He and the other gentleman, whom I took to be his brother, bowed again to the ladies. Carswall introduced Charlie and Edgar, and the party passed into the porch, which was thickly hung with Christmas greenery in the old-fashioned country manner. Inside the church itself, members of the little orchestra in the gallery were tuning their instruments. Miss Carswall glanced back at me and made as though to put her hands over her ears, raising her eyebrows in mock horror.
The Ruispidges occupied two pews set apart in a separate enclosure at right angles to the rest of the congregation, and facing the pulpit. Carswall had taken the two pews at the front of the nave, and on the southern side: which brought us immediately to the left of Sir George and his family.
The Ruispidge brothers joined two ladies who were already seated in the family pews. One was elderly, dressed in black and with a long, bony face resembling a horse’s, as the faces of well-bred humans so often do once the bloom of youth has worn off. The other lady was much younger, and when I caught sight of her, a thrill of recognition ran through me.
It was Fanny!
An instant later, I realised that I was mistaken. Yet the lady still reminded me of the girl whom I had kissed in another time and another place under the mistletoe in my aunt’s kitchen. She had the same high colouring, the same black, lustrous hair, and the same well-developed figure. She reminded me of someone else, too, a lady I had seen more recently, but for the life of me I could not remember whom or when.
At length the service began. The parson was a well-built, red-faced man, who looked as though he belonged not in the pulpit but in the saddle with a fox and a pack of hounds in full cry in front of him. I hoped from this that his sermon would be brief, bluff and to the point. Appearances proved deceptive, however, for he spoke in a thin, scholarly drone for more than fifty minutes on the subject of how we should observe the ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing the feast not merely as a day of thanksgiving but also one of rejoicing. This was straightforward enough, but he supported the correctness of his opinions with frequent and lengthy references to the work of the Fathers of the Church. We sat in unhappy silence imbibing the wisdom of Theophilus of Caesarea and St Chrysostom.
My attention wandered. The Ruispidges were still and attentive. The dark-haired lady, however, sometimes glanced to her left, into the nave where the rest of us were sitting, and once her eyes caught mine. There was a moment of welcome relief when the bass viol fell with a clatter to the floor of the balcony, no doubt because its owner had dropped into a doze. I regret to say that Mr Carswall, too, nodded off and had to be brought back to consciousness with a jab in the elbow from his daughter.
I repressed a yawn, and then another. In search of diversion, I glanced at the two mural tablets on the wall beside me. The words “Monkshill-park” at once caught my eye. The first tablet recorded the death of the Honourable Amelia, daughter of the first Lord Vauden and wife of Henry Parker, Esquire, of Monkshill-park, in 1763. Beneath this was another tablet commemorating the manifold virtues of the Parkers’ daughter, Emily Mary, who had died in 1775.
All at once I was fully awake. With a sense of foreboding creeping over me, I re-read the inscription on the second tablet.
Emily Mary, beloved wife of William Frant, Esquire, of Monkshill-park.
Had the Frants once owned Mr Carswall’s house?
When at last the service was over, the Ruispidges were the first to file out of the church into the sunlight, with Mr Carswall’s party hard at their heels. The rest of the congregation followed us outside, and an air of festivity and freedom filled the little churchyard. The villagers were like children let out of school. Even their betters acquired an air of holiday. Charlie and Edgar played a discreet game of tag among the gravestones. I did not have the heart to stop them.
Mr Carswall hobbled as fast as he could after the baronet and contrived to pin him in a corner between the wall of the church and a buttress. “Sir George,” he cried. “Was not that an edifying sermon?”
Sir George nodded, and I noted his eyes straying away from Mr Carswall towards Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall, who were now in conversation with his mother Lady Ruispidge and the dark-haired lady from their pew. Captain Ruispidge hovered gracefully between the two younger ladies.
“We should be very glad to see you at Monkshill, Sir George, you and the Captain, and Lady Ruispidge, too, if she would not find the drive too fatiguing.”
Sir George remarked that it was very good of Mr Carswall. Miss Carswall had said Sir George was accounted handsome, as perhaps baronets often are, but I thought he looked like a hungry greyhound. He had to a nicety the art of making civil remarks which lacked warmth and substance.
“I believe you have not yet met my cousin, Mrs Frant, sir,” the old man went on. “Pray allow me to rectify the omission.”
Sir George bowed. “Thank you, I shall be glad to meet her.” He added, his voice and face studiously neutral, “I was acquainted with her husband, the late Mr Frant, when we were boys.”
Mr Carswall bowed very low, as if in acknowledgement for this remarkable condescension. He led the baronet towards the knot of women. It so happened that I was standing at the side of the path, engaged partly in eavesdropping, partly in keeping an eye on the boys and partly in attempting to digest the implications of the unexpected intelligence about Henry Frant that I had recently acquired. Carswall had his head turned towards the baronet, but he was aware of my presence. With his arm he nudged me aside, off the path and on to the grass. It was carelessly done, and without malice, as one would push aside a dog that blocked the doorway of a room, or scoop a cat from a chair. He did not look at me, and he did not break off the flow of his remarks to Sir George.
I own I was angry and perhaps hurt, not least because I had been so treated in full view of the four ladies, the Ruispidge gentlemen, my two pupils and the entire population, or so it seemed, of Flaxern Parva. I felt the colour flooding into my cheeks. I watched as Carswall and Sir George joined the others, and the introductions were made. Miss Carswall had already met the Ruispidges, but none of the other party was acquainted with Mrs Frant.
“Why, Mrs Johnson,” said Miss Carswall to the dark-haired lady. “Have you news of the gallant lieutenant? Is he still on the West Indies station?”
“Yes,” said the lady, and made as if to turn away.
“Did I not see you in Town a few weeks ago?” Miss Carswall asked, in that little innocent voice she used when she was up to mischief. “I thought I glimpsed you in Pall Mall the other week – you was going into Payne and Foss’s – but there was such a crush I could not be sure, and then the carriage moved on and it was too late.”
“No,” Mrs Johnson replied. “You must be mistaken. I have not been further than Cheltenham these six or seven months.”
At that moment, I recalled when and where I might have seen Mrs Johnson before. I was not perfectly convinced, mind you, not then.
“You must not hesitate to step out of your garden into the park, ma’am,” Carswall interrupted, addressing Mrs Johnson. “You must treat it quite as your own. I shall tell my people so. A word of caution, though: keep away from the covers. We have had such a plague of poachers in the last few months that I have had to sow the woods with a number of surprises. I would not wish a friend to fall foul of one of them.”
Mrs Johnson bowed. A moment later, I saw her watching Mr Carswall as he turned back to Sir George and, for an instant, I surprised upon her face an expression of distaste that amounted almost to hatred.
“I say, George,” said Captain Jack, who until now had been chatting with Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall, “I was acquainted with Mrs Frant’s father. He was most kind to me when I went out to Portugal in the year nine. Colonel Marpool of the Ninety-Seventh, you know, though at the time he was seconded to the Portuguese army. A most distinguished