneth over.” Edward glanced darkly at the pirouetting pair. “Poor Fanny is aflame with blushes!”

“Edward,” I chided, “she is merely flushed with the exercise! You refine too much upon a trifle—the waltz is everywhere accepted at private parties now, and Fanny looks very well as she turns about the room. How her mother should have delighted in it! Such a picture as she makes!”

I had long thought privately that Fanny was too little seen, too little known, beyond the circle of her intimate acquaintance in Kent. She ought to have had a true London Season, with a hired house and vouchers for Almack’s—but such an establishment was not to Edward’s taste. It was unfortunate that one of her mother’s relations did not take Fanny under her wing, and chaperon her about the Marriage Mart, for Elizabeth had been of baronet’s blood, and her family might claim the notice of the Great—but I could not raise the subject without being assured that Fanny was perfectly content with her lot. Of course she was! It was not in her nature to find fault with circumstance. Fanny was apt to be grave and sober, when she ought to have been dreaming and frivolous; and for my part, I rejoiced to see her spinning about the room as tho’ her feet had grown wings. Little danger that so circumspect a child should let a man of Julian Thane’s stamp run away with her.

Edward’s eyes followed his daughter as he clasped my hand and waist. “She looks nothing like Elizabeth, you know. Too much Austen in her for real beauty. But she’ll do. By God, she’ll do. My Lizzy would be content, I think. I haven’t failed them all entirely, Jane, have I?”

“Impossible, dearest.”

But when he dragged his gaze from Fanny, I saw that the lost look had not entirely left my brother’s eyes. And I feared that it would remain with him forever.

Perhaps, I thought, as my feet found the music, there really were such things, once, as marriages made in Heaven.

It was nearly midnight when Captain MacCallister besought the attention of our entire party, to offer a short speech of thanks. He was supported by his hosts, Mr. and Mrs. James Wildman—he an elderly man victimised by gout, and she a handsome woman of easy manners, much given to company and gossip. It could be no surprize that the Wildmans had insisted upon throwing a ball in their cousin’s honour; they were forever looking for an excuse to welcome half the neighbourhood at their board.

“I am no Kentishman,” MacCallister commenced, “but from the kindness shewn me in recent weeks, could imagine myself an intimate of the neighbourhood from birth; and my gratitude is boundless. When duty and honour call me far from home, when the heat of battle rages about me and my thoughts revert to blessed days of happiness, Chilham shall hold no small corner in my heart. Indeed, it shall stand as the place I owe the greatest joy any man may claim.”

At this, he took the hand of Adelaide, and raised it to his lips with such an expression of mingled pride and humility that I wonder she was not overcome. “To the lady,” he cried, “who has made me the happiest of men, in consenting to be my wife—may she live long in beauty!”

“Hear, hear,” murmured the attendant company, and it seemed to me a sigh ran lightly about the room, as tho’ a faint breeze had passed over it.

I sipped at my champagne, and found my eyes drawn to the figure of a woman. Still handsome despite her advancing years, she stood a little removed from the family party of Wildmans and Thanes; a stately lady enough, with a strong aquiline nose and hair the colour of iron, whose shoulders were wrapped tightly in a costly Paisley shawl. She was a stranger to me. And yet there was something tantalisingly familiar in her looks—a haughtiness that suggested she cared for nobody.

“Edward,” I whispered. “Who is that lady, to the rear of Captain MacCallister? She looks capable of commanding an army—indeed, I should not be surprized to learn she was the soldier’s mother!”

“There you would be out, Jane—for she is the mother of the bride.”

“Of course!” I said with sudden comprehension, tho’ the lady looked nothing like Adelaide. “She puts me more in mind of her son, Julian Thane—the one who was waltzing with Fanny.”

“Waltzing,” Edward said testily, “and claiming the next two dances, until that excellent John Plumptre was forced to intervene—which is most particular and unbecoming behaviour in Thane, do not you think? That young buck has the air of a hound who will not be turned from the hunt, once he has caught the scent—”

“And so you have taken a strong dislike to him,” I rejoined. “You have nothing to fear in Fanny’s good sense, and surely she could do with a bit of flattering attention, Edward. She is twenty, after all.”

Very well, I will confess that I cherish a certain anxiety regarding Fanny—who so ably filled the post of mother to her ten younger brothers and sisters, as to be almost spinster-like in the very bloom of her youth. My anxiety is that she will end her days like my sister, Cassandra, or God forbid, like me: Content enough, to be sure, and freed of all the cares attendant upon marriage and children—but lingering, and dwindling, on the fringe of a world she once claimed as her birthright. I could not bear for Fanny to be merely everyone’s aunt. And her apprenticeship in that order was already marked: She had been so busy preparing the boys for Winchester, and compelling the girls to see the London dentist, and ordering the cook which joints were for the table, and which for the kitchen, and overseeing the stillroom, and ensuring that her father’s every comfort was met, so that he might be observed to feel the loss of his cherished wife as little as possible—that the poor child was quite worn out. Fanny had been forced to the management of a great household at too young an age, and it was a wonder she did not choose the sanctuary of a convent, over the gaieties of a ball.

Further debate was suspended, however, for the bride had chosen to speak.

Adelaide’s voice was clear and deep, with a musical timbre, and her white hand seemed almost translucent as she lifted her glass.

“To my gallant husband, Captain Andrew MacCallister—may God preserve him from harm as he serves King and Country, and return him to this loving heart, which has such cause to know his unexampled worth.”

We drank to this, and had only just drained our glasses dry, when a singular interruption occurred.

A footman belonging to the Castle made his way through the throng, bearing a curious item on a silver tray. It was a small silken pouch of a warm rosy colour, intricately embroidered in gold threads, and knotted with tassels. The servant’s object was clearly Adelaide MacCallister, and as she watched him approach, her lips curved in a smile as tho’ she was expecting a childish treat. If the peculiarity of the purse being delivered in the midst of a ball were not enough to silence the assembled guests, the bride’s response certainly was.

“Is this your doing, Andrew?” she demanded as the footman bowed, and presented his prize.

But her husband laughingly declined all knowledge of the gift.

“Very well,” she cried. “Whom must I thank for this beautiful reticule? Some one of our guests? Or—Julian! Have you made over to me all your unscrupulous winnings, from playing at lottery tickets with our dashing cousins?”

There was a ripple of amusement from the onlookers, but no Julian Thane appeared to answer his sister; he must be absent from the ballroom.

“How came this here?” the bride asked as she took up the silken pouch.

“I received it of a stranger at the front door, ma’am,” the footman said.

Mrs. MacCallister’s eager fingers stilled, and to my surprize, I saw the colour slowly ebb from her cheeks.

“A gift to the bride on the occasion of her wedding, the man said.”

“Man? What sort of man?”

“A common enough fellow, ma’am. He did not give his name—and I neglected to ask it, perceiving him to be merely the bearer of another’s gift.”

She nodded faintly, and took the thing from the tray—but with an expression of such dread on her countenance now that I felt an answering chill trace its finger along my spine.

“My darling,” Captain MacCallister murmured. “Are you unwell?”

“Nothing I regard.” She loosed the strings of the pouch with deft fingers, and tipped the contents into her palm.

If I had expected a pile of rubies, I was fated to disappointment. The pouch contained nothing but a quantity of dark brown beans, rather like coffee only twice as large; several slipped from Adelaide MacCallister’s fingers, and scattered on the ballroom floor.

A murmur of conjecture rose from the assembled guests, and I glanced at my brother Edward, curious to know what he made of the anonymous gift; his eyes were narrowed, but his countenance betrayed only a vague puzzlement. I imagine all of the observers felt the same.

Swiftly, the bride tipped the brown pods back into the embroidered pouch and knotted the tassels with fingers that seemed almost nerveless. Then she turned with a brilliant smile and called, “Pray let us have music! The night is young, and we must dance!”

“My darling—” Captain MacCallister attempted, but she held up one hand in mute refusal. As the guests turned in search of partners and the strains of a violin rose around us once more, I observed Adelaide MacCallister make her way haltingly from the ballroom, her husband staring after her in confusion.

The bride had not entirely quitted the place, however, before her formidable mother intercepted her. I may have imagined it—my eyesight is not what it was in earlier days, alas—but I would swear that Mrs. Thane slipped the offending pouch from her daughter’s hand.