Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Chapter Twenty-Five Deadly Stakes

26 October 1813, Cont.

“You cannot be in earnest,” Fanny protested. The exertion of our uphill climb had brought a becoming flush to her cheeks; but her colour was heightened, I thought, from indignation.

“ ’Fraid I am,” Jupiter replied cheerfully. “Told you the fellow was dashed loose in the haft.”

“Staking his wife,” I repeated, “as tho’ she were no more than a … a …”

“—Bit of muslin he wished to cast off. In the family way, too. Shockingly bad ton! Wouldn’t touch the betting, myself.”

“But others did not share your compunction, Mr. Finch-Hatton?”

“James did,” he allowed. “Threatened to call Fiske out, for offering his cousin such an insult! Plumptre and I had to talk James down, naturally—can’t challenge a man who’s three-parts bosky to a duel! Stands to reason. Not in his right mind. Can’t be held accountable for what he says. Besides, James was Fiske’s host. Can’t go shooting one’s guests whenever they put a foot wrong, what? Very bad ton. There was a good deal of it to go around, that night.”

“Lord!” Fanny exclaimed in strong disgust. She began to plod forward like a foot-soldier, her shawl wrapped tight around her; I guessed her romantickal notions of gentlemen and chivalry were suffering a reverse.

“And then?”

Jupiter kept his gaze fixed upon the uneven ground. “Plumptre took James into a corner while I told Fiske he’d had his jest—much better to go to bed before he found himself at Point Non-Plus. But he wouldn’t listen to me; drunk as a wheelbarrow, of course. Kept demanding of any who’d listen, What am I bid for as fine a baggage as ever strutted the boards of Covent Garden? Naturally, that stuck in Moore’s craw. Nursed a tendre for Adelaide since I don’t know when. Never seen the prosy parson look so enflamed! He pulled out his purse and tossed it into the centre of the table, and called Fiske’s bluff.”

“George Moore played a hand of whist for Curzon Fiske’s wife?” I whispered.

“Loo, actually—whist being out of the question, as there were only three players by that time. James, Plumptre, and I would have none of it; James was all for fetching his papa and breaking up the party entirely, but Fiske locked the library door and pocketed the key.”

“And the third player?” I queried.

“Lushington consented to sit at the table. Think he only meant to keep an eye on the other two, myself—no sort of personal interest in Adelaide. Thought the affair should get out of hand, no doubt, and the two men be at each other’s throats once tempers flew high. Devil was in it, he was right!”

“I cannot conceive of George Moore being so easily drawn!” I exclaimed. “Nor gambling for another man’s wife! His own should have been sleeping upstairs, I collect?”

“Understand,” Jupiter said as he halted earnestly on the path, “no desire to slander the prosy parson! No interest in canvassing his morals! Moore’s a right one, however dreary his conversation. Fiske simply tried the poor fellow too high. I should judge Moore hated Fiske with a passion. Cut him out once with Adelaide, then had the deuced effrontery to treat her like a doxy. Moore meant to teach Fiske a lesson—and play the Knight Errant with Fiske’s wife.”

“And the result?” I demanded grimly.

Even Fanny had halted in her march, and was listening now.

“Suspect Fiske fuzzed the cards. Well—stands to reason! Pile of silver on the table; pregnant wife asleep in her bed; the whole world to lose, and everything to gain! Not the sort to stop at Greeking methods, when his life depended on it!”[12]

“He won,” I said.

“Cleaned Moore and Lushington out. First time Fiske’s luck had turned, that night—and we’ve all seen the same. A man may throw good money after bad, round upon round, and stake his last groat—only to have his fortune come home again. Looked like that was the way with Fiske!”

“Until Lushington accused him of cheating,” I murmured.

Jupiter cast me a sapient eye. “Heard about that, did you?”

“Mr. Lushington was so indiscreet as to refer to the matter at dinner a few days ago,” Fanny said in a small voice. “Uncle Moore was exceedingly angry, tho’ Mr. Lushington attempted to pass it off as a jest.”

“Little enough of laughter in the whole business,” Jupiter declared. “Made me dashed uneasy, I can tell you. Fiske went silent, and looked sick; Moore was in a white rage, and ready to draw the fellow’s cork; and our MP demanded to lift Fiske’s coat-sleeves. I have an idea Lushington thought to find certain cards hidden there. Fiske refused; took up his winnings, and declared he was bound for bed.”

“A cool customer,” I observed.

“Only that James would not let him go. He demanded that Fiske answer the MP’s accusation. We urged him to stow it, of course—but James declared it was a matter of honour; and that he would not see his friends cheated by a blackguard in his father’s house.”

“I do admire James Wildman,” Fanny cried passionately.

I raised my brows at her. “There are occasions, my dear, when the most noble of impulses ought to be suppressed, for the sake of general security. And Fiske’s reply?”

“—Challenged poor James to a meeting at dawn.”

“Ah,” I murmured. “Naturally, Mr. Wildman could not then draw back, without being accused of cowardice.”

“Plumptre and I were to stand as Seconds. Nobody could be induced to act for Fiske, of course, until Lushington quite unwillingly consented to do so. Dashed rum set-out, when the fellow one’s cheated at cards is forced to serve as one’s Second!”

“And George Moore?”

“Was in a finer rage than I have ever witnessed, that day to this. He told James to make sure he got his man, and that he would undertake to bury Fiske with full Church rites—at a crossroads where the souls of thieves and suicides wander. Then he demanded the key to the library door.”

Jupiter shuddered theatrically. “I hope never to see another face like Fiske’s, when he gave that key to Moore! There was contempt and triumph in it—as tho’ he knew he had the prosy parson in his power. Covetous, aren’t we, George? he said, and, You’ve not seen the last of me, my lecherous priest. Moore knocked him down.”

“You astonish me!”

“Astonished us all! Never thought the parson was so handy with his fives! By the time Fiske got up—as I say, he was three-parts drunk, and none too steady on his feet—Moore was gone. We settled the business of the meeting between us—there’s a bit of meadow down near the Stour, on Godmersham land, where a man might measure twenty paces—and Lushington undertook to wake Fiske at dawn, if Plumptre and I should bring James up to scratch.”

“—Which I assume, being men of honour, you did.”

“Only that when we met in the Great Hall the following morning,” Jupiter concluded with an air of apology, “six o’clock it must have been, and dark as Hades—we discovered Lushington was alone.”

“Fiske had fled.”

“Crept out of the Castle in the wee hours with his ill-gotten gains to frank his passage. Left Adelaide behind, and a passel of debts, and Old Mr. Wildman to settle the whole. We four, standing foolishly in the hall, agreed that no word of the sordid affair should ever pass our lips; and we took it as gospel that George Moore would not willingly divulge the part he played.”

“Aunt Harriot should certainly be made miserable by it,” Fanny murmured. “What brutes men are!”

I might have told Fanny to hush—poor Jupiter had done his best in a difficult episode, and his frankness argued for praise rather than censure—but my mind was too preoccupied. Mr. Finch-Hatton’s story had supplied any number of people with motives for murdering Curzon Fiske. Moore had hated, and been cheated, by him and—if, as I suspected, the packets of gold sent quarterly to India were intended to buy Fiske’s silence regarding the shameful card game—had been blackmailed for years by him.

James Wildman might creditably be suspected of a mortal desire for vengeance.

But it was Adelaide MacCallister whose beautiful face rose most forcibly in my mind. What woman, made sport of and abandoned as she had been—losing her child, indeed, in her misery—should not wish to put a bullet through Fiske’s heart?

I had hoped Finch-Hatton might loosen the knot around Adelaide’s neck; but it seemed his account had only tightened it. Why, why, employ James Wildman’s gun?

A few drops of rain wetted my cheek; and with a strong sense of perplexity and depression, I suggested we turn back. But neither Fanny nor Jupiter was attending. They were listening to something else—the high, excited bark of a spaniel some way ahead on the trail.

“Frisk,” Fanny said. “I believe he has found something, Aunt Jane!”