Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Chapter Twenty-Eight Ghosts

Thursday, 28 October 1813

As predicted, I passed a wretched night, the cold in my head coming on with force. By Wednesday morning, I was discovered by the housemaid in so feverish a state that Fanny was roused, and was made anxious enough to summon Susannah Sackree, the Knight family’s ancient nurse. Sackree hovered by my bedside in awful silence—awful for a loquacious old woman who stands not an inch over four feet, and is easily as wide—and pronounced me at death’s door.

“That Mr. Scudamore did ought to be sent for, miss,” she told Fanny, “but it’s doubtful as he’ll be able to do much for our Miss Jane, but ease the end.”

I might have burst out in laughter had my head ached less, and had I been less mindful (even on the verge of delirium) of Fanny’s history. A girl who has witnessed her own mother pass inexplicably from hearty good health to the coldness of a shroud, in the interval between dinner and bed, is never again to be remiss in summoning the apothecary. Indeed, the unfortunate Mr. Scudamore—reconciled or not to his scandalous wife—was rejected immediately in favour of a true physician, and a groom despatched with Miss Knight’s compliments, to summon Dr. Bredloe from his breakfast-parlour at Farnham.

By noon that much-tried man had pulled up in his gig and mounted the grand staircase at Godmersham, to be received by me in all the splendour of yellow walls and damask hangings, sneezing pitifully beneath my best lace cap.

“Foolish,” he said succinctly. “Very foolish, Miss Austen. You ought to have left that wretched girl to the manservant and been snug at home hours before you were. I shall be obliged to cup you, ma’am.”

“After all the blood-letting we have witnessed?” I protested feebly. But Bredloe would not be gainsaid—a basin and razor were produced, his frock coat discarded, and my vein opened.

I detest being bled.

To divert my mind from the distasteful business, I studied the view from my window—indifferent, it being another day of rain—and interrogated Bredloe.

“You succeeded in carrying Martha to Chilham?”

“She lies even now in the publick house in the village.”

“And the inquest is to be held—?”

“Tomorrow at noon, in the same place.”

“Must Fanny attend? It was she who discovered the body.”

“I cannot like to see Miss Knight in such a place,” Bredloe objected brusquely. “A distressful scene, for a young lady. And you are far too ill to give evidence, Miss Austen. Your statement will suffice. I have required Mr. Julian Thane to attend, however, as he was in some wise the girl’s master—and present at the body’s discovery.”

Her master. Such a curious word.

“I could wish your brother were here, Miss Austen—but to delay the business is inadvisable, given the state of the corpse, and the fact that it must still travel some miles to Wold Hall for interment.”

The faint smell of blood dripping into the basin at my bedside, coupled with fever, conjured a fiendish image of the dead girl in my mind; I closed my eyes tightly and shuddered.

“Do not excite yourself with conjecture, Miss Austen. It can do you no good. Your pulse is tumultuous.”

“You intend to bring in a verdict of murder, I suppose?”

“—By Persons Unknown. There is nothing else to be done. The naming of the culprit I shall leave to Mr. Knight.”

At length, when I lay slack upon my pillows and attempted only with difficulty to keep my eyes open, the doctor pronounced himself satisfied, and ordered Sackree to set about composing a paregoric draught, which disgusting mixture I was required to drink down under Bredloe’s eye.

“You will sleep now,” he said confidently, “and provided there is no putrid sore throat, or inflammation of the lung, I think you will go on very well.”

Sackree snorted, her hands on her hips. The doctor cast her a jaundiced eye. “A little white wine whey in an hour, Nurse, and perhaps some restorative mutton broth.”

“Arrowroot jelly,” Sackree pronounced with finality, “and a hot mustard bath to the feet.”

“Not until after she has slept,” Bredloe returned, “and that, some hours.” He donned his frock coat and bowed.

“Sir,” I called hoarsely as he reached the door, “pray find out Mr. Finch-Hatton before you leave this house.”

“Finch-Hatton? —The Exquisite who made himself useful yesterday, in parading his horse about the Downs?”

I smiled weakly. “He is not unintelligent, I assure you. You might speak with him before your inquest. Jupiter—that is to say, Mr. Finch-Hatton—believes Martha and Julian Thane were in the habit of trysting in that coppice.”

“Thane, who is Mrs. MacCallister’s brother?”

I refused to waste energy on redundancies. “Were I you, Doctor, I should learn who else at Chilham suspected the affair—and what use they made of the intelligence.”

Bredloe stared at me some moments, his entire countenance alive with interest. Then he nodded once, and quitted the room.

I was most unwell the remainder of Wednesday, the blood-letting having done little to cool my feverish head; and tho’ Fanny appeared to exclaim and sympathise, I would not have her sitting up with a sick aunt when Mr. Finch-Hatton was eager for diversion downstairs, and my nephews were about the business of packing for Oxford, and the Moores were expending their final hours under Godmersham’s roof as tho’ determined to wring from it the last full measure of enjoyment.

And so my care was consigned to the redoubtable Sackree, who relished the task enough to continually disturb me by plumping my pillows, and building up the fire or shielding me from its heat as the occasion required, muttering “Death’s Door” to herself all the while. When the long afternoon had passed and my white wine whey was all drunk up, I alarmed her by rejecting the mutton broth entirely, and requesting that the curtains be drawn against the early autumn dark. “Failing, poor lamb,” she muttered, and enquired if I had any final words for the Master, as the pore gennulman was certain to miss the Crisis that awaited me this night. I told her firmly that I should speak to the Master myself when he returned on the morrow—at which she shook her head dolefully, and asked whether I did not wish my Last Thoughts to be writ down for all my relations, and if Miss Fanny weren’t the best body to effect the Sacred Duty? At this I lost all patience with the creature, and suggested that she return to the schoolroom—where Master George Moore was undoubtedly in need of her caresses as he prepared to quit Godmersham on the morrow. Sackree is so attached to this place, that she feels a depth of horror for those obliged to part from it, and all her warm sympathy was exerted towards the child. She cast a doubtful eye at the clock, and another at my bed. I closed my eyes firmly and emitted a snore.

I must have dropped off in earnest, because the next thing I knew the rattle of carriage wheels broke through my slumber and brought me bolt upright in bed.

The fire was gone out, the Yellow Room was chill, and a grey luminosity at the edge of the draperies suggested night was giving way to a feeble dawn. Whatever Bredloe had put in his paregoric draught—or however much blood he had taken—his physick had done its work: I had slept nearly twelve hours round the clock. My fever had broken—and my brother was come home.

I slipped from beneath the covers and reached for the dressing gown draped over a chair. My entire frame ached, and my head remained heavy, but my thoughts were clear at last. I steadied myself against the chair a moment, then crept across the cold floor to the door and opened it a crack. Edward was banging on his own portal as if to wake the dead; the bolts were thrown, and all the servants still asleep.

I made my way down the stairs and reached the Great Hall just as Johncock, Edward’s butler, staggered across it in his nightshirt, a single candle raised high. I sank down on the stairs, huddled my gown about me, and watched him set down his light to throw back the heavy bolts.

My brother strode into the house, tossing his hat and gloves on the central table. He looked tired, cross, and every day his six-and-forty years.

“Good morning, Johncock.”

“Good morning, sir. Trust your journey was comfortable, sir?”

“Tolerable enough. It is over, in any case.”

I rose from the stairs, the white stuff of my gown as ghostly as a shade’s in the dimness of the hall. Edward started, and stepped backwards, as my form fluttered upwards; his hand lifted involuntarily to his eyes, as tho’ he could not believe the evidence of his senses. An expression of mingled yearning and horror o’erspread his countenance like nothing I had seen before.

“Good God, what is it?” I cried—and the dreadful look vanished.

“Jane,” he said with effort. “I thought—that is to say—” He swallowed convulsively. “I did not think to see you there.”

Johncock was staring hard at his master, as tho’ Edward had thrown off a fit. The candle wavered in his hand, spilling hot wax on the polished marble floor.

Comprehension swept over me. In the half-light, with exhaustion hard upon him, my brother had thought he glimpsed a shade in earnest—that the spirit of his lost, beloved Elizabeth had awaited his return on the stairs. I knew, then, that despite the passage of five years he still looked for her everywhere—that he expected to glimpse her one day, flitting through Bentigh’s allée, or lingering behind one of the temple’s columns. Perhaps he had seen his Lizzy at Godmersham before this, haunting his footsteps. Who was I to say? But my heart twisted within me, and a painful knot formed in my throat. Edward, who possessed so much—his wealth and good fortune were the envy of all his brothers—yet lacked the one thing necessary to his happiness.

“We did not expect you so soon.” I stepped woodenly to the floor. My voice sounded queer in my own ears—heavy and forced, as it seemed sometimes when I cajoled my mother out of her sullens. “The boys will be pleased you are come back in time to bid them farewell.”

“I have much to tell you.” Edward pressed his fingers against his eyes. “But first I must sleep. Will you breakfast with me, Jane—let us say, at eight o’clock?”

“There is an inquest at noon,” I told him, “in the village of Chilham. I think it would be as well if you were there.”