The American Boy (61 page)

We sat in demure silence for a moment. The Ruispidges were admirably thorough. They had taken steps to ensure that Lieutenant Johnson would be accommodating about the matter of his wife's death and the verdict of the Coroner's inquest. I was not altogether surprised by Miss Carswall's next remark.

“I was saying to Sir George only the other day,” she said, “that a young man of your education and character is too valuable to lose sight of. You must be sure to leave me your direction before you go.” Here she edged a little closer to me on the sofa. “Sir George may be able to assist you in the world.”

“Miss Carswall, may I lay a suggestion before you?”

She smiled broadly. “By all means, Mr Shield.”

“It concerns Mrs Frant.”

She drew herself up. “I do not think I understand. What have you to do with Mrs Frant?”

“The suggestion does not concern me, Miss Carswall. It concerns you. You will remember that in the autumn of last year I witnessed a certain codicil.”

She stared at me with an expression very like her father's. “Of course I remember it.”

“It occurred to me that it would be remarkably becoming if you were to resign your interest in Mr Wavenhoe's legacy in favour of Mrs Frant, who I understand was the original legatee.”

“Becoming, sir, perhaps. But hardly wise.”

“Why not? You are a lady of great wealth now, in all but name. Soon you will be married and you will be even wealthier. And such a gesture could not but win the world's approval. It would be generous indeed.”

She snorted. “I can think of another word for it.” She put her head on one side. “Why? Why do you suggest this?”

“Because I was not altogether happy with the circumstances in which that codicil was signed.”

“Then you should have said so at the time.”

“My situation did not make that easy. The fault was mine, I own. Still, it is not too late for me to rectify that. I know Sir George is an honourable man. Perhaps I should lay the matter before him and ask his advice.”

“I am surprised at you, Mr Shield.” She stood up, and I followed suit. In her anger, she had an unexpected dignity. “I must ask you to leave.”

“You will not entertain the notion?”

“Pray ring the bell. A servant will show you out.”

“Miss Carswall, I beg you to consider. The Gloucester property would mean nothing to you. It would be everything to Mrs Frant and Charlie.”

“Very touching, I am sure.” She wrinkled her little nose. “Still, you don't fool me, Mr Shield. I am sure there's advantage in this for you, as well.”

“No. There is nothing whatsoever.”

“You want her,” she said, flushing. “Do not deny it.”

“Why should she ever look at me?” I said.

“I knew it!” she cried. “You do. I knew it from the first.”

“Miss Carswall, I believe it would be cruel and unfeeling to leave Mrs Frant and your father together, to leave her as nothing better than a hired nurse for him. You know that she hates him.”

“Then she should fight to suppress such an unworthy notion. She is a Christian, is she not? So her duty is to nurse the sick. Besides, my father is her cousin. And you may not know that, had my father not fallen ill, the connection would have been even closer.”

I ignored this flight of moral logic. “If you will not agree, Miss Carswall, you compel me to use another argument.”

Her lips lifted, exposing white, sharp teeth. “Will you force me to ring the bell myself, sir?”

I interposed myself between her and the bell rope. “First hear what I have to say. I must tell you that a letter has come into my possession. I do not think that either you or Sir George would be happy to see it made public.”

“Blackmail, is it? I had not thought you would stoop so low.”

“You leave me no choice.”

“You shall not impose on me, sir. There is no letter.”

“You wrote it to Mrs Frant,” I said. “You were living in Bath at the time, and she was in Russell-square. The date on the letter is the 9th of October, 1812. You were not long returned from a tour of Ireland with Mr Carswall. You referred in it to an incident that took place in Waterford.”

“What are you talking about?” She spoke mechanically, in the form of a question but not in the tone of one. She went first to the door, as if to confirm that the latch had engaged, and then to stand by the window. After a moment she turned back to me. “How did you get it?” she asked in a low voice.

I ignored her questions. I said, “I do not wish to reveal the contents to anyone. I wish to give you the letter so you may destroy it.”

“Then give it to me now.”

“I shall give it to you when you have transferred Mr Wavenhoe's bequest to Mrs Frant. Consider: on the one hand, certain disgrace and the possibility of clinging to a little property you neither need nor deserve; and on the other, perfect peace of mind, the knowledge you have done right, the gratitude of your cousins, and the approbation of the world.”

She stamped her foot. “No! You are infuriating! Do not preach to me, sir!”

I waited.

She went on, “How do I know you are telling the truth? How do I know you really have such a letter? Will you show it me?”

“No. I do not have it with me. If you wish, I will send you a copy, word for word, so you may be sure that I am speaking the truth.”

She swallowed. “I – I do not think that will be necessary, upon reflection. I – I shall consider the matter, Mr Shield, and I shall write to you with my decision.”

I took out my memorandum-book, scribbled Mr Rowsell's address and tore out the page. But for a moment I did not give it to her. “I have two minor conditions, which I should mention at this juncture, though I do not think either of them will be of any difficulty to you.”

“It is not your place to lay down conditions,” she said.

“First,” I said, “I wish the deed of gift, or whatever legal instrument is necessary to transfer the property, to be drawn up by a lawyer of my choosing: he is a gentleman named Humphrey Rowsell, of Lincoln's Inn; you will find he is perfectly respectable. This is his address, and you may write to me there. In the second place, I do not wish Mrs Frant to know that I had any hand in this matter. I wish her to believe that your generous nature is the sole reason for the gift.”

Flora Carswall approached me and came to a halt where our bodies were no more than a few inches apart. Her bosom rose and fell. She looked up at me, and we were so close that I felt her breath on my cheek. “I do not understand you, Mr Shield. Truly, I do not understand you at all.”

“No, I do not suppose you do.”

“But if you were to try to understand me – and I were to try – and if –”

Her voice seemed to wind its way into my mind like a silken snake. With an effort of will, I tore myself away from her and pulled the bell rope.

“I will look forward to hearing from you by the end of tomorrow.”

“And if not?”

I smiled at her. There was a knock, and Pratt entered. I bowed over her hand and took my leave. At the door, however, I stopped.

“I had almost forgot.” I took a paper sealed with a wafer from my pocketbook and laid it on a side table. “It is for you.”

Her face softened. “What is it?”

“The repayment of a loan. You were so kind as to lend me five pounds when I left Monkshill.”

A moment later, as I was descending the steps from the street-door to the pavement, I met Captain Jack Ruispidge, as glossy as a rich man's hunter.

“What are you doing here?” he asked abruptly, for he no longer needed to play the smooth, condescending gentleman with me.

“Is that any business of yours, sir?”

“Don't be impertinent.” He stared up at me, for I was still on the steps. “Mrs Frant is not without friends, you know. If you pester her again, I shall know how to deal with you.”

On May 23rd, I received a letter, brief to the point of rudeness, addressed to me care of Mr Rowsell and brought to me by Atkins. Mrs Frant begged to inform Mr Shield that, if the weather was fine, she usually walked in the Green Park between the hours of two o'clock and three o'clock in the afternoon. It was an invitation in the form of a statement.

I at once decided I would not meet her. If a man scratches an itching scab, the wound will reopen and start to bleed again.

Instead I snarled at Mrs Jem's children when they stumbled over their lessons. I sent away a man who would have paid me well to write a begging letter to his uncle because I thought him grasping and odious. I could not concentrate for more than a moment or two at a time on any one thing or any one person. My mind would think of nothing except the implications of that curt little note.

Shortly after midday, I went up to my room. An hour later, I left the house: I was scrubbed, scraped and polished, and looked as much the beau as my limited resources would allow. I reached the Green Park shortly before two o'clock. The Season had begun, so its walks were sprinkled with the fashionable and the not so fashionable.

I saw Mrs Frant almost at once. She was pacing slowly along the line of the reservoir at the park's northern corner, opposite Devonshire House, in the direction of the fountain at the end. She was not attended by a maid. I approached her, watching her while for a moment she was unaware she was observed. Her eyes were on the water, which flashed gold and silver in the sunlight. She was still obliged to wear mourning for Mr Frant but she had pushed aside her veil and her weeds were not at all out of place in that fashionable throng. I remember with exactitude how she looked, and how she dressed, because it showed me in an instant the chasm that lay between us, that would always lie between us.

I went up to her and bowed. She gave me her hand but did not smile. My scab was picked: my wound began to bleed once more. She suggested we walk away from the roar and rattle of Piccadilly and the crowds who promenaded at this end of the park. We paced slowly southwards. She did not take my arm. When we had gone a little way, and there was no possibility of our being overheard, she stopped and looked directly at me for the first time.

“You have not been frank with me, sir. You have worked behind my back.”

I said nothing. I stared at the white skin of her arm between glove and cuff, noting the smudge of London black.

“My cousin Flora has restored my uncle Wavenhoe's legacy to me,” she went on.

“I am rejoiced to hear it.”

“She said she would not have done it, had it not been for you.” Sophie glared up at me. “What did you do for her, pray? Flora does nothing for nothing.”

“I told her I was unhappy with the circumstances in which your uncle signed the codicil. If you remember I witnessed his signature. Miss Carswall's generous nature did the rest.”

She moved away and I followed her across the grass. Suddenly she stopped and turned back to me. “I am not a child to be kept in the dark,” she said. “There is more to it than that. A lawyer from Lincoln's Inn called on me with the necessary documents. As he was leaving, I asked him point-blank if he knew you. He tried to avoid the question, but I pressed him, and in the end he said he did.”

“I wished Mr Rowsell to deal with the transaction because I trust him implicitly. So I recommended him to Miss Carswall.”

“That suggests you do not trust my cousin.”

“I did not say that, ma'am. In affairs of the law, the advice of a disinterested party is always worth having.”

“Oh, stuff!” She glared at me. “And how was it that you were in a position to dictate to my cousin?”

“I did not dictate to her. I merely tried to explain the desirability of following a particular course of action.”

“Then why did you tell her that you did not wish it known that you had – had advised her, if that is what you call it? Come, sir, I have a right to know why you took it upon yourself to interfere in my affairs.”

I turned over in my mind all the answers I might make. In the end, only the truth would do: “I did not wish you to be obliged to feel gratitude.”

Her face blazed. “You are insufferable, sir.”

“What would you have had me do?” I realised I had raised my voice. I took a breath and continued more quietly, “I beg your pardon. But I did not like to think of you trapped with that terrible old man.”

“I am sure your concern does you credit. But you need not have worried. I will not pretend that the prospect of living with him was agreeable to me. But I would not have had to endure it long.” She raised her chin. “Captain Ruispidge has done me the honour of asking me to marry him.”

I turned away. I could not bear to look on her bright face any longer.

“He asked me before my cousin Flora told me of her design to transfer the Gloucester property to me. His motives were of the purest.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “I do not doubt it. I hope you will be very happy. He is a worthy man, I know, and I am sure it is a most prudent course of action.”

Sophie came a step nearer, forcing me to look again at her face. “I have been prudent all my life. I married Henry Frant because it was prudent. I lived in my cousin Carswall's house because it was prudent. I am sick of being prudent. It does not agree with me.”

“You have not always been prudent.”

We looked at each other for a moment. In my mind I saw that little room in Gloucester, I saw her dear self wantonly displayed for my delight. Her face softened momentarily. She began to turn away but stopped and glanced up at me through her lashes. A coquette might have made the same movement, but she was not a coquette. I think she was afflicted by a sudden shyness.

“I was not prudent when Captain Ruispidge asked me to be his wife,” she said. “I told him I was deeply sensible of the compliment he paid me, and would always consider him my friend, but that I did not love him. He said that did not matter, and he renewed his suit. I told him I wished to have time to turn his offer over in my mind before deciding.”