The American Boy (33 page)

“Her gardener?”

“But she has no gardener now. Only the one maid of all work, Ruth, and she is not there at present. I was too far away to see him clearly but he seemed to catch sight of me, and moved away at once. Do you think we should inform Mrs Johnson?”

“It would be the neighbourly thing to do,” Miss Carswall said. “Could you describe him?”

“Tall and well built. He wore a long brown coat and a broad-brimmed hat. I can tell you nothing about his face. He was so far away, and the collar was turned up, and the brim of the hat was –”

“I will write a note to Mrs Johnson,” Miss Carswall cut in. “If she thinks there is something suspicious, she will consult with Sir George about what to do. I would not for the world want to worry her, but one cannot be too careful in such matters. Perhaps we should send someone to investigate before we raise the alarm.”

“If you like,” I said, “I could walk there now.”

To tell the truth, I welcomed the chance of escaping from that snug parlour. I always found it unsettling to see Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall together, and rarely more than I did on that occasion. I was not proud of my feelings yet I could not pretend that I did not desire them both: though not entirely for the same reasons, and not in the same way.

I found my hat and stick and set out. I was surprised how soon I reached Grange Cottage. Perturbation of the mind and discomfort of the body encourage rapidity of movement. In a sense, perhaps, I was attempting to hurry away from the unholy confusion of my own feelings.

Nothing had changed since my previous visit. The building had the desolate appearance of an untenanted house – somehow reduced in importance by the absence of its owner as is a body by the absence of its animating spirit.

The shutters were still up. I tried the doors: all were locked. As I had done before, I walked round to the kitchen yard at the back. I inspected the muddy patch beside the pump, and found only a confusion of ridges and furrows, brittle with frost, where before there had been an outline of a man's footprint.

By and by, I returned through the park, walking more slowly than before. I scarcely knew the reason for my unease – whether it was what I might have left behind at Grange Cottage or what I might be walking towards at Monkshill. I skirted the lake by the longer, western route and took the opportunity to investigate both the approach to the ice-house and the shell grotto. I found nothing out of the way, and nor had I expected to do so. I was not following a rational purpose: I wanted to postpone my return, I suppose, and that part of the mind that is mysterious even to its owner was obliging enough to suggest plausible excuses for delay.

In the end, though, my powers of invention were exhausted. I took the path to the house, walking ever more slowly. Images of Mrs Frant, images of Miss Carswall, whirled through my mind. I could not think clearly, and even derived a gloomy pleasure from my plight: was I not the very pattern of a romantic hero?

As I was walking along the wall of the kitchen gardens, immersed in gloomy thoughts, the boys ran whooping like redskins through a doorway. They hurled themselves into me with such force that I staggered and almost fell.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Edgar, glancing at Charlie.

The boys burst into giggles. I pretended to roar at them and they scampered away with cries of simulated terror. I chased them through the walled gardens and seized both of them by the scruffs of their necks.

“Juvenal tells us
maxima debetur puero reverentia
,” I said. “Translate, Edgar.”

“The greatest reverence is due to a boy, sir.”

“But Juvenal is inaccurate on this occasion. The greatest reverence is due to a boy's master.”

I pretended to cuff them and they ran off, shrieking. Soon they would grow older and more serious. Time was running out for their boyhood. For that matter, time was running out for us all, and running faster and faster. I thought of Mr Carswall and his watch: for all his wealth the old man was time's slave, as completely in its power as any of his niggers had ever been in his. As for me, my sojourn at Monkshill was slipping away. In a few short weeks, I would take Edgar Allan back to Stoke Newington, and leave behind whatever was happening here.

Worst of all, I would leave Sophia Frant and Flora Carswall. At that moment, the prospect of losing them seemed an insupportable fate. They had become my pleasure, my pain and my necessity. They had become my meat and drink, my Alpha and Omega. I was enslaved to them, I told myself, and to what they represented: and in my addiction I was no better than an opium-eater tapping a coin on the druggist's counter as he waits for his heaven and his hell in a pill-box.

The following day, Mr Noak sent down to say that he was unwell. He had a severe cold. Harmwell explained that his master would be obliged to keep to his bed for at least a day or two. Owing to boyhood illnesses, Mr Noak's chest was weak. The greatest care was needed if he was to avoid fever, a severe and debilitating cough and possibly pneumonia. The news spread throughout the house long before Mr Carswall announced it formally at dinner, which gave Miss Carswall ample opportunity to consult her brown duodecimo volume.

“You must not be anxious, Papa,” she said when he told us the news with a long face. “I have already instructed Harmwell to dose Mr Noak regularly. I have prescribed a spoonful of syrup of horehound in a glass of spring water, into which he should stir ten drops of the spirit of sulphur: I am reliably informed that this is a remedy that will generally relieve the severest cold.”

“A very proper attention,” he said. “But I was depending on him for our excursion to Gloucester.” For an instant his lips formed the pout I had seen more than once on Miss Carswall's face. “It is so provoking.”

“I suppose the poor man cannot help his health.”

“I do not say that he can.” Mr Carswall took another sip of wine. “But I shall miss his conversation. And Harmwell could have made himself useful when we passed through a turnpike, and in Gloucester. There are always arrangements to be made, errands to be run.”

“Surely there is at least a partial remedy immediately to hand? We should invite Mr Shield to accompany us in Mr Noak's place.”

Carswall gestured for his glass to be refilled and stared down the table at me. “Aye, that might answer. You shall accompany us, Shield. Not to the ball itself, however – there will be no need for that. No doubt you will enjoy the change of scene. Yes, it will be quite a treat for you.”

I bowed and said nothing. Mr Carswall liked to give the impression that consulting his own comfort was merely the indirect means of doing someone else a favour. In my absence, the boys would be left in the care of Mrs Kerridge.

On the Wednesday morning, Mr Carswall plunged into a morass of indecision. He consulted his watch – he glanced at the dark, grey sky – he prophesied snow. What if we should become stuck in a snowdrift? What if a wheel should break while we were in the depths of the country? What if we had not allowed enough time for a journey at this time of year, and we were benighted on the road and froze to death? As he grew older, Mr Carswall lived in a world of terrifying possibilities, a world whose dangers increased in proportion to his own frailties.

Miss Carswall soothed him. There would be a constant stream of travellers. Most of our way would lie along the newly cut turnpike road beside the river. We would never be far from a pike-house, a farm or a village. Mr Shield, the coachman and the footmen were all able-bodied men capable of wielding a shovel or walking for assistance. Besides, it was not yet snowing, and even if it had been, there was no reason to fear that the road would be blocked.

At last Mr Carswall's anxiety subsided sufficiently for us to leave. Miss Carswall's maid and his own man had already gone on ahead to make our apartments ready, so the five of us travelled inside the great coach – the three ladies, Mr Carswall and I. Mr Carswall's splendid equipage was nothing if not luxurious. We glided along the macadamised surface of the turnpike road. The coach's big wheels and long springs combined with the perfectly flat gravelled surface to create an impression of rapid but almost effortless motion. I was in close proximity to both Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall; indeed I sometimes felt a gentle pressure from the latter's foot upon my own. There was pleasure, too, in leaving behind Monkshill-park, that elegant and spacious prison.

We came into Gloucester by the Over Causeway, a circumstance which caused Mr Carswall much agitation, for the river was rising and the masonry of the arches was already in a ruinous condition. To his relief, we crossed the Westgate Bridge and entered the city while it was still light.

Our lodgings were in Fendall House in Lower Westgate-street, not far from St Nicholas's Church with its stunted spire. Bowing and scraping, the owner of the house conducted our party up to the apartments on the first floor, formerly reserved for Lord Vauden. Nothing could have been more obliging, and nothing (I suspected) could have been more expensive.

The accommodations consisted of a large parlour with two tall windows at the front of the house, facing the south-west, and four bedrooms – one each for Mr Carswall and Mrs Lee, one for Miss Carswall and Mrs Frant, and a fourth which had been designed for Mr Noak. Having settled Mr Carswall in an elbow chair by the fire, our host handed him a letter which Sir George Ruispidge's man had delivered not half an hour earlier.

Grunting, Carswall perused it. “Sir George asks a favour,” he said, addressing Miss Carswall. “He has heard that Mr Noak is not come with us, and begs to inquire whether Mrs Johnson might be able to take his place. It seems that the chamber reserved for her in their lodgings in Eastgate has been damaged by fire, and there is at present no other suitable accommodation available. He adds that Mrs Johnson would be most gratified to extend her acquaintance with Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall, so the arrangement would kill two birds with one stone.”

“It is a very civil note, Papa. But what about Mr Shield?”

“I see no difficulty there.” Mr Carswall glanced up at the landlord, who was hovering in front of him. “The boys' tutor has come in place of Mr Noak, but he will not be coming to the ball and in any case he is a plain man with simple needs easily satisfied – eh, Shield?”

I bowed.

“I'm sure you can find him a bed, hey?” Carswall said, addressing the landlord.

“Yes, sir. We have a small chamber in the upper storey, and I have taken the liberty of having it prepared.”

“Capital.” The old man waved at Miss Carswall, as if repelling an objection she had not voiced. “You see? Shield would be perfectly happy in a hammock, I daresay. Indeed, in my experience young men prefer to rough it a little. And he will enjoy the independence, too – and not having the rest of us coming in late and disturbing him.”

The landlord murmured how very obliged he was to Mr Carswall, and how very obliged Sir George would be. He shot a sharp, sideways glance at me, which made it clear that he had assessed my position in Mr Carswall's household with tolerable accuracy.

A squat and surly hall-boy took my bag and showed me to my room. I wondered if I would ever be able to find it again. Like many buildings in this city, Fendall House was a misleading place. To the front, all was neat, new, airy and spacious. Most of the establishment, however, lay to the rear and was an elderly warren of narrow staircases, small dark rooms, winding passages, low ceilings and creaking floorboards.

The tiny bedchamber to which I was shown, though indubitably a garret nestling under the tiles, had the dignity of its own staircase at the side of the house leading to an ill-lit lobby with its own door to the street. My dormer window looked across a dark little shrubbery to a fine modern wing built of redbrick to match the frontage.

We dined together in Mr Carswall's parlour, and at an early hour because of the ball. Mrs Johnson was not yet come: she was to join our party after the ball, for Lady Ruispidge desired her attendance beforehand, and to return with the Carswalls and Mrs Lee to Fendall House afterwards.

Mr Carswall, Mrs Lee and Miss Carswall were already arrayed in their finery. Mrs Frant and I were required to admire those going to the ball, and when we had finished, those going to the ball admired each other. Mrs Frant looked wistful and said little. Around us, the house was in even more of a bustle than before, for other, lesser apartments had been let, and their occupants were also going to the ball. Though the parlour door was closed, we were constantly aware of hurrying footsteps, of slamming doors, shouted greetings and instructions.

When we had finished dinner, the time dragged. The only person who seemed content was Mrs Lee: she sat staring at the fire, her hands idle in her lap, an unopened book on the table beside her; she was well used to waiting upon the convenience of others. Mrs Frant sat sewing on the sofa, rarely speaking unless one of the Carswalls addressed her. I sat at the table with a copy of the previous week's
Gloucester Journal
spread out before me.

Miss Carswall was never still for long – sometimes she would rush to the window to look down at the street; sometimes she would dart to the mirror; sometimes she would fly to Mrs Frant to hold a whispered conversation. There was a vitality about her that I had rarely seen at Monkshill-park. Society was meat and drink to her, and she fairly glowed with the prospect of nourishment. I could not suppress a pang at the knowledge that I was excluded.

There was a quality of happy anticipation about Miss Carswall's fidgets. But Mr Carswall could not settle, either, and his restlessness was a darker matter. At first he tried with little success to engage Mrs Frant in conversation. There was a strain of gallantry in much of what he said, which could not but be offensive to the recipient. Then, still talking, he took out his watch and looked at the time. Ten minutes later he repeated the action. As the evening crept towards the hour of the ball, he fell silent; the level in the decanter sank and he consulted his watch with increasing frequency. Finally, he left the timepiece open in the palm of his hand all the time and stared at the dial with a look of strained fascination upon his face.