Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Chapter Fifteen A Choice of Pistols

22 October 1813, Cont.

“Forgive me, Adelaide,” the Captain said as he hesitated in the doorway. “I did not know you entertained guests.”

“It is only the Magistrate’s daughter, Miss Knight, and her aunt, Miss Austen,” his bride returned. “They accompanied Mr. Knight on his business.”

“I see.” MacCallister’s voice and expression were heavy; gone was the joy I had read in his countenance at his wedding. His gaze drifted from Adelaide to her brother, and fixed upon Julian Thane’s face; with a flicker of his sandy eyelashes he said abruptly, “The Magistrate wishes to see you again, Julian—there having been a variance in our accounts. I am sorry for it.”

“Our accounts?” Colour rose in Thane’s face, and to my surprize, his eyes slid towards Fanny. “What would you mean, Andrew?”

“Merely that I told Knight the truth as I knew it—and I collect that you did not.”

Thane stiffened as tho’ a glove had been flung in his face. “Do you call me a liar?”

“Of course not.” MacCallister walked wearily into the room and took up a position behind Adelaide’s chair, his hands resting on her shoulders. She glanced up at him searchingly, but said nothing. “A liar utters falsehoods. You said nothing at all.”

“I do not pretend to understand you,” Thane returned, on his dignity.

“You withheld certain facts, Julian. I urge you to disclose them now. Mr. Knight is waiting. He holds all our fates in his hands.”

There was a silence; then, without another word or look, Thane strode to the drawing-room door and quitted the room.

MacCallister sighed. “Pray present me to your acquaintance, Adelaide.”

“They were about to take their leave,” interjected her mother acidly.

“Tho’ Mr. Knight is as yet engaged?”

“Andrew,” his wife said intently, “what did you mean, just now? About Julian?”

He glanced down at her. “Present me to your acquaintance, Adelaide. I should prefer Julian to speak for himself, once he determines to do it.”

I observed her delicate throat to constrict, as she swallowed her fear with effort, and returned her gaze to ourselves. “Miss Knight—Miss Austen—may I present my husband, Captain MacCallister, to your acquaintance?”

Fanny and I rose, and curtseyed as MacCallister bowed.

“You were our guests at the wedding ball, I know,” he said, “but with such a crush of people—there may have been as many as two hundred in the room—I cannot pretend to have retained the names of most of my well-wishers. Let us say that we renew our acquaintance—and I shall undertake to greet you both with greater civility in future.”

“You are very good,” I said. “I do not believe there is one bridegroom in ten who may discern an individual from the mass of those at his wedding celebration!”

“And now I fear we must take our leave,” Fanny said firmly. “If you would be so good as to summon a footman, Captain MacCallister, I will request my tilbury to be brought round.”

“Hah! Drive yourself, do you?” Mrs. Thane queried. “It is of a piece with the general stile of Knight effrontery; you did not accompany your father at all, but brought yourselves, from a desire to gossip and feed on our troubles! Spiteful girl! I shall take care that my son wastes no more of his notice on you!”

Fanny flushed; her lips parted in indignation, but it was Captain MacCallister who answered his mother-in-law.

“Julian may have little enough liberty in the immediate future, once he has sworn his testimony at the inquest.”

“What do you mean, Andrew?” Adelaide demanded. “What are all these hints and warnings?” She slipped from under his protective hands, and rose to face him.

He stared at her gravely. “Julian did not spend Wednesday night in blameless sleep, Addie. Nor did I. I bear responsibility for entangling your brother in this affair—and must beg your pardon.”

Adelaide’s looks were ghastly, her beauty a mocking skull.

“Andrew—”

“I do not know the countryside hereabouts so well as Julian; he has been cantering over these Downs forever. I asked him, therefore, to ride with me down the old Pilgrim’s Way that divides your cousin’s estate from Mr. Knight’s. There is a side-path from the Pilgrim’s Way that leads to St. Lawrence churchyard. We achieved it at about half-past two on Thursday morning.” The Captain’s voice dropped. “We met with your late husband, Addie—and gave the blackguard all the money we could pool between us, to be gone from England by daybreak.”

It should surprize no one that at these words, Adelaide MacCallister fainted.

I had just succeeded in writing an account of the morning’s events, from a hope of understanding them better, when my brother Edward strode into the library and made directly for the decanters set out on a side table. He tossed back a mouthful of brandy, then topped up his glass with an absorbed expression on his countenance; tho’ he did not appear to be in an ill-humour, I did not like to pelter him with questions just yet. I allowed him an interval for stirring the fire, and frowning into the flames, and swallowing another draught of his restorative drink; and once he had thrown himself into the chair opposite, I regarded him quietly, until he should chuse to speak.

Silence is a restful quality in a woman, one few women may command.

“Fanny manage the tilbury all right, without my escort?” he asked.

“Perfectly well, I assure you.”

The brandy glass sat idly between his palms, half empty. He sighed, as tho’ very well pleased to be in his own home again. “Rowan’s a well-mannered tit; he’d never run away with the girl. I bought him from James Wildman last spring, did you know that?—one of his three-year-olds.”

“You were always an excellent judge of horseflesh, Edward.”

“Yes. But of men, Jane?” He thrust himself from the chair and tossed off the brandy, then stood with his boot on the fender and stared unblinking into the heat of the fire. “Do you know what a galling trick it was, to be welcomed as a friend into my neighbour’s book room, only to demand of him where his son keeps a brace of duelling pistols, and whether one is at present missing?”

“I am sure it was painful and repugnant to you,” I answered quietly, “but I am even more certain that Mr. Wildman understood it to be your duty.”

“Duty!” Edward retorted with loathing. “Yes, and I suppose I must call it my duty to hang one of my friends before very long.”

“Not that—but to find justice for Curzon Fiske, perhaps.” Edward was silent a moment.

I studied his profile and felt it safe to venture a question. “What did Mr. Wildman say, when you enquired of James’s pistol?”

“He laughed, and said the guns were forever lying about—because James has a penchant for shooting at targets in the most unlikely places. When he is up in London, he may commonly be found at Manton’s Shooting Gallery, culping wafers; but when in Kent, is reduced to snuffing candle-flames at thirty paces on the terrace, and has not been unknown to nick playing cards affixed to the billiard-room walls.”

“So Mr. Thane intimated.”

My brother glanced at me swiftly. “I forgot. While I was insulting one of my oldest friends, you were about your own researches.”

“I suspect that what I learnt is merely a corollary to your intelligence. But with regard to the pistol—it appears that anyone in the household might have taken and employed it, if James is so careless of his weapons as his intimates claim.”

“Exactly so. What an unpleasant construction we are forced to draw! —For whoever stole the gun must have known it should be recognised as James Wildman’s, and must have intended, therefore, to throw suspicion of murder on the young man. The son and heir of Chilham Castle—where presumably the murderer was a guest, Jane. Such effrontery!”

“Decidedly bad ton,” I soothed, “but I do not see why you should deplore a murderer’s poor taste, Edward. Surely few virtues may be expected in one who would shoot a man in cold blood?”

He could not suppress a snort of laughter at this appalling truth; perhaps the brandy had succeeded in warming him.

“But tell me,” I urged. “How went your interview with Captain MacCallister and Mr. Thane? For Fanny and I could not linger to learn the particulars; with Mrs. MacCallister in a faint and her mother in a fury, we had all we could do to take our leave from the Captain, and tool the horse towards home. Fanny was exceedingly anxious, Edward—I believe she admires that young gentleman more than I should have suspected from the strength of a few dances—”

“The waltz,” my brother interjected gloomily. “I should never have allowed it.”

“Fiddle! What did MacCallister mean, by saying that he and Thane met with Fiske and paid him a considerable sum to leave the country?”

“Mean? Surely it is readily understood? That roll of banknotes we discovered in the man’s coat—nearly five hundred pounds, Jane!—came entirely from MacCallister and Thane; and they are agreed in having presented it to Fiske somewhere between the hours of two and three o’clock in the morning. From something the young buck said, I suspect Thane won most of James Wildman’s quarterly allowance at whist a few nights since, and turned it over to the Captain when need demanded.”

“But do they admit to shooting him?”

“They deny it, when questioned separately or together. Neither will implicate the other to save himself; neither admits to having taken Wildman’s pistol; and both claim to have thought themselves relieved of a damned nuisance, in having paid Fiske to disappear.”

“And they swear they returned to Chilham Castle together?”

“Categorically.”

“Then who killed the man?” I demanded indignantly.

“That is what I have still to discover! I must persist in making myself odious to the entire neighbourhood, particularly the Wildman family, until the affair is sorted—and I relish the business not at all.”

“It seems unlikely that some other should have met with Fiske in exactly that spot, Edward—and in possession of Wildman’s pistol—and killed him,” I pointed out reluctantly.

My brother sighed. “I cannot pretend to always know truth when I see it, Jane, but I do not think MacCallister or Thane dissembled when they spoke to me this afternoon.”

“Thane did not tell you all, at his first interview,” I reminded him, “and I have another reason for suspecting his veracity. He pretended to know nothing of the tamarind seed, or the note establishing the hour and place of meeting. Yet if he went with MacCallister—”

“The Captain, too, knew nothing of any note in Fiske’s pocket,” Edward said. “When I raised the tamarind seed, he recollected his wife’s receipt of the curious silk purse—but said it played no part in his errand during the wee hours. I was forced to the odious task of requiring each gentleman to provide me a sample of his penmanship—and would swear that neither resembles the fist on the scrap of paper we found.”

“Then how did the Captain and Thane know where to find Curzon Fiske?”

“MacCallister’s batman was the agent of their early morning gallop across the Downs.” Edward turned from the fender and stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, staring at the pattern in the Turkey carpet. “He is a good enough fellow by the name of Bootle, frank and loyal to a fault. He serves the Captain as a sort of valet, or general factotum—and I gather has been with him some years. At any rate, when Bootle brought up a can of hot water at half-past midnight, when MacCallister was preparing to retire, the Captain noticed that his man’s eye had been blackened in a fight. When he questioned Bootle why he had engaged in fisticuffs on the night of his master’s wedding, the batman informed the Captain that he had been compelled to defend the Missus’s virtue.”

I raised my brows at this.

“A stranger had been loitering in the Castle’s stableyard earlier in the day, asking for MacCallister’s groom, and as Bootle also fulfills that function for the Captain, the summons eventually found its way to his ears. Bootle met the fellow, was charged with a missive for the Captain which he promptly forgot to deliver in all the bustle of the wedding—and resumed his usual duties. It was only when he returned to the stables that evening to see to the Captain’s horses that he recalled the incident, and the note he still bore in his pocket. He offered a chance remark to one of the grooms—that the stranger puzzled him exceedingly, as having been dressed like a labourer, but possessed of the Quality’s accent; and the groom said confidently that the stranger was none other than the Missus’s real husband—that Mr. Curzon, what married her first.”

“And so the batman knocked the groom down?”

“He did. Or as Bootle should put it, he offered him a bit of the home-brewed. It is a pity we did not carry Gabriel in our train today, Jane—he might have profited from an interval in the stables, in hearing the entire story recounted in lurid detail. I doubt not it grows hourly in the retelling.”

Gabriel was Edward’s chief groom, and often rode up behind Fanny when she tooled the ribbons of her tilbury; but not, however, when Edward himself rode escort.

“Strange, that a Castle groom should have recognised Fiske when James Wildman did not.”

“James saw only a corpse yesterday morning—and probably averted his eyes as swiftly as possible. The groom, remember, heard Fiske speak—and a voice may do much to recall a face to memory, which a beard might obscure.”

I moved to the decanters myself, and poured out a glass of sherry. “What did MacCallister do then?”

“He demanded the note from Bootle, of course!”

“—Which established the meeting place on the Pilgrim’s Way?”

“Exactly.” Edward smiled. “MacCallister burnt the note, I am afraid—which is unfortunate. It might have proved useful at the inquest. But he did not wish it to fall into his wife’s hands. He suspected she should recognise the fist, and suffer anxiety. His whole object appears to have been to sustain her illusion that Fiske was long since dead in Ceylon—it appears never to have been his object to disclose the truth. You may imagine the agitation with which he met Adelaide, in his marriage bed.”

“—And left her, an hour or so later. Poor man! It seems a cruel way to be served on his wedding night. I imagine Fiske derived no little pleasure from thoroughly cutting up his rival’s peace.” I raised my eyes to my brother’s. “Does MacCallister say that Fiske demanded payment in his missive?”

“No. Money appears to have been the Captain’s own idea, one Thane seconded. From a better knowledge of Fiske, it was Thane’s conviction that he would invariably stand in need of funds, and should be likely to agree to anything in return for them.”

I set down my sherry glass, and met my brother’s gaze squarely. “But what if Thane and MacCallister are lying, Edward? The possibility must be faced. Men who promise to vanish on the strength of five hundred pounds, are rather more likely than not to reappear once the blunt is spent—and demand a thousand pounds the next time! We are talking of blackmail, after all, for the preservation of a lady’s reputation. What if our soldier and his second determined that an easier method of payment should be made? As a military man, the Captain is accustomed to cunning adversaries; he was canny enough not to take the meeting in solitude. And so brought his second—a man who knew the ground, and has a reputation for being an excellent shot.”

“I must consider the whole story from that aspect, of course,” Edward admitted. “I must regard it as possible truth—or a passel of lies.”

We contemplated the hearth together, our thoughts roving across uncertain ground. The flames were settling after a merry burn; and in their depths I conjured a little of the possible scene: Two young men, burdened with their hideous knowledge and the desire to protect Adelaide, riding some two miles along the Pilgrim’s Way in the dead of night in expectation of a dangerous man. They should have been fools to set out unarmed. And the thought occurred: Perhaps it was an actual Meeting, as a gentleman would understand it—a duel of honour at twenty paces, measured off by moonlight. But then I shook my head. There were the scorch marks on Fiske’s coat to consider. They had not been made at twenty paces.

“Our conjectures do not hold together. Consider, Edward: MacCallister is attached to Wellington’s staff; he has survived the Peninsular campaigns, where so many came to grief; surely the man owns a pistol of his own?”

Edward glanced at me. “Indeed he must. He should have no need of James Wildman’s.”

“Nor of placing Wildman’s pistol for any to find, in the middle of St. Lawrence churchyard; that is a wanton act of effrontery I cannot believe MacCallister or Thane capable of. No—I am inclined to believe that it was money indeed, not lead balls, that MacCallister and Thane delivered that night. But if so—who sent Curzon Fiske the note wrapped around a tamarind seed?”

“Whoever killed him, I imagine.” Edward reached for the brandy decanter. “A killer who hates young James Wildman enough to see him hanged.”