Jane and the Canterbury Tale (41 page)

The indifferent practicality of her words was such as must astonish. I observed Mr. Wildman close his eyes briefly in forbearance; his wife pressed a handkerchief to her lips in mute horror.

Fanny rose. There was a queer look of shock on her countenance that was painful to behold. “We have trespassed too long on your privacy. We must take our leave.”

James Wildman moved towards her, one hand outstretched appealingly. “Pray do not regard it, Fanny; your father has done only what duty required, and cannot be blamed for having acted in a manner I am sure he found most distasteful. I expect it was the very
last
outcome he expected, to this morning’s events. But the proofs against my cousin were such that Bredloe’s panel could hardly ignore them. It was they who forced the Magistrate’s hand, in bringing in a verdict of murder against Thane.”

“What
proofs
?” Mrs. Thane demanded harshly. “What
possible proofs
could those unlettered men of the village weigh?”

James Wildman turned and regarded her steadily. “When Bredloe examined the maid’s body yesterday at the publick house, he discovered a button of Julian’s—for you may be sure that Julian identified it, it bore his vowels and was torn from his shooting coat of drab—clutched in the girl’s fingers. She must have fought him as she died, and lying as she did, with her hands beneath her, the thing went undiscovered at the scene.”

“Anyone might have worn that coat!” Mrs. Thane declared. “I am sure I have seen it lying discarded in the gun room any number of times in recent weeks.”

“Indeed, ma’am,” James rejoined mildly. “But there was also the note, written in Julian’s hand—to which he swore.”

“What note?”

For the first time, Mrs. Thane’s voice quavered. Her countenance paled.

“A brief missive, establishing a time and place of meeting—
Six o’clock, by the lone coppice
. Bredloe found it in the maid’s apron pocket. He conjectures that it was to retrieve the note—which my cousin may have forgot in the heat of violence—that Julian rode back up to the Downs later that morning. He was so misfortunate as to encounter the Godmersham party—and all was discovered.”

“That
jade
!” Mrs. Thane ejaculated. Her countenance was now twisted with a terrifying fury, and her hands worked like a demon’s. “That meddlesome, designing,
whorish
girl—raised in the bosom of Wold, and bent upon its destruction! I should have throttled her in her cradle, by all that’s holy!”

“Ma’am!” Captain MacCallister cried, in a tone of shock. “The maid is dead!”

“Aye, and good riddance to her. I thought to send her away with Adelaide, and be free of her wiles forever—I thought to preserve my son’s future happiness—but he
would
come with us, as must be natural for the wedding, and nothing I could do or say was sufficient to guard him against her. Serpent! Succubus of the Devil!”

“Succubus,” Charlotte repeated in a hollow tone. “What in Heaven’s name can you mean, Cousin?”

Mrs. Thane’s eyes narrowed. “She was carrying his child, you little fool! A fine thing for Mr. Thane of Wold Hall—to be saddled with a serving-girl’s bastard!”

  
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  

28 O
CTOBER
1813,
CONT
.

A
S
F
ANNY AND
I
TOOLED FOR HOME BEHIND A
R
OWAN
longing to be once more in his stall, we espied a horseman galloping towards us along the Canterbury road—a rider revealed in a few moments as none other than the reviled Magistrate.

“Papa!” Fanny cried. “How
glad
I am to see you!”

“You have been to Chilham?” he enquired, reining in his mount. “You will have learnt the news?”

“Indeed—and most distressing we found it,” I said.

“I am even now on my way to consult with Mr. Wildman. Do not wait dinner for my return, Fanny—you and your aunt might enjoy a comfortable coze by the fire in the absence of visitors. I shall take a cold collation once I am at home.”

A comfortable coze. With a girl of twenty whose most romantickal notions had been brutally overthrown. My heart sank.

“Papa!”

Edward checked his horse and glanced down at his daughter. Her gloved hands were working at Rowan’s reins. “Is it
certain
? There can be no mistake?”

Edward’s lips compressed at the desperate entreaty in her voice. “I am sorry, Fanny. Thane denies it all—but the evidence is black against him. We must allow the Assizes to weigh the case; we must allow Justice to run its course.”

“Do you not ask yourself,” I interjected as my brother’s horse danced impatience beneath him, “why any man should be fool enough to commit a
second
murder in the very teeth of your investigation? —A murder, moreover, done from personal motives that may be entirely unconnected to the Curzon Fiske case?”

“I imagine he did not
intend
to kill the girl. It was an act no doubt committed in a fit of passion.”

“Nonsense! Nobody lures a maid to that lonely coppice with the note found in her pocket, and slits her neck with a knife he then prudently carries away—without
premeditation
. But to plan a murder, when the neighbouring magistrate has
already
incarcerated one’s sister, is utter madness! I cannot believe Thane fool enough to do it.”

“What would you say, Jane?” Edward demanded wearily. “Do not speak in riddles, pray.”

I sighed. There is so much that must be explained to men. “Merely that had Thane
wished
to end the life of his mistress and bastard child, he might have done so at any time—preferably a month from now, in another locale entirely, when he was no longer so blatantly beneath your scrutiny. In short, the evidence may be black against him—but the evidence does not make sense.”

“Am I then to ignore the button and note—both Thane’s—that were found on Martha’s person?”

I shrugged as Edward’s horse tossed its head and neighed.
“Martha’s killer clearly wore Thane’s drab shooting coat. But Thane himself was
not
wearing it when Fanny and I met with him on the Downs.”

“That is true!” Fanny cried eagerly. “He wore his black coat and leather breeches, with top boots—I particularly remarked the white cuff, so like that which Mr. Beau Brummell is supposed to wear. I thought it excessively dashing.”

“The gush of blood from a slit throat should seriously stain the white tops of those boots,” I murmured, “but perhaps Thane exchanged his murderous attire in the interval between killing the girl and returning to search her pockets some hours later. One imagines, however, that his bloodied clothes—including the interesting coat of drab—should then have been found in his bedchamber. Do you not
see
, Edward, that anyone at the Castle might have taken Thane’s shooting coat from the gun room, as Thane’s mother told us only an hour since? And disposed of it when the deed was done? As for the note—I have it on the authority of the Chilham housekeeper that Martha was forever tucking letters into her apron pocket. Thane might have pressed that summons upon her at any time—it might indeed refer to an altogether different meeting, some days past. There was no date on the paper, I collect?”

“There was not.” Edward gazed at me with an arrested expression. “Must you always complicate matters, Jane, with questions that are entirely unanswerable?”

“Two people have died, Edward, and died in pain and violence. I should like the proper person to hang for it.”

He frowned. “You are persuaded the murders were done by the same hand. Whose, then? Sir Davie Myrrh’s? Burbage’s? Explain, if you may, how either man should have come by the shooting coat of drab. Neither has been seen in the neighbourhood of Chilham, much less the Castle’s gun room, of late.”

“Have you had
any
word of them?”

“Burbage was taken this morning in Deal,” Edward said
abruptly, “attempting to hire a private vessel for the crossing to France. He should be conveyed to Canterbury gaol by nightfall. Sir Davie, I regret, is still at large.”

“Then you may pursue your researches yet a few hours,” I assured him affably. “We have delayed you already too long, with our vexing questions. May I suggest, Edward—when you speak to Old Wildman—that you enquire most narrowly into the terms of his Will, and the disposition of his estate, in the sad event of his death?”

“Naturally the whole shall go to his son,” he retorted impatiently.

“I meant, rather, in
default
of heirs male.”

My brother stared at me, brows knit, then wheeled his horse towards Chilham without another word.

W
E WERE NOT VERY GAY THAT EVENING
, I
CONFESS, DESPITE
the luxury of a house emptied of visitors and sporting-mad young gentlemen. We invited Miss Clewes to make a third at table, and toyed with the excellent fowl presented by Cook; in my lowered health and Fanny’s lowered spirits, the cream soup was more to our liking. Miss Clewes shared her stories of the little girls, and the morning spent in the schoolroom, and the droll thing that Marianne had said, and how she had been obliged to deny Marianne her custard in consequence; but neither Fanny nor I were properly attending. Before the governess, who knew nothing of the day’s events, we could not speak of murder or Julian Thane; but Miss Clewes’s prattle allowed each of us to pursue our own unsettling thoughts: Fanny’s, on the subtleties of handsome young men, about whose true proclivities no gently-reared female could presume to know anything; and I, on the hidden and deadly purposes of the human heart. We were so much abstracted that we did not devour above a fraction of the delicacies
set before us, I am sure; but I comforted myself, and dosed the cold threatening to o’erwhelm my head, with Edward’s delicious claret. I shall be sadly spoilt by the time I return home, and disdain the fruits of Cassandra’s stillroom as not worth drinking.

“And is your papa expected this evening, Miss Knight?” Miss Clewes enquired brightly. “If you mean to wait up for him, I shall be happy to fetch my work-box, and sit with you a little in the drawing-room. Only I must first assure myself that the young ones are comfortable in the night-nursery. They will be wanting their warm milk.”

Fanny coloured slightly, and looked down at her hands. “I fear that I have the head-ache, Miss Clewes. I should like to retire early. And my aunt is
most
unwell.”

“Of
course
you have the head-ache!” Miss Clewes said archly. “For Mr. Finch-Hatton has left us, has he not? And it is a wonder that even little Lizzy is not drooping apace! How dull we shall be this week, to be sure, until
some other
of your beaux, Miss Knight, appear to cheer our solitude!”