The American Boy (44 page)

The girl was not allowed to enter the parlour herself, but I wished Pratt had had the kindness to give her the knife so that she could return it to me. I had left it on the table after sharpening Miss Carswall's pencil.

I waited until the family had gone into dinner and went downstairs again. I slipped into the familiar room feeling almost like a thief. Though it was empty, a fire burned brightly in the grate, and candles were alight in the wall sconces.

I found my knife and was about to go when I noticed on the table beside it, lying in a little enamelled dish, the mourning ring we had discovered earlier in the day. I was surprised at Carswall's carelessness. I picked it up for a moment and held it to the flame of the nearest candle. The lock of Amelia Parker's hair was a black smudge behind the diamond. I had no taste for the preservation of mementoes of the dead. But I could not help wondering about Henry Frant's grandmother who had lived at Monkshill sixty years before.

I returned the ring to the dish. As I crossed the hall to the stairs, I heard the bray of Carswall's laughter from the dining room. The boys, jigging from foot to foot in their excitement, were waiting for me in the schoolroom. They burst into speech as soon as they saw me.

“We regret that you are leaving us, sir –” Charlie began.

“– and we would be grateful if you would do us the honour –” Edgar interrupted.

“– of accepting this small keepsake, as a token of our esteem –”

“– and gratitude.”

Charlie held out a large red handkerchief with white spots. It had been washed, ironed and folded into a neat square.

“I hope you do not mind our giving you something, sir,” he said. “We were concerned in case it was not quite the thing. But Mama said it would be perfectly proper.”

I bowed. “Then I am quite sure it is.”

The gift unexpectedly stirred my emotions. The boys explained that such a handkerchief had many purposes. Worn round the neck, Edgar told me, it would give me the appearance of being a bang-up sporting cove, even a coachman. Alternatively, Charlie pointed out, I might wrap my bread and cheese in it, or use it as a napkin at table, or perhaps blow my nose on it. Suddenly embarrassed, they made the implausible excuse that it was bedtime, and left me in an undignified hurry.

I sat on. My belongings were already packed. I passed the time by drawing up a memorandum of the events that had taken place during my stay at Monkshill-park, and in particular those of the last few days. I wrote in my pocketbook for nearly an hour, interrupted only by the maid bringing back my brushed clothes. I was thus engaged, sitting at a small table drawn almost on top of the fire and writing by the light of a single candle, when there came a tap on the door.

Miss Carswall entered, wearing a black gown out of courtesy for Mrs Johnson, or rather for Sir George whose cousin she had been, and with a grey cashmere shawl draped becomingly over her shoulders. I sprang to my feet. Her boldness astonished me.

“My father says you leave us early in the morning,” she said. “I hope I do not disturb you, but I wished to say goodbye.”

I set a chair for her by the fire and she sat down with a rustle, the movement sending a waft of her perfume to my nostrils. I wondered if she had learned the reason for my dismissal.

“The gentlemen are still at their wine,” she said. “We have been talking all evening about this sad affair with Mrs Johnson. I wish you had not been obliged to discover her last night. It must have been truly frightful.”

I acknowledged her consideration with a bow.

“Pray sit down, Mr Shield.” Miss Carswall indicated the chair I had just vacated. “Yes, a terrible accident. Sir George says she may have been drunk, too.” She broke off, her hand flying to her mouth, and her eyes fixed on my face. “Oh, I should not have said that, I'm sure. Sometimes I have only to open my mouth for the most wildly indiscreet things to fly out.”

“I had heard something of the sort before, so you have not betrayed a confidence.”

“You had heard it?” She sounded disappointed. “It is common knowledge?”

“That I cannot tell you, Miss Carswall.”

“They say she drank too much because she was unhappy. By all accounts Lieutenant Johnson is a poor fish.”

I nodded, and Miss Carswall smiled. Our chairs were scarcely two feet apart. The room was lit only by the feeble glow of the fire and the single candle on the table. The circumstances created the illusion of privacy that perhaps encouraged her to regale me with servants' gossip. It is true that there was a streak of vulgarity in her a yard wide but it was part of her charm: she would not trouble to affect a sensibility she did not feel.

“There was a brandy flask in the pocket of her coat. Did you know she was wearing her husband's clothes? No doubt it was eminently practical on so cold a night, but so shockingly immodest! I cannot understand how she could have borne to do it.” Miss Carswall's eyes sparkled with reflected fire from the candle. “A most unusual sensation, I should imagine,” she added in a low voice. “Still, we may depend on it, the Coroner will not make too much of it. Sir George will see to that.”

“So what will the verdict be?”

“That the unfortunate lady died by accident. What other verdict can there be? She was ill – quite possibly feverish – her mind unsettled by her husband's long absence – and no doubt lonely, too, in the cottage because her servant was not there. So she took advantage of Papa's kind invitation to walk in the park, but dusk fell early and caught her unawares; and then the snow began, and she took shelter in the ice-house, which was standing open after the men had left. Alas, she blundered in, not knowing her way, and plunged straight into the empty pit of the chamber. How terrible! And then, by the most unfortunate chance, the side of her head struck that great iron grating. Sir George says that was the blow that killed her. Or so Mr Yatton told him – he is the surgeon from Flaxern.”

“And the mastiffs, Miss Carswall?”

She opened her eyes very wide. “Hush! Papa has given out that it was poachers from the village. That's all my eye, as the servants say. You must not tell a living soul but Sir George and Captain Ruispidge found a great quantity of arsenic in the larder at Grange Cottage.”

“They believe Mrs Johnson poisoned the dogs?”

“I know it is hard to credit, but who else could it have been?”

“Why should she do such a thing?”

“Because she wished to walk in the park at night when the dogs were loose, and they would not let her. It is agreed that the circumstance will not be mentioned at the inquest, it would be too unkind. Sir George believes that she nursed an inveterate and wholly irrational hatred for my father. She – she held him to some degree responsible for the ruin of Mr Frant.” She hesitated. “You are familiar with that aspect of the matter?”

I nodded. “I understand Mrs Johnson and Mr Frant had been childhood sweethearts.”

Her voice had been becoming quieter and quieter, but now she had dropped it to a thrilling whisper. “It was the ruling passion of her life. Mrs Lee says she never got over him. The ring confirms it, of course. Mr Frant must have given it to her when they were young, as a love token. Sophie had never seen it.”

“I still do not understand why she found it necessary to go into the park.”

“Who can tell what disordered fancies filled the poor woman's brain? For all we know, she meant to murder us all in our beds. Sir George is in the right of it, do you not think? It is the kindest thing for everyone, including Mrs Johnson and indeed the poor Lieutenant, to say that her death was nothing more than a dreadful accident. Which of course is all it was, leaving aside the question of her motives for being there.”

She looked at me and smiled brightly – and she had a smile that would charm the Grand Inquisitor himself. I thought I knew what she was at. Mrs Johnson's death at Monkshill-park was bad enough, and could not be concealed, but Miss Carswall did not want any more scandal to cast a blight upon her forthcoming nuptials. This evening she had set out to ensure I understood her position: and that was the purpose of her visit. For all her appearance of candour, she had told me very little I did not already know or guess.

Miss Carswall stood up. “And now I must leave you. In a moment, the gentlemen will be wanting their coffee.” She took something from a reticule she carried over her arm. “I beg of you, Mr Shield, do not be offended, but I think my father has his head so full of other matters that he may not have considered your expenses.”

“Miss Carswall, I –”

She waved aside my attempts at protest. “Pray consider it a loan. I would like to think of you travelling back to town in some comfort. It is such an inhospitable time of year for a journey.”

She held out a five-pound note and would not allow me to refuse it. I did not protest so very much, because I had scarcely any ready money at Monkshill. But it felt like a bribe or a payment, a transaction to be entered in her account book.

“Well, goodbye, Mr Shield. I hope we shall meet again.”

As I took her hand, she came a step closer, raised herself on tiptoe and kissed my cheek.

“There,” she said, smiling at my confusion. “Consider that a payment of interest on my loan.”

Miss Carswall turned and waited for me to open the door. I stood in the doorway and watched her walking along the landing to the head of the stairs. Her hips swung as she moved, a fluid, graceful motion that reminded me of a snake I had seen at a fair, swaying to the flute of his Hindoo master.

But we were not alone. Sophie was at the other end of the landing, in the doorway of the room the boys shared, and her eyes were fixed on my face.

The following morning, Wednesday, I knew that the temperature had risen for the contents of my pot had not frozen over and the ice was less thick on the windowpane. At eight o'clock, they directed me to the stableyard, where I found a groom waiting impatiently with the gig.

Soon we were jingling down the back drive, our progress impeded by the snow and ice. A fine, persistent rain began to fall, lent periodic venom by gusts of wind. I craned my head to have a last view of the blank windows of Monkshill-park. Our speed improved a little once we reached the high road, but there was no other reason to rejoice. Cowering beneath our waterproofs, we had a wet and miserable journey. The groom hardly said one word, replying with monosyllables and hisses to my attempts at conversation. His salient feature was his neck, a broad trunk ending in a head of much the same diameter, which gave him a hybrid appearance: from shoulders downwards he was a man; but the rest of him was closer to a reptile.

At last the spires and towers of Gloucester came in sight, the snow-covered roofs of its buildings gleaming brightly even in the dreary light of this January day: the celestial city itself could hardly have been more welcome to me. On Westgate-street, we passed Fendall House, its prim modern frontage concealing the little room where the most joyful scene of my life had been enacted. Further on, I saw the doorway of the bank where Sophie and I had discovered Mrs Johnson in a drunken stupor on the night of the ball.

The street grew increasingly congested as we neared the Cross, and the groom muttered continuously under his breath as we waited to turn into Southgate-street. At length, we drew up in the yard of the Bell. The man waited, reins in hands, staring fixedly at his horse's head, leaving me to summon a servant myself or to carry my luggage unaided. I beckoned a boy, who ran forward and lifted down my bags. Next to them was a large leather satchel.

“Leave that,” the groom snapped at the lad. “It's mine.”

Having no desire to stay at the Bell, where Carswall and his people usually put up, I walked down to the Black Dog in Lower Northgate-street, with my little porter staggering behind me. A few minutes later I had bespoken a room and was steaming gently by a fire. I felt better after I had dined. It is much easier to contemplate an uncertain future on a full stomach than on an empty one.

Afterwards, I discovered that I had left a parcel containing my clean shirt in the gig. I walked rapidly to the Bell, hoping that the groom had not yet returned to Monkshill, and nursing a suspicion that he had intentionally allowed me to leave without it. But I had wronged him. The gig had been backed into a corner of the big coach house at the Bell, and my parcel was where I had left it, tucked under the seat to keep off the rain. The groom himself had gone.

“Hired a horse and off he went,” an ostler told me. “He'll have a wet ride.” He spat and grinned up at me. “Can't look much sourer than he already does, can he? That face would turn milk.”

Later that afternoon I went to the coach office at the Booth-Hall Inn. I was fortunate enough to get an inside seat on the
Regulator
, the London day coach, leaving the following morning at a quarter before six, and reaching Fleet-street by eight in the evening. I went early to bed, leaving orders that I be called at five o'clock in the morning. I dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep from which I was only awakened by repeated knockings on my chamber door.

The
Regulator
was a light post-coach, hence both its speed and the fact that it carried only four passengers inside. I was lucky in that my companions were as disinclined for conversation as I was – a stout farmer going as far as Northleach, a clergyman returning to his Oxford college and an elderly woman with a prim mouth and a pair of knitting needles that were never still. The other passengers came and went, but the knitting lady and I were both going all the way to London. I spent the journey reading, dozing and staring out of the window.

The recent events at Monkshill unfolded again in the theatre of my mind as the coach rolled through the bleak winter landscape. I felt a profound and paralysing sense of loss. For the first time, I allowed myself to look long and hard into the future and what I saw there was desolate. But there was no help for it. At least I had employment, I told myself, a roof over my head and the prospect of food in my belly.