The American Boy (36 page)

Unfortunately it was no longer a simple matter of concealing an episode of drunkenness and protecting a lady's reputation. What worried me most was the possible implication of the evening's events for Mrs Frant. I tried to convince myself that Mrs Johnson's letter had been no more than a bill, and the man who had followed her was simply a drunkard.

But what if this were not the case? What if the letter and the man were connected? What if Mrs Frant found the letter and recognised the handwriting as her husband's?

Well, what then?

“But I am quite accustomed to drunken women,” Mrs Frant said as we sat opposite each other by the parlour fire half an hour later. “When liquor is taken to excess, a woman is no different from a man. If a person is intoxicated, a sudden elevation of the spirits, or a sudden depression of them, may have a disproportionate effect. The emotions bolt like a horse.”

“Having first reared and thrown off their rider?” I inquired.

“What?”

“I beg your pardon – I ventured to extend your metaphor. If the emotions are a horse, then we may at least hope that Reason is their rider.”

“Ah. I understand you. We have made a pretty conceit between us, have we not?” After a pause, Mrs Frant went on: “You must not wonder at my knowledge. I have lived in the world and am used to its ways. When I was a child, my father could not bear to part with me, especially after my mother's death, so I followed him from place to place.”

She was about to continue but there were footsteps in the passage and she fell silent. A moment later came a knock at the door. Miss Carswall's maid entered.

“If you please, ma'am, Mrs Johnson's sleeping like a baby.”

“If I have retired by the time your mistress comes in, be sure to tell her that Mrs Johnson is unwell. You may add that there seems no cause for alarm.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The woman left us alone. One of the candles guttered, and we stared at its swaying flame until it died and the room became suddenly darker.

Mrs Frant murmured, “What concerns me is whether there is more to this than brandy.”

“Something that drove her to run such risks?”

“Precisely. Though we shall never know what it is unless she chooses to make confidants of us, and that is unlikely enough. You do not think she may be – that her mind may be deranged?”

“It is possible.” I was happy to encourage this line of thought, though I believed Mrs Johnson to be as sane as Mrs Frant. I was relieved, too – I did not think Mrs Frant would talk so coolly if she had discovered a letter in her husband's handwriting on Mrs Johnson's person.

Then she took me by surprise, as so often: “I hope I may not be a cause of her behaviour.”

“But how could that be?”

“She dislikes me, I am afraid.” Mrs Frant raised a hand to prevent my interrupting. “You must have remarked it. At Grange Cottage, for example.”

“Yes,” I said. “There was indeed a coldness.”

“More than that.” She turned her face away. “In fact she hates me. There is no reason why you should not know the truth – you deserve to hear it after tonight. Long before my marriage to Mr Frant, or Mrs Johnson's to her husband, there was an understanding between them.”

“While Mr Frant was living at Monkshill?”

“No – the family left Monkshill when Mr Frant was no older than Charlie. After that he lived chiefly in Ireland when he was not at school, until he started at Wavenhoe's. But his mother was connected by marriage to the Ruispidges, and during his vacations he would sometimes stay at Clearland-court. Mrs Johnson grew up at Clearland, quite as one of the family. So they were thrown together a good deal.” She hesitated. “Neither she nor Mr Frant had a penny to their name. Otherwise they would certainly have married.” She paused again and then added sadly, “I – I have no reason to doubt my informant on that score.”

I looked at her, and her large eyes shone with unshed tears. I suspected then that it had been Mr Frant himself who had told her, that he had taunted her with his prior attachment.

“Who knows?” she murmured. “She may even hold me responsible for what happened to Mr Frant.”

“But that would be nonsense, ma'am.”

“One does not think clearly when one's mind is in turmoil.” Her voice trembled. “His murder might well have shaken her reason. God knows, it was frightful enough in all conscience – and the uncertainty makes it worse, that and the fear that something even more terrible may yet – I myself have felt that –” She broke off and again turned her head away from me. In a moment she resumed in a calmer tone. “Tell me, did you ever feel that you were not entirely in possession of your senses?”

“Yes.”

A glowing coal fell from the grate to the hearth, sending up a shower of sparks. I bent to retrieve it with the tongs. Her question had thrown me into confusion. She and I were the same people we had been at the start of the evening. But something had changed, something invisible and profound, and I could only guess at its nature and its implications.

I raised my head. “When I was wounded, it seemed to me I was wounded in mind as well as in body.”

She nodded. “My father once remarked that in war a man sees such terrible sights that he may see them for ever.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then: “What happened?”

“My body healed more quickly than my mind. For many months, nothing truly mattered very much, and I was angry. I was angry that I had been wounded, and that all those men had died, and that I had done nothing and yet I was still alive. I despised myself.” I hesitated and then added: “And there were dreams, every night there were dreams. Now I believe I was as much afraid as angry. Or perhaps anger and fear are different aspects of the same thing.” I thought briefly of Dansey with his Janus face. “But I must not weary you.”

“When I first saw you, you looked ill. No, that is not quite the word: you looked as though there were a sheet of glass between you and the rest of the world. And if the glass broke, then so should you.”

I said, picking my words one by one from the silence, “I fell so far into despair that one day I lost my senses. Only for a moment but it was enough. I threw a medal at an officer in the Park. His horse reared, and he fell. They arrested me. I was afraid they would shut me up for ever, or transport me. But I was fortunate: I came up before a humane magistrate, who decided that I was but a temporary lunatic whose madness would yield to a course of treatment.”

“I am very often afraid,” Mrs Frant remarked. “If a woman has a child she must be afraid for him, if not for herself. And at present there is so very much to be afraid of.” She was quiet for a moment. Then she raised her head and went on in a sudden rush of words: “Why did you join the army, Mr Shield?”

I looked down the years at my younger self and marvelled at its folly. “A girl jilted me, ma'am. I drowned my sorrows, and when I was drunk, I spoke intemperately to the girl's father, who was also the master at the school where I was teaching. As a result, I lost my position. To show the world how little I cared, I took the King's shilling – and regretted it as soon as I was sober again.”

“I beg your pardon. You must think me impertinent. I should not have asked.”

“It is of no consequence.”

“Oh, but it is.”

Her eyes stared into mine. I was alarmed by what she might see – such a degree of longing, such overwhelming desire. Simultaneously, I realised I was holding my breath, as if by not breathing I might prolong the moment indefinitely, as if I might stop time itself.

Then came a great knocking on the street door, and the sound of voices and laughter outside. I let myself breathe once more, and went to sit at the table, returning to the newspaper I had abandoned, it seemed in another life. Mrs Frant did not speak.

In a moment we heard footsteps in the passage and the sound of Mr Carswall's voice raised in triumph: “And he did not know I had the last heart, the poor fool, he thought Lady Ruispidge had it. No, it was neatly done, by God, and after that trick, the rubber was ours.”

The door flew open, colliding with the back of a chair. In an instant the quiet parlour had filled to overflowing with lights, noise, people. As well as Mr Carswall, there was Miss Carswall, Mrs Lee, Sir George and the Captain. Lady Ruispidge had retired for the night but her sons had insisted on escorting Mr Carswall's party back to Fendall House.

Mr Carswall was not drunk, merely boisterous. In Mrs Johnson's absence, Lady Ruispidge had condescended to partner him and I believe he felt he had acquitted himself well, both at whist and in society in general. Mrs Lee and a clergyman had opposed them in the card room, and Mrs Lee did her best to appear complacent about the losses she had sustained.

Miss Carswall, we soon learned, had danced almost every dance, many of them with Sir George, two with the Captain, and several with officers from the local militia. She looked very handsome, with her colour high and the excitement running through her like electricity. Sir George had taken her down to supper, and everyone had been most attentive.

Sir George was quieter, but almost equally pleased with himself. His brother, on the other hand, was at pains to give the impression that he had been miserable for most of the time: first, contemplating how Mrs Frant was faring on her own, and later, when the news of Mrs Johnson's indisposition had reached him, being sensible of Mrs Frant's kindness to his unfortunate cousin. Indeed, to hear him speak, one would think that Mrs Frant, but for an accident of faith, were a prime candidate for canonisation. No one seemed unduly concerned about Mrs Johnson – Sir George remarked that hers was one of those unequal constitutions that alternate between spells of intense activity and periods of low spirits and general debility. He trusted that his cousin's indisposition would not inconvenience us in any way. A good night's sleep would soon set her right.

“She certainly sleeps soundly,” cried Mr Carswall. “Why, I heard her snoring as we passed her door.”

The hour was late – after one o'clock in the morning – and, having escorted the Carswalls back to their apartment and made civil inquiries after the well-being of Mrs Frant and Mrs Johnson, the Ruispidge brothers had no further excuse for remaining. Almost immediately after their departure, there occurred an ugly little scene which made me wonder whether Carswall were drunker than he appeared.

Mrs Frant rose, saying she was fatigued and would retire. I was about to open the door for her when Carswall plunged across the room and forestalled me. As she passed him in the doorway, he laid a hand like a great paw on her arm and begged the favour of a goodnight kiss.

“After all,” said he, “are we not cousins? Should not cousins love each other?” The intonation he gave the words made it quite clear what sort of love he had in mind.

“Oh, Papa,” cried Miss Carswall. “Pray let Sophie pass; she is quite fagged.”

The sound of his daughter's voice rather than the words distracted him for an instant. Mrs Frant slipped into the passage. I heard her talking to Miss Carswall's maid. Then came the sound of a door opening and closing.

“Eh?” Mr Carswall said to no one in particular. “Fagged? Aye, no wonder – look at the time.” He thrust his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and in a moment was matching his actions to his words. Then he turned his back to us and went to stand at the window. “God damn it, it is still snowing.”

He wished us a curt goodnight and stamped out of the room, jingling the change in his pocket. The rest of us followed almost at once. Miss Carswall lingered in the passage, however, adjusting the wick of her candle. Mrs Lee went on ahead and into her own chamber. Miss Carswall turned back to me.

“I am sorry you was not at the ball,” she said. “It was but a country assembly, of course, full of tradesmen and farmers' wives, but it was most agreeable for all that.” She lowered her voice. “And it would have been more agreeable, had you been there.”

I bowed, looking at her; and I could not help admiring what I saw.

Miss Carswall studied my face for an instant. Then she took up her candle and turned as if about to retire. But she checked herself. “Would you do something for me, sir?”

“Of course.”

“I have a mind to perform an experiment. When you go to your room, will you stand at the window for a moment or two, and look out?”

“If you wish. May I ask why?”

“No, sir, you may not.” She devastated me with a smile. “That would be quite unscientific – it would ruin my experiment. We natural philosophers would pay any price to avoid that.”

A moment later I was alone. I threaded my way through passages and up and down the stairs until I reached my room. The old building was full of noises, and I encountered several servants going about their business.

At length I climbed the last flight of stairs to my door. My room felt almost as cold as the ice-house at Monkshill-park. My body was tired but my mind was restless, stirred by the events of the evening. I threw on my greatcoat and felt in my valise for a paper of cigars. I forced open one half of the casement window which had been wedged with newspaper. A moment later I was leaning on the sill and filling my lungs with sweet, soothing smoke.

The roofs of the city were silver and white. Somewhere a church clock sounded the half-hour and was answered by others across the city, their bells muted by the covering of snow. My mind filled with a parade of images, its constituent parts as random as the flakes still falling from the sky.

I saw Miss Carswall, of course, with that smile that promised so much, and Mrs Frant's gravely beautiful face lit by a guttering candle flame and the glow of the parlour fire. I saw Mrs Johnson huddled on the pavement, and a man running across the road from her. I looked further back, to the man glimpsed at the window of Grange Cottage, to the dried, yellowing finger I had found in the satchel, to the mutilated corpse on the trestle at Wellington-terrace.