The American Boy (28 page)

“Ruth is taking an age,” Mrs Johnson said after another pause in the conversation. “How very convenient it must be to have a large number of well-trained servants at one's beck and call.”

“I am sure we are giving her a great deal of extra work.” Mrs Frant cleared her throat. “It was very pleasant to meet Captain Jack Ruispidge yesterday. He spoke so kindly of my father.”

“Yes, my cousin Jack is nothing if not amiable.” Mrs Johnson hesitated in the way a fencer hesitates, timing his thrust to perfection. “If he has a fault, it is that he likes to be liked, especially by the ladies.”

At that moment, the maidservant appeared with the blankets, the pillows and the smelling salts. To allow her room to approach the sofa, I stood up and retreated into the recess formed by the little bow-window. I glanced outside. A small, overgrown shrubbery had crept close to this wall of the cottage, and the dark green leaves of the laurels crowded against this side of the window.

An involuntary exclamation burst from my lips. For an instant, peering out of that tangled foliage, I glimpsed a face with staring eyes.

“Why, what is it, Mr Shield?” Mrs Frant asked.

How could I have known that Mrs Johnson, for all her poverty and her retired situation, was a person of great importance in the drama unfolding around me? True, she was one of those creatures who find it difficult to dissemble their emotions. I suspected already that she disliked Mr Carswall. After the visit to Grange Cottage with Edgar, I was convinced that she also disliked Mrs Frant to the point of hatred. But at that stage I had no idea of the reason. Indeed, I blundered through this entire affair in a state of ignorance almost from start to finish.

As soon as Mrs Kerridge and Charlie arrived in the chaise, we bade our hostess farewell with almost indecent haste. Even with the seat in the middle pulled out, the chaise could take no more than three, so Charlie and I walked home through the park. As we went, I glanced back at the cottage in its ill-kempt garden.

“What are you looking for, sir?” Charlie asked.

“I thought I saw a man in the garden while we were in the cottage,” I said, knowing I must answer frankly because Edgar would tell him what had happened. “But Mrs Johnson was sure I was mistaken, and said there had not been a man about the place since she discharged the gardener in October. I saw only part of a face, and only for an instant. It might even have been a woman.”

“A housebreaker?” Charlie suggested. “Wouldn't that be a lark, sir?”

“It's unlikely to be a housebreaker in broad daylight, and with company in the house.” I smiled down at him. “More likely a beggar.”

When we reached the mansion, we found Edgar in the ladies' sitting room. He was arranged on the sofa with Mrs Lee and Mrs Frant fussing over him, while Miss Carswall sat by the fire, glancing through a newspaper. The surgeon had been sent for but Mrs Lee shared my belief that the injury to the ankle was no more than a sprain; she brought out a host of anecdotes concerning the misfortunes of her sons, brothers, nephews and cousins to support the diagnosis. Certainly the boy looked better – his colour had returned and the face he turned towards Charlie and me was almost as lively as ever.

“I wish they wouldn't fuss so,” he murmured to Charlie. “My ankle hardly hurts at all now if I do not put any weight on it. And we had not even begun to look for the treasure.”

All day I was restless. I could not forget the face I had seen at the window of Grange Cottage. I tried to persuade myself that it had been no more than a trick of the leaves and the light. I reminded myself that I had had no more than the briefest glimpse, and that Mrs Johnson was a rational woman who had no reason to lie.

I turned over in my mind whether I should mention my suspicions, insubstantial though they were, to Mr Carswall. In London he and I had established the possibility that Henry Frant was still alive, though the corpse at Wellington-terrace had been identified as his at the inquest and was now rotting under his name in the burying ground of St George the Martyr. Even if he had survived, however, he could not afford to run risks – he was a bankrupt, an embezzler, and very possibly a murderer too. But there was not a sliver of proof that he was still alive.

No proof: merely shadows glimpsed moving out of the corner of an eye, half-heard hints, a yellowing finger in a satchel left on a tooth-puller's door. But there remained the possibility that the man at the window had been Henry Frant. I found myself pacing up and down the hall.

The library door opened a few inches. I heard the harsh tones of Mr Carswall's voice, speaking so low I could not make out the words, and a reply in a higher, lighter voice that I recognised with a thrill of interest as Mrs Frant's. I did not intend to eavesdrop and I was in the act of withdrawing, when suddenly they began to speak more loudly.

“Take your hand from me, sir,” cried Mrs Frant, and her words were followed by the sound of a sharp impact, perhaps a slap. “I would not entertain it for a moment.”

“Then you're a damned fool, madam,” said Carswall. “Think who bought you that dress, who puts food in your belly, who pays for your son to grow up a gentleman.”

I drew back into the recess of a doorway. I no longer had any desire to confide my suspicions to Mr Carswall. Sophia Frant emerged from the library, her face blazing with colour. She ran lightly across the hall to the stairs. At the foot of them, she paused and glanced back. She saw me standing there. I wanted to say: I was not listening on purpose, I did not mean to pry. Also, I wished I might help her, for I had overheard enough to understand the nature of the conversation.

She stared at me. Her lips were slightly parted, her hand rested on the newel post. It was a graceful pose, and curiously formal, as though her limbs had been arranged at the whim of a portrait painter. She gave a queer little sob, turned, and pattered up the stairs and out of sight.

The next day, the Monday after Christmas, brought unexpected news. One of the servants rode out to collect the letter bag, returning shortly after midday. The bag was taken to Mr Carswall in the library but its arrival sent a ripple of anticipation throughout the house. A few minutes later, Mr Carswall came into the ladies' sitting room.

“I have here a letter from Mr Noak, my dear,” he said to Miss Carswall. “He is at present taking the waters at Cheltenham Spa, on the recommendation, I understand, of Mr Allan. He proposes to travel to South Wales next week, where he has an interest in some mining machinery. He inquires whether it would be convenient for him to call as he will be passing so near.” He glanced at the two boys who were trying to make themselves as small as possible in the corner of the room. “He promised Mrs Allan that he would send her news of Edgar if that were possible.”

“I am sure we should be delighted to see him, Papa,” Miss Carswall replied. “If he is to dine with us, no doubt you would like to offer him a bed for the night?”

“One can hardly expect him to travel on our lanes at this time of year, and in this weather, after sunset. No, I think we should invite him to spend a few days with us. He is a very considerable man in his way, and I would not want to be backward in showing him every civility.” He glanced at the sheet of paper in his hand and then at me. “He writes that he is travelling with his clerk. You remember him, Mr Shield? The nigger.”

I bowed.

Mr Carswall took a turn about the room while the rest of us waited in silence. There was an element of agitation about him that I found hard to explain. At that moment, I remembered the very first occasion I had met Mr Noak, when he had arrived at the Frants' house in Russell-square and the servant had tried to deny him entry until he wrote Carswall's name on his card and sent it in to Mr Frant.

“Mama,” said Charlie suddenly. “There are horses on the drive.”

This intelligence caused a flurry of excitement. Mr Carswall joined the boys at the window, followed almost immediately by Miss Carswall. A moment later a curricle swept into view.

“It is Sir George and Captain Ruispidge,” Miss Carswall cried. “Heavens, I am not fit to be seen!” She broke away from the group at the window. “My gown! And my curls need frizzing. I must find Kerridge – you do not mind if I borrow her, Sophie? – my maid is so stupid she will take an age. Do not under any circumstances let them leave.”

I opened the door for her. She smiled up at me as she passed out of the room, and I swear one of her eyelids drooped in the suggestion of a wink. She was inviting me to join her in mocking her own vanity; she had a way of making a man she wanted to please into her conspirator. And I could not help but smile back. As I did so, I saw over her shoulder that Mrs Frant had raised her head and was looking at us.

Mr Carswall was almost as excited as his daughter. Sir George had sent a servant to inquire how Edgar did after his accident, but this was the first time that he had done us the honour of calling in person at Monkshill. The condescension was all the more marked in that Captain Ruispidge had accompanied him. Mr Carswall was most put out when he recalled that a fire had not been lit in the drawing room that day, on the grounds of economy. He rang the bell.

“The fire must have been laid. We shall have it lit.”

“But it will be much more natural if we receive them here, sir,” Mrs Frant said coldly. “They will not want us to make a fuss over them, not for a morning call from neighbours. They will feel more easy if they find us here, engaged in our ordinary occupations. Besides, it will take an age for the drawing room to warm up.”

Carswall looked sharply at her but then nodded. “I daresay you know what you're about. Very well.”

A moment later Sir George and Captain Ruispidge were announced. First they established that the ankle, the ostensible reason for their call, was as well as could be expected; thanks to Mrs Johnson, the news of the boy's mishap had already spread to Clearland-court. Lady Ruispidge, it appeared, had interested herself in the case, and inquired most particularly after Edgar.

“She recommends the joint be fomented with vinegar, or camphorated spirits of wine,” Sir George informed Mrs Frant. “If excessively painful, a few drops of laudanum may be added. The treatment should be frequently renewed. And of course the injured part should be kept in a state of rest.”

“How very kind of her,” Mrs Frant said. “Pray thank her for the advice.”

Captain Jack fell to praising the park – he praised the house – he praised its appointments – he compared Clearland-court unfavourably to it – at least, with a glance at his brother, in some respects. Then, somehow, he was sitting beside Mrs Frant and engaging her in conversation. I was too far away to hear what was said but once or twice I noticed her grave face breaking into a smile.

Meanwhile, Sir George and Mr Carswall began to discuss agricultural topics. Owing to Mr Carswall's ignorance of these, they passed rapidly from the price of corn to politics. When Miss Carswall returned, however, having dressed her hair and changed her gown, Sir George's attention turned from her father to her. The couple's conversation had the stately inevitability of an old-fashioned country dance. He inquired whether she preferred the country to the town, to which she replied that they both had much to recommend them. He discovered that she played a little and painted a little. He wondered whether it would interest her to look through some of his mother's music. Later, after her delighted response to this proposal had run its course, he suggested that when the weather was warmer, it might amuse her to sketch the ruins of Flaxern Abbey down by the river. He could undertake to show her a number of particularly fine viewpoints.

Then he turned to the world of literature. I knew already that Miss Carswall enjoyed sighing over novels and the more sentimental varieties of modern poetry, and that, unlike most of her sex, she read the newspapers assiduously. It soon became apparent, though, that Sir George's tastes were altogether more serious. Fortunately he did not inquire too closely about her reading but instead described his own. Like many gentlemen, he was convinced of the importance of his own opinions and the manifold advantages that would accrue to those who heard them. He recommended several religious works of an evangelical persuasion and expatiated on the moral beauties of Cowper's poetry. Miss Carswall played her part gamely but I do not think it came easily to her.

The boys and I said little. There were no rôles for us to play in the billing and cooing between the Carswalls and the Ruispidges. I sat forgotten in my corner. Charlie and Edgar were called over to meet Captain Jack, but their conversation did not last long. Soon it became apparent that the boys were bored.

Edgar took matters into his own hands. He was a headstrong boy, unlike the pliant Charlie, and persuaded Mrs Frant to allow the three of us to withdraw on the grounds that moderate exercise would complete the cure of his ankle. Once outside, Edgar refused to take my arm but accepted a stick. We walked as far as the kitchen gardens and back. On the way, I learned that the boys had not given up their intention of searching for the monks' treasure.

“They would not hide it in the grange,” Edgar said. “Any more than in the abbey itself. They would be the first places where King Henry's men would look.”

“They might bury it somewhere near,” Charlie suggested.

“Or find a cave. But I think it very likely they would have hidden it up at Monkshill rather than down by the Abbey. It would be far safer.”

As we were returning to the house, we heard the sound of the curricle receding down the drive. We found the rest of the party still in the small sitting room. Mr Carswall was standing by the window and rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“They are engaged to dine with us when Mr Noak will be here,” he told me, for he needed to tell someone whom he had not told before. He turned back to Miss Carswall. “We must have game, Flora. Nothing but the best. If only Lady Ruispidge will be able to accept as well.”