Jane and the Canterbury Tale

Chapter Four The Pilgrim’s Tale

21 October 1813, Cont.

“My dear Miss Austen!” cried Miss Clewes, who was hovering near the stairs with a square of linen clutched in one bony hand as I entered the Great Hall, “I was never more shocked! When our excellent Fanny told me what dreadful events had occurred in the Park, and of the death of that poor innocent at the hands of our gentlemen—a pilgrim, no less, intent upon an errand of expiation for his soul—I declare I suffered palpitations! Poor Lizzy and Marianne administered my vinaigrette, tho’ I am sure they were equally overcome, poor lambs! I should be lying down upon my bed this instant, were it not that my sense of duty required me to remain upright, and offer what assistance a frail woman may, in a household o’erwhelmed by tragedy!”

Miss Clewes is a recent addition to Godmersham, having been engaged by Fanny as governess for her little sisters only a few months ago. In this capacity, Miss Clewes follows a succession of unfortunates, both old and young, who have attempted to earn their bread by imposing order in Edward’s chaotic nursery in the years since Elizabeth’s death. I do not dislike Miss Clewes; indeed, I pity any woman whose circumstances are so sadly left that she must secure a respectable position in a genteel household—for governessing is in general an unhappy lot. I know full well that without the excessive generosity of my brothers, my sister, Cassandra, and I might well have been forced to a similar servitude—existing in that wretched limbo between serving hall and drawing-room, never comfortable in either sphere and despised as imposters by both. Instead, we two have been sustained by the funds contributed yearly by our excellent brothers—and by Chawton Cottage itself, which Edward was so good as to make over to our use. Tho’ we possess no carriage and set up no stable, tho’ we scheme and contrive to dress in a respectable ape of fashion, we four women—for I count my mother and my fellow lodger Mary Lloyd in this—are blessedly fortunate. The luxury of being free from want has allowed me to indulge the frivolity of writing. That I have been able to command a minor independence, from the monies secured by the sale of my novels, is but an added comfort. Miss Clewes was never so lucky.

Some awareness of the similarity, and quelling difference, in our circumstances encouraged me to answer her cheerfully now, when I might have lashed out with impatience. Miss Clewes is too prone to die-away airs for my taste; and tho’ not unintelligent, her volubility cannot serve to recommend her sense. A silly but well-intentioned creature without a particle of harm in her—that is Miss Clewes. Or so I was thinking, until she uttered the fatal sentence that must banish all charity.

“Naturally, I went straight to our excellent Mr. Moore, that he might offer a prayer for the repose of the dead,” she assured me, with evident satisfaction. “I thought it an office of the first importance, and was gratified to discover that my failing energies were equal to so much, at least.”

“You had better have sent him on an errand to Canterbury!” I sighed in exasperation. “Mr. Moore is exactly the person I should wish as far from the scullery as possible, at this present. He is sure to read us a sermon on the sad consequences of the encouragement of sport as a pursuit for young gentlemen, with illustrative anecdotes of his own excellent rearing under the late Archbishop. Dear Lord, I must attempt to keep him out of Edward’s way—”

Miss Clewes was immediately wounded. “My dear Miss Austen,” she cried, wringing her handkerchief—“I had no notion you would be displeased by a consideration of Christian charity—and must beg you will forgive my presumption, if such it was—but indeed, Mr. Moore’s views on the rearing of young people are highly worthy. On countless occasions he has condescended to advise me on the curbing of dear Lizzy’s temper, and the encouragement of Marianne in the use of the backboard—”

I did not linger to learn further what Mr. Moore thought necessary to the education of young ladies. Instead, I hastened in the direction of the housekeeper Mrs. Driver’s preserve: the warren of rooms below-stairs that comprehend the kitchens, serving hall, housekeeper’s and butler’s sitting rooms, pantries, stillroom, and scullery.

This last was a clean but chilly room equipped with two deep wash basins, a draining board, and a trestle table of scrubbed pine. The dead pilgrim had been laid carefully on the latter, to the evident disapproval of Mrs. Driver and the scullery maid, a girl of perhaps seventeen, who stared in bewildered horror at this invasion of her realm. A large stack of breakfast dishes had been hurriedly removed to the draining board, and steam still rose from the wash basins; the girl’s raw, red hands twisted nervously in her apron.

“Get along with you,” Mrs. Driver said crossly, “gawping like a heathen at a poor, Christian man wot’s met his Maker—” and she urged the maid out into the passage.

I eased through the doorway, which was almost entirely blocked by the worthy Mr. Moore, who appeared disinclined to breach the scullery itself and perform the duty for which he had been despatched. Perhaps it was the mingled odours of dirty dishes, hot iron tubs, and aging corpse that discouraged him—a faint expression of distaste was writ on his harsh features. Or perhaps he abhorred a crush—the small room was rather crowded with my brother Edward, his son George, Mr. Finch-Hatton, John Plumptre, and James Wildman—who, having laid their burden on the trestle table, appeared uncertain what further was required of them.

“George,” Edward said, “take these fellows upstairs where they may wash, and then recruit the general strength with tankards of ale all around. Mrs. Driver shall see to a nuncheon, presently.”

“That is very good of you, sir,” Wildman said hesitantly, “but I wonder whether we might relieve your mind by taking ourselves off—and returning to Chilham directly.”

Edward’s blue eyes met the younger man’s indifferently. “You may certainly do so—once the coroner has seen this man and heard your recital from your own lips. Until those duties have been discharged, I must beg you to remain under this roof, James.”

Wildman glanced at Finch-Hatton, who shrugged slightly.

“Naturally we shall remain,” John Plumptre said stiffly. “I should not dream of leaving you with such a tangle on your hands, Mr. Knight, having been a party to the cause of it. That should be a shirking of responsibility no gentleman worthy of the name would entertain. We shall be grateful for the nuncheon, but our first object must be to ascertain whether Miss Knight is entirely recovered from her shock of this morning—which, in the event, must have been considerable.”

“Oh, Fanny’s all right,” Finch-Hatton drawled. “I’d go bail she’d stand buff against anything—capital little body, Fanny! But if we must stay here, we might have a neatish game of billiards, by the by. You don’t object to ale in the billiard room, sir, surely?”

“Not unless you’re prone to spill it,” Edward returned brusquely. “Mrs. Driver has enough mess on her hands this morning.”

Finch-Hatton had been lounging in the doorway again—it seemed the only possible attitude that young man could adopt. Now he thrust himself away from it with such an air of insouciance that the dead stranger might have been so much trussed game. What was it about Jupiter that drove all the young ladies of the neighbourhood to tears of ecstasy whenever he came in their way? The blond hair, unruly over the chiseled brow? The full lips, given to the most sardonic of twists? The powerful figure of a sportsman? —Or exactly this attitude of immense boredom towards the world and everyone in it? I suppose it might be considered something, for a young lady to excite so weary a fellow’s notice; but for my part, the conquest seemed not worth the prize.

“George.” Edward nodded peremptorily in the direction of the door, and the gentlemen trouped out of the scullery without another word.

“Young Finch-Hatton is growing positively insolent,” Mr. Moore observed. His nostrils were compressed as tho’ insolence bore as strong an odour as the stables. “I wonder his papa does not check him. But, then, as I suppose it is possible he will be called an earl one day—perhaps the cultivation of arrogance is permissible.”

“An earl?” I repeated. Fanny had said nothing of this; Mr. Finch-Hatton’s prospects had thus far entailed nothing more than the inheritance of Eastwell Park, a rather ugly modern house some seven miles distant.

Mr. Moore shrugged. “It is unlikely, of course—but Finch-Hatton stands to inherit the title if the present Earl of Winchilsea fails to produce an heir. His cousin’s estate is so entailed[2]. You may imagine how this increases his appeal among the damsels of the neighbourhood. My excellent wife has condescended to remark upon it.”

“Enough of Jupiter,” Edward said. “You have heard something of our sad mishap, I collect?”

“And of its cause,” Mr. Moore replied heavily. “On how many occasions have I observed the total want of care and reverence so essential to the employment of firearms, among the youth of our acquaintance! I suppose we must give thanks that it was not one of our own young gentlemen who suffered the fatal tragedy; but that any should be compelled to offer up his life, in the cause of another man’s mere sport—”

There it was, the inevitable stricture—but Edward cut off his old friend with one raised hand. “This fellow did not die of a fowling piece,” he said quietly. “Step closer, and observe the wound.”

As I expected, Edward had seen all that I had seen: the stiffness of the limbs, unnatural in one only lately killed; the way the blood had seeped entirely into the ground in the hours before the body was discovered by Bessy the spaniel, so that Mr. Plumptre’s coat was not even stained when we knelt upon it; the deathly cold of the unfortunate man’s skin; the coagulation of fluids around the wound; and the wound itself—which was formed of a single, neat hole in the left breast, undoubtedly through the heart.

“There are even the marks of powder on the man’s coat,” I observed distantly, “as tho’ his assailant stood quite near him when the pistol was fired. A sort of Judas kiss, in fact.”

“Pistol?” Mr. Moore glanced at me in consternation; I must presume that ladies were not permitted to display a broader knowledge of the world than was seemly, when in the presence of the late Archbishop’s son. “Are you suggesting he was already dead when those young fools fired upon him?”

“They did not fire upon him,” Edward declared. “They fired upon a covey of pheasant—and bagged five birds. I shall make a thorough examination of the fowling pieces, and await Dr. Bredloe’s expert opinion, naturally—but I should think this man has been dead for hours. Would not you agree, Jane?”

“Entirely. I should be interested to learn the doctor’s opinion as to the approximate hour of death, however—the night air in autumn is chill, but the ground still retains some warmth; that variance must affect the degree of stiffening we have observed.”

“Good God!” Mr. Moore exclaimed, with all the outrage of a man confounded by a female’s brazen disregard for decorum; “are you actually suggesting that this man was … was …”

“Murdered? I am, sir.”

The clergyman shot me one appalled glance, then strode quickly towards the body.

There was a brief silence, punctuated by Mr. Moore’s shallow breathing; Edward raised one amused eyebrow in my direction, and shrugged slightly. Then the clergyman said, in a voice quite raw with suppressed emotion, “You have summoned Bredloe? He is even now making for Godmersham?”

“I hope so, indeed.”

Mr. Moore swung around and stared at Edward, his pallor ghastly. “Idiot! You had better have thrown the corpse in the Stour, and allowed some other to find it!”

“What wild talking is this?” Edward exclaimed, astonished.

“You do understand that this is no pilgrim lying dead in your house? You apprehend the disaster that is about to break about all our heads?”

I stared at my brother in bewilderment, and read an equal incomprehension in his countenance.

“What can you possibly mean, sir?” I attempted.

Mr. Moore swept his hands wide in a gesture of despair; out of habit, perhaps, they formed a benediction over the dead man’s chest. “You see before you the corpse of a prodigal son returned—and at how ill an hour. I do not know what may be said to Adelaide. Or how the intelligence is to be conveyed to her. When she learns—”

“You would refer to Mrs. MacCallister?” I asked.

“I would.” But Mr. Moore was not attending to me; his gaze was all for Edward—the First Magistrate of Canterbury. “This man is none other than Curzon Fiske, whom his wife believed dead long since.”

“—And on the strength of that belief,” my brother said slowly, “was yesterday married to another.”

We were none of us required to utter the hateful word bigamy aloud; it jangled unspoken in all our minds.